Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

Bushrod was not brave, and was little interested in saving Crete for Christendom or for Venice. But he was out of funds, his crew had not been paid and his creditors would be waiting for him when he returned home. So he contacted the Venetian consul in Leghorn, who told him what sort of goods would be required, and then took a fat contract to bring out any wounded who were fit to travel—four ducats for a gentleman, one for a soldier, half for a woman.

They hugged the Italian coast as far as Messina, where they offloaded some pottery, then headed as quickly and directly as possible for Crete. Candia, he said, was the worst experience of his life. To be in a town of several thousand people all of whom expected to die shortly, abandoned by all Christendom, aware that their mother country was tiring of them, and persecuted endlessly by foes on sea and land, was almost too much to bear. Everything was coarsened and brutal after the longest siege in the history of the world. There was an air of desperation and violence which terrified him into lowering his prices, afraid that the townspeople would otherwise set on him and take everything he had for nothing. He still made a big enough profit to make the voyage more than worthwhile, and then set about preparing for the return journey by advertising for passengers. One of the people who took up his offer was named Cola.

“Name?” I said. “Be more precise, man. What was his name?”

Marco, he said. That was it. Marco. Anyway, this Cola was in a bad way, gaunt and thin, gloomy of attitude, dirty and unkempt, and half delirious from pain and the huge amounts of alcohol he took as his only medicine. It was difficult to believe that he could ever have been much of an advantage to the Venetian defenses, but Bushrod soon learned that he was wrong. The young man was treated with respect by officers many years his senior and held almost in awe by the common foot soldiers. Cola was, it seemed, the best scout in Candia, adept at slipping past Ottoman outposts, carrying messages to outlying fortifications, and causing all sorts of light disruption. On many occasions, he had deliberately and successfully set traps for high-ranking Turks and killed them, gaining a reputation for bloodcurdling ferocity and ruthlessness. He was skilled at striking in silence and escaping undetected and was, it seemed, something of a zealot for the Christian cause, despite all appearances to the contrary.

Curious about his passenger, Bushrod tried to engage him in conversation on several occasions during the voyage back to Venice—which this time passed without incident. But Cola was reticent, hiding behind a gruff and melancholy silence. Only on one occasion did he reveal himself, and that was when Bushrod asked if he was married. Cola’s face darkened and he said that his fiancee had been taken into slavery by the Turks. He had been sent out to Crete to examine the girl, who came from a good family, and had agreed to the match. She had been dispatched ahead of him to Venice, and the ship was captured. Not a word had ever been heard of her again, and he very much hoped she was dead. Against his father’s wishes, the young man had stayed in Candia to exact such revenge as he could.

And now?

And now he no longer cared. He was badly injured and he knew that Candia would soon fall. There was neither the determination nor the money nor the faith to defend it. He was undecided whether to return or not; perhaps his skills could be better employed elsewhere.

Then Marco da Cola had reached for a bottle, and spent nearly the enure voyage sitting on deck, uttering not another word, drunk or sober, until the ship docked in Venice.

So much for that; zeal against the heathen was hardly something of which I could disapprove, and yet it was curious. We had a soldier (or ex-soldier) consorting with republicans in the Low Countries; the father’s agent a Venetian observer sending regular messages to his masters abroad and transporting messages from malcontents in England. Lots of little pieces, none of which added up. Yet there was something which needed to be unraveled, and the obvious starting point was that package which, despite Mr. Bennet’s strictures, I decided was within my competence.

Lest anyone think that I could call on an army of assistants in the fashion of Thurloe, I must hasten to state the true facts. Although I had a number of people who passed me information, I had precisely five in the entire country who could be relied on to act for me and two of these, I must confess, frightened even me. Nor was this matter my only, or even my main, occupation. I have mentioned the rising which I knew was being planned, and that naturally was my greatest concern. But there were also countless other irritations, most nonsensical although each with dangerous potential. The garrison at Abingdon had been purged, but was still less than satisfactorily quiescent. Sectaries and conventicles grew up like so many mushrooms across the landscape, giving scope for malcontents to meet and draw courage from each other. There were persistent reports that (yet again) the Messiah had returned to usher in the Millennium, and was traveling the country in some guise, preaching and teaching and sowing sedition. How many of these characters had there been in the past few years? Dozens at least, and I had hoped that quieter times had put an end to them, but it was not apparently, the case. Finally, in the middle of the affair I intend to relate, a drunken Irish magus called Greatorex turned up in Oxford and held court at the Mitre Inn to milk the gullible of their coins, so I had to divert much time to persuading him to move on his way. I had enough on my plate, in other words, and though I worked without stint I must say that neither then nor later were my efforts ever fully recognized or rewarded.

For the particular task of getting hold of these letters, I had to call on the services of one John Cooth, whose loyalty to the king was due solely to my having intervened when he nearly killed his wife in a drunken frenzy, then slit a man’s throat for (he said) trying to put a pair of horns on him. He was in no wise intelligent but was skilled at housebreaking and was thoroughly in my debt. I thought he would serve, especially as I gave him a strict lecture about what he was to do, and how he was to do it. In particular I told him there was to be absolutely no violence, and I labored the point so much even a man of his diminished wits must understand.

Or so I thought. When Matthew told me that the package had been delivered to di Pietro’s house and was to go aboard one of his ships the next morning, I told Cooth to bring it to me as rapidly as possible. Cooth dutifully returned a few hours later and gave me a package which contained all the mail being sent, including the letters delivered by Matthew. I copied them, and he took it back. And the next morning Matthew came with the news that Signer di Pietro had been murdered.

I was appalled by this, and prayed to the Lord for forgiveness for my foolishness. It was fairly obvious to me, despite Cooth’s denials, what had happened—he had gone into the house and, instead of just taking the package, had decided to help himself to the contents of the treasury as well. Di Pietro was roused, came to investigate and Cooth had coldbloodedly cut open his throat so badly the head was almost severed from the body.

Eventually I wrung a confession out of him—what was it to me, he said, whether he’d killed the man or not? I’d wanted the package, I’d got the package. I lost patience, and cut him off. He was going back to jail, I said, and if he so much as breathed a word of this, he’d hang. Even he understood my seriousness and the matter went no further; I soon learned that Cola had an English partner who wanted the entire business, and was unconcerned about discovering the author of a deed which had served him so profitably. It took many days but, after much effort, I felt I could relax, relatively certain that Mr. Bennet would not hear of the affair.