THE SWORDSMAN OF VENICE - THE COMPLETE NOVEL

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I   

Republic of Venice, 1589 A.D.

Seawater sprayed over the gunwale of Angelo Mascari’s skiff and drenched his horsehide boots. He cared not, for the ordeal had defiled far more. 

Muscles burned. Blood drenched his lacerated, scorching right hand. Rest was a luxury he didn’t have. 

He yearned to let the wind guide him, but he feared his enemies would spy his sail in the full moon’s light. The spiteful celestial orb leered at him, a glaring reminder of this worst of nights. He blamed himself. How could he not? Perhaps he should surrender and allow them to do what they would. Is a sealed destiny more favorable than a life unknown? 

“Never,” he cried. He swallowed the pain, drove the oars into the inky lagoon, and continued his excruciating task of paddling to the coastline.

A glimmer bounced off the silver crucifix dangling over Angelo’s blood-stained shirt. He gazed up, his anger boiling. “It was for love,” he whispered. 

Sweat drenched his filthy clothes as he labored in the overbearing humidity. A rank stench accosted his nose, but it emanated from his pores, not the lagoon. He was desperate to dive into the water, not to cleanse himself of the grime, but of all he’d seen. And all he’d done. He glanced behind as he rowed. No boats tailed him. Small flickers of lanterns bobbed on the city’s bank. Venice’s darkened silhouette was a sight to behold. Its splendor was surpassed only by its power and wealth—of the few who controlled it.

Catch, drive, release.

Harder, faster, repeat.

Splinters rooted in his skin.

Venice was all he knew. He had never set foot on the mainland and was now forced to flee. Far from his home. Far from all the territories of the Republic. How could he save his beloved by traveling away from her? A most uncertain future lay beyond the horizon. 

The horrific vision of Isabella couldn’t be shaken. He squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to remember the image of the radiant eighteen-year-old beauty. But her face flickered and dissipated, like the hearth’s ashes thrown into a canal. If only he hadn’t gone to his enemies’ ritual. 

What choice did he have? Had he a choice in anything?

Forcing his mind to less unsettling thoughts, he silently thanked the one who had aided him, God rest his soul. Somehow, his unnamed collaborator knew of Angelo’s predicament. The old nobleman provided the skiff and instructed Angelo journey to Palos on the western edge of Spain. Along with the boat and a pouch of coins, he was given a sealed letter for a man named Sebastiano Cadamosto, who’d provide Angelo passage across the Atlantic to New Spain. 

That was moments before an untold number of Protectors of the Order rushed them. Angelo disarmed one on the fondamenta, but there were too many. An assailant had shot a crossbow with remarkable aim, tearing the flesh from Angelo’s stronger fighting hand. Against such odds, he had no choice but to take the skiff and row furiously as additional arrows struck the craft.

“Death is but the first consideration,” the nobleman had said. 

Fearing his words fulfilled by the Order, the man slid a dagger across his own throat. 

Angelo’s fate now lay with a stranger hundreds of leagues away. His collaborator never revealed how fleeing to the New World might lead to his beloved’s salvation. Reaching such a far-off destination seemed impossible, but he owed it to Isabella to try. He did not know how to find Cadamosto, but that problem was secondary. First, he needed to make his way across Europe with nothing but the rags on his back and the money in his doublet.

The notion of never returning home singed his heart, but his sorrow was fleeting. His love, Isabella, was the true victim. Her unimaginable agony. Angelo prayed he could’ve taken her place, that he could’ve received the torment.

One day, he vowed for the tenth time in as many minutes. One day, her captors will feel a pain far more severe. 

II

Venice

Paulina Cicogna couldn’t fathom it. No, fathom was too strong a word. She couldn’t accept how the men bickering in front of her were blind to the most obvious solutions. Though she was the only one present with a brain, it was a privilege for her to be in this room, and her father had instructed her not to speak. 

She didn’t want to speak; she wanted to scream. She wanted to shake each man by the shoulders, slap the demons clouding their impotent minds from their heads, and brand the solution on each man’s forehead—even her father’s—so they wouldn’t forget.

The men droned on, arguing over how best to solve their problem.

Fools. Ignorami. 

In the corner of her father’s office, propped as if a living sculpture to be unnoticed, she drilled her fingernail into her wrist to divert her anguish. The pain wasn’t intense enough, so she clamped down on her inner cheek with her molars and ground the flesh until it bled. The coppery nectar soothed her spirit and calmed her rising pulse. She wiped her brow, brushing away a strand of her long, brown hair that her servant braided the evening prior. Her father preferred she wore a netted bonnet and brighter dresses than her favored black and gray, but the headwear constricted her brain, and any dress of color was suited for children.

Truth be told, Paulina was thrilled to be there. Her father’s office was the grandest in all of Venice, as it should’ve been, since Pasquale Cicogna was the ruler of the Republic. The Doge’s Palace was her father’s palace. When she turned sixteen three months back, he allowed her to attend certain meetings. This was her third. Though he was grooming her for a position of power, she knew a girl could never become dogaressa without marrying a doge. 

She’d change that.

Her father sat on his high-backed chair in the center of the room, listening to his men. He stroked his thick, dark gray beard and mustache that accentuated sharp cheek bones on his angular face.

Three advisors, all in their fourth or fifth decades of life, along with two Protectors of the Ancient Order of the Seventh Sun, both just in their third decade, stood before Doge Cicogna. The Protectors, Ivan and Vito Uccello, were renowned for their cunning, loyalty, and swordsmanship. Along with their dark eyes, Vito’s hulking stance and stark gaze beneath thick, shoulder-length flaxen hair, and Ivan’s raven-colored hair topping a perpetual tight scowl, had earned the men the nickname the Bird Brothers. They reveled in the moniker, as they fancied themselves birds of prey. Yet here they stood, unable to remedy their failings. Ivan’s recently broken nose served as a glaring reminder of this fact. Paulina was fond of Vito, but the brothers should’ve been groveling for their lives.

Her father had been home for three minutes before they knocked on the door, informing him that sleep would elude him; he had pressing business to attend to. She’d been up waiting for him and thus was privy to the news: spies had been discovered.

She made herself known and asked to go. The doge pondered, but in his sleepy state, he honored her request. Her twin sister and younger brother still slept, though her father never would’ve brought them to this meeting. It didn’t matter that her sister wasn’t there, for Paulina would tell Maria everything later anyway. She loved her sister dearly and confided in her multiple times a day. She was Paulina’s verbal diary, and Maria would never say a word, for Paulina’s loving sister had been dimwitted since birth.

As the men debated the next course of action, she scratched her aquiline nose before shielding a yawn with her hand. Boredom, not lack of sleep, had compelled the involuntary movement. She gazed about the room. Inlaid wood paneling took up the bottom half of the walls, underscoring the wraparound fresco above it illustrating many of Venice’s triumphs in the Republic’s six-hundred-year history.

Knocks rapped on the large wooden door before it opened.

Two additional Protectors entered, both dressed in black hooded cloaks. The smaller man had a severe bruise on his left cheek. They dragged a third man by the arms, his black noble attire dripping water and blood. They dropped him on the middle of the floor and flipped him over. Count Pietro Stefanetti. And he was dead. Paulina pursed her lips when she noticed the method of the traitor’s demise: a slit throat.

Oblivious that her father’s Persian rug had just been sullied, Vito Uccello stared at Paulina as if she’d trespassed in the holiest of sanctuaries.

The other men in the room gazed at Stefanetti with grave expressions. She was unsure why they were so despondent. Every man there had seen a dead body, many by their own hand. Apparently, they were unfamiliar with the concept of treason. Had they forgotten the cause of Caesar’s demise? Or Jesus’s? They should’ve been elated that Stefanetti lay at their feet.

Vito continued to stare at Paulina. “Most Serene,” he said to her father, “with all due respect, is it wise the signorina be present?”

The question incensed Paulina. Vito hadn’t complained about her presence on a prior occasion. Quite the opposite.

“Do not question my judgment,” said the doge.

The Protector bowed in acquiescence.

“That said,” the doge continued, “Paulina’s attendance is unusual, but rest assured, my daughter is an asset. She’s my balance, an old soul, who may offer a more… creative insight than us men.”

“And what insight do you have, my dear?” Vito asked Paulina.

Paulina’s eyes lit up, but her father raised a finger, barring any response. 

“I’ve instructed Paulina to observe for now. She and I shall convene later. That is the last you and I”—he glanced at the others—“or any of you shall discuss my daughter or her presence at this or any future meetings. Let’s get back to the situation at hand.”

Paulina smiled at her father.

An old soul.

He’d often referred to Paulina as such. She used to consider it a compliment. ‘One wise beyond her years,’ he’d say. In recent months, she’d grown tired of the appellation. She was a young soul, with young blood and young thoughts… swimming in a sea of fetid milk.

Again, the men resumed their discussion. Though the doge ruled the Republic and had the final say on who advised him, when it came to affairs of state, he was the first to remind anybody that Venice was a republic, so he listened to the others with genuine earnestness. Vito and Ivan Uccello argued for an operation to ferret out traitors, spies, and conspirators. The doge’s three advisors—two members of the Council of Ten and Senator Quattrone—thought it more prudent to tread stealthily, so they could learn more before taking definitive action. 

The discussion moved to the facts at hand, so the two soldiers recounted their tale of catching Stefanetti. There had been another man, Angelo Mascari, but he’d escaped. For Paulina, Mascari’s name fit like a linen glove. Pietro Stefanetti was the fraternal uncle of the recently deceased Isabella Scalfini, collaborator and lover of Angelo Mascari, and thus a conspirator in the murder of Councilman Renzo Scalfini. 

As such, by aiding one who had killed a member of the Council, Isabella’s uncle had attacked the Republic itself. Yet, death would not have been an appropriate sentence for such a crime by association.

As they continued their story, Paulina’s lower abdomen quivered when it was revealed that Stefanetti had slit his own throat. A most interesting turn of events. The coward had feared a trial.

Or perhaps her arousal came from Vito. For despite the doge’s command and Vito’s apparent displeasure, the Protector continued to throw glances at Paulina that lingered on her full, rosy cheeks and large brown eyes.

She gazed back at the husky Protector with a coquettish smile and fluttered her long eyelashes. 

He looked away and cleared his throat. 

Though she’d yet to choose a new suitor, she knew what men desired, for she shared those same desires. When her husband died in a church fire two weeks after their wedding day, she was uncharacteristically distraught. Vito’s arms—and body—draped her in comfort. That was nearly a year ago.

He wasn’t the most handsome in her father’s employ and far beneath her station, but that didn’t prevent her from teasing the man, which she often did before their one night together. Of late, she found the game played both ways. In the rare moments when she and the Protector were alone in the courtyard or royal gardens, she’d marvel at the girth of his arms and the way his blonde hair draped over his colossal shoulders. Or perhaps sneak a lightning bug-kiss.

The doge knelt and examined Stefanetti’s throat. “A pity he took his life. What of the swordsman, Mascari?”

Senator Quattrone cleared his throat. “As I said, Most Serene, my Protectors did not have a boat—”

“You do not need to repeat yourself.” Paulina’s father rose and straightened his corno ducale, the gold-linen horn-shaped hat unique to the doge. “It’s ourProtectors. Remember the covenant, Exalted Master.”

Senator Quattrone nodded his agreement.

“Regardless,” continued the doge, “the question was to the Bird Brothers.”

“We will formulate a contingency plan, Most Serene,” Vito replied.

“We’re beyond the formulation stage, no? If Stefanetti was working with Mascari and committed suicide to protect him, then clearly, Mascari is also part of the Guild. They need to be stopped before they do more damage. The criminal cannot get far without a horse. Gather squadrons and send them to all the towns on the mainland accessible from the Rio della Sensa. Find Mascari and bring him back alive. He will expose his collaborators.”

All the men in the room bowed to the doge.

Paulina loved when her father assumed an authoritarian position. Yet she didn’t bow. Not because she wasn’t required to, but because she disagreed with his solution. 

In her mind, the answer couldn’t be simpler: gather anyone who’s ever uttered a single question of the doge… then cut out their tongues and stick their heads on pikes in Piazza San Marco.

III

Mestre

The incoming tide aided Angelo’s aching muscles and sleep-deprived brain as he lugged the skiff onto the rocky beach. 

Though the shore was a faint outline from his island city, he had seen this town while at sea when he apprenticed as a bird’s nest lookout on a fishing vessel. The captain was kind enough to grant his uncle’s request for the training, as Angelo’s father had recently succumbed to the plague. 

Angelo burrowed deep into the recesses of his mind for the town’s name, for he was nine when he last saw it. The town and lands beyond were part of the Republic but looked and smelled alien. Water lapped the beach; seagulls squealed on their hunt for food.

Across the Venetian Lagoon, obscured by twilit fog, lay Angelo’s beloved Isabella, along with his past and a once-promising future. 

The apprenticeship on the fishing boat had lasted only a few weeks, since his mother needed him at home. A life off the water led to a misspent youth filled with odd jobs around the neighborhood, doing whatever he could to earn a ducat for his family. Fights were frequent, as was being on the losing end of them. His fortune—nay, his fate—changed when he stole an oak dowel from a shipbuilding yard.

An innate gift for swordplay brought certain notoriety to Angelo. Local bullies who’d previously pummeled him left him alone. A few befriended him. Others came from adjacent neighborhoods, challenging Angelo with their sticks and, sometimes, swords. It didn’t matter who or what he fought against. He always stood his own. Word of Angelo’s victories spread, and by fifteen, he was accepted into Master Salvator Fabris’s renowned school of swordsmanship. The education did not come cheap, and his master forbade him from entering circuit bouts. Angelo earned a meager wage in underground prizefights, but the winnings scantly covered food for himself, his sisters, and his mother, who had become bedridden with consumption. As his mother’s condition dwindled, so did his finances. Before long, his troubles had reached unwanted ears. 

He’d never forget the day Ivan and Vito Uccello—the Bird Brothers, as they were more commonly called—confidantes and Protectors of the Doge, approached him. Though he had no idea how they knew he existed, they offered to pay his debts for a single task: seduce Isabella, the wife of Councilman Renzo Scalfini, and once in their bedroom, steal a book filled with untold secrets.

Angelo loathed taking the contract. He was neither a deceiver nor a thief, but his creditors were growing impatient. 

Nobody had anticipated the outcome of the job. The love between Angelo and Isabella was immediate, undeniable, and unbreakable. He couldn’t betray her and reneged on his agreement. Their love also blinded them to the risks of their affair. When her husband caught them, the brute beat and raped Isabella. Angelo came to her defense, and in the struggle, Renzo met his demise.

They were interrupted by the Bird Brothers, who witnessed the lovers driving a letter opener into Renzo’s heart. Unarmed and outnumbered, Angelo fled out the window. Isabella was detained. 

Shortly thereafter, from a furtive nook in the largest room in the Doge’s Palace, a gruesome scene unfolded before Angelo’s eyes. Shackled to a chair before Tintoretto’s half-completed Paradise, out of pure vengeance, his enemies drained Isabella’s essence from her body. 

In the flesh yet flesh no more.

Now, standing on the opposite bank of his home, all the air in Angelo’s lungs discharged with a long sigh. A tightness spread from between his shoulder blades to his lower gut. He would’ve retched if he’d eaten or drank anything in a day. Swallowing the bile, he pressed both hands to his lips and blew a kiss across the water.

“Adio sani, 'mòre mio. Goodbye, my love.” He uttered the words to both Venice and Isabella. But it was not truly goodbye, for he knew, one day… one day, he would return to them. 

His throbbing right hand reminded him of immediate concerns.

Retrieving his rapier from the skiff, he wiped the moisture and blood from the blade and sliced off the bottom of his shirt, which he wrapped around his hand. Blood continued to seep through the makeshift bandage, but it appeared to slow. He scratched the mucky rag on his ear—an earlier wound borne by the affair.

Hundreds of boats emerged, moored along the coastline in the dawn’s welcoming rays, already strong for late July. Fishermen prepared for the day’s work. He had steered clear of them on his way and now wanted to collapse into a deep sleep. Despite his utter exhaustion, he had to move forward. The fishermen would hopefully provide a boost for his next step. The nobleman’s skiff was a gift that saved his life, but it wouldn’t carry him to Palos.

Using his rapier, he pried out an arrow lodged in the craft’s side before sliding the sword into the scabbard hanging from his hip. 

He kicked his dinghy back into the water, jumped in, and rowed past the first three boats he came across. None of those were what he searched for, as they all used dinghies similar to his to haul supplies to their larger vessels.

At the fourth fishing boat, two ginger-haired boys, neither older than twelve, one lugging ropes, the younger carrying buckets, trudged through the water to their boat. An older version of the boys followed.

“A pleasant morning, my good sir,” Angelo said to the barrel-chested fisherman with a red beard wrapping half his face.

The fisherman adjusted the rolled net hoisted over his shoulder and nodded a fair enough reply.

Angelo paddled to the beach and hopped out. Broken shells and pebbles crunched under his boots. “I see you’re in need of a skiff.”

“Are you giving me yours?”

“It’s for sale.”

“Not interested. I have two strong sons.”

The older son had climbed aboard their boat. The father threw the rope, which the boy caught with deft hands.

“Surely a skiff would aid your work, sior,” Angelo said. “I no longer need it, so you can have it for the best price.” 

“What price is that?”

“A skiff like this is worth at least thirty ducats.”

“Ha, where?”

“La Serenissima, of course.”

“You’re not in Venice, boy. Here a skiff like that is sold for ten. I’ll give you eight.”

“Eight? The sail alone is worth four.”

“Then sell it to someone else.”

Angelo exhaled. He craned his neck at the boats down the line. None of them would do. “What’s the name of this town, sior?”

The fisherman laughed. “Be gone, boy. I can’t be flubbing the dub now.”

The restless hands of time needled Angelo’s back. Though he’d evaded the Order, they knew where he was headed. The fisherman’s gaze fell like a netting as Angelo scanned the sea for incoming boats. The coast was clear; the same could not be said for his anxiety.

“Sì, sior. I’ll take your offer,” he said. “If you include some bread and salted pork.”

The fisherman eyed Angelo’s bandaged hand and ear. “The town’s Mestre,” he said. “Now my price is seven.”

“You said eight not a moment ago.”

“Information has a cost, as does time. As does food. In the next moment, my price will be six.”

“Give me seven, then,” Angelo replied through gritted teeth. 

The man waded over and inspected the skiff. He reached into his smock for his coin purse, counted off seven, and handed them to Angelo.

“Grassie, sior.” Angelo pocketed the money. “Could you be so kind as to tell me how to get to Palos?”

“Is that a town?”

“Sì, in the Spanish Kingdom.”

The man coughed out a phlegm-filled hack, which he spat into the sea before resuming his laughter. “Are you jesting me?”

Embarrassed, Angelo squinted across the water toward Venice. His home felt further than anything. “I’m not.”

“Then it’s a pity you sold your skiff. Head west, I suppose. Walk a long time, then swim a long time.”

Angelo gazed west. The beach extended to a low dune. Could the journey take weeks? Months? A year? That was just to Palos.

The fisherman shook his head. “The fish won’t wait for me all day, boy. There’s a path there.” He pointed past the dunes. “Go to town and likely you can find a carriage heading to Genoa. That’s the best I can offer you.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Angelo said. He lowered his head and slogged away, remembering his Maestro Fabris’s advice on goals: ‘To reach the top of a ladder, one must step on all the rungs.’ Genoa was Venice’s rival. He’d need to enter enemy territory to reach Palos and, ultimately, the New World. He spoke adequate Latin and la lingua italiana but prayed the Genoese wouldn’t recognize his accent. 

“Boy,” the fisherman called.

Angelo turned.

“Never negotiate when desperate. Or at least hide your desperation, else you’ll never win.”

“I’ve nothing to lose.”

“Every man has something to lose. Especially a desperate man.” 

The words hit home. Angelo was desperate. But if he had nothing, how could he have something to lose? With that despondent thought, he headed for the dune.

“You forgot something,” said the fisherman.

Angelo turned again to find a bundle flying toward him. He caught it and unwrapped it. Inside was a wedge of bread and a slab of salted pork. 

He smiled broadly at the fisherman.

“How did you know we had salted pork?” the man asked.

“All fishermen have salted pork.”

“All too true. You’d think we’d eat fish.” He chuckled. “Remember what I said. Also remember I’m the kindest man you’ll meet.”