The Undrowned Child (22 page)

Renzo staggered out of bed, leaning heavily on Teo’s arm. He was weak and sore, but he could do it. What he could not do was put on any trousers. When he tried he made the kind of noise one generally hears when someone sits on a cat. The blisters on his legs were still too raw.

“You’ll have to wear your long-johns and nightshirt,” insisted Teo.

Renzo gave her a look of horror. A Venetian out on the street in his nightshirt? But the swelling on his legs was so painful that even Renzo admitted that he had no choice. He carefully rolled up a pair of clean trousers in a beautifully pressed shirt and folded them into a satchel he slung over his shoulder.

With many groans from Renzo, and much fumbling by Teo, they climbed down the wisteria and out into the street.

Teo reached inside her pinafore, hoping for the best. On the cover, Lussa smiled at her encouragingly, and nodded.

The Key to the Secret City opened to a map of the ancient apothecaries of the city. Some, like the Al Lupo coronato—the Wolf-in-a-Crown—showed a skull and crossbones hovering over their names and symbols. Others, like the Testa d’Oro—the Golden Head—were surmounted by the Venetian flag of a golden winged lion on crimson silk. Under its red flag, one of the apothecaries glowed brightly. Its name: Alle Due Sirene scapigliate, the Two Tousled Mermaids.

Teo grinned. “Of course!”

“Oh no! That’s near the Ghetto, it’s miles …,” groaned Renzo. Teo offered her arm, and he took it gratefully, asking, “What’s that noise?”

“They say it is the skulls of the dead weeping for the fallen Campanile.”

Fifteen minutes later they found the door to the Two Tousled Mermaids open, revealing candles burning inside. The smell of fresh medicinal herbs prickled their noses, but the apothecary was empty of human or ghostly life. The walls were lined with dark wooden shelves. Just as in the mermaids’ cavern, the uppermost shelves held rows of golden mortars-and-pestles. Below them, the candles illuminated squat glass bottles in which mice, two-tailed salamanders and cuckoos floated in dreamy ballets.

Next came rows of big china jars painted in yellow and blue. The names of their contents were spelt out in ornate scripts. “Majolica,” Renzo told Teo wearily. He slid down to the floor, and leant up against a dark glass tank.

The labels bore names like Four Thieves Vinegar, Rabbit’s Feet, Sneezewort and Devil’s Shoestring Roots.

“It’s just a museum,” sighed Renzo, cruelly disappointed. His face was pale and set with pain. “No one takes those things seriously now. What does the The Key say?”

Teo opened the book on a picture of a beautiful majolica pot labeled Theriaca in a curly blue script. “ ‘An ancient medicine,’ ” she read out loud, “ ‘popularly known as “Venetian Treacle.” It contains sixty-four ingredients, including ground-up vipers.’ ”

“Ugh!” winced Renzo. “I absolutely detest snakes.”

“Then you’re not going to be very happy about what’s behind you.”

the early hours, June 10–11, 1899

Teo had just caught sight of a sign on the tank against which Renzo was leaning. It said, VIPERS FOR THERIACA. DO NOT TOUCH THE TANK.

Behind Renzo’s head Teo could make out something flickering. Renzo followed her eyes just in time to come face to face with a pair of black jaws lunging at him. The tank rattled as the hissing snake spent its venom in two spurts that trailed mistily down the glass. Renzo rolled onto his back and lay there panting.

“Teo,” he gasped. “Tell me there’s a lid on this tank.”

“It’s nailed down,” she reassured Renzo. “That snake’s not going anywhere. Except ground up in the Theriaca jar, sometime soon, I hope.”

“Wishful thinking. These jars have been empty for centuries. I feel dreadful! Aren’t there any Dottore Dimora’s Tasteless Ague Drops? My mother gives me those.”

Teo checked the shelves. “Nothing like that.”

The Key to the Secret City stubbornly showed the lid floating off the jar of Venetian Treacle with a whiff of violet-colored smoke. Inside glistened a liquid thick as honey and black as coal.

“I suppose …,” muttered Renzo unwillingly, “if there’s some here …”

Teo clambered up a set of steps. In her haste she sent a jar of Sans Pareille Powder crashing to the ground alongside another of Compound Syrup of Poke Root.

“Oh, sorry!”

Renzo lay spattered with powder, broken glass and syrup. He sighed. “Do you think you could get the Venetian Treacle without actually killing me first?”

Teo lifted the Theriaca jar down to the floor beside Renzo. She prized open the lid. Violet-colored smoke gushed out. Gingerly, Teo dipped a finger in the cool dark liquid inside. “Shall I?” she asked Renzo, pointing to the bubo on his neck.

“Try my leg first. It’s further away from my brain.” Renzo lifted the legs of his long-johns about half an inch. Teo let a few drops fall onto one of his damaged ankles.

“Handsomely!” he tried to joke, but all the color had drained out of his face.

“Ahhhh!” whispered Renzo, as the blisters fizzled, then shriveled. Seconds later they’d disappeared. He ripped open the seams of his long-johns, reached into the pot and spread fingerfuls onto his wounds until his legs looked entirely normal again. Then he rubbed a generous portion onto the bubo on his neck.

“Um,” said Renzo. Teo realized that he had to deal with the buboes under his arms and on his thigh. She discreetly turned her back, gazing at the labels on the other majolica pots—Essence of White Dove, Dolphin Spittle and Monkey Business.

“What do you think Monkey Business is?” she asked Renzo.

“Look inside and see,” he said distractedly. “If you must.”

Teo did so. A foul stench of aged dung filled the room. “Sorry!”

Teo turned to see Renzo looking his usual immaculate self, fully dressed in the clothes he had brought in the satchel.

After some hesitation the children licked their sticky fingers clean, and the taste was delicious, like caramel-chocolate-lime-strawberry. Even better, the tiredness of their broken night slipped right away from them. They felt ready for anything. Teo decanted a little into a small bottle to take away. “You never know.…”

“We should pay,” fretted Renzo.

At this, Lussa’s face smiled on the front of The Key to the Secret City. Out from between the pages dropped a coin. Renzo picked it up and showed Teo the date—1867, thirty-two years ago. He shrugged and left the coin on the counter.

A happy idea crossed Teo’s mind: “Let’s take the rest of the Treacle to the hospital! For the children!”

As they walked out of the Two Tousled Mermaids, all the candles promptly extinguished themselves, and the door latched itself with a click.

The hospital was close by. Renzo carried in the majolica jar and deposited it with the night-porter, who turned out to be a second cousin.

“So you’ll give it to the children’s doctor, Mauro? Tell him it will help the children with the fever,” Renzo urged. “Tell him not to tell anyone where he got it.”

Teo, standing quietly and invisibly beside him, was lost in dismal thoughts.

As they walked back outside, she said abruptly, “You know it will come to a battle, Renzo? The mermaids against Bajamonte Tiepolo and the Creature.”

“The gondoliers will defend the city too!” asserted Renzo defiantly.

“Il Traditore’s army are ghosts. How can the gondoliers fight an enemy they can’t see?”

“All the gondoliers’ children can row their gondolas.”

“Could you get them all together?”

“Of course, we are around three hundred. But what would we do then?”

“The mermaids will have to help us with that part of the plan.”

“Will they feed us? I am dying of hunger.”

Teo was pulling the book out of her pinafore. “Probably some curried pumpkin curds and spicy seaweed ice-cream. Oh dear!”

Lussa’s face on the cover looked a little hurt. Then she smiled and waved towards the inside of the book. Teo opened it up on an advertisement for hot chocolate at the Orientale café on the Riva degli Schiavoni.

Renzo smiled. “My third cousin does the dawn shift there. His wife says he’s a bit of a lad himself—he won’t give me away for being out at this hour.”

At the café, Renzo ordered a huge four a.m. breakfast of buns and hot chocolate.

“That’s enough for two!” grinned Renzo’s handsome cousin. “What have you been up to, young man? On the house.”

The buns were all gone, but Renzo was still blushing when the early editions arrived with a thud. It’s all over for Venice! Venice: dreadful death of a city. Without knowing anything about Bajamonte Tiepolo, journalists were writing Venice’s obituary in grandiloquent phrases.

Teo wanted to shout, “She’s not dead yet! Give her a chance, you vultures!”

To change the subject, she told Renzo about the changes in her hotel, drawing the new windows on a paper napkin. He explained, “Teo, those are stilted arches, from the Byzantine period, from Bajamonte Tiepolo’s time!”

A line of writing appeared in the foam on the top of her hot chocolate:

AND FROM ITS RUINS THE RAZED HOUSE RISES.

“We have to get to the Archives!” Teo exclaimed. “What time does it open?”

“Not for a couple of hours yet. So we could have another breakfast.”

“I’m glad you’re better,” she said shyly. It must be something about the rich foamy drink, she told herself, that was making the room spin gently around.

And that was the last good cup of hot chocolate that anyone had in Venice.

early morning, June 11, 1899

That very morning something terrible happened to the bakers of the city. All over town Venetians woke up, washed, dressed and hurried to their favorite bars for their coffee or hot chocolate and their sweet brioches, their almond cakes and Margherita biscuits to dip in their frothy hot drinks.

And everyone had a dreadful surprise.

The sweetness in every item of food and drink had been replaced by a mouth-curdling bitterness. Instead of custard cream, the brioches were packed with a nauseating, smelly ointment. The Margherita biscuits tasted of crusty old socks. The almond cakes were solid lumps of nastiness. All over Venice, there was an indignant noise coming out of all the cafés: people screaming and spitting out their breakfasts.

No one could understand it.

Somewhat faded after just four hours sleep, Renzo and Teo met, as arranged, at their usual bar at San Giacomo dell’Orio. But the owner had closed up, and put up his sign that said, CHIUSO PER LUTTO—the words normally used for a death in the family.

Renzo had already heard the story from every café between Giudecca and Castello. He told Teo, “This is the work of Bajamonte Tiepolo. The woman who dropped the mortar-and-pestle on Il Traditore’s head—she was a baker’s wife. And Bajamonte Tiepolo swore he would one day be revenged on the Venetian bakers. That’s bad enough, but the worrying thing is that it means that his powers are growing. A little while ago he couldn’t do a curse like that.”

Teo added, “And of course the only sweet thing left in Venice is the Baja-Menta ice-cream. Everyone will be rushing to buy that when word gets out.”

“What do we do first? Tell the mermaids about the ice-cream or go to the Archives?”

“The Archives are only open during the day.…”

As they hurried through the white-hot streets towards the Archives, Teo was aware of something strange in the shadows falling along the stone pavements. It was the chimneys of Venice … they were all growing to the same shape, the stones and terracotta twisting and turning until each chimney stack resembled … the crest of Bajamonte Tiepolo.

“Look!” She pointed up. The chimneys loomed like sinister, massive soldiers.

“And of course, the mayor will say it’s just another Biennale art joke!”

“Biennale?”

“It’s our international modern art show, happens every two years,” explained Renzo proudly. “It’s just about to start. Biennale artists are famous for quirky ideas.”

“Yes,” said Teo ironically. “You can always rely on our mayor.”

An unnerving thought struck her: “Renzo, is it possible, do you think, that the Mayor might be on Bajamonte Tiepolo’s side?”

“Not really. But I think he will pretend this isn’t happening until the last minute. And then simply hand over power to Il Traditore, out of sheer weakness and fear.”

Renzo pointed to a vast building on the other side of the church. “That’s the Archives over there. They say there are ten miles of shelves in there!”

Teo’s neck prickled then, for all around the Archives, on every rooftop, on each chimney, stood a huge magòga. She whispered, “Lussa said he’d mount guards outside the premises.”

Renzo warned, “Don’t look at them. Don’t show that we are aware. Remember, Lussa also said they would not be expecting ‘Mere Children.’ ”

The gulls watched Teo and Renzo enter the building, as they watched everyone who went in and out, with their glassy, cold eyes.

Teo’s shoulders tensed. What if they were not allowed inside the door? The Archives was a place for serious scholars. Even if Renzo talked them in, how could they find what they needed? Then the delicious smell of old books enfolded her. She felt calmer, and even optimistic. If there was anywhere in the world where Teo belonged, it was a library.

In the lobby, a clerk looked enquiringly at Renzo. “Young, aren’t you? All new Readers are subject to an interview with Signorina Grigiogatta.” He pointed in the direction of a massive door studded with black nails.

When Renzo tapped, a voice purred out, “Enterrr.”

Teo flinched. Two vast Brustolons flanked the portals of the room.

A woman dressed all in gray was standing over an enormous desk. She had gray spectacles, behind which round green eyes did not blink. Her face was heavily made up with thick white cosmetic cream. She wore white gloves all the way up to her elbows. Her skirt was long, covering the tops of her elegant black boots. She moved gracefully to the front of the desk, the ballerina effect slightly compromised by the fact that she was at the same time hastily stuffing something back into the hem of her skirt.

She took off her spectacles. The woman’s eyes were extraordinarily beautiful: almond-shaped and slightly slanted upwards. But the effect was intimidating.