Rocco: In the footsteps of Pasquale Bembo

— As told through Pietro lo Scriba —

One morning in May at the dawn of the day...

Astore and I were teasing Father Arturo on the matter of mortification of his flesh, but happily were derailed by our gate-keeper, Bettina’s, announcement that there was a Venetian person at the gate, asking for me by name. As we like to think of ourselves as friends of the Venetians at least until it pays to be otherwise — and our experience so far is that they are very good payers and bad people to make enemies of — I called for him to be admitted.

He was one Signore Maffeo Barozzi, who was a ‘page’ in Signore Pasquale Bembo’s lance*. Now this Pasquale Bembo was the unfortunate whose bones our own Marco da Pitigliano found in the bottom of the toad’s pool in February (see A Tale of Two Treasures) though we’d only learned his name later when I returned some identifiably Venetian items to the Venetian Factor, Lorenzo Bembo (see Venetian Gratitude).

((* Aside: Astore informs from his experience as a soldier that a Lance is a fighting unit, comprising a principal fighter, well armed and armoured, and a small number of supporting soldiers of lesser rank and equipment, including a ‘page’ – a soldier, not a pretty young boy with a particular haircut.))

So this Snr Maffeo Barozzi had accompanied his principal, Snr Pasquale Bembo, on the Venetian raid on the Baths of Diocletian to extirpate a gang of smuggler / pirate / wreckers disposing of goods ill-gotten from Venetian ships through secret routes into Rome, which we had been peripherally involved with last October (see Venetian Justice).

He told us a tale of pursuit of a suspect though the ruins of the old Baths, who dived down a crack in the earth, closely followed by Pasquale Bembo, neither of whom were ever seen again. Nor was a slim young lad of the Venetian troop who was sent to look for them. Snr Barozzi, not a small fellow, shamefacedly admitted that he himself was too well built to fit down the crack, even once he had shed his armour...

So following our discovery of some traces of Pasquale’s end in the toad pool, Venice was interested in any further detail we might find; the delay since I has spoken with Snr Lorenzo Bembo when returning his kinsman Pasquale’s possessions, had been because Snr Barozzi had been out of town and was only now returned.

So with the three of us gathered our usual tools and accompanied Snr Barozzi to the ruins of the Baths to see the place where the story of Pasquale Bembo’s end had started.

At the Baths we met the ‘Protector’ of the ruins, one Renzo, who was handsomely paid by Snr Barozzi for permission access to the ruins; so handsomely that the gang boss was near speechless and assigned one of his men, Lino, as guide so that the common people there knew not to interfere with us (or ‘to prevent any misunderstandings’ as Renzo put it, once he’d regained the power of speech after weighing the Venetian purse in his hand).

The place we had entered the ruins, coming from the west, was not familiar to Snr Barozzi from the raid, so Lino led us around to the remains of great archways on the eastern side, which Snr Barozzi recognised. The space between the outer walls and the main ruins is much overgrown with straggling scrub and even some small trees, not yet reduced to fire wood for the many small cooking fires we could smell and see the smoke from curtained doorways and lean-to shacks in the ruins.

Once he had his bearings Snr Barozzi quickly led us to a relatively small room, partly open to the sky by both design and decay, an overgrown pit occupying much of its floorspace, where he pointed out a crack in the stonework as the place he last saw Pasquale Bembo in hot pursuit of his fleeing quarry. The local guide, Lino, a long-time resident of these ruins, sucked his tooth and opined this place has a reputation for fools and small boys taking dares to go down ... and never coming back.

Ignoring this, of course, we made our way down into the pit by some ancient steps and, with the aid of a Venetian alchemical torch, examined the depth of the crack by dint of tossing the torch down the hole. It looked to be a squeeze for a man around a protruding outcrop of stone, but the torch had passed it by, then come to rest somewhere close below so we could see a gleam from not too far past the obstruction. There seemed to be no movement or sound save the barely audible hiss and fizz of the torch, so I stripped off my jack, hung my dagger about my neck and started down after it.

After some minor scrapes past the protrusion which had blocked direct sight of what lay here below I found myself in a crack in the wall of a small chamber with several skeletons of the walking dead slowly and silently shuffling to and fro in a slightly hunched posture. Another walked down some steps from a higher level to join them. Unlike the shufflers, who seemed to be miming sweeping the floor, the skeletal walker had a belt of accoutrements: a whip and a sheathed sword on a belt, a decayed harness of rotted armour and a small truncheon in boney hand. I called back up the crack a warning “Deadmen walking...”

And in the skull’s sockets were eyes which saw me, and as they took regard I found myself in their world; a phantasm of the past where workmen, full-fleshed, with brooms in hands, swept a floor clear of filth dribbling from pipes high-set in the walls into this sump and a overseer telling me to pick up my broom and get on with it!

I feigned obedience, waiting for the overseer’s gaze to turn from me and the arrival of friends, but every time I took the slightest glance towards the overseer the eyes were on me and instructions given to sweep this way or that way or into a small, dead-end passage I took to be a drainage sluice. Time passed and the pressure of the overseer’s constant gaze drained my mind of all but the sweeping task.

Suddenly Astore was in my face shouting at me to wake up — the room was dark, lit only by the dropped torch near one corner and crowded with three armed and armoured skeletons, the sweeping skeletons, still ‘brushing’, and Fr Arturo calling on merciful heaven to save us from these undead shades. Astore and I engaged with the overseers. He took on two, being the better armed, and I the third. His was the tougher fight of course, but then Arturo’s prayer took effect. Two of the overseers collapsed into piles of aged bones, but the first retreated back up the steps into a dark opening.

We gathered ourselves and took stock. One of the worker dead was a small, shrivelled corpse dressed in modern clothes. We took this to be the young Venetian sent to discover Pasquale’s fate. His remains were bundled up and Snr Barozzi hauled them up into the living world.

Below, we inspected the sump room for clues. Astore and I looked into the sluice passage while Fr Arturo tried to work in the main room, though we had unthinkingly taken the only light source. Which promptly disappeared as we pressed in to look at what seemed to be a modern footprint in dust at the far end of the sluice, where we discovered the hard way that the floor was actually a hinged trapdoor, as we slid sideways then dropped deeper into the underworld.

It seemed an eternity, but must have been a short slide in the dark then a drop into gloomy light to land on a stinking midden; just the sort of place the sump might have drained to, I thought, before Astore landed on me and all was dark for a few moments. No Maffeo Barrozzi he, but Astore is not a light man. There was something familiar about the smell and the green-fringed circle of light from above, but little time to think about it, not to mention my spinning head from the fall and impacts of landings. As Astore heaved himself off me we were aware of scuttlings approaching us.

To our good fortune the noises turned out to be the Graces, naming themselves Aglaea, Euphrosyne and Thallia, who I’d met — from base rather than atop the midden — on the exploration which originally brought us to discover Pasquale Bembo’s remains (see A Cloacal Exploration).

The three crawled around the midden, which on reflection is unsurprising given the poor footing. I myself dared not risk standing to pay my respects after softening Astore’s landing... Anyway I made introduction and apology for my prone position on top of their midden and they recalled me as ‘the polite young man’ who’d brought them wine previously. I told them, truthfully, that given the circumstances of my arrival, the three carafes I had in my pack for them were still up above with the bulk of my exploring goods. I didn’t even have the light-storing pebble Signorina Aglaea had gifted me, which was awkward...

But as before they were desperate to make conversation, so I turned to the matter in hand and asked if anyone had ‘dropped in’, in the same manner the two of us had just arrived, a while before we first met? It is little surprise they do recall such an event. Two dropping in, one with a light (there was a trace of torchlight from the other side of the midden even now, which I took to be our alchemical torch we brought with us, leaving Fr Arturo in darkness...). The fellow with the light then was impolite, so they didn’t tell him where his sword fell (my ears pricked up at that) and he went on his way ill-speaking them, so on being told of his fate “A toad ate him” one responded “Well I can’t say I’m sorry...”. Of the other of the two arrivals they noted that, well, he was dead anyway so as the first (Pasquale, we assume) hadn’t given them a present “...but he did bring us dinner”, they took the inadvertent offering and ate his companion...

Conversation with the Ladies is difficult to recall precisely as they kept cutting cross each other, finishing each others’ sentences and have similar voices and manners of speaking as three long term close companions sometimes grow to do — they have had quite some time so — and in the resonance of the cavern of the midden pit it can be hard to tell who is speaking.

The Ladies were chattering with each other when it occurred to me and Astore that perhaps we should make our way down the midden, a bit, in case Fr Arturo joined us by the same route we had taken. We slithered awkwardly downslope. Seeing we are neither of us moving our best, though we have no present to give them, the Ladies offer to ‘do us a favour’ if I promised to do them one. I agreed, despite misgivings about the wisdom of promising favours to fallen pagan deities. I did mention having toasted them when I have opportunity — by ‘accidental’ spillage of wine with a muttered ‘to the Ladies’ — which cheers them up immensely, when they understand that was me — they are remembered Above. The ‘favour’ I am tasked with is ‘a little gardening job’ — to clear the spring overgrowth at the mouth of the pit they currently dwell in, allowing the sun to shine down. The favour granted was Aglaea persuading Thallia to kiss us both. We both found this remarkably invigorating and restorative and were, of course, effusive with our thanks. ((Euphrosyne was put out and said “They’d have enjoyed it more from me!” Thallia agreed we certainly would have, but pointed out we needed it from her more.))

Their conversation turned melancholy as they fell to reminiscing on the past. Gifts of wine they appreciated because it reminded them of their Papa and his parties, though now they have fallen on hard times. They exist in hope it can be their time again, though their world is still shrinking. At the Fall, Aglaea said, creatures of power and gods continued down here in the underground and dark, where there is more power to sustain them, but they’ve all been decaying slowly for more than 1,000 years. Clinging to the margins where there is power to be had. Magician and their magics are seen as leeches, sucking up the power the Ladies, and their contemporaries, need to continue to exist. They wondered how long they could continue. One says something about there being a way out, while another says they should never have left their images... “They were so constraining...” “Well it would be lovely if we were reunited with our images and fed regularly...” “Or taken somewhere where people still appreciated us...” “There have to be people who still appreciate the Graces”

I had no idea what to make of this and wanted to head off any more ‘favours’ or presents being required, so despite the Graces’ disappointment said I could only commit only to gardening rather than taking on the honour of serving their greater needs. Their names are known to the Great —I was thinking of Cola— “Then it is very disappointing that they know of us and choose to ignore us entirely!”

I had a strong feeling this was going in a bad direction, but from above there was a grating noise, and just the person to sooth the rising storm arrived: Fr Arturo, in a rain of bones, debris, and a wide splash of midden detritus, sporting a handful of righteous glow of our own Lord God Almighty in the presence of Aglaea, the Shining...

I started to introduce the Ladies to the discombobulated priest, clearly still mazed from the fall, but Aglaea pointed out they had met before; she and her sisters are the Graces and in her view he is lacking in manners. His tentative “Hello” cut none of the ice I heard in her tone. Before Aglaea could enumerate the priest’s failings, starting with his mere existence, one of the others broke in to say he’d brought them a present, looking to the pile of bones Arturo accompanied. It wasn’t the bones she was looking at but a sword she pulled from in their midst.

Arturo stated that the sword was his by right of conquest, which sounded interesting. I rather suspected it was theirs now by right of possession, and whichever one was holding it started to say it is a very nice gift, quite a good sword, but Fr Arturo just had to draw himself up, covered in midden mess though he was, mount his high horse and make it quite explicit “I am not giving you a present!”

Of course he has to do that sort of thing, I do understand.

The look on the faces of the Ladies’ was, at best, worrying, so I broke in to suggest the Father gives ownership of the sword over to me, hoping he would understand this is a stratagem to avoid him making sacrifice to unchristian spirits.

He paused for a moment and doubtless seeing my intent, spoke to award me the ownership of the sword, enjoined me not to lose it, which I promised not to do. Of course. And of course I chose to keep the sword there, in the hands of the Ladies, as I would know where it was, so it would not be ‘lost’!

The Ladies — their forms seem to shift and merge in the dim light so it is never quite clear who is speaking — acknowledge this true, with some surprise. But they didn’t really want a sword — once the priest of a different God did not have it, I suspect, and gave it to me.

((The Grace handing over the sword described it as well made and mused on the fact her husband was a smith... and perhaps still is...))

On the subject of swords, as a distraction, I ventured to enquire whether they still had the sword left by the earlier fellow? By which I meant the luckless Pasquale Bembo’s weapon they’d mentioned having. There is some to and fro about the swords with the Ladies and the standards of upbringing of the youth of even the better sort of family today. I do wonder what he had called them… Anyway, I offered again to take this other sword off their hands too if they feel swords are not a thing they need in their midden, and eventually a sword which bore the familiar marks of the Bembos was produced from some unobserved sub-heap. I thanked them, truly and with all the sincerity I could muster, and bowed as deeply as I dared on the slippery midden slope.

As we made our excuses, again, and were setting about leaving when Fr Arturo’s handful of holy light became an active point of friction with Aglaea, with much growling, bristling and sneering on display. Astore and I are told not to bring him back on pain of..., well something which would doubtless be an inconvenience. I did my best to apologise for Arturo on the basis he is bound by oaths, rites and rules to behave the way he does with them, but I doubt that weighed much as an argument.

We tried to make a rapid exit but Astore and I fumbled and stumbled around the walls of the pit a while trying to find our way out, until Fr Arturo gave us a heading. By a candle stub and Fr Arturo’s grace-of-God light, undiminished despite Aglaea’s threats, we found the (a?) tunnel out then a junction we recognised and returned up the brick-lined sewers to the seat-of-ease in the basement of the House of Crows.

There above we had our gatekeepers send word to Snr Barozzi at the Baths that he should return to the House of Crows, then set about cleaning ourselves of midden-slime, shifting our clothes and taking a refreshment.

We discussed and agreed what we needed to tell Maffeo Barozzi: the barest outline of: down the crack, through the trapdoor; finding traces of his principal; finding the sword en route to where we'd found the body; and return to the surface by our own ways.

A couple of hours passed before there was a knock at the gate and Snr Barozzi arrived, accompanied by a porter with handcart carrying a nondescript boy-sized bundle and our left-behind gear. He gave thanks to God on seeing us, that we had all survived, for he had feared he faced loss once more, encouraged so by remarks of the denizens of the surface layer of the Baths, familiar with the reputation of the crack of doom.

He asked what happened and I explain enough, I hoped, to discourage further investigation: the walking dead, the illusion of the past; the trapped victim; the fight with the walking dead, the prayer-work of Fr Arturo in freeing the lad's mortal remains from the curse… Discovery of the route Pasquale Bembo must have taken. We think that when he went down he was lucky or quick enough not to be trapped by the illusion of the past. He must have taken an opening that would have been obvious in front of him, until a waste disposal trapdoor opened beneath him. What about Pasquale's quarry? We saw no trace of him. Perhaps he was one of the walking dead, or lost elsewhere in the underworld, but we did not find any trace of a yellow shirt in our search. (Best not to mention the Ladies’ part…) We followed down the chute which came out in a midden of trash and detritus. That was where we were fortunate to recover… — and here we presented the sword, which Maffeo recognised as Pasquale Bembo’s — doubtless dropped in the fall from the trap floor and hidden in the midden trash at the time. It was a place we had found before, and there is a route out, but his luck failed him and he encountered his end — did you hear of...? The demonic toad, yes.

And that is all there was to tell. I offered to tell the tale again, should there be a desire for an official record to be made. I am at Snr Lorenzo's service in this matter.

We all drank a cup or two (or three…) to toast as successful a conclusion as might have been expected before Snr Barozzi departed to return to his people, accompanying his doleful burden away down the hill.

Coda:

Most generously Fr Arturo confirmed the overseer’s sword as mine, despite that I had only intended a stratagem to save him from a difficult position, by asking for it.

The next day we gave a more complete account than Snr Barozzi received, confidentially, to Cola.

A few days later Snr Barozzi returned to present us with a reward of 100 Venetian ducats for the further information and the sword, and five pearls in appreciation of the return of the boy's remains, from his family.