RacingRodent
Consul
Mulau
Her Adventures Most Notable
Recorded for Posterity
By Racing Rodent
&
Messaline
The Artist's Eye, being that first part in which Mulau sets out to make her mark.Her Adventures Most Notable
Recorded for Posterity
By Racing Rodent
&
Messaline
The south wind of the Great Steppe, the scent of horse fat candles, the dry mix of dust and grass, the songs of the women of the Fox Clan, the trills, whistles and inevitable farts of their horses, the lowing of their cattle, the beating of a tent repelling the stiff breeze, the pungent fragrance of dung and leather. It was surprising what you missed mused Paskai as she stood on the rail of the ship at long last beating down the Adriatic in the face of contrary winds and approaching the Great Lagoon and Saint Mark’s own holy city of Venice.
The French they said made war in the Italies. Against no less a person than the Borgia Pope himself, or was it Naples and then the Pope objected as too did the Italian Princes and so the conflict swung back and forth. The armies of Francois I marching the length of the peninsula one season and being beaten out of Italy with his tail between his legs and his artillery, his fabled, city conquering artillery, left in a muddy field only to return with more force and if possible more vigour the next. To and fro the war went round and round but so far stayed the other side of the mountains from Venice.
Yet Venice while she kept one fearful eye West was also gazing with trouble brow east where the Great Turk waxed brim full of wrath and plotted to engulf more lands. He too had armies and navies armed with cannon and while far away the Turks gazed like brooding vultures on the lands most valuable to the Serene Republic.
Paskai sighed must the world always be troubled by war, even her beautiful Venice?
“The water is dirty!” Objected Mulau looking over the rail.
“Oh, well people tend to throw things in it,” Paskai said in reply, “And speak Italian, not many folk speak the language of the Fox Clan here, save it for secret messages.”
“Speak Chinese, speak Italian, Speak French, why can’t people make up their minds and speak just one language?” Groused Mulau who could add passable Slovene to her list and what sounded like rude words in Russian, most likely learned from the son of one of their guides on the long journey west.
“Where would be the fun in that?” Laughed Paskai.
“Less time in boring lessons when I could have been riding horses,” Pouted Mulau.
“On a ship?” Queried Paskai.
“I meant at home,” Protested Mulau.
“This is your home,” Paskai gestured at the city.
“But I have never been here!” Mulau wailed.
“All the more reason to come home while you can,” Paskai told her.
Yet Paskai soon found that her ‘home’ was not as she remembered it.
“Polo, Polo, Polo,” Mumbled the cheerful but aging clerk as he led her deeper into the vault of the Bank, “Ah yes,” He stopped in front of a once grand looking door, now somewhat tarnished and tugged on his jangling array of keys, selecting one after some consideration and with some effort turned the lock and started the door open. Yet within the dusty interior despite the portal’s crest only a few boxes bore the name and insignia of the Polo dynasty.
“Ah Paskai Polo, yes, an old one this, we hardly expected it to be claimed to be honest, there were those…well no it was only idle chatter no one would have pilfered even without the curse,” Said the Old Clerk.
“Curse?” Asked Paskai curiously though she was not really paying attention at that point.
“Well since Messaline Polo was a witch…” Suddenly the Clerk found himself whirled around and a dagger at his throat.
“Who says Ma Grand’Mere was a witch?” Asked Paskai with cold danger in her tone and cold steel in her fist.
“I meant no disrespect, a sorceress I meant, no an enchantress, gifted by God, God, they say the Church ordained her unusual rites, she was burned on the Lagoon a pagan ritual, they said it was to ward off her angry ghost and help lift her once heathen soul to God, aiee, Mistress, Good Lady I meant no disrespect, it is just what they said,” The Clerk babbled in his fear, “It is said she protects the property of the Polo’s still and will curse any who try to steal from them…”
“Oh very well,” Paskai dropped the man and sheathed her dagger, “But where are the Polos now, once they were a great force in this City?”
“They are here there and everywhere, following trade, times have been hard, the Turk took Constantinople, now the King of France and the Pope make war upon one another, where is a Christian man to look for hope, where is the Crusade against the infidel Turk, Venice stands alone and her treasures are looted in distant lands,” The Clerk sounded almost as outraged at that as he remained wary of Paskai’s wrath, eyeing her dagger sheath carefully.
“Your grandmother you say? Will you be claiming her box too? Only, well, it might be wise,” The Clerk shrugged and gave a look with his eyes off to the left, where thieves were supposed to come from, Paskai got the hint.
“Yes I shall, I am angried that my family is not here to receive me and their new daughter but it is good to have Ma Grand’Mere’s belongings,” Paskai did not mention the fact that with her family dispersed and unable to vouch for her credit she needed all the hard currency in jewels and coin and wordy bonds she could lay her hands upon.
Paskai returned from the vaulted sanctum to find Doretja and Little Fox waiting for her with the anxious half stepping motions of people who are undecided which of two places they should be.
“Well, where is Mulau?” Asked Paskai annoyed.
“She claims she saw a man being kidnapped, so she hailed a gondola and set off in pursuit,” Little Fox reported.
“Oh that girl!” Fumed Paskai, “Where does she get these notions from?”
“Can’t you go any faster?” Mulau snapped at the boatman wielding his pole hand over hand.
“Nay Mistress, offer me no more gold, I am in enough trouble with the Comptroller already, there are limits on the speed a boat may go and if I lose my licence I lost everything.”
“Well keep that other boat in sight,” Mulau sniffed, this chase was taking entirely too long, she had intended to do her good deed, thwart the kidnappers and return before her mother finished her boring business at the stuffy old bank that had handled the Polo’s finances for generations. At this rate…well it would be lunch time before she was finished. Somehow the stories always neglected the white knight in shining armour going hungry…they also always told that all said knights were boys and men but that was stories for you…lunch was important.
Then again so was foiling villains. “They are heading to shore, catch them, catch them,” Mulau bounced up and down in the front of her river craft.
“Donna, I am already turned, we shall soon be…” But with that the boat came close enough to a dock that Mulau could leap out to land and thence from seemingly the wrong dock make another flying leap to come spinning among a trio of men, one bound and gagged and looking somewhat the worse for wear.
“Unhand him you brutish varlets,” Thundered Mulau in her best Venetian Italian.
“You wot guv?” Replied one of the hoodlums nonplussed by the accent of decades past and as posh as silver too.
“Blimey Matteo she’s a girl,” Said the one apparently not Matteo.
“Well she has a bloody great knife Tono,” Said Matteo
“It is not a knife it is a sword,” Snarled Mulau, deeply offended.
“Nah darling, that is not a sword, now this is a sword,” Matteo drew a rather large falchion, a thick bladed weapon that looked like its parentage included at least one coupling with an axe.
“That is not a sword,” Mulau lashed out, “It is but a cheap toy,” Her own blade was forged from the finest Indian steel, worked for years since she was born by a master craftsman hidden in the mountains of Tibet and finally couriered to her mother by one of those mysterious masked women who showed from time to time on her tenth birthday. The blade was honed to a razor’s edge, its wavy patterned skin a warning to the learned eye of its hardness, it cut through cheap pot metal with the same disdain it would have shown butter where Mulau ever to sully it so.
“Fair enough girl,” Matteo and Tono were professionals, they would quite like to get rich but had learned staying alive to enjoy was important too. They had long learned to quit on a losing hand, “You want the old bugger he is yours.”
They dropped the man at her feet and fled without a backwards glance. Mulau lent down and removed the balding man’s gag. “So what makes you so important?”
“They thought I was an alchemist, I explained I was an artist, an engineer, a savant but no they wanted I turn base metal into gold, I offered to show them my fool proof system for betting on the horses, a work of mathematical precision and genius…” The man shrugged and offered up bound hands to be untied.
“What happened then?” Mulau inquired.
“The system stills needs work, there are some variables I may not have taken account of…” The man shrugged again and set to work now his hands were free untying his feet, “They got a little angry we had lost all our money and decided to kidnap me, not a good idea, even if you had not come along, I work for Venice, for the Arsenal, I am the great Leonardo de Vinci…”
“You are in trouble is what you are, someone needs to explain to my mother why I am late and it is not going to be me,” Mulau waved towards the waiting boatman, “Yes you with the gondy-thing, I am ready to go back to where you found me and this man too.”
“At once Donna.”
To Be Continued
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Decidely, this squirrel dont want to let me quiet ! I could have a sweet life somewhere in a Chinese palace and he wants that I run around the world without end !!!!
(time for the youngness !)
