The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [5]
"You think you frighten me with your talk of the Doge?" Carlo snapped. "If you think I'm going to waive the rent you owe me just to curry favour then your brain is addled and your wits have run away."
"You'll get your money when I've got mine," the man said, running a hand through his tousled hair. "The Doge will reward me well for what I can give him."
"If I could spend your promises then I'd be eating peacock tonight.
If I don't get the money owing to me by sundown, I'll throw you and your belongings into the canal!"
Carlo turned to go, but a hand descended on his shoulder, stopping him. He turned, ready for an attack, but his tenant had twisted his mouth into what he probably hoped was an ingratiating smile. The expression didn't look at home on his face: the fleshy lips beneath that beard were more suited to a sneer.
"I... please, I apologize for my manner," the man said. "I find myself embarrassed by a temporary shortage of funds, not a position that a gentleman of noble birth and breeding, such as myself, is used to -"
"Not too embarrassed to drink your weight in wine every night,"
Carlo grumbled, slightly mollified by the man's tone. "Or do you pay Grimani in stories too?"
"- but, as I was about to say, I have just enough left to pay you what I owe." He turned away and disappeared into the gloom of his rooms. He was muttering something beneath his breath: elaborate Florentine curses, no doubt. Carlo heard him rummage among his possessions for a moment, then he was back, appearing suddenly in the slice of light from the landing like a demon on stage. "Here,"
he said, handing over a small leather bag with obvious reluctance.
"It should -" he winced slightly "- suffice, until the Doge pays me for my services."
Carlo weighed the bag in his hand. The coins chinked comfortingly, and he ran through all the things he could do with the money. He'd go and pay his own bill at Grimani's tavern, then perhaps the widow Carpaccio might be willing to accept a few coins in exchange for an hour or two of pleasure.
"That'll do," he said gruffly. "For now. But mind you pay me promptly next week, otherwise I'll have the police call round! He spat to one side, making sure that his tenant knew he didn't believe these stories about audiences with the ruling authority of Venice, then turned and clattered down the stairs. Turning at the landing, he saw the man's eyes gleaming in the dark gap between door and jamb. The thought put him in mind of the rat he had seen earlier. Shivering, he crossed himself and continued round the corner and down, past his own rooms, to the door.
As he walked out into the narrow alley that separated his house from the widow Carpaccio's, he glanced upwards. The lip of the roof platform jutted over the edge of the roof towards a similar platform on the widow's house. He could still remember the way she used to sit up there for hours bleaching her hair in the bright sunlight. That was when she had been young and beautiful, and Carlo had been younger and full of life. He used to watch her from his bedroom window, waiting for the wind off the Adriatic to skim the roofs of the houses and lift her skirts a few inches. Ah, the follies of youth.
He squinted for a moment. Was there something on the platform?
Something long and tubular, shrouded in a velvet cloth?
He shook his head. He had coins and Grimani had a new consignment of Bardolino wine from the mainland. By the end of the evening, he hoped that their respective positions would be a little more equitable.
Steven Taylor stood in the TARDIS doorway and looked around.
They had landed on a beach of mixed sand and pebbles that fell steeply to a blue sea. A few hundred yards away, a mist hovered over the waves, hiding