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The Blessing

Standing in a cold, wet foreign field watching my master, my friend, putting his life on the line for a woman, I wonder if I will ever know a love like he has for her. A love that is all encompassing, that threads through his life like his own blood and that will be with him until the day that he dies.  Which if he isn’t very careful could well be today!

He is Giacomo Casanova, a man for every man and seemingly for every woman too.

He’s been a physician, an astronomer, a musician, a scholar but above all a lover, he has seen his fortunes rise and fall like the tides and he certainly lives his life to the full.

And yet through it all there is Henriette, a woman he could NEVER have because she was promised to another, although he never stopped trying and he never stopped loving her.

He’d been wrongly imprisoned because of his love for her and his stupidity in continuing to cross her suitor the Count Grimani. On the day she married Grimani he broke free from prison and we began our life on the run, looking for a Venetian ambassador who would grant him a pardon and allow us back to our beloved home.

We had tried the French court but by now he was notorious and the ambassador declined his request and threw him out. Undeterred we stayed a while in Paris, until yet again Casanova’s love for life left us penniless and homeless and on our way to England, a bloody cold and wet country with few saving graces.

We’d only been here a matter of minutes when he saw Henriette at the docks but by the time he had chased after her she had boarded a boat and was sailing away, her children by her side but no sign of her Grimani.

We found him soon enough, he was the Venetian ambassador to England! He would NEVER grant Casanova a pardon and we should have cut our losses and moved on but he seemed to delight in riling Grimani because he knew that, although she would never leave him, Henriette would also never love him like she loved Casanova. And so we stayed and yet again his fame spread and he became a regular feature at the court of King George the Second.

Eventually it all came to a head. I don’t know what was said that day but it must have been worse than normal because he came storming out of the court.

“Bollocks!”

“I’m sorry?” I questioned.

“Bloody idiot,” he continued not slowing up as I hurried after him.  “A duel...a bloody duel.”

“Sorry, but did you say a duel?” I tugged at his sleeve to stop him. “A duel? What the hell did you say this time?”

“Oh you know the usual stuff… about how I was so much better in bed than he would ever be… how he’s got a small dick… that sort of thing.”

I rolled my eyes in desperation. “You never did know when to stop did you?”

“But he doesn’t love her…he can’t love her… not like I do.”  He didn’t need to tell me who he meant. “If he did he wouldn’t have let her go back to Venice….”

His gaze froze on nothing and I knew that, just for a moment, he was wishing they were together…I wished they were too because it would have made my life a WHOLE lot easier.

“Come on then,” he said wistfully. “I’ve got a duel to fight.”

***************

The time and the place were set, there was no going back.  I mean I ask you, a full blown duel no less.

I hope she’s worth it, because now he has his son to think about, although I doubt that fact even crossed his mind.  As we arrive I tell him we could just run away, get a boat and go…but he’s not for that.  He’s given his word and he’ll stick to it, even if it costs him his life.

He chooses pistols which is the first sensible thing he’s done in a long time. He’s a very good shot and could take Grimani easily. Maybe that is what he should do, shoot him now and then we could get out of this damp, miserable country.

But NO… he always has to have the last word, the last taunt, the last laugh. I can’t quite hear what is being said but I can guess it has to do with Grimani and Henriette…it always does. I move closer so I am ready if he needs me and now I can hear what they are saying.

“Grimani, I’m trying to help you. If you are that much in love with her, if it’s driving you insane then I know what its like. We’re both the same, I’m not going to fight a man who loves her this much.”

I watch in horror as he discharges his pistol into the air and then throws the empty weapon to the ground. He’s helpless now, he can’t have another shot no matter what Grimani does and I don’t trust his tears to mean anything.

Giac, you crazy fool what have you done?

Grimani has kept walking away and now he turns and holds his gun to his head. This could turn out to be the strangest duel I have ever seen! Does he really mean to kill himself over Henriette?

“NO!”  Casanova has seen what Grimani appears to be planning and even though his death would be the answer to so many things he can’t help but try to save him.

Grimani lowers his pistol looking for all the world like a broken man and then, in a split second, everything changes….for the worse. In the blink of an eye he raises his hand and the silence of the field is shattered by the loud crack of gunfire and Giac is suddenly on the floor, rolling in pain.

“It’s my hand, it’s my hand. It’s only my hand.”

I rush to his side and can immediately see the pain on his face, both from the wound to his hand and from the cruel game that Grimani played with him.

“Jesus,” he cries as he rolls on the damp ground grasping his bleeding hand to his body.

“God but you’re an idiot!” I tell him as I reach his side and begin trying to tend to his wound.  He won’t lie still for a second but eventually I manage to wrap my handkerchief loosely around his hand.

“I lied about the location.” Grimani is stood over us now, gloating, his smoking pistol still in his hand.

“What’s that for?” Giac asks him pushing himself up off the ground and trying to hide his pain behind rapidly spoken words.  “Do you feel better now?”

“This land is within the City boundaries of London,” Grimani is talking again and I’m only half listening but I hear all the words that are important. “This combat is illegal, punishable by death. I have diplomatic immunity, you do not. You’ve broken the law Casanova, you’re a fugitive again. Run. Run away.”

Run….that’s all we seem to do, all we have ever seemed to do. Running from women, running from their husbands, running from debt collectors and now running from Grimani and the law he would bring to bear on us.

I’m bloody sick of running. I’d quite like a nice quiet life, a home, maybe a woman of my own, But NO, what do I get, a master who attracts trouble like rats to an open cesspit.

“And you go back to a loveless wife.” Even though he is in pain and we are all in trouble with the law again, he never could bear to let Grimani go easily. He always needed the last word, the last dig.

“Exactly.” Grimani replies starting to leave before turning back towards us. What must we have looked like? “You keep running, I’ll keep waiting. Just as it was. Neither one of us can have her, instead we have each other.”

Then he was gone and his entourage with him leaving me to tend to Giac who by now had gone quiet and pale, cradling his damaged hand against him. I didn’t think it would take Grimani long to set the full force of the law on us.

“Let me look at your hand.” I told him.

“It’s nothing,” he insisted. “I’ll be fine.”

“Let me be the judge of that.” I pressed, forcing him to show me. I loosen the handkerchief and try not to show my surprise at the state of his hand. The bullet had passed clean through the palm of his hand, which was now bleeding steadily.

“Well that’s not so bad” I joked half-heartedly as I retied the makeshift bandage, this time a little tighter and more securely than before. It was the best I could do for now, it wouldn’t really stop the bleeding properly but until we could get out of England it would just have to do. We couldn’t risk stopping to find a physician until we were safe.

“Come on, on your feet. Giac, come here and give me a hand.”

“No Rocco, let me do it. This isn’t something I want my son to see.”

“Well you should have thought of that before, now…”

“I said no…now help me up Rocco or …” his threat was left hanging as he held me with his good arm and pulled himself to his feet with a string of curses that made even me blush.

He swayed on his feet, if I hadn’t been there to hold him I think he would have just crumpled back down to the ground. He looked at me through eyes filled with a pain he was trying to hide,

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, in case you had forgotten we’re on the run again so come on let’s get out of here, out of England and find us a way home.”

 I helped him into his travelling cloak and onto his horse. I could feel his body shaking and see the sweat on his face as he fought against the waves of pain from his hand and tried to put on a brave show for his son.

“Right then Giac, off we go again, Casanova and son!”

*********************

We travelled for a day and a night to reach the coast, not daring to stop for fear of running into officials sent for us by Grimani. I secured us passage on a boat that was leaving on the next tide, although it cost me most of the money we had with us to buy the Captain’s silence.

Giac was sick by now, really sick. The lack of care for his wound had allowed infection to strike and his blood to turn to poison and yet there was still nothing I could do. Not yet. We had to get further away before we could stop, the journey might kill him but if we stayed then we would all surely die. I had no choice, we had to keep going and I had to hope.

He was barely conscious for most of the time, shaking and sweating, wracked with either a burning fever or the chills. He didn’t want to eat or drink, I had to force him to take at least a little water. At night he woke me with his cries of agony when the ship rolled and pitched in the rough sea tossing him against the hard wooden sides of his bunk, crushing his hand against them. In the day time I tried to get him to take some fresh air on the deck, hoping it would help him, but he was getting weaker and couldn’t stand to be outside for long.

The two days it took were as long as any I can remember and I have no wish to live through them again. We were all grateful for the comforting feel of solid ground beneath our feet, even though I doubted Giac had any idea where we were or what was happening around him.

We decided to head for Poland, still looking for an ambassador willing to grant the notorious Casanova a pardon, although I knew that if we didn’t find some proper rest and get his hand looked at then he wasn’t likely to need a pardon…ever.

The carriage we are in is rickety and small, only just enough room for the four of us who occupy it. Giac is propped up by the window, the cool air helping to keep him awake, keep him conscious. He is still shaking and by now must smell of the lingering approach of death. He has his hand clasped tightly against his chest, his once pristine clothes now nothing more than soiled bloodstained rags. If he was conscious enough to see what he looked like he would be appalled, but thankfully he isn’t and as we ride over another rough part of the road I see the jolt that passes through the carriage pass through him and into the tightening of his features and the low exhalation of air that escapes his lips. I reach forward and open his cloak.

“No wonder it’s hurting so much, don’t hold it so tight.” I tell him gently easing his hand from his chest. There seems to be more blood on his bandage and on his shirt than before, more fresh blood which means that he is bleeding again. No wonder he looks so weak. The ‘gentleman’ who shares this carriage with us looks on horrified.

“For God’s sake.” he says as he tries to move away from Giac. In the small confines of the carriage there really isn’t anywhere for him to move to.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” Giac manages to spill these few words out like a litany before the effort of speaking takes it’s toll and he falls back against the carriage walls, barely conscious, his damaged, bloody hand still in his lap.

“Stop this carriage now!” our companion insists banging on the roof of the carriage with his stick to attract the attention of the driver. “I will NOT share my carriage with …him” he sneers at Giac.

The carriage rolls to an abrupt stop and the driver and his mate get down to see what all the fuss is about. When he opens the carriage door Giac virtually falls into his arms and I have to grab the back of his cloak to stop him.

“Easy now” I tell him as I ease him back into his seat.

“What have you done to my carriage?” the driver asks as he eyes the bloodstained seats and walls.

“Can’t you see he’s not well?” I ask. “We just need to get to the next to the next town and then…”

“Then what?” the driver asks, “Are you going to pay me for this?”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. ..I’m sorry.”

“I won’t travel another mile with these despicable people,” the other man insists “The smell in this carriage is dreadful. I demand that you do something.”

“Can you pay me for the carriage?” the driver asks.

Although I have some money left it isn’t much and I can’t spend it on that, if Giac doesn’t see a physician soon then he will die and I can’t let that happen. I have to save the money for a doctor, even if that means we have to walk to the next town or city.

“No, I can’t pay you.”

“Then out you get all three of you. NOW!” The driver is a bear of a man and seemingly untouched by emotions such as compassion, so I get out and young Giac helps me get his father from the carriage. The man can hardly stand, there is no color in his face at all and he weaves on his feet.

The driver throws me down our bags.

“If you soil compartment you pay for it. If you can’t pay you’re out,” he reiterates.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“Saxony,” he tells me as he pulls away.

“Where’s Saxony?” It’s half a question to his retreating back and half to myself. I have no more time to wonder about Saxony as out of the corner of my eye I see Giac fall to the floor unconscious.

When I get to his side I think that he may be dead, he is so pale and now so still, even the constant shaking that has racked him since we landed has stopped. His breath is so faint, so low, so weak that I have to get my face right up against his before I can feel the slightest breath on my skin.

“He’s still alive,” I tell his son who is watching with a disinterested air. He doesn’t say anything and nor does his expression change at the news. He is a strange child and not for the first time I am glad that he is not my son.

“Give me a hand to get him off the road then.” I’m just greeted by the sight of his retreating back as he stalks away and finds himself a place under a nearby tree. “Thanks,” I shout after him. “Bastard,” I mumble as I turn my attentions back to the sick man at my side.

It is several hours later before he finally wakes up again. I’ve used the time to move him off the road and take another look at his hand. The wound itself is angry and red and I can see traces of darkness along the veins in his arms as the poison in his blood starts to spread. I don’t know where we are, how far we are from the next town, but I do know that his time is short.

We need a miracle and in the next town we found one…eventually.

******************

With the reluctant help of his son we have finally made it to the next town and found a lodging house that will accept us. There is no doctor in this town and I doubt if he can survive much more travel. My plan is to leave him to rest here whilst I set out on my own to find a doctor. I don’t want to leave him, not even with his own son to watch over him…I don’t trust the devious little bastard not to steal everything we have and run off…but I have no choice.

Time and money are short.

“If you want to stay another night you’re going to have to pay in advance,” the innkeeper insists. I glance back to the bed, Giac is no better, he’s unconscious more and more of the time now, racked by fever. When he is awake he’s delirious, mumbling all kinds of rubbish.

“I haven’t got any money.”

“No money. NO room.”

“Look at the state he’s in,” I argue back, hoping that if I can just get another couple of nights here I can do something to help him. “I can’t move him.”

The innkeeper looks unmoved until both our attentions are drawn to an austere looking lady who has suddenly entered the room.

“This must be the patient. No prizes for that. Stand back, let me look,” she sweeps down to the bedside.

“Who the hell are you?” I ask rather more rudely than her arrival merited.

“I like that, you can pay for a maid,” the innkeeper spits at me and I guess that is how it looks although I have no idea who this woman is, where she came from or what she wants.

“She’s not mine,” I throw back at him. “I’ve never seen her before.”

“Voices down, thank you. We’re not in the market place,” her voice is authoritative and we both stop our meaningless exchange and turn to her. She has her hand on Giac’s forehead although it is obvious from the state of him that he has a fever.

 “How long has he been like this?” she asks.

“Days now,” I tell her suddenly grateful that somebody else is here to help. “I don’t know, he won’t eat. He’s not…I’m sorry but who the hell are you?”

She pulls the damp blanket from his chest so that she can see properly what she is dealing with. Whatever she thinks at the state of her patient her face and eyes are impassive and give nothing away. She acts as if she never heard my question.

“He needs clean bandages.” She turns to the innkeeper “You there, bandages.  A bed sheet will do so long as it’s clean and water, lots of cold water if you could.”

“I’m not here to fetch and carry,” the innkeeper protests.

“I think you’ll find you are, now hurry up. Chop, chop.” Her manner is brisk and I for one do not intend to argue with her. I have the feeling that she is a woman who should not be crossed. “What have you been giving him?” she asks me.

“Mercury pills.”

“They’re for the pox.”

“It’s all we had.”

“Evidently I got here just in time. Now I don’t want to move him but I have to. This place is riddled with damp. Open the windows get some air on his face.”

“I can’t pay you for this,” whoever you are, I think to myself.

“Windows,” she insists, again acting as if she hadn’t heard what I told her.

Within the hour we were ready to move on. She had a carriage and a cart and a couple of good strong men to help carry Giac downstairs. She’d redressed his hand and given him a potion of some sort that seemed for now to settle his shaking and allow him to rest.

“Where are we going?” I ask her as we jump onto the back of the cart.

“Away from this dirty town to a place where I can treat him properly.”

“But…” I have so many questions, “Who sent you, how did you find us?”

My answer was the back of her head as she made her way to the carriage and we set off.

We came eventually to a large country house, which she told me was empty and would remain so until the end of the month and until then it was hers, ours to live in.

Her men took Giac inside and into a bedroom. He’s hardly moved throughout the journey. I didn’t know if he was sleeping or unconscious, I was just glad that finally from somewhere somebody seemed at last to be able to help him.

 The nurse made it plain that for now she didn’t require my help nor did she require my presence so I took the time to look around. True to her word the house was empty and looked as if it had been for some time. Covers were spread over most of the furniture which, when I looked, seemed expensive if a little worn. I pulled the covers off a couch and gratefully collapsed onto it. Until then I hadn’t realised how tired I was, the constant effort of looking after Giac had kept me going but now I was surplus to requirements I gave into my own needs and soon fell asleep.

It didn’t seem long before I was woken by the nurse shaking my shoulder.

“I have to cauterise his hand,” she told me matter of factly. “I will need your help.”

“Do you have to?”

“If I don’t do something soon then he will die either from loss of blood or from the poison in his body.”

“But…” I thought about what cauterizing his wound would probably entail and shuddered inwardly “Isn’t that going to hurt, a lot?”

For just a moment I thought I saw a brief flash of compassion spread across her face before she once again became all business-like and efficient.

“I don’t have any choice. Now come with me, the sooner we do this then the better for him. Chop, chop.”

At her instruction I climb onto the bed and position myself behind Giac, so I can hold him when the time comes. Once again he is delirious, rambling about nothing as I let his sweat dampened head fall back against me. Somehow she has already prepared his hand, packing the wound with gunpowder which once ignited will burn through the flesh, stopping the bleeding and sealing the wound.

“You should be singing. Did I ever tell you …the crystal..”

I have no idea what he is talking about and I don’t have time to wonder as I see the nurse reaching for the taper.

“The lens… the tiny little lens. I took it. I stole it. I’m sorry…I can’t see him where is he?”

The room is suddenly filled with the most awful smell matched only by the sound coming from Giac’s lips as the nurse ignites the gunpowder and it blasts through his hand. His whole body convulses, the pain sending spasms through his limbs and, despite both our attempts to hold him still, he arches off the bed time and time again and it breaks my heart to see him like this.

He howls like a man possessed and I have never heard a sound like it before nor do I ever wish to hear it again. It is the sound of fear and pain, of a man who is at his breaking point. I pull him towards me, holding him as tightly as I dare. The howls become struggling gasps for air and the convulsions slowly still until they are nothing more than twitches. I push his sweat soaked hair from his face and tell him that he will be alright even though I’m not sure that he will be, it is as much for my own benefit as for his.

Eventually he falls into blessed unconsciousness and I can ease myself free and leave the nurse to her job.

“Thank you,” I tell her and she just nods her thanks before shooing me out of the room. I look back at Giac who for the first time in what seems like forever actually looks at peace.

Even though I know that he is in good hands I still can’t help worrying about him and I’m pacing nervously outside his bedroom when the nurse finally appears.

“I’ve given him a preparation of sudariphics. There’s nothing more I can do except wait. I’m not employed to provide miracles.”

“That would be employed by….” I ask as she brushes past me and heads away into the house.

I’m still no nearer to finding out who sent the nurse to Giac and don’t get me wrong it isn’t that I’m not grateful, without her intervention I am certain that he would have died, but I’m just curious.

I follow her through the house and watch from the window as she goes to the carriage that brought her here and gives her report to its occupant. I can’t see who she is talking to but an idea begins to form as to who it might be.

There is only one person in the whole world that loves Giac unequivocally, loves him with the same passion as he does her. Henriette! It has to be her. He saw her in London and no doubt Grimani took great delight in telling his wife how he had bested the man who loved her. Maybe she was responsible for finding us and sending the nurse to help him. I didn’t have proof but as far as I was concerned all the pieces fitted.

The nurse and I took turns to sit with Giac over the next few days. She would sit beside him in silence whilst he fought the dangers that ravaged his body. Poison, blood loss, lack of proper rest, poor nutrition had all taken their toll turning him from a once vibrant man to the shaking, sweating, mumbling wreck that he had become. I couldn’t just sit there and watch him suffer so I read to him from books I had found in the library of the house or talked of what we would do when he was better, where we would go and the adventures we would have.

As the days passed he seemed to be slowly improving. The times when he was conscious, if not lucid, were more than those when he was not. The worst of his fever had broken and there were even times when flashes of the ‘old’ Casanova would emerge. The nurse it seemed had succeeded in her duties, the danger had passed.

I was downstairs when I finally realised that everything was going to be alright. I had seen young Giac heading to his father’s bedroom, which was unusual in itself as he had hardly bothered to visit him since we arrived.  I can’t even begin to imagine what happened in that room, although I’m sure that given time I’ll find out, for now all I can do is have a good guess.

I hear a scream, not the horrible howling screams of previously but the scream of a man subjected to a pain that he wasn’t expecting. No doubt his son is to blame for that… I really don’t know where he gets his sadistic streak from, his father may have many failing and be many things but a sadist isn’t one of them. Once the scream has faded I hear the sound of running footsteps and a tirade of abuse.

“You little bastard! Come back here.  GIAC…you no good little bastard midget.”

I smile to myself and leap up from the couch.

“He’s back!” I say as I rush upstairs to tend to my master…Giacamo Casanova a man who could never have imagined his own importance in this time or in times to come.