Page 105 of Dark Tides
Looking forward, Sarah could see a massive stone quay dividing the canal into two. At the sharply pointed prow of the quay was a high brick watchtower crowned with a four-sided roof and a swinging weathercock. The warehouse walls, crenellated like a castle, stretched back along the white marble quays; the warehouse doors stood in great ranks, on both sides, facing the water. Moored up on both sides of the quays were three or four oceangoing ships like their own, cargo hatches open, loading and unloading at the treble-height doors.
Captain Shore shouted the order to drop the sails, thepedottilet the ship nose slowly into her mooring place, and the crew threw lines to the waiting lumpers, who caught them and made them fast. Thepedottilashed the steering wheel and put his seal on it, to signify that the ship could not sail again without a pilot on board, threw a casual salute to Captain Shore, pocketed his fee, and was first down the gangplank to take a ship up the Grand Canal on the return journey. He disappeared among the crowd of dockers with sleds and carts for unloading, the officials, and the duty officers.
“Better stop gawping and get your boots on,” Captain Shore advised, going past her. “They’ll want to see you, an’ all.”
Sarah ducked down into her cabin, crammed her feet in her boots, packed her few things in her hatbox, slipped her money into her placket, tied her grandmother’s red leather purse of tokens around her neck, and went up on deck. Captain Shore, busy with the mooring of his ship, waved her to wait.
“You can’t go yet, they have to check you for disease.” He nodded at the Venetian officials, dressed in the livery of the Doge, mounting the gangplank. “You have to have your papers before you can disembark.”
Sarah stepped back as the two men came on board and took the ship’s manifest and the crew list from Captain Shore.
“This passenger?” the first man demanded in perfect English.
“Mrs. Bathsheba Jolly,” Sarah said, repeating the name of one of her workmates that she had told Captain Shore. “Of Kensington village, near London.”
“In good health?” The official’s hard gaze scanned her, looking for a feverish flush in her cheeks, or any trembling. “No swellings or sores?”
She shook her head.
“Have you kept company with the sick?”
“No,” Sarah said. “There’s no plague in London, thank God.”
“You’d have been sent to the lazaretto if there was any chance of plague,” he said grimly. “With the whole ship’s crew. Left there for forty days’ quarantine, however pretty.”
“I don’t have it,” she assured him. “I don’t know anyone who has had it. Really.”
“Purpose of visit?”
“To collect some furniture belonging to my mistress from her store.”
“Address?”
“Palazzo Russo,” Sarah replied. “Ca’ Garzoni.”
“Occupation?”
“I am a milliner, serving Nobildonna da Ricci.”
“The safety of the Republic of Venice is the responsibility of every citizen and visitor,” the official told her sternly. “If you learn anything that would damage the Republic then you must report it at once. If you do not report it, you are regarded as party to the crime. Equally, if anyone believes that you are working against the Republic then you will be reported and taken up for questioning. Do you understand?”
Sarah swallowed down her unease, nodding obediently.
“The questioning is done inside the Palace of the Doge,” the man said. “Everyone always answers. Punishment for wrongdoing is swift and very onerous.”
“I understand,” Sarah whispered. “But I assure you, I promise that I want no trouble with anyone. I’m a milliner!” She offered her occupation as if to claim that she was as unimportant as a wisp of silk on a bonnet. “Just a milliner! Running an errand.”
“Even so, you are required to maintain the safety of the Republic,”he repeated. “You are the eyes and ears of the Doge while you are his guest.”
Sarah nodded again.
“You tell her how to make a report,” the official ordered Captain Shore. “Then she can go ashore.”
He produced a paper with a red seal in the corner, scribbled his signature, gave it to Sarah, and turned to start his inspection of the crew and goods.
Sarah showed the paper to Captain Shore. “I have to make a report?” she asked.
“That’s your landing papers,” he said. “It’s called a permesso. They’ll ask for your permesso. You show it to any official that asks for it. You have to carry it with you all the time. They know exactly who’s here, in the city. This is your passport, you hand it back to them when you come on board to go home, you have to show it for them to let you leave. Keep it safe, you can’t leave without it.”
