The Venetian Revelation
When a Sunday sounds like a Wednesday, it does not bode well for the day ahead.
Looking back, I can still remember that morning, just before the bizarre and monumental events took place. Eventually, the world as we knew it back then would be changed immeasurably. But back then, just rising from my comfortable bed, I thought of it as an annoyingly early start to a Sunday: Sunday the 7th of May, the year 1592nd of our lord.
I was awoken by a loud banging on my bedroom door. Vaguely, I moaned something, my mind still trying to sleep, but the banging continued. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes.
The bedroom was- well, I can't remember, really. I can only remember the vaguest of details about it by now. Twenty years is a long time to forget things in, but I shall write what I haven't forgotten already.
The window looked out over the Rialto Bridge, which had been recently (and I use the word recently in a relative sense. 1591 seemed recent at the time) rebuilt in stone. The view, as I recall, was really something to behold. When I had trouble sleeping (which is quite often. One sometimes hears of monks in far Cathay, who practice something known as "meditation." I have quite the opposite problem, I can assure you!) I sometimes went over to that window and look out over the Grand Canal, and the lagoon itself, to ponder life, the heavens and whatever else there is out there. Quite a lot as it turned out, but I digress. Suffice to say that seeing the stars and moon reflected on the lagoon was a genuinely awe inspiring sight.
I also remember a small writing desk, a chair and a large old sea chest which served as a wardrobe and strongbox at the same time, but very little else. It may be the case that I generally did live like the Spartans of old. It may not be. As I have mentioned before, twenty years is a long time.
Anyway, after struggling to proper wakefulness, I felt it necessary to enquire as to the source of the banging. In response to my questioning, a familiar voice replied:
"It's me, Maestro Grimbaldi! It's me!" the voice cried.
"Horowitz?" I asked. Horowitz was my manservant, a short but eternally cheerful Jew whose Christian name escapes me to this day, just as much as totally fluent Italian escaped him. Perhaps that's a shame. He's dead now, you see.
"Yes, Maestro!" The hammering abated for a moment.
"Well, stop hammering for a moment, my dear fellow, so I can let you in!" I replied forcefully. I fumbled for the key, found it on the bedside table, and unlocked the door.
Horowitz stepped in. He looked as if he had dressed hastily. He had forgotten to don his hat, and his thinning red hair appeared tousled. But his normal enthusiasm continued unabated. That was one of the reasons why I liked him so much. The spring in his step and ever present broad grin reminded me of the son I never saw become a man. Marco Grimbaldi was then serving as a cartographer for some Spanish expedition to the New World. Where he is now, I don't know.
"Well, what did you come here for?" I said, rubbing my eyes. "It's"- I looked at the pocket watch on my bedside table- "Three of the clock in the morning! On the one night when I was properly getting some sleep. Is the house on fire or something?"
The manservant hung his head. "No, Maestro." He only seemed upset or downhearted when I rebuked him. But only for a moment. True to form, he soon retained his normal manner. "It is incredible!"
"What is? If the Son of God is downstairs, tell me I'll be there when I've got dressed. If not, leave me in peace." It can be observed that I was in a terrible mood at the time.
"But he could me, Maestro!" This was not an answer that I was expecting. Maybe, "The house is burning Maestro! We must leave!" But not this.
"What?" My ears metaphorically pricked up, like those of a fox.
"I cannot explain, Maestro. May I suggest that you take a look out of your window?"
I did so, and suddenly became aware of something odd. Initially, it had escaped my mind; huge crowds of people talking amongst themselves are not rare in Venice, after all. But then the sheer absurdity of it struck me; firstly, it was a Sunday, the Sabbath day, so people did not gather in large crowds around market stalls and talk, and secondly that it was only three o' clock in the morning. Something strange was happening.
I looked out of the window. A large mass of people had gathered around the banks of the canal. They were all talking excitedly amongst themselves, and were pointing up to the sky. I shifted my gaze upwards to follow theirs. And gasped.
It seemed that someone had positioned another Sun in to the heavens, but at night time. Something huge and bright was streaking across the sky, so bright that my eyes ached to look at it. I looked towards the lagoon, and could see two skies at once, two of the great comets (if that was what it was. Now we know better, of course) hurtling towards each other, like a pair of Spanish bulls in a ring. The lagoon shone out, for a moment glorious and golden, and it then hit me in a flash as to where the thing was going to land. And there was no question that it was. I could hear a rumbling, which was steadily growing louder. And it was about to hit home…
"Get down!" I shouted, diving on to Horowitz and tackling us both on to the carpeted floor. The impact of the floor knocked the breath out of me, and I head my manservant grunt in pain. Several seconds passed.
Nothing happened. I began to lever myself off the floor.
And then, as a poet once said, the sky broke.
There was a great thunderous roar and a blindingly bright flash of light, both of which gave the impression of a great cannon firing across the lagoon. The great wave of noise hurled me back in to my bedroom door. In my brief flight I caught sight of my open window. I caught a glimpse of a black cloud of debris from the impact hurtling across the lagoon towards us, and then-
Blackness.
I awoke to the full heat of a Venetian day. Light flooded in to my room, almost as bright as the comet from the night before. At the time, I seem to remember a great thumping headache, like one that men get after getting carried away with the wine. And as it was the Sabbath day, church bells were ringing out across the city. Each toll seemed to add to my headache, and also reminded me that I had probably missed mass. For a moment I wondered why Horowitz hadn't awakened me. Then a terrible thought came in to my mind. Maybe he was dead! After all, the comet's impact had knocked me out for (now that I had had time to consult my watch) around seven hours. Maybe it had done worse to him; he was, after all, getting long in the tooth, as the saying goes (how old, I didn't know), and was a far smaller man than I. Who knew what may have became of him?
As it turned out, he was alive, and had evidently just returned from whatever it is that a Jew does when he has spare time, and everyone else has gone to mass. He was just removing his hat when I confronted him. After greeting him in what I hoped was a friendly manner, I asked him "Now tell me, damn you" (the headache was still very much present) "What has exactly been happening while I was out?"
"Certainly, Maestro," he grinned. "Well, after you were knocked out, and the noise had died down, I left the house to get help."
"The crowd on the pavement and bridge were disrupted, but not overtly. Most of them were already picking themselves up and wondering what had happened. A priest was saying prayers for the dying."
"The dying?" I asked, interestedly.
"Some of them had been hurled in to the canal," he said airily. He then continued on. "Anyway, I ran up and down the canals crying 'Signor Antonio Grimbaldi needs help! He needs help!' over and over again. But most of the city's doctors were tending to the more seriously wounded than you, Maestro."
"More seriously wounded? I was knocked out, damn it!" I cried, resisting the urge to strike out at the little man before me. My headache was only just beginning to ebb away at this point.
"A few people had been knocked in to canals, others hurled in to walls. I understand that there were a lot of deaths and dying on Murano."
I nodded, trying to imagine the amount of damage the glass blowing shops could have done to exposed flesh had the glasses blown out. I shuddered.
"But by dawn, most people had returned to their beds. I decided to copy them, but I was soon unexpectedly awakened by the sounds of church bells. I walked out of my bed, only to find that a man was knocking upon our door."
"I answered it at once, to find a priest was standing on the doorstep. 'Signor Grimbaldi is indisposed', I informed him."
"His eyes narrowed as he recognised my accent. 'You are a Jew?' He asked me in loud tones."
"'Indeed so,' I replied."
"'Well, even an inferior person like yourself must be able to see the significance of this day.'"
"'I cannot' I replied."
"'They have angels even in your faith, don't they?' He didn't wait for an answer, but went on 'something miraculous has occurred,' he said in an awed tone. 'An object from the heavens has descended to our humble Earth. Don't you take this as a sign? A week after Easter, too! Surely, something sacred is about to happen. Something which will change everything!'" To his credit, I have to say that he was right, but probably not in the way that anyone desired.
"Anyway, I told him to leave, and I reassured him that I would explain to the Maestro about this. He duly left, after making the sign of the cross, which left me to look for a boatman. Upon finding one-"
"To get to this… thing?"
"Exactly so, Maestro! I provided him with a certain amount of Ducats, and he agreed to take us to the mainland."
"When does he leave?"
"Well, he did not have a timepiece, he said when the Sun reaches halfway through tenth dash in a public sun-dial." The manservant looked at me inquisitively. "What is the time now, Maestro?"
"About ten past ten."
"May I help you dress, Maestro?"
"Yes, Horowitz," I said, headache forgotten. "You may."
The boatman was good at his job. Horowitz had hired a small rowing boat, which now contained another family who had evidently had the same idea as he had. There was Matteo Giovanni, the father; Caterina, his wife who's face reminded me so much of the late Lucrecia Grimbaldi and a son and daughter set of twins named Giacomo and Giovanna respectively. Signor Giovanni, I was gratified to learn, actually knew of me.
"You are the Antonio Grimbaldi?" he asked incredulously. "The Cartographer?"
I told him that I was.
"San Marco be praised! I must tell you now, Signor," and at this point the man leaned past the oarsmen to give me a serious look. He was beginning to lose the battle with overweight ness, poor man, and I could smell the sweat dripping off his florid face. "I must tell you now," he continued, "that my merchants always use printings of your maps."
"They do?" I asked him, feeling more than a little pleased with myself.
"Indeed so! From Cadiz to Liverpool, they use only Grimbaldi's maps." Giovanni smiled ingratiatingly.
I tried to think of how I could return the comment. I like to think that my maps are extremely accurate- I had collected information for them from the writings of everyone from Harriot and Cortéz to Polo and de Bethencourt. However, I had never heard of any of the Giovanni family. But before I had to try and think of something, the boatman informed us that we had reached the mainland.
The moment that we had set foot outside of the boat, I could see the effect of the Comet (as it was now known.) A great, blackened crater, like that of a volcano, could be seen blasted in to the earth. Several animal corpses were nearby, perhaps indicating that it had crashed in to a rabbit warren. The smell of cooked meat was now filling the air. Just about all present had produced handkerchiefs or fans of some kind to try and ward off the smell.
I could have done with a fan myself; the heat of the day was overwhelming, and I was beginning to sweat heavily. The formal clothes I had chosen to wear for the occasion were not helping, either. The expensive silk shirt and hose were not that warm, I suppose, but the red tunic and cloak helped the day to become almost stifling. Still, I took solace in that I was not the only one suffering. Many people, perhaps a hundred or more, had decided to take a closer look at the Comet. I could see a veritable flotilla of rowing boats coming out of Venice. Amongst them were several larger ships. I could just about make out cannon sticking out of the sides of most of them. Clearly, the Doge was taking no chances as to the nature of this phenomenon.
And, squinting, I could just about make out the Lion standard on one of the warships. The Doge himself was coming! As was, upon closer inspection of the flag, the Cardinal of Venice. Pasqual Cicogna and Lorenzo Cardinal Priuli. They were arguably some of the greatest figures in Venetian history. The Doge had ordered the Rialto bridge to be remade of stone, and the Cardinal had restored the cathedral.
They would probably not have been gratified to have known that they would have been the last who reigned for any amount of time.
Nearby, I could see a party of people, led by a bearded priest, bent on their knees and praying. At first, I thought that it was for the dead and the dying, but then one of them raised his voice. I heard the words "chariot of the gods." The Comet, then. I stood and watched, as another family took tentative steps towards it and leant a great wooden crucifix upon its side. It burst into flames almost immediately. Almost everyone, including myself, jumped back in shock. The bearded priest took it as a sign and began to pray all the louder.
My opinion at the time was somewhat more… pragmatic. Whilst I have, do and always will believe that God is looking down and smiling at us, and have attended mass and confession as often as I could, when one reads as much as I do, one comes across opinions and facts which do not match up to those which the Bible displays. For example, I firmly believe in Copernicus's theory, as opposed to the Catholic one. I don't exactly know why, but it just makes sense somehow.
This knowledge perhaps directed my thoughts towards the nature of this. It simply was a comet, or perhaps a shooting star. Admittedly, I could see that the surface of it was of some kind of silvery metal, and I could just about make out a strange humming from the inside. It was doubtless a very hot object as well; I could see several scorch marks upon its surface, and a few decidedly burnt pieces of wood or metal where others had decided to lay objects of devotion upon it, and was about the size of a largish house. At the time, I just thought that this was what a shooting star looked like up close. Looking back, a quote from the Shakespeare play Hamlet comes to mind: "There is more in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than dreamt of in your philosophy." But alas, the Bard was not writing plays then. As to what he was doing, I do not know, and it is irrelevant in any case.
"Make way! Make way for the doge!" someone was shouting. I turned to see a herald, bearing the doge's insignia, standing just in front of a large group of people.
I hastily stepped aside. A lot of the people the herald was leading were well dressed, presumably various important officials. Some were priests, presumably indicating the presence of the Cardinal. A couple of standard bearers carried their flags, which depicted the great lion of Venice and the crossed keys and crucifix of the church. They now walked in solemn ceremony up to the comet, ready to meet whatever emerged from it. We all thought it was angels, if anything.
But nothing came.
The day wore on. A group of musicians arrived, and soon the air was full with the sounds of lute and pipes. Some workmen, probably from the nearby town of Mestre, set up pavilions to shade the wealthier citizens. Happily, Horowitz managed to reserve a seat, so I managed to settle down and start grazing on the grapes and wine that someone had helpfully ordered a servant to pass around. A merchant ship sailed in, and unloaded a huge party of lepers, who were led by a short, plump looking monk. They were given a wide berth, along with a smaller group of people with tumours. Both parties of the ill knelt down by the comet and started praying. They all hoped that God could cure what all our modern sciences and bleeding had failed to do.
The day wore on.
I fear that I had managed to fall into a doze, for one moment I was dozily listening to the prayers, and the next I was being shaken violently by Horowitz. The sun was now low, reddening the sky like blood spreading. The prayers had largely subsided, though a few dogged people had kept at it. Their efforts now sounded like a funeral dirge more than anything else.
"What's happening?" I asked sleepily.
"Maestro! Something has changed about the Comet!" the manservant replied excitedly. He was pointing at the Comet. For a moment, I wandered what he, as a Jew, thought about the prayers, but then I noticed a small knot of dark robed figures. I don't pretend to be a great Pro-Semite, but Venice has always looked after its Jews. Not as equals, you understand, but as yet no one has whipped up a flagellating crowd to purge the Christ Killers.
I jerked into wakefulness, and leapt up. The low humming, which I had stopped noticing long ago, had now increased in volume. A large party of soldiers, whose landing I had slept through, now cocked their matchlocks in a series of clicks and levelled their pikes. The people began to mutter amongst themselves, pointing at the Comet.
Which was now beginning to open.
It was hollow, and a section in front of the Doge's party was beginning to lift open like the door on a coffin. I leaned around and could just about see a series of poles, which extended like a perspective glass, forcing the door open under a strange energy.
Slowly, and silently, the door swung down. A steam filled the dark innards of the comet. A vague silhouette began to emerge, dark and threatening.
You could have cut the air with a sword. Everyone was craning their necks to look at the newcomers to our world. I suspect that the worshippers may have felt a little disappointed. They may have expected some heavenly choir of angels. But no. Some may have been expecting the blessed Virgin herself, or maybe even Christ.
Some people crossed themselves. The soldiers tightened their grips on their weapons. The Cardinal and his attending priests began to intone the Lord's Prayer.
The figure emerged from the great, dark space.
It was massively tall, at least seven feet in height, and it moved slowly. It resembled a man in plate armour in some ways; it was metallic, and it moved jerkily, like Da Vinci's knight. The great inventor had once came to Venice, and whilst I was not born at the time, descriptions of his famous clockwork knight circulated through the generations. The thing's head was carved in the shape of a hawk's. In its long metal arms was a great stave, the end of which was curiously widened. Its skin, if skin it was, was a dull steel-grey colour, apart from its head, which was of gold. The hawk face, I now noted, was of a furious expression.
All around, the people let out a collective gasp of astonishment. Some actually recoiled. This thing was most decidedly not an angel of the lord.
The Doge stepped forward. I could see him now in my mind's eye: the long, hooked nose and well trimmed white hair giving him the appearance of some Roman patrician. I knew that he must have felt the same revulsion as the rest of us- he was, after all, a common man elected to power, and was rarely allowed outside the Palace and St. Mark's square. But he had mastered his fear, and now said in a stirring voice-
"Welcome to Venice, Signor Angelo. I am the humble ruler of this city, and it is my great honour to say…"
The creature paused, as if listening for a moment, then raised its staff and, in an almost bored manner, beheaded the Doge.
Blood jetted out of the severed neck, as scarlet as the setting sun.
For a moment, no one said a word. It was as if time had stood still. Even the animals around us had stopped chirruping.
Then the screaming began.
This moment has been depicted many hundreds of times in art and verse. It has became known as the "Blow which was felt around the world."
But so far as I know, mine is the only eye witness account to these events. All vestiges of religion and pride were lost from the people as they fled, screaming, towards the boats. I managed to leap out of the pavilion just in time to see it trampled by the mob as they fled. My last glimpse of my manservant, Horowitz, was to see him trying to get out as well. His face was, for once, as scared as the rest of us.
He tripped over a tent peg and, I presume, got stepped on by the crowd.
I never even registered his death at the time. I just turned and ran from the masses.
By now the soldiers had started to react. I could see them bracing their pike butts against the ground, as if receiving a cavalry charge, not against the creature, but against the mob. Most of them had managed to get out of the way, but some poor souls got spitted on Venetian steel. My heart chills to recall the sight of a poor, leprous child trying to pull the great spear out of his belly, crying out in agony all the while. More of the things began to emerge from the comet, some armed like the first, others with Cat like heads and strangely shaped spears which spat strange lighting at the people nearby. Those who were hit simply died instantly, clothes setting alight as the heat of the impact torched them. I could see at least one fully armoured soldier going down in the same way.
I pushed past a priest and leapt at a rowing boat. There was no time for courtesy, it was just a race for survival along with everyone else. Somehow, I managed to make it on, landing with a hard thump in the wooden hull. Ignoring the growing bruise on my head, I clambered up and grabbed an oar. The boat rocked alarmingly as Signor Giovanni and co. got in with me, but it remained righted.
"Where's the boatman?" I cried impotently. The shrugs in response indicated his absence.
"Where's that manservant of yours?" Signor Giovanni replied, before turning and soothing his weeping family.
"Well…" I began to respond, and the truth sunk in like a dagger to the heart. "Dead, I suppose." For the first time since childhood, I almost began to cry. But I stopped it and began to row. Unsurprisingly, all Venetians were taught to swim and row from a young age, be they commoner or councillor. Signor Giovanni chipped in, with surprising strength for one of his bulk, as did his son Giacomo. I would have liked the women to have helped, but that would have been unseemly.
Back on the mainland, things were going from bad to worse. I saw a boat capsize as too many people leapt on to it. This led to many boatmen casting off too early, fearing for their lives, and as a result scores, if not hundreds people were stranded with the creatures. The Galleasses which had carried the soldiers over were now firing their cannon batteries at the things, resulting in far more confusion and panic for the people than enemy deaths. A cannon shot ripped through a group of priests as they prayed for the dying. I saw the event from the boat as just a splash of red on a white clump, but it is known that sound travels well over water. I could hear the shrieks of the maimed and the dying.
I could hear an officer shouting orders. "Present arms! Fire!" He roared, followed by a series of cracks which I took to be musket shots. I could hear crackle of the weird weapons the things carried.
I could hear the war cries, "San Marco! San Marco!" the soldiers chanted as they fought, along with the sounds of fife and drum. The cannon sounded like thunder claps as the ships fired again and again.
I could hear hoof beats as some people mounted up and fled, carrying word to nearby towns of this discovery.
I could hear the clash of steel and the screams of the wounded.
All was obscured in a fog of powder smoke, occasionally lit up as the guns of the ships belched fire.
And then…
Nothing.
We didn't stop rowing until we reached Venice, shocked and exhausted.
The body count remains unknown to this day, but estimates are vast. Of the one hundred soldiers who set out to provide an honour guard for the saints, none returned. The civilian deaths remain unknown; the doge and cardinal were both killed, and unknown masses of pilgrims and commoners, merchants and nobles were either trampled, drowned, shot down or hacked to death.
The church bells rang for a night and a day to lament the dead. Unable to recover the corpses, the priests wore funeral garb and prayed for the fallen anyway.
A new Doge was elected, one Marino Grimani. On his coronation day, after he scattered the traditional golden ducats over the ground and donned the black robe of a mourner. He vowed never to remove it until these "heathen beasts were purged from God's realm."
During the night, we had seen more comets streaking down across the globe.
Observers had sailed out and had given us the encouraging news that, not only were the beasts gone, but they had also left several scattered corpses. This showed us that they could be killed, and doubtless cheered the soldiers no end.
The next day, cannons were wheeled up to the parts of Venice which faced the mainland. Their long brass barrels gleamed from the Piazzo San Marco to the windows of the slums. On the same day, officers galloped round the city on horseback, demanding that all men of military age- seventeen to sixty- would report to the Arsenal to be armed for war. I had taken to walking around with my old cutlass and pistol at my side by now- relics of the days when I had mapped the straits of Gibraltar in person, risking Moor and Spanish pirates all the way- so I was seemingly declared armed, and ignored by the recruiting parties. Others were not so lucky. When walking around the market to buy myself bread, and bemoaning Horowitz's loss all the way, I noticed that virtually all the stall keepers were gone. So too, had many of the customers. The city was eerily silent, and the canals were virtually empty of people. The Arsenal had been opened, and warships were now surrounding the islands, especially Venezia, the one closest to the mainland. Boats were sent out to the rest of the Republic, to try and fetch soldiers from further south.
Venice was now a city ready for war.
Two days later, another host was sighted, marching up to the comet and standing still as statues near to it. They vanished during the night.
The next four days were spent waiting anxiously for the things to attack.
That night, they did.
I was awoken by a great clap of thunder. I clambered out of bed and went over to my window, still my favoured sleeping potion. (And for those of you who pointed out that I slept perfectly well during the day, all I can say to that it that my condition just works that way.) I swung open the shutters, only to see that the Rialto Bridge was now aflame. I cried out in panic, and, after dressing quickly and, after unlocking my chest and grabbing the items I considered essential in this eventuality (full water skin, bag of gold, the copies of several maps which I could earn a living out of if the rest burned, weapons) in to a sack and dashed down stairs. I swung open the door and dashed out on to the street.
I turned towards the blaze only to hear someone roaring at me to "Get down, damn you!" I dived to the floor, eerily like I had when this whole thing had started over a week ago, just as the thunderclap sounded again. I felt something whiz over my back so close that it flapped my hair, only to hear the sound of shattering metal. I clambered up and turned around.
A smoking cannon stood, having crashed back through several plant pots and destroyed a house's façade in its recoil. The sound of its shots must have been the thunderclaps that I had heard. Its crew were busily grabbing hand weapons. I correctly guessed what they had fired at and ran. I turned over my shoulder to see the creatures steadily marching towards the gun crew over the remnants of one of their comrades. I pulled out my pistol, aimed, and decided against it when the front one raised its club and smashed it into the lead gunner's chest. The rest of the crew turned and ran.
I decided to do the same.
The crackle of their strange lightning generators filled the air. Yet another building caught fire. The screams from within indicated that it was still occupied.
I ran on, searching desperately for a boat.
Whatever these machines could do, running was decidedly not one of them. I easily outpaced them, but still didn't stop.
Panting, I staggered past a squad of troops double timing their way forward. Their captain turned to me and shouted at me. "Get back in line, you craven dog!" he roared, before he was silenced forever by a lightning bolt. I heard the soldiers giving a final roar of "Avenge Vuspetti! San Marco!" before charging at their foes, pikes held high.
I kept running, hearing the screams as the beasts smashed their way past the pike wall.
Eventually I stopped, panting, by one of the quays as yet another group of citizens fled for the boats. It was like rats escaping a sinking ship. From the sounds of shots and steel I could tell that some people still fought the creatures, but the fires were spreading. They blasted gunpowder stores to pieces, destroyed barricades and forced defenders back, choking, away from the smoke and flames.
And it was destroying, slowly but surely, over a millennium's worth of one of the greatest human endeavours in the world, if not in all of history. What started as a refugee camp for people fleeing the Huns as they destroyed the Romans had now emerged, against all the odds, as the centre of one of the greatest nations in the world. Venice, the City of canals had commanded a republic stretching from northern Italy to Cyprus. It had became a centre of art and learning, of trade and commerce, of military might and Christian faith. All this, from a handful of scared, terrified men and women of the ashes of a nation.
All gone. Burning. Dead.
I eventually managed to find a refugee boat, which, full to capacity, sailed away from a dying nation. It wasn't until the flames were only a dot on the horizon did it occur to me to ask someone about what had happened. I turned to one of the sailors and asked him. He gave me a look of hollow eyed fear before answering.
"I dunno, signor. One moment, I was on this boat, at my post on the watch. All merchant ships have them, you see, in case of piracy an' that." He gave a nervous laugh. "A fortnight ago we was a spice trader from Genoa. Anyway, one moment we was having a drink of our rum- for the cold, you understand, signor- and the next the buggers were climbing up out of the lagoon on to the city. Then they started shooting and burning and killing." He shuddered. "The cap'n took us round to a quay side so as we could help out a bit." This was probably a lie, looking back on it now. No man would want to go into that slaughter. But there is an instinct, I have discovered, amongst men who have served together, to look after each other. And, if necessary, make up for each other's shortfalls. "Then we started picking you people up. It was hellish, it was signor, with all the devils shooting at us and the fire and the…" He turned back to his post. I let him be.
Venice burned for days. Brave souls looked out from their boats with perspective glasses and recorded the events. I was not one of these, having landed in the London docks after many days of starvation and squalor, and so I am forced to use other accounts.
They say that Venice took anything from seven to ten days to burn. They describe the sight of St. Mark's square, the sight of a last stand of the Venetian soldiers, being repeatedly hit by the lightening from their strange weapons, until it eventually burned to the ground, taking hundreds of works of art with it. They describe how the "Devils", as we now call them, crossed to Murano and began smashing and burning, killing even the smallest insect that they found. The glass had fused together by the end, or else had been broken into fragments.
They all describe the strangely sweet smell of death that hung in the air for weeks afterward around the ruins of Venice.
The rest of the tale of the Devils is now well known. They had landed their strange craft in hundreds, and had begun to kill every human they found.
Some cities resisted through military might alone. Others held out due to the elements around them. It was discovered that sand snarls up the workings of the Devils like it does a watch, so that they became easy prey for the desert nomads around them.
It is known, however, that the Devils razed an area of land from Northern Italy to Antwerp and most of Northern and Western Europe. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, millions of homes and towns destroyed, until the things simply stopped working.
I remember one day when, taking an early morning stroll around my new home in Berkshire (the new cure for my sleeping problem) when I came upon a pack of Devils. Hastily, I turned to run, only to find that it had simply stopped. It drooped like a puppet with cut strings. I naturally dashed back to the village to tell everyone the good news: that the nightmare was seemingly over.
Theories are abound as to why they stopped. Some say that it was a miracle of God or Allah: that he had unleashed his judgement upon the Devils. These people probably had prompted the building of the Cathedral of the lost in Canterbury as a memorial to the dead. They are not widely believed; people have lost faith in the wake of this disaster. Others say that it was the result of old age. As for me, I come in to the third camp.
It is known that the Plague still exists in some areas, along with other less significant diseases. It had also been observed, in these modern days, that injecting the blood of a cow poxed cow into a person renders him immune to smallpox. The theory goes that we have built up a similar resistance to any number of diseases over the years which the Devils simply lacked. Therefore, they just died of disease. It was probably this that prompted Tycho Brahe to discover the vaccine.
The theories for as to why the things arrived are just as numerous. The most common one was brought about, I am proud to say, by the writings of my own son. Upon getting back from the new world, and upon learning of the catastrophe, he expressed shock. None of the comets had landed in the New World. After a bit of research, he noted the similarities between some of the Aztec weapons and deities, and those carried by the Devils. Similarly, he notes that the activities of the Conquistadores were often said by the natives to have "angered the gods." Their legends tell of Gods who left the Earth, vowing to return in the Aztec's time of peril. So maybe these things, which we after all presumed were of heavenly origin, fooled the Aztecs in to believing them to be Gods, when they were in fact just interstellar travellers. It is certainly strange, when you look at the myths of other cultures, just how often similar tales crop up.
But I digress. Idle speculation is going to interest no one whatever, so I leave here just a brief description of what happened after the Devils were stopped.
The Middle East, for reasons which I have already specified, emerged largely untouched by the Devils, and so began to help the world back on to its feet. It is surprising as to how much land was taken by the Turks and Moors as a reward for all the gold and aid they gave to nations in need, but that just goes to show that human nature never changes. The Moors own much of the Iberian peninsula and much of what was once south eastern France, while the Turks, in an act of vicious irony, have taken much of where the devil invasion began: The Republic of Venice. They also have most of the remains of Hungary, and are now poised to strike Russia, which was saved from the Devils by its vast landmass and the hardiness of its people. As for the Venetians, we are now all over the world. There are small pockets of Venetians in coastal towns and cities from Tunis to Bergen. Who knows what may have happened had the Devils never came? No one now.
As for myself, I have been flourishing. The few maps I brought back from Venice have been improved owing to my son's work in the Americas, and with the help of a printing press I have been earning a fairly sizeable income. The Giovannis, I understand, have settled in London and are doing reasonably well. Caterina and the children have been living well off their father's inheritance. He died defending his family from the Devils. He was a braver man than I ever will be. And, of course, a widow needs a comforter, so I gladly stepped in to that role.
Before we judge whoever the Devils are too harshly, it is important to note how similar what they did to us is to what we do to "Savages" across the world from Africa to America, as it is now called. The technological difference between us and the Devils us just as great as that between us, with our firearms and perspective glasses and marble buildings, and (for example) the Aztecs. And, if the legend it correct, the Devils had a more noble reason to help the Aztecs (a sacred oath) than we do to conquer the Indies (in short, greed.)
But enough pontificating. I hear the servant tolling the dinner gong. And on this note, I suspect that this account had came to its natural conclusion.
Good Luck in all your endeavours, Mr. Shakespeare. I hope that the play goes well
Your humble servant,
Antonio Grimbaldi
17