Doctor Who and the Empire of Glass | Page 5

hair matted and its tail coiled like a pink worm. Zeno could even see the avaricious, calculating gleam in its eye.
"Back to the Devil, you garbage-eating fiend," he snarled, and started up the stairs towards it, stamping his boots on the wood. The rat watched for a moment, then calmly turned and scuttled towards a hole in the plaster-covered laths of the wall. As Zeno advanced past the stair, he thought he saw its whiskers twitching in the darkness. God and the Doge alone knew how many rats infested his house. Hundreds perhaps. The scrabbling of their claws kept him awake at night as they ran across the floor, scuttled behind the walls and scrabbled between the joists of the ceiling. Rats were the bane of Venice. Rats and Turks.
The door to the top floor of the house was closed, and Carlo pounded on it. "I've come for the rent!" he shouted, but there was no sound from within. Perhaps his tenant had gone out for a walk, or to buy some food, although Carlo hadn't heard him on the stairs. Perhaps he was asleep. Grimani the barkeeper said that the man drank until he could hardly stand up some nights, and the widow Carpaccio across the alley said she often saw his lamp shining until sunrise. Carlo hadn't asked what the widow Carpaccio was doing awake at that time: it was well known in the district of San Polo that she entertained gentlemen in order to pay her bills. Carlo, on the other hand, was forced to depend on those temporary visitors to Venice who wanted more freedom than that offered by a hotel.
"The rent!" he shouted again, slamming the heel of his hand against the wood. "Do you hear, you lazy slugabed?"
The door was suddenly pulled open. The room was dark, and smelled of sour wine, old fruit and unwashed bedding. The scant light from the window down on the landing barely illuminated the sullen figure of Carlo's tenant. His shirt was undone, and his breeches were creased as if he had been sleeping in them.
"You fat oaf," he said in his haughty Florentine accent. "Unless you've come to tell me that the Doge has finally granted me an audience, or that the lagoon is flooding, I'll have your tongue for a garter."
Carlo stared blankly at his tenant's plump, bearded face for a few moments. He could barely stop himself from picking the man up and throwing him bodily down the stairs. What incredible arrogance! He'd been occupying Carlo's top floor and the roof platform for two weeks now, and Carlo had yet to receive a pleasant word from him. Or any money.
"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