Cat Fantasy Short-Story Contest Winner:
"Isola Bella" by Betty Gibb

Copyright ©1998 by Betty Gibb

"I will say in advance this one true thing, to wit,
I am going to tell you lies."

Lucian (c125-c190 AD)

It came upon a midnight foggy on the last night of Carnival when the centuries numbered sixteen and Venice ruled the world.

It snaked silently up the black canal and landed just below the deserted Rialto Bridge, its arrival witnessed only by one small boy and one hundred cats.

The one small boy, known to the cats as Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy, barely glanced at the golden gondola across the waters of the Grand Canal.

It was a mirage.

There were ten thousand gondolas plying the hundreds of twisting canals and narrow muddy alleys of Venice in that year of our Lord 1596 and every one was black. It was the law. Eccolo, the golden gondola was a mirage.

Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy shrugged. It was a trick of the fog which had begun to gather over the water. He had seen the lights of Venice mix with the mists of the Grand Canal many times before to disguise the familiar. Soon the midnight moon would bring the curtain down on the masquerade and reveal this golden gondola to be a vegetable barge or a common garbage scow.

The one hundred cats, known to the boy as Catnep And Her Many Kittens, also ignored the arrival.

It was not a mirage.

Catnep had already advised Her Many Kittens of that fact. Her eyes, as golden as the gondola, could plainly see that the golden gondola was real and that the fog was not. The clouds which were gathering held snow. In fact no sooner had she stated this, under her breath, than the first flakes began to touch her nose. Unusual for Venice to get snow at any time. This late in winter. Impossible. Still, this snow would not be cold. Just messy. It was an ominous and unexpected change in the weather just the same.

But mirage or no mirage, Catnep shrugged off the golden gondola too. There were more important matters just now. She joined Her Many Kittens who were rolling and moaning and groaning at Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy's feet, though the small gold and amber lioness of Venice struck a more majestic attitude while she purred between groans and moans. It had been the best bad business day of the past seven of Carnival.

Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy had removed the false nose mask he had been wearing night and day for close to a week and was cutting up a glorious mountain of unsold sea-scorpions. With such lovely bloody hacking and splitting how could one worry about a golden gondola and an impossible snowfall?

Catnep watched her young charge closely through her permanent butterfly mask of stripes. She knew the boy was worried about the beating he would surely receive when The Fishmonger recovered from the malmsey wine of Carnival and counted only four soldi and six baggalini coins in pitiful profit. It would not be a fair beating. The boy had pushed his cart since dawn,accompanied as always by Catnep. Both had sung grandly and loudly about the joys of fresh fish to thousands of anonymous white satin skulls grinning under their black velvet hoods. "Beautiful and all alive," they had called out a thousand times. But none of the beggars disguised as priests had expressed any hunger for fresh gudgeon. No soldiers impersonating merchants had stopped for a nice piece of sturgeon. Not one gentleman masquerading as his own servant had expressed an interest in anchovies. And the noblewomen and courtesans pretending to be each other seemed to desire something far different than a bag of live eels.

Instead, the drunken Carnival revellers had shoved Giovanni roughly aside or rudely poked him in the ribs and tweaked his false nose. They had flung eggs full of perfumed water at him and pelted Catnep with oranges. Screaming with laughter, they had joined hands and danced around the fish cart in a shower of ribbons and pumpkin seeds. It had all been an enormous joke, a skinny raggedy boy and a cat trying to sell fish on the eve of Lent. After all, this was the last possible day that a citizen of Venice could even consume meat before forty long days and nights of abstinence and fish, fish, fish.

Giovanni scooped up a handful of the choicest bits of the unsold fish. Catnep stretched her tawny paws, first the left then the right, while pointing her ringed tail perfectly down and arching her back perfectly up, to show the boy that at least one of the citizens of Venice appreciated his wares and would reward him with more than just a few soldi for his trouble. Tonight, as always, Catnep and Her Many Kittens would cover Giovanni's shivering bones with a warm and purring blanket while keeping the canal rats at bay. The small lioness of Venice had provided this service ever since she had discovered the naked bambino abandoned in a basket of mackerel which had been dead for more hours than Giovanni had been alive.

For fourteen years, Catnep had given warmth to the many dreams of the young orphan of The Rialto as they both slept in their special place in the marketplace, under the Great Mappamondo carved in the marble portico which traced the four corners of the world discovered by the Sons of Italia ...Christofaro Colombo...Marco Polo ...Sebestyan Cabota. Giovanni dreamed all his nights only of these places. No such dreams for Catnep who was perfectly happy with dry land. She had already spent far too much time accidentally in the canals of Venice. No watery life on the open seas for her.

Or that was what she used to tell Her Many Kittens until the arrival of Juan de Fuca The Travel Liar on the very first day of Carnival. Now, both Giovanni and Catnep dreamed of a faraway place across an ocean, marked on a crude map as Terra Incognita--There Be Dragons--Isola Bella. It was not important to either boy or cat that the Great Mappamondo of marble did not mark the way to Isola Bella. What was important was that the torn parchment map of Juan de Fuca The Travel Liar did.

Giovanni and Catnep had befriended Juan de Fuca The Travel Liar when business had proved to very bad for all three. The tent of The Travel Liar was one of hundreds of tents set up in the Piazza San Marcos for Carnival. The Piazza was a vast rolling sea of acrobats, jugglers, contortionists, buffoons, musicians, magicians, actors, and charlatans from all nations, vying with each other to part the most fools of their gold in the seven days of Carnival. In one obscure corner of the Piazza, like a small island, Catnep had discovered The Travel Liar's rag of a shelter made of patched sailcloth that hardly deserved to be called a tent, and to this island she brought the boy, who at first protested that there were so many better tents to visit.

But Catnep knew that Juan de Fuca was named properly Apostolos Valerianos of the Nation Greece, born in the Island Cefalonia, of profession a Mariner, and an Ancient Pilot of Shippes. In spite of these credentials, Juan de Fuca Apostolas Valerianos The Travel Liar, rarely managed to part a Venetian of one soldi let alone gold. Though Carnival attracted a boisterous, forgiving and generous crowd to just about anything, most Venetians did not seem to be in the mood for fantastic traveler's tales.

But after that first night, Giovanni and Catnep were in the audience every night there after to hear the storytellers' tales of the island and its fabulous garden. Unfortunately, Juan de Fuca did not satisfy any of the other revellers and masqueraders who had wandered into his tent with his tales of "Isola Bella--The Long Lost Newly Rediscovered Fabulous Garden." On a good night the audience would throw a few mouldy vegetables at him. These, along with Giovanni's unsold fish had just barely kept him alive for the past seven days and nights. In gratitude for their appreciative applause, purrs, and free fish dinners, Juan had finally shown them the real map to Isola Bella. Catnep knew immediately that it was worth a hundred carved marble Great Mappamondos and a thousand of the gilded and painted fake maps on vellum with borders of puff-cheeked blowing wind gods, sea monsters and flying fish that The Travel Liar tried to sell to his gullible audiences. Giovanni, who had no such experience in the authenticity of maps of exploration in The New World, knew only that he wanted it to be so, just as he wanted Isola Bella and its fabulous garden to be so. But he could not rid himself of the niggling nagging doubt that all of Isola Bella might not be so since Juan de Fuca was after all a Travel Liar, one of a profession that travelled more by imagination than by the traditional means of transportation. It was an accepted fact that Travel Liars were master storytellers, pretending to visit places they never saw, and Juan de Fuca boasted nightly to his audiences that he was the master of the lie and not a slave of the truth. Yet when he showed Giovanni his map, he still insisted that Isola Bella was truth.

Juan de Fuca also admitted to Catnep, but not to Giovanni, that he did not really deserve the illustrious title of Travel Liar. It was after all an ancient, honorable and usually profitable profession. A good Travel Liar should have been able to fill his pockets within hours with invented facts and incredible fictions concerning the New World...descriptions of imaginary voyages to fabulous islands and fantastic lands...false claims of meetings with Patagonian giants and savages of the Americas clad in the skins of wild beasts...reports of discoveries of gold, silks and spices...fabrications of tales and adventures of nonsensical explorations. All those lies which always deceived no one but satisfied everyone's own biases, hopes and dreams just the same.

Catnep attributed this lack of talent at winning an audience to her belief that Juan de Fuca was always telling the truth. Eccolo, he made a worthless Liar. After all, Juan de Fuca really had explored the New World. He really had been a pilot of ships for the Spanish and as such had explored the South Seas, the North Seas, Mexico and the coast of Cape California and he really had discovered a northwest waterway passage across the top of North America. Catnep had heard the tales long before Juan de Fuca had arrived in Venice from ships cats arriving from the four corners of the world. But this was a new tale and most wondrous of all--in seeking the Straits of Anian, Juan de Fuca Apostolas Valerianos The Travel Liar had discovered Isola Bella, the long lost Isola Bella so many men had sought.

Catnep purred deep as thoughts of Isola Bella once again beat in her heart. She smiled up at her companion and was startled to see the look of fear in the boy's eyes. Puzzled, she turned. Her Many Kittens, as well as Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy, were also staring with big saucer eyes of fear at the golden gondola that was no mirage. Two very real men emerged from the carved and canopied cabin.

One, a tall black slave in the livery doublet and silk hose of the gondolier, held a big brass lamp filled with the finest virgin olive oil high above his head as he carefully led his master ashore Catnep sucked in her breath as she caught sight of the master's purple domino cloak under the spotlight of the silver crescent of the moon, which continued to shine in spite of the blowing snow. Catnep's golden eyes narrowed. A golden gondola. A purple cloak. Danger. Of the worst kind. She expressed this opinion but Giovanni was not listening with his cat ears. Catnep had a large family to consider and could not play favorites. In a flash Catnep And Her Many Kittens had skittered and scattered into the stinking safety of the fish stall shadows. Giovanni hardly noticed he had been deserted by his guardian.

Golden gondolas, snow when it was almost spring, and now a purple cloak. So many impossibles on the same night seemed too impossible, even for Carnival. Just as all Venetian gondolas must be black by law, so must the dress of all men. Even those of the highest noblemen. Black cloaks. Black hoods. Black tricornered hats. It was the law. And there were three Supervisors of Luxury and ten Grand Inquisitors appointed to ensure that all obeyed. Those who crossed The Bridge of Sighs to the attic of The Doge and never returned--the corpses swinging between the columns of San Marcos, as common as pigeons in the piazza--attested to the serious penalties for disobedience and vanity.

So, it was either a mirage on the other side of the canal or a fool who would soon be a corpse! Giovanni rubbed his eyes. All that accomplished was to smear his face with cold blood and fish scales because when he opened his eyes the mirage had not disappeared. It was a fool soon to be corpse then. So be it.

The fool-soon-to-be-a-corpse revealed again that he flaunted the rules of Venice when he abruptly stopped and looked back across the canal at Giovanni. Within the black shadow of the bauta hood there was no glimpse of white. No mask!

It was not law, true. But no citizen of Venice would dare appear during Carnival without the identical chalk white mask of disguise and protection. Who would want to? The mask allowed anyone to be anyone else, to do anything, or to spy on anyone else doing anything, for seven days and nights of the year. In fact the stranger's bold gesture made Giovanni so nervous he immediately picked up his own discarded mask and tied the protective false nose with its monster grin firmly back in place.

Behind this grin, however, Giovanni was not smiling. He watched in confused shock as the stranger stopped once again, before the statue of Gobbo The Hunchback. Bowing reverently, he touched his hands to his lips and passed an unholy kiss to the hump of the statue. Giovanni had seen such a sacrilegious act only once before. By a traitor who had been flogged through the streets. The kiss had been his last act on this earth before his nose, his ears, his hands, and finally his life were cut off by The State.

Giovanni crossed himself. Instantly, the stranger turned at the gesture and Giovanni felt that he could no longer move. His hand seemed frozen across his heart. Helpless and unwillingly he watched as the lamplight, glittering between the graceful white marble arch of small shops lining the Rialto Bridge, flickered and began to move slowly across the canal towards him. Glitter, flicker, gone. Glitter, flicker, gone. The light appeared, disappeared, then reappeared between each of the shops on the bridge while Giovanni's heart pounded harder.

Though paralyzed, Giovanni tried to convince himself that there was nothing to fear in one such as this. Perhaps he was only a rich pilgrim from the mainland ignorant of the laws of Venice or given special dispensation by The Doge. Giovanni noted the fine long leathern boots. It was as he thought. The stranger could not be from Venice where the fashion was to wobble over the cobblestones in high clumsy clogs. No need to fear he repeated. Nonetheless, he still could not move.

When the gondolier and his master descended the steps of the bridge, Giovanni could see why they shuffled so slowly. The master was an old man That was clear by his long silver beard caught in the moonlight, though his face was still hidden in the shadows of his hood. He was also very sick. Obviously once tall and powerfully built, The Old Man was now frail, bent over, and in evident pain, though he chose to walk without a stick.

But when The Old Man was at only two hundred paces, Giovanni was uncertain if The Old Man was old. Perhaps only sick. Something about the eyes. Fierce black all-seeing eyes of someone in his prime, in spite of the silver beard and mustache. Young eyes imprisoned in a flesh and blood mask of illness or excess. Even the skin, though pale and haggard, was unwrinkled. If it weren't for his sick and wasted condition, The Old Man could have possibly even once been called handsome.

His rich purple velvet cloak was lined with an even richer shade of purple satin and the white lace collar so fine it might have been woven of human hair. Strangely, he appeared to be wearing a silver and gold turban under his hood and an oriental caftan instead of the usual toga of a patrician could be glimpsed underneath the cloak. The face of an Italian but the attire of a Turk. Giovanni managed a weak smile when he noted the tiny grinning wax mask pinned on one stooped shoulder. So The Old Man had honored Carnival custom after all by wearing a mask.

But then, just as The Old Man and his gondolier were almost upon him, Giovanni shrunk back in terror as he caught sight of what fastened The Old Man's cloak at his white parchment throat. It was an iron clasp in the shape of the mandrake, the most deadly of plants that some said grew only on the site of a gallows and others said contained the soul of the Devil Himself.

By this sign Giovanni knew he did have reason to fear The Old Man though he did not why. Catnep knew why.

A soft hiss from the fish stalls suddenly released Giovanni from the invisible hold. He turned to run but The Old Man was definitely not as old, nor as slow or sick as he appeared. Swiftly, Giovanni's thin boney shoulder was held painfully tight in a tangle of what felt like terrible thorns instead of fingers. A smell of decaying funeral flowers made his head swim.

"Signore Maschera," said a voice as sweet as bee's honey, using the correct form of anonymous address used by Venetians during Carnival which admitted no distinctions of age or profession. "I am a stranger to your city and need a guide to the Piazza San Marcos. Signore Maschera,I need you to take me to the tent of the one called The Travel Liar. I will make it worth your while of course."

Now Giovanni was stunned by more than fear and the smell of funeral flowers. How could The Old Man possibly know about The Travel Liar, the least known person in all of Venice? And how could The Old Man have managed to find probably one of only two Venetian citizens, drunk or sober, who could act as a guide to the tent of the Travel Liar tonight? He finally realized that Catnep had deserted him. He felt alone for the first time in his young life.

He stared up at The Old Man in terror. The Old Man smiled a twisted, reassuring smile and winked. He held out his hand. Under Giovanni's false nose, as well as his real nose, both of which had not smelled food since his bit of dried pike a half hour before dawn, was a perfumed glove holding a single silver ducat. The revolting smell of decay had disappeared.

A silver ducat! More money than Giovanni could even hope to earn in a month. No, a year! He stared at the coin winking in the moonlight and he was no longer afraid. In those winks, Giovanni saw steaming bowls of garlic and onion broth at The Queen of The Sea, golden smoking mountains of polenta corn pudding at The Coach of Fortune, dishes of snails and plates of clotted blood fried in slices with onions at The Three Wisemen, sea-louse soup at The Matter of Fact, and gingerbread, honey, roast apple and chestnuts at The Venice Triumphant. He saw himself sitting inside on a velvet chair, of course, not outside on a chicken coop.

Giovanni snatched up the coin eagerly from the perfumed glove and as he did a low rattle of satisfaction came from the back of The Old Man's throat. Another hiss came from the fish stalls, this time not so soft. Giovanni blushed at his greedy haste and tried to return the silver ducat.

"Of course I can guide you, but to do so is not enough to earn such a payment, Signor Maschera."

"Oh, but it is, Signor Maschera," The Old Man disagreed, waving Giovanni's hand away. "You must be paid. And for our mutual friend, The Travel Liar, there is more."

The perfumed glove was once again underneath Giovanni's nose. This time it held not one silver ducat but five gold zechini!

Zechini! Five gold zechini!

Giovanni did not waste his nose nor his brains on fantasies of soup and nuts. Five gold zechini! Mama mia a thousand times over! Perhaps that was enough money for Juan de Fuca to return to Isola Bella on the grandest of Spanish galleons! With Catnep and himself as able bodied sailors.

With dreams of Isola Bella in his head, Giovanni fairly danced through the baffling system of winding calles and hidden campos that led from the Rialto Bridge to the Piazza San Marcos, a path only dimly lit by the occasional lantern hung before the image of a saint or the site of a miracle. He was closely followed by a streak of gold and amber which had left the stinking safety of the fish stalls shadows. Further back the gondolier endured incredible curses as he banged his big brass lamp against The Old Man and the narrow stone walls of the houses and shops, spilling the finest hot virgin olive oil on both.

Giovanni had no need for light. Thin as a needle he expertly threaded his way through the narrow black tunnels of streets and hidden pathways which snaked in all directions, followed by she who had taught him the way. To a stranger to Venice Giovanni and Catnep seemed to be leading an endless dash across the same deserted piazzetta followed by yet another disappearance down the same singularly dangerous passageway coated in slime which always ended with a mysterious marble archway half shrouded in blowing snow. But each was unique. Giovanni and Catnep, then Catnep and Giovanni, skipped effortlessly up and down the steep stairs of each tiny wooden bridge that joined the watery maze of islands and slid across countless icy cold campos filled with snow, canal mud and heaps of garbage. The Old Man betrayed himself again as a foreigner as he negotiated the path through the filth thrown carelessly from palazzo windows holding a lace handkerchief delicately to his nose. Giovanni and Catnep, as true Venetians, were immune to the stench.

When Catnep entered the Merceria, the only street paved with marble, she was able to lead the way, even more quickly than Giovanni, though again, to a stranger, they seemed to pass the same tiny ornate shops over and over again; sellers of water, swordmakers, lace merchants, glassblowers, and fleshers. Once the gondolier, baffled and breathless, called out a plea to wait and go slower but The Old Man struck the gondolier savagely and growled that he had no time to waste.

"I am a fool of time as it is," The Old Man grumbled. "I can keep up."

And he did keep up. As old or as ill as he appeared to be, he seemed to stump faster and faster as the sounds of whistles and bells and drums beating began to be heard in the distance. Until soon they were so close to Piazza San Marcos that it was impossible to move fast or slow, whether you were young or old or a cat.

The Mercuria was filled with parades of singing and dancing servants unknowingly joining hands with their masters as they ran shouting towards San Marcos, too drunk or excited to notice who they pushed aside. Progress was small. A reveller pretending to be a cripple with artificial sores pinned Giovanni against the wall and laughingly begged for charity until The Old Man appeared at his side and suddenly Giovanni was free. The "cripple" seemed to melt into the moss of the wall. Then a long-legged tumbler absurdly dressed as a woman drunkenly accosted the gondolier and offered "her" favours freely amid much laughter from his friends until The Old Man touched his shoulder. When the tumbler's eyes caught sight of the mandrake at his throat, suddenly he and his friends faded into the crowds.

The trio made a little more progress until they were forced to come to a complete halt at the performance of a giant pyramid of naked gondoliers mounted on planks between two gondolas on a small side canal. The crowds would not let them pass until suddenly, for no apparent reason, all twelve came tumbling down into the water.

Giovanni was bruised and Catnep was panting when they arrived at last at Piazza San Marcos and squeezed through the archway under the clock that marked the happy hours of Venice. As always Catnep looked up at the blue and gold great clock face with the phases of the moon and signs of the zodiac. He was surprised. He had thought it was much later. Then again, he was not surprised. It was exactly midnight as the two mechanical bronze giants on either side of the face were poised to strike the hour.

"My time is more valuable," hissed The Old Man, shoving Giovanni ahead rudely. Giovanni obediently pushed through the crowds.

Catnep reluctantly followed. As she made her way through the crush, she could hear murmured worried snatches of conversations from both men and cats and beasts. All had been waiting for the midnight hour to be struck for some time now. The hands were frozen. The clock appeared to be broken. On the last night of Carnival. A bad omen. It had never happened before. People were crossing themselves and shaking their heads. An old woman was kneeling.

Bast! Catnep cried out.

"Holy Mary Mother of God!" Giovanni cried out.

The Old Man gripped Giovanni's shoulder and pushed him through the knot of people until at last they were free. He practically kicked him past the tent of Zolio The Sausage Maker who tried to tease The Fishmonger's Boy about his bad business day. Nor did he allow Giovanni to stop and greet his old friend Doctor Buonafede Vitali of Parma who was drawing great numbers of willing patients wishing to have teeth pulled to the accompaniment of drums.

It was when they were within a few feet of the tent of The Travel Liar that the gold and amber streak attacked the gondolier. With an angry curse for all cats of Venice, the lantern of finest virgin oil was thrown into the air. It landed on the roof of the tent which instantly burst into flames. With the spreading fire and panicked confusion of the crowd, Giovanni's shoulder and his mind were released from The Old Man's deadly grip. He could hear once again with his cat's ears.

Unseen, among the stamping trampling feet, Catnep was yowling.

Run, Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy! Run! The Old Man follows!

But it was impossible for Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy to run. He could barely walk. Jostled, pushed and shoved, he had to fight his way against the excited crowd who were filling the Piazza. They pushed towards the flames, anxious that they not miss a moment of this unexpected tragedy.

Laughing hysterically, a group of fools dressed as Pulcinellas pushed over Pietro The Puppet Man struggling to get through with a bucket of water to save his theater and his cast of hundreds of Christian knights and Saracen infidels. He cried out that the miniature suits of iron had already begun to melt in the heat of the flames. The foolish clowns in their grotesque white cone hats and colossal noses ignored Pietro The Puppet Man's desperate grief and shouted obscene jokes about the fire, hollering that a path must be cleared, so that another drunken fool dressed as a priest, could sprinkle the flames with his "holy water."

"Figure of a pig, you'll burn in hell," shrieked Rosa The Fortune Teller at the priest, telling his future for free. The rowdy buffoons were finally dispatched with a well aimed punch to one of the hard to miss noses and the hidden face underneath by Giorgio The Strongman who was determined to rescue his own tent.

Monkeys and peacocks, released from their cages by more sober Venetians, scrambled and flapped to freedom on the heads of the crowd, while the bull scheduled for slaughter that night, delighted that his head would remain his for another day, cut his own wide path through the herd of humans. Giovanni wished that he too could rise above the crush of the crowd or stampede his way through. Each time someone roughly shoved Giovanni aside or tore at his cloak, he panicked thinking The Old Man had reached him. He wanted to turn back towards the flames himself, to seek Catnep and Juan de Fuca The Travel Liar, but his own fear kept him moving in the opposite direction.

When he had finally freed himself of the mob, Giovanni ran until he felt his heart would surely burst. If only he could run until he reached Isola Bella. But the first clear calle he came to that wasn't filled with hysterical firewatchers or firedodgers was very much closer, and it was totally deserted.

When he gained speed because of it's desertion he congratulated himself until he realized with rising panic as he ran that the calle he had chosen was unusually well lit with small candle shrines with the image of the Madonna at almost every turn marking his footsteps in the new snow as well as any map could, for all to follow. It was with no little irony that Giovanni realized the reason for the unusual number of well lit shrines was because it was Street of the Assassins--so named because murdered men were so frequently fished from the canal that ran alongside this calle and each glowing alter marked the place where an unknown body had been found and displayed on a bale of hay.

And though no one was in sight as he ran through the abandoned streets, Giovanni felt that someone else's footsteps followed his in the snow. And when he crossed the Crooked Bridge and turned down the dark Street of The Scavengers, he felt that someone was almost upon him. But when he had passed the deserted Asylum For Fallen Women and crossed the Bridge of the Incurables, he looked back anxiously, and no dark shape loomed.

Yet he could not rid himself of the sense that someone or something was following close enough to hear his panting gasps for breath. And as he skillfully ran through the bewildering puzzle of narrow pathways, bridges, canals, alleys, and courtyards that only he knew so well, he could not get over the feeling that he was running into a trap. Even when he was swallowed by the unknown black alleys of the Schools of the Bucket Makers and the Wax Workers, he somehow felt that he had not lost his pursuer and must keep driving himself down one more calle. The shuttered windows and quiet shadows in the courtyard of the Schools of the Fur Dressers, Pastry Cooks, and Stone Cutters gave no relief. There were so many hidden corners and recesses to worry about. And so many stairs and bridges to climb. His legs ached with the strain. His bare numb feet, two blocks of ice in the heavy snow, fortunately felt nothing. Shivering, he stopped to listen for just a moment in front of the Sign of the Monkey, surprisingly deserted. But though no sound, not even a whisper broke the silence, he still felt he was not free.

He dodged. He darted. He doubled back twice. He ran across the piazza of the Brotherhood of the Blind backwards so that the map of his footsteps would confuse his unseen hunter. He still did not know where he was running too. He must just keep running. Finally, too cold and exhausted to go any further, he had to stop in spite of his terror. He collapsed in a doorway, trying to make himself as small, as insignificant, and as invisible as possible in the shadows while he listened once again and sniffed the air to see if he had truly lost The Old Man. And no sooner had he dropped to the ground then a piece of shadow detached itself, stretched in greeting and rubbed against Gio's frozen feet with a deep rumbling purr.

"Catnep!" cried Giovanni. " Was it you who I felt following? I knew you would be alright! "

Giovanni knew no such thing. Imagining the worse had been all he had thought about since leaving the crush in the Piazza, and Catnep knew that.

He who kills a cat dies within the year, Catnep stated flatly, quoting the old Venetian superstition which may or may not have spared one of her lives that night. It had been a harrowing experience--all those trampling feet. And he who hurts a cat will meet with a bad accident, she added with a intimidating look over her shoulder from one slitted golden eye.

Giovanni was so ecstatic to see his only friend in the world that he could almost have picked Catnep up and hugged her. Almost. But Catnep felt such bold, sentimental shows of affection were beneath one of her regal position, and she had always pointed this out to Giovanni. Catnep also hurt from the fire and didn't wish too much contact with her regal body, though she did allow Giovanni to scratch his favorite ear spots. She gingerly tucked her badly burned paw under her chest. No need to worry the boy. Then she curled himself warmly over the ten icicles on Gio's feet that needed a lot of Catnep attention.

As Giovanni thawed, he relaxed a little. Already he could feel one big toe. He looked around and was further comforted to realize that he had collapsed in front of the Church of Saints Giovanni e Paolo.

"Surely this is a good omen, Catnep?"

He considered this his own personal church since Saint Giovanni was naturally his patron saint. But then, as he rubbed Catnep's favorite chin spot, he remembered what the Church of Saints Giovanni e Paolo preserved and enshrined on its alter.

"Surely this is a bad omen, Catnep?"

Giovanni had seen the small iron urn many times but had never taken it personally as he did now. In honor of Marc Antonio Bragadin who was flayed alive by the Turks, the very skin of which the Venetian hero was stripped was now pickled in vinegar and salt in the church in whose shadows he and Catnep hid. The Old Man had been dressed as a Turk. Yes, definitely this was a omen to keep moving.

Giovanni didn't feel much like a Venetian hero. He felt only cold, fear and hunger. Ah, hunger. Actually, that was what he felt the most at this moment. He was hungry. And, he remembered for the first time, he was rich. He had a silver ducat and the Sign of the Serpent, only minutes away, had a bowl of hot Minestra. He could afford a thousand bowls of tripe broth tonight! Yes.

Catnep unrolled herself and began to slowly wash her whiskers, pointing out as she did so that if Giovanni The Fishmonger's Boy was so foolish as to go to the Sign of the Serpent so near to both the Pescaria, whose inns The Fishmonger always favored, and the Rialto Bridge where the golden gondola probably still floated, there might very well be a second skin enshrined in the Church of Saints Giovanni e Paolo by morning.

And if you chose any other inn on this island, Catnep continued as she delicately licked her ears, why one look at a small boy in rags with a silver ducat in his hand and all of Venice would be down around your ears. You would be taken as a thief in seconds. It would be a march across The Bridge of Sighs to the dungeons for you, my boy. The Old Man must have known that when he gave you the ducat.

Catnep was right as always. Why was he thinking about his stomach and The Sign of the Serpent at a time like this?

Ah now, serpents at a time like this may be exactly what you should be thinking, Catnep purred, kneading her paws compellingly on Gio's cloak.

"Serpents?" Giovanni cringed. "Real serpents?"

Serpents and the way to Isola Bella, if you still wish to go, Catnep purred.

"Isola Bella!" Giovanni shouted much too loud for one who was in hiding. "But we need the map. The fire will have destroyed the map. Now we will never ...and Juan..." Giovanni blushed with shame that his first thought had been that they had lost the map to the flames. Juan de Fuca had lost his life.

Juan lives, Catnep stated flatly. Though he is probably many miles from Venice by now I saw to that.

Of course Giovanni was happy to hear Juan de Fuca The Travel Liar had escaped the fire as well as the clutches of The Old Man. But he was very sad too since no doubt Juan would never dare return to Venice again and that meant they would never hear the stories about Isola Bella again, nor dream that one day they would have the map to reach her shores.

Catnep flicked his tail impatiently. We can't stay here all night. The danger has not passed and we must hide. I assure you even the Church of Saints Giovanni e Paolo cannot give us sanctuary from The Old Man.

"Yes, but where?"

As I said before, serpents should be exactly what you should be thinking of my boy, Catnep blinked mysteriously. You will be safe in The Palazzo Serpentina. I have friends who will protect you. By daybreak the danger will have sailed from our shores.

Catnep did not wait to debate their destination seeing the look of fear in the boy's eyes at the mention of The Palazzo Serpentina. She ran quickly down the calle knowing the boy would follow rather than be left alone. And Giovanni did though very reluctantly. There had always been those queer tales about the Garden of the Spirits, hidden behind the high, moss covered walls of the Palazzo Serpentina. Of course they were just tales. After all Catnep did visit there often, upon the occasion of every full moon, though Giovanni had never been allowed to accompany her in the past. And she had always returned unharmed to the Rialto.

Catnep spoke very little about her friends or The Garden of The Spirits though she once said that the garden's name came from the extraordinary echo in the garden. She explained that with certain winds, voices from the unseen garden were carried a good distance off in a seemingly supernatural manner. But these were not spirits! That was silly superstitious nonsense invented by the idle. Any voices heard behind the high brick walls of the Palazzo Serpentina were probably the Countess Isabella herself and her guests, chatting as they strolled among the trees, or perhaps the servants setting out the bedding to dry! Since Catnep had once admitted that she had never actually met the Countess (though refusing to say who exactly she did visit at the Palazzo so frequently), Giovanni wondered how she could be so sure that the voices were not of spirits. And as for the sinister name of the palazzo, Catnep had assured Giovanni, this too was innocently explained. The Calle della Bissa, the Street of the Snake, was close by was it not? And was it not so named merely because of the snake-like way it twisted about the equally serpentine Grand Canal? Eccolo.

Still, Giovanni remembered there had also always been rumors of the Countess Isabella's peculiar experiments with plants and herbs. Certain enemies said she made poisons and one priest hinted she might even be a wicca. But the old wives said she made healing medicines and called her a magus. Poisoner, witch or magician. And then there was the question of the disappearance of her father, Prince Mandragola so many years ago.

I have always returned alive and well to the Rialto after my visits, have I not? So what is there to fear? Catnep called back over his shoulder.

But Giovanni did fear as he followed Catnep, careful not to lose sight of her since he had no idea where the Palazzo Serpentina was. When they finally arrived at the Palazzo Giovanni feared even more.

The snow had stopped and a full moon outlined the dark silhouette of The Palazzo Serpentine which stood in grand and splendid isolation on a spit of land where two canals met. It was at the end of the now deserted Fondamente Nuove which had been tragically struck by fire only a year ago. Only the Palazzo had survived the flames. Catnep had never mentioned that it also just across from the Island of the Dead, the only Venetian island where burials were allowed. Garden of the Spirits. Island of the Dead. Giovanni swallowed hard.

But not as hard as he swallowed when he read the familiar words of warning cut in the stone archway over the heavy wooden door guarding the Palazzo Serpentina, though several of the letters had been hammered and chipped away so that the last word was completely obliterated:

Terra Incognita--There Be .......

Giovanni stared in amazement. The words were clearly illuminated by gilt lanterns in alcoves on either side of the doorway. They were framed within a white marble carving of a billowing scroll held aloft over the half hidden door by two ornate angels. Below was a carving of a very peculiar tree in black marble, unlike any whose tops Giovanni had ever glimpsed. It had an enormous trunk rising like a giant arm toward the angels before dividing into a great number of thick fingers, each branch the size of lesser tree trunks and each crowned with a queer broom of long sword-like leaves.

"These are the words on the map to Isola Bella!"

Catnep looked up at Giovanni innocently.

Ah yes, the map. One last item of business before we retire for the night in the Palazzo garden.

Catnep sprang towards the carved scroll over the door landing on a hidden shelf behind. When she jumped back to the ground she had a familiar piece of parchment in her mouth. She laid it at Giovanni feet and began licking her back nonchalantly.

"The map! But how?" were the only words Giovanni could manage in his amazement

Just a little farewell gift from our friend Juan de Fuca Apostolos Valerianos when I arranged his passage out of Venice a garbage scow heading to Padua. Actually I think he was rather glad to be rid of it Possession of a map to Isola Bella--or as Apostolos rightly calls it--The Long-Lost-Newly-Rediscovered Fabulous Garden--seems to attract unsavory attention. However it is about to attract the attention of those who deserve to share in our good fortune. It will be their return passage home so to speak. My boy, please open the gate. No need to ring the bell and wait to be admitted. I can assure you my friends in the Garden of the Spirits of Palazzo Serpentina don't stand on ceremony In fact they don't move around at all except when the wind is blowing. It may cause us some logistical problems when we take them on as passengers for our voyage to Isola Bella and The Newly Rediscovered Fabulous Garden--Eden.