Q by Luther Blissett (poetry books to read txt) 📕

Venice, 8th October 1546

The Rialto is overflowing with stalls, traders and passersby who look as though they might topple into the Canal at any moment. I elbow my way through, ignoring the shouted curses raining down on me. I make for the Mercerie, alleyways echoing with the yells of the goldsmiths and textile dealers, but at least you can breathe.

An old German sauntering about like so many others. My idea was to go to the Theatine monastery, but I don’t feel like it, there would be no point.

The monastery. No one knows what happens inside a monastery, no one knows who you are: in the monastery your name is a name chosen at random, that’s what Bartolomeo said. A spy headquarters in a place no one would ever think of.

Germans, at least half a dozen Germans. People who used to count Luther’s visits to the toilet, installed in the right spots from the very beginning, since an unknown Augustinian friar nailed up his theses in Wittenberg.

I pass the Rio San Salvador, towards Campo San Luca. The shouts of the buyers and sellers fade very slightly.

Wittenberg. A life has been lived. Mine. Luther is dead. The Protestants have founded their reformed Church, the game’s over. The spies are being recalled to Italy for new tasks. What’s at stake is power in Rome, maybe the Papal Throne. New directives, it isn’t hard to imagine which: infiltrate the enemy party within the Roman Church, the Spirituali, the ones who want an agreement with the Protestants, spy on their every movements and report back to the boss. Even woo them, gratify their brilliant intellects, wait for them to make a false move and then strike them dead. Just like they did in Germany.

Like they did with M�ntzer.

Like they did with the Anabaptists.

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. Qo�let 3, 2.

I sit down on a pillar, by the side of the Rio dei Fuseri.�

The paper crumbles between my fingers, but the words are still legible where time’s ravages haven’t erased the traces of ink. Letters telling a story of twenty years ago, when Germany was aflame with the words of Magister Thomas; they’ve been guarded with care. Now I know why I carried them with me throughout all those years. To remind me of you.

Qo�let.

I toss the coin in the air and catch it as it comes down. The writing is still clearly visible: ONE GOD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM. The relic of another defeat. A rare piece, almost unique, forged by the M�nster mint.�

A boatman calls his warning cry before turning the bend of the river and disappearing from view. The gulls float peacefully, studying the depths below.

You spied on Luther. You spied on M�ntzer. You spied on the Anabaptists, in fact you were one of them. One of us. Maybe I’ve met you.

Qo�let.�

The peasants in the plain.

The citizens of M�nster imprisoned within the walls of the city.

Women and children.

Heaps of corpses.

You’re here. Carafa can’t do without an important pawn like yourself. You’ve served him well, but now they’ve got the Inquisition, they’ve no use for solitary pieces: collecting rumours, information, spying on the Spirituali to choose the ideal moment.

You’re here. Where the crucial game is being played, as always, as it was twenty years ago. My twenty years.

Heaps of corpses.

Magister Thomas, Heinrich Pfeiffer, Ottilie, Elias, Johannes Denck. Jacob and Matthias Ziegler, little more than children.

Melchior Hofmann, who died a few years ago in Strasbourg jail. Trusty Gresbeck and the Brundt brothers, imprisoned and executed outside the walls of M�nster. And the Mayers and Bartholomeus Boekbinder who lent me his name, who fell in their courageous defence of the city.

And then there were Eloi Puystinck and all the brethren in Antwerp.

A procession of ghosts on the bank of this canal.

You and I are the only ones left.

The only witnesses to an era that is drawing to a close. Two tired, old shadows.

That hatred has left me now, and not to my disadvantage: I can be more alert, even more cunning. More than you have ever been.

Now I can flush you out.

Beyond St Mark’s Square the world stretches out towards the Arsenal, where the invincible ships of the Venetians wait to set sail.

Opposite, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, with the Benedictine monastery. The basin of the Arsenal opens up on the left: the carpenters are at work on the skeletons of two imposing galleys.

I sit down to watch the mastery of these men, famed throughout the world, but I can’t get my thoughts in order.

The elements in the picture are always the same. On one side you have an English cardinal, loved by everyone, looking towards reconciliation with Protestants, the favourite of the Emperor, who is hoping for religious peace in Christendom because the Empire is slipping away; greatly loathed by the cardinals who are fomenting the spiritual war of the Inquisition.�

And on the other side there’s the black prince of the Holy Office, Cardinal Carafa, who is building the machine one piece at a time and preparing to go into battle. He has recalled all his spies to Italy to set them on the Spirituali. A throng of observers, an army of eyes and, clearly, of informers.�

One of those is the most important, the most trusted. The bravest? Yes, if it’s true that he was in Wittenberg and in M�nster.�

M�nster.

The Anabaptists: old acquaintances.

An idea. Just an instinct.

No one down there has ever encountered Anabaptism. But he has, he was in M�nster, and he knew how to choose his moment for betrayal.�

The elements at our disposal: a book, The Benefit of Christ Crucified, a Calvinist manual adapted for the Catholics; but I could still get something out of it. Just as the Anabaptists did with the writings of Luther. Setting the conflict alight. Radicalising the contents of the book: from Calvinism to Anabaptism.

I get to my feet, without stopping to think I chase off towards the square.

The inquisitors are hunting-dogs, sniffing out their prey, pointing it and then not wasting a moment. That’s what Donna Beatrice said.

What we need is a hare.

A decoy to bring them into the open. And the hound would have to be the bravest, the most experienced of all. Qo�let.�

If the prey were an Anabaptist, or even better, a German Anabaptist, he’s the one they’d send. The one who’s already fucked them in M�nster, the one who knows them well.

I cross St Mark’s Square at a frantic pace, until I reach the Mercerie.

An Anabaptist in Italy, someone who knows what