"Virtue Rewarded or, I'll Take Vice"
I know, I know,--it's been aeons since I took keyboard in hand to continue
the educational chronicles of our three favourite freebooters. But...I've
been tied up.
Shall we now look in on the recent activities of Tim, Dix and Rowan for
further hints on good housekeeping, interesting hobbies and,--uh,
oh,--perhaps we should have knocked...
Tim's darkened living room. Three figures are struggling on the couch.
Tim [breathless:] "Ouch!! Watch those fingernails!!"
Rowan: "Sorry."
Tim: "Not yours, Dix's. Here, quick,--put your finger on this knot."
Dix [unintelligible snarling noise]
Rowan: "Hang on,--she bit me again. Do you really think this rope will hold?
Remember, she chewed right through those leather restraints yesterday."
Tim [wiping sweat off his forehead:] "Well, the straitjacket was useless.
She's better than Houdini..."
Dix: "All right, boys, a joke is a joke. Untie me now. I need to get online
and check just a couple more titles..."
Rowan and Tim: "HAH!!!"
Tim: "That's what you said last time. You've got packages of books that you
haven't even opened yet and the UPS trucks have worn a groove in the driveway
making deliveries."
Rowan: "And it's a cobblestone driveway..."
Dix [cunningly:] "Yes, you're right. I'm so ashamed. But in the meantime, I
just need to fill a *few* more gaps in my little book collection..."
Tim: "Did you hear that, Rowan? 'Little?' Dix has more books than the
greater Los Angeles Library and all its subsidiaries!"
Rowan [choosing a volume at random from a six-foot stack of books on the
coffee table:] "She's obviously in deep denial. Say, this one looks
interesting: 'The Newgate Calendar or Malefactor's Bloody Register...'"
Tim: "Don't YOU start!"
He takes the book from Rowan and it falls open to an illustration, a woodcut
showing several people in 17th-century costume remonstrating with a felon.
The felon seems to be partially eviscerated and one of the members of the
crowd is exhibiting the man's liver. Or possibly, onions...it's a
pathetically poor example of the printer's art.
Tim: "Say...this would be perfect for a Christmas card for my agent..."
Dix [whimpering pitifully:] "[cough, cough]...These ropes are cutting off my
circulation...suppose I give you my parole not to order more than say, a
dozen books a week?"
Rowan: "Not good enough."
Tim [still looking in fascinated horror at the other illustrations in the
book:] "Oh, well, that seems fair..."
Dix sits up, rope-free and smiling. Rowan picks up the rope and looks it
over, finding no chewed ends.
Rowan: "You're very good. Want to tell us how you did it THIS time?"
Dix: "It's a trick rope..."
She takes it from Rowan, wads it up in her hands,--then opens them and the
rope has transformed into a dozen red roses and two fluttering white doves.
Frank, who has been drowsing on the hearth, glances up and barks once then
goes back to sleep, duty accomplished.
Just then, the doorbell rings and Tim goes to answer it. He returns with a
telegram and a quizzical expression.
Tim: "Let's see a show of hands; who wants to take a little trip to Venice?"
Dix [already at the computer and doing a booksearch at ABE:] "Not me,--I
don't like men with too many muscles."
Rowan: "Being British, I burn easily. And I detest sand in my sandwiches."
Tim: "No...the OTHER Venice."
* * *
Our friends are adjusting to the prospect of another trip to faraway places
with the possibility of pleasant adventures among quaint old cities and their
quaint old customs.
Dix [still at the computer:] "Just a second; I think I've nailed down that
book on Marjorie Fleming that I've been looking for for about twenty years..."
Rowan: "Venice? I suppose I'll have to brush up on my Venetian then."
Tim: "Umm, the natives speak Italian. All you'll really need are 'buon
giorno,' bellissimo' and 'pizza.' If you get hungry."
At this moment a shape emerges from the direction of the patio, where Frank's
doghouse is kept. The approaching figure is one of indescribable horror, a
sight to make women faint and strong men weep: Baldrick, wearing bathing
trunks.*
Tim [gagging:] "[uurrrgh] ...Rowan, your animal wants you..."
Rowan [wiping a tear from his cheek:] "Baldrick. Go and clothe yourself. Or
better yet, go and DROWN yourself!" [turning to Dix:] "So sorry, you
shouldn't have been subjected to a sight like that,--"
Dix has fainted gracefully over a footstool and onto the floor. She stirs
and moans: "What did you put in that last batch of mai-tais?"
* * *
Two days later. Brilliant summer sunshine sparkles on the waters of the
world-famous canals of Venice. Tim, Dix and Rowan are leaning back against
the striped cushions of their water taxi, a brightly painted gondola being
poled along by a handsome Italian with bulging muscles.
Dix: "My, he certainly is in good condition. Look at those rippling pectorals
and deltoids and such..."
Rowan: "Just a trick of the light."
Tim: "I thought that you 'didn't like men with too many muscles'."
Dix: "I don't really. Just enough to keep a man walking upright without
dragging his knuckles, that's all I ask."
Tim: "Speaking about walking upright, isn't it about time for a bite to eat?
I don't know what those odd-looking viands that the airline served were, so I
didn't risk eating on the plane."
Rowan: "Right. I could do with a bite myself." (He turns around and tugs on
a rope hanging over the bow.) "Baldrick? What luck?"
Baldrick's head pops over the side of the gondola dripping wet; a banana peel
hangs over one ear and something indescribable and gooey runs down the side
of his face.
Baldrick: "Are you sure as there's lobsters in this here channel, my lord?"
(He holds up an empty sardine tin.) "This is all what I've caught so far."
Rowan [pushing him back down in the water:] "Just carry on. I'm sure you'll
catch something, if it's only double pneumonia."
Dix: "Somehow I think I'd prefer a nice plate of cannelloni. Let's pull in
at that waterfront cafe'; it looks promising. There are a lot of Italian
laborers eating there, so the food must be at least plentiful."
Tim: "Suits me. And we can go over our plan of campaign to locate the lost
plays of Christopher Marlowe."
Rowan [incredulously, slapping one of his ears as if to clear his hearing:]
"Excuse me? I wasn't aware that there WERE any lost plays. Much less that
we of all people had a chance in Hades of beginning to think about the remote
possibility of accidentally running across manuscripts written four hundred
years ago that were probably used as a privy-paper substitute or a pastry-pan
liner centuries before we were born. Call me unadventurous, but are you
bonkers?"
Dix: "Oh, calm down, Ro. I know you're eager to get started, but let's eat
first.
To Be Continued.
[*Note: for the incredibly-strong-of-stomach, Baldrick can be viewed in all
his umm, unimaginable glory wearing only a smile and a leather 'posing pouch'
in "Blackadder's Christmas Carol." Well worth the money.]
* * *
During a filling continental lunch (with Baldrick crouched under the table,
mouth open hopefully for what chance crusts may fall to his share) our
friends discuss their new mission.
Tim [buttering a French roll:] "As you know, I have scouts in various
European capitals who keep me informed regarding interesting artifacts
dealing with the history of the stage."
Dix: "I know that you collect memorabilia like your portraits of Henry Irving
and Sarah Siddons."
Rowan [ignoring Baldrick's pleading gaze as he downs the last bite of
rigatoni:] "Personally, I prefer very fast automobiles."
Tim: "I also have several early manuscripts, but nothing as important as
this discovery,--if it's authentic. 'Clever Jake' assures me that he has
actually seen the purported plays and they can be obtained for a financial
consideration of some kind."
Dix: "Well, I'll try to keep an open mind." (Noticing Baldrick's salivating
mouth near her elbow, she drops a scampi into it.)
After finishing their meal with dishes of spumoni topped with crystallized
candied fruit our trio wends its way to their hotel, the Borgia Palazzo,
pausing enroute to admire many points of architectural interest.
Tim: "This city is one of the cradles of history. That's the Doges' Palace
on our right."
Dix: "Impressive."
Rowan: "If you like immense piles of stone."
Baldrick [bringing up the rear:] "Big place for a dog house."
Rowan sighs and trips Baldrick, who falls back into the canal.
Dix: "So, Tim, did your telegram tell us what our next move is supposed to
be?"
Tim: "Jake said that I'll receive a telephone message at the hotel at 7:00
p.m."
Rowan [yawning:] "I wonder what's on Italian television this evening."
* * *
Sure enough, at 7:00 p.m. Tim gets the phone call. He leaves for a
confidential meeting at the Cafe of the Consenting Bullock on the Via
Dolorosa and Dix and Rowan promise to hold the fort till his return.
Rowan settles down on the large comfortable sofa in the suite, pulls "The
Newgate Calendar" out of his suitcase and resumes reading. Dix twiddles her
thumbs and looks at the clock.
Rowan: "Hmm. I see here that a Mistress Catherine Hayes was burnt alive for
the treasonous act of beheading her husband...I'll bet that taught her a
lesson."
Dix [drumming her fingers on the coffee table:] "Ro, be a dear and fix my
zipper, please. It's bothering me."
Rowan: "It looks all right to me. It's zipped all the way up."
Dix: "Yes, that's what's bothering me."
Rowan [doesn't need a doge's palace to fall on him:] "Ah, too tight, is it?"
Dix: "It's ummm, cutting off my circulation."
Ever the gentleman, Rowan sets the book aside and goes to her assistance.
* * *
An hour later, circulation completely restored, Dix and Rowan are watching a
rerun of "Over the Top" (Italian version) on TV when Tim returns. He has a
manila envelope in one hand and lipstick traces on his cheeks.
Dix: "Aha. I see that 'Clever Jake' is really 'Clever Jacqueline,' hmm?"
Tim [blushing:] "No,--one of the barmaids is a fan of Simon Ferguson.
Enthusiastic little creature."
There is a knock at the door. Rowan opens it and a bellhop hands him a note.
Rowan: "Oh, bugger. Baldrick has been picked up,--again,--by the Animal
Control gondola. Hmm. I wonder if they euthanize their catches here or just
adopt them out to suitable homes."
Dix: "Better go bail him out. Unless you've had him fixed. The world isn't
ready for litters of little Baldricks."
Rowan leaves, grumbling. Tim picks up the book Rowan has left open on the
floor (it was in the way earlier) and runs his eyes over the pages.
Tim: "It certainly didn't pay to be a malefactor in the 18th century...here's
a man being stoned in the pillory by an angry mob."
Dix: "Yes, their drinking laws were rather strict."
She squirms uncomfortably and rubs the back of her neck.
Tim [looking up:] "Problem?"
Dix: "My zipper...it's uncomfortable. Could you loosen it a bit?"
Tim puts down the book and with one practiced tug loosens the zipper. Dix's
dress falls aways in two pieces.
Tim: "Oops."
* * *
After a time lapse of four or five eventful hours, Rowan finally returns to
the hotel suite exhausted. He is leading Baldrick on a leash; Baldrick is
also wearing a muzzle.
Rowan: "Sorry to take so long but the authorities insisted that I buy him a
license and no one there could agree as to which branch of the animal kingdom
he properly belongs. They settled on 'indeterminate farm animal.'"
Baldrick tries to say something but the muzzle is too snug.
Rowan: "And there it will stay. I warned you about licking yourself in
public."
He gradually notices the slight disorder of the room and the fact that Dix is
now wearing a sweater and slacks in place of the Roman-striped silk dress she
had had on earlier. Tim also has changed into something more comfortable,
his robe and slippers.
Rowan: "Aha. So, it's come to this again,--another scene of unwholesome
depravity enacted solely to feed the warped appetites of your readers, those
delicately-reared Timbos who are even now probably blushing and trembling in
horror at the very thought of such goings-on!"
Dix: "He don't know them very well, do he?"
Tim [yawning:] "Fix your tie, Rowan."
Rowan reaches automatically toward his open collar, then follows Tim's upward
gesture where the necktie in question is hanging from the chandlier. He
pulls it down and tosses it aside.
Rowan: "Point taken."
Dix: "We've been umm, waiting for you to get back so we could discuss the
next phase of our search for the Marlowe plays."
Tim: "Ah, right, I'd nearly forgotten..." (He opens the manila envelope and
spreads a map on the table.) "Clever Pete,--I mean Clever Jake; he's always
changing his alias,--drew me this sketch of the place where the plays are
supposed to be hidden."
Rowan: "How much did you pay him?"
Tim: "Only a few hundred lira. I told him he'd get the rest after we took
possession of the actual documents. That seemed to cause him some concern,
but he agreed. Oh, and he suggested that we bring along a camera."
Dix: "Wait a minute,--isn't this a plan of some kind of catacombs? I didn't
know that there were any in Venice. We're at sea level, after all."
Rowan: "According to this rather childish sketch, it would seem that the
trail leads directly underneath the Doges' Palace. And I understand that the
officials there are a bit uncompromising about trespasspers."
Tim: "Not to worry. This is a secret entrance known only to a couple of
monks and Clever Fred...I mean, Jake. He crossed his heart and hoped to die."
Dix and Rowan look at each other and refrain from making the obvious retort.
* * *
At midnight on the following day our friends are lurking nervously behind the
massive Doges' Palace, grim and sinister in the moonlight.
A small iron door nearly obscured by ivy is open slightly; Tim turns on his
pocket torch to check the map.
Tim: "Yes, this must be it."
Tim, Dix and Rowan, followed by Baldrick enter cautiously and look around.
The walls of the narrow hallway are rough-hewn rock, dripping with slimy
moisture.
Dix: "I suppose we go down that endless-looking stairway...yucch."
Tim leading the way, our intrepid trio and dogsbody make their way ever
deeper into the gloomy vaults of ancient days. On each side of the lower
floor are mouldering old doors set into the walls. Tiny iron-grated windows
in the doors give a limited view of monk's cells within.
Rowan: "What excellent dungeons these would be."
Dix: "They probably were at some time...we just passed a larger room with
chains and rings set into the wall and I'm almost sure that that large wooden
machine was a rack..."
They have reached the last room, a larger chamber with piles of old wooden
crates and other debris lying on the floor. At one end the rocks have been
roughly chipped away and are piled in heaps.
Dix starts to take a closer look at the wall and bumps against a large old
iron wheel protruding from the masonry.
Dix: "Ouch. Say, look at this,--someone's pasted old newspapers up here."
Tim: "Those aren't newspapers."
Rowan: "No. It looks as if the builders are renovating this part of the
catacombs, perhaps for the tourist trade, and used the papers to prevent more
crumbling until they can finish it."
Dix [borrowing Tim's torch:] "...'Ye Onlie Faiyre & Compleate Tragedye of
Maid Rosalyn & ye Anglian Pyrates, heer indited bye Christ'pher Marylowe, his
werke aloyne'."
Tim: "Hmm. Marlowe's life includes some lost years; when he wasn't writing
plays he did some espionage work for Elizabeth. I wonder if he might have
been intriguing with the Doges during that time..."
Dix: "It all hangs together beautifully, don't you think?"
Rowan: "And that's just what we'll be doing if we attempt to remove these
artifacts from Venice...they're touchy about their art treasures."
* * *
We left our friends milling around in a dark catacomb beneath the venerable
Doges' Palace, gazing in astonishment at a wall papered with aged manuscript
pages...
Tim [taking out his trusty Swiss Army knife:] "Let's see if I can coax one
loose."
Dix: "Try the tweezer attachment; you don't want to risk tearing them."
Rowan has been carrying the camera equipment, being far too intelligent to
allow Baldrick to touch anything breakable. He sets up the telescoping
aluminum tripod and attaches the halogen flash unit to Dix's 35mm Minolta.
While Rowan gets busy photographing the pages on the wall, Tim has managed to
very delicately peel away one or two of them. Dix has taken her eyebrow
tweezers from her purse and starts on the lower pages.
Baldrick, having nothing to occupy what we laughingly refer to as his mind,
finds that his nose itches. The muzzle prevents him from scratching it, so
he looks around for some way of loosening it...
Tim: "Here's another one,--" (handing Dix a crumpled page) "--Better put them
inside your purse for safekeeping."
Rowan [finishing the last shot:] "Right. The customs people will never think
to look there."
He starts to help in the detachment process and manages to tear the page he
is removing from the wall.
Rowan: "Whoops. Anyone remember to bring along some Scotch tape?"
But his question remains unanswered because a gush of ill-smelling water
suddenly begins to swirl around their feet...Baldrick has found something to
help him loosen his muzzle: the large iron wheel that Dix had run against
earlier. It seems to have been the mechanism that activates,--
Dix: "A FLOODGATE!! Run!!"
Tim [oblivious:] "Just a second; I've almost got them all..."
Rowan: "RUN, damn it!!"
Our trio scurries down the hallway, sloshing through black brackish water
that is quickly approaching their knees...
Dix turns aside into the larger room that they had passed earlier; Rowan
makes a grab for her arm and misses.
Dix [breathlessly:] "If...if only it isn't...fastened...to the floor..."
Tim gets the idea. "We can try using the rack...as a raft..."
Rowan: "Why do I let myself in for these expeditions?"
All three tug eagerly at the rectangular wooden contraption, then turn it
sideways so it will fit through the narrow doorway. The waters are rising
rapidly, but they manage to climb aboard the makeshift craft just in time.
Tim: "Well, this is more like it. I wasn't looking forward to climbing all
those stone stairs on the return trip."
Rowan: "Yes. Almost like a...water bed, isn't it?"
Dix: "Too many splinters, thankyouverymuch. I wonder what's become of
Baldrick."
Rowan [spitting into the water:] "I don't."
Tim: "Nor I. You *do* know that, thanks to that peculiar little
homonunculus, several priceless manuscript pages are still down there being
soaked by this sewage?"
Dix [can't resist:] "No, but if you hum a few bars I'll try to fake it."
There is a rending crash and their rickety makeshift raft begins to drift
apart, having smashed into the stone wall...
To Be (giggle) Continued.
* * *
We left our endangered friends in a precarious situation clinging to the
wreckage of the ancient torture mechanism that they had been using as a raft
while the evil flood of unsanitary water swirled around them in the blackness
of the catacomb under the Doges' Palace in Venice...
Dix: "Tim!!"
Rowan: "[glub]...I'm afraid we've lost him. Hang onto me..."
Tim: "Not so fast,--I was caught under a beam, but I'm free now."
Dix [gripping both of them:] "I just had a horrid thought: didn't the
entrance door open *inward*? Because the force of the water against it will
keep us trapped in here."
Rowan: "Not to worry; I propped it open with a chunk of wood on the way in.
A small, rather fragile chunk of wood. Go ahead and worry."
The rising water has carried them very near to the entrance door, which is
still open a few inches. As they watch hopefully, the door opens even wider
and they can see starshine among the foliage outside.
Tim notices something: "There seems to be a lump of worthless refuse caught
in the doorframe. Good, we'll be able to get through easily."
Rowan: "You're right..." (he reaches down and gets a grip on the said lump
and yanks it upwards). "Baldrick has finally found his true vocation, a
doorstop."
* * *
Our extremely wet, ill-smelling and squishy trio makes use of back alleys to
return to the hotel. Once there, they sneak upstairs via the service
elevator and return to their suite.
Dix: "Thank heaven we asked for a jacuzzi in the bathroom!"
In a matter of moments Dix, Tim and Rowan are luxuriating in the water and
the tub is filled to the brim with the scent of forsythia bubble bath. Soon
the smell of sewage is only a memory and our friends enjoy a rousing game of
Submarines and Shipping Convoy.
Dix: "That was fun. How about a new game: Hard, Harder and Hardest?"
Tim [wiping bubbles off his beard:] "You go first."
Dix: "Okay. Getting this manuscript out of Venice."
Rowan: "Hard, but not impossible. Getting it authenticated."
Tim: "Harder, perhaps." (He smiles with the calm confidence of a Christian
contemplating four aces.) "My publicist's heart."
Dix: "You win; we can't top that one."
* * *
Next morning over a breakfast of croissants and coffee our friends are poring
over the photographs of the manuscript pages which they had had developed at
the 1-Hour Filma Shop near the hotel.
Rowan is comparing the prints with the torn page he had stuck in his pocket
earlier.
Rowan [thoughtfully:] "We have been well and truly had, my friends. Look
here."
He points to the bottom of the page, where in small print are the words,
"Compliments of Rupert the Ruthless."
Dix: "I don't get it. Was he one of the Doges?"
Tim: "No, he's Rowan's elder brother. In politics, I believe?"
Rowan [ruefully:] "Yes, we refer to him as the black ram of the family. It's
my fault; I was complaining to him last week that the new Blackadder one-off
wasn't getting the publicity it needed and he said that I could safely leave
everything to him. Which I, like a Baldrick, did."
Dix: "Is that the episode that's now showing at the Millenium Dome, called
"Black Adder Back and Forth," where you and the gang travel through time?"
Tim: "Sounds interesting. I hadn't heard of it."
Rowan [with some bitterness:] "My point exactly. Of course Rupert's use of
the character 'Clever Jake, et al' was a dead giveaway in that I used that
nom de guerre myself in the first series. He'll definitely pay for this.
And my drycleaning bill..."
Baldrick has been sitting unregarded in a corner of the room looking exactly
like a doorstop. He pulls a soggy turnip from some recess of his unearthly
garment and something else drops out onto the carpet. It appears to be a
thick little book bound in black leather with tarnished metal clasps.
Tim [casually:] "What have you got there, my little verminous entity?"
Baldrick: "No, it's more of a book what I picked up in a hole in the wall."
Rowan [resignedly:] "Hand it here."
Baldrick brings it to him.
Rowan opens it idly, then stops and looks more carefully at the old
black-letter style of the fading entries in Italian script.
Tim [looking over his shoulder:] "I don't believe it. Imagine Lucrezia
Borgia keeping a diary...this could be worth a fortune."
Dix: "That reminds me...I need to get back online and search for a few more
books."
Rowan to Tim: "[groan]"
The End