Provender Gleed Read Online Free PDF Page A

glowed bright, unmissable. Fortune strapped on his parachute pack, went through his final equipment checks, slid open the cabin door, bid farewell to his pilot, reflexively groped for his hip-flask, remembered he hadn't brought it, and threw himself out into the night.
    Everything went according to plan - almost. After a ten-second freefall Fortune yanked the ripcord, the parachute billowed open above him with the customary explosive snap , his harness constricted around him, not unpainfully, and for a while he swung dizzyingly to and fro. When things settled down, he grabbed the guide-rope handles and began steering. Venice loomed beneath his feet and the partygoers swelled from milling dots to identifiably human shapes. The Piazza San Marco was his goal, although landing in the Grand Canal remained a possibility - he hated the idea of a soaking but the stunt would be funnier and more memorable if he came down with a splash.
    Soon Fortune was low enough that he could even make out, or so he thought, his brother. He was about to yell out Prosper's name, and thus alert everyone to his imminent arrival, when a sudden crosswind caught him. In order to counter it he dipped one side of his parachute, but he could still feel himself being driven relentlessly and inexorably off-course, away from the piazza, towards the rooftops. The Campanile rushed up at him. Please, O Lord, don't let me die , was Fortune's brief, fervent prayer. Not like this. Not sober . Then he screwed his eyes tight shut and braced himself for impact and possible impalement.
    When he dared to open his eyes again, he found that he was dangling some thirty feet above the piazza's paving stones. A crowd had gathered beneath him and anxious voices were calling up, wanting to know if he was all right. He looked up and saw that his parachute had got hooked over the Golden Angel. He was suspended helplessly but harmlessly from the Campanile like some sort of novelty decoration.
    Fortune began to chuckle.
    When someone below informed him that a ladder was being fetched, he chuckled even more. 'Tell them to bring up a snifter of brandy while they're at it,' he called down.
    Ten minutes later, Fortune was safely on the ground and receiving applause from the assembled partygoers. The applause, as was often the case, had a note of sycophancy to it. Applause usually did when you were Family. Nonetheless he accepted it with a gracious nod, and then he hugged Prosper, kissed sister-in-law Cynthia lavishly on both cheeks, made a typical bachelor-uncle fuss of nieces Gratitude and Extravagance, and in no time had a bottle of claret in each hand and was well on his wassailing way to total inebriation.
    His costume, incidentally, was that of a devil. Red bodysuit, horns on his head, scarlet face-paint, short three-pronged pitchfork, and a fake goatee beard of hellish blackness.
     
    Uncle Fortune having arrived, Cynthia could not put it off any longer. Provender would be coming to the ball even if she had to grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him here.
    She left the piazza. She threaded through the thoroughfares, the salizade , the canalside fondamente , till she reached the edge of Venice. Then she took off along a lamp-flanked path of crushed quartz that led towards the house. The party dwindled behind her, the sounds of conviviality fading, the shotgun reports from the Arsenale becoming nothing more than faint popcorn cracks . By the time she arrived at the house, all Cynthia could hear was the crunch of her own footfalls.
    Dashlands House invited her in through a square archway into a courtyard which gave onto another courtyard via another square archway which in turn gave onto yet another courtyard via yet another square archway. The last courtyard, the largest of the three, boasted a rectangular lily pond which butted up against the lofty, narrow windows of the largest drawing room. A broad, low loggia led to one of the house's two main entrances. Twin teak-panelled