The Pindar Diamond: A Novel

By Katie Hickman

In a small town on the Italian coast, a mysterious woman washes ashore. She is crippled, mute, and clutches a bundle to her chest-a baby the townspeople insist is a real-life mermaid. It can only bring bad luck; they pay a troupe of acrobats to carry mother and child away.
In the bustling trade center of Venice, merchant Paul Pindar is the subject of his colleagues' concern. Since his return from Constantinople, they have found him changed; raging over the loss of his beloved, Celia, he has gambled away his fortune at the gaming tables. But when a priceless blue diamond surfaces in the city, Pindar recognizes the opportunity to regain everything he has lost-including, perhaps, the woman he loves.
A celebrated writer of history and travel books, Katie Hickman has always been a master of evoking time and place. With The Pindar Diamond, her follow-up to The Aviary Gate, she brings early-seventeenth-century Italy vividly to life, and also demonstrates her maturity as a novelist. A tale of love and avarice, with a touch of the mystical, The Pindar Diamond is rich with historical detail, and unfolds with urgency and grace. It is accomplished, wholly satisfying historical fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Release date: Aug 24, 2010
• ISBN: 9781608192847

Katie Hickman

Katie Hickman is the author of six previous books, including two bestselling history books, Courtesans and Daughters of Britannia. She has written two travel books: Travels with a Circus, about her experiences travelling with a Mexican circus, which was shortlisted for the 1993 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and Dreams of the Peaceful Dragon, about a journey on horseback through the forbidden Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year award for her novel The Quetzal Summer. Katie Hickman lives in London with her two children and her husband, the philosopher A.C. Grayling.

Book preview

desire

Part I

Chapter One

1603

They say lots of things – don’t they? – about what it’s like to drown.

That it’s a slow and dreamy way to die. That you will see the whole of your life flash before you as you pass into nothingness, or into the next world, although, afterwards, when it was all over, how anyone had ever possibly thought either of these things was quite beyond her.

No, what they don’t tell you about what it’s like to drown is the sound. Not the sound of the waves beating overhead, or the dip and crack of the boat, or even the muffled voices of the oarsmen – ‘Come along, you boys, get on with it, the sooner we finish the job, the sooner we can get home’ – not even the terrible deafening rush of the water roaring in your ears. It is the sound of your own voice that you never forget. The sound of your own voice begging, pleading, crying – not this, not like this, not the sack, please, please, kill me now – on and on, even in the water, until it seems to be the very sound of your own voice that chokes and suffocates you. Perhaps that’s why she never spoke now. Had never spoken again since. Not now that it was all over; not now that she had passed over into the next world.

Chapter Two

The coast of southern Italy, 1604

The village, when they came to it, seemed to the women to be one of the poorest they had yet encountered in an already bitingly poor land.

Even though they had travelled through the night, when they came to it early that morning they knew immediately that they had made a mistake. The village was not so much a village as a collection of fishermen’s huts that clung to the bleak shore like molluscs. From the sea the huts must have seemed more like piles of driftwood, boned and bleached, accidentally spooled together by the tides, which is what they were, really, when you looked at them more closely. Not much more than driftwood and rags.

Through long habit the women stopped at the edge of the village, and regarded their destination warily. There was no church, not even a chapel that they could see, although a stone cross by the wayside just at the entrance to the village had been decorated like a rudimentary shrine with flowers and a picture of the Madonna painted crudely on a piece of tin. A handful of votive charms, fashioned like women with crowns on their heads, had been strung together overhead. They made a tinkling sound in the breeze. Nearby there were the ruins of some buildings which looked as if they had once been more substantial dwellings. The roofs had collapsed, blackened rafters sticking up through the rotted thatch like splinters of bone; but here and there, in amongst the crumbled walls, you could see a stone lintel here, a carved door jamb there, evidence of considerable prosperity in some long-ago and long-forgotten time.

Two of the children, twin girls of about eight or nine, jumped down from the back of the cart where they had been riding, running one after the other, threading their way like quicksilver through the ruined courtyards. In their brightly coloured dresses they looked like butterflies. Maryam, the leader, called them back sharply.

‘What are you thinking, letting them run off like that?’ She turned to their mother, a woman with the sad, pale face of a pierrot sitting next to her at the front of the cart.

‘What harm can it do? Let them run around for a bit,’ the other woman said mildly.

‘Just call them back,’ Maryam’s expression was grim, ‘we’re leaving.’

‘But we’ve only just arrived –’

‘Look there.’ Maryam pointed to a wooden doorframe tipping from its hinges.

Elena saw it straight away, the cross painted crudely in lime. Her heart lurched. ‘They’ve brought us to a plague village?’

‘That would explain a good deal, wouldn’t you say.’ Maryam jerked her chin in the direction of the deserted village.

‘But I thought they said –’

‘Never mind what they said, we’re not staying here.’ Maryam jumped down from the front of the cart. Even in her bare feet she was a whole head taller than most men, with a chest and shoulders to match. The horse’s heavy leather reins seemed no thicker than those of a child’s hobby-horse in her hands.

‘But we can’t go on, we’ve been travelling for days.’ A hot wind was whipping Elena’s hair into gritty tangles. ‘The children are so tired – we’re all so tired.’ She gestured to the motley group of women who were gathered behind them, and then at the horse. ‘And this poor old nag can’t keep going for ever, either.’

The creature, so painfully thin that each individual rib jutted out, stood with its head hanging so low it almost touched the ground.

‘I don’t care, we’re not staying here and that’s that.’

Signalling to the rest of the small caravan, Maryam pulled the reins of the horse over its head and began to lead it away from the village, through a patch of scrubby, sandy ground between the fishermen’s huts and the sea.

At the edge of the dunes the horse stumbled and fell. Although Maryam beat it with her whip until she thought her shoulder would break, it was clear that the horse was never getting up again.

Later, as the others had begun to set up their camp in the shade of two crooked olive trees on the windswept hinterland, Elena found Maryam sitting with her back against a patch of grass. For a while they sat together in silence, looking out to sea. The wind had dropped a little, and there was no sound except the tiny hiss of wavelets breaking on the beach. There was no sand here, only a thin strip of shingle. There was a strong smell of decay, of seaweed and rotting pine.

‘Here, I’ve brought you this,’ Elena handed her a piece of bread and cheese.

Maryam took a bite. There was a taste of salt on her lips. She put the rest in the leather pouch that hung from her belt.

‘Well, looks as if we’re going to be staying here after all,’ she said after a while. Her voice was gruff. Neither of them mentioned the dead horse.

‘We need the work, you know.’

‘Work? Panayia mou! By Our Lady, there’s no work here.’ Maryam sounded as if she had tasted something sour.

‘But – I thought you said –’ Elena glanced at her. ‘What about the village feast day?’

‘There’s no feast day.’

‘What d’you mean, no feast day?’ Elena tried to leaven Maryam’s gloomy tone. ‘There’s always a feast day.’

‘What, here? In this ghost town? How can there be a feast day, when there are no people?’ Maryam nodded towards the huts. ‘It’s time to face it – we’ve been duped. Wouldn’t be the first time. A troupe of tumblers on their own is bad enough, no better than thieving gypsies. But a troupe of women tumblers, no husbands, no fathers to keep them in order – well, that’s against nature, that is.’ She spoke bitterly. ‘What better jest than to send them off somewhere with a wild goose between their legs? Reckon he must have thought we’d got off lucky, that man from Messina –’

‘That man, Maryam –’

But Maryam was not listening. All she could think about was the horse, putrefying already in this heat, she shouldn’t wonder. Maryam hid her head in her hands. Should they try to eat it? Sell it? She pressed her fingers into her eyes, so hard that she made sparks of light dance there. The loss of their only horse was a catastrophe so great she knew she had not yet even begun to comprehend it. They’d have to get back to Messina first, and the only way to do that would be to walk. It had taken them three days to get here. She was the strongwoman of the troupe after all, stronger than three men . . . But even with her great strength she doubted whether she could pull their cart all that way. Perhaps if she tied herself to the shafts . . . As if to shut out the thought, she dug her fingers in still harder.

‘Maryam!’ Elena was shaking her by the arm. ‘Maryam, are you listening to me?’

‘What –?’

‘He’s here.’

‘Who’s here?’ Maryam lifted her face from her hands, her eyes watering.

‘The man who hired us. The one in Messina.’

‘He’s here?’

‘Yes, I’ve seen him.’

‘Now you’re the one seeing ghosts.’

‘He’s no ghost,’ Elena smiled. ‘I’ve spoken to him, too. He came to the camp. He’s there now, waiting for us. That’s what I came to tell you.’

They found the man, a Signor Bocelli, sitting at his ease, eating heartily a piece of dried cured bacon between two slices of bread. Maryam, a woman of few words, did not waste her breath on useless reproaches.

‘I don’t know why you brought us to this plague village, and I don’t care. But, see here, we want to be paid for our trouble anyway, capito?’ She hoped he would not hear the note of desperation in her voice.

Signor Bocelli did not reply immediately. It seemed to amuse him to keep her standing in front of him. He took a large raw onion out of a leather knapsack at his side, the bulb roughly the size and colour of an ostrich egg, and bit into it with relish.

‘Hew! I’d forgotten!’ He grinned up at her at last, shaking his head, his mouth still full. ‘You really are big, aren’t you, giantess.’ Maryam watched as a piece of unchewed onion flew out of his mouth and landed on her foot. He followed her gaze. ‘Hew! Feet as big as a Cyclops, hands to match . . .’ still grinning, he sighed, ‘hew! And ugly, too, by God.’

You think I haven’t heard all this before? Maryam regarded him steadily, watched as the juice from the onion trickled down his chin. This and worse. Far worse. Is this really the best you can do, you lying, cheating, squirming little tick? Do you know that I could crush your skull with my bare hands? But she said nothing. Just stood there, in her shapeless man’s leather jerkin and boots, staring down at him, until at last he stopped his silly grinning and seemed almost discomfited, quelled by the sheer force of her silence.

‘All right, all right.’ He let out a belch and threw the rest of the half-eaten onion back in his knapsack.

‘Why’ve you brought us to this plague village?’ Maryam was growing tired of Signor Bocelli. ‘There’s no festa here.’

‘Well, you’re right about that, there’s no festa. But this is no plague village.’ He regarded her with his head cocked to one side.

‘What then? I don’t like it –’ Maryam watched as a lone dog sniffed in the dust amongst the deserted huts ‘– there’s something . . . strange about this place.’

‘Did no one tell you? In Messina, I mean?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘What this village is.’

There was a pause. ‘Now you’re speaking in riddles, Signor Bocelli.’ Maryam’s eyes glittered. ‘Perhaps you would be so good as to get to the point?’

‘Have you ever seen one of these before?’ From his knapsack the man brought out a small shiny object and held it out to her on the palm of his hand. Maryam took it, turned it over carefully.

‘What is it? A charm? Looks like a fish of some kind –’

‘An amulet. Look more closely.’

Maryam looked again. The amulet was made of silver, and showed not a fish, she now saw, but –

‘A mermaid!’

The mermaid hung from a silver chain. She was swimming on her back, blowing a horn. She wore a crown on her head; tiny bells hung from her tail.

‘I’ve seen some like these,’ she said, remembering the tinkling sound, ‘at the entrance to the village, at the stone cross. Only I didn’t realise what they were.’

‘In these parts mermaids have always been thought to bring luck. You can find these amulets almost anywhere along the coast – I’m surprised you’ve never seen one before. And this village especially has always been dedicated to the cult. Trouble is –’ he shifted uncomfortably ‘– now they’ve actually got one. A real one, I mean.’

Chapter Three

She lay in a stall in one of the stables, a thin bundle with matted hair. A second bundle, tinier and more matted still, lay by her side. At first, Maryam thought she must be dead, she lay so still, but when they had been watching her for a while in silence, the bundle lifted a hand, so pale it seemed made from paper, and stirred the fetid air. A cloud of fat black flies rose lazily from where they had been feasting on the open wounds along her wrists and ankles, then sank down again to gorge. There was a stench of faeces and rotted fish.

Maryam pulled away from the stall, her face impassive. She had seen enough.

‘If that were a horse, I’d shoot it.’

She tried to get round Bocelli but he was blocking her way.

‘Let me past –’

‘Take her with you,’ he was so close she could smell the onion on his breath, ‘she could be part of your show –’

‘How, exactly?’ Maryam could feel the bile rising in her throat. ‘We’re a troupe of tumblers – acrobats – Signor Bocelli.’

‘You can show her. Like, well, an attraction . . .’ When he put his hand on her arm she had to resist the instinct to beat it away.

‘A freak show, you mean?’ She paused, as if considering this idea.

‘A sideshow! Yes! Now you’re seeing sense. That’s just what I thought.’ For the first time Bocelli’s face cracked into what Maryam supposed was a smile. ‘You’ll make a fortune.’ He rubbed the tips of his fingers together meaningfully.

Maryam looked down at him. When standing she was a full two heads taller than him. Could he see the expression in her eyes? She hoped so.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ One by one, she peeled his fingers from her arm. ‘Thanks all the same.’

Bocelli followed her out into the dusty street. The sun was well risen now and the heat, reflected off the white houses, hit her like a wall.

‘But – she’s a mermaid, a real live mermaid –’ she could hear him calling out after her. ‘You’re making a mistake, a big mistake –’ his voice rose plaintively.

With a sinking heart Maryam realised that he had probably not even considered the fact that she might refuse his offer.

‘If it’s such a mistake, why don’t you do it?’

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. And no, she’s not a mermaid. You know that as well as I do. She’s a young woman whose legs have been broken. God alone knows how she ended up in this Godforsaken place.

Maryam strode down the street thinking hard. She knew the Bocellis of this world. He was pleading with her now, almost craven, but it would not last long. Even as she walked, Maryam knew that she would be making a mistake to cross him too obviously, that she must get them all away quickly. Before he turned on her – on them all – which he surely would. She searched around for a sop to his pride. She felt rather than saw him at her heels.

‘Besides, Signor Bocelli, we don’t have the money to buy her from you.’

‘Money? We don’t want money.’ She could hear him struggling to keep up with her. ‘She’s yours for nothing –’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want her –’

‘We’ll give you a horse.’

Maryam stopped dead in her tracks. ‘What?’

‘I said, we’ll give you a horse. If you take her away from here –’ he was panting at her side now. ‘That’s all we ask.’

She stared at him, not daring to believe what she had heard. ‘You’ll give me a horse?’ Vaguely she wondered who he meant by ‘we’.

‘Your horse is dead –’ there was a pause ‘– isn’t it?’ Maryam could feel a trickle of sweat running down one side of her face. ‘How else are you going to get away from here?’

She could feel the scales shifting in his favour. Exercising all her self-control, she said nothing; had the satisfaction of seeing the quick gleam in Bocelli’s eyes gutter again.

‘Where are you heading?’ Conversational now, he fell into step beside her.

‘Up the coast,’ she answered him grudgingly, ‘to the Serenissima.’

‘To Venice?’ He seemed to hear this with satisfaction.

‘In our business, all roads lead to the Serenissima,’ Maryam replied coldly.

‘Look –’ he tried another tack, confidential now ‘– the villagers are frightened, that’s all.’ He gestured up and down the deserted street. ‘They won’t come back till she’s gone.’

‘Frightened of a girl with broken legs?’

‘A girl with . . . ?’ For a moment she caught an expression in Bocelli’s eyes that she could not read. ‘Oh, yes, of course the girl . . .’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘They caught the girl in a fishing net. We all thought she was drowned, but –’ he shook his head ‘– she didn’t die. Not even after it . . . after the baby was born.’

‘After the baby . . . ? She had a baby?’ Maryam remembered the tiny bundle at the girl’s side. So that’s what it was. Panayia mou! By the Blessed Virgin! They’d be better off dead, both of them, than at the mercy of men like Bocelli. She wiped her fist over her sweating forehead. ‘The poor wretches . . .’

‘Nothing short of a miracle, if you ask me.’ Bocelli shifted again, would not meet her gaze. ‘Either that, or the devil’s work, more like. Is it a wonder they’re all so frightened? How did she get here, in her condition, it doesn’t seem possible . . .’

But Maryam had heard enough. ‘So?’ She was beginning to tire of this conversation. ‘She can swim, that’s all. It’s not hard to understand.’

‘Swim?’ Bocelli spread his fingers in a disbelieving gesture. ‘In her condition? And from where? The nearest island is more than a hundred leagues from here.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose anyone has tried asking her?’ Maryam allowed a tinge of sarcasm to enter her voice.

‘She doesn’t speak.’ Bocelli lowered his eyes. ‘She – can’t speak.’

‘I thought you said mermaids were supposed to be lucky in these parts. Why don’t you just keep her?’ She was curious now.

‘Keep her? How? I know the amulets are supposed to bring luck – and they say there’s a sacred grove dedicated to them further up the coast – but a real mermaid . . .’ He shrugged. ‘No one knows what to do with her, they’re afraid even to go near her. They’d have killed her by now if they didn’t think it would bring even worse catastrophe on themselves.’

‘So that’s why you brought us here? So that we would take her away with us?’

‘Yes.’

Maryam was silenced. From the corner of her eye, she could see a tiny dust-devil, a whirlwind of sand and dirt, dance up the baking street. Beyond the fishermen’s huts the sea was so blue it was almost black.

‘Take her with you. Take her to Venice.’

Their eyes met.

‘I’ll give you my horse.’

Maryam’s jerkin was sticking to her back as she turned and walked towards the women’s camp, crouched in the burning sun beneath the two bent olive trees.

‘My price is two horses, Signor Bocelli,’ she called out to him over her shoulder.

‘Two horses . . . ?’

‘I suppose you want me to take the baby too?’

Signor Bocelli had the grace to look discomfited, mumbled something that she could not hear.

‘Two horses then.’ Maryam gave a curt nod. ‘And I’ll take them away this very night.’

There were many things that Elena thought when she first saw the girl, but she said none of them. They put her on a bed of cushions on the floor, where she lay very still, cradling the bundle of filthy rags to her thin chest. The bundle gave out a tiny sound, like a kitten mewing.

Elena glanced up at Maryam. ‘There’s a baby?’

‘Seems so.’

‘Poor creature.’ Elena’s face looked even longer and sadder as she contemplated the girl. ‘What happened to her?’

‘No one knows. They caught her in one of their nets, somewhere out to sea. Or so he says.’

‘And you believe him?’

‘Believe Bocelli? Of course not. She was probably just abandoned, by her husband, by the father of the child, who knows. Now they’re saying she’s a mermaid, or some such nonsense –’

‘And they are afraid?’

‘Too afraid to keep her, that’s for sure. Too afraid to do anything other than throw raw fish at her –’

Elena crouched down. ‘You poor creature.’ She stroked the girl’s head, spoke to her softly, gentling her with her voice as though she were a snared animal. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ But she need not have worried. The girl kept perfectly still, even when they took her filthy rags from her, bathed the lesions around her wrists and ankles, her crooked legs, dressed her in a clean linen shift. She made no protest, no attempt to evade their ministrations, but lay there passively, saying not a word.

‘Bless her,’ Elena said when they had finished, ‘she’s got no more wits than her own infant.’

‘And these rags are only fit to burn.’ Maryam picked up the bundle from the floor, and as she did so something fell out from amongst the folds. When she bent to retrieve it, she saw that it was a small pouch, made of rose-pink velvet. ‘Where did this come from?’ She held it out for Elena to see.

Elena shrugged. ‘It must have been hidden under her clothes somewhere, sewed into her linen – I don’t know. Open it, it might tell us something.’

Maryam opened the pouch and pulled out a hard round object about the size of a bantam’s egg, wrapped in a piece of cloth.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m not sure.’ She unwrapped the cloth, looked at it in puzzlement. ‘It looks like a stone.’

‘What sort of stone?’

‘Just a stone. An ordinary stone, like something you might pick up on the beach.’ She weighed it in her hand. ‘In fact, it looks like a stone someone’s picked up from the beach just here – why, Elena, what’s the matter?’

While Maryam had been inspecting the contents of the pocket, Elena had taken the baby on to her knee and had started to unwrap it from its filthy swaddling. Now she was staring at the infant. Her face was pale.

‘Elena – what is it?’

‘Look at this –’ Elena’s voice was hoarse. ‘She is – it is – Signor Bocelli was not lying after all!’

She held the baby out for Maryam to see.

The infant was so tiny and weak that at first the only thing Maryam could think was that it was a miracle it was still alive. It lay quite still in the cupped palms of Elena’s hands. At first its eyes – the dark blue eyes of the newborn, as blue and dark as the sea it had come from – seemed the only living thing about the creature. That, and the tiny ribcage, rising and falling, rising and falling, struggling for breath like a wounded bird.

It was only then that Maryam saw that in place of two legs the child had but a single limb which stuck out in front. And where two feet should have been was a single web of flapping flesh.

‘You see! It is a mermaid. Bocelli didn’t mean the mother, he meant the baby! It is a real mermaid, after all.’

Chapter Four

Venice, 1604

‘He will come, you know.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Will he be drunk?’

‘What do you think?’

‘That’s what they call a rhetorical question, I suppose?’ The courtesan, Constanza Fabia, spoke from the shadows.

‘I don’t know what they call it.’ John Carew leant out of the window a little further, scowled down into the canal below. ‘I know I could call it a number of things – ah, look now, here he is.’

Carew watched as further up, on the curve of the canal, an approaching gondola parted the water like black oil. Its lamp threw out gleaming sparks of light, but as it came closer, he saw that the gondola did not bear the Levant Company coat of arms after all. ‘But no, no, I’m mistaken,’ he drew back into the room on the first floor of Constanza’s palazzo, ‘drunk or no, it’s not him.’

The room was one of the most extraordinary Carew had ever seen. The walls were three times as high as they were wide, the space beneath almost naked of furniture except for a massive bed. Over the bed was a half-tester canopy hung with silver brocade. Although the walls were covered with tapestries, the rest of the room had an empty feel. A pair of painted and carved cassoni had been pushed against two of the walls; while against a third was a huge sideboard also of carved wood. A folding table covered with a Turkey carpet had been placed at the foot of the bed at which Constanza sat. She seemed very small, Carew thought, in the echoing room.

‘For pity’s sake, come and sit down, John Carew.’ Constanza held a game of triumphs in her hand. Expertly she shuffled the cards together, dealing them with swift, well-practised movements on to the table in front of her.

‘It never does any good,’ her voice was light, unconcerned, ‘you know that.’

‘What never does any good?’

Aware of Carew’s gaze, she glanced up at him with her sleepy, cat-like half-smile, but did not reply. Instead she said, ‘Let me read the cards for you.’

‘You’d tell my fortune?’ Reluctant to move from his vantage point by the window, Carew put his hand up absently to feel his scar, a long silver cicatrice which stretched from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. ‘The pity is I already know what my fortune is. And yours, Constanza, if we all carry on like this.’

But still Constanza said nothing, and for a long while there was no sound except the susurration of the cards and the small hissing of the candles which had been fixed in their heavy silver sconces on either side of the windows.

‘Where did he go this time?’ she asked eventually.

‘Somewhere above some wine shop. At the Sign of the Pierrot.’

Constanza’s eyes flickered briefly towards Carew.

‘The Sign of the Pierrot?’

‘Yes. Why, do you know it?’ For the first time Carew could sense a change in Constanza’s until now unruffled demeanour.

They looked at one another across the dimly lit room, a brief moment of understanding.

‘He’s in deep then,’ was all she said.

Carew turned away again, fixed his eyes on the canal where the mist was now rising, hanging in wisps over the water.

‘He’s going to kill himself, you know,’ he said, his back to her. ‘Either that, or someone’s going to do it for him,’ he went on evenly, ‘and that someone just might be me.’

‘Oh come now.’ Constanza made a small clicking sound with her tongue against her teeth.

‘He has no money left. Or almost none. Night after night, Constanza . . . not games of skill – which he could win – but games of chance. He has thrown it all away, his whole fortune, with the roll of dice; and for what?’

Constanza shuffled the cards again, spreading them out with one swift movement on the table in front of her: the Tower, the Sun, the Magician. Nine of Coins.

‘He is not happy,’ she said at last.

‘Not happy?’ Carew almost spat the word at her. ‘You think I give a piss in a pot for his happiness? I’ll tell you what, Constanza, I really think he is mad, quite mad.’

‘How long –?’ Constanza began.

‘How long before I kill him?’

‘No!’ She smiled, despite herself. ‘I meant, how long has he been this way?’

‘You know that as well as I do. Three years, more . . . I don’t know exactly. As long as we’ve been in Venice, certainly. Since we came back from Constantinople.’

‘Since he lost the girl, you mean?’

‘The girl, yes.’

‘The one they thought was shipwrecked?’

‘Yes.’ He sounded sombre.

‘What happened to her?’

Carew

Reviews for The Pindar Diamond

[jenzbaker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Absorbing story of a traveling troupe of women acrobats to take on a near-dead "mermaid" baby and its catatonic mother. There's a mysterious diamond, threat from a bad guy with a cabinet of curiosities, a courtesan, a nun. Adventure, action and fun characters. Great storytelling -- mostly about human nature. Sensual with historical atmosphere.

[eye_gee-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I received this from Goodreads' free book giveaway, and as requested, I dutifully put it at the top of my to-read list so I could review and help publicize it. Having finished the book I'm sorry to give it such low marks. I now realize it was the second book in a series. Perhaps that is the reason it seemed so weak. Characters were not well developed, nor were their relationships to each other or the motivations behind the various plot lines. Had I not felt obligated to review the book, I would not have finished it. The story never captured me in any way.

[smits_52 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

i enjoyed this book.. Nothing very special. What I did find interesting was the depiction of nuns and life in te convent. A lot less holiness then I thought!!

[mrn945_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As to The Pindar Diamond, this is a sequel to The Aviary Gate, which I read in December but never got around to reviewing as the backlog was horrendous. I did enjoy The Aviary Gate, though I found myself much more interested in the historical story than the modern one with which it was juxtaposed. I am relieved to say that this method was not used in the sequel, and the novel is that much the better for it!The Pindar Diamond takes place primarily in Venice, though though the action frequently mentions Constantinople, where the first novel was set. The story follows a British man in search of his assumed lost love, and the events of the other characters of the first novel.If I seem to be frequently mentioning the first novel, it's because you really need to read it before this one. All of the backstory is contained in the first novel, and the author does assume you made the time to read that one first. Granted, this is a new location and there are new characters, but you really couldn't jump into this novel and enjoy it in the same way.That being said, I liked that the novel was set in Venice, which has always held a fascination for me. I was able to get a good feel for the era and the characters, and I felt that their progress was relatively organic from the first novel. While some of the new characters felt a bit extreme in The Pindar Diamond, this did not detract from the overall feel of the book. All-in-all, an enjoyable historical fiction. Nothing earth-shattering, but certainly not terrible. I would recommend this novel to someone looking for an easy read in the sun this spring!

[celticlady53 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I could not get into this book...I tried a few times but if I can not get into a book after a few tries, it is very unlikely that I will ever finish it...

[goth_marionette · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was excited to get this book and started reading it the minute it arrived. That was short lived. I got through about 15 pages and lost interest and started on another book that I had on my to read pile. So I decided to give the book another chance but after half the book I just decided to not devote anymore reading time to this book. I could not care about the characters and the plot was not strong enough to keep my interest. Overall I was not impressed and will probably not read another book by this author. I normally will persevere my way through a book in case it gets better but this time my to be read pile is just calling too loudly.

[amybridges · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It wasn't until halfway through this book that I realized this is a sequel to "The Avairy Gate." That being said, I was able to follow the story without having read the first book. The characters were intriguing, and I love how they were all intertwined in a way that you did not discover until the end. I definitely want to go back and read The Avairy Gate! And I read that Ms. Hickman has a third book planned to follow this one. This was an overall enjoyable read - one that I would definitely recommend to someone who loves historical fiction set in Italy!

[crittercrazyjen · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Although I did not realize it until after I received this book, The Pindar Diamond is a sequel to The Aviary Gate. I haven't read The Aviary Gate, and admittedly I may have enjoyed this book more if I had. However, I still don't think I would have found it to be that incredibly enjoyable. I thought the author spent too much time developing the back-story and not enough time fleshing out some of the more interesting parts of the plot. Another major complaint of mine is that, up until the last quarter of the novel, the many narratives seemed disjointed. Because of this, I had a hard time forcing myself to plod through a good portion of this book. I also didn't find any of the characters to be very dynamic, multi-dimensional, or even likeable. I do think that the basic premise of this novel is intriguing, but I feel the execution leaves something to be desired.

[misfit_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Disappointing. I did not realize this was a sequel to The Aviary Gate and I was quite lost for the first half before I finally gave up. The author took too long working on the back-story and I was disappointed the way the early story (the woman lost at sea and the *mermaid*) disappeared so quickly. No one was terribly likeable (actually quite un-likeable) and I finally gave up half way through. Thanks to LT for giving me the chance to read this.

[joririchardson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"The Pindar Diamond" was a book that I was greatly looking forward to reading. It just sounds so exciting! A mysterious woman washes up out of the sea, a supposedly cursed diamond is being tracked down, with which some nuns may be involved, and it's set in Venice. What could go wrong?The opening lines, in which the mystery woman describes drowning, really caught my attention. I got the impression that the author carefully thought about what such an awful thing must be like, and the short section of a chapter, less than a page long, seemed almost poetic in how terrible it was.In the next chapter, we are introduced to two traveling circus acrobats, Maryam and Elena. I loved the first descriptions of the characters, and the description of the tired little village that they come across had me reading the words in admiration. Hickman really brought to life the setting, and all on the first few pages!I settled in, eager to get to know these characters.However, it was not to be. The scene switches almost immediately to an entirely different set of the characters - who are the predominant ones in the story. They were quite confusing, especially in the beginning. But even toward the end, I was still a bit confused about what was going on with them. The author calls all the characters by both their first and last names at random. It wasn't until pretty far along in the book that I realized that "Pindar" and "Paul" were actually the same person, Paul Pindar. Also, the characters relied almost solely on dialogue when first introduced. They dive right in to talking about some very in depth, weighty matters, which I only found confused me more.Still bewildered and trying to figure out exactly who was doing what with which person, and what last name went with what first name, I was whisked away to another setting.In this one, we meet a young, pretty nun in training named Annetta. She has trouble following all of the rules, such as not having friends and giving up her embroidered slippers.Annetta was one of my favorite characters, even though I could never really manage to feel close to her. This book was extremely good for about five to ten pages. The author does an extraordinarily praiseworthy job of setting up the scenery, describing the details, and really giving us a feeling of the place she has introduced.However, the rest of this book was not so amazing.There were many problems, the most important of which being: by the time I was a bit over 75% finished with the book, I looked at the number of pages and thought incredulously "When EVER will the actual plot be introduced?"Well, it never was.Before beginning the book, I read and savored the description on the back cover (something I do when I'm anticipating a very good book). I had thought to myself that it sounded like an amazing story, but when I went back and looked over it, I realized that it was in fact relatively vague. The only possible plot lines I could make out were: A troupe of acrobats trying to care for a mysterious woman, or a man trying to find his beloved.Both of these were involved in the story, but no, they certainly couldn't be called a plot.It's a shame, because there were really a lot of great elements here. Venice! My favorite city, especially when set in historical fiction, and in the 1600's, no less! I was very disappointed to find that the city itself was barely mentioned, much less described. The acrobats and the woman from the sea show up again over halfway through the book, just in time to neatly deliver a shocking secret about the woman's identity (an extremely obvious and predictable secret, that is). However, even if I hadn't guessed this by the fifth chapter, I wouldn't have really cared. The reader never gets a chance to know the mystery woman, or to wonder who she is. So, when we do find out, it's no revelation.In the reading guide of this book, it describes a certain character as "a sinister villain." I thought "huh? He was a villain?" Sure, he makes some sort of evil speech at the end, but he wasn't a very prominent character. Even with a handful of other exciting plot elements thrown in (stolen diamonds, escaped Arabian harem girls, the gambling underworld, dept collectors, courtesans of fading beauty), the author still couldn't draw up a plot.There were also some things that didn't make sense in the book, which I'll list briefly here. (SPOILERS ahead!)- A jewel buyer is talking about how he would pay a fortune just to touch the famous "Sultan's Blue" diamond, but on the next page he is vehemently saying that he wouldn't even touch it, because it can bring only trouble. - Carew is looking Annetta over, and is somehow able to tell that she has a slender waist and a "nice rump." But wouldn't her nun's habit make this impossible?- I hate badly written romances. And there was definitely one here. Annetta meets Carew rather pleasantly - he grabs her, pretends to try to strangle her in the dark, and then offers to "service her" there in the abbey garden. After that, she hates him, which really just means that she is crazy over him, and by the end, they are weeping, falling down at each others feet, presumably hopelessly in love. What? They were only in each others company for a total of about 15 minutes, over three visits!- When Annetta stays out late, there is a convenient cover-up about the nuns ALL having "slept late." All of them. This is hundreds of women. And they all over slept. The author obviously just didn't want Annetta to get caught, but couldn't think of a logical way to go about this.- The entire thing with "The Aviary Gate." I didn't know that this was a sequel, or I would have read the other book first. No where does it say that this is a sequel - but it should have! You really have to have read the first book in order to understand a lot of what happens in this one, especially toward the end.- (SPOILERS) Maryam and the "mermaid" baby are killed? How did the baby die? And why? Oh, let me guess... They will turn out to be alive in the sequel. Just wait and see.- So Paul sees Celia, but doesn't recognize her, he just thinks that she resembles Celia. Then, he is certain it is her. It just really didn't seem to make sense to me, how one minute he was certain it wasn't her, and the next minute he is, without giving a reason.And the characters also disappointed me. I felt that I only got to touch upon them briefly, and there was no one in the story that I ever particularly was rooting for, or cared about. Maryam is the only character who I really sympathized with, but this was not so much because Hickman wrote a good character, but because she wrote us such a sad background for the giantess. Even when she died, I felt no remorse.John Carew was cast as the the typical roguish bad boy that all the women go crazy over. What is this with men assaulting the heroine and getting rewarded with eternal love? He sneaks up behind her, grabs her, and strangles her! Later, he says that he did this because he "wanted to frighten her." Does this sound like an honorable man? And yet, he is cast as very much the hero.So, there were obviously many problems with this story. However, for some reason, I did enjoy it. It always compelled me to read on, and I may even keep it. Despite so horribly ruining her plot, the author is good at describing things (when she bothers), and at keeping events moving along at a good pace.This book had a lot of potential, but sadly, it did not live up to it. I will read "The Aviary Gate" in hopes that it will be better, but this one was nothing special.

[sdunford_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I found this an odd read and have to admit I probably would not have finished the book had I not promised this review. Hickman writes well and her characters were well drawn. I liked them individually, but they seemed totally unconnected to each other. There were three plots that each made some sense and which were meant to come together at the end -- but why?? I still don't know. Its a love story but seemed utterly devoid of passion. The final chapter in particular was simply unbelievable - we're meant to believe that two characters with only the merest whiff of chemistry are suddenly passionately in love -- disappointing. I suspect this concept would have worked better as a series of stories revolving around the diamond without the awkward attempt to tie them together. This book is a sequel and it may be that had I read it as such I might have understood the character's motivations, but as a stand alone it just doesn't gel. Sadly, I simply can't recommend it.

[milliehennessy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It wasn't until I got to the end of the book that I realized this was a sequel to Hickman's Aviary Gate. That being said, I really enjoyed the book! I never felt lost or clueless, though I could tell that the characters had a considerable past together. Enough was revealed about their previous adventures to ensure that I wasn't left in the dark.This tale focuses on three plots that are all connected by a large, rare jewel called The Sultan's Blue. There's a look at the life of a nun who was once in a harem, a troupe of acrobat women, and a gambler and his cohorts. I felt that there was a strong cast of characters and though they all had such strong personalities, they didn't clash.After reading this book, I purchased the Aviary Gate, so I can see how it all began.

[toofacedgrl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Pindar Diamond is the sequel to Hickman's The Aviary Gate. The novel--a tragedy--merges three storylines into a climax involving The Sultan's Blue--a large, stunning diamond rumored to have magical powers. Maryam, a giantess who leads a troupe of acrobats, is tricked into accepting a mute, crippled young woman with a "mermaid" baby into her caravan. Maryam, who has been abandoned by her parents and abused, takes pity on the woman and cares for her. Annetta, a nun who made a great sacrifice to escape the Sultan's harem, is disenchanted and unsatisfied with convent life in Venice. Paul Pindar, a wealthy merchant turned to debauchery to forget the memory of his lost love while his manservant and a courtesan try to save him from ruin.While Hickman has considerable skill with language and brings seventeenth century Venice and Constantinople to life with vivid imagery, I had a hard time getting into and staying invested in the characters and the plot--even after reading (and adoring) the Aviary Gate. Diamond ' pacing was slow and unengaging until the ending, which is sudden, awkward and unsatisfying. Characters (like Constanza and Francesco) arrive and leave in the plot without much explanation and feel contrived. To be honest, if I wasn't such a huge fan of Aviary Gate, I probably wouldn't have finished the book--as a standalone, it doesn't engage the reader--it relies heavily on its association with Gate and doesn't deliver.

[fyrefly98 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Summary: A mute woman washes up on the shores of Italy, nearly dead and clutching a baby that might be a real mermaid. A nun has given everything to escape the sultan's harem, but she finds the strictures of her Venetian convent stifling to her spirit. A merchant who has turned to gambling, drink, and debauchery to try to run from the memory of his love. And, throughout it all, a persistent rumor of a diamond larger and more beautiful than any Venice has ever seen. The Sultan's Blue: a diamond with the power to grant one's heart's desire.Review: The book description that I initially read suggested that while this book was a follow-up to Hickman's first novel, The Aviary Gate, it could work equally well as a standalone. Since I haven't read the first book, I took this statement on faith... and that turned out to be a mistake. Sure, I was able to follow the action without a problem, and Hickman did eventually summarize (what I assume were) the main events of her previous book. However, I always felt like I was missing something by not knowing the backstory, something that would give weight and depth to the characters and their interactions and the plot as a whole, something that would pull this book together into a story instead of a bunch of disparate pieces. Because, as it was, this book didn't really work for me. The characters felt flat, and I didn't really sympathize with any of them. (That's not entirely true; I did enjoy the story of the giantess that is part of the traveling troupe that picks up the mute woman and her baby, but unfortunately she's somewhat peripheral to the main storyline that revolves around Hickman's familiar characters.) The separate story threads never gelled into anything cohesive, so it frequently felt like I was reading chunks of three separate novels. Big reveals that were played like they supposed to be surprising were in fact predictable almost from the first page of the book. The ending had about three too many coincidences to feel natural or satisfying. And, disappointingly, her Venice didn't really feel like Venice. The scenes in the convent were well done, full of the details and description that bring historical fiction to life. But for the rest of the scenes... if you're going to set a novel in historical Venice, I want it to be able to smell the canals, y'know? And in this case, whether it was due to a lack of descriptive writing, or simply a mismatch between her style and my preferences, I just didn't feel it.And that, really, was my issue with the book as a whole: it never excited me, never captivated me, and in the end, I just didn't feel it. 2.5 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: This book's got plenty of potential to be a really excellent story; however, I just never felt like it came together the way it should have. The situation may be different if you've read The Aviary Gate and have that background to build on, but I wouldn't recommend this one as a stand alone novel.

[kasthu_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Pindar Diamond is a follow-up novel to the Aviary Gate. While they can be read separately, I would recommend that you reading The Aviary Gate before this one. The Pindar Diamond opens in 1603 and 1604, when a travelling group of performers take a mysterious woman, washed ashore on the Italian coast, into their care. Meanwhile, in Venice, Paul Pindar is on the hunt for a priceless diamond called the Sultan’s Blue; and his friend, John Carew, becomes entangled with a nun named Annetta. It’s only been a year since I read The Aviary Gate, but I found when reading its follow-up that I had to go back and re-read my review of the first! I just didn’t remember any of the characters, except for Celia. Having read the sequel, though, I don’t think that I’ll remember the characters much further. I loved the setting of Venice for this one, but it wasn’t well-described, I felt. For all the description we got of the city, the book might as well have taken place in, say, London or Paris. The author recycles some themes from her previous novel; part of this book takes place in a convent, an enclosed place run by women (much like the harem in the Aviary Gate). Instead of capitalizing on this coincidence, however, I thought that the author more or less threw it away. The plot with the diamond was also a bit disappointing; the outcome was a bit of a letdown. I loved the bits with the acrobatic troupe, though their story was a bit predictable. I wish that the author had a little more character development with Paul, John, and Annetta, and made the city of Vence more of an integral part of the story. Still, I thought this was a well-written book, although the ending left a bit to be desired.

[corglacier7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After Katie Hickman's previous work, "The Aviary Gate", left ample room for a sequel to pick up some unresolved threads, here comes "The Pindar Diamond" to answer the call."Diamond" suffers from some of the same problems as "Gate": some occurrences seem to stretch credulity, characters drop out of the story for long periods without much explanation, and the end leaves open threads once again. I read "Gate" without knowledge of a pending sequel and so felt something of a lack of completion to essential parts of the narrative, and "Diamond" also leaves some of that feel. As a self-contained narrative it somewhat fails to satisfy and that may bother some readers, particularly as there's no note yet of a book to follow "Diamond".Still, the description is wonderful and lush, and the sense for Constantinople of the seventeenth century, a place of cultural crossroads, is finely drawn. Hickman has a very fine eye for detail and description which does a lot to redeem the narrative problems--the fact that I cared what happened and was frustrated by the lack of resolution says much for her characterization.Read "Diamond" if you enjoyed "Aviary Gate", and I'd recommend readers in general giving the duology a shot for its unusual setting and great description. Just be prepared to be able to leave some things a mystery.

[amerigous · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Pindar Diamond picks up four years after the events of Katie Hickman's previous work, The Aviary Gate, which had been set in Constantinople and centered on the thwarted love of Paul Pindar and Celia Lamprey. In the Pindar Diamond, several of the principle characters are back in Venice haunted by past events. As pieces of the mystery of a nearly-drowned woman, her unusual “mermaid” baby, and a stolen diamond called The Sultan's Blue gradually unfold, it is the fabled city of Venice with its marvelous splendor, labyrinthine canals, and dark alleyways that is the setting for The Pindar Diamond. And the author paints a vivid picture of both beauty and decadence. The characters are well-realized and interesting but tend to appear and disappear rather suddenly. For instance, the courtesan Constanza exits without adequate explanation after playing a pivotal role with Paul Pindar and his servant, John Crew (I would have liked a more satisfying conclusion for Constanza‘s story); and a minor character, Francesco, comes and goes in a way that hints more broadly at a plot device. Also, the final denouement occurs after a series of incidences that a critical reader might find too contrived and coincidental. But it is Ms. Hickman’s ability to pull you into the rather fantastical world she has created that made me enjoy this novel a great deal. Her use of several motifs like water, symbols such as bells, overarching themes of acquisition, avarice, and isolation, and also, the creation of characters like the outcast, Maryam, and her touching bond with the mermaid baby that add dimension and cohesion to this multi-faceted novel. Overall, The Pindar Diamond is very entertaining with its descriptive prose, unique characters, and lively dialogue, where the fine line between happiness and despair, love and loss, good fortune and bad, can rely on the turn of a card or the kindness of strangers.