The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  FOSCA LOREDAN—the magnificent noblewoman who has bewitched three demanding lovers.

  ALESSANDRO—her husband, the wealthy older man who rescued her from poverty and then spurned her with cold neglect when he realized he had committed the most ignominious sin—he fell deeply, unrelentingly in love with his own wife.

  RAF LEOPARDI—the Revolutionary, the deadliest enemy of her husband, and the one man who did not ask but took what he wanted—and what he wanted was the forbidden: Fosca, freed of the shackles of convention, writhing with passion, ecstatic with love.

  VENICE—the most demanding lover of them all, with her rundown beauty that makes one weep with memory of what once was; with her ghettos and rigid restraints against all those who are not noble and wealthy and willing to play outrageous games of pretense and immorality and hypocrisy. Venice—the lover who wants, who insists that her people conform—or risk banishment from the great halls of pleasure.

  FOSCA—she must choose; she cannot have them all. Her husband will not let her go, and she cannot afford to leave him. Her lover cannot have her until he purges himself of the vengefulness that fires his every move. And Venice? Venice herself will damn her for indiscretion, for honesty, for daring to be different if she does not make the right choice.

  THE MASQUERS—a romance, an adventure, a love story that sweeps history aside to live forever.

  Other Ace books by Natasha Peters:

  Savage Surrender

  Dangerous Obsession

  THE MASQUERS

  NATASHA PETERS

  ace books

  A Division of Charter Communications Inc,

  A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY

  360 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010

  THE MASQUERS

  Copyright © 1979 by Natasha Peters

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, except for those historical personages the author used in fictional settings.

  An ACE Original

  First Ace Printing: September 1979

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  2468097531

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  THE MASQUERS

  PART I I SERENADE

  II THE NOBLEMAN

  III THE JEW

  IV THE GHETTO

  V THE LIDO

  VI TOMASSO

  VII CARNIVAL NIGHTS

  VIII ASH WEDNESDAY

  IX BASTILLE day

  X BRIDGE OF SIGHS

  PART II XI THE OUTCASTS

  XII LA GABBIANA

  XIII THE CAMPAIGN

  XIV THE MAZE

  XV LAST CARNIVAL

  XVI ECHOES OF WAR

  XVII GATES

  PART I

  I

  SERENADE

  Venice hovered serenely in the void like an assistant in a magician’s illusion, seemingly unsupported, miraculous and impossible, a trick done with the twin mirrors of sea and sky.

  In the pale light of the winter moon, the contours of her churches, palaces, and bell towers were muted. She was like a vision seen in a dream: elusive and intangible, without dimension, lacking color or fine detail, a flower pressed between the pages of a book, a long time ago, for memory’s sake.

  Venice stirred and muttered in her sleep. The incoming tide sent shivers through the intricate network of canals that made up her nervous system. Sea water swept under the graceful arches of her thousand bridges. Water brushed past her sodden pilings and marble footings. Water licked at the mossy granite of her embankments. That the city they called La Serenissima was built on such an impermanent foundation lent an air of frailty to her beauty. On a crisp night in winter, when the streets were bare, the wind still, and the murmur of the sea unusually clear, she seemed particularly vulnerable. One could easily imagine the whole mirage sinking softly into the sea.

  Berthed gondolas, long-necked, black and mysterious, dipped and nodded gently, straining at the lines that linked them to shore.

  Ropes creaked. Iron rings clanked. Out in the lagoon a ship’s bell sounded: three hours past midnight.

  Their laughter preceded them. Like a herald’s trumpet, it shattered the peaceful calm that lay over the Campo San Salvatore, a small square in the center of the city between the Church of San Salvatore—a pile of dirty marble studded with a dozen soot-bedecked statues—and the more imposing façade of the Morosini palazzo.

  Three figures emerged from the black throat of the alley at the side of the church. They flitted bat-like across the square, their laughter swirling around them like the great cloaks they wore. They reached the shadows under the walls of the palazzo and huddled there, merry fugitives from reality.

  Each one was masked as well as cloaked. The first, who also carried a lute festooned with a bouquet of brightly-colored ribbons, wore a simple black oval that covered eyes, forehead and nose. The face of the second was completely concealed by the ghostly white larva, the beaky mask whose exaggerated nose and jutting upper lip made it resemble the skull of a bird. The third member of the party also sported a larva, but it was bright pink instead of white, and it matched perfectly the satin lining of his cloak and his silk stockings.

  Over their cloaks and under their three-cornered hats, each wore a black lace bauta, like a veil. This was drawn over the lower part of the face, under the mask, and it hung in soft folds to the elbow. The whole disguise was designed to shield the wearer completely from recognition.

  Laughter erupted from the little group, like a burst of steam from a bubbling pot.

  “Will you please be quiet!” the man in the white mask hissed.

  “I can’t help myself!” the smaller figure in the black mask gasped. “It’s too delightful.”

  “I’m terribly cold,” the voice behind the pink mask fretted. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have waited until finer weather. What if she’s not home?”

  "What an idea,” White Mask scoffed. “Of course she’s home. Where else do you think she’d be at this hour, at her lover’s?”

  More laughter, which he tried unsuccessfully to squelch.

  “Are you quite sure that’s her window?” Pink Mask asked the lutist.

  “Oh, certainly. We were there, in her room, this very afternoon. She’d just bought herself the most awful gown—it took all our skills to admire it convincingly, didn’t it, Antonio?” He turned to his companion in the white mask.

  “It was perfectly dreadful,” Antonio agreed. Plum-colored! Much too old for her.”

  “Ugh! I would never wear plum, even to be buried in!” Pink Mask shuddered.

  “So fastidious, Giacomo!” the lutist declared. What about to be married in?”

  “My dear, it’s the same thing!” he sniffed. “I’d rather burn!”

  They dissolved into giggles. The single serious-minded member of the group waved his arms frantically, imploring them to be silent. “For the love of Heaven,” he began in an exasperated tone.

  “And the fair Graziella!” Black Mask added enthusiastically.

  “Let’s get on with it, shall we? My feet are beginning to freeze.”

  “I’m ready!” Black Mask brandished the lute.

  “My dear, I didn’t know you could play the lute!” Pink Mask said admiringly.

  “Nor did I, until this very afternoon. But it’s wonderfully simple. Listen.” He strummed a few random chords and produced more laughter than music.

  “Now,” White Mask said briskly, “what shall we sing?”

>   “ ‘Donna infelice!' ” the lute player suggested promptly.

  “No, no, much too sombre. We don’t need to remind poor Graziella of how unhappy she is. How about, 'Ah, quanto e vero?’ ”

  “No, much too dull!”

  They argued in heated whispers for the next five minutes. Finally they cleared their throats, arranged themselves under the Lady Graziella Morosini’s window, and began to serenade her, their song echoing around the square:

  Pur dicesti, o bocca, bocca bella,

  O bocca, bocca bella,

  Quel soave e caro “si!” “Si!”

  Che fa tutto il mio piacer,

  II mio piacer!

  The words of this ditty expressed the hope that the lady’s beautiful mouth would soon utter the sweet and tender affirmation that would fill her lover’s soul with all delight.

  The first verse was a little ragged, but they caught the spirit of the song on the chorus, and by the time they were into the second verse, they were singing lustily, fortissimo, even venturing a little harmony and some simple ornamentation.

  The casement window above their heads swung open with a rude bang. A face appeared. Alas, it was not the sweet, dark-framed oval they expected, but a seamed and craggy square, edged by tufts of gray and surmounted by a rumpled nightcap. This article bore on its peak, to the everlasting amusement of the three troubadours, a small bell.

  “You rascals, what do you think you’re doing?” Count Morosini demanded furiously. The bell tinkled merrily. “What do you mean by sniffing around here like a pack of tomcats! Get away, I say! Get away!”

  The trio broke ranks and milled about in hilarious confusion. One of them began to call out Graziella’s name, beseeching her, in a passionate falsetto, to save him from her husband’s wrath. Count Giulio Morosini hopped up and down, shouting and jingling. Then somewhat unexpectedly, he disappeared from the window.

  “Good Lord,” one of the masquers remarked conversationally, “he’s gone to set the dogs on us.”

  In the next instant Morosini materialized again. “Now I’ll show you something, you rogues! I’ll teach you to stay away from my wife!”

  He poked the muzzle of a musket through the window, rested the barrel on the sill, and fired.

  The thunderous blast reverberated around the square. Sleepers, already aroused by the cacophonous chorus, appeared at their windows.

  “What’s going on down there! What’s happening?”

  The three, armed only with their wits and a single lute, were not prepared for any show of bravery. Wisely and unhesitatingly, they fled. Morosini reloaded and fired again, decapitating one of the statues that adorned the Church of San Salvatore. By that time the square was empty.

  A few moments later, two of the masquers burst out of the shadows at the foot of the Rialto, the famous shop-lined bridge that spanned the Grand Canal about halfway along its S-shaped course through the city. They were breathless, panting, but still laughing weakly, although their laughter was now unpleasantly tainted with fear.

  “Oh, God,” the lutist puffed when he was able to I speak, “I think we’ve lost Giacomo!”

  They stood on one of the outer ramps of the bridge and leaned heavily against the balustrade.

  “I heard him curse,” White Mask wheezed. “I think he tripped. Those stupid shoes of his—three inch heels! Not made for running!” He placed his hand over his heart. “I think it’s bursting. I’m dying!”

  “I hope he hasn’t been killed. That would be the most awful nuisance. Oh, Antonio, that hat! That bell! What a sight!”

  “It warns Graziella that he’s on his way,” Antonio suggested. “Can you imagine what she feels when she hears it: ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!”

  Laughter crippled them, and they leaned heavily against each other.

  “All the same,” Antonio said, trying to be serious, “it was a bad idea. You could have been hurt—or worse! I will never forgive myself for exposing you to this danger, my darling!”

  “Nonsense!” Black Mask said. “There was no real danger. That old idiot couldn’t hit San Marco if he were standing right in the middle of the Piazza. Wasn’t it fun? Wasn’t it exciting? In all modesty, I think I make a delightful troubadour!”

  “Oh, you do, you do!” Antonio agreed warmly. “And your music! My dear, you are another Orpheus—but you are handsomer than any god!” He caught his companion’s hand and pressed it to his lips, under the stiff white awning of his mask.

  “Dear flatterer,” sighed the youth. “You say that to every beautiful boy you see.”

  “I don’t, I swear it!” Antonio was all outraged innocence.

  “If I left you, you’d find another,” Black Mask teased.

  “Never! How can you doubt my love? But I forgot—you are merciless. And I, poor unfortunate that I am, shall be at your mercy forever. That is my fate!” A deep sigh came from under the white beak. “And my joy!” He applied his lips to the white fingertips.

  Black Mask laughed heartlessly and retracted his hand. “How I adore you, dearest Tonino!” The Venetians , with their passion for the affectionate diminutive, used nicknames freely. A Giacomo might find himself being called “Giacomino,” or “Giaco,” by those who were fond of him. “Antonio” became “Tonio,” “Tonino,” or even “Nino.” Black Mask purred, “You make the sweetest love, even as you are fleeing for your life!”

  “Dear one,” Antonio murmured, “I would make love to you on my way to the gallows, on my death bed, in Hell itself!”

  Strangled cries issued from the darkness. The two became silent and tense, and prepared to run.

  “Help me, help me, I’m dying! Oh, help!”

  They rushed to the bottom of the bridge. The third member of their party sat doubled over on the lowest step. He was clearly in pain, if his heartbreaking cries were any indication. They knelt beside him and murmured solicitously.

  “Oh, Giacomo, you’re injured! That evil man shot you! Speak to us, please, Giacomino!”

  “Oh, oh,” Giacomo wailed piteously.

  “Where are you hurt, my darling?” Black Mask crooned. “Oh, you poor thing, are you bleeding? We must find a doctor at once!”

  “I don’t know—I’m not sure! I only know I am in agony! I fell and scraped both my knees! I ruined my stockings! Look! They were perfect when I put them on, and now—”

  “Wretch! Fiend!” the other two cried. “You mean you’re not shot?”

  “Shot?Certainly not! As soon as I saw him brandishing that blunderbuss, I turned and ran as fast as I could.”

  Grimly, his friends grasped his arms and hauled him to his feet. Antonio dusted him off, rather roughly. Black Mask picked up his friend’s hat, which had fallen, and restored it to its proper place. They led him to the top of the bridge.

  “I tell you, I nearly fainted with terror,” Giacomo whimpered. “I heard the ball whistle past my ear and I knew the end was at hand! Oh, this is a horrid scandal! When they find out who we are—”

  “No one will find out,” Antonio said with conviction. “How could they?”

  “They will guess!” Giacomo said. “Old Morosini knows us, all of us! Oh, this is terrible, awful! What a fool I was to listen to you, what a fool! Why, he might even call us out! Yes, I’m sure he will!”

  “Call us out? Why, all we did—”

  “—was serenade the charming Donna Graziella—”

  “—whom he had no business marrying in the first place! A man of his age!”

  “Wicked old satyr! The way he carries on. So possessive!”

  “Won’t let her have any lovers, not even one! Why,

  he can hardly bring himself to leave her alone with her friends!”

  “She’s been married for two years. She should have chosen a cicisbeo long ago. It’s deplorable. Outrageous!”

  “He’s a throwback, a relic! He’s—prehistoric!”

  “Be that as it may,” said Giacomo firmly, “we should have been warned. Any man ill-advised enough to fall in
love with his own wife is untrustworthy. No, insane! Why, a man like that is capable of anything!”

  The three masquers linked arms and moved off down the other side of the bridge. The echo of their laughter lingered behind them.

  Alessandro Loredan, nobleman, member of the Senate, and at the age of forty the youngest man ever chosen for the high office of Commissioner of the Seas, was awakened by his valet at five-thirty that morning. He permitted himself the small luxury of drinking a cup of very strong coffee before he climbed out of bed, threw off his nightshirt, and splashed his face and torso with icy water. His valet barbered him, but he dressed himself without assistance. He disliked having servants fussing around him unnecessarily.

  He put on the clean cambric shirt his valet had laid out for him and tied his long neck cloth quickly and expertly, without wasting a motion. He drew on his silk stockings, and over them satin breeches, which he fastened at the knee. He shrugged into his gray silk waistcoat and fixed the studs at the front, slipped into black kid shoes, and finally pulled on his high-collared coat of fine black broadcloth. He adjusted the lace at his cuffs so that no more than one-half inch showed at the end of his sleeves, brushed a speck of lint off his shoulder, and checked his appearance quickly in a full-length mirror. The cut of his clothes was faultless, the style tasteful yet up-to-date, and his figure trim and fit.

  Before leaving his room he glanced up at the painting that hung on the wall over his bed. Completed by the great artist Titian in 1555, it depicted the Doge Leonardo Loredan leading his troops into battle. The Doge wore warrior’s dress, and his dark, lean face shone with the justice of his cause. In one hand he lifted a gleaming sword, and in the other held the standard of St. Mark. He was standing in the prow of a Venetian war galley. In the background anonymous sailors looked awed and impressed, as well they might, for in the sky over their heads the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Mark himself hovered weightlessly, their calm smiles indicating their approval of the forthcoming fight.