The Stargazer: The Arboretti Family Saga - Book One

by Michele Jaffe

  Ian suddenly rose from his seat and loudly muttered, “Ha-ha!”

  Ser Alvise turned his spectral face toward the disturbance. “I shall have to ask you to keep your seat, d’Aosto, or leave the courtroom. Another outburst like that and you will be escorted away.”

  Ian, who had already reseated himself, was too preoccupied brooding over his lap to make any sort of response.

  Even before he had interrupted the proceedings with signs of obvious delight, Bianca was fuming at Ian. Denouncing her for murder was nasty enough, but it was needlessly cruel to talk about her anatomical work and precious drawings as if they were signs of perversion and derangement. She turned to glare at him, the fiercest, meanest glare she could muster up, but her line of sight was interrupted by a guard holding something before her.

  “Your fierce scowl suggests that you recognize the paper, signorina.” It was not a question, which was just as well, for Bianca could scarcely have explained that she had intended the scowl for her betrothed.

  “Yes, I do, Your Excellency. It is Petrarch’s third sonnet.”

  Archimede Seguso, the second judge, regarded her through his slitlike eyes. “We are not here to see displays of your learning, signorina. Do you recognize the hand in which the poem is written?”

  Bianca nodded slowly, with dawning comprehension. “Yes. It is mine.”

  “How many such love sonnets did you send Isabella Bellocchio?” That time it was more of a demand than a question.

  “None.”

  Ser Archimede opened his eyes as wide as they would go, about the width of a cat’s whisker. “Kindly explain how this love sonnet written in your hand came to be found in Isabella Belloccio’s lodgings.”

  “I wrote it there.” Bianca was calm. Even someone with eyes as small as Ser Archimedes should be able to see she was telling the truth. “Isabella was illiterate, and I was teaching her to write. She asked me to leave her a love sonnet that she could practice copying over in her own hand.”

  She had miscalculated her audience. The eyes again became slits. “I advise you, signorina, not to overtax our credulity. For how long were you in love with Isabella Bellocchio?”

  “I was never in love with Isabella Bellocchio.” Bianca shifted, trying to keep her wet feet from getting numb.

  “Of course. Perhaps your type does not call it love. When did you begin making advances to her?”

  “I never made any advances to her.” It was hopeless. The numbness was moving up her legs.

  “Signorina Salva, consider your position. We have ample proof that your interests do not run toward men.”

  “Indeed.” All the warmth in her body seemed to be leaving, taking with it her self-control. “I hope you will produce it. I am sure I shall find it diverting.”

  The third judge lifted a large magnifying glass to one eye. Cornelio Grimani was known for his inscrutable statements and his ineffable ability to catch criminals. Many people ascribed the latter entirely to his magnifying glass, which was supposed to possess the power of revealing people’s thoughts and penetrating their souls.

  More spirited men than Bianca had felt their strength ebb under the scrutiny of his glass, but she did not even flinch. She was too busy trying to figure out what Ian had intended by including this in his denunciation. For while it was just slightly probable that despite his interest in science, he thought her anatomical drawings were perverse, it was completely inconceivable that he thought she did not like men. She could think of no purpose that such a lie would serve, nor could she believe that Ian would be purposely deceitful in his denunciation. Could he really have understood her that badly, even after all they had shared?

  “You may be right,” Ser Cornelio said at the conclusion of his examination of her, jolting Bianca back to attention. “I believe it will indeed divert you,” he added after a pause, then gestured for the guards to bring the witnesses in.

  To Bianca’s utter surprise and later horror, Giulio Cresci entered the room. He looked around, bowed slightly in the direction of the spectators, then faced the judges.

  “Signore Cresci, please repeat what you told us earlier,” Ser Alvise commanded, and although she was paying close attention, Bianca was not sure his lips actually moved.

  Cresci made a face designed to suggest deep thought, but which looked more like acute constipation from where Bianca stood. After he had held the expression for a moment, he whined loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the door. “I think I started off saying, ‘Everyone says that Bianca Salva is as cold as they come.’ ”

  “Yes, you did.” Ser Cornelio made a face. “What we would like to hear is not what you have heard, but what you personally experienced.”

  Cresci’s eyes darted furtively to Bianca. It had been easier to tell the story when there were only men around. Or maybe just when she was not around to challenge him. “It was Monday night, at her betrothal ball. I went to give her my congratulations on her marriage, perhaps help her with a few pointers, and you will never believe what she did. She stood up, looked at me as if I were a vile rodent with beady little eyes and greasy hair, and marched away.”

  Bianca was torn between trying to make him repeat the exact comment that had made her march away and commending him for his admirable self-description.

  “What conclusion did you draw from this, Signore Cresci,” Ser Alvise probed.

  “Why the obvious one.” Cresci shifted to give the spectators a view of his heavily padded legs, a posture designed to underscore Bianca’s obvious lack of appreciation for male beauty. “I concluded that she hated men.”

  “Wouldn’t the more obvious conclusion be that she hated you?” Ser Cornelio asked seriously.

  For a moment it looked as if Cresci was going to challenge the judge to a duel, but since dueling was illegal in Venice and Cornelio Grimani had celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday several years earlier, Cresci decided against it. The old man was known to be a little loose in the head, he reminded himself. It must have been a joke.

  “That is funny, it really is. But as I told you, there are many more than me who have gotten the same treatment at the hands of Signorina Salva. And you heard that fellow about the clothes.”

  Bianca cocked her head to one side and looked at the judges. It was Ser Archimede who spoke. “A servant belonging to the Foscari palace has testified that you gave him a rather large sum of money in exchange for his clothes. Would you like to see him?”

  “No, it is true.” Bianca saw no reason to conceal it, and there was no reason to prolong the ordeal. The numbness was beginning to creep into her stomach, and soon her blood would be frozen in her veins. “But what can that possibly have to do with the murder of Isabella Bellocchio?”

  “The assumption is that women who like to fill men’s clothing, also like to fill men’s places in other ways. For example, in the bedroom.” Ser Cornelio’s tone suggested the theory had been developed by someone with considerably less judgment than himself.

  “By Santa Teresa’s collarbone, that makes no sense!” The stupidity of the idea reheated Bianca’s blood. “For one thing, if I hated men, why would I want to act or dress like them? For another, there are plenty of good reasons a woman might want to wear men’s clothes besides impersonating men.”

  “Perhaps you will enlighten us.” Ser Cornelio had his magnifying glass out again. “I can think of several reasons, but none of them are good. What was your good reason for wanting men’s clothes.”

  Bianca realized she had made a mistake. If she explained why she had procured the clothes, to break into Isabella’s house and snoop for evidence, her guilt was as good as confirmed. But she was convinced that if she lied, Ser Cornelio would see through it in an instant.

  “They allow greater freedom of motion,” she answered in compromise, then hurried on with a question of her own. “Why w
ould proving that I dislike men, which I deny, mark me as a murderess?”

  It was Ser Alvise who answered. “It does not mark you as a murderess, but it certainly increases the likelihood that you were in love with Isabella Bellocchio.”

  Bianca was puzzled. “You seem to be concluding that I was in love with Isabella Bellocchio simply because I am not in love with Giulio Cresci. Is that correct?”

  The comparison between the shapely, sylphlike courtesan and the spindly legged, self-described rodent was patently ludicrous. Anyone in their right mind would have preferred even a dead Isabella to a live Giulio.

  “We have concluded nothing. We are merely acting on the information provided in the denunciation,” Ser Archimede interjected swiftly. “Can you deny that you had a conversation with Signore Cresci that ended as he has described?”

  All at once, Bianca saw how she had been betrayed. Ian had led her on, taught her to trust him, only so that he could use what she told him against her. Like a bloodthirsty tiger, he had leapt at the tiniest scrap, even her brief conversation with Giulio Cresci. He had spared nothing in his exertions to have her condemned for murder, refusing to believe in her innocence despite all of her efforts. His hate for her obviously ran so deep that he would stop at nothing to prove her guilty.

  Not even faking a robbery.

  Without even thinking, she asked in a low voice, “At the beginning, you mentioned some drawings. Do you have them?”

  “I don’t see what bearing this has on the question of your affection for Isabella Bellocchio.” Ser Alvise adjusted the cuff of his robe, the equivalent for him of a massive fit of the fidgets.

  “Nor do I, Your Excellency. I was just wondering if you have them.” She had not realized that she was holding her breath for the answer.

  “No. Or, I should say, not here. But we have seen them. They were submitted with the denunciation and we do have them. We decided they were too, ah, detailed for this setting.”

  It was the answer she both feared and anticipated. Bianca stepped backward, suddenly unsteady on her feet as the full scope of Ian’s perfidy struck her. He himself must have arranged to have her drawings stolen, wanting to have them in safe custody when he decided to submit the denunciation. With growing anger, she remembered the way he had berated her that night, accusing her of having an accomplice who stole her papers and ransacked her tools for her, when all along it had been him. He had known she was telling the truth when she denied his accusations because he had been behind the theft himself, but he had persisted anyway. He had purposely framed her for murder, had purposely betrayed her.

  Suddenly everything was so clear. It was he who had an accomplice, he who was protecting someone. Someone about whom he cared more than anything else. Someone whose regard he valued so highly that he would do anything to secure it. Someone like Morgana da Gigio.

  Ian had plundered Bianca’s body, had toyed with her, had lied to her, all to protect the woman he really loved and had always loved. Bianca cursed her lack of self-control as despair for the love she could never inspire in him tried to overtake the deep and horrible feeling of betrayal that had settled in the pit of her stomach. She would not allow herself to keep on loving him. She would not mourn for the fact that she could not occupy his heart. She would hate him for deceiving her, for repeatedly beguiling her, for purposely making a fool of her.

  Color rose in her cheeks as she imagined first the immense effort it must have cost Ian to pretend that he enjoyed making love to her, and then the hours he must have spent regaling Mora with tales of Bianca’s naïveté, her pathetic attempts to win his heart, or at least his concern. What made it worse was that he had gone to such lengths to trick her, even fabricating that nightmarish tale about Sicilian bandits and cowardice and being left by Mora. Her anger rose with her color. He had gone too far. She would not allow herself to be used as a scapegoat. She would no longer play the fool. She would not allow him to sit placidly by as she was condemned to death for a crime his lover committed.

  “I am disheartened that you found my drawings too distasteful for public viewing,” Bianca responded finally to Ser Alvise, her voice steely. “I had intended to publish them. Before they were stolen, that is.”

  “Stolen?” Bianca was pleased to see that she had forced Ser Archimedes eyes open, this time two whisker-widths.

  “Yes, from my laboratory at Palazzo Foscari.”

  “Stolen?” Ser Archimede repeated. “By whom?”

  She had taken the risk that he would begin asking about the body in the drawings, but he had not. Instead, he had asked the perfect question. “Obviously, whoever was planning to frame me for the murder of Isabella Bellocchio. Either the murderer alone, or her accomplice.”

  “You assert that someone is deliberately blaming you for a murder they committed?” For the first time in ten years Ser Alvise’s face exhibited signs of life.

  “Yes.” Bianca stood perfectly still and stared forward, scarcely controlling her urge to look over at Ian to study the effect of her disclosure upon him.

  Ser Archimede’s eyes returned to slits while he studied Bianca, trying to decide if she was in earnest or playing a dangerous game. He came forward in his chair to address her. “If that is truly the case, how do you explain all the evidence which points specifically to you, Signorina Salva?”

  She would have liked to ask exactly what evidence he was referring to, if only to make his eyes pop open again, but there was too much at stake. “I have already provided explanations for all of it. It is hardly difficult to manufacture evidence, or even to plant it.”

  “Plant!” Ser Cornelio exclaimed so loudly that even Ser Alvise jumped in his seat. Bianca was suddenly worried that she had antagonized the acute man, but he was paying no attention to her and was instead gesturing emphatically at the guards. “Plant, plant, plant,” he declared. Only moments later, as if by magic, Luca entered carrying the vicious plant with the two red flowers.

  Ian leapt from his seat in the courtroom and flew to confront Luca. “Why didn’t he tell me? What did they—” Ian’s badgering of the witness was brought to a hasty conclusion by the two guards who clamped themselves firmly to his sides.

  “You have been warned,” the spectral Ser Alvise reminded him. “However, in view of your position we are willing to give you one more chance if you promise to cease these disruptions.”

  “Don’t bother.” Ian shrugged off the guards. “I am leaving anyway. There is nothing for me to learn here.” Blind with rage, he moved to the door unescorted and unimpeded.

  “When you leave, you will not be granted readmittance,” Ser Archimede advised his back, but Ian just waved the notice away and closed the door behind him.

  The crowd on the other side of the door, who had been subsisting on mere scraps of words, could scarcely believe their bonanza when the betrothed of the murderess coolly exited the courtroom. Yet even if his reputation had not rendered him unassailable, the expression on his face was enough to make the horde part for him without asking a single question, or even speaking a single word. Only Tullia was brave enough to approach him as he strode by her, but unhearing, he continued in stone-cold silence through the hallway and down the stairs to the landing where his gondola awaited him.

  Bianca’s eyes had grown wide, first at the puzzling presence of one of Ian’s staff, then at the even more puzzling behavior of Ian himself. She wished she could chastise herself aloud. What a fool she had been! Rather than compelling him to admit what happened, her allusion to the part he had played in framing her had instead forced him into retreat. He had realized that she would soon be pointing a finger at him and had seized the first opportunity to leave the courtroom. Instead of getting him exactly where she wanted him, she had frightened him off, with devastating effect. Nothing he could have done or said could have worked better to convince the judges of Bianca’s guilt than his e
arly departure from her trial. It was only in her mind that his hasty leave-taking proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was involved in the crime.

  She had been a complete idiot, Bianca told herself, first for trusting Ian, then for provoking him. Her independent spirit, her rational mind, her extensive book learning, had all gotten her nowhere. Or rather, they had earned her a few nights in a cell and a death sentence. Ian’s early departure made reading out the verdict almost unnecessary.

  The sadness that washed over her then, standing in the middle of the soggy courtroom, was so powerful that she thought she might drown in it. Then she sneezed.

  Luca had set the plant down on a table as far from her as possible, but its effect on her seemed to be unstoppable. She sneezed again as Ser Archimede addressed her.

  “Do you recognize this plant, Signorina Salva?”

  Bianca sneezed, started to speak, sneezed again, and settled for nodding.

  Ser Archimede lifted something from the pot and held it up. It was a long, thin dagger, exactly the right size and shape to have been used on Isabella.

  “Can you explain how this dagger, probably the murder weapon, came to be hidden in the soil of this plant?”

  Bianca was momentarily baffled. “No,” she sneezed, “I have never,” she sneezed again, “seen that dagger before.”

  “You did not put it in the soil of the plant?” Ser Archimede asked incredulously.

  “No. I can scarcely,” she sneezed twice, “get near that plant without,” she sneezed, “breaking into a rash.”

  “I hardly see how that precludes your concealing a dagger in it.” Ser Archimede turned to Luca. “Please repeat what you told us earlier.”

  Luca cleared his throat, glanced nervously at Crispin, made a short study of the wall behind Bianca’s head, and finally addressed the judges. “It was Sunday, the day before that big ball, when I find Signorina Salva there wandering around the glass rooms, all sneaky and curious. She asks me about my boy—that is, about Crispin Foscari—and I tell her he’s not there, but still she lingers on, damn—that is, eat my hose if she don’t, and then she goes tearing up between the flowers, swishing them with her women’s things, and stops right in front of this one and starts asking questions about it. Now I see the way the plant and she get on, so I know that the plant has got no good feelings for her, and I won’t tell her a word. But it got me to wondering, and then last night you all come and ask for the plant and what do you find but a dagger, and that’s a mighty good reason for a plant to wish harm on a woman, eat my hose if it isn’t.”