The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  Listen to me, child. These pretty things you enjoy all have a source. Do you not care where?"

  She was not a stupid girl. Nor was la duchesa a stupid woman. Giacinta looked at her grandmother sharply, with great apprehension now. A source? A source, for her party finery? Before now, only this or that trinket had been a gift from di Verona to her grandmother, not to her. But Nonna had talked of liquidating certain properties in Milano, of being sent a sum of gold.

  "This man," her grandmother said, "this man you so lightly dismiss, mark me, will rule Venezia."

  A moment of rash rebellion. "The Doge rules Venezia."

  "The Doge," Nonna scoffed. "The Doge, the son of a professor, with the mind of an accountant. We are the nobili, we are the ones burdened and privileged to rule, for centuries."

  Giacinta knew that speech. She had heard di Verona and Nonna talking together about old times.

  "Come." Nonna took a bracelet from her own wrist, and put it on her. "You will go to il duco's ball, and dance with him, and perhaps . . . perhaps two great houses may make common cause."

  "What are you saying?"

  "That a union of our houses is to our good. I depend on you, my girl, my bella. I depend on you to make that union possible."

  "To marry him, are you saying, Nonna? To marry him?"

  "If you can manage to please him. If you are a good and clever girl, who thinks most of her Nonna, and make a good impression on this man."

  He throat seemed too narrow, breath too short. She struggled for argument. 'Why should I marry? Why should I ever leave you?"

  "Because—" Nonna always had a lace handkerchief, it was always perfumed, always slightly damp and warm, and, being magical, as she had once said, it dried tears even before they were shed. "Because, my sweet, my treasure, if you marry Cesare di Verona, you will become the most powerful woman in Venezia."

  "How should I be?"

  "Because Cesare is a clever man, and the Doge will soon fall, and the divided Council will find itself in chaos, with riot in the city. Cesare will be at hand with a strong presence, to save Venezia from civil disorder. When ever could an accountant rule a city like this? It's only to the good of the city that he fall. And you will be a grand duchesa yourself, la duchesa di Venezia, respected among all the other cities."

  One could never argue with Nonna when she spoke like this, so soft, so close and so intimately. It began to sound reasonable and necessary, whatever Nonna said.

  But this year she was seventeen, and thought her own thoughts, and had been promised the carnevale, and Nonna could not persuade her. She said, however, obediently, "What shall I do?" because there was only one way to have peace from Nonna, and to get out the door.

  So Nonna told her how she must go to the duke's ball in three more days and dance with him, and he would dance with her the next day after that in the great Piazza di San Marco, declaring their engagement to the crowds. They would become the talk of Venezia, how handsome they were, how well matched.

  "Then the people will applaud the match, and you will be in the public eye as his fiancee, and when someday soon some mischance befalls the Doge, as, who knows? it might, why, then, then, bella, you will be protected and well-situated. Il duco will take firm charge of the city and prevent public disorder with a strong show of force. As, who knows? such wild events might easily happen, in the license of festival."

  It was a warning what Nonna wanted to happen, what Nonna expected to happen. She knew Nonna hated the Doge, for what reason she never had understood, except that he was common. Nonna had never shown hatred for the citizens of the Repubblica, only regarded as disgraceful the notion that commoners should rule when their betters wondered where their next meal might be coming from.

  She had been happy before di Verona's visit. Now the sun seemed dimmed outside the diamond panes, and the thunder walking above the tiled roofs seemed full of omen. Her first carnevale, her carnevale, was to be full of Nonna's plans, of a betrothal, and to di Verona. Of a sudden her perspective was not of days of celebration, but a little stolen time before the holiday celebrations met di Verona's ambition, and before her own life forever took a turn she never wanted.

  She let herself be unlaced, shed the dress to the seamstress for a final few tucks, and told the seamstress, when Nonna had left the room, "I shall want it in my room in an hour."

  In fact, she had formed a deep resolution, that what carnevale she had left, she would enjoy with all her might.

  She went to her room, she took out all the coins she had saved in secret, coins of Milano, coins of Verona, coins of Venezia, and put them all in the little purse she used when she went to the shops. She laid out her jewels, and when the seamstress came with the dress, she had the seamstress lace it up, lace it tight.

  She did her hair up, she put on her jewelry, the amethyst necklace, and her pearls. Her mother's ring, all she had of her parents, she always wore, a gold circlet with a chased design and a band of diamonds. She put on the beautiful headdress, nodding with plumes of gray and hyacinth. Last of all she took her masks, the white bauta, the common mask, and the black moretta, the mask of silence—she tied them by long ribbons to a velvet belt, and put it on so they hung among the folds of her skirts. Outside the window, twilight came early, in storm.

  Yet through the windows, from the walk outside, on the Priuli, came increasing squeals and laughter. She could not see what the cause was, but she resolved she would miss not a moment more of festival, nor think of di Verona a minute for the rest of her freedom. She slid her stockinged feet into the high-heeled, high-soled shoes, then fled downstairs to the front door and out under the sky, alone, free until the sunset. She put on the white bauta, beneath her plumes, the half-mask that let one eat and drink, and hurried along the Pruili and to the bridge, a young woman alone, dodging importunate young celebrants. She danced across the bridge, and so to the narrow shadow of the calles, then out again where she had longed to go, onto the great Serpentine, where the gold and fading sun speared the broad canal through massive gray cloud.

  Here was spectacle. Here people went about in wonderful costumes, wondrous gowns flashing with paste jewels. Men and women alike squealed and fled the cloaked mattacino, who flung eggs at festivalgoers, targeting particularly the women, but his eggs when they burst were full of perfumed water, and left a sweet smell where they struck. Giacinta wished he would fling one her way, and she would try to catch it. But the mattacino only bowed, out of missiles, and went his way, seeking more eggs, it was sure.

  Oh, and the gondolas, with their festival passengers, and, far down the canal, the great barges, proceeded along dark, sun-gilded water under a stormy sky. Musicians played, vying with one another across the Grand Canal, and sweet-sellers called out, becoming part of the music.

  She bought a sweet from a stand, and watched a pair of harlequins walk down the edge of the canal. She followed them, and joined the rear of the crowd at a puppet show, dismissing from her mind what Nonna would say when Nonna found she would miss supper.

  She would come back by full dark, well-fed, and her eyes brimming with sights—oh, so many sights—and her ears filled with music, so she would not dream of di Verona at all. She clapped for the puppets, she watched the dancers, she walked past shops and through traffic of festival-goers, all the way to the great square, the Piazza di San Marco, which was choked with celebrants. Musicians at every permanent café vied with one another for territory, making a no man's land of discord between. Sweet-sellers abounded, and a great red and gold tent had been set up in the middle of the square, where actors offered plays to make a girl blush.

  She stayed through half a performance, and then, fearing she was missing something outside, went to look at the glasswares at the corner shop, and wandered afterward as far as the great cathedral, which was undergoing surely its thousandth renovation, all done up in scaffolding. A harlequin had climbed up above the entry and sat hurling flowers at all comers.

  She caught one.


  "Bella!" the harlequin called out, and she waved it back.

  It was so grand an evening.

  But all at once the thunder cracked fit to rattle the scaffoldings, and the rain pelted down. Festival-goers shrieked and screamed and pressed this way and that to find shelter for their finery, and Giacinta, pushed and shoved, found refuge inside the cathedral, inside its gold, lamplit sanctity, while the thunder cracked and boomed above.

  The storm, some said, was no ordinary storm. A great storm had brewed up in the Adriatic, to come crashing against the sea gates, and a greater storm than any before it. The gates might fail, some said, and some had come here to pray they held.

  When she heard this, a cold feeling crept through the ancient cathedral with its disapproving saints. The sea gates were vast, ancient, and saved Venezia from the flood, but now the rising sea backed up behind those gates in storm, so high the storm surges of recent years that if the gates were to fail, then all Venezia would drown.

  "All the more reason for carnevale!" a pulcinella cried then, waving his hat, gallant against the threat, and people around him cheered, and laughed. Soon the crowd sheltering in the echoing cathedral shouted down the doomsayers, saying the gate would never fail.

  "It will come," a prophet of disaster shouted.

  "Be still, mantico doloroso!" someone shouted, and another, "Look, the storm has passed already!"

  Indeed, the storm had swept past with uncommon speed, was in its last stages outside, and the crowd pressed the other way, to exit the cathedral into the vast piazza, which was all in stormlight, clouds as black as old sin. The gray stone of the piazza gleamed with moisture, reflecting black and silver off the puddles, little mirrors now and again flashing with the reflection of lightning, now and again gleaming gold with the sweep of a festival torch as people rushed back to their revels. The air was washed clean. The canal would run higher, perhaps, but not disastrously so. The day seemed not so late after all, now that the clouds had lightened.

  The prophets of doom, Giacinta thought, were wrong. The only threat was that of her ball finery getting soaked, and Nonna in despair, forbidding her to go out again.

  She thought it time to be tending homeward, at least, if not getting there, and she crossed the piazza, seeking the route that offered the most awnings on her way. Her high-soled shoes kept her hem clear. Her plumes were only a little draggled, and would dry good as new in the brisk wind. She was not the only one leaving the piazza; no few, inebriated, plied the rain-swollen canal in gondolas, waving lanterns and laughing.

  A flash of lightning, a clap of thunder. The whole Serpentine flashed white, and Giacinta ran, ran, in deepening gloom, until a low place in the walk stopped her in utter doubt. The walk had flooded there. Another band of storm was coming on.

  "Bella!" a young man called out, behind her, and another, joining him in rushing toward her, called something rude. They rushed down on her, picked her up by the elbows and carried her across, splashing through the shallow water. And did not let her go.

  "Let me down!" she cried. "Let me down!" They reeked of wine, and one swept her entirely up in his arms. "Let go!" She kicked, she struggled. A huge gondola nosed close to the shore here, and she thought they meant to carry her off in it. "Let me down!"

  "Citizen," another man said. A young gold-and-white harlequin in a white bauta stood in the path of her abductors, like a prince of the fairy tales, and two strong black and white harlequins stood behind him. "Set the lady down."

  The man did, laughing—set her down in the edge of the puddle before he took the better part of valor and ran.

  "Fools!" the white harlequin said, and offered his hand and pulled her to dry pavement. Both fools fled, splashing, down a narrow calle. "Madonna."

  "Sir." She was not easily frightened, but she had been so close to disaster, so close to losing everything. She pulled away from his hand and went to the shelter of an awning, not so far from other traffic, within sight of it, at least.

  He stayed, he and his two companions. He made no pursuit of her.

  "Would you have us deliver you to your house, madonna?"

  She was not sure. She hesitated. Another man might have left in disgust, his kind offer rejected. But he stayed, and held out his hand.

  She turned her back, hidden in the shadows. She pulled off the bauta and assumed instead the moretta, the silent mask, that, held by a button behind the teeth, would not let her betray herself.

  "Ah," he said. "La moretta. But you must somehow tell me where you lodge."

  There was an unfortunate fact she had not thought of. She felt foolish. But she grandly gestured down the walk before them, and he took her hand and stayed beside her. The two black harlequins stepped lightly back into the gondola and the boat began to turn, to pace them along the Serpentine, while lightnings danced and whitened the water.

  His hand was warm and comforting. Her heart still beat hard and her hands trembled from the fright she had had.

  "Such a fine hand," the young harlequin said, in possession of that hand, "it must belong to a beautiful young lady."

  La moretta must say nothing—could say nothing. They simply walked, and he held that hand ever so gently, seeing her safely along. She gestured that they should turn aside from the Grand, and they did, though his young men wanted otherwise. He bade them stay with the gondola—a very grand one, it was, with curtains, more a nobleman's barge than not.

  And, oh, why could Nonna not be content with this young gentleman, whose clothing was satin and brocade, whose hand was warm and strong and gentle, and whose chin beneath the bauta, was very fine? She would bring home her young knight of the festival and say to Nonna, Forget il duco—I have found my own young gentleman. I shall marry him, not di Verona. Never di Verona, so long as I live!

  They walked through the calles. He delayed by a sweet-vendor, but of course, he seemed to recall mid-offer, la moretta could no more eat or drink than she could speak. He mimed realization to her, as if her silence was catching, and she took his arm, miming laughter. They walked on together, across the Ponte Vela, and on to her very door.

  "Ah," he said, looking at the house, and at her, as if he knew, then, everything there was to know. Her heart sank. She was not among the highest of the city.

  She turned to go inside, to end her fantasy, to be done with adventures for all her life, forever.

  But he caught her hand, and pulled her about, lifting her hand to his lips.

  "Madonna, when shall I see you again? Tomorrow? Please say tomorrow."

  She was caught unable to speak, between longing and knowledge of her fate. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, her heart said. One more adventure. One more time, to see the sights of the festival—this time safer than before, escorted. Surely it was her best, her last chance in her life. And his voice was so kind, so persuasive. He, and not di Verona, was a gentleman.

  She turned away, her face to the door, let fall the moretta and snatched the bauta to her face, holding it in place with her hand. Then she faced him.

  "At afternoon." That was her best chance to get away. Nonna napped then, and might not come out of her bedroom for hours. "I shall be here after noon, about one. By the water-stairs, on the Racheta."

  "I shall be there," he said, her harlequin, flashing a broad grin, and kissed her hand before she slipped into her own front doorway and dropped the mask.

  All that night she courted sleep, thinking of him, and not of di Verona, but she found no rest until late, and did not wake until the sunlight came full through her window.

  Then the servants brought her breakfast, since she had not come down, and she dressed in light fabric, and wrapped up in a shawl, and walked in Nonna's precious garden, thinking, building cloud-castles far more pleasant than any of Nonna's plans for her life—though she knew Nonna's plans would win, after all. Di Verona was her fate. Her harlequin was the fantasy.

  Nonna came out to sit in the noon sun, and said not a word. They shared a light luncheon out in the sun, and Nonna
remarked how, when they had money again, she would make a fountain in the garden.

  "If there is not money soon," said Nonna, "I shall tell you the bitter truth. We shall lose this garden. We shall lose the house."

  Her dreams all faltered and trembled. "What about the gold, Nonna?" But when she asked that question, she knew there had been no property in Milano. Everything was a deception, all Nonna's stories, if she had been taking gifts from di Verona.

  "Never worry," Nonna said. "You will win di Verona's heart. And very soon after, you will live in the Palazzo Ducale, where you belong, and I shall have title to this house. You will give it to me, will you not, my darling, my precious girl? I am too old to find another fortune. I've taken care of you; now you must take care of me."

  It was the softest and saddest and most desperate she had ever heard her Nonna. It struck her heart. And she had the most dire feeling that Montefiori's will had not, as Nonna had said, granted the house to them. Nothing else of Nonna's assurances seemed to have been the truth.

  And amid Nonna's deceptions, weighed against greater lies, it was only a little rebellion she intended. Only one evening.

  So, after noon, when all the city abandoned its business for an hour or so, when young and old took to their rooms for naps, and when the more energetic went out to enjoy the cafes, she put on her finery and the white bauta and tiptoed down the stairs to the canalside door, to the little steps where the water lapped.

  Just as soon as she stood there, a sleek, curtained gondola, waiting silently down by the intersection of the Racheta with the Caterina, came to life. Its gondolier poled softly up, and a fine masculine hand drew back the curtain, and invited her aboard.

  Her white harlequin was alone this time, but for his gondolier. He settled her onto the cushions opposite him, and smiled at her.

  "My lady keeps her word," he said.

  "So do you," she said. She had never seen a gondola so fine as this, with its black leather and red brocade cushions, nothing of faded splendor like Nonna's house, but all bright and new. Her harlequin was no poor man, not at all. He had such fine hands, carefully kept. His hair was dark, and curled beside his white half-mask. His smile was very kind.