DELUGE

by Lisa T. Bergren

  I tried to act like Caterina, giving him a regal nod, even as the scent of his wine-laced breath and sweat-stained clothing washed over me. Clearly, he and his friends—who stood behind him, gawking at me as if I had feathers sticking out of my hair or something—had been drinking all afternoon.

  “My brother,” Caterina said with a sigh. “Come along, Nicolo,” she said. “The Forellis have just now arrived. You can speak further when we’re at table.” She pulled him closer. “And when you’ve sobered up a bit.”

  “Sobered up?” he cried, as if she were suggesting something silly. “The evening has just begun!” He turned to his friends, and they smiled.

  Marcello waved away the knights behind them, and two disappeared, but the two biggest—Celso and Otello—remained on the far side of the hall, arms crossed, ready to come to our aid if these partiers proved too unruly. They reminded me of bouncers at a nightclub.

  “Lord and Lady Forelli,” Nicolo said, “may I present my friends, my brothers, Sir Cappello and Sir Dalioto.”

  One stumbled toward me, as if planning on trying to kiss me in greeting, but Marcello stayed him with a hand to his chest. He shook his head as if to say, yeah, that’s not gonna happen. The man pulled up straight, gathered himself, and bowed from three feet away. The other bowed with him.

  “So honored to meet you, m’lady.”

  “Honored, yes,” parroted the second.

  “Where is your beautiful sister? The blond one?” asked Dalioto, his words slurring a bit. He was in fine clothing, but was very thin, his face marked by acne.

  “Safely in her room, far from scoundrels like you,” Luca said, striding in to stand beside Marcello.

  “Luca!” Nicolo cried, greeting him with as much exuberance as he had Marcello.

  “I thought you were captaining your own ship and off to Africa,” Luca said.

  “I have been, yes,” Nicolo said.

  “And he’ll soon be off again,” Caterina said, hands on her hips, “if he can stay out of his cups long enough to secure his next shipment.”

  Nicolo waved her off, as if she were irritating him. “Time enough for that.”

  The two shared the same olive skin, the same eyes, but that’s where the family resemblance stopped. Nicolo was a few years younger, and his face was much wider than hers. In fact, everything about him was as round as his grin.

  “I cannot tell you how fine it is to see you both,” he said to Marcello and Luca. “It has been far too long.”

  “Agreed,” Marcello said, clamping a hand on his shoulder. “But if you shall excuse us, I believe my wife would do well with a rest before supper.”

  “Of course, of course,” Nicolo said, bushy eyebrows rising. He nudged his cousin’s side. “It’s a burden to carry a Forelli in the belly, is it not?”

  “Nicolo!” Caterina barked, eyes going wide in horror. If I’d learned one thing, it was that pregnancies weren’t normal day-to-day fodder for people to discuss in medieval society. Women did, in private. But men typically gravitated toward the lewd, seeming to feel more free to comment given the evidence of our intimacy as a married couple. Inwardly, it made me want to giggle and roll my eyes over such antics. But for Caterina’s sake, I pretended to have not heard him.

  “Ahh,” he said, waving her off again, hands then going wide. “We are family, are we not?”

  Her lips clamped shut, and her eyes shifted to his companions. “Enough. Out. Out,” she said, shooing them out the door. Once they were gone, their boisterous chatter and heavy boots receding down the hallway, she looked back at us. “If God shall only smile, Nicolo will be at sea again in a few days.”

  “It is all right,” Marcello said, his voice full of reassurance. “Luca and I remember Nicolo fondly. And he is not the first man we’ve seen imbibing.”

  Luca shook his head, smiled, and passed her to go speak to the Forelli knights outside, giving them instruction. Undoubtedly making certain that one would stay near us, and one would go to Lia’s door.

  Caterina cocked one brow, long fingers clasped before her. “Yes, well, he shall find his cups filled with nothing but water between now and supper. Do not fear joining us at the table.”

  Marcello laughed quietly. “It shall be well, cousin. Thank you, again, for hosting us.”

  “It is my distinct honor,” she said, bringing a hand to her chest. Then she nodded once, took hold of the door handle, and closed it behind us.

  We were alone at last, and he turned to stroke my cheek and tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, then ran his hands over my shoulders, down my arms, to take my hands in his. “So now you have met some of my kin. What do you think of them?”

  “Charming,” I said, meaning it. “Both of them.”

  “You are not offended by Nicolo? Horrified by his antics?”

  “Nay, nay,” I said. “I think he shall be highly entertaining.”

  He gave me a grateful look. “He’s always been that. He and Luca…” He shook his head. “Let us simply say they got into their fair share of trouble when we were boys together. We might blame him, being the elder, for some of how Luca turned out.”

  He took my hand and led me to the windows, where we could look down the Canalazzo. I shivered, the moist, cool air of approaching evening giving me a chill.

  “Here,” Marcello said, wrapping his arms around me from behind. I settled my head beside his chin, loving the sturdy support of his body behind mine. “Better?” he asked.

  “Much,” I said.

  Together we stared down the canal, watching as boats moved back and forth. One appeared to be a sort of floating bridge, with eight passengers all standing as they crossed over from one side to the next. The water shimmered with the pink light of sunset, and tiny waves from the boat traffic washed against both stone and wood.

  “La Serenissima,” he whispered, the name for Venice meaning the most serene. “It truly is beautiful, is it not?”

  “’Tis. It’s marvelous, really. A wonder. So different from Toscana, and yet equally as beautiful.”

  “Indeed.”

  His hands moved down to stroke my belly, and I smiled. He took pride in my pregnancy, and he wasn’t given to crude jokes about it. I knew he loved this child within me as much as he loved me, and it warmed me to know it. To share it with him. As Tomas had said, babies were a gift, a blessing. And as much as I feared the future, what he or she would face in the plague and beyond, I had to trust God that he was holding us all in his hands. Our days here were so beyond anything I could’ve imagined or hoped for…being here, in Venice, in the fourteenth century…all of it, from beginning to end, was beyond me, beyond my control. And so I elected to simply appreciate each day for the gift that it was. And this day? Well, it was a whopper.

  Marcello turned me toward him and cradled my face, his eyes full of devotion. “I love you, Gabriella,” he said, bending to kiss me softly, then more searchingly, pulling me closer. “I love you so much that sometimes I think it might tear me apart.”

  I smiled and kissed him softly. “And I love you.”

  He stared at me intently. “If these new Betarrinis prove a danger to you, we shall sneak out of the city and set sail immediately. You understand me? I will not abide any danger to you or our child.”

  “I understand,” I said. I knew he couldn’t control it all, couldn’t guarantee our safety. But he didn’t need argument from me now, only reassurance that I was with him. That he and our child were my priority, no matter how much these new Betarrinis drew us.

  “Do you think we might gain access to them?”

  “I hope so,” he said. “But for today, we shall rest from the journey.” He led me over to the bed and reached up to unpin the net that held my hair.

  I started to protest, knowing I’d struggle to tame it again before dinner, but he shushed me with a playful finger against my lips. Then, one by one, he pulled the pins from my hair, and I closed my eyes, appreciating the sensation of his every touch, the tickle of each s
ection of hair as it tumbled down my neck and across my shoulders. Slowly, he turned and unbuttoned my gown, freeing me of its confines, leaving only the shift for my nap.

  But as I sank to the bed and looked up at my husband, who put one knee beside me and slowly pulled off his tunic and tossed it aside—his shirt opening at the nape so that I could see the finely sculpted muscles of his chest—I was well aware that there would be very little napping to be had in this glorious, gorgeous room along the Grand Canal.

  CHAPTER NINE

  EVANGELIA

  I rose early, eager to capture the bustle along the Grand Canal from a perch that Nicolo had shown me last night, up on the third floor—or piano, as they called it here—in the library. I pulled a lovely, high-backed chair covered in horsehair over to the wide windows and opened the shutters, taking a deep breath of the sea-kissed, cold morning air. Then I settled into the chair and brought out my precious paper, mounted on a board, and a charcoal pencil. My intent was to sketch here, and paint from memory when I returned home to Toscana.

  For a long while, I simply stared outward, memorizing the distinct green-blue of the water, the unique, Ottoman-inspired curves and arches of many of the palazzos beside the Canal, which were painted in sun-bleached red, ochre, or café au lait, or were framed in great blocks of natural stone—fresh cream or white, for the most part—or bricks, awaiting a new coat of plaster. Men greeted one another as they passed in boats, and I decided I’d do two pictures: one of the canal in general, a macro view encompassing as much as I could. And another more secretive view of a smaller canal and footbridge—more of the “insider’s” Venezia. I’d have to find just the right spot…but an old photo of Dad’s came to mind. Maybe I could convince him to help me find it again. If it even looked the same in this era. If not, I was sure we’d be able to find others. Venice was loaded with spookily quiet corners that would fill a notebook of sketches for me.

  I began to work on my drawing of the canal, capturing the rectangular lines of each palazzo, growing smaller in the distance, the curves of the boat lines, the wake spreading behind them. As the morning wore on, more and more boats filled the waterway. Luca arrived, and I thought he sighed in relief, as if he had been worried when he couldn’t find me. He gave me a smile and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Good morning,” I said warmly, returning to my sketch.

  “Good morning,” he answered, striding slowly, tentatively over to my side. He watched as I added line after line.

  “Will you ever sketch something for me?”

  I reacted before I thought about it. “You mean this?” I asked, pulling out a drawing from my small portfolio. It was of a young couple on a hill, overlooking a Tuscan wood.

  He cast me a look of suspicion and then took it in hand. He studied it for a long time. So long, I shifted in my chair.

  “’Tis a fine piece, Lia,” he whispered, then looked to the window, as if remembering us being on that hill together.

  When he moved, I saw what I wanted. “Luca, might you pose for me? Stand still for say, half an hour?”

  He looked at me and slowly nodded.

  “Good,” I said. “Come with me.” I took him by the hand and led him out of the library, down the stairs and out the main hall, this time to a street behind the house. We both blinked in the bright, early morning light and looked around. “Are you ready for an adventure?”

  “With you?” he said, cocking a brow, reminding me of his old self—not the moody, new self. “Of course.” Still, he lifted a hand with two fingers aloft, gesturing to Celso and Falito to follow us.

  I smiled with him, and we set off down the alley, entering a wide street, once a canal that had been filled in and covered—and down several blocks. I gave up on trying to find that one small alleyway that I’d seen as a child with Dad. I was in search of the perfect place that only Luca and I would remember. We needed this.

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

  “A perfect place,” I said with a grin.

  “A perfect place,” he repeated. “I thought that was any place I was with you.”

  My grin widened. “Venice has places that are even more perfect than that,” I returned. “You’ll see.”

  We walked on and on, deeper into the Rialto, even over a tilting wooden bridge that would one day be replaced by the famous white stone bridge. On and on, we went, turning around and going back the way we’d come once or twice when we hit a dead-end. Venice was like that. Full of dead-ends. But the place that I sought was ahead. And when I found it, I stopped so suddenly I pulled Luca up short, practically swinging him around.

  “What?” he gasped, surprised.

  “Here,” I breathed. “This is it.”

  “This?” He turned and surveyed the view with me. The small canal. The foot bridge. The church and steeple arising beyond the building, curving away from us. The gondolier, making his way through the canal. The sunlight creeping down the western wall.

  “There,” I said, gesturing toward the small footbridge. “Please. Can you lean against that building, arms crossed, leg cocked like this? You know, like you’re always lounging about?”

  “You make me sound like a lazy good-for-nothing.” He waved at Celso and Falito, and I sensed they were taking up positions a bit away, giving us privacy while keeping watch.

  “Hardly. Luca,” I urged, the sunlight moving down the far wall even as I watched. I demonstrated what I wanted him to do. He pretended to not understand, of course, making me physically position his shoulders against the wall, his leg, his arms, just for the fun of me touching him. And when he was finally as I wanted him to be, he reached out and grabbed hold of my arms.

  “A kiss for your model as payment?” he asked, his green eyes searching the empty streets to make certain we were alone. It was early yet.

  I grinned and leaned toward him. This was more of the Luca I remembered. “A worthy payment,” I said, kissing him softly, slowly, making the most of this exquisite moment with the man I loved.

  He took hold of my face with one hand and my waist with another, pulling me closer. Kissing me deeper, more searchingly. It was daring, out in public as we were.

  I edged a little away. “Luca,” I protested in a whisper. “Celso and Falito. Or someone else may come along.”

  He smiled and pulled me close again. “Let them see,” he said, stroking my cheek before kissing me again. “Let the whole world see. Evangelia Betarrini is not yet my fiancée, but she shall be mine.”

  “Oh I shall, shall I?”

  “Oh yes, you shall.”

  I managed to escape his wandering hands and took twenty paces back to the position I desired. There, I settled on a stone with my canvas stretched across a board. I sketched with wild, quick lines, desperate to capture everything about this early morning moment that I could. It was perfect. Perfect.

  And yet as I sketched, I knew that eventually, I’d have to burn my work. There was no telling what my paintings might do when artists were just now daring to depict a bit of realism. To allow my work to become public might change the whole trajectory of art as we knew it, given that I was so influenced by a modern age. Yeah, I’d heard it from Dad before, a time or two. No, this work was purely for my own enjoyment, my own memories. But no one besides Luca and my family could ever look upon it.

  Still, I found it fulfilling. Bored, Luca pantomimed choking and then death, and I laughed under my breath, so glad, so very glad to see him acting more like himself.

  Once I captured his basic shape and pose, the essence of him, I moved on to the buildings around him. The sun was rising higher, the entire church steeple bright in comparison to the deep shadows that filled the small canal that ran between three-story buildings. A gondola came around the corner, in the distance, and I hurried to sketch it while he was far away.

  “Evangelia,” Luca said, sounding worried, his tone hushed.

  “Hmm?” I asked, still staring at my canvas.

  “Evangelia.”
He moved out of position toward me, hand outstretched.

  “Wait, wait!” I cried with a frown, worried that I’d still need him where he’d been, that he’d just ruined—

  “What is this?” said a provincial tone over my shoulder.

  I pulled the canvas to my breast and turned to belatedly see a man in fine clothing, flanked by two others in similar dress, and followed by four knights, so elaborately decorated that they could only be from the doge’s court.

  The man, triple-necked and flabby cheeked, snapped his fingers and then flicked them back toward him, obviously asking me—no, telling me—to hand over my canvas.

  “No, signore,” I said with a shake of my head. “’Tis only for me. A folly. A lark,” I tossed out.

  His small dark eyes stared back at me, unmoved by my attempt at charm. “Signorina, I shall give you latitude, assuming you must not know who I am. Now hand over that canvas this instant.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said, “but I cannot. I dare not offend your sensibilities with my poor attempt at the arts.”

  He clamped his lips together and lifted his chin. “I glimpsed enough to know that it was far from a poor attempt. Now give it to me.”

  My eyes ran over his shoulders, the fine fabric, the knights behind him. He was of some rank at court. High enough to think he ruled anyone in his path. My only hope was that he would laugh at my attempt. With a sigh, I handed him my board.

  He studied it a moment and then looked to the canal, the bridge where Luca had been, the water where the gondolier had passed. His small, dark eyes moved to the church steeple, then down to my canvas again. I held my breath.

  “Pity you are not male,” he said, still considering my sketch. “If you were, I’d place you in a master painter’s care for proper tutelage. What is your name? From which house do you hail?”

  “M’lord,” Luca said, inserting himself. “I am Sir Luca Forelli de Siena de Toscana, and this is Lady Evangelia Betarrini.”