by Trish Telep
"Illustrissimo ..." the robed man left his salamandre to their work and turned, kneeling again. Chiara recognized him as Jacopo Lezze, the grand master of the Guild of Alchemical Engineers.
"Protect my granddaughter," the doge whispered, his voice weak but still imbued with the tenor of command.
"Of course." Lezze met her eyes for the first time. "Come, eccellentissima, we should go."
"We can't leave my grandfather here!"
"He was shot in the leg. He can't run but, God willing, he won't die from the wound."
"But his head--"
"A scrape from the fall." Her grandfather closed his eyes. "I'll be well, Chiara. Now, go."
"We will send his cappelletti for him once you're safely in the palazzo," Lezze said. "Come. You can't do any good sitting here."
Chiara reluctantly nodded. He was right.
"All right."
Lezze held out a hand and she took it, allowing him to help her back up to her feet. His skin was summoning-cold, as if he'd bathed in ice water.
"Assassini!" somebody screamed behind them, from the palazzo.
Lezze yanked her aside, shielding her with his body. Chiara peered over his shoulder. French soldiers were pouring through the second-story loggia of the palazzo, pointing rifles down at the piazza from the colonnade.
The enemy had infiltrated the ducal palace.
Shock, indignation, and fear warred within her as the deadly rifle barrels rose. For one endless moment she stared up at the weapons, certain they would be the last thing she'd ever see.
Lezze yanked a narrow-bladed dagger from his belt and plunged it into his arm, twisting out a chunk of flesh.
"Venite!"
To Chiara's amazement, the sculpted figures on the columns twisted and began to climb, their stubby fingers sinking into stone as though it were cotton. The French soldiers leaped back, training their guns on the gnomi, and began to fire. Marble shattered, stone shards flying everywhere.
"Come." Lezze grabbed her shoulder, pulling her away.
"Your arm!"
"Later!" He drew her into the mass of people who had stopped to cheer the elementals. Chiara bit down on her protests and let the alchemist lead her through the piazza to the sottoportego beside the church of San Geminiano. They ducked through the narrow passage and dodged into an alley, panting.
"A minute," Lezze gasped, leaning against a brick wall and clutching his wounded arm. He pulled out a handkerchief.
"Let me." Chiara took it as he rolled up his sleeve, revealing a bloody gouge. His entire arm was scarred with old wounds and new scabs. "Did you have to cut so deeply?"
"Fast work means crude sacrifices." He stood still as she wrapped the fabric around his arm. She pulled the knot tight and he winced.
"Will your elementals keep Grandfather safe?"
"They'll keep the French busy." He opened his eyes again. "But there will be more soldiers in the city. This was a carefully planned attack."
"They're barbarians, attacking on Ascension Day."
"They're infernally clever." He drew a deep breath. "And they'll be looking for you, magnifica."
"Why? Grandfather's the doge--I'm nothing."
"You have your grandfather's blood, and because of that, they'll do anything in their power to capture you today."
II: ALBEDO (THE PURIFICATION)
"Go to the Guild in Murano and tell them what's happened," he continued. With his good arm, he pulled off his heavy bronze chain and medallion and held it out. "Take this with you. My apprentice is there; he'll know what to do."
"You aren't coming with me?"
"I'll distract the soldiers as long as I can. It'll buy you some time--you'll need as much as you can get."
Chiara started to protest, but then she thought of her grandfather, lying with a bullet in his leg. She fell silent.
Elsewhere in the city, the church bells kept ringing and shots were fired, but the noise faded around her as she listened to her heart.
Her grandfather was helpless; she wasn't. And if Lezze said she could help by warning the Guild, then it was her duty to go.
She lifted her eyes.
"Don't die, Maestro," she said gravely, meeting his gaze. "You need to keep my grandfather safe and make sure he's seen by a physician."
"I'll do everything I can," Lezze promised.
"All right." She took the heavy medallion and wrapped it in her own lace-edged silk handkerchief. The alchemist nodded.
"Good luck," he said, as she turned and plunged back out of the alley.
She ran to Campo Santa Maria di Giglio, where she found men and women gathered in alarmed clusters. As soon as she appeared they surged forward, shouting questions.
"It's the French," she said, clutching her precious bundle. "They shot my ... they shot the doge!"
Cries of protest and outrage rose from the listeners.
"It's Napoleon!" somebody cried out. "I knew he would return!"
"What about the Gates? Did they get past the Gates?"
"How dare they attack on a holy day?"
"Please, cittadini illustri," Chiara pleaded, "we have to do something. We can't let Venezia fall."
Curses and roars of "no!" met her words. A group of young bravos carrying knives and clubs broke away, running toward the piazza. The crowd cheered.
Chiara worked her way through the campo, forgotten, until she reached the Giglio dock. A roughly dressed middle-aged man was leaning on an oar, watching.
"Excuse me, signor. I need to go to Murano to warn the Guild. Will you take me?"
His dark eyes flickered up and down, taking in her rich garments and jewelry.
"It's for the safety of Venezia," she added, hoping to appeal to his patriotism. "The Guild can drive the invaders out."
"Yes, of course, gentildonna," he replied sourly. "But you understand, a man has to make a living."
Not at the republic's expense, she thought, but she fought to keep her disapproval off her face. She hadn't brought any money, so she tugged off a gold-and-amber ring that had been a birthday present two years ago, handing it to him.
"This should be enough," she said.
He gave her a mocking smile and gestured toward one of the batele, the city's traditional shallow-bottomed boats. With a touch of trepidation, Chiara swept her skirts off the ground and carefully made her way across the wood dock to the boat. The man strode past her and stepped in, turning to offer his hand.
"Thank you," she said, hoping her distaste for the way his hand squeezed hers wasn't too obvious.
"My pleasure," he said. "You can sit on the prow, if you want."
The polished wood that covered the front of the boat looked clean enough. The salt spray from the lagoon's waves would probably ruin her dress, but that hardly mattered anymore.
"What's your name, signor?" she asked, arranging her skirts as the boatman untied the ropes and used his oar to push away from the dock.
"Lucco, gentildonna." He stepped up onto the stern, set his oar in the twisted forcola oarlock, and maneuvered the craft free of the others. "You want to avoid the French?"
"Of course."
"Then we'll take a shortcut." He turned the boat toward the narrow, shadowed canals that criss-crossed the city rather than rowing straight into the Great Canal.
Their route took them diagonally through Sestiere San Marco into Castello and up to Rio di San Giustina. As Lucco rowed, Chiara listened to shots and shouts and caught glimpses of people running back and forth through the streets. Once or twice she saw the white pants and blue jackets of the French, but the soldiers seemed intent on their own business and ignored the quiet batela slipping past them.
As they drew close to Fondamenta Nuove, a cannon roared. They both flinched, rocking the boat.
"The Arsenale," Chiara guessed, her ears ringing.
"The whoresons haven't broken through the Gates," Lucco agreed as another cannon fired.
The batela entered the open, unusually empty Canale delle
Fondamenta Nuove. Chiara twisted around, searching for some sign of military activity by the great dockyards of the Arsenale. People and boats had gathered wherever the streets and campi opened up to the water, but it was hard to make out details against the bright sun. She didn't see any French ships, though. The Gates were still sealed.
As long as the lagoon was secure, Venezia had a chance.
She clutched the handkerchief-wrapped medallion and hoped her grandfather was all right. He was stern, proud, and sometimes arrogant, but every inch an heir of the fierce warrior-doge Enrico Dandolo who, at age ninety and virtually blind, had led an invasion of Constantinople and taken the city.
Chiara straightened her back. That was her birthright, too. The blood of four doges ran through her veins. She didn't plan to shame any of them.
The batela passed the island San Cristoforo, with its dark, rectangular church, and then its close neighbor San Michele, with its pale dome.
Beyond them rose the tall buildings and chimneys of Murano.
Murano was the home of Venezia's alchemical engineers, who had been sequestered there since 1291 in an attempt to keep the city safe from their volatile experiments. They'd put their mark on the island. Top-heavy iron chimney flues rose over Murano's high-walled, narrow stone buildings, which pressed against each other, bristling with sextants and turquets and telescopes and other, more mystifying instruments. The misshapen watercraft at their docks combined the elegant lines of Venezia's sandoli, batele, caorline, and peate with bizarre, ungraceful mechanical engines and paddlewheels and, in one case, an articulated brass man holding a wooden oar.
Today, Murano seemed abandoned. Nobody was fishing; nobody was walking along the streets. No children were playing along the waterfront, and no seniors were taking in the sun.
Had everyone gone to the city for the festival?
"The Guild headquarters is by Palazzo Giustinian," she said, feeling uneasy. Lucco rowed them through the empty waters past Rio Alchimia toward the Canal Grande di Murano.
As they reached the mouth of the canal, they saw a line of flat-bottomed peate strung across the water like beads on a necklace. French soldiers stood along the fondamenta in orderly ranks, holding rifles.
Lucco swore, shifting his weight and making their little batela rock as he propelled it back around the curve of the island.
"Too late," he said. "They're here."
"The Guild can't have fallen! We'd have heard the fighting."
He shrugged, setting the dripping oar inside the boat. "Maybe they just arrived."
Chiara clutched the medallion tighter.
She had to get to the Guild. The alchemical engineers were the only ones in Venezia with the knowledge and resources to save her grandfather.
"Can ... can you let me off somewhere close?"
"Well, now, gentildonna," Lucco said slowly, "I'm afraid the price has just gone up."
Chiara turned, drawing back as she saw the rapacious look on his face.
"What do you mean? That ring was worth a month's wages."
"But not your life." Lucco bared his teeth in a predatory smile. "I don't know who you are, little girl, or what you're holding so tightly, but I'm willing to bet those soldiers would be very happy with me if I handed you over to them right now. I wouldn't mind making the French happy, not if they're going to take over Venezia, do you understand?"
A cold knot formed in her stomach.
"You'd betray your own homeland?"
"Not if you give me what I want."
Chiara shot him a furious look. Traitor! Then, disdainfully, she pulled off the rest of her rings and unclasped her bracelet and necklace.
"There." She held out the handful of gold and jewels. "That's everything I have."
"Not everything." He jerked his chin toward the package in her lap. "What's that?"
"It belongs to the Guild."
"Open it."
She glared at him. He was bigger and stronger than she was, and if the boat overturned in a struggle, she'd be lucky to make it to shore in her heavy dress.
She was at his mercy.
Hating him as much as she hated the French, Chiara unwrapped the bronze medallion. Its thick central disk was covered with an odd jigsaw-patterned design of interlocking gears, and alchemical symbols had been carved into each link of its heavy ceremonial chain.
"Give it to me."
"It's unique--you could never sell it. The Guild would know."
"I could melt it down and sell the bronze." Lucco stepped down from the stern and walked toward her. "Give it all to me and maybe, if you're lucky, I won't demand anything else."
Chiara bristled. Jacopo Lezze had entrusted her with his medallion.
She had to turn the tables on Lucco, somehow.
"This is plenty." She set the handkerchief and medallion next to her and held out the gold and jewels. "You could live on it for two years, if you wanted."
"Don't get uppity with me, you rich little--" He reached out and Chiara jerked her hand over the edge of the batela, opening her fingers.
Lucco lunged, trying to catch the glittering jewels before they fell into the water. Chiara's other hand flew out, shoving him. He stumbled against the gunwale and teetered.
With an angry cry, she shoved him again.
The boat tilted as Lucco fell over the side, shouting. Chiara gasped as her handkerchief slid toward the water. Her fingers snagged the fabric, but the heavy medallion went overboard.
"No, no, no!" Horrified, she threw herself forward just as a sputtering, furious Lucco grabbed the gunwale with one hand, glaring at her.
"I'll kill you!" he hissed, pulling himself up. The boat tilted at a sharp angle again and the loose oar rattled.
Sobbing with frustration, Chiara snatched up the oar and slammed it against his knuckles.
He swore and she brought the oar down again. He yanked his hand back and his head vanished underwater.
She jammed the oar into the water, feeling the blade hit Lucco's shoulder, and pushed with all her strength. The batela drifted a few feet away.
Lucco rose from the water again, gasping. She brandished her makeshift weapon.
"Come any closer and I'll hit you again!"
He glowered and called her every dirty name she knew and a few she didn't, but instead of swimming toward the boat, he headed toward the wooden docks along the fondamenta.
Relieved, Chiara leaned against the covered stern, her heart thudding against her ribs.
He would hunt for her, she was certain, or maybe even alert the French. Either way, she had to leave this part of the island and disembark someplace he couldn't find her.
But now she didn't have anything left to bribe authorities--or to prove she'd been sent by Jacopo Lezze. She'd lost it all.
Tears of frustration burned her eyes. Everything seemed to have gone wrong. She was worried about her grandfather and frightened for her city and she had nothing left to help either of them.
Brezza slipped past her face, drying her eyes. Chiara took a deep breath and tightened her jaws, fighting back her misery.
She might have lost everything, but she could still find the Guild and try to save her grandfather.
Grimly determined, she hiked up her skirts and clambered onto the batela's stern. She hadn't rowed since she was a child, and then she hadn't been wearing a corset and dress. But the lagoon's water ran in her blood. She struggled to summon that ancestral knowledge as she set the long oar back into the forcola. Her feet slipped on the polished wood. She pulled off her silk slippers, now badly scuffed, soiled, and stained, and dropped them into the bottom of the boat.
The batela's sun-warmed wood was oddly comforting under her bare feet.
Chiara slowly turned the prow of the batela and began rowing toward Rio Alchimia, grateful to Brezza for keeping her cool. She struggled to keep her back straight and her feet solidly planted, just as her father had taught her years ago.
Bit by bit, the lessons were returning.
&n
bsp; A shout made her look over her shoulder. Lucco had pulled himself out of the water and was shaking a fist, calling her names, of which "thief" was the least offensive.
And then, as though his cries were a signal, the shooting began, and a flock of startled pigeons rose from the city like a cloud of smoke.
III: CITRINITAS (THE ENLIGHTENMENT)
The gunfire hadn't stopped fifteen minutes later, when Chiara pulled herself gracelessly out of the batela. After brushing yet more dirt off her skirts, she pulled on her slippers and nudged the boat back into the wide canal. She'd considered tying it up, but if Lucco was looking for it, she preferred that it drift as far away as possible.
"All right, Brezza," she whispered. "I'll bet you know where the Guild is, don't you?"
The silfo created a small whirlwind of dust and set it skipping forward.
The miniature storm led her through the abandoned streets, darting off every few minutes to flap through somebody's drying sheets, waft a discarded piece of paper into the air, or ruffle the fur of a sleeping cat. Chiara was patient. Air elementals were flighty; she was lucky to get as much from Brezza as she did.
Not that she needed much help. Street by street, they drew closer to the sound of fighting. At last it seemed straight ahead, and she slowed her pace, creeping through the narrow gaps between the alchemists' tall buildings and huddling close to the wall whenever a shot sounded nearby. She was skirting a tall, spike-tipped wall when a grinding sound reverberated through the ground, nearly knocking her off her feet. A roar like a lion's filled the air, followed by cries of alarm.
Her eyes rose. A great, sculpted metal-winged lion of St. Mark stood on the corner of the reinforced brick building she recognized as the Guildhall. The lion crouched as though ready to pounce, its massive front paws on top of a closed book and its hinged jaws gaping wide.
As she stared, another roar burst from it as it spewed liquid fire somewhere along Fondamenta Marco Giustinian. And, judging from the shouting and French curses, very close to the invading force.
A grin broke across her face. Three more lion sculptures were set along the top of the building, one at each corner. As she watched, they slowly rotated on huge metal turntables, their jaws opening.
