Death in the Floating City

by Tasha Alexander

  “I was hoping we’d find some indication of her married name,” I said.

  “She might not have ever married,” Donata said. “Dowries were an expensive business at the time. Families—even the wealthiest ones—often allowed only one of their daughters to wed.”

  “Conserving their resources?” I asked.

  “Precisely.” Donata nodded. “The rest of the girls were sent to convents.”

  “It’s always harder for ladies than men, isn’t it?”

  “In this case, not always,” she said. “The men were no better off. They weren’t allowed to choose a bride. Marriages were strictly family alliances, and often sons were forced to remain bachelors, with all of the family fortune and influence saved for one chosen daughter and one chosen son.”

  “Even so, I imagine bachelor life in Venice was far superior to being shipped off to a convent,” I said.

  “You don’t know much about medieval Venetian convents.” A sly smile escaped Donata’s full lips. “But that’s a topic for another day.”

  “A day to which I will look forward,” I said. “In the meantime, we need to learn everything we can about the provenance of this painting.” I sought out the woman who sat at the entrance of the museum. She knew very little about the portrait of Besina but asked us to wait while she summoned her supervisor.

  Her supervisor, it turned out, was the very Englishwoman who had founded the gallery.

  “Yes, Besina,” she said, after I’d explained to her what I was hoping to learn. “There’s not much to say in terms of the provenance of my painting. I bought it directly from the Barozzis some years back. There is, however, another portrait of the same girl, done when she was a bit older. Are you acquainted with Signora Morosini?”

  I admitted I was not.

  “It is of no consequence,” the woman said. “Write to her at her Brenta estate. That’s where the painting is, and that’s where the signora can be found in the summer. Her villa is one of the most pleasant places you can find near Venice. I’ve no doubt she would be pleased to welcome you there. I will give you all the information you need.”

  * * *

  After leaving the museum, Donata and I parted ways, promising to rejoin forces when I’d wrangled an invitation to call at the Villa di Tranquillità on the banks of the Brenta River, not far from Venice on the mainland.

  The gondola returned me to the Danieli, where I retired to our sitting room to jot down notes from the morning on the page next to the sketch I’d done in the museum of Besina’s portrait. That finished, I pulled out a sheet of stationery and penned a note to the owner of the Villa di Tranquillità, hoping my request would not be refused. This was a time when I was grateful for my rank. If it could open doors for me, I would not disparage it, regardless of the inherent unfairness of any system based on hereditary aristocracy. The letter finished, I flipped through my slim leather-bound journal until I found the list of V names I’d taken down from the Libro d’Oro and went to the lobby to speak to the concierge.

  He shook his head as he looked at the names. “Some of these? No problem,” he said. “I can easily direct you to the houses. The families would be pleased to receive a caller of your status. The rest? I’m afraid some of them have long since disappeared from the city.”

  “I suppose I shall have to limit myself to those still here,” I said, smiling. “Thank you for your assistance.” Armed with calling cards and the gondolier on whom I was coming to rely, I set off to introduce myself to Venetian society.

  * * *

  I knew, of course, Venice was a popular destination for my fellow countrymen, not only for casual visits but also as a second home. It was a place full of expats and tourists, permanent and transient. Only a few years ago Robert Browning had died in his palazzo on the Grand Canal. Georges Sand had begun her infamous affair with her soon-to-be-former lover’s doctor in a room not far from mine in the hotel. Painters could not resist the lure of Venice, and Lord Byron’s exploits in the city were the stuff of legends.

  As I set off to make my calls, I found myself once again captivated by the beauty around me. The city was magic, almost unreal. It should have been impossible to build on these sandy islands. Venice should have sunk into the lagoon. Yet here it stood, against all reason, glimmering and magnificent, built, in the words of the famous archivist Marin Sanudo, “more by divine than human will,” and today was hardly changed from its glory as a Renaissance power.

  Hardly changed if one looked only superficially, that is. As I was welcomed into palazzo after palazzo, I saw the decay that lay beneath the surface of beauty. Like many estates in England, these enormous houses could prove an unmanageable burden to the families who owned them. The facades stood proud, seeming almost to hover above the water, but they had lost some of their ornamentation. Gilt paint had worn away, and bricks showed evidence of wear, but inside I saw spectacular chambers with exquisite views of canals, the rooms filled with large mirrors and furnished with the flamboyant rococo elegance that defined the city’s style. I could not help but wonder how many rooms in each of these palazzi stood vacant and in need of restoration. One did not require an entire house to show one’s status to friends.

  The families I met charmed and delighted me with colorful stories of their ancestors and of the most glorious days of the Venetian republic. However, it was not until I reached the third household I’d visited that I found anyone who’d heard of Besina Barozzi.

  “Sì, sì,” my hostess said. “She came to ruin and disgrace, you know. Sent to a convent by her husband. My many-greats grandfather married her husband’s sister. We have the letters she wrote to him. They are full of complaints about the indecent behavior of her sister-in-law.”

  “Do you know the name of Besina’s husband?”

  “No, I don’t remember that,” she said. “I don’t even know her married name. Only that he was displeased with his wife.”

  “I don’t suppose I could read them?” I asked. I had assumed, perhaps naïvely, that N.V. must have been Besina’s husband and had imagined for them a grand and passionate love affair. Now, though, I found myself disappointed to learn that the marriage about which Donata and I had such romantic ideas had not been a success.

  “I would be pleased to show them to you,” she said, “but to read the old Venetian dialect is not so easy. Come, though. We can try.”

  The letters, their edges crumbling, the words faded and smeared, would have been difficult to read in any language. My hostess offered what help she could but relied more on family lore about what the pages of old vellum contained than on transcribing the actual sentences. I ran my fingers gently over a sheet, feeling the ink, breathing in the slightly musty smell of the well-worn leather folio in which the missives were stored. I wanted to know every word.

  “Would you trust me with these?” I asked. “If I were to borrow them? I promise you I’d treat them with the utmost care and would ensure they come to no harm. I’ve a friend, Signor Caravello, a renowned scholar, who could help me with translating them. We could return them to you with a complete transcription.”

  “I see no problem with that,” she said. “The end result could be amusing.”

  I had not finished calling on all the families on my list but decided the rest could wait. I’d found documents that would confirm the identity of Besina’s husband, and I’d found his family’s descendants. Who knew what further treasures would be uncovered when I had full translations of these letters? Still, a pervasive sadness consumed me.

  I’d wanted Besina’s marriage to have been a happy one.

  I was at least as romantic as Donata.

  Un Libro d’Amore

  iv

  Nicolò knew better than to go against the will of his father. He spoke no more of Besina. He did not ask again for permission to marry her. He knew that was not possible, at least not now. Still, he did not give up hope that someday she would be his wife. In the meantime, he had to find a way to court her.


  He wrote to her twice a day, hiring gondoliers, the most discreet men in Venice, to carry his letters to the servants’ entrance at Ca’ Barozzi and to wait for her reply. Every word she wrote in return was, to his mind, a beautiful rhapsody. He went about his business in the city with a light heart, fueled by the knowledge that the girl he loved returned his feelings. She would wait for him.

  While Nicolò was all brash confidence in the face of implacable adversity, Besina found it more difficult to be separated from her love. His letters made her weep and turn to poets whose lines equaled the sadness that filled her heart. She sat at a window in the first-floor loggia every afternoon, pretending to make lace, watching boats pass by on the canal. At three o’clock, Nicolò, in his gondola, would glide in front of her house, careful not to look directly at her.

  Besina did not have to pretend she didn’t see him. No one in the household paid close enough attention to her to take notice of why she found the view of the Grand Canal so alluring at that particular time of the day. She scrutinized Nicolò for the few moments he was in her sight, trying to reassure herself that his health remained good, that his face was as handsome as she remembered, and that the studied nonchalance in his eyes as he avoided hers still spoke of his deep love for her. Six months passed, then nine. They had not spoken to each other since the night of their first meeting.

  This physical separation did not quench their desire for each other. It served only to heighten it. Letters flew between them at an ever increasing pace, but Nicolò wanted more than words. He remembered too well the softness of Besina’s lips, the smooth porcelain skin of her cheeks, the touch of her small hand. He forced himself to be patient, difficult though it was, and eventually he fell into a routine that, for him, was very nearly peaceful.

  Besina was not so calm. Her father had called for her, summoning her to his library. She’d been down at the water entrance to her family’s home, Ca’ Barozzi, the most opulent palazzo on the Grand Canal, pleading with Lorenzo to procure for her another book of Petrarch’s poems. He promised, then urged her to rush to their father, who never liked to be kept waiting.

  Besina hurried up the marble steps to the portego, nearly sliding on its gleaming terrazzo floor, slowing down only when her mother stopped her as she reached the door to the library, a room with maps painted on the walls, maps that had tempted her, when she was younger, to want to explore the world.

  “Calm yourself, child,” her mother said. She tugged at Besina’s gown and brushed her daughter’s long hair back behind her shoulders. “You must behave like a lady, not a wild girl.” She opened the door and pushed Besina into the room ahead of her.

  “Besina!” Her father beckoned to her to come close so that he might kiss her. “It is a great day for our family. Your marriage contract has been signed. The engagement will be announced by the end of the week.”

  For an instant, Besina slipped into a pleasant daydream in which Nicolò would be her groom, but she knew it could not be.

  “Uberto Rosso could not be a better choice for a husband,” her father continued. “He will manage your dowry well, as he did that of his first wife.”

  “First wife?” Besina asked.

  “She died some years ago,” he said.

  “I don’t even know him,” Besina said, her heart pounding as sweat beaded on her forehead.

  “You’ll recognize him,” her mother said. “You’ve met him before. He’s a very distinguished and well-respected man.”

  Besina felt as if she could not breathe. She could not marry this man, this stranger, not when she loved another so deeply as she did Nicolò. Her father had already turned his attention to the papers before him on the table. Her mother’s expression was stern, devoid of concern.

  “No.” Her voice was small. She was afraid to speak but knew she had no choice. “I will not marry him. I will not.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” her father said. “We’ve signed the contract. You will do as you’re told.”

  Besina knew she should be grateful. She had known for years that marriage was expected of her and had once been pleased that she would not be sent to a convent. That was before she knew what it meant to love someone. Now her familial duty felt like punishment.

  “But I—”

  She stopped. Upset though she was, she knew confessing her love would only make the situation worse. She steeled herself and forced her mind to stop reeling. She would pretend to go along with it.

  Until she could escape with Nicolò.

  5

  As soon as I left the palazzo, I had taken the letters to the bookshop, knowing Signor Caravello would have no trouble deciphering the old Venetian dialect. I was convinced something in Besina’s life would explain why the conte was holding her ring when he died. The old man was only too pleased to assist me and promised to start translating at once, assuring me it shouldn’t take him long to complete the work. Donata’s eyes went wide when she saw what I brought, and she demanded her father let her help him. Even so, she was not all wanton optimism.

  “Just remember, Emily, letters like this may be full of nothing more than inaccurate gossip,” she said. “We must not put too much stock in them.”

  She was quite right, but her admonitions made no dent in the excitement I felt when I thought about reading whatever it was they contained. I thanked the Caravellos and set off to meet my husband.

  Colin and I rendezvoused in front of St. Mark’s, where high tide had made its way up through the marble drains of the square, flooding patches of it. We strolled around the piazza, able to easily avoid the pooling water—this was not, after all, the famous aqua alta that submerged bits of the city at regular intervals during the autumn and winter—and decided to stop for a drink at Caffè Florian, as charming a spot as I’d ever seen. The restaurant was made up of a series of small rooms, each running into the next, with dark parquet floors polished to shining. Red velvet-upholstered sofa benches lined the walls. In front of them stood delicate marble-topped tables and elegant, slim chairs. Each room had slightly different decorations. Some were filled with paintings of figures famous from Venetian history—Enrico Dandolo, a powerful doge, and Marco Polo, the explorer, for example. Others featured frescoes that brought to mind the greatest Venetian artists. But the weather was fine, puddles notwithstanding, and Colin and I decided to take a table outside, near the orchestra whose jubilant sounds filled the square.

  “The Barozzi family’s fortune has been in steady decline since Napoleon gave Venice to the Austrians,” my husband said as we took our seats.

  “Do they have enough to survive?” I asked.

  “Emma’s father gives her a generous allowance—she’s lucky he’s so tolerant of her having eloped—but it’s not enough to make them solvent.”

  “I’m sorry for her,” I said.

  “Most troubling for the old conte’s estate is the amount of debt he carried. He had several large loans that wouldn’t normally be out of the ordinary for someone of his rank and situation, but he was incapable of paying them back.”

  Our waiter brought Colin a whisky and me a glass full of a shockingly yellow liquid. I frowned. “One really ought to delve into the local culture when one travels, my dear,” I said. “Could you not try limoncello in lieu of whisky?”

  He glowered at me. I suppressed a smile as he ignored my reproof and continued as if I’d said nothing. “Paolo is the one most affected by the financial situation now that his father is dead. The debt falls onto his shoulders.”

  “So Paolo is the one least likely to have killed the conte.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain about that. A fortnight before the murder, Paolo pressured his business partner into making a bad deal that essentially bankrupted them both. They parted ways following the disaster, irrevocably dissolving their failed venture.”

  I sipped my liqueur, first tasting tangy lemon, then the sharp bite of alcohol. “How does that make you more suspicious of him?”

  “Ther
e is an unusual asset coming Paolo’s way now that his father is dead,” he said. “Paolo’s grandmother on his mother’s side owned a substantial property in France. She left it to her grandson on the condition that he have no access to it while his father was alive. She worried the conte would pressure his son to squander the income on renovating Ca’ Barozzi. By dissolving his partnership before his father’s death, Paolo avoided having to use any of this new income to save the business. It won’t be enough to solve all their financial problems, but it will take care of a significant portion of his father’s debts.”

  “He wouldn’t have had to do that regardless, would he?” I asked.

  “The terms of their agreement required both men to put up their personal fortunes to save the company should it be in dire financial straits. The conte’s death could not have been more perfectly timed.”

  “An unlikely coincidence, but not an impossible one,” I said. “Why would Paolo run off and start selling family treasures if he’s just come into a fortune that would put an end to most of his financial woes? And why would he have left his dying father with Besina’s ring? Only to send us off on the wrong path?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t know yet,” he said. “I’m going to focus on trying to find him. Can I count on you to continue following up on the clues from the murder scene?”

  I nodded just as something caught my eye. Across the crowded square from us, a strange figure leaned against a pillar. He stood taller than everyone around him and wore a long hooded black cloak and an eerie white mask with a long beaked nose.

  “What on earth is that?” I asked.

  “A plague doctor,” Colin said. “Very popular carnival costume.”

  “Carnival’s months from now,” I said.