Venetian Mask

by Rosalind Laker

  The last calle had opened ahead of him into a square when, without warning, he was momentarily blinded by the glare of flaring flambeaux and heard the unmistakable hiss of rapiers being drawn. As his hand flew to draw his own rapier and his vision cleared, he knew by the height and breadth of the masked man at the front of the group that it was Filippo Celano.

  “What’s this?” Antonio demanded fiercely.

  “You cheated me at the cards, Torrisi!”

  It was a deadly insult that only the swords already drawn could settle. Antonio felt the warning dig of another enemy rapier between his shoulder-blades. It told him he had no chance of setting his back to a wall the better to defend himself. Glancing quickly over his shoulder he saw it was Alvise Celano who had him trapped, his lean face grim with satisfaction.

  “We have you now, Torrisi!”

  Wild with anger, Antonio turned to shout back at Filippo, his voice echoing hollowly against the stone walls of the calle. “Come on then!” He brandished his rapier threateningly. “All try to run me through at once if that is your cowardly aim!”

  His own intention was to rush forward at their joint approach and hope to slash his way through to a better position of defense, but Filippo, further inflamed by this slight, gestured for those with him to stand back.

  “This matter is to be settled between the two of us! Nobody else is going to shed your blood! That pleasure is to be mine alone!”

  He moved backward into the square, taking off his damask coat and throwing it with his tricorne to one of the others while keeping on his mask. People had heard the raised voices and lights began to flicker at windows. Some late-night revelers appeared, and excitement rose at the prospect of a duel. Four men, with fans of cards still in their hands, appeared in a lighted doorway. Seeing that Antonio had nobody to attend him, they pocketed their cards and hurried forward. Antonio knew the eldest man and greeted him.

  “Dr. Gaulo! Your services will be needed here.”

  “Is it you in the bauta, Signor Torrisi?” the doctor replied, recognizing Antonio’s voice. “Two of my friends here will act as your seconds.”

  One of these took Antonio’s hat and mantle. The two masked duelists faced each other by the well in the middle of the square. The glow of the flaring torches illumined them eerily in a circle of reddish light. Both knew they would be fighting to the death.

  Grimly they saluted each other with their rapiers. Then, with the first ring of steel against steel the duel began. With both men in a high rage they fought with a fierceness that drew gasps from the fast-gathering crowd, most of whom were in evening finery. Within the first few passes Filippo had a nicked shoulder and Antonio’s shirtsleeve was slit and blood-stained. With speed and agility they thrust and parried, moving lithely about the square as one and then the other gained a slight advantage. Once Antonio stumbled back against the well and Filippo almost had him, but he twisted away in time. Blood began to spatter the flagstones and the crowd grew noisier, cheering and shouting as if they were at a cock-fight instead of witnessing an event that in normal circumstances would have been held in a quiet place with only selected witnesses. Still the slender blades flashed and the ornate hilts clashed as the two duelists became locked, grappling together before one or the other leapt free. Sweat was pouring into their eyes, their shirts clung soaked and bloodied to their bodies. Antonio had lost his bow solitaire and his shoulder-length hair swirled about his face.

  Inevitably they began to tire and the wounds that each had inflicted on the other were taking a toll. From the start they had been so evenly matched that wagers were still being placed among the crowd as to which would be the winner. Some women screamed when Filippo’s blade went right through Antonio’s left shoulder. Then it was withdrawn and Antonio staggered, seeing his opponent preparing to lunge for his throat. He parried the thrust and, summoning his strength, plunged his own blade into Filippo’s ribs. Blood spurted and as Antonio reeled back he saw Filippo fold and fall sprawling at his feet.

  Antonio stood swaying where he stood, too exhausted for the moment to move. The doctor rushed to the fallen man. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Antonio saw the glint of a stiletto and realized that one of the Celanos intended there to be no survivor of this duel. Knowing that his life depended on escape, he ignored the shouts of his seconds wanting to attend to him and pushed his way through the crowd. Women cried out and men protested as he thrust his way through, soiling their garments with his blood as he went. Then the crowd closed against his pursuers, determined to have no more bloodshed. He would never have believed he still had the power to run, but although he staggered sometimes it was not long before he came to a side canal where he saw the lantern of an approaching gondola. He hailed it and almost tumbled aboard.

  Marietta was fast asleep when there came a tapping at her door. Dragging herself to wakefulness, she saw her personal maid with a candle beside her bed.

  “What is it, Anna?” she asked, pushing back the fall of her hair, but before the maid could answer Marietta happened to glance in the direction of the open door. Instantly she sat up with a piercing scream at the sight of the blood-stained figure of Antonio. For a moment she had thought it was Domenico in the shadowed doorway.

  “Merciful heaven! What has happened to you, Antonio?” She pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was thumping and she was trembling with shock. Yet she threw back the bedclothes and put her feet shakily to the floor. He had stepped forward and presented a still more gruesome sight at close quarters, with blood running down his face from a cut across his brow.

  “I didn’t mean to alarm you. I suppose I look worse than I realized, but my wounds are not as bad as they probably appear. My left shoulder is the worst. I can’t use that arm.”

  “You’ve been dueling!” she accused, thrusting her feet into satin slippers. Anna was holding a robe for her and she stood to slip her arms into it. “With whom?”

  “I have killed Filippo Celano.”

  She fought against this second shock. Already ashen, she was unaware that her lips had become quite colorless. “You shall tell me what happened while I dress your wounds. Anna will fetch clean linen and warm water and anything else I may need.”

  Anna eyed her anxiously. “Are you sure you are all right, signora?”

  She nodded, getting a firm grip on herself. “Yes, Anna. Make haste.”

  “Wait!” He checked the maid. “I’ll need a boat too. Let the footman on night duty see to that.” Then, as Anna went hurrying off, he explained the reason to Marietta. “I have to get away from Venice immediately. The Celanos will be out to kill me. That’s why I didn’t dare go back to my own home.”

  She led him, dripping blood, to the marble room with the bath. “What else do you need?” she asked practically as she tore off his sodden shirt to examine his wounds and stem the blood temporarily with towels until Anna returned.

  “Clothes. Money. A bauta mask.”

  Anna assisted Marietta as she dressed his wounds, putting a wad on the back and front of his shoulder and binding him up. The cut on his brow was less serious and there were minor nicks and scratches that presented no difficulty. “You will have to go to a doctor at the first opportunity,” she advised, “because I have only done the best I could.”

  She found him the clothes he needed and packed some extra garments and a razor in a saddle-bag. While this was being done, Anna carried out her instructions to summon two strong footmen, who occasionally acted as armed escorts. A third came to help Antonio dress. When he reappeared in Marietta’s bedchamber he was resting a hand for support on the footman’s shoulder. His weakness now was such that he could no longer walk unaided. His shoulder wound prevented him from wearing a coat and under his cloak his left arm was in a sling.

  “I shall always be in your debt, Marietta,” he said, his lips thin with pain. He was more grave than she had ever seen him before, but then there was no greater punishment for any Venetian than banishment from Venice, whether i
t was self-imposed or ordered by the state. “I owe my life to you.” He kissed her on both cheeks and smiled with some show of his old humor. “Make sure you produce a strong nephew for me. I only hope the boy won’t be full grown before I see him. I bid you farewell, sister-in-law.”

  “Take care!” she urged.

  He nodded and was thankful that his two traveling companions were waiting to make him a bandy-chair and carry him down to the boat.

  As soon as he was gone she sank down into a chair, enervated by shock and all she had done in the past hour. She felt nauseous and ill. Anna came to help her back into bed, and it was with profound relief that she lay back on her pillows. There was no need to warn Anna, or anyone else in the household, that no word should be said about Antonio’s visit. There was not one Torrisi servant who would aid a Celano in tracing him.

  When Marietta heard the next day that Filippo had not been killed outright, but was still hovering between life and death, it was no comfort to her as far as Antonio was concerned. A duel needed a fatal wound for one of the opponents if honor was to be truly satisfied, and if Filippo survived, the matter would continue to fester like a sore awaiting the surgeon’s knife. She had sent a special messenger with word to Domenico, but if he had already left St. Petersburg her letter might miss him along the way.

  She told no one of how ill she felt for days after the shock of that terrible night, not even Adrianna, who came regularly to visit her and often brought the children. The duel was three weeks in the past when she and Adrianna sat drinking coffee together while the children played with the toys that Marietta kept for them. Adrianna’s eldest son particularly liked the little fleet of Venetian ships that Domenico and his brothers had played with as boys.

  “Every day that goes by without news of Antonio is good,” Marietta said. “It means that the Celanos haven’t been successful in finding him yet, although we can’t be certain that he has escaped until they return to Venice.”

  “Filippo continues to hold his own, I hear,” Adrianna commented. “At least when Elena returns, which should be any day now, she will be spared her husband’s attentions and his vicious attacks for some while to come. I was told yesterday that he is unlikely to walk again.”

  Marietta shook her head. “There are so many tales, it’s impossible to know which are right.”

  Occasionally there were disturbing rumors that Antonio had been caught and was being dragged back to Venice; others claimed that he had been killed in a duel with Alvise. But when the two Celano brothers returned, shaking their heads at having lost their prey, those fears were dispersed. Marietta wished that Domenico could have been at home to share her relief, but he was still far away. Her time was drawing near, with only a few more days to wait. She passed two or three hours every day at the harpsichord, playing some of her favorite music, and had just played the last note of a piece one afternoon when Domenico’s clerk came to her with a file in his hand.

  “Your pardon, signora. I don’t know if you wish to keep this file. I’ve been sorting out papers no longer wanted in Signor Torrisi’s office and this came to light with your name on it.”

  She smiled, thinking that Domenico had planned a little surprise for her. “Put it on the table. I will go through it there.”

  He did as she wished. Once on her own, she drew up a chair to the leather file with Signora Torrisi stamped in gilt on the cover. She unfastened it, opening the clasp and expecting to find a letter from Domenico. Puzzled, she found there were many sheets, and the writing was in a hand she did not recognize. The first appeared to be a report on herself, and her smile faded as she saw that the date on the top sheet went back five years to the Carnival time of 1780 when she and Alix had first fallen in love.

  She began to read and found it was an accurate account, not only of her early years but also of how she had come to Venice, her progress at the Pietà, and then her meetings with Alix. There were more reports, each presented at a different time. As she read on, it gradually dawned on her that she had been spied on when she was with Alix. Finally she came to Angela’s letter. The words of advice to Domenico, that he should marry the Pietà girl if ever he became a widower, leapt out at her before she could slam the file shut. She pounded her palm on the smooth leather surface and pressed on it with force, as if she feared it might spring open again of its own accord.

  Resting her elbow on the table, she held her brow in her hand; her thoughts were in agonized turmoil. Domenico had married her only as an obligation to his late wife’s memory. She felt torn apart by the discovery that she had been watched by a spy even when she sat weeping after Alix had been dragged away from her. It was not enough that she had to live with the knowledge that her predecessor was still uppermost in Domenico’s mind, but now Angela had reached from the grave to take away the intense joy she had been cherishing in the belief that Domenico was returning her love in full at last. How glad she was now of the distance between them! Anger began to surge up from her hurt and anguish.

  She snatched up the file and paced back and forth with it clutched to her breast. The clerk could not have read the contents or he would not have brought it to her, but she would not have it destroyed. One day she would demand an explanation!

  She summoned the clerk. “Return this file to wherever it was kept,” she said.

  “Certainly, signora.” He bowed and took it away.

  The whole incident had left her furious and restless. She continued pacing about the room, scarcely knowing where she was, possessed by an inexplicable surge of frenzied energy that she could not subdue. Suddenly she had to get away from the palace and everything in it, but there was something she had to do first. She sent for the steward.

  “Collect up everything about the palace that belonged personally to the late Signora Torrisi. Pack it all carefully and put it in one of the attics.”

  “There are a few of her books on the shelves in the Signor’s office.” He was reminding her that nothing in that office was ever to be touched by the other servants and that he himself supervised the dusting and cleaning.

  “You may leave those.”

  When Marietta had put on her cape she left the palace by way of the gates that led into a calle. She walked all the way to Adrianna’s house, exulting fiercely in the exercise. A backache, which had been niggling since morning, had become more noticeable, but she blamed that on the lengthy walk. A maidservant answered her knock.

  “Signora Savoni is next door,” the girl said.

  Recently Leonardo had bought the adjoining property as an additional mask-shop with a workshop at the back and accommodation above for a manager. So far the alterations had not been started, but Adrianna had seized on the chance to furnish the upper floor as accommodation for Leonardo’s kinfolk when they came to visit. Marietta thanked the servant and went to knock on the door. A window flew open above and Adrianna, her expression anxious, looked out. Her relief was obvious when she saw Marietta.

  “Thank heavens it’s you! I’ll come down and let you in.”

  She disappeared and in a few moments Marietta heard a bolt being drawn and a key turning in the lock. As Adrianna opened the door Marietta stepped inside with a little laugh.

  “Why such security? Have you moved valuables into this place?”

  Adrianna gave no answering smile, but twisted her hands together. “Elena is here. She’s in labor! The father is Nicolò Contarini. He was even with her in Venice before she left. I’m so thankful you’ve come. She is very frightened.”

  Marietta, who had been momentarily stunned by what had been said, moved swiftly to the stairs. “I’ll go to her!” Halfway up she felt a stab of decisive pain that made her realize there had been more to her backache than she had supposed. Her own baby was making a move, but there was no time to think of that at this moment. “Where is Sister Giaccomina?”

  “She arrived with Elena late last night,” Adrianna said as she followed. “Only Leonardo knows they are back, and he helped me move them i
n here after we had given them supper. He doesn’t approve but he will hold his tongue for my sake. Sister Giaccomina has also committed herself to keeping silent about this birth, because she understands what Elena’s future would be with Filippo Celano if ever he learned the truth. But she is alarmed and extremely nervous that I’m going to deliver Elena’s baby myself. I would never have asked you to come, but could you help me at the bedside?”

  Marietta paused to look at her friend. She knew that Adrianna had assisted midwives when friends and neighbors had given birth, but that she had never delivered a baby on her own before. “Aren’t you calling in any professional help?”

  “That’s impossible. Elena is too well known in Venice for her identity to be kept a secret. But maybe I shouldn’t have asked for your assistance when you’re so near your own time. The nun will have to help me.”

  “No. I’ll be with you. Sister Giaccomina can boil the water and see to anything else we might need.”

  The nun had heard Marietta’s voice and came hastening from the salon to embrace her on the landing with arms that had grown plumper during the Paris sojourn. “Such trouble, Marietta! I didn’t suspect! Who would have thought? A nice young man, but he should never have—! Neither should Elena. All my fault for not realizing—”

  Marietta led her gently back to where she had been sitting. “Don’t upset yourself. It happened through two people loving each other more than was wise. Now it is up to us to do our best for Elena and her baby. You have already promised silence and that is a merciful gift in itself.”

  The nun’s face was full of compassion. “How could I do otherwise for one of my Pietà girls? Did not our Lord show mercy to the woman taken in adultery? And Elena will sin no more. She has written to tell Nicolò that what was between them is at an end.”