Venetian Mask

by Rosalind Laker

  “I guessed as much.” He regarded her good-humoredly. “But one good turn deserves another.”

  “I would have replaced the mask in any case.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Would you kindly tell my husband that you have seen me? Is it too much to ask? He would appreciate it so much.”

  The captain’s gaze hardened. “I grant no favors to a traitor. Nobody converses with him. Those are my orders.”

  “I happen to believe implicitly in my husband’s innocence!” she retorted. “If you will do nothing for him, could you at least point out his window to me?”

  “His cell has no window.”

  She looked at the captain fiercely, her eyes aglitter with tears. “It would have been better for me if we hadn’t spoken! You’ve given me nothing but terrible news!”

  He glanced after her as she hurried away along the parade. She was as fiery as her hair, but he did not hold that against her.

  Marietta did not expect to see the captain in the shop again, no matter that she had offered to exchange the mask. Yet he came, bringing his three little daughters with him. She treated him coolly, but not his children, who were full of smiles. When she was about to help the youngest choose a new mask, the captain spoke directly to her in a lowered voice.

  “Couldn’t an assistant deal with this? I’d like to talk to you on your own.”

  She gave him a speculative glance and led him to her office. Captain Zeno sat down without being invited and more slowly she took her own chair. “Well?” she asked warily.

  He leaned forward. “I told you yesterday that I grant no favors to a traitor, but I would be prepared to do one for you by letting you speak for a few minutes to a certain prisoner. That is,” he added after the briefest pause, “if you are willing to oblige me.”

  “How much?” She would not quibble over the price.

  He looked taken aback and then he scowled angrily. “You misunderstand me, signora. I’m immune to bribery! It’s not money I want from you.”

  Marietta was bewildered. “What do you want then?”

  “I’ve an elder daughter with a sweet voice that should be trained. I could have paid for her to be a pupil at the Pietà, but she would have to be an orphan for that, as you know. What I’m asking is that you, the Flame of the Pietà, become her teacher.”

  “Would visits to my husband be on a regular basis?” Marietta could see how much it meant to him that she take his daughter as her pupil, and she intended to drive a hard bargain.

  “That is impossible. I’ll be taking a great risk as it is. What I can do is allow a letter to be delivered to him once a month.”

  “What of letters from him to me?”

  “One a year.”

  “No more?” Her query was stern.

  He hesitated and then nodded. “Two then.” It seemed to satisfy her.

  “I’ll make a singer out of your daughter if she has the voice as you believe,” she said, “but in return I want a whole night with my husband, with the guards kept away. If at any other time another visit should prove possible, I want your word that you would allow me to see him again. Finally, if ever he is sick in the future, I should be allowed to nurse him.”

  The captain looked as if he were going to explode, his whole face becoming red from the jowls up. “Impossible! That would cost me my livelihood. I have a wife and seven children to support, signora! I’m putting my head on the block as it is.”

  He pushed back his chair and sprang up to leave, but Marietta remained quietly seated, her heart beating wildly at the gambler’s throw she had made. “I’m an experienced maestra,” she said evenly. “Your daughter couldn’t have a better training anywhere.”

  Breathing deeply he sat down again. “If the prisoner is ill,” he acquiesced against his will, “you will be notified and you may send in medicines. I can’t do more than that.”

  Marietta saw she had gained as much as she could hope for. “Bring your daughter to me tomorrow evening after the shop is closed. At the same time you can let me know which night I can come to the prison.”

  When he had gone, she felt enervated by the strain of the bargaining and stretched her arms across her desk to let her forehead rest on them. She was going to see Domenico again! It was almost more than she could believe.

  The captain’s daughter Lucretia was fourteen, a bright girl with blue-black hair and saucer-like brown eyes, who was clearly her father’s pet. Her voice, although totally untrained, had promise. Marietta gave the captain her frank opinion.

  “Lucretia will need many hours of practice as well as lessons from me. I’m prepared to take her on as an assistant-apprentice in my shop, which would make it possible for me to teach her whenever my time allowed.”

  Both father and daughter greeted this arrangement with enthusiasm. Lucretia would have her own room and would work a certain number of hours in the shop.

  “I thank you, signora,” Captain Zeno said, placing a folded piece of paper in Marietta’s hand as he and his daughter went out. When she opened it, she saw that there was a date and a time written down with the instruction to be masked. She was to be at the prison at ten o’clock the following Thursday night.

  In the interim Marietta told Sebastiano what she had arranged. “You’ve accomplished what nobody else has been able to do,” he said, pleased for her sake. “Be sure to tell Domenico that his friends have not deserted him and are still working on his behalf.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll escort you to the prison on Thursday and meet you again in the morning.”

  “There’s no need,” she replied, although she appreciated his kind thought.

  “Nevertheless, it’s the least I can do for you and Domenico.”

  It was a velvety night full of stars when Sebastiano took Marietta to the prison. He waited until she was admitted and then left for home.

  Marietta found Captain Zeno awaiting her. They bade each other good evening and he began to lead her up a flight of stone stairs.

  “Were you here when my husband was in a dungeon, Captain?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’ve held my present appointment for several years. It was I who called the prison doctor when he fell ill. It is impossible for a sick man to fight the dungeon rats for his rations and it’s my duty to keep the traitor alive.”

  She was horrified by the insight he had given her into the conditions in which Domenico had lived all those terrible months. At the same time, fury at what the captain had called him surged through her. She halted abruptly on the stairs. “Don’t ever call my husband a traitor again! I won’t tolerate it!”

  He paused and looked hard at her. “I could still change my mind about letting you in.”

  “As I could about training your daughter’s voice,” she countered fiercely.

  After a second or two he grinned slowly with an admiring glint in his eye. “You’ve a sharp tongue in your head at times. I’ll mind mine in future.”

  He moved on and she kept to his side, questioning him again. “You mentioned rations in the dungeon. Didn’t my husband receive the food I sent to him?”

  “The criminals there get no privileges. I daresay the guards took it all, but ever since Torrisi was moved he has had most of it handed in to him.”

  “Most?”

  “Wine has a way of vanishing sometimes.”

  She understood. “In future I’ll bring a bottle for the guards and another for the rightful recipient.”

  “That thoughtfulness will not go amiss.”

  They were going through what seemed a maze of chilly corridors and across small square halls where guards were playing cards or eating supper. They all stared at her as she went by. Whenever she and the captain passed barred cells, most of which were in darkness, there were either snores from the inmates or a sudden rush of movement as one or another came forward to see who was passing by. Some shouted, cursing or begging. When the fragrance of her perfume reached them there was an incredulous sil
ence followed by a burst of shouting. One man began sobbing. Her heart went out to every one of them whatever his crime. A death sentence would have been merciful in comparison with this living hell.

  “Does my husband have any of the books and furniture I sent in when he was in the palace cells?” she asked, dismayed by the bleakness of some of the cells. As far as she could see there were only wood-lined walls, carved deeply with graffiti by countless inmates, a straw mattress on a wooden block for a bed, and a table with a stool or bench.

  “He didn’t when he was in the dungeon, but the doctor insisted that a prisoner of the Torrisi’s standing should have his reading matter, his feather mattress and bed-linen, and all his own clothes restored to him. I will say your husband is not a difficult prisoner. He’s quiet enough, keeps his self-respect, and takes a razor to his chin every day. Not like most, but then political prisoners are not usually housed here.” They had reached a door, one of a series that the guard had unlocked and relocked along the route. Once more the captain used a key from the bunch on his belt. “Here we are. I shall lock up again after I’ve let you into the cell. There’s no other way into this section and nobody can intrude. I’ll return promptly at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Make sure you’ve said your farewells and be ready to leave instantly.”

  “Is my husband expecting me?”

  “I was not obliged to notify him. All I have done has been for you, according to our agreement.”

  Marietta had thought she might find Domenico asleep, but as the captain opened the door, the glow of a candle showed through the bars topping the waist-high walls of the rectangular cell that ran parallel with the patrol corridor. She was able to look in at Domenico immediately. He was ready for the night in a well-worn velvet dressing-robe as he sat writing at a table. He did not look up. His dark hair had gained some grey at the temples and was tied back with a black ribbon. There was a high window in the corridor that would give him some light by day, but he would be able to see nothing through it. The dreadful solitude of his place of imprisonment struck her like a physical blow.

  Captain Zeno had gone ahead to unlock the cell door at the far end, and she pulled away her mask and mantilla as she ran to it. Domenico, hearing the swish of silk, looked up in surprise and then saw her in the doorway. The quill dropped from his fingers, spattering ink, and he turned deathly white as if he feared he must be hallucinating. Then joy flooded his face, and its color returned, as he hurled himself from the bench and rushed to meet her. She threw herself into his arms. Neither heard the relocking of the door or the one beyond.

  They kissed and wept, caressed each other’s faces in an unconscious desire to confirm that they were truly together. She answered his flood of questions about Elizabetta and herself, and her mask-making and selling, while he took her cape and hung it over some of his own clothes on a peg. Then, embracing her again, he led her to a bench where they sat down together.

  “What visiting time have you been allowed, Marietta?” He held her close, inhaling her perfume, holding her hand and putting his lips to her cheek. “Five minutes? Ten? Dare I hope for fifteen?”

  She smiled, tracing his jawline with her fingertip, her heart contracting at how thin he was, how drawn and with such a hollow look across his eyes. “We have the whole night, my love.”

  He gave a low moan of bliss and buried his face in her hair. Then he drew back to look at her again, his gaze traveling over her and back to her tresses. “You have your hair in a new style. I like it.”

  She smiled, touching her curls. The latest mode was to leave the hair unpowdered and dressed wide instead of high in a softer look that was in keeping with the latest fashions. “I wanted to look my best for you.”

  Then she asked him how he had fared throughout his imprisonment, and about the nature of his illness, but he dismissed his own experiences lightly and made nothing of the fever that had laid him low. He was full of questions, which she answered, and when he gave her pause she told him that in her cape pocket she had some of Elizabetta’s drawings and a few little gifts as well as the letters she had been saving for him from Antonio and his other two brothers in England and America.

  “All that can come later,” he said huskily, looking deeply into her eyes.

  “So it can,” she agreed. Then she glanced down to loosen her fichu and began to unfasten the bodice of her gown. His hand closed over hers.

  “Let me do that,” he said softly.

  When they lay down naked on his narrow bed each was possessed with such overpowering desire for the other that their lovemaking was fierce and immediate and ecstatic, making her arch and cry out intensely as if even her womb had opened and received.

  It was only when they began to make love the second time that they were able to re-explore each other’s bodies as they had in the past, every curve and crevice kissed and caressed, bringing exquisite tremblings of sensual delight to her and power and pleasure to him.

  During the night the candle spluttered low and he lit the wick of a new one to replace it. As he returned to the bed she propped herself on an elbow to ask him how he kept himself supplied with what he needed.

  “I have sold several of my coats and some gloves and shoes. The guards will purchase anything and I have a few coins in hand for laundry and candles.”

  “I’ve brought you two bags of gold coins. I sold a ring.”

  “One you could spare, I hope. That money is most welcome. It should last me a very long time.”

  She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe your innocence will be proved long before you’ve spent a quarter of it.”

  “I did prove it in court through those who spoke on my behalf, but that mass of twisted evidence weighed so heavily against me that justice was crushed out. Who would have thought that here in Venice, where even the humblest citizen is entitled to free legal aid, I, an upholder of those rights, would have been the victim of perjury!”

  She was pleased to see that he was full of healthy anger, showing that in spite of all he had been through his spirit had in no way been broken. “Sebastiano told me to tell you that when the time seems right he will present a petition signed with many names to the Doge on your behalf.”

  “Tell him I’m deeply appreciative, but I cherish no illusions.”

  “The Doge was your friend! Surely—”

  “In his eyes I offended against him and the State. Yet what I tried to do for La Serenissima I would do again even though it has brought me to these straits.”

  “I know you were right.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.

  “Who is living in the Palazzo Torrisi these days,” he wanted to know. “Not Filippo Celano, I trust.”

  “No! I heard that he tried to buy it, but as it is state property he was refused. It hasn’t been reopened since it was officially locked and bolted a few days after I left with Elizabetta. I suppose the valuables were removed to the Doge’s treasury, but the windows remain barred and shuttered. So it’s safe until you can reclaim it when you’re a free man again.”

  He shook his head. “Should I ever have my liberty restored it would be on the condition of banishment from the Republic and nothing that I owned would be returned to me.”

  “We’ll not be penniless! I still have all my jewelry except for that one ring. By selling only a few pieces we would be able to go far away and start our lives all over again.”

  “So we could.” He smiled to bring their talk away from dreams to the present. “Show me those gifts you mentioned.”

  She left the bed to empty the pockets of her cape onto the table. The drawstring purses of money clinked when she put them down. There were news sheets, which Elizabetta had tied with ribbons; there were sweetmeats, a recently published book, a pack of cards, and a set of chessmen, although no board. “I thought you might be able to mark out a bench or table.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “I will leave you to look at everything after I’m—” She broke off. “There is one gif
t that I promised Elizabetta I would show you myself.”

  “Bring it to me.”

  He sat up as she knelt on the bed to hand him the gift, which was in a small leather-covered box. He opened it to find a new miniature of Elizabetta, which had been painted shortly after her ninth birthday. He studied it for quite a while in silence before he spoke.

  “She is more like Elena than ever now. Do you know who fathered her?”

  Marietta was so aghast that she threw up her hands to cover her face and bowed over until her head almost touched her knees, swaying in her distress. “You know! Merciful heaven! How long have you known?”

  “I always knew there was something about Elizabetta’s birth that was being kept from me. You were quite withdrawn at times. I thought perhaps you’d come close to death, but Adrianna reassured me about that. There was also your reluctance to wear the birthgift I brought you from Russia, and yet I heard you tell others you had never seen a more beautiful parure. Since it’s not like you to make empty remarks, this was another thing that seemed odd to me. After we had talked out that spy’s report and everything seemed normal again I put the matter from my mind. Then came that evening when we suddenly found ourselves face to face with Elena at the opera house.”

  Marietta was still unable to look at him and her voice croaked. “I think I know what you are about to say.”

  “That I saw the likeness? Yes, that was it. In the first instant when Elena smiled it was as if an adult Elizabetta stood before us. That was when everything began to fall into place. The next day when I danced Elizabetta in my arms in front of a mirror, I saw her mother in her as clearly as if the truth had been shouted at me.”

  Marietta’s fingers stretched wide across her face and she drove them into her hair as her brow came to rest on her knees. “I don’t know how to bear this!”

  “That’s just how I felt at the time.”

  “Yet you said nothing!”

  “I loved the child. I had thought of her as my own too long to consider her in any other light. She was innocent of the game that had been played with her life. What happened to our baby? Did you miscarry?”