One Knight in Venice

by Tori Phillips

  The youth turned away from the canal. Lord Bardolph did not need the boy’s vigilant watch while he tossed on his bed. The time had come for Jacopo to take his future into his own hands.

  He slipped away through the dark streets like one of Venice’s alley cats. Within fifteen minutes he stood outside Jessica’s house. The lantern by her door was lit in expectation of its owner’s return. The rest of the house was dark.

  Jacopo cast a furtive look around the square. All was quiet, even the dogs. He lifted the latch and grinned when he discovered it was unlocked. How foolish were those servants of hers! Casting another glance over his shoulder, Jacopo slipped inside the silent dwelling.

  A heavy pounding on his door interrupted Doctor Leonardo’s slumbers. When he opened the window and thrust out his head to investigate the source of the disturbance, a young boy shouted up to him.

  “Come quick, doctor!” the child babbled in a loud voice made more shrill by his excitement. “Your daughter has been arrested by the Lords of the Night. They have taken her to the palace.”

  The doctor’s neighbors on both sides opened their windows. Without giving the messenger a reply, Stefano ducked back inside his bedroom and slammed the shutters against each other. Lucia, his timid wife, clutched her blanket closer to her sagging bosom.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  Stefano groped for his dark gray robe and his street shoes. “Something about Jessica,” he replied in a brusque manner.

  Lucia would learn of their daughter’s arrest soon enough. The doctor had no time to deal with his wife’s wailing now. His only thought was the casket that was hidden under Jessica’s bed. It was only a matter of time before the authorities would search her house for incriminating evidence. What would she tell them about the chest—and its damning contents? Stefano’s hands trembled as he pulled on his hose.

  “Is Jessica ill?” Lucia asked in a thin voice.

  Her husband ignored her. Speed was of the essence, not idle prattle.

  Lucia asked again, “What is the matter with her?”

  “I don’t know,” Stefano snapped over his shoulder. “But I am going to find out.” He jammed his cap over his disheveled hair, then he glared at his wife. “Under no circumstances will you admit anyone to this house. Do you understand me, Lucia? No matter which neighbor is outside, keep the door barred.”

  She stifled a cry. “Is Jessica in trouble?”

  “Jessica has always been trouble,” he growled. “She was marked with misfortune from the moment of her birth. I should have drowned her.”

  Leaving his wife to weep into her pillow, the doctor dashed downstairs and out the door. He ignored the neighbors’ questions. Busybodies all of them! His mind concentrated on the contents of the chest. His wife’s precious gold-and-turquoise ring lay beside his silver kaddish cup and menorah. That cup, candlestick and Tubal’s Hebrew books would leave no doubt of the doctor’s lapsed faith in the minds of the Council of Ten. In his imagination, Doctor Leonardo saw all the profits of his hard work evaporate. He could almost feel the flames of a heretic’s bonfire licking his shins. All because of his cursed daughter and her wanton disregard for his rules! Stefano swore under his breath.

  When he reached her campo, his heart plummeted. A half dozen torchbearers lit up the square. Jessica’s house blazed with lights in every window. In the street, Sophia and Gobbo were held in custody by men dressed in the somber uniforms of the nightwatch. Sophia wept loudly on her diminutive husband’s shoulder while Gobbo stared straight ahead, his face like flint.

  “We know nothing!” she wailed. “Oh, my poor lamb! What have you done with our mistress?”

  The guard grunted something that caused Sophia to weep afresh.

  The doctor pressed himself against the nearest wall and prayed that he had not been seen. Just then two more watchmen emerged from the house. One held a struggling, nondescript youth in his tight grip; the other carried the damning chest under his arm. A droplet of cold sweat rolled down the doctor’s spine. The dwarf was sure to tell whose property it was. How much time did Stefano have to flee Venice before the Inquisition issued a warrant for his arrest? A few hours at most. Would Jessica betray him outright or would they have to torture the information from her lips? Torture would buy him more time.

  Be true to me, daughter!

  Stefano did not linger at the scene. Pulling his dark cloak tightly around him, he sped from the square. Sophia’s shrieks echoed behind him. A mask! As much as he had eschewed such Christian frivolities in the past, the carnival revels would be his salvation. He would melt into the crowd of merrymakers then hire a gondola to take him to the mainland. From there, he could work his way to sympathetic friends in Padua.

  He gave no second thought to the possible fates of his wife and daughter.

  Francis drove his dagger into the tabletop. The dry wood splintered on impact. “What a slinking, craven maggot I am!” he raged at Jobe who sat cross-legged on the bed opposite Francis. “I should never have listened to your words of caution. I am nothing better than a puling milksop! The fairest flower in all of Venice now lies in some foul cell while I—” He could not go on. Hot tears stung his eyes. His cowardice gnawed at his gut.

  Jobe regarded his friend through hooded lids. “Had I not stopped you in time, you, too, would be in that same prison for murdering an officer of the Republic. The councillors here take a very dim view of foreigners meddling in their affairs.”

  Francis gnashed his teeth. “Jessica Leonardo is my affair!”

  The African raised a dark brow. “Is she worth more than England?”

  Francis narrowed his eyes. “How now?”

  “If it were discovered that Lord Bardolph was not a foppish nobleman but instead a spy that is well paid by the English government, your life would not be worth an English farthing,” Jobe replied.

  Francis knotted his fist. “I care not a whit!”

  The ebony giant shook his head. “You Cavendishes,” he muttered under his breath. “You are all mad. In the name of love, your family flies into the teeth of danger at every opportunity. Think with your head, scholar, and not just with your heart.”

  Staring at his friend, Francis saw a gleam dance in the black man’s eyes. He stopped his pacing and sat down on the foot of Jobe’s bed. “Speak to me. Have you a plan?”

  Jobe gave him a wicked grin. “Not yet, but with two of us now thinking clearly, we will form one. Mark me well, Francis, you cannot storm the walls of the Doge’s palace as the Crusaders of old attacked the walls of Jerusalem. Though the palace may look like a confection, it is made of marble, not spun sugar. You would be a dead man before you crossed the courtyard. What good would you be then to Donna Jessica?”

  Francis moistened his dry lips. “Tell me. Does your second sight reveal anything?” he asked in a low voice.

  Jobe lifted his chin and stared into the middle space over Francis’s shoulder. “Darkness,” he replied in a deep, hollow voice. “Fog and cold dank walls. Great danger, yet I do see a light in the far distance, but there are many hazards in between.”

  Francis gripped his friend’s muscled forearm. “To free Jessica, I will give and hazard all I have.”

  Jobe nodded. “You may have to do just that.”

  Jessica curled herself into a tight ball at one end of the wooden plank that served as her bed in the low, arched prison cell. She heard the slap of the canal water against the wall beside her. Through the tiny grilled window high above her she watched the stars wink out one by one like snuffed candles and the sky change from blue-black to dove gray. Though she had not slept a wink this whole terrible night, she did not feel tired. Every nerve jangled.

  At least, she had not been molested by her jailers as she had feared. On the contrary, the minute the Night Lord had pulled off her mask and seen her disfigurement, not one of them dared to touch her except at sword point. They made the sign of the cross and murmured invocations against the evil eye. Those strong hulking men had
blanched at the sight of her face and called her a witch.

  From far beyond her window, Jessica heard the bells of Saint Mark’s Basilica calling to early worshipers. I will miss Mass, she thought. She closed her eyes and murmured prayers for her salvation, though her hope dwindled. Behind her eyelids, memories welled up to torment her.

  Sweet memories of Francis—that smiling villain! She should have known from the very first moment that the perfidious wretch was too good to be true. Hadn’t her instincts warned her? She gnawed her lower lip to keep from crying. How that handsome snake had lulled her, wooed her, pretended that he cared for her! How gullible she had been! For a few sweetmeats, a ribbon or two, a sweet-singing canary and a handful of kisses she had tossed away every shred of her common sense. Her lips burned at the memory of those kisses—a lie, every one of them.

  As she recalled Francis’s gentle touch, she heard again the blandishments he had whispered into her ear. She felt again his breath warming her cheek. She vividly remembered with agonizing detail his sudden magnificent smile like the sun after a rainstorm; his gentle finger on her chin; his lips nibbling on her earlobe. The sound of his voice, singing a lullaby under her window, echoed with a mocking croak in the black stillness of her mind.

  Then at last, when he gave her into the hands of the nightwatch, he had stepped away from her as if she were nothing but a discarded nutshell. That memory hurt her most of all. He had said, “I’m sorry.” Hollow words from a hollow man. She should hate him; she did. And yet she knew that if Francis Bardolph appeared this very moment at her side with more of his sweet kisses and beguiling words, she would melt into his embrace. She squeezed her eyelids tighter. What a fool she was! She should have minded her father’s restrictions.

  Doctor Leonardo’s face replaced that of Francis in her half dream. Did her parents know that she had been arrested? She shivered. There would be no help from that quarter. While she had stood steadfast in her Catholic beliefs, Lucia and Stefano had secretly returned to Judaism. They would not jeopardize their own lives for the sake of their disfigured daughter. Yet Jessica knew she would never denounce them—not even to save her own life. Her ties to them were too strong.

  And what of Sophia and Gobbo, the two people who had given Jessica the only real love she had ever known? How strange fate was! Gobbo, the reformed pickpocket, was now a gifted musician, and Sophia, sometime fortune-teller and cony artist, had turned into a respectable housewife all because these two unfortunates had taken pity on another younger outcast. Looking beyond Jessica’s damning mark, they had recognized her healing gifts. They had taught her all they knew of herbs and medicines gleaned from their wandering across Europe. Now, after years of living within the law, would Sophia and Gobbo suffer for their good deeds instead of for their past crimes? Jessica beseeched heaven to protect her protectors.

  The sky turned to a pale blue wash and the bird-like cries of the gondoliers sang through her window. By the light of day she could read the graffiti carved into the walls by former inhabitants of her cell. Disce pati, wrote one Lachinur de Cremona on the 31st of January 1458. Learn to endure. What had been his crime? His fate?

  Her empty stomach rumbled. How soon would the guards come for her? She doubted they would feed her before they drowned her. Images of that silent death terrified her: her mouth opening in a scream and the green water of the lagoon rushing in to fill the void. Jessica gulped several deep draughts of the dungeon’s fetid air.

  Surely they wouldn’t condemn her without a trial first. As a citizen of Venice it was her right to have a hearing before learned judges. She prayed that they would be reasonable men. And yet, what defense could she give when the devil’s own mark branded her face for all to see?

  ¡Dio mio! Please send me wisdom and the wit to use it. I will endure!

  “What’s the news on the Rialto?” Francis stepped out of the shadows cast by the bulk of San Giacomo church.

  Not looking at him, the beggar replied, “All abuzz, messere, and your name mentioned—among others.”

  Francis nodded. In a city such as Venice, gossip ran on the heels of events. “Tongues love to wag,” he observed, assuming a languid stance with his back to the campo.

  Giulio cocked his head as if he listened to the silent rumors in the morning breeze. “They say that Jessica Leonardo is a witch,” he began.

  Even though Francis had steeled himself to hear this very lie, it made his blood burn within him. “Indeed? I thought witches were old and gnarled. Donna Jessica is quite the opposite.”

  The beggar sniffed. “Your heart is showing on your sleeve, my lord. Hide it away.”

  Francis yawned. He needed no pretense for that. He had not slept since the nightwatch had arrested Jessica. “What else does the wind say about this accused witch?”

  Giulio smiled, displaying badly stained teeth. “There is to be a trial. Everyone wants to attend if they can gain admittance.”

  Francis tensed. Sweet Jessica on display before a jeering mob? And yet this may be just the opportunity that he and Jobe needed to free her. “When? At what hour?”

  “On Tuesday next at three in the afternoon. The Doge himself will sit in judgment in the Hall of the Great Council on the second floor of the palace. But, messere, it would be very dangerous for you to attend. Your life hangs by a thread as it is.”

  The back of Francis’s neck prickled at this news. He slowly pivoted so that his back was now against a pillar. “How so? I am merely a gentleman traveler in your fair city.”

  “Sì,” his informant agreed, “but your mask has slipped a bit. There are whispers of a spy among the foreigners.”

  Though every nerve quivered, Francis pretended to yawn again. “How fare your feathered children?” he inquired in a mild tone. He prayed that several of Giulio’s marvelous pigeons were even now winging their way to France with the message that he was leaving Venice.

  The beggar grinned. “A few have gone to visit their cousins.”

  Then nothing holds me here but Jessica’s fate. I vow I will not leave Venice without her. Aloud he said, “I am glad to hear of that. I think I shall attend this trial. It may amuse me.”

  Giulio muttered a curse against madcap Englishmen. “Then I bid you farewell, my lord, for I doubt we shall meet again in this life.”

  Francis maintained a smile on his face though the beggar’s words sank in his soul like a dagger. “If so, I hope that you will remember me in your daily prayers and that you will inform my father of my misfortune.”

  Giulio curled his lip. “Your father will not weep long, I suspect, but will send another one of his sons on his fool’s errands.”

  Francis wondered what the illustrious Sir William Cecil would think if he knew he had suddenly become a father to many two-faced children. After giving the bustling square another visual sweep, he drew a small book wrapped in a filthy rag from his doublet. He had spent the past few hours transcribing his notes on Venice in invisible ink between the lines of the Latin text. Squatting down, he slipped the package under Giulio’s loose gown. “Then I leave a book for him as a remembrance of me.”

  Giulio nodded indicating that he understood the importance of the book. “A rich gift,” he remarked.

  “From a dutiful son,” Francis answered. He plucked twenty gold ducats from his pouch and dropped them into Giulio’s bowl.

  The beggar grinned. “You are more generous than usual, my lord. With this fortune, I can feed my children for a year.”

  “Good! Where I am going I will not need much coin. Come success or failure, it will be by my own hand, not bought with gold. And you, Giulio, watch out for yourself.”

  For the first time in their acquaintance, Giulio’s eyes focused directly on Francis. “May Saint Michael the warrior angel ride upon your shoulders, my friend.”

  Francis flashed him a quick smile. “I hope he hangs on tightly for I intend to leap into the lion’s mouth of Venice.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next three da
ys crept by on leaden feet. Jobe spent the time provisioning his ship and making it ready for a quick departure. He sent his sailors all over Venice visiting many wine shops and brothels in hopes of gleaning more information about the impending witch trial. The whole city throbbed with tales, most of them false. Many people had been questioned by the Council of Ten. The agents of the Holy Office were also very active. The population of the large Jewish Ghetto stayed closer to their homes over the Sabbath lest they attract unwanted attention from the Inquisition. The most interesting news to Francis was the disappearance of Giulio, the blind beggar of San Giacomo. Francis hoped that his confederate had taken his own advice and removed himself to safer climes. For once he turned a deaf ear to Jobe’s dark prophecies. He had set his own course and he was prepared to see it through. If nothing else, he vowed that Jessica would not die alone.

  Gaining admittance to the Hall of the Great Council was much easier than Francis had expected. In his guise as the jaded traveler, he sought out Niccolo Dandelli, one of the pleasure-seeking young bloods of the Venetian nobility that Francis had cultivated. Niccolo looked forward to attending the trial of a witch and he welcomed the company of his English friend. Like the majority of the spectators inside the hall, Francis and Niccolo were masked. The anonymity of painted visages protected the reputations of the thousand people that packed the Council chamber.

  Wedging his large frame next to Niccolo on one end of a hard wooden bench, Francis surveyed the excited throng around him. Bickering among themselves for the best seats, the spectators crowded on the makeshift rows of long benches that ran along three sides of the vast chamber. The late and the unlucky had to content themselves with standing in the doorways or perched on the sills of the wide-arched windows that overlooked the Grand Canal. On the vast ceiling high above the crowd, a massive fresco depicted the Last Judgment. The majestic figure of Christ on His throne appropriately hung over the raised dais where the Doge and the Council of Ten would sit. The huge chamber soon warmed with the body heat of the people. A thousand cloying perfumes that cloaked earthier odors rose and mingled in the air. The babble from a thousand throats made conversation almost impossible. Francis did not mind; his own thoughts were company enough.