Secrets of the Eternal Rose 02: Belladonna

by Fiona Paul

  “Everything is going to be fine, Cass,” Luca said. He leaned down to brush his lips against the tear. “Don’t cry.”

  One of the men took Cass by the shoulders and wrenched her away. She stumbled backward, unmoored. Siena materialized at her side, reaching out, helping her regain her balance. The soldiers engulfed Luca and dragged him toward the stairs.

  The front door of the villa slammed, and Cass ran to the window. The sky had gone from silver to blue. The soldiers doused their torches in the water as they forced Luca aboard the sturdy wooden ship. White sails snapped in the breeze as the boat pulled away from the dock. The waxing daylight wasn’t enough to see clearly by, but Cass swore Luca turned to look back at her as the ship bobbed out of sight. She touched one hand to the window, her breath condensing on the glass.

  Luca was gone.

  “Members of the Order must band together to vanquish our enemies. Neither man nor the Church shall be allowed to jeopardize our higher purpose.”

  —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

  two

  Cass heard Narissa’s voice before she saw the handmaid helping her aunt down the corridor. “One step at a time. Excellent, Signora. Slow and steady,” Narissa said, supporting Agnese as the old woman struggled toward the portego.

  “Aunt Agnese!” Cass cried out, wiping at her cheek with her hand. She did not want her aunt to know how terrified she was. “You should be in bed.”

  “Explain to me,” Agnese wheezed, “why those savages thought they could destroy my home.” She pointed in the direction of Luca’s room. “It looks like the End of Days in there.”

  “They said they had orders to search Luca’s chambers,” Cass said. But search for what?

  “Orders,” Agnese scoffed. “Don’t worry, Cassandra. They’ll be taking new orders soon.” She clutched at her chest, as if the mere act of speaking were taxing. “Narissa, I’d like to return to my room. Bring me wax and parchment. I’ll be sending several letters immediately.” As she tottered back down the hallway on her handmaid’s arm, she added, “And someone put that room back together immediately—there’s nothing more debased than an overturned armchair.”

  Siena touched Cass on the shoulder. “I’ll go straighten in there.”

  A strange protective feeling welled up inside Cass. She didn’t want anyone else going through Luca’s private things. “I can take care of it,” she said quickly. “You go to the market. Keep your ears open. Maybe you’ll hear someone talking about the arrest.”

  Siena curtsied. “Whatever you think is best, Signorina Cass.”

  Cass had already turned away. She held her breath as she crossed the threshold into Luca’s room, afraid of what she might find. The four-poster bed was still standing, but barely. The armoire and washing table were also whole, but overturned. All of Luca’s fine clothing had been yanked from the armoire’s shelves and dumped in a heap on the floor. Books and stockings were strewn about in front of his trunk.

  Cass’s cat, Slipper, was pawing at a fur-lined collar that protruded from the mess of clothes. “Shoo,” Cass said, bending down in front of the armoire.

  Slipper bounded off to explore the tangle of stockings. Cass began to refold Luca’s breeches and doublets, placing each piece of clothing back onto the shelves. She caught a whiff of his scent—citrus and cinnamon—from a tailored gray doublet and had to restrain herself from beginning to cry.

  She reminded herself that crying would help no one.

  Next, she went to work on his chemises. The linen fabric had creases at the chest and shoulders. Luca even folded his underclothes. Cass took her time, matching her folds to the creases, trying to put everything back just as it had been. She told herself that it was all a mistake, that he would soon be home, that he would want his clothes as he had left them.

  Slipper had found a scrap of lilac ribbon from somewhere and was parading around the room with the treasure hanging from his teeth. Cass watched him for a moment and then moved to the mess outside of the trunk.

  She paired the long stockings as best she could and placed them gently into the back of the trunk. She stacked the books into a pile, scanning each cover as she did so. Most of them were related to law and government—subjects Luca had been studying at university—but one of the leather-bound volumes was the same Shakespeare story that Cass had been reading when he had first returned to Venice several weeks earlier. Luca had never been one for stories, especially love stories. Cass couldn’t help but wonder if she had changed him the way that Falco had changed her.

  Already, the room was looking better. If only people, and lives, were as easy to fix, she thought. What was Luca doing right now? Was he scared? Where had he ended up? Was he being held somewhere clean and well lit, with hot water and fine food, or in a rat-infested, watery prison? She hoped Siena’s errands would be speedy. Surely some of the servants at the market would be gossiping about the arrest of a nobleman. Once Cass knew more about the charges, she would go to the Palazzo Ducale and demand to speak on Luca’s behalf. While she was there, perhaps she could bribe a guard to let her see her fiancé for a minute or two.

  She placed the stack of books into Luca’s trunk and rose to her feet. As she headed for the door, her lily pendant came unclasped and slipped down inside her bodice.

  Cass fished it out, pausing for a moment to admire its beauty. Four silver flower petals framed a circular diamond in the center. She held the pendant up to the light and watched the way the diamond bent and reflected the daylight, scattering sunbeams across Luca’s room.

  Slipper abandoned his ribbon and threw his tiny body at one of the dancing streaks of light, colliding instead with the wall.

  “Slipper!” Cass said, nearly dropping the necklace. “Are you all right?”

  As if he understood her words, the cat walked dazedly in a circle and then licked one paw and rubbed his face before launching himself at another rogue ball of light.

  Cass returned her attention to the pendant. As she struggled to work the tiny clasp behind her neck, she thought about the day Luca had given it to her. She’d been in the garden, reading, when he had come around the front of the house, a pale lily cradled in his hands.

  “Grazie,” she’d said when he rested the lily next to her on the bench. Her eyes had flipped back to her book. She didn’t mean to ignore him, but she was at a good part in her story.

  “Cass.” He’d angled his head toward the back of the garden, where roses bloomed in the wooden trellis. Stuck among them was another pale pink lily.

  Cass had arched an eyebrow, but then given in and closed her book. She and Luca had played this game when she was younger, both at his family palazzo and at Agnese’s. Luca used to hide little presents for her and mark the hiding spots with lilies.

  A smile playing across her lips, Cass got up to look at the second pink lily that he had poked into the trellis. Behind the delicate petals, a gold box was tied to the wood. Inside it, this necklace. Cass remembered the soft touch of Luca’s hands and the tickle of his breath on her skin as he bent low to work the tiny clasp.

  The wall clock chimed, and Cass was shocked to discover that she had been in Luca’s room nearly two hours. She slipped down the hallway and knocked quietly at her aunt’s door. No answer. She peeked in to find that Agnese was sleeping, her body propped up awkwardly in her bed with several embroidered pillows.

  Agnese’s health had taken a turn for the worse after Madalena’s wedding. Sometimes Cass could hear her coughing well into the night. She watched Agnese’s chest rise and fall beneath the fabric of her dressing gown. Her breathing seemed labored, her exhalations shallow and raspy. One gnarled hand, fingers twisted and swollen, dangled off the edge of the bed.

  Crossing the room to her aunt’s side, Cass knelt down and folded Agnese’s arm so that her hand now rested on her lap. The old woman didn’t even stir, and Cass couldn’t bring herself to disturb her.

  As Cass retreated into the hall and closed the door to her aunt’s chamber,
she saw Siena hurrying down the corridor. They both opened their mouths to speak at the same time, but Siena spoke first. “You have to come quickly, Signorina Cass,” she said, her eyes wide.

  “What is it?” Cass asked. “What’s happened?”

  Siena struggled to catch her breath. She tucked her trembling fingers into the folds of her dress. “It’s my sister,” she said, her voice catching. “I found her.”

  “The Order’s existence must remain a secret, and new members selected prudently and sparingly.”

  —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

  three

  Siena took Cass’s gloved hand to help steady her in her chopines as they threaded their way through the narrow streets of the Rialto, the main island of Venice. They emerged from an alleyway onto the wide path that ran alongside the Grand Canal. The area was crowded with peasants carrying paper-wrapped packages and sacks of vegetables. Siena headed for the arches of the Mercato di Rialto, where almost everyone went to buy food and herbs.

  Peasant women and older children jockeyed for position in front of the stalls. Cass was reminded of the busy alleyway in Fondamenta delle Tette where she and Falco had gone to search for the identity of the dead body Cass had found in the contessa Liviana’s tomb a few weeks earlier.

  That area had been full of brothels. To Cass, the marketplace seemed almost as bad, with Gypsies pushing trinkets outside the arches and fishermen hawking their catches inside. Anyone could be roaming within that crowd—con artists, pickpockets. Cristian.

  “She’s waiting here?” Cass asked.

  “Yes.” Siena yanked her forward impatiently.

  Cass eyed the crush of people again. The back of a blond man, the ends of his hair reaching almost to his shoulders, melted into a cluster of brightly clothed peasant boys pushing and shoving each other as they headed toward the arches. Cristian. She stopped quickly, nearly pitching forward onto the damp, garbage-slicked cobblestones. “I’ll wait here while you go get her.”

  Siena gave Cass a strange look. “She won’t come out, of course. She’s afraid someone will see her and report to Signor Dubois.”

  Cass cursed herself for being such a coward. According to Luca, Cristian had left Venice for good. There was no reason for her to be seeing him in every crowd. “Lead the way, then,” she said.

  Cass followed Siena into the market, her head pounding from the cacophony of vendors and customers trying to outshout each other. Her stomach churned from the stink of fish and sweat. She wished she could fetch her fan out from her pocket, but the peasants were packed arm to arm, as tightly as the seafood they were bidding on. Cass paused for a moment, covering her mouth with a gloved hand, trying not to retch.

  Siena flicked a quick glance over her shoulder. “I almost forgot.” She pulled a tiny cloth bag from her pocket and handed it to Cass. “Breathe through this.”

  Cass took the sachet of herbs gratefully. Pressing the small bag up to her mouth and nose, she inhaled mint and rosemary. She skimmed the sea of faces for the blond man. Suddenly he was right in front of them, bidding on a fish. Up close he looked nothing like Cristian. Idiota, she thought. Still, she couldn’t make her heart stop racing.

  Siena led her down the main row of stalls, slipping effortlessly through the minuscule spaces between other people. Cass felt huge and clunky trying to do the same, excusing herself repeatedly as she wobbled in her chopines and stepped on the occasional toe. She pressed one hand tightly to the fabric of her dress, imagining that each accidental touch belonged to quick fingers trying to extract the leather pouch of coins from deep inside her pocket.

  A peasant woman dressed in plain muslin squeezed past her, adeptly leading her three daughters through the fray. The smallest girl reached out to stroke the soft fabric of Cass’s skirts as she wandered by. Again, Cass felt silly. Why was she afraid of a place where Siena came almost every day?

  As Cass and Siena weaved their way deeper into the market, some of the vendors called out excitedly, holding up gutted fish or giant squid for Cass’s approval. It was rare, she supposed, to see a well-dressed noblewoman wriggling her way through the masses. She quickly averted her eyes from what Siena told her was a sea bass, filleted down the middle and folded open to display its slick white interior. Cass had never seen the inside of a raw fish up close. She hoped the cook was fixing chicken for dinner.

  Siena pulled her past a stall where shrimp and clams were piled high in woven baskets. Cass swore she felt a hand close around one of her ankles. She lurched forward, knocking a few of the shellfish onto the ground. A plaintive yowl came from the direction of her chopines. Looking down, she saw an emaciated black cat flick its tail against her leg again before pouncing on one of the fallen shrimp. Cass muttered an apology and tossed a copper coin at the scowling vendor.

  Finally, they were past all the seafood and into the far side of the market where the produce was sold. The smell here was almost as bad, but at least Cass was no longer in danger of being assaulted by the sight of a gutted fish. She had seen plenty of rotting fruit before. The servants would sometimes buy it just before it turned. Agnese did love a good deal.

  Siena pulled Cass behind a stall selling grapes and pears. A beggar in a brown wool dress and a black cloak knelt next to a stack of empty wooden crates, her hood pulled low to hide her face. She had her hands clasped around a half-rotten pear that she had no doubt fished out of the bottom of one of the crates.

  “I’ve brought Cass,” Siena whispered.

  The beggar looked up at her, and Cass immediately recognized Feliciana’s bright blue eyes. She swallowed back an exclamation of joy and relief so as not to call attention to Feliciana’s presence. She could hardly believe it. There were so many things she wanted to tell her. So many things she wanted to ask her.

  But then Cass took a closer look. The left side of Feliciana’s face was colored yellow with the remnants of a welt, and her lips were swollen and marred by black blood, having split open and scabbed over. How could Siena’s vibrant older sister have become this skeletal, bruised woman?

  Feliciana ducked her head again as the pear vendor, an older woman with deep lines etched into her tan face, stacked another empty crate behind the stall. “You should find refuge at a convent,” the woman said. “It’s hard for the good Lord to take care of you out here in the streets.” Feliciana nodded without lifting her chin. Someone hollered from the front of the stall, and the vendor disappeared.

  Cass fumbled in her pockets as if she were searching for a few coins, talking low under her breath as she did. “You’ll come back to the villa with us, of course. We can get everything sorted out once you’re safe.”

  Feliciana nodded again. “But what will you tell your gondolier?” she whispered. “If anyone were to recognize me—”

  “I’ll get rid of Giuseppe,” Siena said. “I’ll say we’re going to walk across the way to the weaver’s to order some cloth and then take a stroll down to Piazza San Marco. I’ll tell him he should return to the villa, that we’ll find our own way home.”

  “Good idea, Siena.” Cass turned back to Feliciana. “No one will recognize you.” Even if she hadn’t been emaciated and bruised, in the hooded cloak and rough woolen dress, Feliciana could have just as easily been her aunt Agnese as a runaway servant.

  “Stay with her, Signorina Cass,” Siena said, as if she were afraid her sister was a ghost who might vanish if they both turned their backs. “I’ll find us passage home.” Siena disappeared in the direction of the Grand Canal.

  Cass knew it must look strange to the people passing by, a noblewoman bent down over a beggar, but she didn’t care. “Are you sick?” she asked, kneeling to get a better look at Feliciana. The skin under her eyes was purple, and the fingers that protruded from the oversized sleeves of her cloak looked like twigs.

  “Just sick of hiding,” Feliciana said with a wan smile. “And hungry.” She bit into the good side of the pear. She chewed slowly, as if it had been a while since she had eaten solid fo
od.

  “Of course. What’s the matter with me?” Cass made her way to the front of the stall, where she purchased a second pear and a cluster of grapes.

  “Cass—Signorina Cass,” Feliciana corrected herself, when Cass returned. “I didn’t mean for you to—”

  “I know,” Cass said, handing the fruit to Feliciana. “I wanted to.”

  Feliciana finished the good part of her scavenged pear before beginning on the grapes. Each one brought a smile to her discolored face, as if they were the most exquisite food in all of Venice.

  Siena returned, and Cass was overjoyed to learn they wouldn’t have to backtrack through the crowded marketplace to get to their ride. “I had to offer the return fare too, Signorina Cass,” Siena said apologetically. “You know how the gondoliers hate going all the way out to the islands.”

  “That’s fine.” Cass would have offered her entire purse just to spirit her former lady’s maid to safety.

  Feliciana kept her hood low as the three girls squeezed out the back of the market and headed for a gondola moored at the edge of the Grand Canal. An elderly gondolier helped them aboard. Cass instinctively checked his hands to see if he wore a ring with a six-petaled flower design. She didn’t know what the symbol meant, but she had seen it on a ring that Falco found in Liviana’s tomb and then again on the outside of Angelo de Gradi’s workshop full of body parts. Later, she had noticed Donna Domacetti, Venice’s biggest gossip, wearing a similar ring. Cass knew that the symbol heralded dark things—bad things.

  It would look highly suspicious if they arrived home too soon after Giuseppe, so Cass commanded the gondolier to go slowly, saying she felt ill. The old man scowled, but slowed the rate at which he moved the long flexible oar through the canal water.