Secrets of the Eternal Rose 02: Belladonna

by Fiona Paul

  Siena pinned Cass’s hair into a secure bun and handed her a simple bonnet with a black silk veil that could be lowered as desired. Cass nodded approvingly.

  Agnese was still sleeping as the two girls prepared to set off for the Rialto. Cass paused at the bottom of the staircase, just inside the front door. If only she could run up the stairs and peek at Agnese one last time. But no, it was too risky. Her aunt might wake and see everything reflected in her eyes. Perhaps, if everything worked out as it should, Cass could send her a note someday.

  She inhaled deeply, trying to quell the sadness and terror that welled up in her chest. She wasn’t just saying good-bye to Agnese. She was saying good-bye to the only life she knew, to whispered conferences with Siena, to teasing Bortolo for falling asleep standing up, to sneaking bits of chicken up to her room for Slipper. Cass almost burst into tears at the thought of never seeing her cat again.

  But she was doing what she must.

  Giuseppe rowed them across the lagoon. He raised an eyebrow when the girls requested a quick stop at San Giorgio Maggiore, but didn’t question them. Cass had a package of clothing and coins tucked under her arm. She and Siena made their way to the back of the church. Cass slung her parcel from a tree branch, hoping no one would find it before nightfall.

  They returned to the gondola, and Giuseppe rowed to the Rialto, where he dropped them off near Luca’s family palazzo. Cass had announced loudly the day before that she was going to spend the morning circulating a petition among Luca’s neighbors asking for mercy on his behalf. Not as if the Senate would care about sentiments gathered from the district if they didn’t care they were executing an innocent man, but it was a proper story—just the sort of thing a distraught fiancée might do.

  Instead, the girls headed to Piazza San Marco. There was no point in spending all day huddled behind casks of wine, especially when it increased the likelihood of being caught. Wandering the piazza was a good way to pass time. The area around the Palazzo Ducale and the Basilica San Marco was teeming with people dressed in brightly colored dresses and cloaks. The snap of sails and the shout of fishermen from the quay behind the piazza punctuated the buzzing chatter of vendors and buyers roaming the crowded square. Scents—the sharp jasmine of perfume and the sweetness of honey—mostly obscured the stench of the nearby canals.

  Cass had never been so dazzled by the piazza before. She felt as though she were seeing everything for the first time—ironic, since she was no doubt preparing to see it for the last time. A dark-skinned old man hobbled by with a box of freshly baked bread for sale. She bought a loaf and some honey for dipping to share with Siena, although she found that she could choke down only a few bites.

  One corner of the square was filled with foreign vendors selling costume jewelry and swatches of silk. Cass and Siena browsed the booths, pretending as if they were, like many of the people in the square, just out for a day of pleasure and fun.

  “Look.” Siena elbowed Cass and pointed toward the main entrance of the basilica. A conjurer was performing for a throng of people.

  Cass’s stomach tightened. Maximus the Miraculous. He lifted his hat from his head and bowed low before the crowd. The breeze off the water whipped through his dark hair. A stream of rose petals blew from his hat, and several women began to clap.

  Cass had learned the identity of the murdered courtesan after speaking with the conjurer. For a while, she had even considered him a suspect. She didn’t know whether seeing him here was a good or a bad omen.

  “Let’s walk by the door,” Cass said lightly. The dazzling sun, the people, the shouts of laughter—all of it felt like a dream. Could she possibly be here, now, contemplating risking her life? Was she really about to break into the Palazzo Ducale, the seat of Venetian government?

  They passed the door that Siena’s mysterious friend had indicated. They looked out at the sparkling quay as they walked, but Cass was making plans in her head. It was only a few feet from the door to the water. When they escaped—if they managed it—they needed to hit the ground running. It would take just seconds for them to disappear beneath the water’s surface.

  If they were discovered, the palace would send soldiers after them on foot and in boats. They’d search the piazzas and the canals. Cass, Luca, and Siena would have to hide out in the fetid water, tucked away beneath a dock, invisible in the shadows. Then, when the soldiers spread out, they could swim to San Giorgio. The outline of the great church loomed just across the Giudecca Canal. Cass looked fearfully at the water. She could make it. She would have to.

  She and Siena circled twice around the entire Palazzo Ducale: two girls out for a summer stroll. Then they once again threaded their way through the crowded Piazza San Marco. One last look at a Venice Cass might never see again.

  When she was certain no one was paying her any attention, Cass slipped out of her chopines. She unfastened her cloak and draped it across the stone railing that ran along part of the piazza. A vendor would undoubtedly find them and offer them for sale.

  She glanced up at one of the clock towers. Its golden hands indicated four o’clock. It was still early, but she didn’t want to wait too long and risk the servants’ door being locked before she and Siena made their way inside the palazzo. They would not get a second chance. “Ready?” she asked Siena, finding that although she was not wearing her stays, she still could hardly breathe.

  Siena nodded. “They won’t expect servants to be coming and going after sunset. We might as well get inside and find the wine room.” Her hand went to the pocket of her skirt. She was feeling for her dagger. Cass did the same. It was there—heavy, wrapped in kitchen cloth. Reassuring.

  They headed for the wooden servants’ door, slipping through it without hesitation, as though they belonged there.

  Inside, a long hallway ran the length of the palazzo. Servants milled past carrying armloads of clean linen. A pair of noblewomen walked arm in arm, probably waiting for their husbands to finish up with a meeting.

  “Keep your head down,” Siena whispered. “You want to be invisible.”

  Cass kept her eyes trained on the ornate marble floor. She mentally mapped the space. Siena’s friend’s sketch had been very exact, and they made it to the wine room quickly. They slid through another door, which banged heavily shut behind them.

  Instantly, Cass saw Palazzo Rambaldo’s wine room. Cristian. Pulling her forward. Her skin felt tight. Her heart stuttered. She reached out and gripped Siena’s forearm to steady herself.

  “Are you all right?” Siena asked, dropping her voice to a whisper.

  “Fine,” Cass said. She pushed away the image of Cristian, the idea that he might be lurking in the shadows, waiting for her.

  Siena and Cass inched their way toward a back corner of the room. The casks here were thick with dust. Cass felt certain no one would come to tap them today. The floor was damp, but thankfully, there was no standing water or evidence of vermin. After crouching awkwardly for a few minutes, Cass dropped all the way to the ground, sitting crossed-legged in her simple skirt. Siena did the same.

  “And now we wait,” Siena said.

  Cass nodded. Six hours or so. An eternity.

  “We should go over the plan again,” Siena whispered after a minute.

  There wasn’t much to go over, but Cass knew she was just trying to pass the time. They would wait until it was late, and creep out into the corridor and down the hallway. According to Siena’s map, the adjacent hallway was called the Hall of the Three Chiefs. A service stairwell connected it to the lower prison. Cass and Siena would descend the stairs, find Luca, find the dungeon guard, get the key—somehow—and open Luca’s cell.

  For a long time, they sat in silence as heavy as the darkness around them. The sounds of dripping, the echoes of voices from the hall, the occasional scrabble of a rat’s feet against the stone—all of it seemed amplified.

  “I’m sorry,” Siena blurted out suddenly. “About Luca. About how I… about the way I…”

>   She trailed off. Cass reached out and squeezed Siena’s hand. Cass had caught Siena with one of Luca’s monogrammed handkerchiefs on Madalena’s wedding day. She had known instantly what the token—and Siena’s mortification—had meant. Siena was in love with Luca. Perhaps she always had been, even when she was a mere scullery maid and he was just a boy who visited San Domenico occasionally with his parents.

  Cass had been shocked, but not angry. Stunned, but not jealous. She thought of the feelings that had developed so quickly between her and Falco. She was no stranger to forbidden love.

  For a brief instant, Cass allowed herself to think of him. She still had feelings for him. If there had been any doubt, it had evaporated the instant she saw him in the garden with Belladonna. Falco’s hand lingering on Belladonna’s bare skin. Bella’s hungry look. The pain, the rage—it was a wave, threatening to drown her. But was that what love was supposed to be? Pain? Madness? Or was love something more like what she felt for Luca? Something that motivated a person to be selfless and even self-sacrificing.

  “You can’t help how you feel, Siena,” Cass said gently. Her heart swelled, making her chest feel tight.

  Several more beats of silence passed. When Siena spoke again, her voice was trembling. “Signorina Cass, you have been so good to me, so good to my sister. I just want you to know, in case anything happens, that I—” Her voice cracked. “That I love you. Like family.”

  Cass squeezed Siena’s hand again. “Me too,” she whispered. Both girls were silent for a few moments. “You can try to sleep, if you like,” Cass said. “I’ll keep watch.”

  “Sleep? I’m so nervous, I may never sleep again.”

  “I feel the exact same way.” Cass leaned her head back against the wall. The room was completely dark. Even if a servant did come to fetch wine, the light from a single candle or lantern would not give away their hiding place.

  “What do you think Feliciana is doing right now?” Cass asked after a minute. Anything to keep from thinking about everything that could go wrong.

  “Probably breaking the hearts of peasants and schoolboys all over Florence,” Siena said, and Cass heard a smile in her voice. “If Signora Alioni thinks she’s a distraction to the serving boys now, just wait until her hair and her curves start to come back.”

  The minutes crawled by, expanding slowly into hours. Periodically, Siena would creep from her hiding spot and open the heavy door just far enough to peek out into the corridor, to judge the time of day via the light from the hallway windows. The third time she did, she came back to where Cass sat and held out her hands. “I think it’s late enough,” she said, pulling Cass to her feet.

  There was a damp spot on Cass’s skirt from where water had leached through the stone floor, and her legs and feet were numb from sitting for so long. She tucked a few stray tendrils of hair up under her simple gray bonnet and let the black silk veil fall in front of her face. She stamped her feet to try to regain sensation in them. Siena lowered the veil on her hat too. Cass couldn’t help but realize how odd her handmaid looked dressed in black instead of blue, with her pale face obscured. It was as if Siena had become someone else, a stranger. She had always thought of Siena the way she thought of Luca: steady, dependable, unchanging.

  Maybe she was wrong—about everyone and everything.

  They stood inside the door, listening for sounds in the hallway. Cass’s heart started galloping in her chest. Siena opened the door a crack and both girls peeked out. The hallway was dim. An iron lantern hung from a peg at the end of the corridor. It would give them just enough light to navigate by.

  Cass took a deep breath and slipped into the hall. Siena followed, and the two girls crept down the wide corridor. Cass’s leather slippers made only the faintest thwap on the marble floor, but to her each footstep was a thunderclap. She was certain that a battalion of palace soldiers would rise up out of the darkness to arrest them at any moment.

  Siena nudged Cass toward the Hall of the Three Chiefs. They found the service stairwell that led down into the dungeons. With trembling hands, Cass reached up and slid the lantern from its peg. She was so scared, she nearly dropped it, and Siena reached out, steadying her hand. Cass didn’t know how Siena could keep so calm, but she tightened her grip on the lantern and choked back the fear in her throat.

  The temperature dropped as the girls descended the stairs. The dungeon was black as death. The scents of mold and feces swirled around them, and tears rose in Cass’s eyes. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to run away. She wanted to scream. Clanking and moaning filled the air. Cass wondered if Belladonna had been right, if these twisting corridors were crawling with ghosts.

  She forced herself to keep going.

  At the bottom of the staircase, Cass and Siena paused, listening for sounds of patrolling guards. The water, Cass noticed, was already seeping into the prison. Her leather slippers were almost completely submerged. She struggled to walk without making sharp sloshing sounds.

  The pozzi was shaped like a square, its block of cells arranged so that no prisoner could look out the tiny grate in his door and see anything but a blank wall. A single corridor ran around the perimeter of the prison. Each wooden cell door was recessed in the stone walls and held closed by a lock and two thick dead bolts.

  “How will we ever find Luca?” Siena asked. For the first time, she sounded afraid.

  Cass didn’t answer. She held her lantern up to the tiny barred window in the first door. A man lay on a raised stone platform, naked except for a tattered pair of breeches. Bruises and bite marks covered his torso.

  The man sat up when he saw the lantern’s light. “The water is coming,” he said, leering at her. “Afterward, the vermin.”

  Cass lowered the lantern quickly. The water was only up to her ankles. Plenty of time. Siena gripped her elbow and piloted her forward. In the next cell, a man squatted over a silver bucket. Cass quickly passed on. Next—a man slept on the raised platform. The fourth cell appeared to be empty.

  But just as she turned away, a figure launched itself at the door. “Angels,” the voice rasped. “Have you come to free me?”

  Cass backed up quickly, pulling Siena with her. But the man began to bang on the door of his cell. “Angels,” he cried out. “They’ve come to free us all!”

  “Shh,” she hissed. But the man continued to bang on his door, and several other voices picked up the chant: “Angels!” They screeched, clawing at their doors. “Angels of mercy!”

  Just then, Cass saw light from around the next corner. A guard shouted, “Settle down, all of you!”

  Quickly, she extinguished her lantern and retreated with Siena into a recessed portion of the corridor. The two girls stood with their backs against the damp wall. Boots sloshed through the water, drawing closer. Cass’s heart beat three times for each footstep. She held her breath, terrified the guard might actually be able to hear her blood racing through her body.

  “What are you going on about?” The guard knocked harshly on the doors he passed; abruptly, the prisoners fell silent. Only one of them spoke up—the man who had given the alarm.

  “Angels,” he hissed. “They’ve come to set us free.”

  The guard laughed and hawked a bit of phlegm into the swirling water.

  “The only thing coming to set you free will be Death himself. Go back to sleep. Don’t make me get my boots wet again or you’ll pay for it tomorrow.”

  Cass risked poking her head around the corner, and saw the guard’s lantern heading away from them. She counted to ten. Then, ducking low, she and Siena crept back down the corridor. It was getting harder to move. The water was almost at her knees.

  At the next corner, Cass saw that the guard had his own elevated platform, situated against the far wall of the cellblock. As Cass watched, he stepped up out of the murk, set down his lantern, and hung a set of keys on a hook protruding from the stone wall. Dropping to a squat on the platform, the guard pulled a flask from his pocket and took a long drink.


  Cass ducked back out of view.

  The keys were so close. But the guard was wearing chain mail, something Cass should have considered. Their daggers would be useless—even as a threat—against a man in armor, unless they could get close enough to slash his throat. Her insides curled into knots at the thought. “I saw the keys,” Cass whispered to Siena. “But first we have to find Luca.”

  Siena nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, then froze.

  “Cass?” The word came from behind her.

  She spun around. The cell was dark, quiet. A roman numeral fifteen was painted upside down over the door. Had someone just said her name? Or had she imagined it?

  A shadow stirred from inside the cell. There was a liquid sound in the dark, water being disturbed.

  A man’s face appeared at the tiny grate. Siena covered her mouth with one hand. Cass swallowed back a gasp. He had a thick beard covering his cheeks and chin, but his brown eyes shined golden in the darkness.

  It was Luca.

  “Am I—am I seeing things?” Luca’s voice was dry, cracked. “Is that you, Cass?” His eyes were wide and staring, as though he had woken in the middle of a dream.

  Cass felt like weeping. He was here. She had found him. She wanted to throw herself through the stone and press her face to his chest. Instead, she leaned close to the grate. “We’re going to get you out of here,” she mouthed.

  Luca rubbed his eyes, like he still thought Cass was just a dream. He shook his head. “Impossible,” he whispered.

  Cass reached for his face, barely managing to squeeze her fingers through the grate and touch his cheek. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

  Reluctantly, she turned away from Luca, nearly colliding with Siena. Ducking down, Cass swept her hands back and forth in the rising water, fighting back a surge of nausea as unfamiliar slippery objects swirled through her fingers. She refused to think about what they might be. She traced a sharp crack in the dungeon floor, digging her fingertips beneath the broken stone until one of the pieces came loose. It was about the size of her hand, but much heavier. Siena mimicked Cass, and soon came up with her own jagged piece of rock.