Votive

by Karen Brooks

  All he did was dip his head towards Signor Vestire.

  ‘Grazie,’ said Baroque again, pushing the mug back towards Vestire. He rested his head in his hands.

  Signor Vestire took mercy on him. ‘I may not be able to help you, but you’re in luck. There is one here who can.’

  Baroque raised his red eyes to Vestire’s, hope registering on his features. Signor Vestire nodded over his head, towards the stairs.

  ‘Speak to him.’

  BAROQUE SLOWLY TURNED AND STARED into the dimness. He could see the outline of someone sitting at a small table beneath the stairs. Cautiously, he slid off the stool and walked towards the man that Signor Vestire said could help him. As his eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, he saw the man had dark, untidy hair that rested on broad shoulders. He was very tall but quite young; he also noticed, with the eyes of experience, that he was a Bond Rider. He picked up his pace, not even stopping when he knocked over a chair.

  He stood by the table. ‘Signor Vestire tells me you can help me with my enquiries.’

  The young man raised his head.

  Baroque’s jaw dropped. He staggered back a pace. ‘No! Non è possible!’

  The man smiled. ‘I have learnt, Signor Scarpoli, that even in this world, everything is possible.’ He gestured to the table. ‘Sit down. We need to talk.’

  His eyes never leaving the man’s face, Baroque slid into the chair opposite. ‘Dante Macelleria,’ he said finally. ‘She thinks you’re dead.’

  Dante’s lips tightened and the pulse in his neck hammered. ‘I know. It is better that way. For now.’

  Baroque noted they did not need to say who ‘she’ was. All effort at pretence had gone.

  ‘So, what do you want, Signor Scarpoli?’ Again, he lingered on the last word. ‘And tell me, why should I trust you when the last time we met, you not only had a different name and occupation, but you were following me and Tallow. And you continue to work for the very people who sent you after her in the first place.’

  Baroque’s eyebrows shot up. This young man had done his homework.

  Dante laughed at his expression. It was dry, false. ‘Oh, sì, I have not wasted the time I have spent here. I know what you do – what you make Tallow do.’

  Baroque winced. ‘Let me explain,’ he said.

  ‘Please.’ Dante made a wide gesture with his hand. ‘Unlike you, I have all the time in Vista Mare.’ He called to Signor Vestire to bring them vino. Baroque noticed that Signor Vestire had not taken his eyes from them.

  Over the next two hours, Baroque spoke and Dante listened. For the first time in many years, he held nothing back, but revealed almost everything. His role in helping the Maleovellis track Tallow, his lessons, what she created and how the candles were used. He also shared with Dante what Tallow had been ordered to do – and his fears about this. There was one thing he chose to remain silent about: suspicions around what had happened to her at Casa Moronisini and Tallow’s retribution.

  Finally, after Dante had questioned him, and Baroque answered, they sat back in their chairs. More men poured into the taverna and the smell of food reminded Baroque that he hadn’t eaten. The vino sat heavy in his head and stomach. He looked at Dante, who was frowning into a corner, processing what he’d been told.

  The chandler had changed. Confidence oozed from him. The boy had become a man. His black, flashing eyes and astute mind missed nothing. While they had come to this point from different sides and with opposing intentions, they now shared the same purpose: Tallow.

  Baroque knew he’d finally found an ally.

  ‘You will help me, then?’ asked Baroque finally, unable to bear the silence.

  Dante turned to him slowly. ‘Was there ever any question, Signor? Sì. Where Tallow is concerned, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I am yours.’ He looked around, aware suddenly of the extra bodies, the loud voices. He rose. ‘I will have food sent to my room. We need to make plans and quickly. And you need to get back to Nobiles’ Rise. It would not do for the Maleovellis to discover what you have done, where you have come. It might force their hand.’

  Baroque shook his head. ‘No. They need her for now. But after the deed is done, then we must be ready to act.’

  Dante headed for the stairs. ‘Come then, we’ve no time to waste. Not any more.’

  Watching Dante take the stairs two at a time, his sword swinging by his side, Baroque dared to believe.

  SIGNOR PUGLIESI, AN OLD REGULAR who had slowly moved to be nearer the fire, heard most of what Baroque and Dante discussed. When they left, he grabbed his stick and heaved himself to his feet. Leaving the required soldi on the tabletop, he hobbled to the door and out into the campo. Patrons moved out of his way; children were careful not to knock the frail, blind man over. The wind whipped his cloak around his legs, his thin hose inadequate for keeping out the chills that wracked his skinny frame. He would need new clothes if he were to survive this winter. Well, now he would have the means. A big fat purse for any information; that was the promise he’d been given. Now, he had a great deal.

  With the knowledge of a lifetime, he made his way down the numerous rami that mazed the quartiere. Sight was unnecessary when smells and sounds and the feel of the crumbling walls, with their pocks and raised patterns of mildew could direct him as well as any map. He finally came to the apartment he’d been looking for. In an old, ramshackle building owned by a madam who kept her four prostitutes on a tight leash were rooms for rent. In the topmost one dwelled the drunken Bond Rider.

  Admitted by the madam with a screech of disappointment, Signor Pugliesi climbed the three flights slowly, his breath coming in gasps by the end, and rapped on the door with his cane.

  It took the Bond Rider some time to open it. The fumes of vino almost knocked Signor Pugliesi off his feet. Shuffling past the Bond Rider, who was scratching and belching, he waited till the door was shut and then in a quiet, steady voice repeated everything he’d heard.

  If anyone was surprised when they didn’t see Signor Pugliesi for a few days, no one said. Not at first. But when his body was discovered floating against a set of water-stairs just outside the marketplace, no-one could understand how cautious old Pugliesi had been so careless as to slip and strike his head.

  They toasted him that night in the Taverna di Segretezza and then barely mentioned him ever again.

  WHEN I ARRIVED IN THE WORKSHOP Baroque was not there. His bed was empty, his coat absent from the hook. I didn’t wait for him. Instead, as a limpid sun rose over the city and a cold wind blasted through the courtyard, I began to make the candle that would kill the Doge.

  Instead of simply extracting and distilling into an existing candle, I made this one from scratch. In the small grate that Baroque used to warm these freezing rooms, I used the remnants of last night’s fire and assembled a fresh one, feeding it not only with wood, but the paper upon which I had laboured while learning to write. I had brought it from my rooms. I knew it would help give me the heat required for melting wax, but that wasn’t the only reason.

  What I had once been proud of now only reminded me of my complicity in Pillar’s imprisonment. I was keen to destroy it. I’d lain awake last night, my conscience aflame with guilt as I argued with myself. Why hadn’t I gone to look for Pillar? Instead I believed what the Maleovellis told me, that he had gone, vanished, left me without caring about what happened. I’d been so suspicious of the Maleovellis’ intentions regarding most things, and yet I’d never thought to question them about Pillar. Why? When did I become so selfish? So narcissistic? After all Pillar had done for me, I consigned his memory to the refuse – not because it pained me in the way that thoughts of Dante did, but because I simply didn’t want to think about him – him or my old life. They were so interconnected that one roused the other. By shutting out Pillar, I was never Tallow, never his lowly, browbeaten candlemaker. I was never a girl pretending to be a boy; an Estrattore masquerading as a human. I did not spare a thought for Pillar, not when I could a
dorn myself in beautiful fabrics, swathe myself in silken sheets, be admired, adored, control others in a way I couldn’t even control my own life.

  Seeing Pillar, feeling his unconditional love, whether I wanted to or not, had opened a large crack in the barrier I’d painstakingly erected over the months. And, in the early hours of the morning, the truth doused me like the cold rain that struck my windowpane. He hadn’t abandoned me. I had abandoned him.

  I had always wanted to belong, to find my people. He was my people. I was his. The Estrattore were as a myth, a story – ghosts that haunted my present. In believing in them, trusting they would embrace me, I was behaving like a child who believed in fairy tales. What could I change? What could I really do? Even if they did exist, somewhere in the Limen, why hadn’t they tried to find me? They hadn’t and, I realised now, they never would. If I was so damn important, why didn’t my people help me? They had left me; left me to find my own way and now, finally, I had.

  It was time for me to do something. Not about the Estrattore, but about Pillar and, I thought as I heard the casa begin to stir, the Maleovellis as well. For so long I had obeyed their every command, their every whim, frightened of their disapproval, keen to earn their confidence, afraid to stand against them lest I lose the little I had. No more.

  I watched as the paper caught in the flames, the parchment blackening and curling, adding fuel to the fire.

  The spitting and crackle of the blaze was loud. I added some wood and blew and poked.

  Finally the heat was enough for my purposes.

  I grabbed an old battered pot from under the table and began to break apart three candles, snapping them in as many places as I could, pulling hard to remove the wick. I dropped them into the pot. Before I consigned it to the fire, I added some oils – lavender for its sweet scent and to aid relaxation, musk, for the sheer pleasure and headiness of its perfume, and some mistletoe. I had discovered that this plant, when broken down to its essence, affected the heart and blood. This was essential if the candles were to work.

  Satisfied with my initial additions, I grabbed an old wooden spoon, sat on my haunches and placed the pot on a rusty tripod above the flames. Giving the wax time to begin melting, I stirred it, allowing the mixture to fold in on itself, absorb my additives. The workshop was soon filled with the smells of my labours.

  When the mixture was smooth, the original shape of the candles reduced to a liquid mass, I rose and removed the pot from the immediate heat, leaving it in the glowing embers at the edge of the grate.

  Among the objects that Baroque had brought to me over the months were some small ornate glasses – the kind that held the votive candles in the basilica. I recalled that they had carried within them the memories of not only their original makers, but all those who had bowed before them, praying to lost loved ones, begging forgiveness of God for perceived and real crimes. They also carried the thoughts and essence of the padres and novitiates who had placed them in the alcoves near the pews and altar. From them I was able to detect everything from concern over spiritual matters to the content of the next meal, to carnal thoughts that had no place in God’s house. Having met a few of God’s men myself, I knew their practice of celibacy to be an illusion. Men of the cloth were no more spared the desires of man than a cat denied fleas. Padres just had to work harder to excise them than others. Not all succeeded. These votive holders screamed their shame.

  I sorted through and found four holders that suited my purpose. They all matched: the glass had a slight blue tinge and was decorated in geometrical patterns of jade, ruby and gold. I laid them out carefully on the counter and, as I did, began to distil into them the beginnings of my intentions. After that, I sliced open a couple more candles, like a fishmonger does his catch, pretending a spine where none existed and extracted the wick in its stead. Chopping it into suitable lengths, I laid them in the holders, draping the ends over the glass.

  Finally, I was ready to pour the wax. Wrapping a cloth around the handle of the pot, I lifted it to the counter. The wax was molten cream and the smell was tantalising. The scene painted across the screen in my bedroom came to my mind – wild, exotic. Using a bent metal spoon, I began to carefully ladle the wax into the containers. As I did, I drew on my talents, distilling with such intensity that I lost track of time. From within myself I drew elements of the many poisonous plants, people, surfaces and objects I had come in contact with and which I had stored. Selecting what I needed, I poured them out of me and into the wax. My insides burned. I wanted to choke. My heart thudded against my chest and sweat beaded my brow as I worked slowly, methodically, concentrating hard, unaware I was being watched.

  A sharp intake of breath distracted me enough that I raised my head. In the doorway was Giaconda. Still in her nightgown, her hair falling about her shoulders, she had a thick shawl draped across her shoulders.

  ‘The wax, it changes,’ she whispered, her eyes wide.

  I glanced back down. Instead of the luscious colour of the lace that so often bordered her gowns, or the lustrous sheen of the pearls that scattered her hair, the wax had transformed into a dark purple, so dark it was almost black. Bruised now, the wax sank into the glass, swirling in unctuous layers. In their midst sat the little hemp wicks. I tweaked them upright and watched in pleasure as, responding to my touch, they metamorphosed from white to black.

  Four votives sat – gloomy, sinister, their holders pulsating as if a tiny heart struggled to beat in all that darkness. I sighed, put down the pot containing the remainder of the wax and wiped my hand across my brow.

  ‘It is finished,’ I said to Giaconda.

  She looked into my eyes and I saw something in hers that I had not detected before. It was fear. A thrill ran through me. I tried not to let it show on my face.

  ‘Bring them to me,’ she said. She did not want to cross the threshold.

  ‘No. They cannot be moved – yet. Later. I will bring them to you later.’

  ‘Bene,’ she said, frowning. She peered around the workshop entrance, wrapping her shawl more tightly across her breasts. ‘Where’s Baroque?’

  ‘He went to get me some wick. But he took too long so I made use of what I already had.’ The lie tripped so easily from me.

  Her frown deepened. ‘Tell him Papa wants to see him when he returns.’ She glanced at me. ‘You need to rest. We need you to look your best – more beautiful than you ever have.’

  I inclined my head and then turned away from her, pretending to lift the last of the wax from the pot.

  The swish of her dress and the cold wind that hit my back let me know she had gone.

  I slowly turned round and saw the hem of her gown disappearing up the stairs. At that moment, Hafeza crossed the courtyard to the well. I remained still, lost in the shadows that lingered in the workshop, watching as she lowered the bucket. She was humming a tune that I knew came from her home country. Her eyes followed the bucket and she bent over the edge of the well. In repose, her face possessed a gentleness and kindness that I recalled had once appealed to me. But I knew it to be false. Like Giaconda’s beauty or Signor Maleovelli’s benevolence, it was a mask designed to lure people closer the way fire does air, the chameleon insects, or the moon attracts the stars. We all wore masks in this casa.

  But beneath the façade of servitude and obedience, I wondered what the real Hafeza was like, how this woman could be loyal to the Maleovellis. What did they inspire that she was forever obedient to their whim, served them unquestioningly? What horrors had they rescued her from? For that seemed to be their way. Jacopo, consigned to the life of a cripple, an orphan, first in a convent, then in the streets until his father claims him, relying on his son’s gratitude for a lifetime of loyalty. Hafeza, a mute slave given the task of raising Giaconda. Does such munificence engender trust in return? I thought of my own circumstances. It did – for a while. I was grateful, and in turn that made me not only admire the Maleovellis but seek their admiration in return.

  Lost in my refl
ections, I noticed Hafeza had left only when she was mounting the stairs, struggling with a full bucket. She would be replenishing my water, no doubt. It was time to leave.

  I moved the votives to a space where they could cool undisturbed. Then, picking up the pot, I scraped the remnants of the wax out of the bottom and threw them in the fire. I wanted no evidence of this batch to remain – no opportunity for the Maleovelli’s to abuse my talents. When I’d finished, I took the pot out to the well and scrubbed it thoroughly, along with the spoons and knife.

  I re-entered the workshop, standing still to wait for my eyes to grow accustomed again. As I did, I noticed the door to Baroque’s room was ajar. I placed the implements back on the shelves and then paused.

  Curiousity overcame me and I pushed the door open further and stepped inside Baroque’s room. I had only ever been in there once before, when I’d hidden from Lord Waterford – and that had only been brief and my anxiety at being discovered had discouraged me from exploring. There were no such deterrents now. My eyes travelled over the space. It was small and neat. His bed was unmade, but his belongings, such as they were, lay folded on the chair or the small rickety table. A stock of candles sat to one side, a holder with a melted stump nearby.

  Where was he, this man who didn’t know the meaning of loyalty and yet desired to be friends? Who warned me away with words but lured me closer with actions. He too had betrayed me but, like the Maleovellis, when had he ever promised anything else? He told me not to trust him. Why did the Maleovellis – well, the Signor at least – give Baroque so much responsibility? First to find me and, later, to kidnap Pillar. I knew that Baroque was behind that, and at first it had enraged me. But when I touched the iron bars of Pillar’s prison, I had also learnt something else, something that in the whirlpool of my emotions I’d only sorted later. It was Baroque who had brought Pillar food, fresh clothes, and extra blankets when winter descended. It was Baroque who had spent nights talking to Pillar and easing his solitude. I was grateful for that. Was that why Baroque’s attitude towards me had changed? Had Pillar facilitated that? The man I sensed in this bedroom and had worked with side by side no longer accorded with the one who had followed me almost two years ago in the Candlemakers Quartiere or who had lured Pillar from his house to the Maleovellis’ dungeon. Where had that man gone?