by Laura Rahme
Maleficio
A diary entry from Esteban
January 5, Dusk
Darkness has set upon Venezia and I’ve not received signs from Antonio.
Where has the fool gone to now? Perhaps it is my fault. I ought not to have placed him in harm’s way. But it was my only chance to be free of my client’s demands. How could I not?
At present I am weighted by grief. Words run onto this parchment like a river of tears.
I ignore where to begin to recount all that has happened. I ignore how to put to rest the fury that burns within me.
There is no joy in writing this. In scratching those few lines, my quill cries and despairs.
There was growing unrest in the Campo di San Marco this evening. Upon my return, from the port, I noticed the burgeoning crowds near the flooded Piazza. “What is it?” I asked my gondolier. He shrugged his shoulders and answered that someone had likely been arrested by the sbirri. I ordered him to stop. I set off on foot, wading ankle deep through the filthy waters, until I reached San Marco’s Basilica.
I halted, shielding myself beneath the withered arcades of the Ziani Palace, looking on, as though the Venezia I knew had suddenly become a stranger.
Despite the rising lagoon, the Veneziani had spilled into the Piazzetta. There were men and women from all walks of life. Patricians in blue and black velvet mantles, doctors and lawyers clad in black, lace makers and seamstresses in their simple blue frocks and shawls, poorer women in brown dresses and coifs. I wondered what this impressive gathering heralded. I wondered why they all stared ahead and had ceased to be merry. Carnivale! Where was the Carnivale spirit?
A haunting sound cleaved the air. It ran across the Piazza, rippling through the assembly, filling all those who understood it with a sickening dread. The crowd ejected gasps and muffled cries. Like me, they had recognized it.
One grasps only too well the degree to which one’s life is not one’s own, when one hears this sound. Try as one might to pretend and keep a mask of gaiety, the truth lies in that sound, the sound of the Maleficio.
There is, in Venezia, an elite who punishes at will, an elite who strikes at dissent and often, in a manner so swift, that gatherings such as these take one by surprise, even as one recognizes the bell that tolls. Would that we, Veneziani, realize that all masks are a dream that must end.
Maleficio, you treacherous lady of the campanile. For when we hear you, we do not even know who among us is to die. And when you have sounded, each of us awaits, holding our breath for that certain death.
I edged my way closer to the center of the square, sloshing about with my wet boots.
Who was it? Who would be punished for their crime toward the Republic?
The guilt of my recent embroilment with Antonio, and our intrusion in the Palace only spurred my speculations. Where was Antonio? Who would I see when the slowly advancing hooded victim had stepped up to be hung? Who would feel the tightness of the noose round their neck?
A female scream tore through the crowd. A woman, maybe a friend or relative, had recognized the prisoner. I squinted, but my vision was clouded by an orange mist rising over the lagoon, reflecting the unruly flames of hundreds of flambeaux.
I edged my way in, breathless with fear. I watched the darkening skies above the two granite towers. Within seconds, the execution had begun.
I froze.
The prisoner’s black veil had been removed. I saw the woman’s eyes look upon the crowd with fright. And as she stood there, my vision of her as certain as the memory of her kiss, I sensed my very own pallor. What I beheld, her flaming red hair cascading down her bare shoulders, the skin of her back stripped and bruised, it all took my breath away. And somehow, behind my volto, I had become as white as they.
The wooden trapdoor collapsed from under her feet. Once again a shriek rose up from the crowd. Blanca’s fragile neck was no match for the cruel rope. Her tender body had snapped instantly and with it, the chords of my heart.
Antonio’s Visitor
Journal of Antonio Da Parma
Eve of Befana
Upon Almoro’s departure, I was dejected and fearful for my life. Suddenly the Veneziani’s preoccupation with death became my own. After the midnight bell had sounded, I was stirred by a clanking of chains from the main prison door. I saw the dancing light of a fresh torch gracing the filthy walls and soon it was paired by the sound of paced footfalls echoing in the flambeaux-lit passage. I rose from my slumber, my lips parched. A gripping fear seized me. I recalled that from now until the early hours of the morning, the palace would be near deserted. It was the perfect time for the three Capi to administer The Question and apply whatever torturous means they saw fit to arrive at answers they sought. As light flooded the corridor, I sensed a dread I had never known. One does not truly comprehend the cruelty of The Question until one is victim of it. I anticipated to see Almoro with his questioners but instead I found at my grilled door what seemed to be a councilor of some sort and a feeble form who walked with a cane.
As the door opened, I saw that it was a much afflicted man, pale in face with a thin aquiline nose and eyes so transparently gray that they seemed to belong to another world. By the sunken cheeks on his pallid face I took him to be at least eighty in years.
“Bonna notte,” he began, his frail voice, at first, barely audible.
I stared at this figure. My fear had left me and I stood speechless, knowing not what was expected of me. I noted the rich weave of the old man’s mantle and the clean shiny silk beneath it. Slowly, he advanced a veiny hand in my direction as though motioning to me. At once, and in response to the gesture, his companion raised the torch into my face.
“Is that him?” asked the man.
“Si, si,” came the tired voice. The owner’s gray eyes would not detach themselves from me.
At this the man with the torch proceeded to unfasten my chains. How he had come into possession of the keys, I ignored it. I rubbed my wrists and ankles still staring in stupor at the silent hooded intruder.
“It is a grave offense to enter uninvited into someone’s home,” he pronounced, his voice soft yet firm. He spoke slowly, breathing with a gentle whisper between every few words. “Our neighbors, the Florentines, in their greediness as a State, ever eager for expansion of their own lands, sooner or later find that they are no match for the Duke of Milan whose domains they covet. Filippo Maria is no fool. And now, what do we have? We have ambassadors of the Florentines at our doorstep expounding to our Consiglio di Pregadi, demanding we forge an alliance against Milan. I have no doubt you have heard of the stirrings in the West.”
Seeing that I had lost my tongue, he signaled toward me.
“Come closer. Let me examine you. Ah. You are the Florentine avogadore. The one they spoke of. The one who has lost his mind to fantastical delusions.”
I nodded, a little at loss.
While the greatly aged man spoke, his torch bearing companion watched the corridor through the grilled door.
“We must not tarry,” he said.
“Si, si. You are right,” replied the man with the cane. “And your name?” he asked, turning toward me.
“Antonio… Antonio da Parma.”
His eyes glazed with a distant memory.
“Da Parma…si, si. That is the name. Now. You, Florentine must follow me. If you are to be saved at all, we must leave now.”
Not comprehending but relieved to be out of my chains, I followed them out of the cell, limping from my sore ankles. We passed through mazes of corridors underground until it seemed that we had now entered the Eastern wing of the palace. After shuffling further for what seemed an eternity, we ascended a spiral flight of stairs that abutted to a wall with a metal lever.
The man with the torch pushed this lever and the wall swiveled open. I noted the velvet lining on the other side.
As he stepped out of the secret passageway, the old man held on to the rim of the door with one hand. He had no sooner passed t
hrough than my eye rested on the gold of his signet ring. I was instantly struck by what I saw.
“Doge! Signor Doge!”
“I am Tommaso Mocenigo,” he replied simply, as his companion led the way through a sound proof corridor.
I remained stunned. The sovereign prince of Venezia walked ahead of me, ambling through a dark corridor. My lips were sealed for the remainder of our short traverse, so baffled was I by the turn of events and the mysterious presence of the Doge in the prisons. We ascended two short flights of steps.
We had arrived into a spacious room adorned with rich tapestries. We were now deep into the Doge’s living apartments.
He offered me a chair at his large desk and sat himself in his own divan breathing heavily to regain his strength.
I was untied and free to move as I wished. I could better examine my visitor now. I drew a deep breath as I regarded his noble features–the stern lines of his brow and cheeks so pure, they seemed to have been carved out of marble. Striking veins lined his temples, and he wore a short beard that was pointed yet sparse. His illness had left him drawn and frail. It had dug blue pockets of skin beneath his protruding eyes. If he was near death, that, I could not tell. But I thought it strange that the Doge held no ill sentiments toward me. What did he want? And why had I been freed from my cell by one such as him?
“Signore, perdonami for asking you such an impertinent question, but are you not ill?” I asked, too confounded by the turn of events to keep my mouth shut.
“Alas, I am,” he said between sighs. “For months, your Doge has been at his bed, weakened and the subject of much speculation in my own Collegio. I have at least my favorite councilor to keep me informed of any plots and the simmering tension within this premise. Even as I lay ailing on my bed, I learned that the walls of my own palace held secrets. What sort of doge would I be, if I did not spy on the spies of Venezia? You understand whom I speak of?”
I nodded, staring at him with an almost childlike abandon. There was in his refined manners something delicate that spoke to me.
“Besides,” he added, quoting a well-known proverb, “novelty pleases those who have nothing to lose.” I noted the glint in his eyes as he jested.
After he had recovered from his exhausting expedition into the Wells and his loyal councilor had brought him a glass of orange juice, he looked at me straight in the eye.
“Now,” he said. “Tell me, Antonio da Parma. I need to know the truth. Why did you do…as they say? Why did you enter unlawfully into the cancelleria secreta?”
I had wanted to protest but I offered no reply. We are no sooner in awe of a great man than all pride and defenses abandon us. I took whatever he had to tell me with a meekness I did not know I possessed.
He saw that I did not respond and sighed.
“I knew there was more to you. I had sensed it from Esteban’s letters. Now, I am certain of it.”
“Esteban? Esteban del Valle?”
He smiled and closed his eyes. He had an air of serenity while I descended into stupor.
“Perdonami, Signor Doge, but you did speak of a Moor, answering to the name of Del Valle?”
“A remarkable man. I met his mentor once, Gaspar Miguel Rivera when I served as Captain under Admiral Carlo Zeno. Esteban del Valle works for me, Antonio da Parma. He brought you to me.”
“He what?”
“On the night you entered the palace, you were there because I wished to see you. In exchange, my spy, the only man I can count on these days, was to be given what was due to him. Why do you think you found the document you were looking for so easily?”
“You are Esteban’s client?” I was stunned. “Why would you want to see me?”
He evaded my gaze. “I have looked for years… But I will come to it. For now, I need to know the man who stands before me. As for my purpose, I shall explain it. You were only to take the file intended for Esteban and I was to apprehend you in the stairwell as you came down. But certain members of the Consiglio met in secret on that night and my efforts were further fraught by your insistence to enter our cancelleria secreta. So I had to abandon my initial plan.”
“I never saw you…but I heard…upstairs.”
“Si. I was there, on the night. You were in the recesses of the Secret Chancellery. You were not meant to be there, were you? Yet I saw you reading. I saw you,” he said, eyeing me gravely, “from above.”
I startled. “You saw me? How?”
He smiled. “All things are possible when you know the way. And the Palazzo holds no secrets for me. Come now, I have been Doge and confined to this edifice for almost ten years. If there is a hole in a floor board, I should know of it.”
“Admitting that you did see someone, that someone may have been disguised. How do you know for certain that it was I?”
“It was your hands, young Antonio, which betrayed you. You wore a wrinkled mask on the night, but your hands, they are the hands of a young man. You did not wear gloves when you turned the pages of the registers and I saw your hands. And so it was that the enormous efforts you invested into fabricating this mask served you on two counts. The first, was to come to the aid of Esteban, an initiative that benefitted us both. But the second reason is unclear to me. Who you might be, I did not know. All I knew of you had come from Esteban’s letters. As for your face, I remember you, now, from an earlier time. When you first visited the palace and met with Almoro Donato, I noted you then. I remember every face that steps into the palace. My life depends upon it. Now, tell me. Why did you see fit to peruse our Secret Chancellery and, I hear, to procure yourself with samples of certain documents, hmm?”
“I am afraid that I cannot tell you, Signore. Perdonami. But if you knew the reasons, your virtue would not stand against me.”
“Dio mio. By the tone in your voice, I sense the worse already. Is it that serious?” He observed me. I felt an almost childish discomfort under his gaze. There was a sense of peace and great wisdom emanating from him.
“Your Doge,” he said, “has been watched for over ten years in the palace. But these last six months, my illness has equipped me with powers of invisibility. At night fall, when I am thought fast asleep, I come and go as I please without as much as raising attention. And I have learned…” He paused again, as though preferring to keep to himself. “It does not matter. Your reticence, could it have anything to do with our Consiglio dei Dieci? Something you are too afraid to tell me about our security council, perhaps?”
I bit my lips. “Were I to speak, I would taint the very institution I have come to serve.”
“Hmm.”
I hesitated. But there was something welcoming about his countenance. The great Admiral Mocenigo who had once courageously led a Venetian fleet to rescue Christians at Nicopolis despite the dangers of his quest, was sitting here, before me. Surely he would understand.
“Signor Doge, I will tell you. A young woman is being kept prisoner in the island of Constanziaca. She has been branded a witch and is to be murdered. Signore, she is innocent of the crimes laid against her.”
I saw the way his shrewd eyes grew more animated as I spoke.
“Constanziaca? Constanziaca, you say? There can be no one on this island, Signor da Parma.”
“Why?”
“Because hundreds of years ago, the earth shook and engulfed the land where it stood.”
“And yet…”
“And yet you tell me that the Consiglio are hiding a woman there? A witch, you say?”
“The island exists, Signor Doge.”
“Perhaps if the marshlands have surfaced there may be something… But of all places, they have made it a prison.” He paused. “And you love this woman?” he asked, much to my surprise.
“I…”
I had no answer to give him. The suddenness of his response confounded me on the spot.
“Forgive me,” he said, sensing my discomfort. “Your Doge does not know who this woman may be. He likes to keep well informed of the affairs of
the state but…” His eyes narrowed. “The affairs of the Consiglio dei Dieci grow more obscure every day. And in truth, it is the realm of the Consiglio to know all, to know more than its own Doge for the security of the State. If you say she is being held in the old flooded island, they must fear her. But… Si. I can see it in your face, young man. It speaks of longing and an agony that is beyond the Wells. You are in love.”
“I have never even met her, Signore.”
“But you have heard of her, you have endangered your life and the lives of others to near the truth about her person. May I ask…?”
“Ask me, Signore.”
“On the night you entered the Secret Chancellery, I could see you from above, through a slit in the floorboard. I saw your hands, the same graceful artisan hands I see trembling before me now. I saw the curl of your hair behind your ears and then when you reached for the final document atop the cabinet…I saw beneath your shirt, around your neck…a sprig of rue. It is a remarkable pendant. May I see it?”
“I do not have it on me, Signore.”
“Oh. That is a pity. You see, Antonio, this pendant is the very reason I pressed Esteban to bring you to me. It is the very object that, for years, Esteban has been searching for at my insistence.”
I stood, forgetting my pained ankle. “But why? Do you know this pendant?”
“Someone I knew, a long time ago, possessed one just like it.”
I heard the spasm in my own agitated voice. “A witch’s rue with six branches and a charm hanging from each branch? The cimaruta? Signor Doge, how would a person of your virtue have ever encountered a pagan object of this make?”
He did not look at me. He stared ahead, speaking softly, a tired glow in his eyes.
“When I was not ill, at least fifteen years ago, there was a Southern woman….”
“Magdalena.”
There was a glimmer in his tired eyes as he welcomed her name. “Si… Magdalena. A woman with child. Such an afflicting sight. I remember it well. And I asked myself in that instant, ‘Tommaso, have you ever seen one so pitiful?’ She was in bitter tears, by the Canal, staring afar. And I, the procurator of San Marco, I rode past in my gilded carriage. On that day, I had returned from a ceremony with the then Doge. No sooner did I regard her than my smile faded. She was staring into the lagoon with such intensity that at first, I feared she may have jumped if I had not stepped down and spoken with her. I remember the tattered velvet of her train and the dark circles beneath her welling eyes. As I approached, I saw how she twisted her hands and shook from grief. Yet in all that tragedy, in the face of such torment, she somehow stood proud, undefeated. Around us, the other Veneziani passed her and gave her no time. They did not even look at her.
