by Sasha Gould
“I don’t know.” If she hadn’t run from me on Murano, she might be alive now. But my theory continues to take shape in my head, and this time it won’t be chased away. Roberto visited Constantinople. What if Aysim’s coming here had something to do with him? What if that is why she was in his rooms? “The whole of Venice grieves alongside you,” I say.
I realize immediately that this is the wrong thing to say. At the mention of the city, Halim’s face closes up. He gets to his feet and walks around the map spread out on the table, pretending to inspect it.
“You haven’t told me. Why are you here?”
“Because I need your help,” I reply. There’s no time to dance around the truth.
His eyebrows lift with surprise. “Go on,” he says, after a moment.
The incense is thick in the air now, making my throat dry, and I struggle to say my next words out loud. “Roberto is innocent.”
Funny, I used similar words not an hour ago to my brother. So why do they now carry less conviction? No! I mustn’t let the rumors of this city infect me. Nothing has changed.
Halim closes his eyes, his brow creasing with pain. I know it must be difficult to hear me defend Roberto. I rise to my feet, moving to stand beside him. I place a hand on his arm and wait to see if he pulls away, but he does not.
“Whatever you believe, Roberto is not to blame for Aysim’s death. He is a gentleman, and I love him.”
At these words, Halim opens his eyes to stare at my hand, still resting on his arm. I take it away. My voice drops to a whisper, as I am suddenly aware of the advisers who left us and wonder if any of them are listening at the door.
“He could never have committed the crimes for which he is imprisoned,” I say. “He is the most honorable man in Venice.”
Silence throbs through the room. After a few seconds, Halim nods slowly, and hope flickers into life. But then he speaks.
“No.”
He walks languidly over to the doors and opens them. There’s no anger in his movements. See how little I am affected by your story, his actions say. The Ottoman prince has returned and Halim is lost to me. “There’s nothing I can do to help,” he says. “Simply nothing.”
I walk through the door and turn back to him. But his gaze remains fixed on the stairs—my invitation to leave.
“Halim …,” I say, sending out one last desperate plea.
He shakes his head and, finally, looks at me. His brown eyes scorch my face. “I have proof,” he says. “Proof of what Roberto has done. It’s you I feel sorry for, dear Laura. You stand loyal to the wrong man.”
And with that, the door shuts. I behold the varnished mahogany for a long, painful moment. Then I stumble down the stairs. The guards watch me step out into the sunshine, my eyes watering in the light.
“That was quick,” one of them says. There’s a sound from above our heads, and when I glance up, I see Halim standing on a balcony, watching me.
“You’ll see at the trial how right I am,” he calls. It’s as though he’s raining arrows on my head instead of words, and each one causes fresh pain.
I walk away, past the fountain and the bench.
I hardly see where I’m going.
25
“Proof?” I mutter as I walk through the streets. I don’t care if people hear. Who is he to talk of proof? What does he know?
I turn the corner and realize I’m beside the public entrance of the Piombi. Through this door, up near-endless stairs and corridors and above the heads of his family Roberto lies in a cell strewn with damp straw. Have the guards been at him again? I hardly dare think. My breath comes in shallow gasps, and I lean against the wall, its bricks warmed by the sun. A passing fruit-seller pauses and throws me a concerned glance, before hurrying on.
I crane my head back to observe the swallows darting in the sky above us. The thought that wormed its way into my mind is festering there. Has Roberto lied to me? I twist around and slam my palm against the wall. It cannot be.
I try to think things through logically, linking one event with the next. Aysim should never have been in Roberto’s room. She planned to meet with the Segreta. I hurry on, my skirts bunched up. A street actor calls out a joke after me and his audience laughs to see a noble lady embarrassing herself in this way. I don’t care. I need answers.
A servant accompanies me into Allegreza’s private quarters and announces my arrival. My mentor stands beside a gilt sideboard that supports a bird stand with two doves cooing on their perch. She indicates with an open hand towards a seat, and I settle on the damask.
“Your hair has come loose,” she says. My hands dart to my temples, smoothing my curls back into place. “You must not make a habit of unsolicited calls. But as it happens, I’m glad to see you this time. I have news.”
“Oh, thank goodness! Will it help Roberto?”
Allegreza reaches inside the folds of silk at her bodice and pulls out a key. She leans over to a table with an empty plate on it and unlocks a drawer. Then she places her hand inside, pulls out a roll of parchment and reads it. “You must not let that man rule all your thoughts,” she says.
I feel my features twist. “I’m betrothed to be married to that man, and he languishes in the foulest prison in the city!”
Allegreza shakes her head. “If you want to help Roberto, you must learn patience and diplomacy. You display neither at the moment.”
My insides shrivel. “Please, tell me what you know.”
She watches my face. “You must move carefully, Laura. We all must. These affairs are grave and the repercussions will be felt across the city. Have I taught you nothing?”
“You have! You have!”
Allegreza’s face softens. “Well, then.” She reads the final lines of spidery writing on her scroll, then places it back in the drawer. With a single turn of the key, it is locked away. She slips the key back into her bodice. “Three nights ago …”
“The night Aysim was killed,” I whisper.
Allegreza nods. “Three nights ago a dark-skinned young girl went to the convent of Saint Susanna in the early hours, begging charity from the nuns.” She sees my glance darting to the locked drawer. “My correspondent tells me that the girl barely spoke a word during her time there, but yesterday she asked to be moved on. Now she resides in your former convent.”
“The House of Mary and the Angels?”
Allegreza’s mouth twitches. “It might just be a coincidence.”
“But it might not.”
Allegreza’s eyes dart towards mine. “I know what you’re thinking, Laura, but I forbid it. You’re not to go anywhere near your old convent.”
Doesn’t she understand? I have the perfect alibi! “But I know a girl there called Annalena. I can call on her—I can go and find out more.” I can’t believe Allegreza is even thinking of stopping me.
“I said no,” she says, her voice firm. “What has happened to you, Laura? Where is the measured girl I first met on San Michaele Island?”
I’ve changed so much since that night I pledged myself to the Segreta. I’m stronger, less innocent. But still I’m trapped. Once I was a prisoner in my convent cell, now I am constrained by the rules of the very society that freed me.
“As you wish,” I mutter, dipping my head out of respect—and to hide the glint in my eyes. If Allegreza won’t allow me to visit my old home under the orders of the Segreta, I’ll go on my own.
Allegreza places a hand over mine. “Thank you, Laura.”
I look down at our fingers curled together in my lap. Allegreza’s skin is scattered with age spots and fine wrinkles; my own hands are still youthful. What can she know of love? Each decision she makes is a move in a larger game, a jostling of positions for the greater good. She would sacrifice a pawn to keep a queen, because the ends justify the means.
“I’ll do everything you ask,” I say.
I never would have believed that deceitful words could fall from my lips so easily. Not to Allegreza. But these are desper
ate times.
I won’t let Roberto be a pawn. I won’t take orders if my heart tells me they’re wrong.
Here, in my years of torment and incarceration, I was once called La Muta—the Silent One. As I stand and regard the walls of the convent, I remember the grilles and bars, the Abbess Lucrezia and my lay sister and friend, Annalena. Will she have changed? I know that I have, from that timid girl who sat in the gardens, making lace and keeping her head bowed. What would the Abbess say if she saw me sparring with Roberto, a man at the point of my blade?
I step up to the heavy, studded door, carrying my gift for Annalena. It’s a box of sugared almonds wrapped with a ribbon of pink silk. Decadent, by the convent’s standards, but I’m allowed to bring gifts for my friend, surely. I rap my knuckles against the ancient wood, and a small window, cut into the door, slides open. A woman’s eyes, framed by a cowl, widen in recognition.
“Laura’s back!” she calls to someone. Her glance drops to take in my scarlet dress and the little window slams shut. A moment later, the door creaks open and a hand gestures for me to step inside. Looking over my shoulder, I hesitate. Then I walk into the darkness.
Annalena stands at the end of a covered walkway. She hasn’t changed, and for a moment she watches me with a cold stare. Does she even know who I am? Then, as if to dispel my fears, she breaks out into a joyous run and throws herself into my arms.
“Laura, Laura! I knew you’d return, one day. Oh, my heart, are you here to say your prayers?” She laughs excitedly. But we both know I’d never enter these doors again without very good reason. I am one of the lucky ones—I escaped. The other women here, the unwanted second daughters of Venice’s gentry, will spend their years watching their lives diminish as they lie in narrow beds, with only their rosaries and their matins for company. Their families don’t want to pay their dowries, so instead they are banished as wives of Christ.
Annalena pulls me over to one of the many stone benches where I once sat learning scripture. Everything seems smaller than I remembered.
“For you,” I say. I give her the box of sugared almonds, and she cries out with delight, before hastily hiding the gift beneath her coarse habit.
“Look at you!” she gasps. She strokes a hand over my gathered skirts and then touches one of the earrings hanging from my earlobes, marveling at the gemstones. “Sapphires?” she asks. I nod, smiling. She shakes her head in amazement. “Just look at you. You’re like a lady now.” Again, she laughs. “What am I saying? You are a lady!” Her smile suddenly fades and she takes my hands. “But I’ve heard … you know how gossip comes to us, from those we take in and shelter.… Is it true what they say?”
I sigh. “Don’t listen to Venice’s gossip, Annalena. You should know better than that—a good sister like you!”
My friend’s cheeks color with embarrassment. “I’m not so very good,” she says quietly.
Darling girl. Does she have any idea of the corruption that lies outside this convent? But time is pressing. “Annalena, can you take me to the Abbess?”
She looks surprised. “If that’s what you want,” she says, getting to her feet. I stand up too, and we walk past the rose gardens towards the Abbess’s rooms. It was a walk I always dreaded, and some of the old fear creeps over me now. But I straighten my back and shrug it off. She has no power over me any longer. I can walk back into the daylight at any time.
The Abbess is sitting in her usual place, as if she’s never moved in all those months since she dismissed me. Above her head hangs the painting of a lion, the Agliardi Vertova family crest. There is her Bible, the lettering picked out in gold. I clear my throat, and the older woman glances up. I wait for one of her usual chastisements, but instead her face melts into a warm smile. Most disconcerting.
“Laura,” she says, getting up to move from behind her desk. “What a pleasant surprise.”
Her sour mouth suggests it’s anything but.
“Abbess.”
“You’ve changed,” she says as her eyes range over the curls heated and set around my temples. Her forehead creases in a frown of disapproval.
“You haven’t,” I say. The words tip out of me before I can stop them, and we both look at each other for a moment, shocked. Then the Abbess has the good grace to laugh.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I know what you mean. Time moves more slowly inside the House of Mary and the Angels. Now, what can I do for a fellow sister?”
She smiles, and it takes me a moment to realize the meaning of her words. For she was never a sister to me here. She can only mean some other kinship that we share.
“You too?” I ask. Somehow—even now—she makes me feel small and foolish.
“That’s right, Laura. I was a member of the Segreta long before you even knew it existed.”
“The society’s range is wide,” I say. “I just didn’t realize how wide.”
“Come, come,” the Abbess says, striding towards the door. “You want to see the girl, I presume.”
Before I can respond, she is already out of the room, her footsteps ringing on the flagstones of the corridor.
We arrive at the doorway of a tiny cell, and I need to duck my head to step inside. A girl sits on the edge of a bed. She looks up at our entrance, the whites of her eyes two unearthly pools in the gloom.
“Call me if you need anything,” the Abbess whispers to me. Then she is gone, closing the door behind her and shutting most of the light from the room.
The girl scrambles back on the bed, bunching her knees up to her chin. Her hair hangs in greasy tresses, and I can see bruises along her arms. Someone has restrained her forcefully. She’s like a terrified animal, ready to run or attack. She watches my face.
I take a tentative step farther into the room, and a moan of fear erupts from the girl.
“Please don’t be afraid,” I tell her. No response. From the girl’s dark skin and eyes, I can see that she is not Venetian. But haven’t I seen a flash of those eyes before?
“Do you understand me?” I ask gently. No response. I try again in different languages—the French I’ve been learning since leaving the convent, and the Latin I knew too well within—asking the girl where she is from. Nothing. Her limbs are shaking. What can I do? I cannot leave here without information. I’m risking all my links with the Segreta just to be standing here now.
“Do you know anything of a woman called Aysim?” I ask, getting straight to the point.
Suddenly, there’s a reaction. Her eyes blaze and she leaps up, standing on the bed, her hands balled into fists as she glares down at me. She looks fierce and proud and absolutely unwilling to tell me any of her secrets.
I push on. “Prince Halim, Aysim’s brother, is distraught. His sister …” I hesitate, then instead ask the question that’s been haunting me ever since I stepped into this room. It may just be enough to get this girl to speak. “I know you, don’t I? I’ve seen you before—that night on Murano, at the glassworks. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Something inside the girl seems to break. Her knees buckle, and she collapses back onto the bed. I rush to stand over her. Her breathing is shallow, and when she speaks it’s in French.
“Some water?” she asks in a cracked voice. “Please?”
“Of course.”
I step out into the corridor, to the table that carries a jug of water and a pile of wooden tumblers. I pour water into one, and take it back to the girl’s room.
“Here,” I say, holding the glass out as I duck my head beneath the doorway. But my word echoes back at me from the empty room. I rush to the open shutters, but the girl is already at ground level ten feet below, limping along the street. “Come back!” I shout.
She doesn’t even turn around.
26
I race out of the cell and down the walkway, past two panicked-looking nuns in conversation. Heaving open the main door to the convent, I spill out into the street, then follow the perimeter wall to where I guess the cell’s window looks out. Wist
eria clings to the wall here, sturdy enough for a slight woman to climb down. I reach the corner where I last saw her and look up and down a street thick with Venetians going about their business.
“Have you seen a girl with dark skin, about this tall?” I ask a passing man.
He sends me a lascivious smile. “I see many girls,” he jokes. “I can see you too, if you like.”
I turn my back on him, walking a few more paces. But it’s no good. The roads and alleys are labyrinthine here, and she could have taken any of them. I turn and march back into the convent. What a fool I’ve been! I lied in order to meet this girl, and now she has fled. I’ve scared her away, and when news gets back to Allegreza … I dread to think.
“Put a message out!” I say as I enter the Abbess’s rooms. “Our bird has flown.” The Abbess’s glance darts towards me from the pages of her Bible.
“I don’t take orders from you,” she says.
“This isn’t about rank,” I snap. “You are one of us. Help, or suffer the consequences. A missionary post in the Far East, perhaps? A woman of your experience would surely be able to work wonders out there.” I hate myself for the satisfaction I feel in seeing that my bluff has worked—a flicker of horror passes over the Abbess’s features.
“Of course I’ll help,” she says, lowering her voice.
My muscles relax. “Tell all the convents in Venice. If that girl turns up, I want to hear about it. Bring a message to me specifically. The convents are not to give her sanctuary. Understood?”
