by Sasha Gould
The blackmail letter …
Waves of fear wash over me. I see Allegreza again in her cell. Her strange tone when I tell her who it was that delivered the letter.
Paulina? She is an odd choice for such a mission.
Did she too suspect? Has she always? She wouldn’t let Paulina go to Murano—why?
Paulina pauses to pull a threadbare shawl out of an embroidered bag at her wrist. She wraps the shawl tightly around her shoulders, transforming herself into a peasant woman. She looks over her shoulder, and I duck behind a crumbling wall just in time. I wait, pressing my body against the bricks, until I judge it’s safe to peer around the corner. She’s walking away again. I’ve no time to buy a simple shawl of my own. We move deeper into the slums of the city.
She arrives at a tall building with a series of arched windows. Several of the panes of glass are broken. The gates are rusty and hanging from their hinges, and there are chips in the fleur-de-lis that decorate the grids over some of the windows. This is a beautiful building, left to rot.
Paulina slips through the open doorway, stepping over discarded bundles of rags. I wait a moment, then follow. As soon as I step inside, the smell of damp and decay hits me. I hear the creak and groan of floorboards above my head, and, peering through the slits, I see a shadow pass overhead. Paulina must already be on the floor above. I climb the stairs after her, testing each one before placing my full weight on it. It’s still impossible to climb without making a noise, and I’m glad that, farther ahead, Paulina has disturbed a flock of pigeons that take to the air, screeching.
I walk down a corridor lined with hanging rags. Was this once a cloth-dyer’s? A larger rag hangs over a doorway to form a curtain, kept in place by a nail in each corner. Beyond it, I hear voices and can just make out the shadows of two people moving about a room. I creep closer until I can hear what they’re saying, pressing my body against the wall. A mouse scuttles over my slippers, but I keep my nerve.
“I’ve done everything you asked.” Paulina sounds frightened.
“Stop whimpering!” replies another voice. Carina. “You chose to follow this path with me. Allegreza is dead, thanks to you!” She laughs.
I can hear the quiet sound of Paulina’s desperate sobbing. Any anger I have quickly vanishes. She’s in over her head, fit to drown.
“I just want to go now,” she says. “Please let me go!”
There’s the sudden sound of their footsteps beyond the curtain, and I slip behind one of the rags hanging from a line near the ceiling. Fortunately, it’s so crumpled with age that I can hide in its folds. I watch their feet walk past me along the corridor. A stride or two to the left, and they would brush my skirts. I’m about to breathe out with relief when Paulina stops.
“What about him?” she asks.
“I haven’t decided yet. I may let the rats have him.”
Him? I wait until the creaks of the stairs have died away before coming out of my hiding place, brushing the cobwebs from my skirts. Him? Oh, God, how my heart is beating. I creep on light feet to the room they’ve left, parting the curtain.
It’s small and dark inside. Unlit candles are ranged across the fireplace, leaning in pools of melted wax. A single chair sits in the center of the room, and tied to it is Roberto.
He strains against the ropes, his eyes bulging as he sees me. Muffled sounds emerge from behind the filthy rag tied over his mouth. He is bare-chested, his skin slick with sweat. I throw myself towards him, grappling at the ropes, and all my doubts take flight.
41
I fall to my knees and cover his face with kisses.
“My darling,” I whisper. I don’t care if he’s streaked with dirt and sweat; he has never been dearer to me. I crane around the back of the chair and untie the knots in the rope. His wrists are bloody and the skin chafed from where he has strained to free himself. As the ropes fall into a pile around the feet of the chair, Roberto’s body slumps forward, and I have to push him back to prevent him from collapsing on the floor. His eyes roll back in his head as unconsciousness threatens to overcome him.
“Laura … Laura.” He says my name over and over again. I hook an arm around his waist and help him to his feet. “I thought you were … She told me …” His knees buckle beneath his weight.
“You must try to walk,” I say gently. He nods in understanding and licks his cracked lips. He takes a tentative step forward, and another, while I support him. So, we make our way slowly out of the abandoned building. I pause near the doorway, just in case Carina and Paulina are waiting, but no one is there.
We take a different route back to the shoreline. After a few turns, Roberto spots a brimming water butt beneath a broken drainpipe. He staggers towards it and leans over the edge, submerging his arms up to his shoulders. He cups great handfuls of rainwater and brings them up to his mouth. He plunges his head in the water and flings it back again so that sparkling droplets arc through the air. I wait as he drinks more and more, rivulets of water running down his chest, his body slumped against the butt. Finally, he braces himself against the side and rolls his body around so that he’s facing me. He grins with pure joy and I laugh with relief, running to him.
A sodden arm falls around my shoulders but I don’t pull away. He can ruin my dress. I care for nothing but him.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” he says, his voice croaky. He drags me to him and kisses me passionately. “Carina told me you were dead. She even brought a lock of your hair and held it beneath my nose.”
“It’s a long story,” I tell him. “Stay here.”
From a stall near the harbor I buy a pot of pickled fish and a twist of sweetened bread. From another I find a simple hooded cloak. We make an odd couple. Me with my yellow silk dress, Roberto looking like a vagrant, cloaked on a warm day. Luckily, people are used to eccentrics in this part of the city.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt happier than I do now, feasting my eyes upon this filthy man cramming food into his mouth. “You saved my life,” he says.
“How did you escape from the jail?” I ask.
“I didn’t. A group of men attacked the guards and kidnapped me. They dragged me to that building and delivered me to Carina. I was just left to starve, with no food or water. From time to time she’d come to me. She’d taunt me. She said she had cut your throat. I thought I’d go mad—or die. Death seemed a better option.”
I feel the flush of guilt. I had let myself believe the worst, that he’d abandoned Venice and myself. And all that time he was suffering alone.
“But where did she find the men?” I ask.
“Ruffians can be bought, can’t they?”
“But these men must have been trained,” I insist. “They overpowered the guards.”
Roberto shrugs. “I couldn’t believe Carina was alive,” he goes on. “For a moment or two, I even felt sorry for her.”
There’s no time to talk about Carina now. I tell Roberto what’s been happening with Halim and the fleet. About the deception that has brought Venice to the brink of war, about the missing girl who looks just like the portrait of Halim’s sister, who could be the key to exposing it. I tell him about Allegreza, and he pulls me to him.
“I know how much you admired her,” he says.
When I talk of Massimo, and the rebellion within the Council, his features darken. “What shall we do?” he asks.
“For now, we hide. We need to weigh our options.”
I hold my hand out to him and, gratefully, he takes it. Then I lead him to a canal, where we find a gondola, and the two of us climb aboard.
Roberto settles in beneath his hood as the boatman pushes off.
“Where are we going?” Roberto asks. His eyelids are already drooping with fatigue.
“Home,” I say.
Through the gate, I can see some of the servants on stepladders in the courtyard, painting a section of the wall. Faustina is snoozing in a chair by the kitchen steps. I lead Roberto through a side entrance, and then upstairs. He’s
as weak as a kitten and I must be patient as he slowly climbs the steps to my room.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he protests. “We’re not yet married.”
“Wedding vows can wait,” I tell him.
Roberto smiles. “You never did like being told what to do.”
I lean past him to open my bedroom door and usher him inside. He sinks onto my sheets, and within moments he’s asleep.
I slip out of the bedroom and go to the kitchens for a pitcher of hot water.
Fresh sheets of pasta hang from a line above the counter and—there!—a copper urn of water is steaming on the stove. Bianca is leaning over the deep sink, up to her elbows in suds and steaming water.
“I’ll just help myself to some water,” I whisper, not wanting to disturb Faustina, whose chair is visible through the open door. But as I step towards the urn, I trip over a coal scuttle. Faustina stirs in her chair.
“Is everything all right?” she asks. Her eyes fall on my dress. “Oh, Laura, you’re filthy!”
“I tripped,” I say. “I’m going to bathe.”
Faustina bursts out laughing. “That’s right! A lady drawing her own bath. As if Bianca or I would allow that! The household might survive many scandals, but not that!”
“Faustina, no, really …”
But it’s too late. She’s already cutting through the courtyard, into the main doorway and up the stairs.
“Stop!” I call after her. “Faustina, please …”
She bustles straight past the bathing chamber and turns the handle of my bedroom door. I rush in just as she shrieks, “Get out, get out, or have your filthy hands chopped off!” As she tries to run from the room, I seize her arm.
“Will you calm down,” I whisper, dragging her aside.
“Calm down? Venice is soon to be at war and there’s one of … one of … them in your bedroom!”
I give a deep, exasperated sigh. “That man isn’t a Turk,” I say.
“You’ve seen him!” Faustina does a rapid sign of the cross.
“Yes, I’ve seen him. I’m engaged to be married to him.”
I wait for my words to find their mark. Faustina blinks once, twice—then understanding dawns.
“That’s Roberto?” she whispers. I nod, but she still looks doubtful. “He’s losing his looks, Laura.”
“He’s half starved. He was kidnapped. I need your help to return him to health. And Father must not know.”
Faustina’s lined face is wracked with indecision. She looks at me, then back at my bedroom door, then at me once more. “I’ll get you some hot water,” she says.
I smile as she scuttles back to the kitchens, and I know that Roberto is in the best possible hands.
When I poke my head around the door, Roberto looks solemn. I sit beside him on the bed, and he reaches to stroke my hair.
“Each day I was tied up there, I would close my eyes and try to summon your face,” he says. “But you’re much more beautiful than my imaginings.”
I nestle my cheek against the warmth of his palm. “It must have been horrible.”
Roberto grimaces. “Carina … she didn’t just torture me with words. She kissed me too. She said we could be together now you were gone. I tried to get away, but …”
“Don’t punish yourself,” I say, feeling sick and guilty at the same time. How could I ever have doubted him? I think of telling him about Halim, not that anything really happened between us, but it would only cause him pain, and he is too weak to bear it. Perhaps one day I will reveal to him all that went on while we were apart. “It’s over now,” I tell him. “Your father will be reinstated and honor returned to Venice. Carina cannot touch us.”
Roberto’s hand drops from my face, and he gazes out of the open window. “I hope so.”
42
From below, the dinner gong rings a second time.
“Laura!” Father calls gruffly. “Get down here, before the food turns cold.”
Faustina is sworn to secrecy, but I shouldn’t keep my father waiting and force her to make a suspicious excuse for my tardiness. After his bath, Roberto crawled into my bed and fell into a deep slumber. I tuck a blanket around him and kiss his forehead. “Sleep well, my love,” I whisper.
Over a plate of grilled sardines, Father is full of excitement. “Two days!” he declares. “Then we will sink Halim and his filthy crew. Our men will make Venice proud.”
Easy for him to say. Father won’t be carrying a sword or musket; he won’t have to risk spilling his own blood. Members of the Grand Council are too important to lay their lives on the line. It will be new recruits or loyal soldiers—sons and brothers and young fathers—who will leave families grieving.
Ever since my reunion with Roberto, my mind has been constantly turning over. Even if Halim were to discover that he’s in Venice, it would not avert the battle. He would accuse us of giving him shelter and seek retribution before we had time to reveal his lies. It’s clear that our visiting prince doesn’t set much store by honor. He’s determined this war will go ahead, whatever the stakes. Venice is too great a prize, and Carina’s meddling has played right into his hands.
My thoughts are interrupted by a polite cough from the doorway.
“There’s a visitor with a message for the lady of the house,” a manservant says, looking at me. He appears to be nervous.
“Show him in, show him in!” cries my father. “Pour him a glass.”
“Are you sure?” the servant begins to say, but Father slams a fist on the table, making the crystal decanter shudder.
“Do as I say!”
The servant’s nerves have made my own senses heighten. I hear stately steps. Then Father gasps and pushes his chair back. I lift a napkin to hide my smile.
Bella Donna hasn’t even bothered to discard the yellow scarf that marks her as a prostitute. Her hair has been curled around her face, and she wears a low-cut maroon bodice embroidered with gold thread, the sleeves slashed so that clouds of white linen poke through. She sports no gold or pearls, but there is heavy rouge on her cheeks and she carries a gaudy peacock feather fan in one hand. A black veil spills from the crown of her head, but does nothing to cover her chest or arms, and she moves towards us on high-platformed shoes. She does her best to ignore Father’s shocked expression, and her best is very good.
“Calm down, Father,” I say. “This is a friend of mine.”
“She’s a … a … in my home!”
“Won’t you take a seat?” I ask her.
Bella Donna sashays into the room, going to sit next to Father. He shakes his head with disgust.
“Whatever you have to say, you can say it standing!”
Bella Donna smiles sweetly. “Don’t worry,” she tells me. “I simply came here to tell you that the gloves you left in the convent have been found.”
Aysim. Bella Donna has found her.
“Thank you so much,” I say. “I thought I’d lost them forever.” I get to my feet to follow Bella Donna from the room. “Take me to find them.”
“What’s this? Gloves! You come into my home and talk to my daughter about a wretched pair of gloves? Get out—both of you! Laura, have you not brought enough shame on this family?”
I don’t hear what else he has to say; we’re already out in the hallway.
“Where is she?” I hiss.
“At my place of work,” Bella Donna tells me.
I swallow hard. The idea of returning to the unseemly place where we trapped Silvio makes my stomach clench. But our needs are of the utmost importance. I must go where Bella Donna leads. For Venice, for Roberto. “Take me to her.”
“You’re sure about this?” she asks. “You, an ex–convent girl?”
“Don’t be silly,” I joke. “How much difference can there be between a brothel and a convent?”
Bella Donna raises her eyebrows.
We arrive at a low, discreet doorway in a tiny alley off the Calle Bressana.
“The House of Provocation,” Bella
Donna murmurs, cocking her head to the sounds of laughter that emerge from a window set high in the wall. “Ready?”
I draw my cloak closer around my shoulders and nod. Bella Donna pulls back the hood of her cape to show her face to the man at the door, and he grunts in acknowledgment, stepping aside to let us in.
“The girl was caught trying to steal food from a stall,” Bella Donna explains as we walk past an open salon where a group of men and women chat in low voices. “She fell and sprained her ankle trying to escape. We took her in to save her from being beaten by the stallholder.”
We duck down a narrow corridor lined with gilt-framed paintings. Beside each painting is a closed doorway, hung with tasseled curtains. I can hear more laughter and the sound of a spinet being played. Bella Donna shows me into a kitchen with a table in the center, along which are ranged decanters of wine ready for customers’ refreshment. At one end sits a young woman, her head in her arms as she sleeps. I recognize her instantly—the golden skin, slight frame and the frown lines that crease her brow even in her dreams. The room is lit by lamps that hang from the ceiling, casting golden circles over the furniture.
Bella Donna steps forward and gently places a hand on the girl’s arm. She wakes with a jolt. When she sees me, she leaps up, knocking her stool to the ground. She scrambles away towards the back door, grappling with the iron bolt.
“Calm yourself,” Bella Donna says, going after her. “This is a friend.”
“I’m not here to harm you,” I say in French. “I know who you are, who your brother is. Halim.” The girl lets out a whimper of fear, looking wildly from me to Bella Donna. “I’m here as a member of the Segreta. You were looking for us, weren’t you? Seeking our help? My fiancé, Roberto, is charged with your murder, held accountable by Halim. We have a shared enemy, you and I. You can trust me.”
Aysim’s face is softening, and slowly, cautiously, she steps away from the door and stands behind Bella Donna. She clears her throat.
“I’m sorry,” she begins in swift, fluent French. “For so long, I haven’t known whom to trust.”
