The Orphan's Song

by Lauren Kate

  “Out of the way,” a street hawker called, pushing past with his cart.

  “Ass,” Mino shouted, scrambling back against a low wall he didn’t remember falling asleep against. “You’ll kill a man.” He clutched his side and curled in on himself at the stabbing pain.

  “The men I know work for a living,” the man called over his shoulder. “Rats like you crawl along bridges.” He nodded in Mino’s direction, where a smattering of soldi shone dully in the cloudy light.

  A new low. While he slept off last night’s misery, Mino had been taken as an outright beggar. He hated himself for how greedy he felt sweeping the coins into his palm. He hated his relief at having secured at least another meal. Without Sprezz, free food was hard to come by.

  The depths of his indignity continued to amaze him. He straightened his mask, tightened the bindings. He knew no one anymore; still he did not wish to be seen even by a stranger. He rolled to his knees, pulled himself up, and took in his surroundings.

  “Madonna.” He muttered. What cruel force had led him here last night? Of all bridges, what had driven him to rest his head upon this one?

  For two years, Mino had avoided this inconspicuous cobblestoned crossing at the northwest edge of Dorsoduro. Now no broken rib nor battered pride could compare to the pain of his nostalgia. This was the site of his last lovely moment with Letta. When the two of them had walked back down this bridge, it had been the end of everything Mino had imagined for his life.

  He looked out at the water, tracing the foolish optimism that marked his past. He saw Violetta’s beauty that day, how it crested to a new height in the light of their rebellion. He saw the short, gorgeous tenure of their freedom. It had seemed eternal on this bridge.

  Now he saw Ana, dead in her red coffin. He saw his tiny, struggling child wailing in her crib, unable to fathom the source of her pain. Shame cut through him. He couldn’t go back for her. He was not fit to raise a child. But how could he live with himself? How could he go on?

  He gripped the cool stone of the bridge’s parapet. Had he come here last night to die? To drown himself at the site of his original failure? His stomach churned and he leaned over the bridge, lifting his mask slightly just in time to heave last night’s sour wine into the canal. His throat burned. He braced himself on the bridge, sweating and sick.

  Someone beside him inched away, and Mino was glad. He wished to be found so deplorable that no one else would share this bridge with him. But the masked woman wasn’t leaving, only getting a bit of space. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She was a patrician, likely a senator’s wife. It was rare to see a woman of stature alone, standing still on a bridge. For any distance over half a calle, they preferred passage by boat over the common use of feet. He felt the churning again in his stomach and foresaw the woman would not linger much longer.

  * * *

  VIOLETTA WISHED THE beggar would take himself away. She wanted the bridge to herself. She wanted to be alone.

  She opened her mouth to speak, just as the beggar pointed at her violin case. He seemed too captivated by it.

  “Where did you get that?” His voice was hoarse, a whisper.

  Violetta looked down at the case in her hands, then up at the beggar. She clutched it closely. Was he figuring how much he could pawn it for?

  The man began to approach. She considered fleeing, glanced about her. Would she recognize one of Federico’s spies if he stepped onto this bridge?

  * * *

  MINO’S MIND SPUTTERED. How had this violin ended up in the hands of anyone except the prioress at the Incurables? Had Ana’s mother pawned it? Or had this woman somehow stolen it? Was that why she seemed so nervous?

  He wanted to hold it. He wanted to—

  He felt the noblewoman flinch as he reached out. His cheeks flushed.

  * * *

  VIOLETTA TOOK A step backward, hugging the violin. Couldn’t she simply give him money? She could invent a little task so as not to make him feel like a beggar. Perhaps she could ask for directions and tip him five lire. She’d seen Federico do it. It was the fastest way to get rid of a vagrant.

  “I’ll be careful,” the man said, still focused on the violin, his hands reaching out.

  Violetta held the instrument tighter. The violin was all she had of Mino.

  “I used to play,” he said.

  Something in his voice struck her as familiar. She heard a longing in his words that made her wonder: If someone were to take away her voice, what would she do to get it back? Even just for a moment, what would she do to sing? She found she didn’t want to stand between a musician and music. She decided to trust that instinct and put the case into his hands.

  * * *

  MINO GASPED. IT felt like a lifetime since he’d held the instrument. He opened the case and lifted the neck, the bow. He turned the pegs, winding himself back in time, not to the shop where he had built this violin but to the roof where long ago he’d played the only song he knew.

  He placed his fingers on the strings, closed his eyes, and lowered the bow.

  * * *

  VIOLETTA HELD HER breath as he began to play. For several moments, she couldn’t see. She could only hear the man before her playing Mino’s mother’s song.

  His song. How could it be possible?

  Mino.

  Around them, people stopped to stare. Violetta’s heart thundered in her chest. She wanted to sing. More than anything she wanted to meet him in the song and have him know her. But she knew the danger. She could not expose herself in public. She stood silent, trembling as he played.

  * * *

  AT THE LAST glide of his bow across the strings, Mino’s feet were obscured under a blanket of coins. His desire to scoop up the money and run embarrassed him. Then he saw the woman reaching for him.

  * * *

  WITH HER HEART in her throat, Violetta untied Mino’s mask. It fell atop the pile of coins. When he looked up, she saw him—his youthful beauty matured, battered, and bruised. How handsome he’d become. But she also saw in his eyes her own terrible words, the way they had marked him over the years. And she saw Federico’s blood in Mino’s features. He was dark to Mino’s blond, forty-five to Mino’s twenty, but so much between them was the same. At last, she saw her own blindness, and what was really underneath her desire for Federico. A shiver ran through her.

  All along, this was the man she’d been seeking.

  Here he was. Not the boy she’d refused, unable to take seriously. Back then, she’d assumed Mino’s ideas of love were naive. If he knew all there was to know about Violetta, he wouldn’t love her. No one would.

  When she looked at Mino now, she saw how he wore his mistakes and his shortcomings in his eyes. They made him Mino. And she felt she was seeing him at last as openly and as lovingly as he had always seen her.

  It made her think of the violin he had repaired. He hadn’t tried to hide the hole in the bout, the wrongly angled neck; instead his unique attention had made these imperfections sing. This, Violetta realized, was love.

  * * *

  MINO SQUINTED AT the noblewoman. She had untied his mask. She was crying behind hers. He watched the bearing of her shoulders when she sobbed. The way they lifted, shuddered. He had held these shoulders before. How many times?

  He gaped at the impossibility. He reached for the ribbon behind her mask.

  Her arm shot up to stop him. She caught his hand in the air only a hairbreadth from her face. And he knew then. He knew from the electric touch of her skin on his. He didn’t even have to see her.

  “Letta?” he whispered.

  What was she doing outside the Incurables with no chaperone? What was she doing in a noblewoman’s disguise?

  “Not here,” she told him.

  As soon as possible Violetta had to get Mino somewhere discreet where she could show him the painting. She felt it burn
ing in her pocket. But with his destitution, his fresh grief for his wife and daughter . . . could he withstand the horrors of his history?

  “It can’t be,” Mino said, though he knew it was. He was mortified at being seen by Letta in his condition. How many times had he fantasized about encountering her at the Incurables, bringing his violins for her to see how he had made something of himself? And now—he couldn’t bear that this was what she would think of him.

  He pressed a hand to his forehead. “No,” he said. “I’m dreaming.”

  Violetta smiled at his words, for the reunion felt as surreal to her.

  “Don’t wake up,” she told him now. Don’t leave me. She saw doubt in his eyes. She felt him wanting to pull away, to run and disappear. She realized he was still angry with her. Of course. Why wouldn’t he be? She had to explain, quickly, before he got away again.

  “I must speak to you. Where can we be alone?” she asked.

  “No—”

  “Mino, please.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, ill with himself. What was there to speak of? What could Mino tell her of his life that wouldn’t disgust her? “I can’t.”

  “Mino.” Violetta stepped closer, until their shoulders were nearly touching. She turned her body toward the canal. With one hand she turned him with her so their backs were to the passersby on the bridge. Inside her pocket, her fingers toyed with the silk tie of her purse. She drew out the lower half of Mino’s token and pressed it into his hand, closing his fingers around it carefully so that only he could see what he held.

  Mino’s hands shook as his finger ran the length of the diagonally shorn wood. A moment ago, he had needed to run. Now stillness came over him. He looked up at Letta with tears in his eyes, his shame replaced by wonder.

  Life was like music; if you changed a single note, you changed the entire song. Mino had made mistakes. He had hurt those he cared for and given up too soon. He had been a fool, a coward, a failure—and if he hadn’t been each of those things in precisely the ways he had, he wouldn’t be standing on this bridge right now with Letta and the other half of his token in his hand.

  “How?” he whispered.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  MINO RATTLED THE bucket against the window of Carlo’s apartment one floor above the pharmacist. Letta stiffened as they waited, sneaking only darting glances up from the ground, as if she couldn’t stand to look at their surroundings for too long. Suddenly he saw through her eyes the cramped and filthy calle with its squalid apartments stacked on either side. He’d spent only one night in Carlo’s apartment and its lowliness had hardly occurred to him, but now he felt ashamed that he could think of no finer place to bring her. He knew, of course, that she had risen in prosperity, in access to Venice’s splendor. But judging from her gown—and her intense present discomfort—there was even more he did not know.

  “It’s not the Doge’s Palace,” he said apologetically, “but my friend will take us in and ask no questions.”

  Hearing embarrassment in Mino’s voice, Violetta squeezed his arm. “All we need is a door that closes.” She would have retired to a chicken coop if it meant the two of them could be alone and safe. Besides, she didn’t even have a friend to turn to. Laura couldn’t help them, and Violetta didn’t even know if Elizabeth was in Venice or London, much less where the woman might stay when she was in town. Violetta would have no complaints about where Mino took her. But she knew he sensed her discomfort, and she could not yet tell him its cause: Mino’s friend’s apartment was around the corner—a stone’s throw—from La Sirena, and she could scarcely breathe through her fear of being caught.

  “Is he coming?” she whispered, her eyes glued to the cobblestones.

  “I have a better idea,” Mino said, as relieved as he was surprised with himself. The old urge to impress Letta was making him bolder than he’d felt in some time. He took her hand and led her along one calle, then another, toward the church of the Frari. Months ago he had delivered his first commission of violins to his original client, Elizabeth Baum. He remembered the tea she’d served him, and the conversation about Hasse and Vivaldi. He remembered her admiration of his work. They were not friends, but Elizabeth might be polite enough not to let that on to Letta. Mino would feel like less of a vagrant if she would just let them in for tea so he could hear what Letta had to say.

  In ten minutes, they had reached Elizabeth’s palazzo. When the servant answered the door, Mino remembered her. He watched her face as she tried to recognize him in his unseemly state, as she glanced at Letta, disguised by her gown and wig, her mask and hat. At last Mino raised the violin case, and the servant’s eyes shifted with recognition.

  “Is siora in?” he asked. “I’ve come to check the condition of her instruments.”

  The woman led them both inside and closed the gate behind them.

  Violetta heard the click of the bolt and exhaled. They walked along a loggia facing a small garden with a little fountain. They waited at the front door.

  When Elizabeth Baum descended the stairs moments later, Violetta nearly fell into her arms.

  “Mino,” Elizabeth said with kind confusion, glancing at his wild hair and ragged clothes. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m afraid I must ask a favor,” Mino said. He was greatly relieved he did not have to remind her who he was. “I wasn’t sure where else to turn.”

  Elizabeth stepped close. “What can I do?”

  Violetta knew Elizabeth well enough to see in her eyes that she was fond of Mino, though not intimate. At the Incurables, Mino’s social confidence had made Violetta envious—but now she found it remarkable. She wished she were more like Mino in this way; it was clear Elizabeth was flattered to have been asked for help.

  “And who’s this?” Elizabeth asked, turning her gaze on Violetta. How strange that if Violetta were to untie her mask right now, Elizabeth still wouldn’t know her. The English woman had never seen her features behind her bauta. Violetta had to decide right now whether she could trust Elizabeth. The woman had known Federico far longer than she’d known the singer La Sirena.

  She glanced at Mino and felt his trust in the woman. He reached for her hand and said, “This is my dearest friend—”

  “Elizabeth,” Violetta said, “it’s me.”

  Elizabeth’s bearing changed. She leaned so close her lips touched Violetta’s mask. “La Sirena?”

  Before Violetta could answer, Elizabeth swiftly drew the two of them into her parlor, a small room filled with bookshelves, embroidered furniture, and leather-paneled walls. She closed and locked the door.

  “You’re in danger,” Elizabeth said.

  “I know,” Violetta said, feeling Mino’s curiosity. Her face flushed at the understanding of how widespread Federico’s search for her must be if Elizabeth knew of it. It was worse than she thought, which would make all she had to tell Mino more dangerous.

  Mino was racing to catch up. Elizabeth had called Letta La Sirena—the singer whom Carlo had wanted him to hear at the casino. But how? Performing onstage at a casino was forbidden to coro girls.

  Then again, when had the rules stopped Letta before?

  When he looked at her admiringly, he saw something dark hovering over her, and he knew that breaking the Incurables vows was not the danger Elizabeth spoke of. Letta was in far more trouble than he could guess.

  “You must leave Venice,” Elizabeth said.

  “I know,” Violetta said.

  “What is she talking about?” Mino asked Letta. “Who threatens you?”

  Letta inhaled and shook her head. “Mino—”

  “I can help you,” Elizabeth said. “We can take my boat, but it must be done quickly, before . . .” She paused and cracked a rueful smile at Letta. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Violetta,” she said. Slowly, she took o
ff her mask.

  “Violetta.” Elizabeth came close and studied her features. She smiled and kissed Violetta’s cheek. She blinked rapidly, taking in her friend’s face for the first time.

  Tears filled Violetta’s eyes. It felt so good to be seen for who she was.

  “I’ve been so afraid for you,” Elizabeth said. “Let me help.”

  Violetta nodded, clasping Elizabeth’s hand.

  “Tonight,” Elizabeth said.

  “London?” Violetta whispered.

  “Letta, tell me what’s going on,” Mino said. Inside him churned an impotent rage. He could not stand to see the fear in Letta’s eyes and not know the source of it or how to make it stop.

  “I don’t know where to start,” Violetta said.

  “Start with a bath,” Elizabeth said. “Both of you look as if you’ve been dragged through the canal. You’ll want to clean up and rest some, Violetta, before the journey.”

  “Mino.” Violetta turned to him and took his hands in hers. “Will you come with me to London? I know it sounds mad, but—”

  “Yes.” Mino gazed at her and saw the bright unknown of the future. He had so many questions. But if he had Letta, there was only one thing to say. “Yes.”

  * * *

  AFTER A BATH, a tray of breakfast, and a change of borrowed clothes, Violetta lingered near the door of her guest room. The bed beckoned. She had scarcely slept in the week since she’d left Federico, but she was less tired than she was anxious about all she had to tell Mino. She longed to see him, to be with him, but she feared what her words might do to him. She could hardly stomach them herself. She put on her mask to cross the hall. She didn’t want the servants to see her, and also she needed the strength its shield brought to her. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to rely on it.