Cross My Heart (26 page)

W
e drink a tea of camomile and lavender as the sun sinks like a golden ball behind the skyline. I tell them my father will be looking for me, and paint a picture of him rampaging through the house, filling the air with oaths and curses, swearing to lock his errant daughter away and ruing the day he released her from the convent.

Allegreza says that she’ll take care of it, and writes a note to tell him I’m safe and under her care.

“That should keep Antonio from fretting,” she says, dispatching a servant to my house. “We still have business to attend to today, and you’re a member of the Society, so you should accompany us.”

“Is it a meeting of the Segreta?” I ask.

“Yes, of sorts,” Grazia replies, glancing at Allegreza. “I’ll travel ahead.”

After she has gone, Allegreza fetches my mask, retrieved, she said, after I fled the chapel.

“I thought I’d never wear it again,” I say.

She smiles enigmatically.

It is late by the time we leave the house, and as we walk together along the shadowed lanes Allegreza tells me that we’re going to the house of Grazia and Julius. The house Carina grew up in. She outlines a plan to me that seems brazen and brave. After a short gondola ride in the darkness, two servant women meet us at the landing point and usher us inside. The house is similar to my father’s, though more opulent, and in a downstairs room, which seems to be an office of sorts, the crowd of women have gathered in their masks.

Grazia beckons Allegreza and me to stand next to her and whispers to our escorts, who float away like ghosts.

“There are things tonight that need to be resolved,” she explains.

Allegreza, in a rare show of affection, places her arm on that of Carina’s mother.

“It’s a good thing we are about to do, Sister.”

Grazia nods. “I’ve lost a daughter to madness, but I shall rescue my husband. Follow me.”

She leads the determined procession of women into the hall and up a curving staircase. Skirts glide like hushed sighs along the floor. It feels strange and voyeuristic for us to be invading the house like this. Grazia opens the door of a room upstairs. All is dark inside. Great curtains hang from the tall windows, muffling the snores of a man. A high bed swathed in netting dominates the room. And the large man who lies within it has none of the dignity or nobility of his dressed,
coiffed, formal self. He’s a great lump, rasping and drooling, unaware of the disturbance that is about to invade his repose.

“Wake up!” Grazia says from behind her mask.

Julius rolls over with a groan and a snort and she repeats her instruction, fierce now, and louder. He sits up, his eyes still closed. Slowly, he opens them, squinting and peering in the dark.

“Good God, what in the name of all that’s holy …?” he growls. His voice is sleep-thickened and shrill with panic. He struggles out of the bed, hauling himself to his full height. “Who are you? How dare you? The middle of the night! What is your intention?”

“We don’t wish to harm you, but you must listen to us,” says Allegreza.

“Claudio!” he bellows. “Ricardo!”

“The servants have been dismissed,” says Grazia.

His face reddens with anger. “My own wife comes to threaten me.” His fists clench and soften, clench and soften. If he resorts to violence, I wonder if we’ll be able to stop him. “Well—say what you have to say.”

Grazia clears her throat. “You must forget the blood feud with the Doge’s family. You must declare an end to the threat on the life of his son.”

He laughs. “I’m not lifting any vendetta just because my wife is telling me to. Take this coven of witches away before I have them dealt with.”

But Grazia is unruffled and purposeful. “I’m not here as your wife, Julius. I’m here as a woman of Venice. You have two choices: lift the vendetta, or face public shame.”

“What shame?” he asks her. He’s irritated and still sleepy, but there’s a thread of nervousness too.

“Do you want me to tell the whole city about your penchant for your fellow Councilors’ daughters? Do you want me to present the letter that Irina de Lombardi sent you all those years ago?”

“Irina de Lombardi?”

“You remember the name, I assume?” she says. “But I wonder if you’d recognize your child?”

“It’s a lie!” says Julius, but his voice falters.

Another woman comes forward from the crowd. She lifts her mask—a simple one, lacquered red and inscribed with swirling black lines. I gasp at the same time as Julius. It’s the woman, Bella Donna.

“My mother left me in the cell of a convent the day she killed herself,” she says.

“Be quiet, woman,” he says, but he looks broken.

“Why? Everyone here knows that it’s true. It’s the secret that makes me belong to these women. You can’t take it away. It’s mine.”

I can almost see the struggle between Julius’s public reputation and private rage play out across his face. And though his rage is still sharp and furious, he knows the women have won.

“Don’t think that because I am your wife I won’t bring your dirty secret into the open,” says Grazia. “All that you’ve built, your businesses, your position on the Council—I’ll watch them strip you apart.”

“You would do that?” he asks, incredulous.

“We have lost our son,” says Grazia. “Our daughter is a stranger to us. Anger has brought us nothing but grief.”

Julius sags onto the bed, suddenly just an old man again. He looks at the wall, and his breathing is labored, as
if at any moment he will shout again. In his lap, he holds his fists clenched. I can imagine his thoughts: a mixture of shame, and fear and anger. The taste of humiliation, but also the prospect of reconciliation. If he’s anything like my father, he’s wondering how he can turn this to his advantage.

Finally he looks at his wife again. “Very well,” he says, frowning, “I’ll make a statement to the Council in the morning. I’ll lift the vendetta if that’s what you want. Now leave me alone. Can’t a man get some sleep in his own house anymore?”

We leave in silence. At the door, I look back to see Carina’s father pull the sheets over his head.

Outside by the water’s edge, the women disperse into the night like seeping shadows. One remains with Grazia at the doorway to her house, holding her lacquer mask and watching me intently. Bella Donna. Grazia nods to her, and the woman approaches slowly. We stand facing each other for a little while.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, for there’s nothing else to say.

Slowly, she slides the ring off her finger. Just a small object, but it has haunted my dreams and been the focus of so much of my grief. She hands it to me. I push it on my own finger and it nestles in place of the one I gave to Roberto. Twisted, golden, warm.

Grazia closes the door, leaving us completely alone.

“We call him Golden Mouth,” she tells me, “the man who gave me the ring. All the girls know about him. His teeth are capped with gold, and though he can be rough … Well, he pays for what he gets.”

I feel pathetic, and ashamed. For all my complaints, this woman’s life has been beyond my worst imaginings.

“Where can I find this man?” I ask.

Bella Donna shakes her head. “Even if I could tell you, I wouldn’t. He’s not a man—how shall I put it?—to be trifled with.”

“I think he killed my sister,” I say.

“Then he would kill you too,” she replies. “I know him, and I know his kind: cruel, without conscience. He would think nothing of slitting your throat and finding the next merchant vessel out of Venice.”

We are both silent as her advice hangs in the mist above the water. Of course I can’t bring such a monster to justice on my own, but my father could summon the city watchmen. They have weapons. They could overpower the golden-mouthed murderer.

“I’m not proud of what I’ve become,” Bella Donna tells me, gazing into the water.

I put my hand on her shoulder, and squeeze softly. “You owed me nothing, and you’ve given me so much,” I say. “I’ll be grateful always.”

From my purse, I draw out three silver coins and offer them to her. They sparkle in the moonlight like fallen stars.

Bella Donna smiles. “Keep them,” she says. “You may need them more than I do.”

I watch her as her silhouette, a proud shadow, recedes into the night.

“W
hy didn’t you say he was the Doge’s son? You should have told me, you stupid girl!”

I’m tired of the walls of my father’s house, each room a prison like my convent cell used to be.

No amount of telling him I didn’t know seems to make any difference. I wish I could send a note to Roberto at once, to tell him that all is safe. That the sword hanging over his head has been sheathed.

“I banished the
Doge’s son
from our home!” He runs his hands through his hair.

And as sick as I am of the walls that contain me, I’m sicker still of the “yes, Father, no, Father” rituals that themselves have conspired to tether me. And though it may be wrong of me, and though I may let loose the dogs of his anger all the more, I’ll tolerate it no longer.

“Oh, you’re such a ridiculous man,” I tell him. “Our house is crumbling and your fortune is gone and it’s no one’s fault except your own.”

Bianca has left a bowl of fruit on the low table beside him. He picks it up and flings it at the wall. His tantrum continues as smears of peach and nectarine slither down the paint.

“I’ve had quite enough!” he roars.

“I can see that,” I say, trying to stay calm. “Do you plan to hit me again?”

“I will have respect from you. Get to your room!”

I walk quickly up the steps, ignoring his angry footsteps clattering along behind me. I sit upon my ruffled bed. The door slams and I hear the twist of the key in the lock.

It’s dark and I’m taut, sleepless, sitting by my window. The moon outside is full with pale compassion. He is out there somewhere, hiding in fear. I should be with him. Soon there’s a soft knocking at the door. “It’s me, sweetheart.”

Faustina. I walk to the door at the same moment as the key turns.

It’s a relief to see her kind face. We hug each other.

“How on earth did you wrestle the key from him?”

She smiles. “Old Faustina has her ways,” she says, tapping the side of her nose. “He’s downstairs, so we must be quiet.”

“But he said I wasn’t to come out until he said so. You’ll get into terrible trouble.”

“Oh, darling,” she says, stroking my hair. “The great wisdom of age is that you know when the time has come to break the rules. Listen, there’s no time for idle chatter.” She rummages in the folds of her clothes and brings out a scroll. “Here. It was delivered earlier.”

The seal is smeared and I can’t decipher the crest. I break it open, but the writing too is alien to me. Whoever has written it was in a hurry for the letters are a scrawl. As I read, my deflated heart becomes full again:

My dearest Laura
,

Come this instant, and don’t consult with anyone. Come alone to a barge at Saint Lucia harbor, where I will be waiting for you
.

May my love bring you quickly
.
Roberto

“It’s from him! He’s waiting for me. I have to go.”

Faustina nods and smiles. “Of course you do.”

In the candlelit dark of the room where I grew up, Faustina and I plan my escape. She leaves the room on tiptoe and returns with a bundle. I open it and a brown suit falls out of it.

“What? Is this for me?”

“It belonged to old Renato. You can’t risk being seen by your father, or his friends. Go on, put it on.”

I struggle and wrestle myself into the strange clothes. Brown breeches pulled over my lacy slip. A white cotton shirt, rougher than the ones Giacomo my artist, Roberto my prince, has worn. A dark jacket, which I shrug on. I tuck my tousled hair up into a cap. I look in the mirror and laugh. I’m standing in my room, looking like a smooth-faced boy. In less than an hour Roberto and I will be together and there will never be a barrier strong enough to keep us apart again.

I cannot go down the main stairs, for fear of my father
catching me, so Faustina and I fashion a rope of sheets. She tests all her knots, her old hands tugging sharply on each to make sure they’re sound. She ties one end to the back of my chair and wedges it under the windowsill. She pushes the window out and tosses the makeshift rope down into the garden.

“You know where you’re going, sweetheart?”

Her words carry with them another meaning altogether. We both know that I might not return.

“Yes, I know.”

“Be careful, my love.”

She fixes the buttons of my jacket and tucks a stray curl under my hat.

I climb down the rope, using the knots as footholds. My hands are burning by the time I reach the ground. The rope snakes back up the wall and I blow a kiss to dear old Faustina.

I keep my head down as I run. It might have been fun to be a Venetian boy. The streets are empty and silent except for the echo of my steps.

A lone man waits by a single gondola around the corner. He’s very tall. His broad hat casts a circular shadow around his face and shoulders so that I can’t see what he looks like. But still the sight of him warms me, for this is the man who is going to take me to my Roberto. My heart practically sings. I go up to him.