The Secret of the Glass (29 page)

There were so many weddings today, as well as a few church celebrations, that many of Venice’s inhabitants had one party or another to attend while others had fled to their holiday villas on
terra firma
or Murano in an attempt to escape the fetid humidity of summertime Venice. Secretly he welcomed the quiet of these hot days, enjoying the peacefulness of a less-populated land.

He heard the sudden scuffle of footsteps and the hiss of whispered voices behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, stopped and turned. There was no one there.

A dozen dashing members of the
Compagnia della Calza,
along with the beautiful young women that always accompanied them, jostled by without a care, their laughter loud amidst the already boisterous revelry, twisting and jutting between Sophia and Pasquale like a stream of frivolity gushing past two hard, gray boulders. Sophia stared after these young aristocrats, noblemen too young for the
Maggior Consiglio
but too old for the classroom, who were a staple at every gala, tournament, and wedding in the land, effortlessly recognizable by their distinctive dress. Their grand doublets of gold filament or velvet were slit on the sleeve and facing, allowing the frill of shirt to peek out of the openings. They donned burgundy or black bonnets and pointed shoes bedecked with jewels. But it was their
calza
, the multi-colored, striped stockings covering their left legs from ankle to hip, that set them apart from all others. As if the flamboyant and bright plumage was their badge of distinction, this gallant and debonair guild was devoted to pleasure and all its public pursuits before the days of duty and discretion were thrust upon them.

Sophia couldn’t grasp their jocularity; she heard the music, saw the dancing, but it came as if from beyond her own reality. Pasquale’s pronouncement was like a death sentence. He was right; all along she’d known the truth, but to hear it said aloud, with such cruel honesty, was like an assault.

“So you are accepting of a life bereft of love, filled with…with nothing…with uncomfortable, never-ending silence?” Sophia spat at him, closed the gap between them with a few quick steps, thrusting her face to within inches of his. She had never been this close to him and it was not lost on her that their most intimate posture should erupt from antagonism.

“No, I do not accept it, nor do I have to.” Pasquale’s unfathomable expression held some secret. “Ours will not be a life of marital bliss. After the ceremony, you will take up permanent residence at my family home…in Padua.”

Sophia stepped back as if struck. He would force her to leave Murano, and the islands themselves? It was inconceivable.

“And…my family…what of them?”

Pasquale spun away with a dismissive shrug.

“Whatever women remain after your father’s passing will go to a convent, of course.” The flatness of his voice was a slapping insult all its own.

Her mouth dried up, her throat clenched a coarse swallow, fearing he knew about her father, just how imminent his death may be. No, this man, whose single care was that of himself, had always had this intent for her and her family.

She grabbed a flagon of wine from a passing servant’s tray, and gulped it down in one long swallow, the clear
dolce verduzzo
bright on her tongue. Wiping errant droplets of the liquid from her lips with the back of a quivering hand, she turned back to her future husband, but still she could not think of anything to say that would hurt as much as his words had wounded her.

“Don’t worry.” Pasquale glanced furtively about, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Your life will be your own. You will find happiness, I’m quite sure. You’re a beautiful woman. You will have your lovers, and I will have mine…hopefully, they will never be the same.”

Sophia’s mind screamed with his admission. She had forgotten how to breathe; the tightness clutching her lungs held her captive.

As if he saw the dawning realization in her mind, Pasquale smiled a swarthy, slippery grin. “It is your reality…accept it.”

He continued his constitutional, quickly forgetting the sounds he’d heard, or thought he’d heard. Until the first blow struck him.

His head burst with fire. Fists pummeled him. Searing, sharp pains bit at his face and neck. The assailant, no, assailants, beat him mercilessly, so many of them, they descended upon him like locusts upon the fecund field. He tried to fight back, to swing his own useless balled hands at them, but they had no effect. He was but a small man and they were beasts.

The pavement rose up to meet him. He pulled his legs in. They kicked at him now, and he gave up all pretenses at defense. He rolled himself into a ball, curling inward like the snail within its shell, trying to protect himself as best he could.

He heard strange, discordant, and guttural voices, an inharmonious concert of angry expletives and insults. Below it, moaning, the pained whimpering of an injured animal. In the groaning, he recognized his own voice.

The searing pain found him again…in his neck this time. He looked beyond his shielding arms and found his world shrouded in black and white, all prism washed out by a surreal, brilliant light that flooded his vision. This most colorful land was nothing but shades of gray, save for the vivid stain of red liquid, his blood, that spread across the pavement stones. He watched, his mind detaching, as it spread and enlarged.

Venice, his only mistress, his only lover, would this be the last he was ever to see of her? The patchwork cobblestones of the
calle
stretched out before him, off toward an unreachable vanishing point of salvation. It was still empty of all life; there was no one to help him.

“All I will ask of you is a son, and only one.”

Sophia studied him from the side of her almond-shaped eyes, his bluntness instigating some of her own.

“How…how old are you?”

“Hah!” Pasquale barked a laugh, and looked at her, looked closely at her for the first time in her memory. A caustic thin smile formed upon his slim lips.

They paused in awkward silence, watching as the newly-wed, happy couple circled the square through the parting, cheering crowd. The bride’s face was awash in color, pink blush upon her cheeks, brilliant, shining stars in her eyes as she beheld her new husband. They skipped along to the blaring music, arm in arm, inseparable in body, mind, and soul. Sophia could not picture herself in the young woman’s stead, as a glowing bride on the arm of her husband; she didn’t want to.

The tide of humanity and conviviality washed by them, taking their vibrancy with them and leaving a vacuum of discordant stillness behind. Sophia stared after them with unseeing eyes; listening to her own breathing, feeling the air as it rushed in and out of her flaring nostrils, but all else was numb. From beside her, Pasquale took a step or two nearer and she leaned away from him without looking in his direction. His perusal burning across her face.

“At your age, having not married,” Pasquale mused close to her ear, “or appearing to want marriage, I thought it would not matter to you. Perhaps…perhaps my assumption was made in error.”

Sophia spun round. Shrouded as the words were in vague and half-spoken meanings, she couldn’t be confident of their true intent. She searched his face, but the pale and unfamiliar features lent her no further clarification.

“What do—” Sophia broke off.

“Help!”

The high-pitched, prepubescent screech blared across the piazza and echoed off the surrounding stone walls. Most partygoers froze in their merrymaking, battered by the sound; the sight of the apparition entering the square silenced the rest.

The small, young boy ran into the middle of the
campo
, arms akimbo, white-faced, and sweating. His screams cut through the music and any remaining conversation.

“Someone help! They’ve tried to kill fra Sarpi.”

Twenty-two

H
er eyes had been open for far too long and they felt dry as dust. Her lids scratched at them with every blink. No matter how many times Sophia had lain upon her bed, sleep remained elusive. Only the frightening images of the day had found her, haunting specters of murder attempted and unhappiness fulfilled. In the most desolate part of the night, she had relinquished the effort, rising from the feathers to sit at the oriel window, elbow on sill, head on cupped hand. She stared out into the night, watched the stars’ reflections on the canal twinkle and flicker, listening to the words over and over again with each lap of the water upon the stone.

Pasquale’s power was too hard to deny, his disdain too ingrained. He would have the life he craved, with the money her family had earned for generations, and she and they would suffer the stifling existence he intended for them. Deep within her, in that place where all humans lie naked and truthful to themselves, she was not surprised by his revelations, by his true mien and desire. She cared little for how one human being found their love or, if nothing else, their release. But this was different; he was different. The malevolent part of her soul saw him slung
turpissime
upon the gibbet, strung upside down between the mighty columns of the piazza in punishment for his crimes. In that admittedly unjust sentence, she would find her own freedom.

Sophia rubbed the tight muscles at the back of her head, forcing herself and her thoughts back into the light. There was a decision to be made here, one only she could make. But it was a choice between a bad situation and one equally repugnant. It was far easier to picture herself forsaking her legacy than sacrificing the lives of her mother and sisters for it.

Beyond Pasquale’s face, beyond his words of condemnation, she heard the young boy’s screams. He’d parted the crowd with his thrashing legs and flailing arms. Sophia watched as if in a dream as he spoke his words of horror, as the blood drained from the faces gathered round him. She had not heard if Father Sarpi lived or not. Within seconds of the distraught urchin’s appearance, Pasquale had grabbed her roughly by the arm, escorted her to the family’s gondola waiting at the water’s edge, and left her. Sophia closed her eyes; alive or not she would pray for the man so greatly admired by so many Venetians, a man clearly a friend and supporter of Galileo’s and, therefore, a friend of hers.

When she opened her eyes again, dawn’s first pale light tickled the horizon, pink streaks of the sun’s rays reaching out over the earth’s curve like the delicate strokes of God’s caressing fingers. It would be another warm day. Her empty stomach gurgled and she almost laughed at the peculiar rumbling sound. She stood, donned her thin wrap, and headed for the kitchen.

The house lay still and fuzzy in the gray blanket of a newborn day and she tiptoed on bare feet down the stairs, through the large dining room, and into the kitchen. Shelf after shelf of mismatched jars filled with exotic scented spices stood amid colorful herb bunches hanging inverted from small iron pegs stuck in the walls.

Her hair stuck out at odd angles, half in and half out of the pinned gathering at the nape of her neck, and she squinted into the dark through swollen, puffy eyes. Sophia peeked into the wooden box in the corner on the counter, found a few leftover pieces of bread from the day before, and popped a bit of them into her mouth happily, feeling as if she’d discovered hidden treasure.

“What are you doing up so early,
cara?”

“
Merda!”
Sophia cursed with a gasp, dropping the piece of bread in her hand, and whirling around.

“Sophia, language, please.” Her mother frowned at her.

Sophia heard little save the pounding of her pulse in her ears, her ragged breath as she panted in fear. Her shoulders slumped in relief as she found her mother sitting at the tiny corner desk by the window. She squatted down and snatched the crumbs of bread off the floor.

“Mamma, why didn’t you tell me you were in here?”

“I thought you saw me,
piccola,”
her mother replied kindly, though not without the hint of an amused smile tickling her lips.

Viviana pushed back a tress of her chestnut hair, shot through with strands of gray, flowing in loose waves down each side of her face, released from its usual lofty pile on the top of her head.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

Sophia’s sudden knowledge of her mother’s presence did little to distinguish Viviana’s form in the gloom. The unearthly obscurity of night still hovered around her mother’s body, small and bent behind the wooden surface, tucked away in the angular niche of the dimly lit room. One small candle sat upon the desk, and its flickering pale yellow light did little to illuminate Viviana. Sophia felt a sudden stab of fear, of sadness for this woman; she saw her mother’s aloneness with great clarity.

Drifting from the large, stone fireplace in the center of the room, the meager warmth of the banked-down fire inched toward her. In the core of the house, this fire was the nucleus of its life, its eternal flame never extinguished, its glowing embers ever ready to be coaxed back to life to cook a hearty meal or light the kindling splinters and candles. She stood beside her mother, seeing the fatigue and despair in her hunched and curled shoulders, and the sooty smudges under her bloodshot eyes. Her mocha skin appeared pale and ashen, as if too much milk had been added to her
caffè
.

“Have you been here all night, Mamma?”

Sophia placed a hand on her mother’s concave back, feeling the knot of muscle through the thin cotton nightgown beneath.

Viviana shook her head.

“Just a few hours.”

“What about sleep?” Sophia asked, grabbing a chair from the opposite corner and placing it across from her mother. She sat, and a scant few inches of scarred wood stood between them.

Viviana pointed the tip of her quill at the pile of papers on the corner of the desk.

“I have too much to do.”

As a child, Sophia had often watched her mother writing her letters, day after day, fulfilling her duties as the female head of the house.