The Rossetti Letter (v5)

by Phillips, Christi

  Claire took a seat in the very last row. She wanted to be as far from Andrew Kent as possible. There was no hope now of any collegial cooperation between her and the other historian writing about the Spanish Conspiracy. How could there be? He was a supercilious English snob. He was rude and duplicitous. All that stuff he’d said the night before about how history didn’t matter, pretending not to know what “early modern” meant—he’d been baiting her, trying to get her to say something ridiculous; worse, she’d fallen for it. He’d twice gone out of his way to make her feel like a fool. If, during either meeting, he’d acted in a civil manner, she would have been happy to stick to her original, honesty-inspired plan. But this was war, pure and simple.

  She took out her notebook—no doubt there would be a transcript available later, but she wanted to record the key points now—as a tall, fiftyish man stepped onto the stage. His air of authority had an effect; voices hushed and people scurried to find seats.

  He switched the microphone on and sent an ear-splitting jolt of feedback through the room. “Sorry,” he said. “Has everyone found a chair?” he continued. “No? We’ll have some more brought in and set up along the back.”

  There must have been at least sixty people setting down bags, laptops, and briefcases. Claire was surprised to see that a lecture on the Spanish Conspiracy had drawn such a crowd. She noted the moderator’s attractiveness; he had a regal, rather leonine appearance, with slightly long salt-and-pepper hair and a trim, graying beard. He looked like the prototype for a modern European aristocrat, the kind of man who would sail a sixty-foot sloop around the Aegean or star in a luxury-car commercial. He waited until everyone was seated before speaking again.

  “Our next lecturer comes to us from England, from Trinity College, Cambridge, and has, as is his usual way, something revelatory to share with us. But I’m going to give over the introduction to my favorite presenter of culture and art, Gabriella Monalisa Arianna Griseri, host of the popular television program Time After Time.”

  It was clear from the enthusiastic applause that many in the audience knew who she was. Or perhaps they simply appreciated culture and art in the female form; even from the back row, Claire could see that the woman was a knockout. Her slim yet curvaceous figure was sheathed in a perfectly fitting sleeveless dress in which she looked effortlessly elegant. She had a face like a fashion model and lustrous black hair that was styled in a sleek chignon at the nape of her neck.

  “What was her name?” Gwen asked.

  “I don’t know. I got lost after Gabriella.”

  “Thank you, Maurizio,” Gabriella said, taking the stage with professional ease. “Thank you all. I am proud to have the honor of introducing our next speaker. I first met Andrew Kent at the Sorbonne six years ago, when we were both invited to speak at a seminar on the seventeenth century. His lecture on the death of King Charles, a controversial look at the demise of the Restoration leader, was the talk of the conference. I’ve taken great pleasure in witnessing his meteoric career since then. The Sorbonne lecture, as many of you no doubt already know, provided the basis for his book, Charles II and the Rye House Plot, which became a bestseller in the UK, and was subsequently published in thirteen countries…” She looked to her right, where Andrew Kent stood at the base of the stage, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding, then clasped his hands behind his back and resumed his study of the floor.

  “Published in thirteen countries and adapted for the highly acclaimed BBC series, The Rye House Plot: The Attempted Assassination of Charles II. Andrew has forbidden me to disclose anything about today’s lecture or his second talk on Saturday, but I will say this: with this new work, lightning is going to strike twice!

  “But what else could we expect from such an accomplished historian? Andrew Kent is a Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, and a lecturer in history at the university. He is the recipient of the Villier-Horschak Award for historical research and a two-time winner of the Prescott Prize. He’s been a featured speaker at conferences in cities all over the world, including Stockholm, Naples, Tokyo, Barcelona, Warsaw, Dublin, and St. Petersburg. And now, for the first time, the University of Venice. I hope you’ll all join me in giving a very big welcome to Andrew Kent.”

  Claire politely applauded along with everyone else in the room. During Gabriella’s introduction, she’d felt her heart sink further, and further, and further, until her fighting spirit was beaten and broken. Andrew Kent was much too accomplished for her to compete with. A bestselling book? The Villier-Horschak Award? The Prescott Prize—twice? A BBC series?

  Andrew Kent wasn’t just a historian, he was a demigod of historians, one of the few who’d climbed—no, make that soared—out of the ivory tower and found fame in the larger world. She wasn’t in the same league. No, that wasn’t quite accurate—she wasn’t even a player yet.

  He stepped up to the microphone as Gabriella left the stage. The popular hostess of Time After Time flashed him a brilliant smile as they passed. He thanked her, then took a sip of water from a glass on the podium and cleared his throat a few times as the applause died down. He seemed self-assured, but not as confident as Claire would have expected from someone who’d just had the highlights of his illustrious career cited so sweetly. Certainly not bestselling author, BBC consultant, big-historian-in-a-small-pond assured.

  As she studied him, she sensed that something was wrong; Andrew Kent didn’t seem like his usual bristly, rather off-putting pedantic self, but more like a guy who was apologetic about taking everyone’s time. Maybe this false humility was an English thing. Or maybe he didn’t feel well. Whatever the cause, she had the distinct impression that he wasn’t terribly excited about his own lecture. He cleared his throat once more and began to speak.

  “One hundred years ago, Julian Corbett wrote, ‘Of all the mysteries of Italian history, there is none more dramatic or difficult to probe in all its dark recesses than what is known in Venice as the Spanish Conspiracy.’ I agree with him that it is one of the most enigmatic events in the history of Venice; its legend owes much to myth and rumor. I hope to retire some of those myths, silence some of those rumors. Why is this important? Because, as Horatio Brown has remarked, the story of the Spanish Conspiracy ‘throws so strong a light upon the causes which first corrupted and then destroyed the Republic.’

  “But I get ahead of myself. The origin of the conspiracy is the primary subject of this lecture, as I mean to show that the events of 1618 were by no means isolated; tensions between Venice and Spain had been building for decades.”

  Claire listened without taking notes while Andrew Kent gave an overview of what was, for her, familiar territory. By the sixteenth century, the Venetian Republic was in decline. Even so, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Venice was the only independent power remaining in an Italy dominated by Spain, which achieved its dominion with its military might, its wealth, and its control of the papacy. In 1606, when Pope Paul V excommunicated the Doge and the Venetian Senate and placed all territories of the Republic under an interdict in retaliation for the arrest and conviction of two priests, Venice came into direct conflict with Rome and therefore Spain.

  “By 1618, distrust between Venice and Spain was at its peak,” Andrew Kent said. “Although treaties existed between the two countries, the reality, according to the Venetian ambassador to Madrid, was ‘hostility and war.’ In his report to the Doge, the ambassador wrote of ‘fierce encounters and troublesome incidents’ between Venice and Spain.

  “But does this provide sufficient grounds for a ‘Spanish plot’? Indeed, does the evidence even exist? It may help to review what we know for certain of the events of 1618.

  “We know that the Venetian Senate wrote to its ambassadors: ‘The insidious practices of the Spaniards never cease…such tricks and artifices have never before been seen’; we know that the Spanish ambassador, the marquis of Bedmar, was summoned to the Doge’s Palace for a formal rebuke. W
e know that the duke of Ossuna, in Naples, was constructing a new fleet of warships. We know that a letter written by a courtesan named Alessandra Rossetti charged a group of mercenaries with plotting to overthrow Venice. We know that three men—two Spaniards and one Frenchman—were strangled in prison and their corpses hung from the gibbet on the Piazza San Marco.

  “But these events do not add up to the account we have heard of the so-called Spanish Conspiracy…”

  The so-called Spanish Conspiracy? Claire wondered. What was he getting at?

  “…an account that has come down to us as history but frankly is based on testimony no more reliable than a child’s bedtime story.” Andrew Kent paused for effect before revealing his most important disclosure. “My research has revealed that what has been thought of as a Spanish conspiracy for four hundred years is, in reality, a Venetian conspiracy.”

  “What?” Claire said, so loudly that people in adjacent seats swiveled their heads to look at her.

  “I believe that the ‘Spanish’ Conspiracy was a fabrication created by the Council of Ten,” he went on, “a group of men known to have had the best spy network in Europe at that time, a group known to have used any means at their disposal, including hired assassins, to protect the sovereignty of the Republic.”

  Murmurs rippled through the room.

  “Those enigmatic enforcers of state security, the Council of Ten and its deadly subcommittee, the Tre Capi, or three heads of the Council of Ten, were so feared that they spawned a popular axiom: ‘The Ten send you to the torture chamber, the Three to your grave.’ The main architect of the Venetian Conspiracy, Senator Girolamo Silvia, was in 1618 the leader of the Three and as effective a spymaster as Walsingham had been in England. His network of informants included those from the lowest to the highest echelons of Venetian society. He used these informants, along with his own group of bravi, to wage a shadow war against the enemies of the Republic. He seemed to have a particular animosity toward the duke of Ossuna, but the advancement of his own political career was a significant motivating factor.

  “Another issue raised by my research concerns the Rossetti Letter. For four hundred years, the mysterious Alessandra Rossetti has been considered a heroine of sorts, the courtesan whose letter to the Great Council exposed the plot and saved Venice from a brutal sacking and pillage. But if the Spanish Conspiracy is a fabrication of the Council of Ten, so, too, then is the Rossetti Letter. Indeed, Alessandra Rossetti was no heroine, but a pawn of the Three…”

  “No!” Claire gasped.

  “…their puppet, if you will, one whose false statements resulted in politically motivated deaths.”

  “Oh god,” Claire moaned.

  “I see that my time is up. Thank you all for attending. I hope you’ll join me on Saturday morning for my second talk, when I’ll elaborate on these issues.”

  Claire was in such a state of shock that she hardly heard the applause. She stood up and inched her way out of the hall with Gwen and the rest of the crowd. They walked to the traghetto crossing near Ca’ Rezzonico in silence.

  “Is something wrong?” Gwen asked.

  There certainly was; it was even worse than Claire had anticipated. It was bad enough to oppose the opinion of an acclaimed historian, but if Andrew Kent destroyed the credibility of the Rossetti Letter, she might as well give up now.

  “I’ve just discovered that I’ve wasted more than two years of my life, and that I’m going to have to throw my dissertation in the garbage and start all over.”

  “Why?”

  “If Andrew Kent publishes a book saying that the Spanish Conspiracy was based on lies, no one’s going to take my work seriously; in fact, it could be rejected entirely.”

  “But that’s not fair.”

  “Who said life was fair? All that matters is that he’s an authority and I’m not. Did you hear that introduction? He’s won the Prescott Prize twice. The frustrating thing is that I know he’s wrong. He’s completely wrong.”

  “If you’re right and he’s wrong, you shouldn’t care about his stupid awards. I mean, if you’re right, someone else is going to know you’re right, right?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” At least she had the Biblioteca Marciana at hand to help verify what she believed to be true. “Look, do you mind if we just get a quick bite to eat and stay in tonight? I’ve got to go over my notes and make a plan for tomorrow.”

  “What about Giancarlo?”

  “Giancarlo!” Claire stopped. “I completely forgot.” Giancarlo would be a wonderful respite from everything that had occupied her all day: her research, the conference, Andrew Kent. “I did say we would go, didn’t I? It would be terrible to disappoint him.”

  Gwen eyed her critically. “Is that what you’re going to wear?”

  “Why, is there something wrong with it?”

  According to Gwen, everything was wrong with it. It was shapeless, wrinkled, colorless, boring: a verdict she handed down on nearly every article of clothing in Claire’s suitcase. Then Gwen opened her own suitcase and began taking out blouses of a type that Claire had seldom seen: chiffons, silks, velvets, all of them fit for a gypsy or the cover of a romance novel, with low-cut necklines and fluttery sleeves, in a multicolored array of paisleys, floral prints, and rich jewel tones. Soon the beds and the chairs were covered with clothes.

  “It looks like Stevie Nicks exploded in here,” Claire said.

  “You can wear this black skirt of yours with one of my tops to dress it up. That one maybe?” Gwen pointed to a black chiffon number with dark blue flowers on it. “Wait, this is better.” She held up an emerald green velvet blouse with a low, rounded neck and long sleeves that gathered at the wrist. Claire slipped it on and Gwen nodded approvingly. “That’s your color. Plus there’s a tie in the back to make it a little tighter.” She tied the ribbon, then stepped in front to regard her once more. “It works, more or less. Have you ever thought about buying a push-up bra?”

  “No.” Claire went into the bathroom to look in the mirror. She was pleasantly surprised. It was quite pretty, and romantic, in the sense that it looked like it belonged to a more romantic era. In fact, it reminded her of something Alessandra might have owned. In a certain way it suited her more than anything she’d ever worn, as if it revealed something secret about her—the part of her that lived in the seventeenth-century world. Not that she’d want to dress like this all the time, but for now, for tonight, for Venice—

  “It’s perfect,” she said.

  Chapter Eleven

  AT SIX THIRTY, two transformed women walked west through the sestiere of San Marco in search of an address adjacent to a campo near the Calle del Dose. The slightly smaller of the two, in an anachronistic combination of Renaissance-inspired top and conservative low-heeled pumps, carried a brown bag that contained a bottle of white wine and a selection of dolci the confectioner had recommended.

  Claire hadn’t wanted to go to Giancarlo’s empty-handed. She suspected that he’d asked her to his family’s house because he couldn’t afford a dinner out—the restaurants in Venice were outrageously expensive—and worried that she hadn’t brought enough. On the other hand, if she brought too much, it might seem like noblesse oblige. As they walked the narrow lanes, she thought about what his house would be like, imagining a cramped living room with a view of the decrepit building next door. Her expectations for the flat of a waiter’s family weren’t high. Not that she cared in the least; she was more concerned that perhaps she and Gwen were overdressed.

  Gwen was wearing black, flared pants and a black silk top with ridiculously large, witchlike sleeves and tottered along on shoes not vastly different from choppines, the high wooden platforms once worn by Venetian women. Not terribly practical, Claire had said when she’d first seen the outfit. Gwen had matter-of-factly replied that she wasn’t planning to do anything practical in the next few hours.

  She had to admit that tonight Gwen seemed different from the gawky, inarticulate girl she usually was and l
ooked rather mysterious and exotic. Her sense of style didn’t look as out of place here as it had in Harriot. Everywhere in Venice, Claire had seen women, young and not so young, fit and not so fit, who were squeezed into skintight, hip-hugging, bell-bottom pants. What had happened? Had someone decreed that all women must dress as if it were 1973? Or was it instinctive, something similar to whatever it is that inspires a flock of birds to suddenly turn as one, or that makes migrating monarch butterflies alight on the same trees as the generation that preceded them?

  They reached the campo and consulted the map Giancarlo had given them. Following its instructions, they crossed a bridge over a small canal, turned three times into crooked, claustrophobic alleys, and kept walking until they got to a wrought-iron gate set into a high brick wall. The gate opened into an enclosed courtyard, across which was the main door to the building.

  It was opened with sudden force only seconds after she knocked. Claire was surprised to be face-to-face with the tall, aristocratic man she’d seen earlier at the conference.

  “I’m sorry, I must have the wrong house,” she said.

  “You’re the Americans, yes?” he said brightly.

  “I’m looking for Giancarlo Bal—”

  “Yes, we’re expecting you. Come in, please. I’m Maurizio Baldessari, Giancarlo’s father.”

  They stepped into an elegant entry hall with open doorways at each side and a wide marble staircase directly ahead. A phone rang in the room on the right. A murmuring voice answered it.

  “I saw you today at the Ca’ Foscari conference…,” Claire began, still uncomprehending.

  “I’m the director of the history department. Giancarlo did not explain? When he told me that he’d met an American who was attending the conference, I asked him to invite you.”

  A younger man stepped into the doorway. “Professor Franco is on the phone.”