Alessandra scrambled outside, panicked and afraid. Her scream had brought Nico running, and he stood on the fondamenta looking with horror at the sight of La Celestia’s mutilated body. Drained of its life fluid, her skin was so pallid it appeared as cold and inert as marble. Nico held out his hand to Alessandra. “We must leave here at once,” he insisted.
“Wait,” she replied, remembering the book. She had to step over La Celestia’s body to duck back under the felze. As she turned over the cushions, she realized with revulsion that they were soaked with the courtesan’s blood. Her stomach heaved. She covered her mouth with her hand, quickly jerking it away again. Her palm was wet, her hands and her dress smeared with blood. It occurred to her that if the book were similarly soiled, it would do no good to return it. She kept looking, regardless, afraid to depart without it. Within a few minutes, she had searched the entire cabin. The book was not there.
A bone-deep fear settled into her. What on the surface appeared to be a random crime was not, Alessandra was certain; La Celestia had been murdered for the code book. Had someone wanted it badly enough to kill for it, or had Bedmar discovered the theft? If the marquis knew that Alessandra had stolen the book, why hadn’t he come after her first? It was probably just a matter of time before he did, Alessandra realized. And not much time, at that.
“Who killed her?” Nico asked when he saw Alessandra emerge from the felze.
“The marquis, I believe, or one of his men. Unless someone paid off Moukib quite handsomely.”
“Her gondolier? It wasn’t him.” Nico nodded at the entrance to a narrow alley leading off the fondamenta and Alessandra saw what she’d missed earlier. Moukib lay on the ground, his knees curled into his chest, a pool of blood forming a wide circle around him.
“He’s dead,” Nico said. “We must away. And you must take steps to protect yourself.”
Calm yourself, Alessandra thought as Nico rowed the gondola into the Rio di San Martino, on their way to the bocca di leone.
It had been Nico’s idea that she write a letter detailing what she knew of the Spanish ambassador’s crimes and deliver it to the Great Council. She hadn’t been able to think of anything better, although she wasn’t exactly sure how it would help her. “It will save you from the noose,” Nico had said; but would it save her from the marquis? If he could kill La Celestia, surely he could kill her, too. Nico had offered to deliver the letter himself, but Alessandra had insisted that it was her responsibility, even though the sinister maw that waited for her in the courtyard of the Doge’s Palace filled her with foreboding.
Her hand went to the letter tucked inside the small pouch tied at her waist. Soon, the marquis would know who had exposed him, and her life would be in even greater danger. But her own safety was not her only concern. What of Antonio? His association with the ambassador and the duke of Ossuna implied that he was also a part of their plot, and yet she would not want him to be implicated. She hoped that the viscount was already gone from Venice, but even distance might not be enough to protect him. Venetian justice had a wide reach, and was rightly feared. Naples was well within the jurisdiction of the council’s assassins.
But how could she do other than what she had set out to do tonight? If only to avenge La Celestia’s murder, she would have taken this risk, but La Celestia had assured her that the Republic was in peril. It was Alessandra’s civic duty to place the letter in the lion’s mouth. If she failed, many more lives could be lost.
They turned into a waterway that circled west, toward the Piazzetta dei Leoncini. A single gondola with a red lantern at its bow glided slowly toward them. One of its occupants, an elegant courtesan with a feathered headdress, wet her rouged mouth with her tongue and held out her hand in silent invitation. After turning into a wide, bright canal, they were swallowed by the shadow of a bridge and disgorged again, and all at once there was music and light and laughter, a riot of color and costume, as the crowds along Calle Canonica pressed into the Piazza. Nico halted the gondola and exchanged a wordless look with Alessandra before she stepped onto the fondamenta and rushed away.
The Piazza was bright with torchlight, alive with music and festivity. Alessandra pressed through the crowds, a somber figure among the revelers. She summoned her courage and moved toward the Porta della Carta, the high archway that led to the palace courtyard, then abruptly stopped, startled by something that had caught at the edge of her vision.
Between the two great marble columns at the entrance to the Piazza San Marco, a dead man hung limply against a background of starless sky. His limbs were broken, his face bloodied, his bruised flesh barely covered by dirty, tattered rags. Not one of the many costumed revelers below took notice of him.
Stirred by a gust of wind, the hanged man turned slowly on the cord that had snapped his neck. Light from a bonfire below animated his blank, staring eyes; flickering shadows played across his mouth and turned his death’s grimace into a grin. Alessandra stood transfixed, as it appeared that the hanged man was still alive. She imagined that he spoke to her: It could be you at the end of this rope, if you do not deliver that letter…but here is the fate of the one you love if you do.
I am damned with the Devil’s own choice, Alessandra thought, shaking her head to rid herself of the illusion. Her step was slow as she walked toward the Porta della Carta, and slipped through the archway into the shadowed, silent courtyard.
Chapter Twenty-One
CLAIRE WAS AWAKE before sunrise. Working at the alcove desk by the light of a small lamp, she looked over her notes from the day before.
Alessandra’s second diary, which they’d “liberated” from Andrew Kent the previous afternoon, hadn’t yielded the sort of material she’d hoped for. What she needed more than anything else was some kind of link between Alessandra and one of the conspirators named in the Rossetti Letter, but every source she’d found so far led to a dead end. If only that Italian edition of Fazzini’s Diary hadn’t been destroyed. She was fairly certain that she could procure a copy of it through the Harvard Library once she got home, but that wasn’t going to help her now. Yesterday, Claire had read the English edition once more and checked the dates of Fazzini’s report of the courtesan’s debut and Bedmar’s mention of a party at La Celestia’s, and deduced that they had both occurred sometime in June 1617. An interesting coincidence, but still it was a long, long leap to make from that to a connection between Bedmar and Alessandra, especially since Claire didn’t have any evidence that La Sirena and Alessandra were one and the same.
And Alessandra herself wasn’t helping at all. Her dairies were remarkably unrevealing, almost pointedly so. Alessandra’s second diary seemed very much a continuation of the first, filled with the prosaic details of her daily life.
Had a pleasant visit from the charming Signora Bognolo, Claire read. She asked for a donation to help educate the orphans of Santa Maria dei Dereletti; she hopes to begin a sala di musica there. I gave of a few ducats and two dresses…
Claire hadn’t had enough time to translate the entire diary but, knowing she was on borrowed time, she’d skipped through it and selected passages from throughout the book. Even in the days preceding the conspiracy’s exposure and demise, there was nothing that referred to Bedmar, his cohorts, or to any suspicious activities. How could the conspiracy transpire right under Alessandra’s nose and she not write about it? It was as if it hadn’t even happened.
As if it hadn’t happened. Claire sighed. Maybe Andrew Kent was right after all. Clearly he’d spent time in Venice before this, digging around and finding nothing that could be considered definitive evidence of a Spanish conspiracy. What had he said in his lecture, that history would tell lies? Perhaps he was right, and the historians who had previously related the tale of the Spanish Conspiracy were propagating a fiction, knowingly or not. It was a relatively commonplace occurrence: theories and even facts that had once been considered incontrovertible were found to be false, unfounded, and history was rewritten; that’s what kept histor
ians in business.
But hadn’t Andrew Kent admitted that he was having trouble writing his book? Actually, he’d said the outline of his book—which meant he was a long way from finishing it, or even from coming up with a solid hypothesis. Claire remembered the frustration in his voice, but the glimmer of hopefulness that memory inspired was short-lived. If she couldn’t find the evidence she needed to support her own telling of the Spanish Conspiracy, she’d have to revise her dissertation, and whether or not Andrew Kent wrote a book would be beside the point. Revising would mean another year of work, perhaps two, and unless she got a generous grant or yet another student loan, she wasn’t sure that she could afford to keep going. She’d have to get a job before her Ph.D. was completed—what were the chances that she’d then be able to finish it?
Claire stretched, tried to push such depressing thoughts from her mind, and absently picked a postcard up from off the desk. It had a photo of the Lido’s long, golden beach on the front, Gwen’s handwriting on the back:
Dear Shannon:
Venice very cool after all. Met a boy named Nicolo, even cuter than T. Can’t wait to tell you everything!
Claire placed the postcard writing side down again, as she had found it, and tried to remember being fourteen, when meeting a boy on a beach was just about the most exciting thing that could happen. Or maybe telling it to your best friend later was the best part. Your best friend. Claire had always had a best friend; ever since grade school, she’d had someone to tell “everything” to. Come to think of it, every woman she knew had someone to whom she told most of her secrets. Yes, of course. Every woman had someone.
It felt odd to be without Gwen, Claire thought as she climbed the gilded staircase to the Marciana. Funny how she’d so quickly become accustomed to having the girl loping along at her side. But this worked out best for both of them, as she still had a lot of work to do and Gwen hadn’t been especially thrilled to spend another day in the library.
They were just about to go downstairs to breakfast when Stefania had called and asked if Gwen would like to come over for the day, explaining that she was grounded for getting home past her curfew the night before. Gwen was enormously relieved that Stefania didn’t hold her responsible for her temporary loss of freedom, and was eager to rejoin her friend, no doubt to rehash the dramatic events of the previous evening. Before they left to go to the Baldessaris’, Claire created a mini survival kit—a hotel business card, a map of Venice, a phone card, a guidebook, and a list of the police and emergency phone numbers—that she insisted Gwen keep with her.
“Stefania says her mom isn’t letting us out of the house,” Gwen protested. “I’m not pinning this to my shirt.” She waved the small, safety-pinned slip of paper on which Claire had written the biblioteca’s phone number. “I’m not eight.”
“Then keep it in your pants pocket.”
Gwen rolled her eyes.
“In case you lose your backpack,” Claire explained.
“I’m not going to lose—”
“In case someone steals your backpack.”
“I don’t think Stefania’s mom is letting us out of her room. And by the way, Stefania says her mom doesn’t know that she saw Marco last night, so don’t say anything.”
“How can she be so sure her mom doesn’t know?” Claire didn’t think much got past Renata, especially where her children were concerned.
“Because Stefania said if she knew, she’d be grounded for the rest of her life, not just two days.”
But when they got to the Baldessaris’ house, Claire had the distinct impression that, while Stefania’s mother might be ignorant of the details, she’d come to an accurate conclusion about the general circumstances of the night before. Upon their arrival, the two girls had almost immediately dashed upstairs, leaving her alone with Renata, not a situation she had been anticipating with pleasure.
“Thanks for letting Gwen stay with you for the day,” said Claire, aiming for the fastest conversational route to “good-bye.” “It will make it much easier for me to work.”
“It is nice for me, too. In fact, I encouraged it,” Renata said. She sounded almost friendly; her antipathy toward Claire seemed to have been turned down a notch. Perhaps the problems of her youngest child had made her forget about the problems of her eldest. “I don’t know if you know what it’s like to have a fifteen-year-old moping about the house all day, but I can assure you, it’s very unpleasant. I thought if Gwen came over, it might take Stefania’s mind off the terrible tragedy that is her life,” she said, with gentle sarcasm and a smile.
Claire smiled back. “I guess it’s tough, being fifteen.”
Renata laughed. “Apparently, it is terrible. But don’t worry, they’re not going anywhere, and I will be here as well. So there is no chance of anyone getting lost.”
Oh yeah, she knew, Claire had thought.
After consulting Francesca, who assured Claire that she could have the necessary documents quickly brought from the archives, Claire walked out of the Marciana and to the Riva, and then through the front door of the Hotel Danieli. The second part of her plan would be considerably more difficult than the first.
At the desk, she asked the clerk to ring Andrew Kent. With any luck, he’d be alone and would agree to meet her in the lobby. It was bad enough that she was going to have to swallow some of her pride in order to talk to him. She certainly didn’t want to do it in front of Gabriella.
“I’m sorry, he’s not answering,” the clerk said, hanging up.
“Do you know if he went out jogging, by any chance?”
“I haven’t seen him this morning, but I just came on duty a few minutes ago. Why don’t you try the restaurant?” He pointed to a wide doorway.
In the dining room, Claire found Andrew Kent seated alone, finishing a late breakfast and reading the newspaper, broken glasses set slightly askew on his face. “Good morning,” she said.
“Oh. Hello.” He took off his glasses and hastily put them in his pocket. “What are you doing here?”
“May I sit down?”
“Of course.”
Claire launched in without preamble. “Have you ever thought about reading her letters?”
“Whose letters?”
“Alessandra’s.”
“I’ve read a few, but they don’t seem to be of any consequence.”
“Have you found anything in her diary that explains why she waited two months before revealing the conspiracy?”
“No. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much of anything at all in either one of them. For a courtesan who had some powerful lovers and who must have been privy to at least a few secrets and intrigues, the diaries are remarkably tedious. It’s like reading the journal of a country wife. ‘Planted squash in the garden on Tuesday.’ ‘Got fitted for a new gown to wear to the marchioness’s party.’ She goes to church every Sunday and always finds something illuminating in the service. But most important, nowhere in it did she write ‘Spaniards plotting to overthrow the Venetian Republic.’”
“Did she write, ‘Today the Council of Ten asked me to write a letter’?”
“No.”
“The diaries don’t support your conclusions at all, do they?”
“Nor yours.”
“What if she didn’t put anything important in them on purpose?”
Andrew downed the last sip of coffee. “I’m not following you.”
“What if she wrote the diaries with the expectation that they would be read by other people? For instance, if she was ever taken to court, those diaries could be important evidence. Only thirty years before, Veronica Franco was charged with witchcraft by a former servant. Obviously it was a lie, but still she had to defend herself before a judge. Even though she was successful, it couldn’t have been easy. Alessandra would have known about that. After all, the government was quite happy to have the courtesans about—they brought in millions of ducats in tax revenue every year—but courtesans didn’t have the same legal protection
s as other Venetian citizens. Maybe the diaries were Alessandra’s way of creating some protection. Anyone who read them would quickly see that she led a blameless life: no devil worship, no clandestine meetings, no impious thoughts. Even her lovers are never mentioned.”
“So you’re saying that she created a kind of smoke screen—a facade of propriety?”
“Either that, or she’s the most insipid, boring, and abstinent courtesan who ever lived.”
Andrew nodded thoughtfully. “That’s very clever.”
“Thank you.”
“I meant of her.”
“I didn’t see you figuring it out,” said Claire, a bit frostily. “Anyway, that’s not what I came to tell you. The Marciana has twenty-eight letters that Alessandra wrote between January and March 1618.”
“What do you expect to find in twenty-eight letters? In those days, people of consequence wrote two or three letters every day. How much do you think you’re going to discover by reading twenty-eight?”
“But all of these letters were written to women.”
“And your point is?”
“Every woman has someone she tells everything to, a confidante, a best friend. It could have been a friend from childhood, or another courtesan—but there’s got to be someone.”
“That may be so, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that Alessandra wrote anything revealing to her confidante. Maybe she saved her secrets for when they were together.”
“But it’s possible. You have to admit that much.”
“Yes, it’s possible. But why are you telling me?”
“I thought you might want to work together on this.”
His eyes narrowed. “Really? Why?”
If there was ever a time for womanly wiles, this was it. “Well, um, because you’re the best,” Claire began. “You’re the expert on the conspiracy. Of course, you don’t believe there was a conspiracy, or at least not a Spanish conspiracy, but you know what I mean. You were nice enough to tell me about the discrepancy in the Rossetti Letter. And I’m sure I could learn so much from working with you—”
The Rossetti Letter (v5) Page 28