The Rossetti Letter (v5)

by Phillips, Christi

  “You can’t translate twenty-eight letters in one day by yourself, can you?”

  “No.”

  Andrew tossed his napkin on the table and stood up. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CLAIRE AND ANDREW KENT sat across from each other at a table near the center of the library. Between them was a pile of over two dozen four-hundred-year-old letters, each encased in its own protective plastic sleeve.

  Claire looked up from the letter she was translating—she was already certain that it was not the enlightening missive she was looking for—and stole a glance at her colleague. He was lost in concentration, eyes fixed on the document before him, now and then looking away just long enough to check his notebook and the translation that seemed to flow from his pen. He bit his lower lip as he worked, and occasionally, quite unconsciously it seemed, brushed an unruly lock of hair from his eyes or pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose.

  He’d put those glasses on with a look of pique, she recalled; she had been amused and even a little touched by this fleeting moment of vanity. Was it simply because they were broken, or did he think they made him seem older? Not that he was old; late thirties at most. His face was actually very nice, she thought as she considered it, even handsome, especially when he was unguarded and wasn’t being pompous or critical. Like the way he’d looked last night, when he’d said…what he’d said. She wondered for a moment if he’d been drinking. Not that he had seemed intoxicated, but for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine the man who was now sitting across from her saying anything like that to her ever again.

  Amazing how he could sit only three feet from her and not notice her at all, she thought with growing irritation. She gazed steadily at his forehead and willed him to look up. He didn’t. Well, it really shouldn’t surprise her that he was immune to her silent yet undoubtedly mesmeric influence. They’d already spent half the day together and he hadn’t said a word about why he’d said…what he’d said. In fact, he hadn’t mentioned last night at all, hadn’t even offered a neutral opening sally such as, “It was nice running into you yesterday evening” or “Thought any more about the Rossetti Letter?” or any such thing that might have eventually led to a conversation about his remark. It was as if he’d completely forgotten about it, indeed, as if it had never happened at all. Well, if he wasn’t going to say anything about it, she certainly wasn’t going to say anything about it. Maybe if she stared at him long enough, though, he’d look at her and say—

  “You finished with yours yet?” he asked, briefly glancing up and making an impatient gesture toward the letter lying in front of her.

  “Almost,” said Claire brusquely, returning her attention to the letter and translating the remaining few words.

  “Well?” He rubbed his forehead.

  Claire cleared her throat and read from her notebook. “‘Please send the velvet and the brocade over at once. The two muslin dresses are not required until after Lent. Also please advise about matching shoes for the velvet gown. Yours sincerely,’ et cetera, et cetera.” She flipped the letter over to look at the direction. “Simone Montecelli, on the Merceria.”

  “Her dressmaker.”

  “Apparently so. And yours?”

  “‘My dear Isabella,’” Andrew read, “‘Such delight you afforded our grateful party on Tuesday—as you could see, my escort was entranced by the sumptuousness of your arrangements and the exquisite cuisine which you provided.

  “‘The program of entertainments was also quite diverting—tell me, where did you find so many talented dwarfs? Their antics were so amusing I thought I would break from laughter…’ shall I go on?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. I think we can reasonably assume that this letter to the baronessa di Castiglione was written only to fulfill a social obligation.”

  “Still, either of these women could have been a close friend.”

  “A dressmaker?”

  “Why not? Hairdressers are traditionally women’s confidantes, why not a dressmaker?”

  “You think that shopping list of dresses is somehow revealing?”

  “No, but maybe there’s another letter.”

  “Or, here’s a thought. Perhaps it’s in code,” said Andrew, lowering his voice and leaning closer. “‘Muslin dresses’ actually means ‘armed legions.’”

  “That’s very clever.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I meant of her. And making jokes is not helpful.”

  Andrew sighed and put his pen down. “I think we’re wasting our time here.”

  “But we’ve only gotten through twelve letters so far.” Claire sorted the stack of documents. “Instead of working on them in chronological order, why don’t we see if one of these looks as though it’s addressed to a friend instead of a tradesperson.” She turned the letters over to study the recipients’ names and addresses. “How’s this sound? ‘Signora Barberigo, Castello.’”

  “Could be, I suppose.”

  Claire pushed the letter across the table. “How does it start?”

  Andrew read through the first sentence, then translated it for her. “‘I require two dozen of your finest confections…’ Signora Barberigo is a baker.”

  “What about this one?” Claire took up another letter and read the name of the addressee. “‘Signora Giovanna Donatella.’” She handed it to Andrew.

  “But this is addressed to Padua, not Venice.”

  Claire thought for a moment. “In the first diary—the one written before the conspiracy—Alessandra mentions a cousin in Padua. Maybe they grew up together in Venice. Maybe they were best friends. Then…they grow up, Alessandra becomes a courtesan, Giovanna gets married and moves away…”

  “But they continue to tell each other everything?” Andrew finished for her.

  “Yes, exactly!”

  “You have a vivid imagination, don’t you?”

  “You say that as if there’s something wrong with it.”

  “Only because our job is to discover the truth, not make it up.”

  “I’m simply putting forth a hypothesis. All we have to do is translate that letter and find out if there’s anything to it.”

  Claire skimmed a few other letters while Andrew worked on the one to Padua. After twenty minutes or so, he stopped, looked up at her, and distractedly ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Be prepared to be disappointed,” he said, and pushed his notebook with the translation over to her.

  She bent her head and read:

  My dearest Giovanna:

  My apologies for such a long delay between letters. My delight in receiving your last knows no bounds; such a journey they must make between Padua and Venice!

  Alas, for the moment I have not plans for similar travail, but remain safe at home, wanting only the happiness your company brings.

  My garden is my sanctuary, although it will not bloom until May. Now is the best time to be preparing the ground for what is needed: a pomegranate or pear tree for Nico, a strawberry plant and sunflowers for Bianca, and a wild climbing rose for myself.

  More soon. Your loving cousin, Alessandra

  “Not exactly gripping, is it?” Claire said.

  “No.”

  “But it does establish that Giovanna is her cousin.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re just dying to say ‘I told you so,’ aren’t you?”

  “I wasn’t going to use those words. But I must point out that this letter is dated March 1, 1618…and please turn your attention to the second paragraph, in which she writes—”

  “‘I remain safe at home,’” Claire completed the sentence for him. Of course she had noticed it; Alessandra had written that she was “safe” during the very time that the conspiracy was gathering force. “Are you sure your translation’s correct?” she asked, reaching across the table for the original.

  “Of course I’m sure,” Andrew replied, slightly offended.


  “Perhaps she was lying, so that her cousin wouldn’t worry about her.”

  “You’re grasping at straws.”

  “There’s another, you know.”

  “Another what?”

  “Another letter to her cousin.” Claire pushed it over to him. “I think we should translate this one, too.”

  “Meaning that I should translate it?”

  “You’re faster.”

  “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

  “No.”

  Andrew scanned the document. “This one’s longer than the other. It’s going to take a while.”

  Claire worked on a few of the shorter letters—like the others she’d already translated, they were related to the daily needs of the Rossetti household—until Andrew had finished with Alessandra’s second letter to her cousin. He handed his translation to her with a sigh; evidently he wasn’t finding much enjoyment in the courtesan’s epistolary style.

  My dearest Giovanna—

  I long for the time when we shall meet; it has been too long since all of us were together. Months have passed since we were at Burano, have they not? Longer since summer in Marghera.

  I recall pleasant childhood memories most often at night, and your family is what I think most of. It is a shame that it is yet March, and still three months to go before the sixth month, when we shall join together, with such transport of joy as befits such long-lost friends, for I often feel the loss of not being four cousins together.

  I often regret that I have no dear sister, but that would only strain my allegiance to my favorite cousin, and you know well to whom I refer. Do not think this is a compliment, for it finds its source and its cause in your goodness. But I am not the only recipient of your gracious generosity—is it possible to count them all?

  Until next we meet again, a kiss to you—Alessandra

  “It’s clear Alessandra was very fond of her,” said Claire.

  “Excessively, I’d say.”

  “But it doesn’t help at all, does it?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Claire studied the letter. It was dated March 5, 1618, only one day before the date of Alessandra’s letter to the Great Council. Perhaps she should start thinking of that as her alleged secret letter; Claire’s search for Alessandra’s confidante had only helped to confirm Andrew Kent’s version of events.

  “What’s this?” She pushed the letter across the table, and pointed to a strange mark under Alessandra’s signature.

  “I have no idea…blotting the quill, perhaps?” Andrew offered.

  “I don’t think so.” Claire picked up the first letter. It was more smudged with time and less defined, but there was a similar dotted squiggle underneath her signature.

  “It looks like—,” Claire began.

  “Arabic,” Andrew said.

  “You know how to translate Arabic, by any chance?”

  “No. You?”

  “No.” Claire glanced around the library. “Maybe someone else in here knows how.” She stood up.

  “What are you going to do? Get up on the table and yell, ‘Is there an Arabic speaker in the house?’”

  “No, I’m going to ask Francesca.”

  “Who’s Francesca?”

  “The librarian.”

  “You really think she would know?”

  “It can’t hurt to ask.”

  Claire popped over to the counter, spent a moment huddling with Francesca, then sauntered back. She took the letters from the table and gestured for Andrew to follow her to the librarian’s desk.

  “Don’t tell me, there really is someone?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Francesca.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “EVEN THOUGH THIS,’ word, is harder to read”—Francesca indicated the smudged Arabic word on the first letter—“the meaning is clearer. An araba is a wagon.”

  “A wagon?” asked Claire.

  “An ancient wagon, a type that’s been around since biblical times.”

  “What was it used for? Goats or livestock or something?”

  “No, for transportation. It’s a small wagon, pulled by donkeys. People stand up in it. It looks much like a chariot.”

  Claire exchanged a glance with Andrew, who looked as perplexed as she felt.

  Francesca picked up Alessandra’s second letter, dated March 5. “This one, is a little more difficult to translate. It means someone who is alone…who is a loner. It also has a secondary meaning, which seems odd—someone who eats nothing but honey.”

  “Like John the Baptist,” Andrew said.

  “Yes, perhaps that’s what it means—a wise man, a philosopher, or a kind of saint or sage, but most important, someone who lives outside of society.” Francesca smiled apologetically. “That doesn’t help much, does it? If you like, I can call the professor I studied with and ask her if she could look at this for you. She might be able to tell you more, but I don’t know how soon she could do it, perhaps not until next week.”

  Andrew looked askance at Claire. This was your idea, he seemed to be saying, it’s your decision.

  “No, it’s not necessary,” Claire said to Francesca. “We thought…well, I’m not sure what we thought, but I don’t believe another translation would make a difference.”

  They took the letters back to their table and sat down, silent and thoughtful. Claire was disappointed, even though she couldn’t say for certain what she’d been hoping for. She felt a peevish frustration; the morning had started out so optimistically, but all their work had been a waste of time. Worse than a waste of time, actually; translating Alessandra’s letters had only helped to make the hypothesis her dissertation was based on look rather flimsy. She wished she hadn’t asked Andrew Kent to help her.

  “You didn’t really believe it was going to be some sort of code breaker, did you?” he asked.

  How could he read her so easily? “I know it’s far-fetched, but Venetians were known for the ingenious methods they used to encrypt their correspondence. And not just official government correspondence. Merchants used codes in their business letters, too, to protect their trade secrets and their financial transactions. Alessandra’s father was a merchant. If she learned Arabic from him, she might have learned some encryption techniques as well.”

  “Yes, except that Alessandra’s letters are not encrypted. If they were written in code, it would be obvious—it would all be gibberish.”

  “Encryption wasn’t the only way to pass secret messages. The late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries were a time of intense intelligence gathering: Walsingham in England, Cardinal Richelieu in France, the Council of Ten here in Venice. A wide variety of methods were employed, and the spies—who often served as diplomats—were always looking for new ways to keep their secrets secure en route. And consider this: if Alessandra sent out a letter written in code, it would be obvious to anyone who intercepted it that it contained a secret message. Even if it couldn’t be deciphered, it would still arouse suspicion, wouldn’t it? Perhaps that was too risky. Perhaps she had to make them seem like normal letters.”

  “I think we’ve just officially gone through the looking glass of historical research. By your account, nothing is what it seems: the diaries are an elaborate hoax, and the letters contain what—invisible ink between the lines? Tell me, if we read the Rossetti Letter backward, will it say, ‘Paul is dead’?”

  “Now you’re just being absurd.”

  “I’m being absurd?” Andrew picked up the letter dated March 1. “I don’t know very much about ciphers, but I just don’t see how this could be some sort of secret message—unless it was a huge anagram, which would have been enormously difficult to create.”

  “There were much simpler methods than that. For instance, some people used a template, which was essentially a piece of paper with holes cut out of it. When you placed the template over the letter, the words that showed through the holes comprised the secret mess
age.”

  “So both the sender and the receiver had an identical template.”

  “Yes.”

  “And without it, it’s not possible to decipher the letter.”

  “Not reliably. I admit I was hoping the Arabic word would be some sort of instruction.”

  “Like, read only the words beginning with q?”

  “Something like that, I guess.”

  “But why put the key right in the letter?”

  “Venice was a cosmopolitan city, but there couldn’t have been that many people between here and Padua who read Arabic. Maybe she felt using a foreign language was disguise enough. But if it really is a key, then I suspect that this word, ‘wagon’—and whatever the other word is—may have meant something only to the two of them. It could refer to something else that is actually the key.”

  “In which case, there’s no way for us to uncover any code contained herein.”

  “No.”

  Andrew rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I just remembered something…do you know the story about Sir John Trevelyan?”

  Claire shook her head. “No.”

  “He was a royalist who was held prisoner in Colchester Castle after being sentenced to death by Oliver Cromwell. While he was there, he received a letter with a hidden message that told him how to escape. I think the method used was every third letter after a punctuation mark—when he put them all together it spelled out ‘panel at east end of chapel slides.’ He requested an hour of solitary meditation prior to his execution, and obviously used his arcane information wisely, as he made a successful escape and lived to tell the tale.”

  “I thought you didn’t know much about codes.”

  “I don’t, but I’ve always remembered that anecdote because it’s one of the few instances in which we can say with certainty that prayer saved a man’s life.” He paused. “It’s still a bit of a mystery, though. To this day, no one knows who sent Trevelyan the letter, or knows how he knew the encryption method.”