“Oh, Pru,” said Tabitha. “It doesn’t look like good fortune to me.”
Pru passed Enrico to Tabby before taking Winifred in her arms and rubbing her hair.
“I’m fine!” Winifred sniffed, swiping at her tears. “Don’t fuss!”
HEARING THE KNOCK ON her chamber door, Aemilia turned, her heart lifting, for she expected Will. But it was Jasper, his face unaccountably somber.
“Aemilia,” he said, for he refused to entertain her conceit of male disguise. “I’ve completed Her Majesty’s business of buying instruments for the Queen’s Musicke. Tomorrow the Orion sails for Southampton. I implore you to return to England with me, in a dress, if you please.”
His pronouncement struck her like a blow in the gut. They had only just arrived in Venice a fortnight ago. After taking such pains to bring her here, did he truly expect her and Enrico to return to a place where the plague still raged for all they knew? Return to a husband who hated her?
“What of our business in Bassano?” she asked him.
Jasper’s face twisted. “The more I think of it, the more like madness it seems. Why would a stranger leave us a bequest?”
“Jacopo is our kinsman and he lies dying,” she said quietly. “Have we come this far only to reject his summons?”
Her cousin glanced at the servants and then back at her. “I would speak to you alone.”
Aemilia’s stomach pitched when she realized he didn’t want the Weir sisters to hear what he had to say. After Winifred, Prudence, and Tabitha had vacated the room, taking Enrico with them, Jasper grasped Aemilia’s arms and spoke in such a low, urgent voice that she strained to hear him.
“How do we know we can trust Jacopo? I can little afford to risk my good name or the Queen’s patronage to accept some nebulous bequest from an old man who betrayed our fathers. What if he means us malice?”
Jasper’s suspicions dumbfounded her, as had the changes Aemilia had witnessed in him since their arrival in Venice. Not only had he taken to wearing a cross around his neck, he could hardly bring himself to speak of the Ghetto without his voice going cold and distant. And now he intended to avoid Bassano altogether. But finally she understood—Jasper was as haunted by Venice and the clamoring ghosts of their fathers’ past as she was. It was not that he was ashamed of their patrimony but he was terrified of losing everything if they were unmasked as the children of Marranos.
“Jasper,” she murmured, wishing she could conjure the words to give him courage and comfort. “It’s always been my dream to see the Casa dal Corno.”
Their fathers’ fabled birthplace was only fifty miles away, yet it seemed more unreal than ever, glimmering like a fata morgana, just beyond her reach.
“Don’t be blinded by sentiment,” he said. “Our fathers left this country for a reason. With each passing day, I better understand why they had to flee. Did you hear that in the church of Santo Stefano an old woman was reported to the Inquisition? She was a Jewish convert, as was her son, a prominent physician who donated half his money to the Church. And her crime? The senile old thing was gabbling to herself in church and they accused her of making a heretical mockery of the Mass. If they stoop to persecute some toothless crone, what might they do to us?”
Aemilia, already chilled from Jasper’s story, leapt at the sound of a knock on the door. With a nod to her cousin, she went to open it. A burst of relief spread through her at seeing Will. But he appeared as solemn as Jasper.
“Your servants tell me you and your cousin are sailing for England tomorrow.” Will sounded devastated, his eyes touching hers so that she caught her breath. “I’ve come to bid you both fond farewell.”
“My cousin sails tomorrow,” Aemilia told him, her heart banging, “but I shall continue onward to Bassano.”
Resolution weighted her every word. Unlike Jasper, she had neither good name nor royal patronage at stake, but she stood to lose all happiness and freedom by returning to the life she had left behind. Staying on in Veneto promised adventure at the very least. With every fiber of her being, she longed to complete her pilgrimage to Papa’s old home and meet her dying kinsman, come what may.
“You can’t go alone,” Jasper interjected, with an air of utter exasperation. “It’s neither decent nor safe. Please listen to reason for once. What if the Inquisition arrests you for cross-dressing?”
Smarting, Aemilia wondered how he could speak to her like that in front of Will. But then she lifted her gaze to Jasper’s. “Does that mean you would accompany me to Bassano if I agreed to wear a gown?”
Jasper only stared at her, as if not daring to even reply with Will in the room. As the silence between them deepened, Aemilia sensed that no words of hers could persuade Jasper to make the journey to the Casa dal Corno, just as no arguments of his could drag her back to England.
As she and Jasper stood in stalemate, Will stepped forward. “Master Bassano, if Aemilia wishes to continue her travels, I promise to escort her and guard her safety at every turn.”
His loyalty kindled a flame in her heart even as she chafed under the notion that she needed his protection. He smiled at her in a way that made her swallow and blink before he turned to Jasper and held out his hand until her cousin reluctantly shook it.
Sighing, Jasper reached inside his doublet and handed her a heavy sack of coins. “This should suffice for the remainder of your journey.”
Aemilia embraced her cousin and kissed his cheeks.
“YOU’RE NOT BOUND TO me, you know,” Aemilia told Will. “You’re free to go anywhere your heart desires.”
In a canalside tavern, they sat beside a roaring fire and drank dark wine with their rabbit stew. Laughter and singing reverberated inside the packed room. There were ostensibly no respectable women here, only men and a few courtesans. Yet, as Emilio, she lounged with her legs carelessly sprawled and drank the cheap good wine and none gave her any grief for it. Liberty, she told herself. This is what liberty is.
“Do you think I would abandon my friend?” Will asked her.
She’d never seen him so expansive, so utterly at his ease. The fire’s golden light played over his soft brown hair, his dark eyebrows, his cheekbones, the gentle curve of his lips.
“Besides,” he said, “you promised to show me the cities of Veneto. And what about our plays?”
Our plays. A warm flush spread through her body as she raised her glass to Will, her perfect collaborator—not just in writing, but the most faithful friend to have ever graced her life. In spite of herself, Aemilia felt a welling up of regret that they could never be more than friends—even supposing he desired her, she could never again allow herself to become entangled with a married man.
“To poetry!” she said, staring into the depths of his hazel eyes.
“To the Muse!” he said, with an answering spark in his own gaze.
Clinking her glass to his, she laughed, half delirious at the freedom and adventure awaiting them both. “After Bassano, we shall see Verona and Padua.”
She realized how relieved she was that Jasper had left. Nothing held her back from the journey before them.
17
UTUMN MIST CLOAKED THE Brenta River. Aemilia stood at the prow of the burchiello, a boat with a small cabin that was being towed upstream by a team of oxen. As ever, it proved she was traveling against the stream, in the opposite direction as everyone else. The patrician families that had summered in their riverside villas in the cool uplands now returned to Venice, their burchiellos flowing easily downstream, as did farmers’ barges heaped with grapes and cheeses, wine and olive oil, heading for the Venetian markets.
It seemed that only Aemilia and her companions were heading upriver. With every mile, the current grew unrulier, but she would not budge from the prow. Each painstaking mile took her closer to Papa’s lost home. His voice echoed in the chambers of her heart, telling her of the family villa, of its walled garden of peach and pomegranate trees. She remembered how, as a seven-year-old girl, she had solemnly vow
ed to Papa that she would become a great poet and earn enough gold to buy back his house. Closing her eyes, she stretched out her hand to grasp his ghostly one, but her fingers enclosed warm flesh.
With a cry, she opened her eyes to see Will carrying Enrico.
“Did I startle you just now?” he asked. “You were lost in reverie.”
She smiled. Back in England he had been the distracted one, lost in a dream, but here in Veneto they had switched places. Attentive and cheerful, he drew her back to earth.
“I wish the fog would clear so we could see the mountains,” he said. “In faith, I’ve longed to see the Alps from the moment I first learned of Hannibal crossing them on his elephant. Near Bassano, I hear, they brew the most potent aqua vitae.”
Aemilia’s thoughts again strayed to Papa. How much of her story did she dare tell her friend? It seemed she owed him some explanation, seeing that he had accompanied her this far.
“We shall be visiting a kinsman of my late father’s,” she said, her eyes on the vineyards and orchards, spectral in the mists. “Jacopo Bassano knows nothing of me. I shall introduce myself as Emilio and he shall be none the wiser.”
“You settle into your new role well,” said Will. “Emilio Bassano has become the most accomplished player I have ever seen.”
“You think I’m play-acting?”
“Are you not?” he asked her mildly. “Deceiving your own relations?”
She grew hot in the face, for up until now Will had not challenged her right to live as Emilio.
“All of us are players,” she told him. “Putting on one mask or another, pretending to be what we are not. In truth, I dissemble far less as Emilio. Poor Aemilia was forever having to lie and make excuses for herself.”
THE MIST CLEARED to reveal snow-crowned Monte Grappa towering in the stark blue sky. The Brenta ran wild, foaming pale green. As the burchiello swept round a bend, Aemilia caught her first glimpse of the walled town of Bassano with its ruined fortress and covered wooden bridge crossing the Brenta. Beyond here, the river was practically unnavigable.
“How different this is from Venice,” Will said, as they stepped ashore. “Are we even still in Italy? Look at that snowy peak. Listen to those cowbells. See those shepherdesses with their flocks on the verdant banks? This is rustic Arcadia.”
A lost idyll, Aemilia reflected. Papa had always spoken of it that way.
“Why did your father leave this enchanted place?” Will asked. “Was there a war? A famine?”
Aemilia glanced down, wondering what to say, when Winifred voiced her opinion. “Bless me, this place is even more foreign than Venice, but at least it doesn’t stink as much, mistress.”
Aemilia gave her maid a pointed look and cleared her throat.
Winifred sighed. “I mean Master Emilio, sir.” Each word sounded as if it had been dredged from her throat with a rusty meat hook.
THE TOWN WAS NOT large. Once they passed through the gates, Aemilia found her way to the Casa dal Corno in no time at all. The villa was even grander than she had imagined, its façade rising three stories. Autumn sunshine shone against the frescos her father had described with such tender remembrance. There were the stags and rams, the goats and apes, the musical instruments that had been the Bassano family’s trade. The dancing nymphs were rendered larger than life in exquisite detail, as though Aemilia could practically touch their naked flesh.
Drawing a deep breath, Aemilia rapped the brass knocker. The door opened to reveal a manservant who gazed at her quizzically before glancing at Will, the Weir sisters, and the squalling child. From his puzzlement, it appeared that the residents of the Casa dal Corno were not used to receiving strange visitors at this blustery time of year.
“Salve,” Aemilia said. Her mouth had gone so dry, it hurt to speak. “I am Emilio Bassano, son of Battista who was born in this house. I’ve sailed from England to visit your good master.”
She showed the servant Jacopo’s letter that Jasper had passed on to her before he departed for home. The paper was emblazoned with the Bassano coat of arms shared by both the Italian and English branches of the family—the silk moths and the mulberry tree.
A jolt seemed to pass through the servant. “The English signori are here!” he shouted, in a voice loud enough to reach every room in the house.
Aemilia exchanged glances with Will as the servant ushered them into the entry hall. A large crucifix on one wall faced a statue of the Madonna opposite.
“You do not arrive a day too soon!” The manservant clapped his hand on Aemilia’s shoulder. “My master grows ever frailer. We fear he won’t survive the winter. Oh, it is good that you have come. So good!”
Soon the entry hall was bursting with four generations of men and women, boys and girls, appearing from every corner. If the Casa dal Corno was large, it also appeared to house at least two dozen souls.
“Welcome, signori,” a soberly attired man in his fifties said. “I am Francesco, Jacopo’s eldest son. My father has been waiting for you so long. He will be overjoyed.”
The family resemblance was enough to take Aemilia’s breath away. With his bottomless dark eyes, Francesco closely resembled Papa.
Francesco turned to Will. “And you must be Jasper Bassano.”
“No, signore.” Will’s Italian was improving by the day. “I am no relation, but Emilio Bassano’s sworn friend.”
“My cousin Jasper regrets that he had to return to England on the Queen’s business,” Aemilia said, wishing with all her heart that Jasper had persevered to join her in this beautiful house where she was so warmly received. “But I have come with my son, Enrico.”
She gestured for Tabitha to step forward with the child in her arms. Soon her son was encircled by a swarm of women and girls who covered him in loud kisses, exclaiming how beautiful he was.
“Did you bring your wife?” Francesco asked.
Aemilia lowered her eyes. “I am a widower, signore.”
She had grown used to telling the same lie over and over until it became her new truth, each successive lie becoming easier.
“You must see him, see my father, as quickly as you can.” Francesco was already leading her up the white marble stairway.
“But he must be famished.” A plump woman, undoubtedly Francesco’s wife, blocked their path. “Surely you must let the young gentlemen wash and change clothes. I shall show our guests to their chamber. I hope the two English signori don’t mind sharing a room.”
Before Aemilia could say a word, the lady delivered her and Will to a chamber that looked out on the garden of Papa’s childhood. Aemilia glanced furtively at the bed she and Will would have to share. As if noting her consternation, the poet folded his arms in front of himself and appeared vastly amused. But Aemilia knew she couldn’t possibly protest this arrangement.
Meanwhile the signora shouted for servants to carry up water, soap, and towels, along with bread and wine, cheese, olives, and pears. Other servants escorted the Weir sisters to a room on the far end of the house. Winifred shook her head at Aemilia, as though to upbraid her mistress for the web of lies she had woven that had reduced her to sharing a bed with a married man.
Everything was unfolding very fast. By the time the lady and her servants withdrew, Will fell back on the bed and roiled in silent laughter.
Aemilia narrowed her eyes at him. “A pity I’m not a blond Earl.”
“Harry would find this capital sport! Shall I write a letter to him describing our new sleeping arrangement? Now just what did the courtesans say you and I got up to together?” He began making wild gesticulations.
“Basta!” she snapped. “Enough! Could you at least step out whilst I wash?”
“My good Emilio, you hiss like a snake!”
Still chuckling under his breath, Will headed for the door. But the room was so narrow, he had to squeeze past her. For a moment he stood as though rooted before her and stared at her in a way that left her slack jawed and mute. Even as his look burned her, it held h
er in its thrall. Wrenching her head, she pointed at the door. Quietly, he walked out. Trembling, she slid the bolt into place.
Plunging her hands into the basin, she splashed cold water against her face until her skin grew numb.
AEMILIA FOUND FRANCESCO AND his younger brother, Leandro, awaiting her in the corridor.
“Our father was troubled deep in his heart that your father and his brothers had to run away and seek refuge in a foreign land,” Francesco told her. “If he can speak to you of Battista, I think he can at least die in peace.”
Aemilia could think of nothing to say.
To reach Jacopo’s chamber, they had to pass through his atelier with its long windows of leaded glass facing the square. Paintings, many of monumental size, hung on the walls while easels bore canvases in various stages of completion.
“You, signori, are master artists like your father.” Aemilia studied a canvas with a scene etched in blue chalk, awaiting its first touch of paint.
“We would never claim to match our father’s genius,” Leandro said, with reverence. “Look at this, signore.”
Leandro directed her attention to a vast painting that drew her in as though the scene were unfolding before her—the figures were that lifelike. In a long pillared arcade that opened on to a view of Monte Grappa stood a lovely young woman in a gown of silver brocade. She resembled a wealthy Venetian donna, only her wrists were bound, her hair was uncovered, and her shoulders were hunched in shame. To her left, a fashionable young man with a falcon on his arm appeared to denounce her. Behind her gathered a throng of officious-looking men who glared at her in condemnation. But before her knelt Christ who traced Hebrew letters in the dust at her feet. The artist, Jacopo, clearly knew Hebrew.
Aemilia was familiar with the story from the Gospel of John, the tale of Christ saving the woman from being stoned as an adulteress. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
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