by Fiona Paul
“The Black Death announces
itself by the appearance of foul,
egg-sized swellings that erupt
on the bodies of its victims,
followed by spreading boils
and hideous discolorations of the skin.
So excruciating is the pain
that death, when it comes, is a mercy.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
twenty-two
Cass made it to the island’s tiny village in record time. She had to look for Falco at the taverna and then escape San Domenico before anyone realized she was missing. When she left the villa, she was reasonably certain everyone was asleep, but who knew when a servant might awaken and find Narissa snoozing in the library. Cass felt a little guilty. Narissa was in for a good scolding—and possibly worse—if Cass got caught. Especially if Cass got caught stealing a boat and going all the way to the Rialto by herself.
But she wouldn’t get caught.
She had spent the walk to town trying to convince herself that she was strong enough to row across the lagoon and then back again. It was doubtful, but she had to try.
The whole mystery was a tangled web, and Cass was hoping that the chapel tucked away in the back streets of the Rialto held the answers that she sought.
Cass ducked into Il Mar e la Spada. She quickly scanned the clusters of men hunched over the battered wooden tables. No Falco. She made her way up to the bar. The barkeep had a silver hoop in his left ear and a black star inked on each of his fingers.
“Help you?” he asked.
Cass tried not to stare at the ring in his ear. “I was wondering if I might leave a message here for Falco. Do you know him?”
He grunted. “Falco da Padova? Tommaso’s boy? I know him.”
Cass slipped the man the letter she had hurriedly written in the library, and pulled out a silver coin as well, sliding it toward the barkeep. “Is this enough?”
The man smiled a reply as he pocketed the coin and tucked the letter underneath the bar. Cass noticed he was missing several teeth. He turned away from her as a gray-haired man with a patch over one eye hollered for a refill.
“Good-bye, then,” she said, making her way back through the crowded taverna and out into the night.
The air felt thick. The moon above was an almost-invisible sliver of light. She was filled with fear and exhilaration, both emotions running through her like blades. The lantern swayed in her trembling fingers. Cass tightened her grip. Having it comforted her, not only because it provided light, but also because it would make a decent weapon, if needed. She remembered the lepers from the Rialto, how she had been ready to swing the lantern if they attacked her.
Behind the bakery, a small fishing vessel and a long wooden gondola bobbed in the brackish water. Cass was surprised to see the gondolier nestled in the bottom of his boat beneath a ratty gray blanket. Maybe she wouldn’t have to row herself all the way to the Rialto and back.
She bent down and tapped softly on the edge of the gondola. The boat bobbled back and forth in the water. “Scusa,” Cass said. The breeze whipped her braids around her face, tendrils of wild hair stinging her cheeks and eyes.
The gondolier muttered something in his sleep. He turned on his side, pulling the threadbare cover up over his head.
Cass leaned over, gripping the edge of the gondola with one hand to keep from tumbling into the murk. Tiny waves lapped against the dock, sending fine sprays of icy water in her direction. She reached out with one hand and nudged the gondolier gently.
Something silver cut through the inky darkness as the man sat up with a start. Cass fell back onto the dock, wincing as the rough wood bit into the flesh of her palm. Her eyes widened. The gondolier was clutching a dagger in his right hand. He looked at her with a mixture of surprise and confusion.
“Signorina! Caspita. You scared me halfway to the grave.”
“Mi dispiace.” Cass couldn’t pull her eyes away from the blade still clenched in the man’s fist. “Please. I—I require safe passage to the Rialto. Will you take me?”
The gondolier slipped the dagger into the pocket of his breeches and narrowed his eyes at her. “At this hour? What for?”
Cass thought quickly. “I need to return home,” she said. “My aunt will disown me if she discovers I snuck out of her palazzo.” She tried to look desperate. It didn’t take much effort on her part. “Please. I will pay you double. You won’t find as good an offer in the morning.”
The man smiled knowingly. “Let me guess. You were meeting somebody. Amore. Say no more.” He accepted Cass’s fare and assisted her into the gondola.
Cass settled as far back in the felze as possible, wrapping her arms around her middle to conserve heat. The gondolier handed her his woolly gray blanket. The fabric was scratchy against her skin, but Cass was grateful for the extra warmth.
As the boat bobbed and rolled across the vast lagoon, Cass tried once again to untangle the snarl of suspects and clues regarding the pair of grisly murders and Liviana’s missing body. But she kept coming back to Falco. Falco in the graveyard. Falco burning the mysterious threatening note. Falco, who knew of the brothel where Mariabella worked. Falco, who was friends with Angelo, and possibly Dubois as well. Falco, who had twice refused to go to the town guard with information about the murders. Cass wanted—no, needed—to believe he was innocent, but how could she ignore so much evidence?
Cass indicated that the gondolier should drop her by the Rialto Bridge.
“Which one is your palazzo?” he asked. “The streets are unsafe. I will take you directly to your dock.”
“It’s fine,” Cass said. “It’ll be quieter if I go around to the back on foot. I wouldn’t want any of the servants to awaken when you moor your boat.” The falsehood rolled off her tongue with almost no thought. Cass couldn’t believe how easy lying had become.
The gondolier shrugged and tied his boat beneath the Rialto Bridge. After alighting from the gondola, Cass slipped into the darkened alley between the large palazzos. The buildings were so close together that their overhanging roofs completely obscured the sky above her. She could have reached out and touched both exterior walls if she had wished. Instead, she moved slowly, her lantern clasped tightly in her right hand.
Despite the darkness and the tangled streets, Cass felt certain she’d have no trouble finding the chapel again. Her body seemed to be moving independently from her brain, as if a higher power were guiding her toward her destination. Sure enough, a few minutes later she emerged into the campo where the crumbling statue of San Giuda lay on its side, and the chapel and monastery sidled up against each other. The night was damp and chilly, the air layered with mist. Now what? She decided to explore the chapel first.
She headed around the side of the building, figuring it was safer to sneak in through one of the smaller entrances in case the chapel wasn’t as deserted as it looked. Just as she put her hand on the wooden door, Cass froze. Behind the chapel, beyond the wrought-iron gate, a small sphere of light winked on and off in the tiny graveyard, almost as if signaling to someone.
Ducking down, Cass made her way along the stone wall of the church, toward the gate and the graveyard waiting behind it.
The gate was propped open, as if a funeral party had recently brought in a body. But that was madness. No one interred bodies in the dead of night.
As Cass made her way beyond the iron fence, the temperature seemed to drop. Her skin prickled with goose bumps. She stole through the graveyard, holding her lantern close to her body for warmth. She tracked the sphere of light as it moved along the row of crypts. As she approached it, she saw a second, dimmer lantern, propped next to the first.
The pair of lights swirled and wavered in the pitch night. Cass felt herself being pulled forward, like a moth to a flame. Perhaps Falco was here, sketching, as he had been that night on San Domenico. Perhaps she had been magically drawn to him. Not magically, divinely. Perhaps God had brought the two of them together. Ju
st because Falco didn’t believe didn’t mean it wasn’t real.
Fate.
Cass was so certain Falco waited for her at the end of the row of crypts that she opened her mouth to call out to him.
And then a horrible scratching sound rent the air. The noise seemed to tunnel deep inside of her. The lantern slipped from her fingers and fell to the wet grass. The flame went out. Instinct gripped Cass, telling her to get as far away from the graveyard as possible. The scraping noise pierced the quiet night again. It sounded like the claws of demons forcing their way inside a crypt to feed on innocent souls.
Go back. Go back. Go back. Cass heard her own voice screaming in her head. But she couldn’t move. She was terrified, transfixed.
Then she heard other voices. Whispering. Muffled cursing.
Falco’s voice.
For a moment, the graveyard, the cold, the mist—all of it disappeared. Cass felt as if she were hovering outside of her body: she was walking forward, moving mechanically, without thinking. She could no longer feel anything. She didn’t even know that she was breathing.
And then she saw him.
The lanterns illuminated Falco’s face. His hair was hanging in his eyes, and his forehead was beaded with sweat. He was standing next to a tomb, dragging a heavy, white-wrapped shape across the ground, toward a wooden cart where Paolo and Etienne were waiting. Nicolas was watching, holding a metal hammer, muttering instructions Cass couldn’t make out.
Falco stopped, straightened up, and said something indecipherable. Paolo came forward to help him. Nicolas abandoned his hammer and scooped up one of the lanterns.
Suddenly, the cart and Falco’s wrapped bundle moved into the faint light.
An arm broke through a fold in the burial shrouds.
White, bloated, its fingers swollen in death. A human arm, connected to a corpse. Falco cradled the dead body against his chest as he wrestled it over to the cart.
A horrible wailing noise pierced the air.
It took Cass a minute to realize the sound was coming from her.
“Once a corpse is removed
from its grave it should be dissected without delay, its
various parts sliced thin for
examination by the anatomist.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
twenty-three
She clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late.
Falco dropped the body he was holding, whipping around to face her. His eyes went wild.
“Cass!” Her name echoed through the open space.
She reeled backward, terror drumming through her. She had fallen into hell, into a nightmare. She ran, sobbing, choking back more screams. Her foot landed in a soft patch of dirt and her ankle twisted. She stumbled but didn’t fall. As she passed through the open gate, she hitched up her dress with both hands and pushed herself to run faster than she ever had before. The wet grass tugged at her ankles. Cass could sense the boys behind her; she could feel them pursuing her.
Twice she tripped and went sprawling across the campo. The cracked marble cut into her hands. She climbed to her feet without looking back, not thinking of anything but home, and light, and safety, and the heavy locks on her doors, which she would bolt now and forever against the man—the madman—she had fallen in love with.
Racing through the dark alley, Cass cursed herself for lying to the gondolier. If she had been truthful—well, more truthful—he might have agreed to ferry her back to San Domenico. Instead, Cass raced along the side of the canal until she found the same fisherman who had taken her home the night she and Falco had discovered Sophia’s body in the canal.
Her footsteps had awakened the boy, and he sat up sleepily in his sandolo. A slow smile spread across his face as he recognized her.
“Go, go, go.” Cass hopped into the boat, emptying her purse in the boy’s direction. Silver coins spilled out onto the damp baseboards. Way too much for the fare, but Cass was not worried about the money.
The boy laughed, not understanding the urgency, but he freed his little fishing skiff with a sharp tug on the rope. Grabbing the oar, he turned the boat out into the center of the canal. Cass looked back as they pulled away from the bridge. Falco stood at the water’s edge, watching her leave. His hair snapped and twisted in the wind; the faint moonlight distorted his features so that he looked more monstrous than human.
Or maybe he had always looked like that, and Cass had been too blind to see it.
She turned her back on him, sliding down in the boat. She wished she could die, that the bottom of the sandolo would just split open and let the frigid water of the lagoon suck her down to its muddy depths.
Cass barely registered the ride back to San Domenico. When the sandolo pulled close to Agnese’s dock, Cass hurled herself over the edge, not even waiting for the boy to anchor the boat. She no longer cared about the cold or water or being caught. She just wanted to get inside and begin forgetting everything she had seen.
Shivering, she slipped through the back door and into the darkened kitchen. The house was quiet. No one else had woken.
Cass made her way upstairs to her room. She pulled her shutters closed with a bang, triple checking the latch to make sure it was secure. Then she went from candle to candle, lighting them all, as though she could burn away the horrible images in her head. She had had enough of the dark.
She writhed inside her torn and soggy dress, yanking at laces and buttons until the garment fell from her body to the floor of her bedroom. Cass stared at the shredded fabric. Destroyed. Like her life. Like everything. She sank into bed, pulling the covers up to her neck. She couldn’t stop shaking. Cass fought the urge to vomit. She had fallen in love with a monster. He could have killed her.
She glanced up at the portrait of the Virgin Mary. The woman looked back from her frame without judgment, but also without answers. Tears came, hot and fast. Cass curled onto her side, pressing her chin to her knees. She began to sob. Her insides felt like they were being crushed from all directions. Bones breaking. Her heart, squeezed to dust.
“The Church decrees that bodies
buried in unconsecrated ground
have no hope of ascending to Heaven.
But Heaven is a myth.
Hope lies in the dead themselves.
It is through the study of their
bodies that we may gain
the key to immortality.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
twenty-four
In the morning, thin beams of light filtered through cracks in the shutters. The candles had long ago burned to useless nubs.
As Cass sat up slowly, memories of the previous night assaulted her, one after the next. Horrible scratching sounds. Bodies sprawled on a cart, like disfigured lovers. Falco embracing a corpse. Had it all been a dream? It must have been.
Of course. A bad dream. A terrible, terrible nightmare.
Cass gasped as Slipper bounded up on the bed. “You scared me halfway to the grave,” she told the cat. The words niggled at the edge of her consciousness. Had she heard them in her dream?
Slipper mewed softly and Cass reached out to pet his gray and white head. Her hand stung. She pulled it away from the cat. For several seconds she couldn’t bring herself to look at it. She listened to her heart slam-bang in her chest. She remembered tumbling to the hard ground of the campo, falling forward onto her palms, sharp edges of stone cutting into her flesh. Please please please. Cass willed her skin to be intact. Please let it all have been a dream.
Slowly, Cass lifted her hand to her face. Her palm was marred by several long red scratches. Bile rose to the back of her throat. Blanks in her memory filled themselves in rapidly. Cass tricking Narissa. The note for Falco. The trip home with the fisherman. It was real. All of it. Falco embracing a corpse…
Cass fought back tears. Were the artists witches? Satanists? Were they involved with whatever Angelo de Gradi was doing in the old Castello building? Bodies. Body parts. Cass shuddered.
Were they simply stealing the dead, or could Falco and his friends be murderers too?
She glanced around the darkened room. The shadowy outlines of her armoire and dressing table reminded her of sentries standing guard. They were solid, sturdy. The whole house was sturdy. Yesterday the villa had been her prison. Today it was her fortress. Surely, she would be safe as long as she remained hidden inside. She had asked Falco to meet her in the garden that very evening. That was one engagement she wouldn’t be keeping.
She spent most of the day tucked away in the library, leaving just long enough to pick at her dinner while Agnese watched, frowning. Cass had been finishing up Dante Alghieri’s La Divinia Commedia, but the scribe’s loopy handwriting was giving her a headache. Some of the wealthier nobles turned their noses up at printed books, but Cass thought the invention of the printing press was nothing short of magic. She tossed the hand-copied book down and wandered over to the shelf where her aunt kept her newest printed volumes. She scanned the spines, hoping for a new collection of de Montaigne essays, but she didn’t find one. Absentmindedly, she selected a book with a dyed-green leather binding. She snuggled down in the chair by the fireplace with Slipper on her lap.
The book was by a little-known English playwright named Shakespeare, and the story was about a pair of young lovers kept apart by a family feud. Cass knew love was probably the last thing she should be reading about right now, but she liked the way Shakespeare wrote, with vivid language and long flowing lines. It was more like poetry than story. Cass flipped the pages rapidly, eager to find out what happened to the star-crossed pair. But the book ended only part of the way through the story. She’d have to search the shelf and see if her aunt had purchased the next volume.
Slipper opened his eyes and yawned at Cass as she set the green book on the table next to her chair. “You’ll never disappoint me, will you?” Cass murmured, nuzzling her nose against the white spot on Slipper’s forehead.