Shuddering, she crept down, flattening her back against the marble baluster, towards the dark red pools which now gleamed with an oily sheen as they congealed.
She gathered her dress up in trembling hands to keep it from contact with the blood, but could do nothing to save her shoes.
As she went down, she could not drag her eyes away from Matteo's body. They were drawn by the fascination of horror which afflicts imaginative minds, when they have not fainted outright.
So it was that she became aware of the nature of a curious heap of metal lying on the dead man's chest: it was made up of chains, a prisoner's chains and shackles. They were old and fairly rusty but they were unlocked and evidently placed there deliberately.
However, Marianne wasted no time on this latest mystery. A rush of panic swept over her and as soon as her feet touched the ground she began to run down the hall, too much in the grip of fear to care how much noise she made. She plunged through the double doors which stood half-open, without a thought for the murderer who might be lurking outside, and found herself in the entrance hall.
As it happened, it was empty. The two ship's lanterns she remembered were alight and the garden door was also open.
Not checking in her stride, Marianne sped towards it and went down the steps leading to the shadowy garden at breakneck speed in her haste to reach the door to the canal. That, too, stood open, giving a glimpse of the sheen on dark water.
Freedom! Freedom was there, within reach…
She was swerving to avoid the vague shape of the wellhead which loomed clearer as her eyes became accustomed to the dark, when she stumbled and fell headlong over something warm and soft. This time she almost screamed aloud, for the thing which had tripped her was a human form. Her hands encountered damp, silken cloth, and by the exotic scent, mingled with the sweet, sickening smell of blood, Marianne knew that it was Ishtar. So, that death cry had been hers. The mysterious killer had not spared her, any more than her sisters.
Choking back a hysterical sob, she was about to rise when suddenly she felt the body move under her and heard a feeble groan. The dying woman muttered something Marianne could not understand and, instinctively, she bent closer to hear, lifting the head a little as she did so.
In the dimness, she was aware of the black woman's hands moving, groping like a blind person's at the supporting arms, but she felt no fear. The woman was dying: nothing now remained of her phenomenal strength. Then, suddenly, she heard words:
'The… the Master!… Forgive… oh, forgive…'
The head fell back. Ishtar was dead. Marianne laid her down on the ground and got up quickly, but stopped dead as she turned towards the door.
Framed in the opening, two figures had appeared on the small landing. There was no mistaking their military outline and they were followed by others, less clear.
'But, officer, I heard screams, I assure you, frightful screams,' came a woman's voice. 'And now this door open – and that other, up there, at the head of the stairs. It's not right. I always thought there was something funny going on here. If people had only listened to me…'
'Quiet everybody!' A rough voice broke in authoritatively. 'We'll search the house from top to bottom. If there's been a mistake made, then we'll apologize, of course. But it'll go hard with you, my good woman, if you've brought us on a wild-goose chase!'
'I'm quite sure I haven't, officer. You'll thank me, I daresay. I've always said that house was a wicked place.'
'Well, we'll soon see. Bring up some light, there!'
Slowly, holding her breath, Marianne backed away, half-crouching, into the shelter of the dark walled garden which lay beyond a stone arch. It seemed to run parallel with the canal. Her instinct told her that it would not do for her to be seen by the soldiers or by any of these people who, however well-intentioned, were a great deal too inquisitive. She could guess only too well what would happen if she were found, the only one alive in a house full of corpses. How could she expect them to believe her terrible but, on the face of it, improbable tale? At best they would take her for a madwoman and probably lock her up again, and in any case she would be detained by the police and questioned endlessly. Previous experience at Selton Hall, after her duel with Francis Cranmere, had taught her how easily the truth can be distorted. Her dress, her shoes, her hands were all stained with blood. She might very easily be accused of fourfold murder, and then what would become of her rendezvous with Jason?
She was conscious of faint surprise at the readiness with which her lover's name came to her mind, with no touch of fear or foreboding. It was the first time, since awakening from her long-drawn nightmare, that she had thought of the prearranged meeting in Venice. After her rape by Damiani she had experienced a dreadful sense of something irrevocable having occurred, and such a revulsion from her own body that death had seemed to her the only proper end. But now that she had her freedom so unexpectedly restored to her, her own spirit reawakened and with it her passionate love of life and the accompanying instinct to fight.
She remembered now that somewhere in the world there was a ship and a sailor on whom all her hopes were concentrated, and that she wanted to see them again, the ship and the sailor, whatever else might come of it. Unfortunately, in this house of madness, the combination of drugs and despair had made her lose all count of time. The time for their meeting might have come or gone, or it might be still some days ahead: Marianne had no means of knowing. The first step towards finding out was to get out, but that was easier said than done.
Not knowing what to do next, Marianne huddled in the midst of a large flowering shrub and tried to think of a way out of the garden which, for all its scents of orange blossom and honeysuckle, was still a trap. The walls were high and smooth and in a little while the trap would surely be sprung.
Back towards the house, lanterns had been brought and flitted about in the darkness. What looked like a crowd of people poured into the courtyard, led by the two soldiers. From her hiding place, Marianne saw them bend over the body of Ishtar, lying near the well, uttering exclamations of horror. Then one of the soldiers went up the steps and disappeared into the house, followed by a train of interested spectators, only too glad of the chance to see inside the grand house and, maybe, pop something into their pockets on the sly.
It dawned on Marianne then that if she did not want to be discovered, she had very little time left. She crept out of her precarious shelter and stepped out into the garden, searching the wall for some other door, if any existed. It was as dark as the pit. The trees met in a thick roof overhead, making the night blacker than ever underneath.
Holding her hands stretched out in front of her, like a blind woman, she at last encountered warm brick and began following the wall with the intention of making a circuit of the garden. Then, if she did not find a way out, she would climb up into a tree and wait, though goodness knew how long, until the way was clear.
She traversed some thirty yards in this way before the wall turned a corner. A few more steps and the wall ended abruptly, giving way to emptiness and curved ironwork. By this time, her eyes were growing much more accustomed to the darkness and she was able to make out that she was looking at a small opening barred with scrollwork in wrought iron, which made a lighter patch in the surrounding black.
On the other side, contrary to what she had feared, was no canal but an alleyway lit faintly by a distant lantern. Here at last was her way of escape.
As ill-luck would have it, Marianne found herself no better off. The bars were strong and the gate fastened with a padlock and chain. It refused to open. Yet the breath of free air in her lungs was enough for Marianne. She would not despair. Besides, the noises from the house seemed to be coming nearer.
Stepping back a pace, she measured the height of the surrounding wall with her eye. What she saw satisfied her. The gate might not open but it looked a comparatively simple matter to climb: the ironwork offered plenty of footholds, not too far apart, while the piece of wall directly
above was not more than eighteen inches high and the brickwork sufficiently ancient to provide a good grip. She thought she could get over it without difficulty.
The sounds were getting more distinct. Voices and footsteps. A light flashed under the trees at the entrance to the garden. However, climbing was out of the question encumbered by a long, thick skirt.
In spite of her haste and her alarm, she made herself take time to take it off and stuff it through the gate into the alley. Then, dressed only in her chemise and cotton drawers, she turned her attention to the climb.
It was, as she had foreseen, a fairly simple matter. This was just as well because her muscles, weakened by her long incarceration and inactivity, had lost much of their old elastic strength.
By the time Marianne reached the top of the wall, she was sweating and gasping for breath. Her head was swimming and she felt so dizzy that she was obliged to sit on the ridge for a moment to recover from the pounding in her chest. She could never have believed that she was so weak. Her whole body was trembling and she had the alarming feeling that her sinews might give way at any moment. Yet there was no choice but to go down.
Marianne shut her eyes and, holding tight to the top of the wall, swung her legs over and groped for a foothold. She managed to move one foot, then the other, one hand, then the other, but as she tried to take the next step downwards her muscles gave way suddenly, she felt the bricks burn her clutching hands and then she fell.
Luckily it was not very far and she landed on the clothes she had pushed through the gate. The thick velvet-trimmed fabric broke her fall, so that she was able to get up at once, rubbing her bruised seat, and cast a swift glance up and down. As she had guessed, she was in a narrow passage, and at either end was a small hump-backed bridge. On one side, the left, there was a faint glimmer of light. In both directions the alley was completely deserted.
Marianne slipped her dress on again hurriedly, taking care to keep in the shelter of the wall, and then hesitated for a moment. As she did so, there came a distant roll of thunder and a gust of wind blew down the passage, lifting her unbound hair. The effect on her was electric. She flung both arms wide, as though to grasp the wind, and took a deep intoxicating breath. The breeze held more dust than it did sea air, but she was free! Free at last! Even if it was at the cost of four killings by a mysterious unknown hand, she was still free, and the dead who lay in the ancient splendours of their stolen palace were not worth a thought. To the newly-escaped prisoner it seemed a veritable judgement of God.
She paused for a moment, undecided which way to go, then, feeling suddenly lighthearted, she turned to the left and made her way towards the gleam of yellow light.
At the same instant, big, heavy drops of rain began to fall, making little coin-sized craters in the dust. The storm was reaching Venice.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Sail on the Giudecca
Before Marianne had crossed the little bridge, she was caught in a torrential downpour. She saw people running for the doorway of the Soranzo palace and a cluster of gondolas nosing up to a small landing stage. Then, in a few seconds, everything was blotted out. Venice was drowned in a world of water, only pierced now and then by streaks of white lightning which brought the street into sudden sharp focus. The light for which Marianne had been making, probably an oil lamp burning before some holy statue, had vanished.
Drenched to the skin in no time, Marianne dashed on, without slackening her pace. The joy of being able to run, to forge straight ahead without thought for where her path might lead! So she simply put down her head and bowed her shoulders against the downpour.
For the storm which burst over the city was a good storm and the rain did her good, washing her more thoroughly than Damiani's slaves with their complicated ritual. It was as if the heavens had decided to send down a flood and wash away all trace of the blood and hate and shame, and Marianne revelled in the stinging rain with a blessed sense of release. She longed to scrub each fibre of her being clean of all memory of what had passed.
However, she could not go running about Venice all night long until she dropped with exhaustion. She had to find somewhere to go, and quickly, because, apart from the possibility of being picked up by the police, it was not unlikely that by daylight her strange appearance, and her sodden clothes and hair, would begin to attract attention.
It seemed to her that her best course was to look for a church where she could ask for help and succour, and also find out what the date was.
That was the one place where she could feel safe. The ancient right of sanctuary which had so often stood between the criminal and the law might also extend its inviolable shield to guard a woman, whose only crime was her desperate longing for happiness, from an authority which, she knew in her bones, would be both inquisitive and interfering. As a last resort, she could claim her kinship with the Cardinal San Lorenzo and hope that someone would believe her.
She ran on, between rows of greengrocers' stalls, closed at this hour, towards another bridge, and another alley. Blinded by the rain which streamed into her eyes, stumbling over leeks and cabbage stalks lying in the gutter, she nearly measured her length a dozen times in the mud.
It was pouring harder than ever by the time she came to a largish canal and, following it, crossed over another bridge to emerge breathless into an open square. In the glare of a flash of lightning, the graceful russet-coloured façade of a Gothic church loomed up out of the deluge on her right. But only for a moment. Then the pall of rain and darkness fell thicker than ever and the thunder cracked and rolled directly overhead.
Marianne veered and aimed herself by guesswork at the church glimpsed momentarily through the driving rain, only to be brought up short as she crashed painfully into a projecting corner of stonework. Her gasp of anguish changed to a startled scream as another lightning flash illumined the obstacle she was striving to circumvent. It was nothing but a statue, some equestrian warrior of the fourteenth century, but it reared over her with such vivid realism that it seemed to be plunging out of the very heavens, and, through the sculptor's skill, there was such brutal strength and power in the figure of the greenish-bronze horseman, and in the expression of the face and the jutting jaw outlined below the helmet's brim, that Marianne recoiled in spite of herself, as though the gigantic charger was about to trample her underfoot. On such a night of violence, nothing strange or supernatural seemed out of place, and the bronze condottiere surging unbidden out of the storm bore too much resemblance to the evil genius which dogged her. He reared up before her, crushing her with his pride and menace, as though daring her to try and pass him by…
Dragging herself away, she turned towards the church, which showed up again for a brief instant, and made a dash for the shelter of the porch. The door refused to open but she pressed herself against it in an effort to get out of the wet. Unhappily the porch was not deep and the rain beat down on her.
It had turned a lot colder since the rain, and Marianne was shivering now, with the water streaming in fountains from every stitch of clothing. She tried again and again to open the door, but without success.
'They always shut the church at night,' a quavering little voice spoke close beside her. 'But you can come over here if you like. It's not so wet and we can wait till the rain stops.'
'Who's that? I can't see.'
'Me. Over here. Stay where you are an' I'll come to you.'
There was a sound of splashing and then a small hand was slipped into Marianne's. So far as she could tell from his size, it belonged to an urchin of about ten years old.
'Come on,' he commanded her, towing her after him without further ceremony. 'There's more room in the porch of the Scuola and the rain's not coming that way. Your dress and your hair are sopping wet.'
'How do you know? I can hardly see you.'
'I can see in the dark. I'm like a cat, Annarella says.'
'Who is Annarella?'
'My big sister. She's like a spider. She makes lace. The finest l
ace in all Venice!'
Marianne laughed. 'Well, if you're hoping for a customer, you're wrong, my lad! I haven't a bean. But you sound like an odd family, I must say! The cat and the spider. It's like a fairy story.'
With the child leading, they ran together to the entrance of another building a few seconds' away, to the right of the church. A brief flash revealed an elegant Renaissance front with curved pediments, on one of which was the lion of St Mark. As the boy had said, the broad pillared portal guarded by a pair of couching beasts was very much more comfortable than the church porch.
Marianne had room to shake out her dress and wring the water out of her streaming hair. In any case, the rain was beginning to ease off. The child had not spoken again but for the sake of hearing his voice, which was pure and clear as crystal, she started to question him.
'Surely it's very late? What are you doing out at this hour? You ought to be in bed.'
'I had something to do for a friend,' the boy said vaguely, 'and I got caught in the rain, like you… Where have you come from?'
'I don't know,' Marianne answered with a pang. 'I was locked up in a house and I escaped. I was trying to get into the church for shelter.'
There was silence. She could feel the child looking at her. He was probably thinking she was a lunatic and had escaped from some institution. She must look like it. But he only said, in the same matter-of-fact tone:
'The sacristan always locks San Zanipolo. In case of thieves. On account of the treasure. Lots of our doges are buried there – and he's there to keep guard over them,' he added, pointing to the bronze horseman who, seen from the side, seemed to be riding ahead of the church.
Lowering his voice suddenly, the boy whispered: 'Was it your lover who locked you up – or the police?'
Something told Marianne that her young friend would be more impressed by the latter. In any case, she could scarcely tell him the truth.
'The police! If they catch me, it's all up with me! Tell me, now – by the way, what's your name?'
[Marianne 4] - Marianne and the Rebels Page 11