Mysterious Ways

by Julia Talbot

“I think we do.”

  “Good.” That seemed to be a natural ending point, and Jacob got up and left as abruptly as he'd come, leaving Vanni to stare at his retreating back.

  The next stop was back at his workroom. He needed to get his ducks in a row for the meeting the next day. He wanted to make sure it went better than the last. Cecilia would be on the defensive. He hoped having Marco there would help, as the man was usually so direct. He wanted to assure Cecilia that he had no harmful motives. He just needed the information she had if he was going to help her get Matteo Venetti pardoned.

  He worked for a few hours, making notes, writing a few timelines. He felt incredibly anal, but then, he was supposed to be. He was a scholar after all. He wondered how his work would be affected by his new realizations and ideas, but pushed that thought aside to worry about later, after he did what he set out to do. Jacob knew it wouldn't hurt to have a plan for that too, and that burying his head in the sand wouldn't do him any good, but he just couldn't think about it too much yet.

  As always, the paintings drew him. The portrait of Alicia glowed sullenly in the track lighting, and Jacob admired her, as always. The urgency was lessened, he realized, but he still thought her beautiful. He wondered if the voracious lust he'd always felt when he looked at it had just been another type of vision. Just like the dreams and the waking moments of displacement. And now that he didn't really fear that he was going crazy, Jacob simply wondered, why him? Not that he wasn't grateful. He was, but he did have to wonder.

  Once, early on in this whole game, Jacob had sunk himself into his work, and thought about how right it felt, how good it was. He felt that same sense of comfort now, as the day wore on and he worked steadily through his notes. It was okay to find comfort in routine. It was not right to hide behind it, and that was a crucial difference in his thinking now. Just as it wasn't right to hide behind the Church. And wasn't that what he'd done since he left high school?

  Most men waited to take vows. Sometimes they stayed in the orders for years before they decided. The priest that had counseled Jacob as a child had been in his order for some twenty years before actually becoming ordained. Jacob had done it the opposite way. He'd rushed through seminary, taken vows as quickly as they'd let him, taken pride in his achievement at being so young and accomplishing so much. Only then had Jacob pursued his other interests, the art restoration and the study of art history. Now he thought he had indeed been hiding, and he was ashamed of it.

  There was nothing to be ashamed of in taking comfort in faith. Jacob knew that. The little rituals of prayer and confession and attending Mass had always made his heart easier. He wouldn't give that up. But more and more he was realizing that he'd mistaken that comfort for a vocation, which wasn't fair to him or the people he served. Increasingly, Jacob believed that the sense of wrongness he'd felt upon walking into a church for the first time after going to stay at the palazzo had more meaning than just signaling how unnerved he had been then. Someone had been trying to tell him something.

  The day flew by, and his work ended once again with him jumping out of his chair at the sound of a hard knocking on the door. This time he was grinning when he opened the door, because he had a pretty good idea who was there, and he was right. Damien and Gianni dragged him out of the dungeon, as they called it, and pushed him upstairs to dress for dinner. Alessio would be leaving the next day, they told him, and he needed to be there to see him off tonight.

  It was fun. Even if Cecilia was far cooler to him than she had been before, and even with Vanni making obscene gestures to him when no one was looking. He simply turned on the charm with Cecilia; the colder she was, the nicer he was. Vanni he just flipped off and laughed when Vanni gave him a look of exaggerated surprise. As before, Alessio directed the conversation, and he kept it light and impersonal. They argued good-naturedly about politics and the Church, and Jacob was ashamed to admit that he was surprised when the twins broke in with astute observations of their own. He had come to see them as individuals, yes, but now he realized that he had put them into a single context and left them there. In other words, he thought, he needed to get his mind out of the gutter where they were concerned. They had brains as well as exceptionally nice bodies.

  Thinking about those bodies made his mind wander, and when he snapped out of it the family was leaving the dining room to go to the parlor. Jacob blushed, then shrugged it off. The twins each gave him a cheeky grin, like they knew what he was thinking, and he couldn't stay embarrassed in the face of them. He finally allowed himself to enjoy the family time after dinner instead of running off immediately or sitting and brooding about how he shouldn't be there. Instead of holding himself separate, he joined in, and that made all the difference. He talked history with Alessio until one of the twins challenged the other to a fencing match. Then he laughed his ass off with everyone else as the two danced around the room poking at each other with ballpoint pens.

  When he had first showed up there, Jacob had worried about getting used to luxury, and being sucked down into sin. Well, the sin seemed to be a foregone conclusion and he'd given into that without much of a protest. But now his worry was getting too used to being a part of things. Despite his new resolution to stop running away, or maybe because of it, Jacob knew there was a great likelihood that when he had to leave this place it would break him. And there he went with the second thoughts, just like he knew he would. The twins seemed to sense his shift in mood, though, and they refused to let him wallow. They made him say his goodnights and goodbyes and hustled him out of the room and into their room without him really knowing what was going on.

  Damien stripped him, and Gianni started the whirlpool bath and Jacob learned a few new things about luxury. And about buoyancy, as Damien draped him over the side of the tub and slid rough, slick fingers into him and pushed inside him. Gianni touched him, his lips and nipples and cock, driving him higher and higher as Damien gave him everything he could ask and more than he'd ever thought to want. The feel of them moving against him still astounded him, as did their words, loving and needy and hot. The rasp of their beard stubble marked him, the hot seed that Damien spilled inside him became a claim that he could not deny. When it was over they were all gasping and moaning, hands and lips moving clumsily in the wake of their passion.

  They dripped all over the floor on the way to bed, and when they fell asleep it was hard to tell who started and ended where.

  The next morning Jacob made sure everything was in order for his meeting with Cecilia and Marco, then spent the rest of the time leading up to it girding his mental loins and making notes so he could get all his thoughts in order. He knew what he wanted to say, and ask, but he was still nervous about doing so. He had an idea, or two or three, about the whys and hows of Cecilia's seemingly incomprehensible need to pardon Matteo Venetti, but he needed confirmation to send his plan forward.

  They met in the library. Cecilia put her back to the great Venetti on the wall, and made Jacob face it, so he was looking at Hell the entire time. Once it would have made him nervous. Now he just admired her tactics. Marco sat next to her, and they presented a untied front of cool civility. Jacob knew he had to start off on the right foot or he might as well hang it up from the start.

  “I want to apologize for my actions at our last meeting, Cecilia.” It was a good start. Her eyes widened a bit, even if the rest of her expression didn't change. “I was out of line. I was there to give you my progress report, not question your motives.”

  Looking less frosty and more open, Cecilia thanked him. “I appreciate the apology, Jacob.”

  “Don't thank me yet.” His tone was rueful. “I still want to know why you want Matteo Venetti pardoned.” Jacob held up a hand to forestall interruptions. “I know you think it's none of my business, but I can hardly help you do it if I don't know the details.”

  “You want to help.” It was Marco this time and he was flatly disbelieving.

  “Yes. It won't be easy. I figure he might have to g
o through at least a Bishop. Hopefully not the Pope. And of course you'll never get around the fact that he killed himself. But you can get the original excommunication overturned. I'm perfectly willing to help, being the Church's leading expert on Venetti, but I need to know everything.”

  The couple exchanged a long look, and Jacob had the feeling that all sorts of communication happened there, but he couldn't read them at all. He waited, hoping that they would give him some sort of indication. Instead they sat silently and waited for him to continue. He took a deep breath and started again.

  “Let's start with what I know. Matteo Venetti is commissioned to do a portrait of a lady named Alicia Miggliozzi. While he's working on that painting, the two of them become intimate. According to everything I've been able to find out, Alicia's husband was well past the age of satisfying her physically, and Matteo Venetti was young, attractive and available. An easy mark. Now, here's where my source information gets dodgy, and I start going on my gut feeling. Shall I go on?”

  Their wary expressions were almost identical. Maybe what they said about married couples beginning to look alike was true. Or maybe, he thought irreverently, with all the intermarrying their houses did their family tree didn't branch very far. Stifling a chuckle, Jacob forged ahead.

  “Right. Okay. So, they have an affair. I have to figure that it ended badly, because the Varza source material mentions a bad breakup, and because that's when Venetti's painting starts to get dark, like everything is filtered through a more experienced and jaundiced eye. Not only that, but that's when his simplistic style of glorifying religious subjects becomes more a disturbing look at martyrdom or the perils of sin. So ... I can only theorize that Venetti began to see the Church differently at this time. He was educated in the Church, you know?”

  This time there was more of a reaction, as Marco dipped his chin in agreement. Cecilia shifted in her chair, and said, “Go on.”

  “He was educated in the Church, raised by a strict and religious father. And by all accounts, that was okay by Venetti. He didn't resent it. He thrived on it. So when he had his affair with Alicia, it was not only a bad thing because she was married and they couldn't be open about it, it was a bad thing because it was a terrible sin. Also, the Miggliozzis and the Rossis were on shaky ground with the Church, so when Venetti started associating with them it blackened his name, too.” Jacob stopped for breath, and decided he needed some water. Getting up to get it, after offering to get them a drink too, helped him to regroup.

  Realizing that his last statement might be taken the wrong way, he apologized. “No offence to the family.”

  “None taken,” Marco said, and the slightest smile curved his lips.

  Encouraged, Jacob sat back down and started up again. “Now we spring forward to why you want to have him reinstated, Cecilia, and why I wanted Marco here, too. I hope you don't mind when I say it puzzled me. It still does to an extent, but I really was confused to begin with. I couldn't understand why the Rossis would want to bother with Matteo Venetti at all. Except to buy his paintings.”

  His emphasis on the Rossi name wasn't lost on either of them, he could tell. Something flickered in Cecilia's eyes, something that made him think she was impressed. Marco was more expressive, and his tiny smile widened into a much larger one. “So, tell us what conclusion you came to, Jacob,” Marco said.

  Tightening his hold on his water glass, Jacob did just that. “I decided that I was looking at it wrong. It wasn't the Rossis that were involved in this. It was the Miggliozzis. I made the mistake I imagine so many people do, in thinking that Cecilia's loyalties lay with her maiden name, not her married one. I mean, she even said once that you were not a Rossi. When I figured out that the Rossi involvement was strictly financial it made more sense. You told me yourself, Marco, that they only bought the paintings for you because you were broke once upon a time.”

  “Si. So I did.” Marco was looking more and more amused by this whole thing, which Jacob took as a good sign. He would find it amusing himself, probably, with the way it sounded like the summation of a bad novel, except that Cecilia wasn't smiling. Which might flub up his plan.

  “I decided then that Cecilia had to be doing it for you. For some reason, getting Venetti pardoned was important to the Miggliozzi family, not the Rossi one. When Alessio admitted that he knew what Cecilia was trying to do, but not why, I knew I was right.”

  “Well reasoned, Jacob.” Cecilia looked at him steadily. “But I still don't understand why you want to help.”

  “If I tell you that, do I get the rest of the story? Do I get to hear why this is so important to you? Because that's the one thing I'm not completely sure about.”

  Another long look passed between Marco and his wife, then Cecilia made one of those oh so Italian hand gestures. “That depends on whether we believe you or not. Convince us.”

  This was the hard part. Jacob hated the idea of laying himself bare this way. But he had a feeling he would have to in order to be convincing. He had to be honest. “It's hard to explain why I want to help. And it's probably going to sound crazy. I think that meeting up with all of you and coming to stay here has been as much of a life changing experience for me as it was back in Venice for Matteo Venetti. In a much more positive way, mind you, but just as important. The problem with Venetti was that he didn't listen to the message he was getting. I think I am. I could be wrong, but I think I'm supposed to be helping. Does that make any sense?”

  If it were nighttime there would be crickets chirping. The silence made him twitch. Marco finally took pity on him, and just came out an asked. “You think somehow or another you are supposed to be here to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” They all sat there for bit longer, then Marco seemed to come to a decision. He put a hand on Cecilia's leg and said, “I'm going to tell him.”

  She agreed, but reluctantly. Jacob was more relieved than he thought he would be, and about half of the starch went out of his spine. He slumped back in his chair and waited for Marco to begin. Cecilia moved abruptly, standing and walking around behind the chair she'd been in to face that Venetti painting on the wall.

  “First,” Marco began, “I want you to understand that the Venetti collection had always been just a peripheral interest on my wife's part. She liked his paintings, and found it amusing that we had collected so many over the years. It wasn't until the new Venetti was discovered in Venice that she took a personal interest in the man, or in having him reinstated into the church.”

  Mulling that over, Jacob looked at Cecilia's rigid back. He had a sudden image in his head of Alicia Miggliozzi, the lady of the portrait, standing with her back to him, arms clutched over her belly. She was crying, and off to one side was Matteo Venetti, white as a sheet, shouting at her. Jacob looked back at Marco with wide eyes, almost certain he knew what was coming.

  “When the painting was unearthed on church property, it was, of course, given to a church expert. Their “expert” had no experience with Venetti's paintings, and considered it to be a minor work of an apprentice of the Venetian academy. That's why you got it. It came as a great shock to them when you uncovered the signature, and realized it was an important piece. Do you remember what happened directly after that?”

  “The painting was taken away from me for several days, for evaluation,” Jacob answered. That had struck him as odd at the time, but not tremendously so. He had figured they wanted to code it and catalog it to the Church's collection. That was before he knew they were going to sell it.

  “That fits.” Marco's voice was calm, almost meditative. It was a stark contrast to Cecilia's stiff posture. “You see, during the time that the painting was out of your hands, Cecilia and I were called to the University to look at it. We were offered the chance to buy it for our collection. As you know, the Church never keeps Venetti's paintings.”

  No, they never did, did they? And it had to be more than just the fact that the artist was kicked out of the Church. It had to
be that they were scared of him, and also scared of this family, just like father Bertolli said. Jacob wondered if he would ever know exactly why.

  “We went to have a look at it, to see if we wanted it for the collection.” Marco paused again, throwing a guilty glance over his shoulder. This had to be hard for him, Jacob knew despite his outward calm, because it was upsetting Cecilia so. Jacob hoped that wouldn't stop him. “You can imagine our surprise, I think, when we saw the resemblance.”

  Yes, he could imagine, and he said as much. He kept quiet after that, but he could have said more. He could have mentioned that if it was that much of a shock to him, when he didn't know Cecilia at all, it must have been that much worse for them. And he didn't ask what he really wanted to, didn't ask if the recognition had gone deeper than the superficial, like his did. If he did that, they might just think he was crazy.

  Cecilia broke in suddenly, her voice as tight as the line of her spine. “It wasn't just the resemblance to me. I knew who she was right away. Various Miggliozzi family histories made mention of her, and I knew she had to be the Rossi that had married into the line.”

  “So you have some sort of family history as a primary source?” Jacob was amazed at how good these people were at hiding things from him. It was like peeling an onion to get down through all of the layers.

  Marco broke in. “A few. The only real mention of her is that she was a Rossi who married a man named Giorgio Miggliozzi. He was well up in years by the time they married, but she still managed to produce a son, which Giorgio had never had with his first two wives.”

  “So how did you come to the conclusion that Alicia and Venetti had an affair?”

  When she came to sit back down, Cecilia looked tired, but she was starting to relax, like the worst was over. Maybe it was. Once they began it was all downhill. “The same way you did. The timing was right, the opportunity was there, and the difference in Venetti's paintings was a marked one. And of course, we had one piece of information that you didn't.”