A Trial in Venice

by Roberta Rich

  “Do not raise your voice to me. I have done nothing with him. Cesca and I had a disagreement. She has disappeared with Matteo to punish me.”

  “To where? You must have some idea.”

  “I do not.”

  She was about to accuse him of lying, but the look on his face made her believe him. Despite his fury, Foscari appeared old and defeated. In the dim light of the cottage, his back was less erect, his forehead more deeply etched, his jowls more crepey. A sudden weariness swept over her. She could not do anything until morning. It was time for both of them to sleep. They walked back to the villa, Foscari dragging his gouty foot, Hannah drooping with fatigue.

  Hannah climbed the attic stairs to the servant’s quarters, where Foscari had given her a room. Her alcove contained only a bed with threadbare linens left behind by some long-forgotten cook or scullery maid.

  Either from exhaustion or despair, Hannah felt overwhelmed at making the simplest decisions: whether to lie on her side or her back; to pull the covers around her chest or to leave them at her waist; to use the waste bucket now or wait until morning. She lay on the thin mattress, wearing only a shift, her nun’s habit folded under her head as a pillow. She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked from side to side, wondering if she would ever again hold Matteo, wishing she had a warmer blanket against the cold night. From the willow tree outside came the cry of a bird—loud and monotonous. If only it would not repeat the same cry over and over. Hannah closed her eyes and tried to sleep. The sound ceased. There was a rush of wings then the squeal of a small animal. Then silence. She imagined an owl, its sharp beak piercing the soft grey breast of a mouse and ripping off the meat. She rolled over to her side, filling the alcove with the creak and rustle of her straw mattress.

  As she often did just before falling asleep, Hannah thought of home. Jessica would be talking by now, and perhaps weaned. Isaac was a tender father. He would be showing Jessica how to form her letters with a piece of chalk on a blackboard, letting her play in the silk workshop, giving her a shuttlecock or a silk cocoon to hold in her fat little hand. Or maybe, as Hannah wished with all her heart, he had boarded a ship and was on his way to Venice. Was it possible to send thoughts through the air? If so, then she would say to Isaac: come to Venice, my darling. Let us make everything right between us again. When I quarrel with you, it is as if I am quarrelling with myself. We are two halves of the same person, complete only when we are together.

  Finally, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed of the Marquis Foscari. He was bathing in a large copper tub set in the middle of the drawing room. When she entered the room, Cesca and Foscari turned to stare at her. Cesca was washing him, a towel draped over her shoulder. She was soaping Foscari’s back, not with a sponge but with the still-beating heart of a lamb. His silver nose gleamed from the rays of the sun coming through the high window. The reflection blinded Hannah. Cesca and Foscari beckoned her to come closer. When she approached and peered into the tub, Foscari was bathing in human blood.

  Hannah forced herself to wake up. Having such nightmares could result in a baby born with extra fingers or toes, or perhaps no ears.

  Something touched her cheek. Hannah tried to brush it away, but it wrapped around her neck and shoulders, like the arms of a little monkey. The more she thrashed, the more it clung to her. Half asleep, half awake, Hannah sat up, to find a slender form pressed along the length of her, a leg thrown over her hip. Thin arms clasped her; a small hand patted her cheek.

  “Don’t cry,” a child whispered in a voice that was not Matteo’s.

  “What are you doing here, Lucca?” Hannah whispered back, although they were far from anyone who might overhear them.

  He sat up in her bed, silhouetted against the silver moonlight from the window. The back of his head was as flat as a pine board, giving him a neglected appearance, suggesting his mother had not troubled herself to turn him in his cradle but had left him to stare hour after hour at the ceiling. Hannah reached for him and coaxed him to lie down.

  “I heard crying, so I followed the sound until I found you.” He tossed the covers over both of them and then pressed against her again. “I cry at night sometimes, but when I lie on my back, my tears fall into my ears. If I must cry, I lie on my side.”

  “How old are you, Lucca?”

  “I’m not sure. Six?”

  “You are wise beyond your years.”

  “My grandmother used to say that, too.”

  Was this the grandmother who had sold him to Foscari for a handful of scudi? Hadn’t she worried Foscari might use the child for unnatural purposes? Or had she been too hungry and desperate to care? Was compassion a luxury only the well-fed could afford? “I was crying because I miss my son, Matteo. I have not seen him for many months.”

  Lucca snuggled closer. He did not feel the least like Matteo, who had been plump with baby fat the last time she had seen him. Hannah tucked Lucca’s head to her bosom and he lay in her arms. Matteo would not have submitted to such an embrace for more than an instant. This boy lay too still, trying to prove himself worthy of affection.

  The night had turned colder still. The shutters had blown open, letting in unhealthy night air. “Are you warm enough?” Hannah asked.

  She felt him nod against her shoulder.

  “Are you Matteo’s true mother?” Without waiting for a reply, he said, “Cesca is not my true mother. Matteo likes Cesca. Sometimes he calls her ‘Ama Cesca,’ and combs her hair in the back where she can’t reach and helps her plait it.”

  Was it Hannah’s curse to always be resentful of Cesca? Surely it was better for Matteo to feel fondness, even love for Cesca, than to be lonely and unhappy.

  “Other times he kicks her and calls her names.”

  “Yes, I am Matteo’s true mother. If only I could find him.”

  “Matteo and I never shared a bed. Cesca wouldn’t let me.” A note of indignation crept into his voice. “She said I might talk in my sleep and keep him awake, but I wouldn’t have.”

  There was a worried, too-adult tone to his voice that saddened Hannah.

  “I slept on the floor next to his bed. On cold nights I could see his breath in the air. I told him stories. I tied a string around my wrist and the other end around his wrist. When he was too tired to listen anymore, he would tug three times and I would be silent so he could sleep.”

  “What a good friend you are.” She longed to ask him a thousand questions, but it was better if Lucca told her in his own way.

  “Yes, I am, thank you. People are fond of you if you are kind.”

  An old man’s head on a young boy’s shoulders. Hannah stroked his hair, hoping Lucca was like one of those tough little weeds that flourish in spite of no mother beaming approval down upon them and no father ready with a patient word of encouragement. I would like to help you, tesoro, but I do not see how. “What kind of stories did you tell him?”

  “About riding ponies together. He has a white one, but Apollo is too old to carry us both. Matteo told me he needed a young pony so he could search for you. He said we could search for my mama, too, except she’s dead. I made up stories about trotting through forests and foraging rivers to find you, fighting bandits and dragons along the way. Then getting on a big boat, a galley. Do you know what a galley is?” he asked.

  “Years ago my husband nearly died on such a vessel alongside thirty other slaves.”

  “Was it a Turkish galley or a Venetian?”

  “Venetian.”

  “Made of oak? Lateen sails?”

  “I do not know.”

  “A galeotto or a galera grossa di mercato?” Lucca squirmed out of her arms to sit up.

  “Do not excite yourself.” Hannah patted his back, settling his head back on her breast, but he struggled free again and looked up, trying to read her face in the moonlight.

  “I could sail such a vessel. I am very strong. Cesca told me living in the country would make me grow taller. She feeds me eggs, and since the cow was
freshened, I have mugs of milk. Sometimes at night my leg bones hurt from growing. When I lived with my grandmother, I mostly ate gruel.” Lucca yawned.

  Please, Lucca, do not go to sleep just yet. I know you have more to tell me. “When did you last see Matteo?”

  Ignoring her question, Lucca pointed upward. “Can you see all the windows in this attic?”

  The light was faint, but Hannah noticed for the first time the small square windows encircling the room, just below the line of the roof.

  “Don’t they look like the arrow slits in a fortress? You can see forever. Well, maybe not forever, but at least the distance of a day’s ride on horseback. We pretended the attic was our fortress and we could spy enemy troops advancing. Matteo mostly played the king, but sometimes I did. We ran from window to window with our muskets. Not real muskets. Long sticks.”

  “What a good imagination you have.”

  “Yes, but it was no use thinking up games, because Matteo started wetting his bed, so Cesca got mad and sent him to live in a tenant’s cottage.”

  “My poor Matteo.”

  “I am careful not to wet the bed.” He rubbed his eyes. “I never had a friend before Matteo. I am small for my age, so when I was living on the streets, the other boys beat me and stole my food.”

  Please do not fall asleep just yet. “Do you know where Matteo is?”

  “This morning I was in the attic looking out the window to see if I could spy Matteo. I watched Cesca—I call her ‘Ama,’ like Matteo does, even though she is not my mama—put Matteo into a boat. She sent him off with two men.”

  Cesca must have guessed Hannah was arriving today, fetched Matteo and hustled him off. “Do you know where the men were taking him?” Hannah tried to keep the anxiousness out of her voice.

  “I shouted to Matteo from the attic, but he didn’t look up. I guess he was too far away to hear me.”

  Lucca paused and frowned. Hannah could see his eyes rolling upward as he re-imagined the scene.

  “Matteo was going to Venice. It’s where that boat—the blue one with the bow that curves up like a Turk’s slipper—always goes. Not a burchiello. It was the old one with the oak mast and a rope lashed to a canal pony.”

  “Venice?” What was Cesca thinking? Would she keep Matteo hidden until the trial?

  Lucca stretched. “May I sleep with you? I am so tired.”

  “Cesca did not go with him?”

  “Boat trips make her throw up.”

  “Lucca, can you tell me anything else?”

  “Matteo was going to the same place I once stayed.” Wretchedness crept into his voice. “My nona sent me there last winter when we had nothing to eat, nor any firewood. There were lots of children. Some of them were cruel. One boy hit me and tied me to a tree. The nuns were not nice, either, except one named Sister Magdalena, who gave me a wooden sailboat to play with.”

  “How do you know Matteo went there?”

  “Because I heard Cesca telling him it was a wonderful place and that I enjoyed living there. But she was mistaken. It is a cold place with nasty food. It has statues of ogres on the roof staring down as though to eat you.”

  “Do you remember where it was?”

  “From the dormitory where I slept with the other boys, I could smell the pine pitch the boat builders use to caulk the galley hulls. The flames of their fires rose so high in the sky they touched the stars. Whenever the old abbess preached about hell, I thought of the Arsenale fires, stinking of pitch. Did you know those boat builders are so skilled they can build a new galley every day?”

  The shipyards of the Arsenale were in the poor sestiere of Castello in the southeast part of the city, as far from the Jewish ghetto as it was possible to be. It was a district Hannah had not the slightest familiarity with. Castello contained a half-dozen orphanages overflowing with foundlings and waifs.

  “I want to be a ship’s carpenter when I grow up, but the Marquis says I am to be a count, instead. My name will be Matteo di Padovani. I am to be the heir to a great fortune. I shall have this villa and my own ships to sail far and wide. Maybe to the Levant and back. I like ships.” Then his voice faltered. “The Marquis calls me ‘Matteo.’ ” Lucca spoke in a convincing imitation of Foscari’s high-pitched voice. “He asks me, ‘Matteo, what district did you live in in Constantinople?’ ”

  “And what do you say?”

  “I answer, ‘Eminönü.’ ”

  “And then he asks, ‘What were your parents called?’ And I say, ‘Hannah and Isaac.’ ”

  “How difficult for you,” said Hannah. “So many things to remember.”

  “Yes, but if I am good and clever and answer everything correctly, the Marquis will buy me a blue-hulled boat with a stepped-in mast, a mainsail and a jib. A real boat, not a toy.” Lucca wiggled his toes in excitement. “And I may give my boat any name I wish.”

  “Have you thought of one?”

  “Lucca,” he said without hesitation. “That way I will never forget who I am.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Villa di Padovani,

  San Lorenzo, the Veneto

  TWO DAYS AGO, when she saw Hannah struggling off the turnip barge, clad in an ill-sewn nun’s habit, Cesca giggled so hard she had to hang on to a table to keep from falling down. How could Hannah think she would deceive anyone in that ridiculous garment, skirts flapping about her legs, the hem soaked with bilge water? The linen bands around her face distorted her mouth and nose as though her face were being squeezed in a vise.

  Let Foscari, with his bottomless well of false promises, work his charm on Hannah. Let him come running to Cesca, begging her to reveal Matteo’s whereabouts. She had not worked her fingers to the bone to be cheated of what was hers by right.

  Now Hannah was off again to Venice in her horrid nun’s costume. Well, she would never find Matteo and neither would Foscari.

  Cesca had tried to reassure Matteo that his stay in Venice would not be for long, but he had cried and wrapped himself around her; refused to release her as she stood on the dock, waiting for the men to carry him into the boat.

  “Please,” he had pleaded. “You come, too.”

  Finally, one of the men had prised his arms from around Cesca’s neck so they could load him in the boat and depart. Of course it had broken her heart to send the boy off with those two millers—strangers, really—who for a few scudi had agreed to keep an eye on him during the voyage, but what choice had she had? Foscari was more than capable of harming the boy. The trip to Venice was for Matteo’s own protection.

  Cesca washed. The water was hot and felt so much better than the leaf-filled water from the rain barrel she had been forced to use the past few mornings. She daubed goose grease on her hands, sore and scratched from picking berries in a nearby field.

  After donning a clean frock, Cesca arranged her hair prettily on top of her head, allowing a few tendrils to escape. She rubbed some leaves of lemon balm from the garden—it was the best she could do—between her breasts and dabbed a bit of juice from crushed mulberries on her cheeks to give them colour.

  Soon she was strolling down the towpath, swinging an empty wicker basket. She walked as though she had all the time in the world, even giving a little skip now and again, in case Foscari was spying on her out of the attic window. It would not do to have Foscari realize she was on her way to Palladio’s. Her hat, filched from a neighbour’s porch, was a floppy affair, with a wide blue ribbon that trailed fetchingly down her back.

  The weather was mild for early winter, the scene before her pastoral. The sun shone and two mourning doves landed on the ground ahead of her, where they pecked in the dust. A barge floated by on the canal, piled high with timber. From the chapel in the village came the sound of a young boys’ choir, voices raised in praise of God.

  Once she was out of sight of the villa, Cesca set down her basket and stooped to pry a pebble out of her shoe. Then she straightened and began to march through the fallow fields, past washerwomen singing as they rin
sed clothing. She passed an orchard of peach trees, their branches etched black against the blue sky. On the ground beneath one of the trees lay a blanket covered with peaches already pitted, which someone had left out to dry in the sun then forgotten. Nearby lay a tidy heap of kernels.

  Looking around to make sure no one was about, she hopped over the fence and tipped the whole blanket of peaches into her basket.

  Cesca had to stop herself from grabbing handfuls of the leathery globes of yellow fruit tinged with orange and stuffing them into her mouth. Peaches! How she loved them. So delicious with a dollop of cream, but the kernels so deadly. There was more than enough fruit for her. Even if she stuffed her face all afternoon, there would still be plenty left. She bit into a peach, the dried flesh so wonderfully sweet. Between mouthfuls, she gathered the kernels and tossed them into her pockets.

  Still mindful of her purpose, she hopped back over the fence and continued along until Palladio’s house appeared in the distance. The architect had made such an impression that Cesca could not gaze upon any building now, from coop to cottage to castle, without analyzing its structural flaws.

  His dwelling looked more farmhouse than villa. Nothing so grand as the Villa Francesca. Palladio’s residence was a squarish structure sitting on a fieldstone foundation, with a listing east wall and a brick barchessa in need of repointing. The house snuggled into the side of the hillock like a white puppy relaxing at its mother’s flank. Wisps of grass sprouted from the tiled roof. A bleating black lamb was tethered to a pillar that supported one corner of the front porch. The cobbler’s children are not quite barefoot, Cesca thought, but they are wearing boots with tattered soles and flapping tongues. Odd that a gentleman of such eminence did not live in grander style.

  Lifting her skirts to avoid the chickens pecking among vegetable peelings, she walked to the front door. If Palladio’s wife was not at home, it might make her mission much easier. Biting her lips to give them colour, she laced her bodice tighter to make her breasts rounder and firmer.