by Roberta Rich
He reached into her valise.
Sergio was powerfully built, with sloping shoulders and a head shaped like an anvil. No way on earth could she overpower him. “Get out!” she repeated. Where was Guido? He might help her.
Sergio dumped the contents of her valise on the floor and pawed through the pile of garments until he found the nun’s habit. Then he squatted on his haunches, feeling the clothing for the coins. When he felt nothing, he grabbed for her. “Where did you put the ducats?” She tried to push him away, but he was too strong. He picked up the hem of her cioppà, put it to his mouth and began ripping at the stitches with his teeth. Gold coins fell to the floor, some rolling a few feet. He got down on all fours and plucked them up; then he dropped them into a greasy leather pouch around his neck. Hannah looked away, unable to watch the disappearance of the only thing she had that might buy her freedom.
And then he came at her, animal excitement on his face. Hannah had seen the same expression on male dogs before they mounted a bitch. Soon, she feared, he would wrestle her to the floor and be on top of her. Rutting like a beast in the field. Thrusting into her.
“You have my ducats—isn’t that enough? Leave me.”
“There’s something else I want.”
Should she go limp to avoid injury to herself and the baby? Weep? Beg for mercy? Pretend to faint? Shout for Guido?
As if reading her mind, Sergio said, “Never mind yelling for Guido. He’s not here.”
“Please go.”
“Not just yet.” He was fumbling with his breeches and unfastening his fly with the anticipation of a starving man about to devour a feast.
Sergio could toss her to the floor and have her skirts over her head in a flash. Before she had time to scream, he would have his forearm across her windpipe, cutting off her breath.
How could an act inflicting pain give satisfaction? Was there any connection between what Sergio was about to do and what Isaac did? None that she could think of. The guard lunged for her, hands outstretched to grab at her breasts. When she ducked to one side, he followed her movement, arms out wide to cut off escape.
At night men roamed the bridges and canals of Venice, hunting for a woman unlucky enough to be abroad. They wove their drunken way back from the wine shops. Hannah had heard of a midwife hurrying along the street late one night from attending a birth. The unfortunate woman never arrived home. She was found naked, tossed behind a heap of rubbish, her throat a necklace of bruises, her body ravaged.
Hannah studied Sergio’s grin, his blackened teeth stubs, his chin covered with stubble. He was close enough that she could smell his breath made foul from stewed cabbage and garlic. As he backed her into the corner, her heels hit the waste bucket, causing its contents to slosh. Without stopping to think, moving as quickly as her belly would permit, she pivoted, grasped the bucket with both hands and hurled it at Sergio.
God was with her. The bucket hit Sergio full in the face; its contents cascaded down his nose and cheeks then his chest. The iron bands holding the staves together slipped free with the force of the impact. An iron band gashed his cheek, adding blood to the tide of excrement and urine.
Hannah stood, sides heaving, breathless from exertion, unable to believe she had thrown the bucket with such vigour. She was terrified as she looked at Sergio, afraid this rash act would incite such fury he would kill her on the spot.
But Sergio appeared as stunned as she, his face contorted in disgust.
Then he fumbled for the key at his waist, unlocked her cell and walked out.
CHAPTER 25
Palazzo di Padovani,
Venice
FOSCARI’S PALAZZO—of course, it was not his palazzo any more than the villa belonged to Cesca—was elegant. Although not as spacious as her country villa, she could not help being impressed by the palazzo’s lacy Gothic stone facade and graceful windows, reflecting dancing waves of the Grand Canal.
She had never been to the theatre—when would she have had the chance—but she could not imagine a play more diverting than the Grand Canal, which was as unlike the Tiber River in Rome as a silk ribbon is from a hemp rope. She sat on the balcony with Foscari, her hands folded in her lap, as though she had not a care in the world, and watched gondolas and barges drift by.
From inside the house came the giggling of Lucca and Matteo as they played cards, the game of Trappola. Lucca had proven to be a quiet, obedient boy and a useful companion to Matteo, entertaining him with stories and all manner of games.
Cesca wore chopines today, the dangerously high wooden shoes favoured by Venetian women of fashion, and a newly purchased dress of green velvet she bought from one of the strazzaria, a second-hand clothing dealer in the ghetto. The dress was so marvellously made it must have belonged to a noblewoman. Cesca doubted the woman had looked as good in it as Cesca did. Best of all, her new attire had cost only two of Hannah’s ducats.
Foscari tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair signalled he would soon say something to shatter her feeling of well-being.
“I yield to no one in my appreciation of a well-dressed woman,” he began, “but your weakness for velvet sleeve insets and chopines that threaten to buck you off like a frisky horse and pitch you into the nearest canal does you no credit.” There was the tinkle of china as he replaced his cup in the saucer. “I know you are trying to emulate a grand lady, but you look like nothing so much as a housemaid who has stolen the key to her mistress’s cupboard. Too much décolletage for the morning, too much ankle for any time of day. You aspire to be the castellana of your villa, not the wife of a newly wealthy green grocer.”
To demonstrate she still cared for his opinion, Cesca knew this comment must reduce her to heaving sobs. When Foscari glanced at her to judge the effect of his words, she hid her face in her handkerchief and made tiny, shaking movements with her shoulders.
Foscari said, “Oh, my dear, I am sorry. I have rendered you unhappy, haven’t I?”
The skin around Foscari’s nose looked inflamed. He leaned over and gave her knee a squeeze.
“Now, now. I am sorry.”
How Cesca longed to boast of her adventures at Pozzi Prison. How he would admire her shrewdness. But she could not allow herself the satisfaction or he would immediately have his hand out for a share of her ducats.
It had taken so little effort to orchestrate the theft. A small service granted beforehand to Sergio to seal their arrangement and he had sworn on his mother’s grave he would hand the ducats over, keeping only two for himself. Somewhat to her surprise, he had done just that, although when she went to the prison to collect them, he had requested an additional ducat for “inconveniences.” Whatever he meant by that, she was happy to oblige.
Sergio proved easy to satisfy in every respect. All that had been required of Cesca was to take the jailer’s ample shaft into her mouth. His groans and supplications to the Holy Virgin and Lord Jesus mingled with the cries of the prison’s lunatics and halfwits. God answered her prayers, and in His mercy, allowed Sergio to spend himself quickly. Now Hannah’s ducats glinted unseen in the sleeves of the very dress Foscari mocked.
When would this incessant game of brinksmanship be over? Cesca was not by nature deceitful—unless circumstances demanded—but Foscari forced her to be always on her guard. In a manner meant to convey forgiveness, she smiled at him through her shuddering. “You are right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She picked up a basket of apples, a gift from Palladio. “I will change out of this dress straightaway.” Cesca selected an apple. She placed it between her lips, then took a small, sharp bite using just her front teeth, taking care not to drop juice on her skirt or smudge the mulberry staining her lips. She adored the dress and would not have it spoiled. The taste of the apple was like a warm August afternoon in the orchard, bees diving into fallen fruit and the air sweet with lavender. Between heaves of the breast, she took more bites, marvelling that Foscari, consummate actor that he was, gazed at her with concern.
She extracted a piece of apple from her mouth and placed it between his lips.
“Here is something that will cheer you.” Foscari took a sip of brandy from a flask in his waistcoat. “Your letter of intent—” He held up his index finger. “To seal our bargain.” He extracted the parchment letter from his pocket and passed it to her. “Now that you have returned Matteo as I instructed, the letter is yours.”
When Cesca had lived in Constantinople—a city of Mussulmen and Gypsies and thieves—she’d seen a man’s hands hacked off by a baker who’d caught him stealing a loaf of bread. The baker had reached behind his counter, grabbed an axe, and two whacks later, the thief had stumbled toward Cesca as though to embrace her, leaving a criss-crossing trail of blood behind him. Foscari had done far worse in stealing her villa.
What a pathetic idiot he was to suppose he had hoodwinked her. Tonight she would double the dose of peach kernel tincture she had added to his brandy. “Very kind of you, Foscari. I knew I could trust you.” She refolded the parchment and tucked it into the pocket of her dress.
Cesca’s mother used to admonish her: “Do not throw out your old boots until you have fetched home a new pair.” Palladio was her new pair of boots, but he was far from being fetched home. On his last visit, although he brought her apples from his orchard, he showed little interest in her lowered bodice or sidelong glances. The frescoes were a subject they avoided in favour of mortars, terrazzo, facades, buttresses, arches, cruciform halls, architraves, gabled porticos, Ionic columns and the weight distribution of bearing walls. Palladio was teaching her a great deal but was deaf to her supplications that he serve as Matteo’s guardian.
Foscari said, “Shall we go upstairs and dally for a bit? One of your playlets, perhaps, with an ancient Rome theme, complete with togas?”
How young and inexperienced Cesca had been when she and Foscari had first met. Although she had never enjoyed his attentions, when Foscari asked her to submit to certain acts, she had submitted. The occasional coupling had been little enough in exchange for the company of a sophisticated, well-connected nobleman who would make her rich. Now, as she grew less biddable, he became more demanding.
Foscari stood, extending his hand to her. She clasped it, allowing him to pull her upright. And soon he was mounting the stairs ahead of her, as eager as a curly-horned ram. It was not the gait of a man who was being poisoned, although the glassiness of his eyes, the greyish pallor of his skin and the tremor of his hands as he had held the brandy to his lips told her the peach kernel was working.
But poison, she was discovering, had a slow and unpredictable course.
A dagger was best. A quick, clean slice across the throat—
Except Cesca had never killed anything larger than a neighbour’s rooster, which had the bad luck to wander into her garden.
One moonless night in Rome when she was a child whore entertaining men against the crumbling walls of the Coliseum, she had come close to killing a young man. On the advice of her mother, Cesca always carried a stiletto tucked in her garter. The customer, a drunken dyer’s apprentice not much older than her, refused to pay, and began shouting insults and striking her about the head. As his face twisted in rage, the youth became no longer a person but an animal. She bent over and drew out her stiletto, and then lifted her arm to gut him like a mackerel. But her arm would not obey. Cesca ran down the street and ducked into the Basilica di San Clemente. There she crouched fearfully behind the baptismal font, her heart pounding so loudly she was certain God himself could hear.
Yet she had to overcome her squeamishness and kill Foscari. She did not want to but there was no help for it. And it must be done soon.
CHAPTER 26
Doge’s Palace,
Law Courts,
Venice
AT DAWN THE SOLDIERS CAME for Hannah. There were two of them, square shouldered and tall, in the blue-and-gold uniform of the Doge. Guido unlocked the door of her cell, explaining they were there to escort her to the courtroom. Her presence was required by the Marquis Foscari.
Wedged between the soldiers, Hannah walked as fast as her girth would permit, across the Piazza San Marco to the court. The sun cast a shimmering, unnatural light on the square, making the brick walls and stone buildings appear to oscillate as though underwater. Because she had been confined for weeks in a tiny cell, the expanse of the piazza disoriented her. She had difficulty seeing more than a few paces ahead. The sun made her eyes burn.
When she tripped on a cobblestone, one of the soldiers jerked her upright. The baby was pressing on her sharing bones, making them ache. Every step was a chore, every movement a task. She felt a pang in her lower belly. Not now, she prayed. Stay within me a little while longer, I beg you. You are snug in the velvety darkness of my womb. The outside world is dangerous and contains nothing of interest. The baby gave a protesting kick.
Hannah had on her plain blue cioppà and the red head scarf required of Jewish women. When she had worn the nun’s habit, she had had to pad her sides with a pair of goose down pillows and make herself barrel shaped rather than reveal her true form, which was as though someone had thrust a large ball under her clothing. Some women could pass their entire pregnancy without anyone being the wiser—bellies delicately rounded, breasts a little fuller. Hannah was not one of those women.
To wear her own clothes should have been comforting—she had never been at ease pretending to be what she was not—but she felt exposed and uneasy. The nun’s habit, for all that it had been a farce, had created an illusion of safety. Now it lay crumpled into a ball in the bottom of her valise, where she had stuffed it after Sergio’s attack.
One of the soldiers gave her an impatient shove toward the ad jus reddendum, the law courts, with their colonnade on the ground floor and loggia opening on the first story. Hannah ascended the marble steps. Well before she reached the top of the stairs, her chest was heaving from the weight of the baby. The Sala della Quarantia, the courtroom where the Council of Ten dispensed decisions on every aspect of the lives of Venice’s citizens, both civil and criminal, was on the first floor. A confusing throng was packed in like herring in a barrel. Dozens of men gathered in knots, talking. Petitioners stood with their lawyers, reading briefs. Some litigants acted on their own behalf, waving their petitions in the air. A fight broke out in a corner and two bailiffs stormed over to eject a pair of thuggish-looking dyers, their clothes stained blue from indigo, reeking of the stale sheep’s piss used as a mordant to make fast their dyes.
Along one side of the room was a steep staircase leading to the balcony. Already it was crowded with people jostling for position at the low balustrade for a better view of the proceedings below. Hannah searched the crowd for Matteo and Cesca as the soldiers positioned her behind a pillar, one soldier on either side of her. She glanced up at the ceiling frescoes, which depicted scenes and people in the Christian Bible: the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, the Annunciation, the Madonna with the Christ child on her lap. What blasphemy to paint the human form. The brown nightingale that had flown in through an open clerestory window in a blind panic swooped from wall to wall, trilling. Hannah tugged at her dress, which stuck to her sides with perspiration.
The abbess was in the balcony, a great block of black doom, flanked by two novices. Their heads tilted toward one another as the nuns conferred. They were like three crows on a tree branch, eyeing a tasty bit of bread on the ground, each daring the others to swoop first.
Beginning at the entrance then working her way around until she reached the stairs to the balcony, Hannah scanned every face in the vast room. In the front row, which was reserved for noblemen and cittadini of importance, was a distinguished man with an alert air about him as he gazed not at the crowd but at the length and breadth of the room.
Palladio. When he cast his eyes to the ceiling, his mouth turned down as if in disgust. It seemed Hannah was not the only one who found the frescoes there abhorrent. She felt a rush of empathy with her companion from the barge. To her s
urprise, he rose and approached her.
“You are familiar to me, signora, but—”
“You have a good eye for faces.” Hannah felt herself flush. “I was dressed as a nun the last time you saw me.”
This statement did not seem to faze him in the least, for he merely said, “Of course. You made a good job of my hand.” He stretched it toward her, flexing the fingers. “Scarred, but what do I care? I can still hold a chisel.”
“I’m pleased to see that.”
“But what possessed you to don a nun’s garb?”
“It is a long story.”
“Then we shall leave it for another time.”
Hannah nodded, relieved.
“So you are the midwife who delivered the Contessa’s baby?”
Hannah waited, wondering where this was leading.
“I was a dear friend of Lucia and the Conte’s. She told me of your skill and kindness to her. She was nearly dead and yet you managed to deliver her child. You saved her life.” He smiled at her. “Do you make a practice of that? Saving people, that is.”
“God was with me. I never attended a more difficult birth. Many times I despaired, but the Contessa endured. After many hours, God permitted the baby to be born.” There was no point in mentioning how she had cupped Matteo’s head on either temple with her birthing spoons and drawn him out of the Contessa’s exhausted body. Men were not fond of hearing such details. They preferred to think their precious offspring were delivered by fairies and left under toadstools and behind daffodils in the garden.
Palladio seemed to notice for the first time the soldiers on either side of her. “Why are you under arrest? I do not understand.” He murmured something to the soldiers and they retreated a few paces but kept their eyes fixed on Hannah. “Is there something I can do to help you?”
How gentle his face; how well meaning he appeared. She had known benevolence from the Conte, as well—and had repaid that kindness by murdering his brother, Niccolò. “Thank you, but I am in a trap from which there is no escape.”