Cross My Heart

by Sasha Gould

  “Stand back!” bellows one of the guards. “Make way!”

  A carriage clatters down the road. A man bursts from the crowd and smacks his hand on the door, shouting “Traitor!” Others hurl curses and insults, their faces red with anger and excitement. I hoist myself up on the iron bars of the gate so I can see above the furious blur of people. When the carriage passes, I catch a glimpse of the occupant.

  It’s Vincenzo. Even my brief flicker of a glance shows him ashen. He stares at me for a moment, eyes brimming with a deathly dismay.

  I stand tall as I stare back at him. Power thrills through me as he turns away, eyes downcast in shame. Faustina is standing on her toes, and as we watch the carriage clatter away, I realize the truth of Allegreza’s words. In Venice, a secret is indeed more powerful than a sword.

  For the first time since I have returned to my father’s house, I sleep properly. Deep and heavy and dreamless. When I open my eyes the sun has inched across my bed. I’m free of Vincenzo. And I know what I must do now. I’ll find out what happened to my sister. I’ll get to the truth.

  The Segreta is as powerful as Allegreza promised. I feel like my veins have swollen inside my body. I think I hear the hot red blood rushing through them. I’m alert and wide-eyed. I can smell the air, picking up clues and hints in it that I have not sensed before.

  Faustina flaps into my room.

  “Sweetheart, there’s no time for snoozing! Count Raffaello will be here soon.” She rummages in my chest of clothes and pulls out a pale orange and cream dress.

  Count Raffaello, I remember. Carina’s husband.

  “And Carina too?” I ask, climbing out of bed.

  “Yes.” Faustina nods. “It will be nice to have her in the palazzo again—she was such a good friend to dear Beatrice.”

  I splash my face and neck in the bowl of water resting by the window. It is scented with roses, and a few red petals float on the surface. I dry myself with a linen cloth and Faustina helps me into the dress. She ties the silken threads that hang from the sleeves and gathers my hair onto my head, fixing it in place with a pearly clasp.

  She brings me to the mirror again, where I’m getting used to seeing someone different. I tuck a stray lock behind my ear.

  The front door creaks open in the hall below us, and I hear Bianca’s voice. “Greetings, sir.”

  “They’re here,” says Faustina.

  I hurry out of my room and along the passageway. The shutters of the palazzo are wide open and the rooms thrum with light. The dusty air that used to muffle and blanket everything has disappeared. It’s as if the building itself is celebrating my freedom. One of the few paintings my father hasn’t sold hangs at the top of the stairs; some plain ancestor with a beauty mark on her cheek. She seems to smile at me as I pass, and, foolish as it is, I smile back.

  I slow my pace as I walk down the stairs. My father has emerged from his library and is bowing to Raffaello and Carina, Bianca hovering close by. Carina’s face melts into a smile as soon as she sees me, and her face flushes, matching the pale pink satin of her dress. She carries a basket in her gloved hands. Raffaello is elegant in his brown boots, white shirt and black velvet jacket. I feel a pang of tenderness towards my father, dressed in his shabby cloth coat.

  “Laura, good day to you,” says Raffaello with a bow. “We are both so sorry about this unpleasant business with Vincenzo.”

  I drop into a curtsy. “News spreads quickly,” I reply.

  “Enough of that!” says my father. “The past is over. Ladies, perhaps you will excuse us?” He opens his library door, gesturing for Raffaello to go through.

  Carina sighs theatrically. “Men are such gossips! Come, Laura, let’s you and I sit in the courtyard.”

  Raffaello kisses his wife’s cheek and joins my father. Carina slips her arm through mine and we go outside. The air is thick with the sweet smell of yellow gorse and apple blossom. I take her over to the bench, shielding my eyes from the bright sun with my hands.

  “Poor old Vincenzo,” she says as we sit down together, our knees touching, in a sisterly huddle. “He’ll no longer stride along the Lido being saluted to.”

  “Where do you think he’ll go?” I ask.

  “Milan, if the rumors are true,” says Carina. “He has a substantial fleet of ships, mostly out of port at the moment. He’s lucky, really—the Doge has already impounded two of his vessels, and would have taken all of them if they’d been in Venice.”

  “I feel sorry for him,” I say, remembering his gray face in the carriage.

  Carina laughs, her eyes bright with astonishment. “Really? Well, you’re far more charitable than I. I think I’d throw a ball in celebration.” She squeezes my arm. “You are bursting with relief, aren’t you?”

  Her candor is infectious, and I let my mask slip away. “Carina, I feel like a prisoner at the gallows, with the noose round his neck, when he hears that he is to be spared after all.”

  She smiles. “Well, this better not tempt you to spend more time with the painters of Venice!”

  The memory of the painter’s deep eyes makes me blush.

  “Of course not! But now I know what Beatrice’s last days were like,” I say. “She must have dreaded what her life was going to be like with that man as her husband and master.”

  Carina takes my hand and smiles sadly. “At least you’re free and Beatrice is at peace.”

  I pray that this is true. Faustina’s description of Beatrice’s billowing skirts will be forever burned on my inward eye. For a moment I want to tell Carina everything—Faustina’s terrible story of the night Beatrice died, and the dark certainty that sits inside me that she was murdered. But I remember the man with the metal teeth, and decide I had better keep it all to myself.

  “I’ve brought you a gift.” Carina smiles. She reaches into her basket, which rests on the bench beside her, and takes out two colored headpieces, both made of tightly twisted straw—like wide-brimmed hats, except with a hole in the middle of each. One is a bright orange and the other is dark purple. She puts the purple one on her head and gracefully, with a kind of weaving movement, pulls her long silken hair through the hole. It shimmers in the sunshine like twists of copper and gold, spread out over the brim.

  She passes the orange headdress to me. “Here—one of Venice’s great beauty secrets,” she confides. “Look, the color goes perfectly with your dress.”

  “What does it do?” I wonder.

  “It’s just a little trickery to put some gold in your hair,” she laughs.

  She helps to fit it on top of my head and I pull my hair through just as she has done. I feel her fingers arranging and spreading my locks. “There. All you need to do is sit out like this every day and let the sun do its work. A bit of lemon juice will help lighten the color as well.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “You’ve no idea how much your kindness means to me. I adore Faustina, but it’s so lovely to have someone my own age to talk to. Especially now. Father’s in a crisis.”

  “Men always are,” says Carina. “The higher they climb up the tree of power, the weaker the branches become.”

  I can imagine her words coming from Allegreza.

  Loud, angry shouts burst from the house and we both sit up straight. It’s my father’s voice, and then Raffaello’s. I can’t make out any words until my father bellows “Soon!” I look to Carina and see that her face has darkened. She tosses her headdress into her basket, stands up and strides towards the house.

  “What’s happening?” I ask, hurrying after her, my own headdress in my hand.

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing important,” Carina says, though her face is still stern and serious. “In any case, it’s best to ignore the skirmishes of male affairs.”

  The door to the palazzo flies open. Raffaello bolts out like an enraged bull. He stamps down the steps towards us, seizing Carina’s arm. “Come. We’re going.”

  Carina pulls herself free and takes his hand instead. As he almost yanks her d
own the path, she calls to me over her shoulder. “I’ll see you soon—very soon.”

  “Goodbye!” I reply. But she and Raffaello are already through the gate.

  I drift back inside. The cool of the hall seems chilly, and the lurking darkness makes me feel blind after the warmth of the sun.

  My father sits in his library, slumped and deflated. His elbows rest on the desk and he combs his fingers through his limp hair.

  “Father, are you all right? What happened?”

  He begins to talk, but for a little while, I’m not sure he even knows I’m there.

  “First Vincenzo, and now that snake Raffaello … Is there a conspiracy to keep me from the halls of power?” He looks up and waves me away as if there’s an insect pestering him. “Anyway, it’s none of your concern.”

  “But I thought you and Raffaello were friends.”

  My father gives a short, joyless laugh. “Laura, there are no friends in Venice. Leave me alone.”

  My father spends the morning striding around the house, his boots squeaking and stamping on the floor. I eat alone while he takes his meal in the library. I peek in to see if he wants anything, and he’s scribbling a letter. There is a pile of letters on his desk, scrolled and sealed with red wax. He asks me to call for Bianca and he gives them to her, dispatching her hither and thither across the city.

  “I’m not a messenger,” she grumbles as she flounces past me and out into the streets.

  He corners me in the salon, where I’m continuing my mother’s book of love poems.

  “Right,” he says. “This is what’s going to happen now. You’re to get to know Paulina.”

  “I know her already, Father.”

  “Well, you’re to get to know her better. If I’m right, and I do have a nose for these things, she’s soon to be married into a powerful family. God knows how, as the uncle who keeps her is an imbecile. Do you understand how important it is for us to foster such connections, especially now?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Good. I’ve arranged for you to meet her this afternoon. At the Piazza della Angela.”

  He makes it sound like a business meeting, but the thought of seeing Paulina again, and of getting away from the tense atmosphere of the palazzo, is a welcome one. There’s much to tell her.

  I put down my book and kiss his rough cheek. “Thank you, Father.”

  He stares at me, seeming surprised by my gesture. “Good,” he says. “Don’t let me down.”

  “Mother Mary! Can’t you keep it still?” Faustina grumbles as she topples into the wobbling gondola. Both the gondolier and I catch her hands, helping her to her seat. She rearranges her skirts and looks about her, her eyes bright in her kind old face. “What a treat it is to be on the canals today.”

  The water is crowded with gondolas and tiny sailboats. Crowds throng along the lanes and bridges, chattering like gaudy birds. Our gondolier arranges a shady awning over us, then pushes his pole down and eases away from the bank.

  The sun grins down at the world like a menacing rival, but I am cool in the shade. I trail my fingers in the water as our gondolier threads his way towards the southwestern shore. Another boatman calls across a challenge to a race and our gondolier grins at us. “This man questions my skill. If I lose, you will travel for free.”

  I agree, before Faustina can object, and the contest begins. Our gondolier lifts his pole in and out of the water with swift, smooth movements, and our boat cleaves the canal. Though a few splashes of water sprinkle over us, we overtake the other gondola, and even Faustina giggles like a young girl behind my fan.

  The gondolier pulls up by a side canal and helps us out. I pay him, adding a tip for his success. From there, we walk to Piazza della Angela. The square is edged by tall, crumbling pink houses and dotted with people selling fruit and sugared almonds. Men and women walk in the sunshine, buying treats and laughing. And right in the middle, twirling a parasol, is Paulina. Her curly black hair tumbles down her back. Her blue dress has a tight bodice, with a skirt that flares with flashes of pale yellow.

  Faustina kisses me on both cheeks. “Enjoy yourself, and forget about these last few days. Remember, you’re to come home before supper—don’t make me worry about you.”

  “I won’t,” I say, and Faustina moves off among the crowd.

  Paulina smiles and waves when she notices me approaching.

  “How good it is to see you,” she says, taking my arm. She leads me into a narrow lane that seems half asleep. “Oh, Laura, I was so relieved to hear your news!”

  She spins me around so our skirts fly out in a swirl of color. Our laughter echoes against the stooping stone walls.

  “Everything seems so different now I’m free of him,” I say. The heels of our silk shoes tap against the cobbles.

  “And now the real search for a husband begins,” she says.

  I feel my cheeks reddening. “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “But it’s what will surely follow,” she replies.

  The street widens and market stalls crowd each other on either side. The people here are poor, their clothes worn and dirty, but their faces are happy as they joke and jostle each other, turning pigs on spits and grilling chops and steaks. The smell of food, bubbling and roasting, is thick in the air. A young man selling roast chickens raises his cap at me, and I smile.

  “Anyway,” I say, “my father tells me that you’ve got some news of your own.”

  Paulina’s face lights up. “Men! They know our affairs before we know them ourselves!”

  “So is it true?”

  She nods, and steps aside as a man carrying a tray of small cups high over his head darts past. From her skipping feet and the way her eyes shine, I know that she’s far happier about her upcoming marriage than I was about mine.

  “Well,” I continue. “Are you going to tell me who he is?”

  She twirls her parasol as we pass into another lane, where a cheering crowd is gathered around street performers. “Oh, Laura, it’s a love match! It’s what we all deserve. I pray that you will find the same happiness. I’m sure you will.”

  We move to the front of the crowd and see a street dancer with bells on his costume, twisting himself in knots. The rhythm of the bells is enchanting, and we join the others in clapping our hands in time. Through the laughing faces I see a tall man at the edge of the crowd, with a wide black hat that casts a shadow on his face. The angle of that face is different from the throngs around him. He seems to be looking at us rather than the dancer.

  I nudge Paulina and point at him. “Is that someone you know?” But he pushes his way from the crowd and disappears.

  “Where?” she asks.

  “A man in a black hat,” I say. “He was watching us.”

  Paulina smiles. “You should get used to that,” she said. “When you look as fine as you, men are bound to stare.”

  The acrobatic display comes to an end, and people toss coins into the gaudy colored hat proffered by the performer. When a red-dressed young woman in front of me has made her donation, I take a coin from my velvet purse and follow suit.

  “Thank you, ladies,” the performer says.

  The young woman in red turns and stares, her eyes moving up and down Paulina. She raises her eyebrows at her companion and they snigger behind their open fans.

  Paulina sighs crossly, then takes my arm and leads me away. “Ignore them,” she says.

  “Do you know that girl?” I ask, when we’ve rounded the next corner.

  “My uncle used to work for her father,” she says. “She looks down on my family. Though she won’t be so insolent when I’m married. Then no woman will be able to look down on me. Even the Segreta’s power won’t reach high enough to bring me down.”

  My body tenses. I can feel the color drain from my face and I pretend to look at a passing carriage, hoping Paulina won’t notice.

  “The Segreta?” I speak as calmly as I am able, then move my hand surreptitiously behind my back to hide
the small bandage from my initiation ceremony. It’s silly, of course. She couldn’t know.

  “That’s one name they use,” says Paulina. “Some call them the Society of Secrets, or the Hidden Women. Part of the appeal is the silly names, I expect.”

  “Appeal of what?” I ask carefully.

  She tightens her arm around mine, drawing me close and lowering her voice conspiratorially. “It’s a group of Venetian women. My sister told me about them when I was small. No one knows who belongs to the Segreta, or what they really do. My sister says they get rid of people.”

  I feel a bead of sweat trickle along my spine.

  Paulina laughs. “Don’t look so serious! Probably they just gossip about men and money and gowns, like all the other women of Venice.” She takes out her fan and beats the air, making her dark curls flutter. “It’s too hot; let’s go into the cathedral.”

  I’ve lost my bearings, but she leads me across a few lanes and canals, and we emerge into the glinting St. Mark’s Square. The piazza is dominated by the silvery domes and intricate spires of the cathedral. Before it stands the bell tower, a square red-orange brick column, casting a shadow eastward over the Doge’s palazzo. The salty smell of the sea wafts up from St. Mark’s Canal, and gulls wheel overhead. As we walk towards the cathedral entrance, I glance around. Despite the heat, there’s a chill at my back, an eerie breeze that doesn’t belong to a day like this. The man in the black hat is there again. He halts and I lose sight of him among the crowd.

  Paulina and I step from the furnace of the Venetian day into the cool blackness of St. Mark’s interior. We genuflect. We dip our fingers in holy water and bless ourselves. These old rituals soothe me with the rhythms of my past. God is watching, and I wonder if He recognizes me now, no longer the little brown-clad novice I was. The air is like having a sweet, cool bath of oils, incense and holiness. If I close my eyes I could be back in the convent again. A statue of Jesus stretches over the crucifix, the agony of a world of sinners on his poor bleeding face. Little candles dance in the side chapel, where a statue of Our Lady stoops in divine humility. The great domed ceiling collects and swells the whisper of the worshippers.