by Sasha Gould
Others turn and a path opens leading from me to Roberto. I see Paulina, her mouth opening and closing like a fish stranded on the shore. Nicolo’s brow is creased.
Carina shouts over the rumbling of the spectators. “I will not be humiliated!”
But Roberto jumps over the railings of the altar platform and bounds towards me. He reaches out his hands and I press against him. I hear the hammer of his heart.
“I don’t care what happens now,” he says into my hair.
“Neither do I,” I whisper back.
The sound of a sword being drawn makes everyone gasp. Roberto puts a hand on my arm, gently moving me away from him. A woman screams and the crowd seethes in panic.
Another sword slides icily from its sheath.
Julius’s armed guards stand either side of him, their eyes fixed on Roberto. The painted nobles back away.
Julius is mumbling, and at first I only see his lips moving. He’s saying something over and over again. He grows louder: “In my family’s name. In the name of my family.”
I take Roberto’s hand. I’ve made a decision. If Julius is going to have him killed, he can do the same to me. I don’t care.
The Doge releases his wife’s hand and moves until he’s just a few paces from Julius. “Friend, listen to what my son says. So much time has passed beneath the bridge.”
“You lied to me, to my wife, to this whole city!” He casts an arm wildly over the crowd.
“I lost my son,” says the Doge.
“But yours has been restored to you,” growls Julius. “You have no moral authority here, Alfonso.”
The crowd gasp at the insolent use of the Doge’s name, and Roberto looks at me. “Laura, this is very important,” he whispers, his words come quickly. “You must walk away from me. Please, if it is the last thing you do for me, just walk away slowly and don’t come back here. I’ll meet you when all this is over.”
But I’m not stupid. I know what he’s doing, and I have to make a choice. “I won’t leave you.”
“If you go now, then maybe both of us have a better chance.”
I stand in front of him. Julius’s men approach closer and no one makes a move to stop them. My father gapes. I back away with Roberto until we’re pressed against a wall.
“Enough!” shouts a voice.
Like goddesses from another world, Grazia and Allegreza, flanked by a flurry of women, move between the men. They hold up their arms. The gesture suddenly seems more powerful than any sword. Other noblewomen, many of whom I have only seen masked, peel off from their husbands and surround me and Roberto. The armed men hesitate, lowering their blades slightly. They don’t know how to move through a shield of women.
Grazia stands in front of her husband and puts her hands on his chest. “Julius. Julius. Julius,” she says. “No murder in a house of God. No murder in this place.” Though her words are uttered quietly, they aren’t a plea, nor a hope. She’s giving an order. Roberto’s arms enfold my waist. My fingers are white where they press into his arm.
Julius’s face is hard and he sweeps his hand aside, which must be a signal for the swords to be sheathed once more. His men obey. The Duchess rushes over, her face grim and set. When she reaches us, she touches Roberto’s shoulder.
“Go, my son. At once.” He looks at his mother and then at me. “Let go of her, I tell you.” She tugs my hand from his arm. “You must run, before they kill you. Go!”
Still, he doesn’t move. I take the ring off my hand, the twisted loop that matches Beatrice’s, and I press it into his.
“Listen to your mother,” I tell him. “There’s no time.”
He seems to break out of his trance. “I’ll come for you,” he says, and then turns, running towards the rear of the church. He looks back once, then disappears.
I look around. Allegreza and Grazia are coming straight for me. They must know what I’ve done—what I’ve revealed to Carina.
I turn, but the crowd has thickened. I try to get out but I stumble over the fabric of my dress. I scramble to get to my feet and Allegreza and Grazia grip my arms, one on either side.
“Get away from me!” I shout, but I don’t think anyone hears above the hubbub of the crowd. “Leave me alone!”
I try to push them off and I’m strong, but they’re stronger. They pull me aside, into a vestry off the main chapel. Jesus stares down from his cross, his head to one side, a look of passion and pain in his eyes.
“There’s no need to fight,” says Allegreza. “You must stop all this struggling!”
I snap with my teeth, trying to find her arm, and she lets go. Perhaps she’ll pull a dagger from her dress, and push its point between my ribs. Perhaps I’ll die here.
“You killed my sister,” I say, turning to Grazia. “I know what you did. I’m not the stupid little girl from the convent you think I am. Not anymore.”
The two women look at each other with an expression that I don’t understand. There’s even a smile on Allegreza’s lips.
“What are you speaking of, child?”
“You killed Beatrice,” I say, and jerk my head towards Grazia. “I saw her giving money to the woman who wears my sister’s ring—Bella Donna. I saw her do it, right beside the tomb of her son. I was watching.”
Grazia looks to the floor and brings her hands together in a solemn clasp. And I’m glad because I think she looks ashamed. It’s a relief to confront them with the truth. No matter what happens next.
But Allegreza only looks more confused.
“A ring?”
A flicker in her face makes me feel less sure of myself. I tell her about my ring, and seeing it on the hand of a woman who could only be a prostitute, given the wanton way she was dressed, the fall of her wild hair. I tell them what I know, what happened that day in St. Mark’s. When I’ve finished, Grazia’s high color has faded. She shakes her head at us both and faces me.
“None of this is as you think it is, Laura,” she says. “I know what you saw, but Bella Donna is no murderer. I swear it.”
“She may not have been the one who carried out the deed, but she acted as your go-between.”
“Our go-between with whom?” asks Allegreza.
Again, a look of wry incredulity passes between the women. If it’s an act, they carry it off with aplomb. Suddenly, I’m not sure of anything. I wanted to stand and fight them, but a strange weariness creeps into all my limbs.
“Why should I believe you?” I ask.
“Because we are the Segreta,” she replies. It’s an illogical response as far as I’m concerned, but strangely, it seems also to carry with it the weight of some deep and incontrovertible truth.
“I know that Beatrice came to you,” I say.
Allegreza lifts her chin and looks at me. “Yes, she did. And if you want to know more, you will come with us.”
Against my better instincts I go with them, away from the chapel and the noise, which has dipped to a peculiar kind of masculine hum.
“Ah,” says Allegreza, “I know that sound. It’s the noise men make when a fight has been thwarted.”
Grazia puts her hand on my arm. “You know, an hour from now they’ll all be drinking together in one of the taverns.”
Allegreza laughs. “Yes, and they’ll be pummeling each other kindly on the backs, telling stories about this day, delighted to be able to exaggerate them for the sake of those who weren’t there.”
Their irreverent speech doesn’t seem like the talk of murderers.
They take me to Allegreza’s home nearby, her private chambers. A breeze blows through the salon and a wide bowl of fresh fruit sits on the middle of a round table. Three chairs, arranged in an arc, have been placed at the broad window overlooking the lagoon. Allegreza tells me to sit. I don’t, at first, but once she and Grazia have taken their seats, I feel foolish, and so take mine.
“Beatrice did come to us,” explains Allegreza. “The night that she died, she came to one of our meeting places in the city. Like you, she
was in despair about her impending marriage to Vincenzo.”
So it wasn’t Roberto she was visiting. I imagine my sister leaving Faustina that night, making her solitary journey through the dark streets. I wonder if she was as afraid as I was.
“And you didn’t help her?” I ask.
Allegreza shakes her head. “The rules of the Society are strict and they’re old. Beatrice had no secrets to reveal.” She lowers her eyes. “So we could not help.”
She speaks matter-of-factly, and without callousness. Her words ring with a sad truth. I’ve stood where my sister did, and felt the masked faces of the Segreta drive me from the room. I turned back, of course, clutching my secret about the Doge like the key to my freedom. Beatrice had not, for the only secret she had was the one I heard myself from Cecile’s lips. Beatrice knew about Roberto, but would not tell them. My eyes brim with tears as I imagine my sister returning to meet Faustina at the bridge, burdened by her duty and a future with Vincenzo. Braver than I was, that’s for certain. My poor, loyal sister, who would live unhappily rather than betray a secret.
“We are not without pity,” says Grazia. “When the news of her death came to us, we were gravely saddened. Her misery must have run deep if she took her own life.”
I look sharply at her. “My sister didn’t kill herself. Someone attacked her, and took her ring.” I tell them about Faustina’s terrifying ordeal, about the man with gold teeth in the shadows, who held her as Beatrice drowned. “Someone took her ring, and now that woman … Bella Donna …” I look at Grazia, expecting another confrontation but she does not frown or glower.
All she does is shake her head.
“Laura, Bella Donna is a good woman. You misunderstood what you saw that day.”
I think I’ve misunderstood everything. “Then what did I see?”
Grazia takes a deep breath, then explains, in halting low tones, her sad connection to Bella Donna. It’s nothing like what I expected. Her marriage to Julius was never happy, she says, but like so many couples in Venice, their union brought their respective families privilege and benefits. After only a few months, she became pregnant, and God blessed them with a son, Carlos. It was as he was growing up that Julius began an affair with the daughter of a respected Councilor. The poor woman became pregnant and, worse still, imagined she was in love. She managed to conceal the pregnancy from her family, but the Segreta intercepted a letter from her to Julius. Grazia wasn’t angry, her own marriage was loveless. She felt sorry for the woman and sought her out. They became close, but then, fearing the shame of discovery, the woman disappeared.
“And she was Bella Donna?” I ask.
Grazia shakes her head. “She was Bella Donna’s mother.”
“What happened to her?”
Tears spring into Grazia’s eyes. “She delivered her child in squalor, then hanged herself in despair.”
“And Bella Donna grew up on the streets?”
Grazia wipes the moisture from her face. “For a time she was looked after by nuns, but she ran away. I help her when I can, and she helps me. In many ways, she’s more a daughter than Carina.”
If only she knew the truth of those words. But I cannot bring myself to compound her wretchedness. I feel stupid too. If what she says is true—and I cannot doubt it—then I have misjudged her gravely.
“We can help you find your sister’s murderer,” says Allegreza, “but you must put your trust in us.”
I look out at the lagoon and the shifting green waters. “Do I have a choice?”
We drink a tea of camomile and lavender as the sun sinks like a golden ball behind the skyline. I tell them my father will be looking for me, and paint a picture of him rampaging through the house, filling the air with oaths and curses, swearing to lock his errant daughter away and ruing the day he released her from the convent.
Allegreza says that she’ll take care of it, and writes a note to tell him I’m safe and under her care.
“That should keep Antonio from fretting,” she says, dispatching a servant to my house. “We still have business to attend to today, and you’re a member of the Society, so you should accompany us.”
“Is it a meeting of the Segreta?” I ask.
“Yes, of sorts,” Grazia replies, glancing at Allegreza. “I’ll travel ahead.”
After she has gone, Allegreza fetches my mask, retrieved, she said, after I fled the chapel.
“I thought I’d never wear it again,” I say.
She smiles enigmatically.
It is late by the time we leave the house, and as we walk together along the shadowed lanes Allegreza tells me that we’re going to the house of Grazia and Julius. The house Carina grew up in. She outlines a plan to me that seems brazen and brave. After a short gondola ride in the darkness, two servant women meet us at the landing point and usher us inside. The house is similar to my father’s, though more opulent, and in a downstairs room, which seems to be an office of sorts, the crowd of women have gathered in their masks.
Grazia beckons Allegreza and me to stand next to her and whispers to our escorts, who float away like ghosts.
“There are things tonight that need to be resolved,” she explains.
Allegreza, in a rare show of affection, places her arm on that of Carina’s mother.
“It’s a good thing we are about to do, Sister.”
Grazia nods. “I’ve lost a daughter to madness, but I shall rescue my husband. Follow me.”
She leads the determined procession of women into the hall and up a curving staircase. Skirts glide like hushed sighs along the floor. It feels strange and voyeuristic for us to be invading the house like this. Grazia opens the door of a room upstairs. All is dark inside. Great curtains hang from the tall windows, muffling the snores of a man. A high bed swathed in netting dominates the room. And the large man who lies within it has none of the dignity or nobility of his dressed, coiffed, formal self. He’s a great lump, rasping and drooling, unaware of the disturbance that is about to invade his repose.
“Wake up!” Grazia says from behind her mask.
Julius rolls over with a groan and a snort and she repeats her instruction, fierce now, and louder. He sits up, his eyes still closed. Slowly, he opens them, squinting and peering in the dark.
“Good God, what in the name of all that’s holy …?” he growls. His voice is sleep-thickened and shrill with panic. He struggles out of the bed, hauling himself to his full height. “Who are you? How dare you? The middle of the night! What is your intention?”
“We don’t wish to harm you, but you must listen to us,” says Allegreza.
“Claudio!” he bellows. “Ricardo!”
“The servants have been dismissed,” says Grazia.
His face reddens with anger. “My own wife comes to threaten me.” His fists clench and soften, clench and soften. If he resorts to violence, I wonder if we’ll be able to stop him. “Well—say what you have to say.”
Grazia clears her throat. “You must forget the blood feud with the Doge’s family. You must declare an end to the threat on the life of his son.”
He laughs. “I’m not lifting any vendetta just because my wife is telling me to. Take this coven of witches away before I have them dealt with.”
But Grazia is unruffled and purposeful. “I’m not here as your wife, Julius. I’m here as a woman of Venice. You have two choices: lift the vendetta, or face public shame.”
“What shame?” he asks her. He’s irritated and still sleepy, but there’s a thread of nervousness too.
“Do you want me to tell the whole city about your penchant for your fellow Councilors’ daughters? Do you want me to present the letter that Irina de Lombardi sent you all those years ago?”
“Irina de Lombardi?”
“You remember the name, I assume?” she says. “But I wonder if you’d recognize your child?”
“It’s a lie!” says Julius, but his voice falters.
Another woman comes forward from the crowd. She lifts her mask�
��a simple one, lacquered red and inscribed with swirling black lines. I gasp at the same time as Julius. It’s the woman, Bella Donna.
“My mother left me in the cell of a convent the day she killed herself,” she says.
“Be quiet, woman,” he says, but he looks broken.
“Why? Everyone here knows that it’s true. It’s the secret that makes me belong to these women. You can’t take it away. It’s mine.”
I can almost see the struggle between Julius’s public reputation and private rage play out across his face. And though his rage is still sharp and furious, he knows the women have won.
“Don’t think that because I am your wife I won’t bring your dirty secret into the open,” says Grazia. “All that you’ve built, your businesses, your position on the Council—I’ll watch them strip you apart.”
“You would do that?” he asks, incredulous.
“We have lost our son,” says Grazia. “Our daughter is a stranger to us. Anger has brought us nothing but grief.”
Julius sags onto the bed, suddenly just an old man again. He looks at the wall, and his breathing is labored, as if at any moment he will shout again. In his lap, he holds his fists clenched. I can imagine his thoughts: a mixture of shame, and fear and anger. The taste of humiliation, but also the prospect of reconciliation. If he’s anything like my father, he’s wondering how he can turn this to his advantage.
Finally he looks at his wife again. “Very well,” he says, frowning, “I’ll make a statement to the Council in the morning. I’ll lift the vendetta if that’s what you want. Now leave me alone. Can’t a man get some sleep in his own house anymore?”
We leave in silence. At the door, I look back to see Carina’s father pull the sheets over his head.
Outside by the water’s edge, the women disperse into the night like seeping shadows. One remains with Grazia at the doorway to her house, holding her lacquer mask and watching me intently. Bella Donna. Grazia nods to her, and the woman approaches slowly. We stand facing each other for a little while.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, for there’s nothing else to say.