For several seconds while he wound down the staircase, he heard nothing until, from above, his host screeched like a madman.
“Coward!”
Jacques, hustling down the dark flights of steps and into the street, glanced up to see a lantern flying at him. He dodged, but it slammed his shoulder, then hand—and burst into pieces beside him. His fingers seemed useless.
“Scum!” Grimani shouted from the balcony, his ire unquenchable. “Common scum!”
Sharp pain stung Jacques’ shoulder. Then, on his back, he felt heat. His wrap was on fire! He tried to unclasp the burning cloak, but his right hand still had no feeling.
Instantly, Grimani was upon him, brandishing his sword.
A vicious thrust forced Jacques backward into a wall. Feeling the scorching flame, he grappled frantically with his cloak, yet his eyes could not afford to leave Grimani.
With his left hand, Jacques squeezed his sword from its sheath—barely—then managed an unwieldy cut, sending his foe spinning away.
Using the blade’s razor edge, Jacques sawed the drawstring of his cloak until it fell, a burning heap, to the ground.
Grimani’s sword arced above Jacques’ face. Deflected by an overhanging sign, it struck just wide of its mark.
Jacques darted to the next street, taking a small group of Carnivale revelers by surprise. Sidestepping them, he glanced back, then stopped.
Grimiani appeared without the revelers noticing; he came to a halt and twisted his Capitano mask over his face. Then sliding ahead of the boisterous crowd, he spun back, capturing their attention by calling out in a high comic voice and frantically shaking his knees. “That dullard, that buffoon, that parasite will not duel,” cried Grimani as Capitano. With his smallsword, he pointed down the street toward Jacques. The revelers jeered.
Jacques retreated while Grimani continued his bombast. “Why, I shall slice him, I shall slash him, I shall slay the slabbering slave—the slinking slothful slut.”
The crowd roared.
Jacques fled around the next corner.
“Nowhere to go,” Grimani shouted. “Our grand finale will be in a box alley.”
Jacques saw his mistake. Trapped! Hot sweat bubbled his forehead while he faced his approaching adversary. Jacques beat the fingers of his right hand against his thigh, and although he sensed feeling returning, there was not enough sensation or strength to direct his sword. He began a run toward Grimani, swinging his weapon with his left hand in a wide swath.
Grimani easily ducked the assault.
As Jacques rushed past, he felt the stab in his side.
Cupping his wound, he lurched toward a small open piazza. He reeled about and watched a determined Grimani move his way.
Blood wet Jacques’ shirt. Stinging pain marked his face, but feeling was coming again to the fingers of his right hand. He shifted his weapon to it, all the while gauging his fast-approaching opponent. I’ve little choice, he thought. Weak as he felt, Jacques stepped forward, forcing the tip of Grimani’s sword to slide along his, producing a sharp, pinching noise.
The two men, circling the piazza, vied for advantage, their steel blades pressing, tapping against each other in preparation for attack.
A sudden beat of Jacques’ smallsword sent Grimani’s askew. Jacques thrust hard. Grimani evaded and backed away.
“I’m told I move exceptionally well. Do you agree?” Grimani said through his Capitano mask.
The response from Jacques was another thrust.
Grimani defended the attack, then riposted.
Jacques parried, allowed his blade to press Grimani’s, and in a quick envelopment, ripped the sword away from the man.
Jacques raised his steely point to the center of his enemy’s mask.
“You’re disarmed. And at my mercy.”
“Trim Capitano’s mustache,” someone shouted.
“Give the braggart a shave,” another voice yelled. A volley of laughter followed, and Jacques knew a pack of carnivalers ganged behind him. He pressed his ribs. Warm blood oozed through his fingers. He lowered his sharp point and, without hesitation, stepped away from his adversary.
“Look to the bright sky, Capitano,” shouted one of the onlookers.
Sensing a shadow, Jacques turned and glimpsed an object flying toward Grimani, who reached out—and caught—a sheathed smallsword.
“Give us more of your boasting, Capitano,” a reveler cried. “And more fight!” The crowd applauded.
Jacques felt new fear until a voice rang out.
“Casanova. Giacomo Casanova,” Tomaso shouted.
Swiftly, like a flame fanned by wind, the name Casanova raced through the crowd.
Jacques squinted at the carnivalers, astonished by their eager identification.
“We’re here, just arrived,” Tomaso said. “Watching this gay amusement you present for Carnivale and your friends. And, too, for these important Venetians, men of name and rank.” Tomaso raised his arms to the group of onlookers beside him. “Entertain us, Signor Casanova!”
Jacques was too weak to reply.
But Michele Grimani fairly shivered in rage. He tore the Capitano mask from his face and hurled it to the ground.
“Cavaliere della stola d’oro,” shouted a reveler, recognizing Grimani.
“Inquisitori de Stato!” someone else said. “The Cavaliere Grimani.”
But from the rest of the crowd, there was only silence, no acknowledgement for the patrician.
Jacques watched beads of sweat curl down his foe’s cheeks, the jaw clenched in rage.
Instantly, Grimani ripped his newfound sword from its sheath and thrust hard.
Jacques pitched back to stave off the attack.
The crowd cheered its approval.
Grimani edged closer to Jacques, his deadly steel cocked in preparation. “I marvel. You’ve not asked about your little dancer, Dominique.”
“Moments ago, I spared your life,” Jacques growled. “But if you spur me, I must kill you.”
Grimani advanced rapidly while executing a series of doublés. Giving ground, Jacques attempted to match the weapon’s deceptions until, at the ebb of his strength, he let fly a flurry of thrusts—to fearful exclamations from the onlookers.
The attack failed. Jacques withdrew, cupping his side. He wondered if he could go on.
Where were we?” Grimani snorted. His moonish face strained. “Oh, yes, Dominique? I realized early she would be of little direct aid to me. She could not, after all, even write to keep me informed, as did Petrine. But I decided it wasn’t necessary that I have her cooperation at all.” Grimani hardly noticed the surrounding crowd while he continued his harangue. “To maintain the woman as my puppet, I simply impressed her with heroic stories about you. Completely contrived, of course. But because of my delicious stories, I knew she would follow you, would also focus you—keep you on task in the attempt to unravel the secret.” He sighed theatrically. “To my chagrin, the woman had somewhat a mind of her own. Eventually she, poor thing, went to her death. With you the cause.”
There was uproar from the crowd when Jacques threw himself into a reckless barrage of attacks. The clash of steel echoed across the piazza as Grimani parried several thrusts and escaped the rest.
“My reputation with a sword is well deserved,” he shouted.
“Look,” a reveler suddenly shouted. “Casanova—he bleeds. This is no sham combat, no entertainment.”
“Jacques, wounded!” Tomaso shouted. “You must stop this duel before it ends your life.”
The swordsmen continued their fierce fight. When the two veered toward the front of a store, the attending shopkeeper fled.
Grimani sneered. “I know your history, Casanova. To me, you’re nothing. Nothing. No aristocratic blood. Your mother, an actress. Your father? Who is he? Hah! One does not have to be overly clever to grasp your unending desire for high opinion from society.”
Jacques’ heart exploded through his ribs.
“My family?” Grimani crowed. “
Five hundred years in the Golden Book. It’s my breed that has preserved precious Venice—”
“Not the Venice I love. Not by sacrificing people like Esther, Petrine, the Vicomte—”
“What of it? They died for Venice!”
“When has the republic asked you to butcher an old woman or a fragile old man? When has Venice asked you to murder? To lie, cheat, manipulate, and destroy? You bestow upon yourself the mantle of importance in order to gain your own selfish ends.” Jacques parried a lethal thrust from his opponent, then spewed more venom. “I know others of your family. They’re not corrupt. But you? I shake in fear for the future of the republic. In the control of tainted hands such as yours.”
“Just after I cut your lowborn heart from your body, my hands will control all of Venice.”
There was a gasp from the crowd. One of the revelers cried out. “This Cavaliere—he does not act like a worthy son of Venice. He acts like a disease.” Heads nodded sternly in agreement while others jeered the man.
Jacques, seeing his main chance, thrust. Grimani parried a low prime. Then with blades bound, the two duelists arched body to body, only their sharp steel between them.
With snakelike quickness, Grimani delivered a blow with the pommel of his sword to Jacques’ chin.
Jacques reeled backward.
“My grand plans will succeed,” Grimani cried. “But first, you must die.”
Jacques tottered uncontrollably until, from somewhere deep in his memory, he heard his brother’s advice. “You may want to use Maistre Liancour’s lunge, which may save your life someday.” Next came the motherly advice of Zanetta. “A young man needs a proper snuffbox. I’ve given you boys few gifts, but to you I present this snuffbox, my son, so you’ll find respect when you enter good society. Carry this gift wherever you go.”
A river of memories sped through Jacques—faded faces churning at him, odd singsong rushing in and out. Black-and-white Carnivale masks swirled past. He tried to grip his smallsword. Tinkling laughter began. It was Dominique’s, and its music seemed effervescent and beautiful. “Perhaps we should sharpen your fencing skills,” she teased. “Beginning now.”
Jacques roused with a newborn passion. He retightened his fingers around the sword hilt and spun deftly about, narrowly avoiding Grimani’s killing thrust. Presently, he stood granite still and issued a feral growl. “I loathe you, Michele Grimani. Your fiendish ways bring a hideous blight upon the Republic of Venice. Personally, too—you offend me.”
Michele Grimani offered a callous smile.
Now, as if animated by a wolflike spirit, Jacques, in one sleek and effortless move, extended his sword’s point, lifted his front leg, kicked hard his back one. His voice raised to a pitch so clear and savage the very air seemed to vibrate. In a swift jump-lunge, he bounded, his unpitying steel aimed at the heart of Michele Grimani.
Then—amidst the heat of combat, in the daunting precision of his lethal lunge—Jacques relented. He collapsed his outstretched arm, the needle-sharp point halting a finger’s width from the flesh of his enemy who, frozen in place, had failed to parry quickly enough.
Michele Grimani cried out as if a white-hot iron had passed through his chest. His weapon tumbled from his hand. He remained fixed to his spot, staring at the sword point, gurgles of fear rising from his throat.
When Jacques bared his teeth and glared into the frightened eyes of the vanquished man, the shouts from the crowd seemed far away.
“My sword cries out for blood,” Jacques hissed, his point pressing mercilessly at Grimani’s breast.
Now expectation packed the noiseless air.
In good time, Jacques again spoke. “Neither the unyielding punishment of prison nor a life of ill-advised adventuring could cure my defects. I was not an upright man.” He paused. “But I’m changed.” Jacques finished the thought in his heart: For this I’m grateful.
He slipped his hand into the coat pocket of Cavaliere Michele Grimani and quickly removed his gold snuffbox. He snapped it open. “You lied, Cavaliere. There is indeed Spaniol to be had.” Hurling the contents at Grimani, Jacques closed the lid, and tenderly kissed the keepsake he so cherished before placing it in his pocket.
Grimani’s face reddened like a fat plum.
Jacques whispered at him. “You have, as the French say, folie de grandeur. A delusion of greatness, Cavaliere. But then you yourself must carry that burden.”
Jacques raised himself to his full height and cradled his smallsword against his cheek while the crowd of revelers moved toward him. The mass of Venetians—commoners, aristocrats, sirens, shopkeepers, free men and women—heartily cheered Tomaso’s childhood friend, Casanova.
A tall, regal-looking man quieted the crowd before stepping toward Grimani. “Cavaliere,” he barked, “hearing from your own mouth how you conduct the business of our great republic—by circumventing its laws and customs—I and my colleagues,” he gestured behind him, “these distinguished personages, will make certain you shall bring no more dishonor to Venice. There will be investigations, and we will do our utmost to ensure that you be removed from offices of power and your name be stricken from the Golden Book. You are a disgrace. To your family. To the Republic of Venice.”
Stooping over, the man snatched Grimani’s smallsword from the ground and strode quickly away. Silence covered the crowd.
Every line etched in Grimani’s grim countenance seemed to burst with pain.
Jacques—now cognizant only of the streaming sunlight, his face inspired with intense earnestness—raised his sword to the heavens and saluted the broad, blue sky that canopied Venice. It was a good thing—to be alive. He stood a short while before a slight smile creased his lips. To you, Francesco, and to the woman—the fine woman—who loved us.
The revelers hoisted Jacques to their shoulders and, bearing him that way, scrambled past the shamed Cavaliere until, near a lapping waterway, he was set down.
“Good Casanova,” declared Tomaso, “surely you have regained your name. With you among us—as a friend—Venice will be a far better place.”
“Tomaso, please lend me your handkerchief,” were Jacques’ simple words. “I have a wound very near my … heart.” A single tear warmed his cheek.
He pressed the cloth to his chest, then accepted Tomaso’s helping hand.
The throng of revelers, joining with other carnivalers, swelled into larger streets, surged forward in a torrent of carefree voices, and spilled out into the grand piazza called San Marco.
Jacques Casanova, escorted by the jubilant crowd, imagined that glorious Carnivale breathed in ten thousand Venetian hearts—that men, women and children everywhere celebrated and rejoiced.
I, too, rejoice. I’m at peace. I’m home, where I belong.
Then his thoughts turned to Petrine.
AFTERWORD
THESE HISTORICAL PLACES, people, and events were a beginning point, a point of departure, for The Secrets of Casanova:
Honore Fragonard (1732-1799) was the director of the world’s first veterinary school in Lyons, France. The Fragonard Museum, with a number of unexplained anatomical exhibits, exists to the present day in the outskirts of Paris.
Michele Grimani was a member of the Inquisitori de Stato. The Grimani family was initially listed in Venice’s roll of patrician families—the Golden Book—in 1297.
The Stables of Solomon may still be seen in Jerusalem.
The Lisbon earthquake killed approximately thirty to seventy thousand people in November 1755. Following the earthquake, the three ensuing tidal waves wreaked further havoc.
The Vatican’s Index librorum prohibitorum lists some four thousand books forbidden throughout the world. No layman may read or possess any of them without special permission granted only for single books and in urgent cases.
Casanova was imprisoned in Venice’s I Piombi prison in July 1755—for unspecified charges—and was incarcerated there when the Lisbon earthquake struck in November. He and a renegade priest (incarcerated with
him) made a daring escape—the only men ever to do so. In 1787, Casanova wrote Story of My Flight, which he later repeated in his autobiography.
Portugal held a great fascination for Casanova all his life, and although he traveled widely, he never set foot in Portugal.
In December 1759, the Marquis de Pombal (Carvalho e Mello) expelled all Jesuits from Portugal.
Giacomo Girolomo Casanova died June 4, 1798, in Bohemia. His final deathbed words were: “Almighty God and you witnesses of my death, I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian.”
In the waning years of the eighteenth century, the oldest republic in the world—Venice—in the hands of Napoleon, ceased to exist.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader,
The fiction I write is made up of exaggeration and fabrication, of the evasion or erasure of known facts, of the reordering of events and dates, and of a good deal of prose created by my vivid imagination. Some call this literary license. I’ve taken immense literary license with my fiction.
Please do not take any of this book as factual; it is fiction.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They say writing is a solitary experience. I agree. Rewriting, however, is a collaborative experience. Following is a thank you to the many people who have supported the writing of The Secrets of Casanova.
I lovingly acknowledge Lisa Michaels, “patron of the artist,” for giving, in so many ways, love, support and understanding. In my life, there has been no other like her. I have loved her—not always well—but always.
My sons, too, have been a mainstay while I’ve confined myself to the computer or a pile of musty books. They witnessed their dad’s actions first hand—and tolerated his obsession. I love them mightily and thank them from the depths of my heart.
Deepest and greatest thanks to Robin Maxwell, the “carrot and stick” woman who inspired, prodded, and generally used her every trick to support the creation of this manuscript. To her I owe considerable cash, although as I consider it, a friendly and warm “Love ya, dear friend” might suffice. I’m extremely beholden to Robin for her encouragement, her unwavering assistance, and her enduring friendship. And let me not forget her sublime sense of humor!
Secrets of Casanova Page 34