Votive

by Karen Brooks

  In the time it took to store these impressions, someone approached obscured by a haze of fragrant smoke. It was Signor Ezzelino Maleovelli. He wasn’t much taller than me and leant to one side. His cane marked the rhythm of his advance. He bowed. I could see his thick silver hair cascading over the crown of his head and curling down his back. As he straightened, his eyes met mine and it was all I could do not to tremble. They were cold eyes – like the fish I used to see displayed on market days. How could a living being have such eyes? He stood in front of me and brazenly studied my form.

  ‘Bella,’ he said approvingly, and then spoke over his shoulder to the people behind him. ‘What do you think? Don’t stand back there – come and be formally introduced.’ Signor Maleovelli waved them forward, wisps of smoke providing direction.

  The light in my eyes meant I could not see them clearly until they stepped into his shadow. The first to be introduced was a corpulent young man who was not only hunched, but rolled as he walked, as if there was something in his shoe. I couldn’t help but glance at his feet, but they were obscured by his togati. He paused before me and bowed. Again, I curtsied.

  ‘This is my nephew, Jacopo. He lives with us here at Casa Maleovelli and is responsible for maintaining the family history, accounts and general housekeeping. He is, you will discover, quite a scholar.’ Jacopo dropped his eyes modestly, but the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth revealed something less attractive. ‘Jacopo, this is the newest addition to our household, Signorina Tarlo. From hereon you will not only be helping us instruct her, but you will also manage her affairs.’

  ‘Sì, Zio Ezzelino. Signorina Tarlo, it’s a pleasure to meet you, finally … cousin.’

  I hesitantly raised my eyes, but instead of the usual expression of fear, he was gazing at me the way I used to see Quinn study the soldi collected in her tin. He had a long face and nose with pale skin stained by dark whiskers. He also possessed his zio’s eyes.

  ‘Prego,’ I said.

  ‘Cousin, you’re most welcome,’ he murmured in a rather high voice for someone so large, and stepped aside.

  ‘Grazie.’ I waited.

  I finally caught a glimpse of the other man who replaced Jacopo by Signor Maleovelli’s side. He was shorter in stature and wider in girth. I stifled a gasp and had to dissemble quickly. His face was discoloured by livid green and purple contusions. A gash divided his lip and his left cheek was badly swollen. Both eyes were encircled by puffy dark flesh that bled into a sickly yellow at his temples. I knew all too well what those marks signified. Memories I’d managed to all but suppress flooded into my head. He’d suffered a terrible beating. Yet Signor Maleovelli, Jacopo and Giaconda acted as if they did not notice or did not care. I wondered who had administered such pain. My heart contracted. I swallowed and offered him a slight, clumsy curtsy. He returned a surprisingly elegant bow that allowed me to see his broken, cut fingers as one hand rested across his waist.

  Despite the wounds he carried and which disfigured his face, there was something disturbingly familiar about him.

  He looked first at Signor Maleovelli, then Giaconda, before resting his eyes on me, his head tipped towards his shoulder. A smile played on his ruined lips and a tiny flash from a gold tooth escaped. Words caught in my throat and my pulse raced. Non è possible! I knew him! A flush crept up my neck and I could feel moisture gather between my breasts. What were the Maleovellis doing consorting with this man? What was going on? Why was he here? I froze, uncertain what to say, what to do. I longed to reach out, touch him, touch anything, and extract.

  Just as these thoughts swept through my mind, I saw his face redden and his jaw drop. He stumbled, the back of his knees hitting a table.

  ‘No!’ he gasped, pointing a shaking finger at me.

  I didn’t know where to look. His actions mirrored my feelings.

  ‘Sì,’ drawled Signor Ezzelino, chuckling. ‘She has the silver eyes, the eyes that mark her as an Estrattore. We didn’t need you after all, Scarpoli. We found her ourselves.’

  The man they called Scarpoli, but whom I knew as Signor Barbacan, staggered back to the armchair he’d recently vacated and fell into it. He reached for a glass from the table beside him and tipped the contents down his throat. He coughed a few times then stared at me more intently. ‘You’re Tallow Pelleta. The candlemaker’s apprentice. Here. Just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘God has a strange sense of humour.’

  There was a bubble of laughter from Giaconda. ‘This has nothing to do with God, Signor Scarpoli.’

  ‘Esatto.’ Signor Ezzelino’s word hung in sunny brumes above his head.

  ‘So you found Tallow yourselves.’ Signor Scarpoli shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Tarlo,’ corrected Giaconda firmly. ‘From now on, she is Tarlo Maleovelli. You’re all to remember that.’ She included me as she took a seat. Signor Ezzelino and Jacopo also sat, leaving me standing by myself. ‘We picked a name that was close to her own. The fact it’s masculinised is our bit of fun, an acknowledgement that, in so many ways, the masquerade of her life continues.’ She offered me a smile. I could not yet return it.

  ‘Tarlo,’ repeated Baroque. ‘I never would have guessed. I never would have expected …’

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘Me neither, Signor Barbacan.’

  ‘You remember me, then.’

  ‘I cannot forget. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve been following me for some time.’ I recalled the night he tracked me and Dante on the Circolo Canal, the time he innocently struck up a conversation with me in the campo. So long ago: another lifetime. ‘I don’t understand.’ I looked from Baroque to Giaconda, to Jacopo, who quickly looked away, and finally at Signor Maleovelli. ‘What’s going on? How do you all know Signor … Scarpoli?’

  ‘Please, Tarlo, sit down.’ Signor Maleovelli gestured to a high-backed chair opposite his. I sat down gratefully. My thoughts were spinning out of control. ‘The time for secrets between us has passed.’ Signor Maleovelli signalled for Giaconda to pour from the decanter that sat on one of the many tables scattered between the chairs. ‘Baroque works for me, Tarlo. I employed him to find you. Tarlo, meet Signor Baroque Scarpoli.’

  My mouth dropped open. ‘Me? But how – why?’

  ‘We saw you, Giaconda and I, months ago in a ramo in the Chandlers Quartiere. We have rooms there for our … business.’ He glanced at Giaconda. Jacopo studied his hands intently. ‘You healed a dog, a dog that should not have lived. We watched as you lured the chandler to your side and used the power within you to extract whatever it was you needed from him to save the animal –’

  I didn’t listen. Not properly, anyhow. Instead I let my mind wander back to that day in the damp ramo, the day I met Dante and saved Cane from certain death. I’d wondered if we’d been seen, but the alley had been dark and there’d been no sign of anyone. Yet the Maleovellis had witnessed what I’d done – they’d known from that one small action what I was and they’d hunted me down. I glanced at Baroque. They’d even hired this man. God help me.

  ‘– Baroque was to find you and bring you to us. But he disappeared. Turns out that the hunter was also hunted.’ Baroque’s cheeks became ruddy and he muttered something. Signor Maleovelli dismissed his mumblings with a wave of his hand. ‘As it was, you literally fell into our laps. Well, our gondola.’ Signor Maleovelli chuckled. Baroque perceptibly started. It was evident he hadn’t known about that.

  ‘It was providence. The goddess, Fortunata – forgive my blasphemy. Tarlo, my dear, it seems that one way or another, you are meant to be with us.’

  Silence filled the spaces between us.

  ‘Why? What do you want from me?’ I asked finally. ‘Why was Signor Barba … Scarpoli seeking me?’

  Signor Ezzelino and Giaconda exchanged a long look that I couldn’t interpret. Jacopo glanced at me. I detected need in his gaze. Need and something else. The back of my neck became ice-cold.

  ‘There’s nothing sinister at work here, Tarlo. You hav
e no reason to be afraid of us. We know what you are and what you can do. We haven’t sought you all this time to simply turn you over to the Doge or the Church. On the contrary, we want to protect you but, like anything in this damn city, our protection comes at a price.’ Signor Maleovelli leant back in his chair and sucked on his pipe.

  What did he mean? Was he threatening me? The corset constricted and I was beginning to feel cloistered, even in this spacious room.

  ‘Papa, I think it’s best if I explain, don’t you?’ Giaconda rose from her seat and strolled towards one of the windows. She turned her back to the view. A halo of light formed around her, turning her into a gleaming silhouette. ‘Being part of this family, being a Maleovelli, carries obligations, duties. That’s what Papa means by a price. Don’t look so concerned. You’ll be assigned certain tasks and, if you do the right thing by us, Tarlo, then we’ll do the right thing by you. First we will give you the protection of our home and our name.’ Her arm swept the room. ‘You must understand, these are not given lightly. What we offer is to be taken very seriously.’

  I felt them all watching me. Time seemed to slow.

  ‘I don’t know that I do understand.’ My voice sounded distant, small. ‘Why would you do this? Take such a risk? What can I do for you? What sort of duties are you talking about? I can clean, I can cook …’

  Giaconda tittered. ‘Do you really believe we would ask you to cook? To be a house girl? We already have those. Oh, Tarlo. What we want from you is so much more, so much better.’ She detached herself from the window and moved towards me. ‘You have so much to offer, my dear young woman. Why, you’re an Estrattore.’

  I winced as she used the word so brazenly, so openly. Just like Katina when she first came into my life. Pillar had panicked, shutting doors and windows, glancing over his shoulder, even in the safety of his own home. I wasn’t sure what would happen here, but when nothing did, when the others sat there and Signor and Signorina Maleovelli bored holes in my head with their intent stares, I released the breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding. I waited expectantly. So did the men. We were all now focused on Giaconda. Her gown rustled softly as it reorganised itself around her legs. She faced me. ‘Until recently, you’d been taught to deny what you were, hide away your talents, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Sì.’ Endless beatings, reminders to lower my head, my eyes, not draw attention to myself; even the umber glasses that Katina had insisted were made for me were all attempts to disguise my origins. ‘Sì. Vero – it’s true.’

  ‘Well, while you’re under our roof, my dear, you don’t have to hide anything. Not from us. We want you to refine what it is you do, hone your skills, your talents: make them so much a part of who you are that they are indistinguishable to anyone but us. It can be done. It will be done.’

  ‘We understand,’ continued Signor Maleovelli, ‘that you were a candlemaker. Scarpoli tells us that somehow, you used the candles to … how do I put it? Make special things happen? That you were able to effect change in those who burned your candles.’

  ‘Those who survived that dreadful plague, the Morto Assiderato, in your Quartiere attribute it to you – to your candles,’ confirmed Baroque.

  He’d learnt a great deal about me. Information that I foolishly thought was hidden, safe. That unnerved me. I cleared my throat. ‘I distilled what I extracted from objects and people into the candles. It was a way of hiding what I cannot help but do, of making the process less obvious. Or so I thought.’

  ‘This is excellent,’ said Signor Maleovelli. ‘And, are we to understand that, like the Estrattore of old, you can extract any emotion, any feeling from a thing –’ he held up a brightly striated piece of glass ‘– or a person and distil it down to its most potent form?’

  I nodded. ‘But only if I can detect it in the first place. You have to understand, I haven’t had much training. I think I told you in the gondola.’ I looked at Giaconda. ‘A Bond Rider named Katina tried to teach me –’ Baroque spluttered his vino, covering his mouth quickly as he coughed. ‘But she had limitations …’ I shot a glance at Baroque and continued. ‘She didn’t know everything. She wouldn’t allow me to do certain things. I’m not properly trained.’ I didn’t tell them what I had done on my own. How I had failed in my attempts to make certain people’s lives better. I was ashamed.

  ‘Is this the same Bond Rider that killed your friend?’ asked Giaconda lightly.

  I stiffened.

  ‘I don’t think she was on the horse that trampled him, but yes, it’s the same one.’ Why was I defending her? Katina … how could you let that happen?

  Over my head, I perceived unspoken words, lingering glances.

  ‘Let me tell you a story, Tarlo,’ said Signor Maleovelli finally. ‘It may help you understand our position, what we can offer you.’ He waited till he had my full attention. ‘You see, once, a long time ago, the Maleovellis were rich. We were a force to be reckoned with – we had our own ships, trade routes and even, for a while, a bank. We were close to attaining the Dogeship for, in this city, you have to have influence to hold office. By influence I mean wealth and the power that attracts.’ He paused, a frown creasing his face. ‘And we came so close,’ he whispered, staring at a painting of someone I assumed was an ancestor. His frown disappeared and his sombre tone lifted. ‘But it all changed. Some very foolish decisions and allegiances by my great, great-grandfather meant that in less than a generation, we lost our money and our reputation. We have never been able to regain the position we had, the position our once-eminent house deserves.’ He fixed his eyes upon me. ‘With your help, we hope to have all that restored.’

  ‘So, I am here to reinstate your wealth.’ I could hear the doubt in my voice. Surely, it could not be so easy. These nobiles could not have the same base desires as Quinn.

  ‘As I said, in Serenissima, wealth also means power. And power means control. We want to be in control. Not just of our lives, but of Serenissma. Tarlo, I want the Dogeship. With your help, I can have it.’

  At first I didn’t know what to say. My mind galloped. ‘You ask a great deal of me.’ My voice was quiet.

  ‘Sì. But it is within your power to give us this. According to what Jacopo has learnt from the city’s archives, all the great Doges in the past ruled with an Estrattore by their side. You’re to be mine, my family’s.’

  ‘But that’s just like the position the Cardinale has now, isn’t it? He advises on matters of the soul, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Esatto,’ said Signor Maleovelli. ‘And not just on the soul. And look where that has led.’ He stared out the window, focusing on something in the middle distance, reflecting inwards rather than outwards. ‘Once Serenissima was a mighty, independent power, a force to be reckoned with. Exiling the Estrattore, changing the core religious beliefs of the entire city and allowing Roma and the Great Patriarch to, let’s say, wield such influence, has not only weakened us, it has made us dependent upon them – and not just on spiritual matters, but for everything. With your help, we can restore Serenissima to her former glory.’ He tore his eyes away from the window and smiled at me. I resisted the urge to shudder. ‘Tarlo.’ He glanced at Giaconda, who nodded approvingly. ‘We know what we’re asking of you is enormous.’ He put down his pipe. It balanced precariously on a little silver dish, the smoking tobacco threatening to spill. ‘But I think you’ll find what we offer you in return is more than adequate.’

  ‘What is that?’ I tore my eyes away from the pipe to find everyone staring at me, leaning forward.

  Signor Maleovelli took a deep breath before he answered.

  ‘The return of the Estrattore.’

  I COULD BARELY BREATHE. MY HEART RACED. I wondered for a moment if I’d even heard Signor Maleovelli correctly.

  ‘Return? You mean, bring the Estrattore back to Serenissima? Reinstate them?’

  Signor Maleovelli nodded. ‘I do. Once I’m in power, nothing can stop me overturning the decree that banished them and restoring the o
ld ways. Together, Tarlo, we can bring the Estrattore, the ancient magic, back – back to where it belongs, they belong – here in Serenissima, in Vista Mare.’

  ‘What about people’s beliefs? What about God?’

  ‘What about them? They will worship what and whom they’re told. It’s happened before, it will happen again. Roma’s God was forced upon us. The truth is, Serenissima has always belonged to the gods – those who created your kind.’ Jacopo tried to contain himself. Giaconda bowed her head towards her father, a look I couldn’t quite read upon her face. Baroque remained impassive.

  I couldn’t believe what I was being told. Katina had said there were Estrattore in the Limen and it was up to me to find them. I’d often wondered about the point of that if they couldn’t come back to Serenissima. But now I was being given the opportunity to bring my people, my ‘kind’, back to their homeland and to see them and what they represented restored. ‘I can bring them back to where they belong.’ My thoughts translated into words.