Cross My Heart (14 page)

“It’s me!” I gasp. Pleasure flushes through me. “I’ve never been in a picture before.”

“I’d like to make a proper picture of you one day—a painting, in oils.”

He holds my gaze. His dark eyes seem to be searching for something within my own so intently that I’m forced to look away, down at my dress. I realize I must look just like my image in his drawing.

“But for now, this one needs a name,” he says.
“Giudecca at Night, with Signorina …?”

“Laura.”

He repeats my name, seeming to linger over the word. “I’m Giacomo.”

St. Mark’s bell tower chimes at the hour. The sound ripples across the churches throughout the city.

Eleven. I should be back inside. My father will wonder where I am.

I smile. “I must go.”

“Of course,” he says.

He helps me to my feet and we stand there, not moving for a while. He doesn’t take his eyes off my face. I murmur goodbye and walk back through the gardens. As I go, I hope that he’s standing there, looking at me still.

Later that night my father and I sit in the dining room. He growls to himself as he opens another bottle from the cellar, pouring the ruby-red wine into his goblet with a shaking hand. Bianca attends us, her hair already woven into a long
plait for the night. She tries to put a cork in the bottle, but he swats her away.

He points at me. “You’re going to have to start cooperating. Make sure Paulina introduces you to more of her circle. Someone told me she’ll marry the Doge’s son.”

“Yes, Father. She and I talked of it today.”

“Well, what’s the news?” he asks, leaning towards me as if my face has something written on it. His voice is slurred and his breath soured by drink.

“She talked about the hunt Raffaello and Carina are hosting.”

I’m instantly sorry I’ve mentioned it. He downs the contents of his goblet, then flings it on the floor. It smashes into a puddle of dregs and splinters of glass.

I see Bianca shake her head crossly. There’s a faint knock on the door and she slips from the room.

“That bloody hunt!” he shouts. “The whole of Venice is going and we’re not even on the spectator list! You know Beatrice and I went last year? It’s where she first met Vincenzo. Oh, if I were only on the Grand Council. How everything is so changed. And you!” He stands up, his fists digging into the table. “If I don’t find another husband for you, you’ll just have to go back to the convent! So it’s up to you—if you can’t secure a man through Paulina, I can’t afford to keep you.”

His words sting, but I’m too weary and it’s late in the evening for an argument.

Bianca reappears at the dining room door.

“Excuse me, master,” she says. “There’s a message for
you. Delivered earlier.” She holds out a creamy scroll. “I forgot to give it—”

My father snatches it and breaks the wax seal.

It’s an invitation to the hunt. Both our names are painted on the parchment in black ink.

My father jumps up, tipping over his chair. His scowl has changed into a smile, and he takes me by the hands and swings me round.

“The della Scalas are still a force to be reckoned with!” He laughs. “Perhaps we are not lost after all.”

It’s like living with two different people. One moment he’s dour, critical, frowning. The next he’s frantic, excitable, laughing. I don’t know which version of him is worse.

He reaches for the wine bottle, taking another goblet from the shelves along the wall. As he pours another drink, Bianca beckons me with her finger.

“There’s a messenger here now,” she whispers. “That’s what made me think of the invitation. The message is for you. He says he’s to give it to you himself.”

My skin prickles with excitement. A messenger for me? At this hour? I return to the table. “Father, it’s very late. I think I’ll go to bed.”

He raises his goblet to me. “Yes, of course, excellent girl. I’ll be turning in myself soon.”

I suspect I’ll find him slumped over the table in the morning, the bottle empty.

Bianca and I rush out of the room.

“Where? Where is he?” I don’t even try to hide the delight that has risen to the surface of me.

“I told him to wait in the courtyard, by the bench,” says Bianca.

We run through the hall and I fling open the back door.

Bianca touches my shoulder. “I’ll be just here. Shout if you need me.”

I give her a grateful smile and run through the courtyard. I’m expecting to see a dark-haired man with an olivetinted face, paint splashed over his clothes. The smell of lemon balm kisses the air. My hurrying steps startle a cat, which lets out a snide mew. Then I see him, a figure by the bench, under the shadows of the cypress tree.

It’s not who I expect. I haven’t seen this man before.

“Oh,” I say. I try to regain my poise. “Hello.”

“Signorina,” the man replies with a bow, “my name is Mathieu.” His accent isn’t one I’ve heard before. I wonder if he’s from the south, from Naples, perhaps. He’s my father’s age, with kindly lines that crinkle around his eyes. He takes something out of the pocket of his jacket.

“I’m Giacomo’s servant. My master wishes me to tell you that you’re in his thoughts. He bids me pass this token of his regard to you.”

He holds a little package in the palm of his hand. It’s wrapped in soft orange silk. I pull the twine that holds it together, and open it to reveal a wooden bird—a swift, with its wings outstretched—beautifully carved, perfectly finished. It makes me smile.

“Mathieu, thank you,” I say. “And please pass on my gratitude to Signor Giacomo.”

“Of course,” he says, and lowers his head in a little shallow bow. He half turns to go, then grins. “You’re just as he described you, Signorina.”

I wonder what he means as he walks past the low wall
and through my father’s gates, with a purposeful, untroubled stride.

I slip back into the house. I hear my father snoring in the dining room and fetch one of the furs lying in the salon, spreading it over his shoulders.

But though I’m desperately tired I can’t sleep, no matter how much I remember Faustina dabbing invisible honey on my eyelids. I lie curled on my side, holding Giacomo’s carved wooden gift between my fingers, turning it over and imagining his own fingers doing the same. My body quivers and I try to quiet my thoughts. I mustn’t think about a painter boy in this way. It’s quite wrong.

T
he following night I sit by my window, watching the shadows move around the courtyard as I wait for the house to fall silent. I calculate that I have almost four hours before the first clues of morning will thread their whispers around the night clouds. I make a decision. I have to do as Allegreza said. If their power is as great as the swiftness of Vincenzo’s departure suggests, then the Segreta might be helpful in unlocking the other secret that plagues me. Murders are built on secrets, after all. A motive lurks in the mind of a killer until it is uncovered: a debt that can’t be paid, an adulterous affair, jealousy that blossoms into a poisonous flower of hatred. If I can find the reason my sister was killed, then perhaps it will lead me to her killer.

I get up, slip into a green linen day dress and throw my cape over my shoulders. I pull my mask from its secret place in my bottom drawer, tuck it into the deep silk pocket of my cape and head out into the night.

There are several boats in the harbor, their sailors sitting
on the jetties, chattering in low voices. But one boat catches my attention, for on its hull is sketched the outline of a key. When its pilot sees me he stands upright and alert. I pass the other vessels to his.

“Can you take me to San Michele?” I ask, offering a coin. Despite our penury, my father has given me a small allowance.

The boatman waves it away with his hand. “It would be my pleasure,” he says.

It feels like I’ve made this journey a thousand times. Perhaps that’s how often I’ve followed the wake of this crossing in my head.

When the boat slides to a halt, I thank the boatman and step out once again onto the checkered courtyard. Again the friar emerges; he nods in silent greeting and I follow him into the monastery. His sandaled feet are silent, but my footsteps ring like some lone person clapping in the dark.

We wind through the maze of corridors and up the spiral stairs. As we near the meeting room I put on the shimmering white disguise. The friar steps aside and I see them all gathered, just as they were before. The woman in the fox mask is first to notice me.

“Ah, it’s the little swan,” she says.

Allegreza stands in the center of the group in her owl mask, but it’s a different woman who beckons me forward.

“Welcome.” Her mask is shaped like a black cat’s face, studded with pieces of jet. Her entire outfit is black, from the top of her head to her dark shoes. She wears long black gloves and her silver hair is laced with a black satin ribbon. “You shouldn’t be nervous, child, for here we are your friends.”

I recognize her voice at once, and the face behind the mask, though invisible, forms out of my memory. It’s Grazia, Carina’s mother: the woman who, with her husband, was ousted from the Doge’s party. The woman whose dead son lies interred in St. Mark’s.

“I saw you,” I say. “At the Doge’s palace.”

I worry that I’ve said the wrong thing, but if I’ve offended her, she doesn’t betray any displeasure.

“There are some things we can’t forget,” she says. “Our children paid a high price—too high for ones so young.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she says. “But your own grief is even fresher.”

She puts her warm hand on mine.

The Segreta gather in a loose semicircle, facing me. Grazia nods. Do they expect me to speak?

“I want to thank you,” I manage. “You engineered my freedom, and for that I’m …”

The women murmur to each other. Their eyes glare at me, and they’re like a flock of hostile birds, clicking and alert. Some put their hands up to their ears in the way I remember the nuns doing at the convent when they heard anything they thought they shouldn’t.

Allegreza holds up her hand. “Silence! Don’t say another word.”

“I don’t understand. Vincenzo—”

She steps towards me. Her voice is low but not unkind. “Laura, we thought you understood. No one ever discusses what the Society does, or implies that it is responsible for any actions or events that unfold in Venice. It’s dangerous to link us to anything. There are cracks in every wall in this
city. There are windows and eaves and gaps through which rumors might escape. Do you understand? This is for everyone’s protection, including yours.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“There’s something else you need to do for us, Laura,” she says.

I shake my head. “I have no more secrets.”

“It’s not that,” she says. “We need you to recruit a trusting heart to the Segreta. Bring us someone who will join us.”

I stare at her, amazed. “But how can I possibly do that? I’m not even allowed to speak of your existence.”

The women laugh and bob their heads behind their rustling masks. I feel myself blush beneath my own but still have no idea how to accomplish what they ask.

“I managed with you,” says Allegreza, “and so you shall find a way. Because you’re a clever girl, and you have a strength inside that you have only just begun to use.”

“And if I fail?” I ask quietly.

No one answers, and my mind fills their silence with a dozen threats. Their power throbs and fills the chamber. They brought down a member of the Grand Council; what’s a convent girl to them?

A distant bell chimes and the meeting breaks up. We process in silence back through the monastery. Grazia glides at my side. Several boats have gathered by the checkered floor. Our oarsmen take us back to the main island as the sky lightens, little boats fanning off in all directions.

As I hold on to the rocking edge of the boat I’m struck by another truth. Just as the Segreta pulled their strings and removed Vincenzo, now they’re manipulating me.

“I
can’t wait to get in the saddle again!” my father declares. “I only hope they don’t give me some old nag.”

He’s said the same thing, or a close variation, three times already this morning. I’m starting to feel sorry for the horse. The brevity of our conversation with the Doge, and the social exile it implied, seem to be forgotten.