Cross My Heart (23 page)

As I watch, she takes a few steps towards him and places her hand carefully on his shoulder. His eyes settle on her fingers.

“I fear even your charms aren’t that great, Carina.”

“What happened to our friendship?” she asks. “I thought I would’ve been the first person you’d look for when you came back.”

“It was difficult.”

He steps away, but she moves closer to him again.

“I thought we were going to be more than friends. I was sure. We were only just old enough for love when the terrible fight happened and everything changed.”

“We were only children,” he says.

“I thought you were dead.” She touches his chest, softly this time, and I wish she wouldn’t. Her hand trails down across his stomach. “If I’d known that you were alive all these years … why, I would have …”

She lifts his shirt up slowly, and I hold my breath. He lets her do it, and inch by inch his torso is exposed. A wide, jagged-looking scar stretches almost completely across the left side of his tanned chest, stopping near his heart.

“Carina, stop,” he says, pulling away.

“Oh, come, Roberto,” she says, “I’m just looking.” She brushes his chest and places her hand flat upon it. His back is against the crooked door. I can only watch. “They said no one could survive that wound.”

“What are you doing here, Carina?” His voice is thick, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

“I’m here,” she sighs, “because I have a secret too.”

“Yes?” he says, smoothing his shirt down.

Carina turns away again, and lowers her eyes to the floor.

“If you want to know the truth, I’ve actually known
about your being here for months,” she says. “I’ve just been biding my time. Waiting for this chance to talk to you.”

I can’t see her eyes. Is she lying?

Roberto frowns, clearly as confused as I am. “Who told you?”

“Aha,” she says. “You must know. Think about it.”

For a long time there’s silence. Roberto looks straight at me, then says quietly, “Beatrice.”

“Women can’t keep secrets,” laughs Carina. “Didn’t you know that?”

“Then she trusted you with a grave secret,” says Roberto.

“And I never told anyone,” says Carina. “Though I could have.”

“I sincerely hope that is true,” he says.

Carina seems to ignore this. “And now I’ve heard,” she says, “that you’re close to the other sister. I’m sure you already know of her grasping father’s foul, territorial temper.”

Her tone drips with contempt. She looks at him with satisfaction and anticipation. She seems swollen with a kind of power.

“I want you to leave,” he says, moving towards the door.

A ripple of fresh affection sweeps over me. I want to be out there, standing by his side.

“Beatrice was a fool,” continues Carina. “And Laura is no better.”

The transformation has happened before my eyes. Carina, stripped of her loveliness, spits out her words brutally.

“Beatrice was my friend,” says Roberto. “And her sister is far more.”

Carina rounds on him with a brittle laugh. “Far more?”

“Yes. Far more. I love Laura della Scala, and I think that she loves me too.”

Carina’s body stiffens.

“Don’t speak like a fool, Roberto. Laura is nothing but a convent girl. Unrefined. Ignorant.
Inexperienced
. She can’t satisfy a Doge’s son.”

“She’s the most beautiful woman in Venice,” he says. “The fear that I am not good enough for her is all that haunts me now.”

“Well, if that’s all you’re frightened of, then you’re more of a fool than I thought,” she snaps. But her body changes; she runs a hand through her hair and her voice becomes softer, honeyed, heavy. “I’m a widow. I’m free—and I can set you free too.” She reaches for him again, but he pushes her hand away.

“No,” he says, opening the door to let her out.

“Don’t you find me attractive?” she simpers. “Don’t you think we’d make a fine Venetian pair?”

“Please go, Carina.”

She’s flushed. She steps from him and brushes down her dress. She takes two deep breaths, then shakes her locks back over her shoulder.

“Fine,” she says. “I will give you time. There are men all over this city who would chop off their own arms for my hand in marriage. Think on it, then send me your answer.”

She sweeps away. I hear the pressure of her slow steps on the staircase, and finally the slam of the outside door. He comes back over to the wardrobe and throws it open. Our lips meet with me still half standing inside, and his
hands on my waist lift me out. He carries me over to the tousled bed.

“Beatrice never told me,” I say, still a little angry that this is another secret.

“I asked her not to tell anyone. I let my mask slip in a moment of weakness. She was so kindhearted, I never dreamt she might tell someone else.”

“She trusted Carina. So did I.”

On the narrow bed, I rest my head on Roberto’s chest, and slide my hand under his loose shirt. He shivers a little as the smoothness of his skin gives way to the rough tissue of the scar.

“Did it hurt?”

“I hardly remember,” he says. “We were fishing, my friend and I, just after dawn. We didn’t see the men until they were close by. Didn’t see the swords they held until it was too late. I thought that I’d been shoved, that’s all, and fell into the water. But there was a lot of blood.”

I let my hand trace the line of his ribs. “Poor you. Only eleven years old.”

“Julius’s men left me for dead, and my friend rushed for help. I don’t remember being fished out or taken back to the palazzo. A fever set in later, but after I’d recovered they sent me away at once with Mathieu. He looked after me for years in Paris.”

“So the tomb in the chapel …?”

“Empty. My mother insisted on a closed coffin, claiming I’d received a terrible injury to my face too. Only a handful of my father’s most loyal subjects know the truth.”

I prop myself up on my elbow and look into his eyes. He
tries to kiss me, but I place a hand on his chest. “You must consider Carina’s offer.”

His eyes widen. “Why?”

“If Julius would attack an innocent boy, he’ll come after an innocent man just as surely. Marrying Carina is the only way of putting a stop to all this.”

“Is that what you want?” he asks me. “Please don’t tell me that’s what you want me to do.”

“Of course it’s not. But this is your
life
we’re talking about.”

“Laura, if I married that woman, I would never breathe a single happy breath again as long as I lived.”

“But if you don’t marry her, you can’t stay in Venice.”

I know it’s more serious than that; if he doesn’t marry her, he won’t be safe anywhere in the world. Carina has him in checkmate. Now she waits for him to consider his options and to realize that there’s no choice.

“But if I marry her,” he says, “then I won’t be able to do this.” He brushes his lips against my collarbone. “Or this.” He kisses my lips. “I’d never even be able to hold these hands in mine ever again.”

His touch sends a thrill across my skin, and I don’t want him to stop. But through the veil of passion, a darker shadow lurks.

“Someone is going to kill you,” I say, my voice a soft whisper. “They could be coming for you at this very moment.”

He kisses me again and tells me everything is going to be all right.

“My mother used to say that,” I tell him. “And she was wrong.”

“Right,” he says, springing up off the bed. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

He strides over to his little desk, laying out his plan. He’s going to write to Carina and tell her how things are. That they cannot be together because he doesn’t feel for her as a lover. Then, when she’s pacified, he’s going to talk to Julius himself, man to man, and persuade him that the vendetta has no value anymore. That it will serve no purpose. I’m not sure, and tell him so, but he insists he will try. His confidence carries me with it.

“What about your parents?” I say, remembering that night at the palace when Julius and Grazia were turned away. “Your father has kept the pretense well. Too well, perhaps. Julius will be furious.”

“As far as my father was concerned, for many years I was as good as dead. I never saw either of my parents for over nine years.”

“But—”

“No buts,” he says. “Julius is an old man now. His grief is old and well-worn. He will understand.”

He slides a drawer out and rummages in it. He presses flat a piece of creamy parchment and dips a quill into a little pot of black ink. I watch as he writes his note of refusal. He says he’s going to fetch his friend Mathieu, who will take the message to Carina.

“Don’t be mad,” I plead with him again. “Stay here.”

Roberto smiles at me. “I’ll be back soon,” he says, “and I’ll bring a bottle of Vin Santo to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Everything. Life. Liberty. Love.”

The hour that I wait is a torment unlike any I’ve suffered. I imagine him dragged away, or worse, bleeding by the side of a street with my name on his lips. But soon I hear his feet pounding up the stairs and he bursts into the room with a smile on his face, holding a bottle by the neck. We embrace, and he twirls me round.

“It’s done,” he says. “She’ll have the note by now.”

He tips the wine, and we drink from the same glass. The taste is sweet and rich, and it blunts the sense of dread. Perhaps every day will be like this soon.

“I’ll go and see your father tomorrow,” Roberto announces.

“What on earth for?” I ask.

His face is suddenly solemn. “Well … to tell him of my intentions. Unless …”

I put a finger to his lips, laughing. “I’m joking, silly.”

He smiles too, and tries to bite at my finger, then plants soft kisses along the inside of my arm that set me giggling because they tickle.

This thing that is happening to us, so deep and precious, is seeping into my bones. And I already feel I’m going to lose it, and that there’ll be no way, then, to get it back.

“Do you think he’ll give his permission?” asks Roberto.

I can’t imagine my father’s face when he discovers that the insolent painter boy is the Doge’s son. I wonder what he will do. Bow and scrape? Fall to his knees?

“Once he’s picked himself off the floor!” I reply. “The rest of the Grand Council will have been informed before sunset, if I know my father.”

His lips taste of the sweet wine. As we break apart, his eyes are grave.

“Beatrice missed you a great deal,” he said. “She would be happy for us.”

Coming from his mouth, my sister’s name sounds like a secret wish. Roberto dries my eyes with his lips. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ve made you sad.”

“No, it’s not that,” I say. “I think you were the only thing that made her happy, near to the end.”

It’s not the time to talk to him about the certainty that festers within me, about the violence of her death. I look away. He sees too much when he looks at me.

It’s getting dark and there’s a thudding at the door once more. Even without seeing the visitor, I know it’s a man.

“Mathieu!” Roberto says.

“I’ll go,” I say, and before he can stop me, I rush down the stairs in my bare feet and unlatch the door. Standing there is a grim, thick-browed, gray-faced man, who is definitely not Mathieu. He asks for Roberto in a mumble, his mouth hidden behind a filthy scarf. There’s something about him that makes me shudder. I know him from somewhere and a flicker of instinct sharpens me.

“Roberto’s not here,” I lie.

“Then give him this,” the man says, and he holds out a small box the size of my hand. “It’s from Carina de Ferrara.”

I have questions for Carina, but I will keep them to myself. The gray face seems, in any case, to be closed to interrogation.

I carry the box back upstairs and put it on the table. Roberto, seeing my expression, is quickly at my side. He slides his arm around me.

“What is it?” he asks.

“From Carina.”

I open the box, and there’s a piece of muslin cloth inside, tied with knotted string. Roberto goes to a drawer and comes back with a knife. I notice there’s a red stain seeping through the muslin.

Roberto takes it out, and slices through the string. He pulls the sides apart slowly. His face darkens.

“What is it?”

“Look away,” he says.

The air sweeps in and out of his mouth. Something scares him now and his fear touches me also, because up until this moment, he’s just laughed in the face of danger, and his laughter was like a rock to which I’ve been clinging.

“What has she sent you?” I ask him, but he says nothing, instead replacing the muslin package in the box and taking a folded piece of paper from within. A note.

“Roberto?”

His silence is terrifying. He reads the missive to himself.

“No!” he moans. “No, no.”

“My darling?” I ask. “What is it?”

With both hands balled into fists on the table, he hangs his head. I’m shocked when a tear splashes on the stained wood.

I don’t want to touch the box, so I walk around the table to stand beside him, and peer inside. Inside the cloth lies a flaccid piece of bloodied meat, pink at the tip and discolored at the thick root. It takes hardly any time at all to realize that it’s a human tongue.