Cross My Heart (9 page)

“Pull yourself together,” I whisper to myself. That’s what the Abbess would say if she saw me cowering and shaking like this.

A giant doorway made of carved wood is set into the monastery’s walls. It’s studded with dull metal bolts, each as round and large as a man’s fist. Seaweed creeps up the hem of the building, green and slippery fronds feeling their way out of the deep.

The door opens. Too late to leave. A man in a brown hooded robe emerges, his face obscured. He beckons silently with a curled finger.

“I’m Laura,” I say to him, and he nods as if this is something he already knows.

I follow him down a narrow corridor lined with sconces spaced far apart. Between them, in the darkest places, I can hardly see my feet. The shadow of my companion’s cowl stretches and retracts as we come in proximity to the torches. We turn several corners. A right, another right, then a left. We climb a stone spiral staircase. I worry that I won’t be able to find my way back.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Where are we going?”

He doesn’t reply.

At the top of the stairs we emerge into a cavernous hall. Heat and light almost sting my face. I’m blinded and dazzled. As my eyes adjust, I see gold on the walls, and frescoes of deep blue and ferocious red. The man has already slipped away.

A cluster of figures, perhaps fifteen women, stand beside one of the four fires that blaze in hearths taller than they are. Each has a mask on her face. I feel my skin tightening,
and despite the warmth of the room, I shiver. What is this place?

The figures glide forward and form a circle around me. Their masks cast flickering, grotesque shadows. Some have long, hooked beaks, like birds of prey. Gauze butterfly wings drift softly from others. Their jewels and lace and feathers frame eyes that pierce me like a hunter’s arrows. The air is filled with a dizzying scent of spice and wood smoke. But there’s something else too—something more powerful and pungent than any of that.

My heart gallops.
This is a trap
, I think.

One of the figures reaches towards me and I shrink away, my eyes flicking round for a way out. The woman laughs from behind her feathery mask. The whole group moves closer, tightening the ring.

“What do you want from me?” I say. “Who are you?”

A tall woman steps forward. The hair within her hood is streaked with gray. Her mask is shaped like the face of a white owl, covered in white jewels and with a silver beak. She removes it, and Allegreza’s eyes glitter in the firelight.

“Welcome, Laura,” she says, “to the Segreta.”

T
he Segreta. The Secret Ones. The hiss and bite of the word sends a chill across my skin.

“You said you could help me,” I say, squeezing my fists and digging my nails into my palms to keep from shaking.

“We can,” says Allegreza. “But there are rules.” The women nod. “And there is a price.”

There’s always a price
, I think, remembering my father’s words that day he left me at the convent.

“Have you told anyone of your visit here?” Allegreza asks.

I shake my head.

“That is the first rule.” Her voice is a stony whisper. “Our organization must remain in the shadows.” There’s a murmur of approval. “The second rule is just as important. If you want us to help you, you must give us something.”

I rummage in the folds of my dress and pull out my velvet purse. “I’m not sure if this is enough.”

Allegreza smiles and waves it aside with a long, pale
hand. “We would be a mundane society indeed if all we wanted was your money.” The women’s masks shake as their wearers titter. “No—we’re looking for something more precious and more powerful than coins or jewels.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Why,” she says, drawing out the word, “we want a secret.”

The women step even closer to me, like a hungry pack. There is no way through the press of their robed bodies. Their eyes glint from behind their masks and I wonder what they will do if I can’t give them what they want.

A secret? For years I’ve done nothing but stitch, and pray, and sing. I scour my brain for something that no one else knows. My father and his financial worries? That’s no good. One glance at our faded palazzo tells the tale. The Abbess’s fondness for wine? I can’t be sure that rumor isn’t simply Annalena’s mischief. The herbal remedies prepared by the convent, which cure people of all manner of dreadful things? But women all over Italy have their own potions. I’ve no secrets to reveal, no proper ones. Nothing that will persuade the Segreta to save me from Vincenzo.

I can’t look at them now. I lower my eyes to the stone at my feet. “I don’t have any secrets.”

Sudden laughter fills the room, echoing among the stone archways. I stare at the women, bewildered. What have I said that’s so funny?

I feel my cheeks flush. I’m not frightened anymore, I’m cross that I’m being mocked. It’s been a ridiculous journey. I ought to leave, though I’m not sure I can find my way back to the gondola on my own.

The last of the laughter dies away and Allegreza cocks her head.

“Everyone has a secret,” she says. “We can’t help you if you don’t tell us yours.”

“Come on, Laura,” says a golden-haired woman in a fox mask. “There are plenty of girls we could help instead. Don’t waste our time.”

I’m a beggar with nothing to offer. Surely Allegreza could see that when she first met me. Just a girl, empty of secrets. And now empty of hope. The bitter air of Vincenzo’s breath forms a cloud above me. For I’m sure now that I will have to marry him.

“I should leave,” I say.

Allegreza’s mouth is a stern, straight line, and the great room is filled with a throbbing kind of silence until she speaks again. “Very well.”

The circle of women opens and I slip out. I can sense their eyes on my back as I walk towards the spiral staircase. I’ve failed. My mind is already traveling forward in time, anticipating the difficult task of getting to bed again without being seen. I walk down the steps, steadying myself against the cold wall with one hand. There’s a doorway, and I go through it, finding myself in an unlit chamber. This isn’t the way I came. I go back to the staircase and continue my way down. But the next chamber doesn’t look any more familiar than the last. Wretched place. Will I now face the ignominy of having to return to the Segreta and ask directions?

I lean my shoulder against the stairwell. Tears of frustration wet my eyes and I curl my hand into a fist, striking the wall. The floor rings with a jangling sound and I realize
that my sudden movement has sent my purse tumbling from my dress. The coins spin and rattle down the steps. Mary, Mother of God! I tell myself to take deep breaths.

I half crawl, half stoop to gather up as many as I can find. My purse lies in a pool of starlight, and I funnel the coins back into it. The last one in my palm is larger than the rest—a gold ducat. Engraved on it is St. Mark, a flapping banner in his hands, which he hands to the figure opposite—the Doge.

In that moment, I remember that I do have a secret. A secret worth far more than the coins in my purse, or even Vincenzo’s fortune.

“I’m a weak man. Weak and yielding. No one in Venice can find out what I suffer.”

A whispering voice of uncertainty tells me I should keep the promise I made to him. But my heart’s roar drowns it out. I have no choice.

I hitch up my skirts and run back up the twisting stairs. I see the glow cast from the enormous fireplaces and rush into the room. I feel armed—like I’m carrying a sword.

The women stand or sit in small groups, but they turn as one at the sound of my footsteps.

“What are you doing?” snaps the woman in the fox mask. “You have made your—”

“I have one!” I interrupt. “I have a secret.”

“D
on’t test us further, child,” says Allegreza.

“I’m not,” I insist, shaking my head. My breath is ragged from running here, but I’m certain of what I’m about to say. “My secret concerns the Doge.”

Allegreza stiffens. “You know that his wife, the Duchess, is my cousin? Tread carefully. This is not a place for scurrilous gossip.”

I tell them my secret. Of the falling sickness, of his thrashing as the demons take over. My words tumble over each other, and I spare no detail of his affliction, or my own part in the story.

The Segreta inhale one huge collective gasp. Someone claps her hands. Murmurs, whispers and little yelps scatter through the air.

Allegreza holds up her hand. “Silence!”

There is a hush again.

“My dear,” she says. There’s a softness in her face even
though the fiery glow still flickers fiercely all around us, dancing in her eyes. She moves closer. “This is true?”

“Yes, yes. I promise.” I add, “He doesn’t want anyone to know.”

The room is silent for a moment. “Then why have you told us?” asks Allegreza, smiling.

Is this some sort of trick? A test? She knows why.

“I thought you could help me,” I say.

“So you prize your own well-being above the oath you made to the Doge?”

“I …”

“Go on.”

I’m not sure if I’m being teased or reprimanded. I glance round at the other women, but any clue they might give is hidden behind their masks.

I whisper, “Yes.” What else can I do?

Allegreza stares into my eyes. I set my jaw, determined not to lower my eyes. Finally, she nods. “Very well, then. We must assess the value of your contribution. Wait here.”

She leads the women off between a pair of arches, into a side chamber. They process like nuns on their way to holy prayers. I glimpse a big wooden table and three lighted candelabras. Then they close the door and I am alone.

What have I done? Marrying Vincenzo remains a disgusting prospect, but by being here, I feel that I might be getting tangled in an even more terrible web.

I wonder what the hour is. I walk over to one of the thin windows to see if the air is lightening, or if there are dawn streaks of pink and orange in the sky. Beatrice once wrote that sometimes our father prowls through the palazzo at
night, pacing up and down and muttering to himself. I wonder if he’s creeping about on the other side of the lagoon, looking into my room and discovering I am gone.

The door opens and the women pour back into the room. Allegreza stands before me, her white owl mask back in place.

“Laura, men have always governed women—whether at home, when a husband gives orders to his wife, or through the complex machinations of the Grand Council. Men say they rule by the grace of God, but the source of their power is hypocrisy, vice and corruption. The Segreta is a tonic to this poison. By meeting here, we determine the fortunes of Venice. Men may be princes, priests, even the Doge, but the strings that control them are in our hands.”

A rush of excitement flows through me. I think I may have turned the key to the door of my freedom.

“If his enemies knew the secret you have given us,” continues Allegreza, “the Doge would be in great danger. News of his sickness would spread like a plague of its own. His opponents would use it to challenge him, to topple him from power.” Her voice lowers. “Do you see, Laura? A secret can cut deeper than any blade.”

“But I don’t want anyone to hurt the Doge,” I say. “He seems a kind man.”

A woman with a mask like a scaly python laughs. “Men seem many things.”

“In return for what you have given us,” Allegreza interrupts, “we will stop your marriage to Vincenzo.”

I clasp my hands to my breast. Relief bubbles inside me. “Thank you,” I breathe.

Allegreza holds her hand out to me and I take it. She
slides her other hand beneath the folds of her robe and draws out something long and thin. For a moment I think she’s holding a folded-up fan. But when the firelight lends it a metallic gleam, I feel a chill on my skin and everything inside me tightens.

A knife.

“No!” I mutter.

I see everything clearly. They have my secret now, and no more use for me. I try to yank my hand free, but Allegreza’s grip is strong.

“Don’t be afraid,” she says. “This will only hurt a little.”

She positions the tip of the knife in the center of my palm. I feel a sharp sting at first, but nothing more. A bead of blood forms and trickles across my skin.