DELUGE (20 page)

But clearly, this wedding was her gig, not mine.

The dressmaker was brought in, and with him came twelve servants, all carrying two bolts of blue material. While I gravitated toward a gorgeous, plain sky-blue silk, the dogaressa was all about a thick navy tapestry-like fabric, with silver thread embroidered into it.

“Look at
this
, Evangelia,” she said, running her short, stubby fingers over it in envy. She lifted up the bolt and pulled out a length to drape it across my chest and shoulder. She sighed and her two ladies-in-waiting echoed her, and I knew I was done-for. I cast a glance over my shoulder at Gabi, and she widened her eyes.

“You shall look like a queen,” said the dogaressa, shaking her head in wonder.

“Do you think it best, Serenissima?”

“I do, I do,” said the matronly, short woman, nodding so firmly that her chin disappeared into folds of flab. She was dressed in one of the finest gowns I’d ever seen, but her dark hair was greasy and she smelled so foul that I could barely tolerate being near her. She ascribed to the common belief that two baths a year were plenty, and had already expressed her concern that Gabi and I bathed far too often than was healthy. I’d pretended to agree as if I took her comments as correction, but that wasn’t going to keep me from a bath before my wedding to Luca. Nor him from one either. The thought of getting close to him and smelling like this one—dogaressa or not—made me shudder.

“We’ll want this one,” she said to the dressmaker. “I assume you have designs to show us?”

“Indeed, Serenissima,” he said, moving to a leather portfolio. He unwound the long strap from a wooden button and pulled out ten or more pieces of parchment. He looked to me, and down at his sheaf of paper, setting aside a few and bringing the others over to us. Again, it was the dogaressa he showed first. I was apparently a bridal mannequin. I stifled a sigh. I was marrying the best man I’d ever met, I reminded myself. So there was that. And this ceremony was our ticket outta here. Which we needed, especially with the “cousins” in tow…

I looked at the sketches and was drawn to the lines of my normal sort of gown, but the dogaressa was all about the tight undersleeve and the silly, long tippet—a streamer-like piece of fabric that extended off the elbow. I noticed that he had also sketched in a ceremonial bow and quiver of arrows in all of them. They expected me to arrive armed for my wedding? I lifted a brow and looked to Gabi, tilting the paper so she could see it. She pretended to be in awe, covering her smile with her hand.

All of it made me long for my old pair of jeans and a t-shirt more than ever.

“Oh, and her undergown could be in this silk,” cooed the dressmaker, reaching for another bolt of cloth. He gestured toward another sketch, where the overgown, lined in fur, came up in the front to about the knee, and cascaded in a V to a short train in back.

The dogaressa nodded excitedly. “Yes, yes. That shall be perfect! Don’t you agree, Evangelia?”

“Yes, Serenissima.”

The short woman took her pet squirrel from one of her ladies and absently stroked the thing as the dressmaker rang a bell and more servants arrived, this time with shoes. Gabi and I shared a surprised look when we saw that they appeared to have been made for left and right feet—not the standard square or pointed toe that most were. But they were all terribly small. As in Japanese-bound-feet-small. Even most of the little women of medieval Venice couldn’t fit in them.

The dogaressa lifted a pair of blue slippers that would match beautifully with the blue tapestry fabric, and then groaned as the dressmaker measured my feet. He frowned and shook his head at my hostess as if there wasn’t a chance for us to find shoes. “She’ll need to hasten to Cobbler Veraci. He will get them done in time.”

“I hope so,” she said, casting a disparaging eye at my bare toes. She was just lucky she wasn’t dressing Gabi for Venice’s Next Hot Wedding. Her feet were a size larger.

“We’ll go immediately,” she said.

I hesitated, thinking that we had plans to sail to Borano for the day. “Forgive me, Serenissima, but we planned an outing this afternoon. To Borano. I thought I might find some lace for my wimple and veil,” I added hurriedly, belatedly thinking of it.

She paused, irritation tightening her features for a moment. “I don’t think you should cover much of your pretty yellow hair, veil or no. But off you shall go,
after
we get you fitted for slippers. A bride in our household cannot be married in those frightful things!” she muttered, nodding toward my old, worn slippers. I knew they weren’t the best, but I couldn’t help feeling a little offended. Besides, any others chafed my toes and gave me blisters…

“Send a messenger to Lord Forelli,” said the dogaressa. “Tell him we’ll return by the noon hour.” She was already in motion, expecting us to follow, and so we did. I knew the guys wouldn’t be wild about the idea of us heading out into the city without them, but we had six ducale guards in attendance—four in front of us and two behind—and Celso and Matteo trailed us. At least the silly umbrella-dude didn’t come too. It was hard enough to make it through Venice’s winding, crowded streets in a procession of any size without that huge thing.

We exited the Palazzo Ducale and headed right, under the heavy archway that led to the market district of the Rialto. We turned left, and then right, crossed a tiny bridge and paraded down a thin sidewalk alongside a narrow canal. People gaped at us and pointed. Some shouted “She-Wolf! It’s the She-Wolves!” when they recognized me and my sister. But we barely had time to wave and smile.

We turned and walked through a brick tunnel, so short that we had to duck our heads, then down a road that again forced us to move into single-file order. This was the street of the
mascherari
, or mask-makers for Carnivale. Through the open doors, we spied gruesome masks with long, hooked noses, spooky white faces with different expressions, along with elaborate masks connected to hats of all colors and embedded with jewels. The dogaressa paused before one. She clasped her hands together and tapped her lips with her fingertips. Then she reached out to one of her ladies and grabbed her hand.

“What if…on the wedding day we hosted a carnivale?”

The lady’s eyes widened in excitement. “That would be a spectacle, for certain, Serenissima! We’ve never had a carnivale before Martedì Grasso.”

“Well, that would set this apart, would it not?”

“Indeed, Serenissima!” said the lady.

Oh boy,
I thought.
The guys are definitely not going to like that idea either.
It was one thing to have a feast and a city-wide celebration like we’d seen the other night. It was a whole other deal with Fiorentini in town. And masks. Potentially
Fiorentini
in masks.

I’d never been a fan of clowns. And masks were vaguely reminiscent of them. Yet I’d always wanted to experience Carnivale, and what an opportunity—to see it in its early stages, before it became the commercialized, touristy event of our own modern era. We wouldn’t make it back up north come Spring for the pre-Lent festival, and next year was out with what was to come…so this was pretty much my one opp for a while. So when the dogaressa looked to me for permission—not that she actually needed it—I was able to give it to her.

Gabi hooked her arm through mine and stared at me in surprise. “Really?” she whispered in English.

“Why not?” I returned. “The rest of this thing is so far beyond my file folder of wedding ideas…right?”

She laughed under her breath, and we entered the cobbler’s store at last. On his shelves were boots and slippers of all kinds, mostly for men. But when he looked up from his workbench and saw who had entered, he smiled in welcome.

“Serenissima!” he cried, immediately coming around and bowing repeatedly. His elderly, drooping eyes moved to us, and then he crossed himself, as if angels had appeared. “The She-Wolves,” he breathed.

“Indeed,” said the dogaressa. “We are in need of your help, Signore Veraci. Lady Betarrini is marrying within the week and needs to be fitted for slippers to match her gown.”

“Of course, Serenissima,” he said. “Of course!” He gestured to a chair for her. He took my hand and led me to a wooden step on which he had painted outlines of feet, apparently in different sizes. The paint was well worn and the wood was stained with the oil of what I guessed had been hundreds of pretty dirty feet—based on the clearly delineated toe prints—but I held back my disgust, stepped out of my slippers, and climbed on top.

“Forgive me, my lady,” he said, apologizing for his touch on my bare skin as he adjusted my feet to line up with the back. Then he reached for wooden markers with a number on each of them from a rack to his left. “There, I have it,” he said. He turned his gaze back to the dogaressa. “I assume you want the finest leather I can find?”

“Actually,” she said, moving to lift the flap of a small, square purse at her hip and fish inside, “I was hoping you might die a leather to match this.”

It was a small piece of the blue tapestry.

“Hmm,” said the cobbler. “To die the leather in indigo and get the shoes sewn by…”

“Saturday,” she supplied.

He seemed to pale a bit. “Saturday!”

He was beginning to shake his head when she reached back into her purse and produced three gold florins. “To compensate you for putting other orders on hold as you see this one done,” she said gently, assuredly, no doubt in her mind that she could make anything happen. “Payment for the shoes themselves will come upon completion.”

His small, dark fingers closed around the florins. “Yes, Serenissima. They will be ready on Saturday morning.”

“Friday night,” she corrected, rising. “Lady Evangelia shall want to wear them a bit the night before to stretch them. No bride wants to be in unworn shoes the day she is to dance more than ever before!”

“Nay, Serenissima,” said the cobbler, nodding and bowing repeatedly as we left the store. 

I thought we’d head back to the Palazzo Ducale at that point, but the dogaressa had another stop in mind.

“Earrings,” she said, lifting my hair and looking at my lobes as if visualizing what would look best. She gaped. “What is this?” she asked, leaning forward to peer at the tiny holes in my pierced ears. I never wore earrings to keep from calling attention to them.

“A custom in Normandy,” Gabi filled in for me easily. “One we abandoned when we reached Toscana, as it seemed the ladies did not wear them.”

The dogaressa frowned. “No lady of Normandy in my court has ever had pierced ears.”

“Our parents are merchants,” I said. “It was an island we visited that gave us the idea to pierce them.” Inwardly, I winced. The more complex the lie, the more challenging it was to remember.

“I see,” said the woman. “Well, come along. We’ll see what this jeweler can find to suit.”

We followed her and moved down the street and along another. As we turned a corner, we saw them. The Fiorentini—Lord Barbato and Lord Foraboschi—and their men. Their eyes widened in surprise…and delight.

“The Ladies Betarrini and Forelli!” cried Lord Barbato, clasping his hands in pleasure, his smile deepening as he saw our two knights, trapped behind four others. He leaned in closer. “What brings you out to the streets of Venezia?”

“We are shopping for Lady Betarrini’s nuptials,” the dogaressa said, like a proud parent. “You will need your finest, Lord Barbato, come Saturday. It will be the event of the year.”

“Indeed, indeed,” said the little lord, chin in hand, staring at me and then Gabriella. “The last time I was about to see one of the Ladies Betarrini married, it became quite the event as well.” His dark eyes hardened, then, at the memory. We had foiled his attempt to marry my sister off to Lord Greco—once a man of Firenze.

“I trust you shall not interfere with this wedding,” Gabi said, edging forward, pressing so close that the little man was forced to take a step backward. “I would hate it if anyone ruined the
dogaressa’s
plans for this lovely occasion.”

Smart, my sister. Reminding him that messing with us this time was messing with the doge’s court itself. I swallowed a gloating grin.

He gave her a confused look, as if he didn’t know exactly what she was getting at. “We shall be the consummate guests,” he said, with a tuck of his head and a flourish of his hand.

“See that you are,” Gabi said, brushing past him. But, as the dogaressa turned to lead us out, he and Lord Foraboschi fell in step with us.

“We are not seeking company, Lord Barbato,” Gabi said.

“Only a word, that’s all I ask,” he said lowly, so as to not to call the dogaressa’s attention. “Tell me of Lord Greco. I hear tell he took a bride of his own. The poor waif we rescued?”

“The
woman
you
manhandled
and
abused
,” Gabi hissed back. “Say no more, or I’ll call my men down on you. Just the thought of Alessandra begs me to pull my dagger and slit your throat myself.”

“Here? In the streets?” he said doubtfully. “You are a wilding, this is true. But ’twould cause a most unpleasant uproar and displease our hostess, would it not?”

Gabi’s cheeks colored with rage, and she walked a bit faster. I looked over my shoulder, relieved to see Celso and Matteo right behind us now, their hands on the hilts of their swords, awaiting any order from us.

“And you, my lady? I also hear tell that the She-Wolf is not in heat, but soon to have her own litter.”

Gabi stopped and turned, clearly enraged. “You, Lord Barbato,” she said, leaning forward, all in his face, “overstep your bounds.”

He glared up at her, obviously itching to touch his cheek, but too proud to do it. Celso and Matteo stepped between us and the Fiorentini. The dogaressa turned and began making her way back to us.

“You dare much to offend my lady,” Celso grit out.

“Forgive me, forgive me,” Barbato said effusively, as if it had all been a misunderstanding, but his eyes were cold. “You shall not have to bear my company for much longer. Good day, ladies.”

He cast her a sly look, turned on his heel and left us, just as the dogaressa reached us. I wondered what on earth he meant. Was he not coming back to the Palazzo Ducale? To court? To the wedding? All I knew was that there was something in his tone that sent prickles down the back of my neck…