The Secret of the Glass (38 page)

A pang of guilt assaulted Sophia and with it, a distressing thought. What if the da Fulignas had invited Teodoro and his family—how could she state her vows with him so near? How could she swear to love and keep Pasquale, while Teodoro looked on? Rubbing her cheeks and squeezing her face with her hands, her mind strayed once more.

“Sophia!”

“
Uffa
, Mamma, I know, I’m sorry.” Sophia hung her head. “Tell me again, please. I will pay attention.”

Viviana studied her daughter with weary indulgence. “Promise?”

“
Sì,
promise.” Sophia brightened—with all she must carry, she could not bear to add her mother’s agitation to the load.

“Very well. Come here.” Her mother held the heavy laced peach gown up to Sophia, her lips curling up at the corners. “We shall get no great satisfaction passing you into such a loveless union, but pride in you, your beauty, now that we shall thoroughly relish.”

Her mother’s words touched Sophia; to present herself as best she could, would be a small token of gratitude on her part.

“It will be difficult without him.” Sophia envisioned walking down the aisle, toward Pasquale and a life she had no desire for, the morose picture a sinister scene without her father to guide her.

Viviana’s fussing hands stilled upon the rich fabrics. “For us all, I’m afraid.”

Sophia shook off her despondency, forcing herself to heed her mother, to consider her choices, and to care about her decisions. She succeeded at the first two, faltering on the last, but accomplished enough to satisfy her mother who released her from the room and her duties, shooed her in truth. With a grateful curtsy, Sophia spun for the door.

“Do not forget, you must dress early for tonight. Da Fuligna’s squire will be here before you know it.”

The tingle of anticipation coursed through her veins. Another night at the palace, another chance to see Teodoro. She knew naught could come from their association but his company bestowed a lightness upon her where only heaviness dwelled and she longed to languish in it like the flowers in the sun.

“I want to wear my gold gown and, if I may, your amethyst pendant?” Sophia rushed back into the room, gesturing madly as she described her costume for the evening. “I’d like to leave a few curls trailing down my neck tonight, instead of putting it all up as we usually do.”

Viviana harrumphed indignantly. “How is it you’ve planned what you will wear tonight so finely but care not a whit for your wedding-day attire?”

Sophia snapped her mouth shut, underestimating—again—her mother’s keen intuition.

“There will be many foreign dignitaries present, Mamma, and my new friends. I must make an impression, no?” She spun away, before her mother posed any more questions for which she had no answers.

Pasquale did not leave her at the door as she anticipated, as she’d come to expect. Their wedding day approached, they had been seen in each other’s company on many occasions, and his need to appease appearances had faded away. Where once she had cursed him for his cruelness, wallowed in uncomfortable embarrassment at her aloneness, Sophia craved his leave-taking with glee, thrilled that the forced, polite conversation with her intended would end and she’d be released from the shackle of tension that imprisoned her whenever she was in Pasquale’s company. She had become accustomed to making her way among the lofty and elite congregation, yearned for the separation to seek out company of her own choosing, much as he did; they had fallen into a pattern of mutual disregard, one Sophia expected would become the rhythm of their life.

Pasquale leaned closer, moving her forward toward the short receiving line made up of the Doge, two of his Inner Council, and a powdered and outlandishly bedecked woman, outshone only by the bewigged, beruffled man at her side.

“We are to be presented to the French ambassador and his wife. I cannot stress how vital it is to create amicable relations with them in the current climate of our affairs with Rome. You need only accompany me through the line, of course, but—”

“I am keenly aware of what is expected of me, signore, and quite cognizant of the importance of swaying the French to our cause,” Sophia replied, her stoic features intent upon the dignitaries and the growing crowd in the
Sala del Maggior Consiglio
.

Pasquale smirked. “You are becoming quite bold, aren’t you? You have resigned yourself to your situation admirably.”

“I am resigned to nothing, sir,” Sophia snapped as if struck, her voice simmered with quiet rage. “I accept my filial duties, for the sake of them, no more.”

Pasquale’s nostrils flared, his mouth tightened into a grin-like grimace. “Then by all means, let us do our duty.”

To any bystander, the animosity between them would be as invisible as the air itself, so adept had they become at playing their roles. They paid their respects, curtsying and bowing, smiling and greeting with a strangely cohesive and benevolent diligence. The last genuflection made, Pasquale withdrew his guiding arm from beneath her hand without a word, turning to the right and away from her without a smidgen of gesticulation at their parting. Sophia would stake her life that he would not give her another thought for the rest of the night, certain that when among his own, she was wholly absent from his mind; he cared neither to share her company nor inquire after her comforts.

“Sophia!”

The feminine call found her and Sophia smiled at Florentina and Lenora standing a few steps away, not far from the banquet table. Sophia curtsied to the resplendently attired young women as they fussed over her own ensemble, gave her a sweet, lemony beverage to sip upon, and launched into an appraisal of the assemblage gathered for the evening.

“Did you see how ornately Madame Ambassador is dressed?” Nora whispered loudly behind a gloved hand. “The French are nothing if not ostentatious.”

“He is quite handsome though, don’t you think?” Florentina asked.

Sophia spun back to the visiting dignitaries. “I think he is comely, yes, but it is hard to tell under all that fuss. Men should not be prettier than women. A truly handsome man needs nothing of all those accoutrements.”

Her friends laughed and Sophia relaxed, finding acceptance and ease by their side.

“I have heard that more and more of the French royal family have taken to the wearing of false hair,” Nora informed them, though where she came by her knowledge, Sophia had little evidence. “It is said they are a family of bald men which they feel detracts from their power.”

“I have heard they do not bathe that often and are forever plagued by lice,” Florentina added knowingly and began to laugh, Sophia with her.

Nora failed to join in. She stared at Sophia, and with a shift of her eyes and an almost imperceptible tick of her head prompted Sophia to snoop covertly over her shoulder. Pasquale stood just a few steps away, engaged in a tense conversation with a man she did not recognize. She watched them unobtrusively, gazing out at the filled room, keeping Pasquale and the stranger within her peripheral vision.

The man thrust a jabbing finger into Pasquale’s chest. Pasquale’s skin flushed as spittle flew from his furiously flapping lips. He stormed off and out of the large chamber, the unfamiliar man following swiftly behind.

Sophia dipped a quick curtsy.

“Ladies, would you excuse me for just a moment?”

“Of course,” they chirped, but Sophia had already taken her leave, following the two men at a discreet distance.

Stopping just short of the door, Sophia leaned forward an inch at a time, until she saw their backs rushing away from her. The man’s toes missed Pasquale’s heels by a hair’s breadth as he dogged his every step. With an impatient gesture of dismissal, Pasquale turned into the first doorway on the right. Sophia jumped into the corridor, lifting her heavy skirts an inch or two, skipping along behind on tiptoes, preventing the hard heels of her formal slippers from clacking upon the hard floor.

At the entryway Sophia paused, flattening her body against the corridor wall, tipping her head ever so slowly forward, until she had an unrestricted view into a room lined with cherrywood-paneled stalls and a bench that wound about most of its circumference. She glimpsed a scrap of the man’s clothing, the edge of a sleeve, as he passed through another door in the left back corner of the room.

Sophia lunged in, flitting across the room, throwing herself against the wall with a bump. She grimaced at her own noise. The imaginings of what would happen to her if she were seen tightened the grasp of fear that stole her breath. Pasquale was unpleasant when calm, and she felt sure his rage would be ferocious to behold and had no wish to entice it forth.

She peered through the smaller, interior portal and spun back, banging her head against the wall and straining the muscles in her neck. No more than an ancillary foyer lined with shelves and cupboards, the next room was small and the men had passed beyond its walls and through the next opening, one aligned so perfectly with the first, that she could see straight through. If they had been looking in her direction, she would most assuredly have been seen.

Sophia forced herself to take a deep breath, then to release it slowly and silently through her nose. She peeked around the corner again, more hesitantly. The men were gone from sight but their anger-sharpened voices reverberated back. She followed the sound through the small room, hiding once more just beyond the next doorframe.

The subsequent chamber was not much larger. She had seen its far wall a few paces beyond the egress and she skidded to its aperture. The men were somewhere beyond the range of vision afforded by the room’s portal and Sophia had to sneak a quick look around the wooden edging to find them.

At first she thought she imagined it, that fear and stress had shaped an unbelievable sight in her mind. She looked again. The ruggedly built, black-haired man with Pasquale hauled the wooden cabinet away from the wall. Behind it, a dark gaping maw appeared, a passageway hidden from the eye by the mammoth piece of furniture.

“Move, da Fuligna, move.”

“Do not push me, Riccoboni, I’m going.”

They were no more than a few steps away and Sophia heard them easily.

“Why Moretti could not speak with me in the Grand Chamber, I cannot fathom,” Pasquale’s voice squealed in discontent.

Riccoboni gave him no answer and the two men disappeared into the hungry, enveloping void. Sophia’s heart thrummed with fear, for herself and Pasquale. She knew how foolish she was to continue on, but there was no stopping now.

Slipping through the space behind the cabinet, she felt blinded by the darkness, and groped along with outstretched hands, finding a wall less than a foot to the left. It ended, after just a few short paces, at an abrupt turn. Pale light flashed from above. Sophia saw a short flight of stairs to her right. Looking up, she saw another small opening, the men passing through it, and a grand vaulted ceiling just beyond. She climbed the stairs, keeping her back as close to the wall on the left, and out of the direct glare of the light, as much as possible.

“You will listen, da Fuligna.”

The barking voice came from within, one different from Pasquale’s or Riccoboni’s. Sophia inched up to the top of the stairs, cowering in the corner just beyond the opening, in the dimmest cubby she could find. She hunched down, curling herself into a small ball.

Another man stood in a tight circle with Pasquale and the unfamiliar Riccoboni, his visage sparking a small glimmer of recognition. Sophia scrunched her face up with concentration as she tried to recall where she had seen him before. Of course, he was among those atop the
campanile
on that momentous day with professore Galileo.

“I am listening, Moretti, but I will not abide. There is a limit to what even I will do.”

“But your father has made his intentions quite clear. He wants to persecute anyone with ties to Sarpi and Galileo. Once he starts looking, he will find you, and then he will find us. We must get rid of him.”

“No!” Pasquale’s eyes flashed, his teeth bared in a snarl. “I will not be a party to my own father’s murder. That I will not do.”

Sophia slapped a hand over her mouth, caging with shaking, cold digits her gasp of shock and horror.

“Then you have left us with little choice. You are either with us, or against us.” Moretti shifted his eyes to Riccoboni, giving a quick tilt of his head.

The
shink
of a blade drawn from its scabbard rent the air. The dim light of a wall torch flashed upon the steel. With a lunge in
tierce,
Riccoboni slashed at the small man by his side.

Pasquale groped clumsily at his waist for his own sword, fumbling as he extracted it from its jeweled sheath with maladroit movements. It was little more than a decorative weapon, its blade short, its edge dull. He wrenched his arm upward, warding off the attacking blow at the last. His maneuvers were jerky, clumsy reactions to the other man’s noticeably skillful technique. He retreated again and again, rushing away from the persistent tip of his opponent’s weapon. Pasquale flailed, diverting the sword from his body by chance alone. Riccoboni countered with a
riposte
and another thrust.

Undoubtedly a student of the sword, every motion Riccoboni made was like that of a well-rehearsed dancer. Pasquale’s defenses were awkward and most often late. He struggled to serve up a
malparé
, but failed. Riccoboni’s sword tip slashed at Pasquale’s left arm, coming close enough to penetrate the thin layer of green silk and the pasty flesh beneath. The blood oozed from the wound, staining the garment crimson in an instant.

Pasquale’s eyes found his own seeping blood. His weak chin quivered. The sweat dripped from his contorted brow. He struggled to raise his arm to counterbalance his already futile strokes. He had little chance.

If he died, all her troubles would be over…if she let him die.

Sophia balked at the words in her mind, those spoken with her own voice, squeezing a fist upon her brow in answer to her own ravishing thoughts. In moments of severe desperation, such thinking may be momentarily forgiven, but she was not that person, would not become such a person. With one more glance into the narrow, dim room and the duelers within, Sophia ran.