Cross My Heart (22 page)

“When it comes to secrets, there’s always more to tell. First, how did you meet the man you claim is Roberto?”

“He trained with my brother,” she says, “three years ago, in Paris. He confided in him, and that is how I came to know of it.”

“Trained at what profession?” asks Grazia.

“As a painter,” says the girl.

I tingle under my mask. I put a steadying hand against a pillar.

Grazia looks at the girl and says, “So this is hearsay, unsubstantiated, from a brother whom we can’t question.”

“My brother is no more a liar than I am,” says Cecile. “He says that Roberto wears a pendant engraved with the Doge’s crest. He never takes it off.”

I’m suddenly cold as the doubts seep through my pores. My painter, with his curls and his soft eyes, is the Doge’s firstborn. Giacomo is Roberto. His bones do not lie under the porphyry slab in St. Mark’s, for there’s flesh on them still. Flesh that I’ve touched. Breath that has intertwined with my own.

And now I think about how I saw the Duchess smile at him during the hunt. I think about what the Doge said about his talents. I think about the way Giacomo fumbled with the pendant around his neck when we talked about the old days. All is not what it seems. Trust no one in Venice. There are no friends. These parts of my catechism are roaring in my head. But suddenly I know something. I won’t listen to the doubts that have been planted by the voices of other people. I’ll listen to my heart.

I take off the suffocating mask and drop it to the ground.

Grazia’s questions continue, and for each Cecile has a ready answer. I can see Carina’s mother hardening like stone. Her resolve is gathering like a great wave, fueled by indignation at a debt she thought paid long ago, now revealed to have been paid in counterfeit coin.

“His blood belongs to my family,” she whispers gravely.

“But that’s foolish!” I blurt out. “The vendetta was years ago. Roberto’s a man now. If he’s even alive.”

Now the women turn to me. My naked face.

“My husband would claim those years were not his to spend,” says Grazia.

I make a conscious effort to quell the roar of my
thoughts. I have to find him. I have to warn him. If they would kill an eleven-year-old boy, a man is nothing.

“Excuse me,” I say, pushing past the woman.

“Where are you going?” someone calls.

“We counsel you,” says another, grabbing me by the arm. “Do not break the vows of the Segreta.”

I can’t break free from her long-nailed talons. But Allegreza looks down calmly and says, “Let her go. We can’t hold her here.”

Lifting my skirts, I dash out the door and down the front steps. I leave the buzz and the scramble of the women behind me. I must find him.

I
’m grateful that the anonymous cloak I wore to the meeting will go some way to disguise me on this journey.

A gondola wobbles in the water, its pilot fanning his face with his broad hat.

“Please! Please, sir, take me to the Lido. I need to get to the artisan quarter.”

He holds out his hand to help me aboard. “I’ll get you there as fast as I can. Sit, and catch your breath.”

I do my best to keep calm and think logically. Giacomo’s secret has followed him across Europe like a lingering infection for which there’s no cure. His death warrant is signed and he doesn’t know it, but neither do many others. There is still time.

As we drift behind a low warehouse, the gondolier wants to know where exactly to leave me. I feel a lurch of panic when I realize that I don’t know.

“Do you know a man called Giacomo?” I ask, a foolish, frightened question, born of desperation.

“I know several men of that name.” He smiles.

There’s a choke in my voice. “He’s a painter. Do you know
anyone
who I can ask?”

The gondolier steps out of his boat and takes me by the hand as I jump off. “Wait here a moment, Signorina, I’ll see if I can find out.”

He walks away off into a dark lane telling me he’ll be back and it’s better if he goes alone. But I can’t just stand waiting for him. I have to run.

Three ragged boys dangle their feet in the water and I rush towards them.

“Do you know Giacomo?” I ask. They look at me and giggle.

My gondolier comes whistling down the lane in a slow saunter. He seems surprised by my haste as I stumble over the cobbles.

“The baker says he knows an artist called Giacomo,” he tells me. “Lives on Caligari, at number seventeen. Go to the end of this bank, take the lane that curves into the left, and walk until you get to Fellucci. Caligari is the third on the right.”

I thank him over my shoulder as I run. My feet slap out a frantic beat.

At Caligari, I slow, scanning up and down. What if he isn’t even here? Perhaps he has a commission elsewhere. A sudden image of him, paint-stained and whistling like a free boy, comes to mind. But he’s not free anymore.

My fists feel like lumps of marble as I lift both my arms and bang hard on the door to number seventeen.

“Giacomo!”

Silence.

Please be here
, I pray.

Annalena used to tell me that desperate prayers sometimes carry a fierce and exceptional power. I never used to believe her, but in this instance it is so. The door swings open.

“Laura!” He smiles, and I can’t speak. Then his face creases into a frown. There in the doorstep with my heavy breath and my fearsome beating heart, he wraps his arms around me and I cling to him. “Whatever’s the matter?” he asks.

“You’re in danger,” I say.

He chuckles. “Your father?”

“The de Ferraras. The vendetta.”

That silences his laughter, and his face drains of color. His lips open a fraction. “Come inside.”

He weaves his fingers through mine. The narrow wooden stairs creak as we climb. At the top is a planked, crooked-looking door. He pushes it open with his boot and pulls me inside. He lifts a bundle of my hair and buries his face in it and breathes in.

The room is simple and bright—illuminated by two skylights, both open to the elements. A plain table stands in the middle of the floor, covered with books, sketches, notes and canvases, and a cot with tangled sheets is pushed into the corner. Paints and frames and easels fill the space on the other side. There’s a simple wardrobe beside the bed.

“You know?” he says.

I touch his chest with my fingertips and loosely he puts his hand over mine. I lift the chain that hangs around his neck. I drape the gold pendant over my hand and look at it very closely. I see it. The ducal crest.

“Roberto.”

He’s wrapped a blanket over me, for even with the heat I’m shivering. He crouches by his small stove as I pace the room, trying to explain what I know. For the second time, I break the oath of the Segreta. A tiny kettle bubbles on the fire and spills steam over its edge. With a cloth he picks it out and pours hot water into two cups on the dresser. His hand trembles.

“You could have told me,” I say.

He comes to me again and hangs his head down onto my shoulder, and I hear his breathing.

“It’s been so long since someone called me by that name,” he says. “I never wanted to deceive you.”

“I understand,” I say, “but now others know too. Grazia will surely tell her husband.”

“We don’t know that. It’s possible that the news may not have spread beyond the women there today. They
are
the Society of Secrets, after all.” He speaks with a composure that makes me feel I will faint.

“It isn’t worth the risk,” I reply. “You have to get away from here.”

He sits and digs his elbows into the table, holding his head.

“I’ve spent so long running away.”

A sharp rapping on the door makes us jump.

“It’s them!” I say. “They’ve come already!”

“Stop worrying so much,” he whispers, and touches my face. “Not even the gossips of Venice could mobilize everyone that quickly. But whoever it is might be looking for you, and you mustn’t be found here.”

He pours away one of the cups of tea and opens the old
oak doors of the wardrobe that stands on the opposite wall. It’s full of his clothes: soft white shirts, black cotton trousers and two jackets, one with a missing button. A pair of leather boots.

“Please be careful,” I say, stepping inside.

He kisses me on the lips as the visitor below knocks once more. Then he closes the door, leaving me in a blanket of darkness with only the smell of him. There’s a thin strip of light where the doors meet. I lean against the crack and stare.

First I hear a woman’s muffled voice, but here in this enclosed space, and with my mind swimming, I can’t tell whose it is. Has Grazia come alone? I hear footsteps, but no panic in them. Then a figure enters the room.

She wears a black cloak, and stands facing away from me. Roberto is opposite, with a look of confusion on his face. As the woman draws down her hood, the shock of her red-gold hair tumbles free.

“Hello, Carina,” says Roberto.

G
razia’s daughter titters, and her profile catches the light.

“Well, well,” she says. “Where have
you
been hiding?”

“I’ve been painting,” he says guardedly.

“Hiding in plain sight,” she says. “I see now why I never spotted it. You’ve changed so much.”

“Did your mother tell you?” he asks.

“She’s in quite a fluster,” says Carina. “But why didn’t
you
tell me you were back in Venice? How did you expect me to recognize you in these clothes, doing this job, living this life? I consider it most unfriendly of you.”

If she has found him
, I’m thinking,
others can too
.

“A lot has happened since we were children,” he replies. “You know I couldn’t have come back without a disguise.” He sweeps his hand around as if everything there explains what he means.

She walks towards the wardrobe. I freeze, with my eye pressed to the crack, and she seems to look right at me, but I see from her solemn face that she doesn’t.

“The curse of childhood,” she mutters. “I can help you, Roberto. That is why I’m here. I know how you could come back into society. I have a way.”

“I don’t think it’s possible,” he says. He watches Carina closely, his hands at his side, neither comfortable nor relaxed.

Carina, with her back to him still, smiles. “Imagine being able to hold your head up high as the son of the Doge. Imagine walking around St. Mark’s in your fine clothes, with everyone knowing who you are, never having to look over your shoulder again.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “There’s a lot to be said for the life of an anonymous painter.” He glances over to where I’m hiding. I’m holding my chest, trying to calm my breathing.

Carina looks around his simple room. I think I see a little sneer. Whatever it is, it crumples her smooth face, and makes her look ugly for a second. “You really think there’s merit in living here? Like this? Surrounded by peasants?”

He digs his fists into his hips in the way I’ve seen before. “It’s not for everyone, I admit.”

“All I have to do is say the word,” she says. “All I have to do is talk to my father. Then you’ll have freedom
and
power. No one will care about that stupid vendetta anymore. For goodness’ sake, it’s all such a long time ago. I can’t even remember who started it. Anyway, I would be able to convince them how meaningless it is.”