The Secret of the Glass (18 page)

“Sophia?”

Her mother’s gentle nudging broke her reverie. She found the loving and expectant faces staring at her.

“
Sì
, Mamma,
sì
.” Sophia gave a curt nod, picked up the long, heavy folds of her skirt, and made for the door. “I’m going.”

The trail of her gown swished across the uneven bricks of the palace’s courtyard. Too long by inches, it swept along behind her like a broom hard at work. In lieu of the fashionable four-inch pattens, Sophia wore incongruous and inconsequential low-heeled slippers. Her bruised ankle was still swollen and wrapped after her first unsuccessful and injurious attempts on the wooden platforms and she had obstinately refused to wear them again. She had been tempted to toss them onto the fire like the logs they were. Instead, they stood in the corner of her room, stalwart reminders of the change in her life’s fate.

She approached the bottom stair as the exhausted traveler approaches the first of many steep hills and looked up. In the glittering light of torch flame, three men peered down at her. The giants of Mars and Neptune—the almost nude, mammoth statues that stood atop the corners of the balustrade and symbolized Venice’s prowess at war and at sea—flanked each side of the small round man who stood on the riser between them. At a perfunctory nod from his master, her escort faded away into the night and back through the courtyard.

Pasquale da Fuligna stood in the center of the top stair, framed by the capacious round archway behind him and dwarfed by the giants at each side. As they symbolized Venice, so did this diminutive yet ominous man epitomize her future.

Sophia climbed the
Scala dei Giganti
toward him, toward it, each step feeling higher, each lift of the foot heavier. At the landing between the two flights of stairs, she felt the lure of retreat, pictured herself running down and away. Her knees quivered beneath the diaphanous folds of her gown as she forced herself onward and upward.

Pasquale’s keen gaze felt heavy; his narrow, heavy-lidded eyes roved slowly up and down as they studied her from head to toe. His scrutiny was excruciating. She had never felt so violated by a mere look, and found herself rushing to the summit, rushing to end his opportunity for appraisal. At his side, she released the voluminous skirts from her hands but said nothing.

With a brusque nod of his head, the single outward sign of approval, he raised an arm for her.

“
Buona notte
, signorina.”

“
Buona notte
,” Sophia replied, her voice an unsteady ghost of itself—in truth she thought there was nothing good about this night—and allowed Pasquale to lead her into the Ducal Palace.

With no more conversation, he hurried her through the turning and twisting corridors leading to the Grand Council chamber; her barge had been slow to make the crossing and they were among the last to arrive. He hastened her around two other couples strolling at a leisurely pace, and yanked her along the elaborately carved stone walls of the long hallways. Sophia saw nothing of the building’s beauty, could not spare a second’s consideration; it took everything she had to keep pace with her escort, to prevent her scissoring legs from becoming tangled in her skirts. Had she worn the stilt-like
chopines
instead of the silk slippers with their manageable one-inch heels, she believed with a certainty that she would already be a heap upon the floor. She was equally certain that, had she fallen, Pasquale would simply have dragged her along behind him.

After a convoluted trek that left Sophia’s head whirling with a distorted sense of direction, her escort led her through a high, long, barrel-vaulted hallway that led to a wide entrance, a broad aperture into the very northwest corner of the
Sala del Maggior Consiglio.
For Sophia it was the threshold into another world.

Sophia had never been inside the Palazzo Ducale, had never thought she would ever come here under such circumstances, and like any visitor, the splendor and magnificence of one of the world’s most renowned architectural wonders astounded her. In that instant she forgot her irascible escort, forgot the import of her presence. Her eyes bulged, her jaw opened like a door with a broken hinge. Vivid and masterful paintings covered the walls from floor to ceiling, framed with sparkling gilt. Frescoes hovered above her head like clouds in the heavens. Breathtaking sculptures stood along the walls and in the corners like sentinels about to burst into life. Orchestral music drifted toward her from the far wall, the zither trilling with the flute, the harpsichord brittle against the viola. The mounds of tantalizing food crammed upon the long banquet table triggered a spurt of moisture into her dry mouth.

Pasquale allowed her no time for perusal as he wrenched her into the cavernous room, thrusting her in front of every one they encountered. The small groups of courtiers, wealthy merchants, and foreign visitors swirled amongst and around themselves like a multitude of small tide pools on a vast shoreline. Many of the men, like Pasquale, were clad in the black and somber robes of the Council, distinguishing themselves tenaciously from the wealthy but common merchants in attendance. Burghers and ambassadors were bold and brilliant in doublet and hose, waistcoats and breeches of dazzling colors and fabrics, the women on their arms stunning accessories, ornamented with strand upon strand of jewels and pearls, gowns of the grandest cloth in the most glittering of colors.

The names and faces merged into a jumble of incoherency in Sophia’s mind. Names she recollected as those belonging to some of the oldest noble families in Venice: Renier, Orseolo, and Contarini. Before her rose the unfamiliar faces of the lavishly plumed tradesmen, those wealthy merchants who composed a portion of the
cittadini
. Though not of noble blood and therefore prohibited from becoming members of the Grand Council, they were powerful enough, by virtue of their amassed fortunes, to control most of the Republic’s money and fill its chancery. Sophia rubbed at her eyes; with so many faces their features became unrecognizable and soon forgotten.

Pasquale was charming and personable as her ungainly escort. His unexpectedly charismatic behavior unbalanced Sophia as much as her surroundings. She studied him through the sides of her eyes, not recognizing the man she had met under the mask of geniality he donned with such ease.

“Ser Memmo, signora.” Pasquale bowed low to a wrinkled and bent man and his plump and doddering wife standing alone and friendless in the middle of the fray, no less worthy of Pasquale’s pretention for all their obvious lack of influence. “May I introduce signorina Sophia Fiolario, my future wife?”

“Is she?” The gray-haired matron squealed like a girl, as had every woman before her. “How wonderful.”

“Congratulations, da Fuligna, young lady,” intoned the robed elder statesman in his deep baritone.

“
Grazie,
sua signoria, signora.” Sophia bobbed a curtsy, what she guessed was the hundredth of the evening, shivering on the words “future wife” as if she’d taken a bite of bitter fruit, and continued on with Pasquale like a lamb behind the shepherd.

They circled the large room, repeating the ritual until Pasquale’s pleasant tone rang hollow and her mind became numb. Completing an almost full counter-clockwise rotation along the room’s circumference, they reached the west wall and the sideboard, heavy with refreshments. Pasquale stopped and grabbed a crystal goblet—just one—full of thick, maroon colored wine. As he bent his head over his glass and sipped, his black, dot-like eyes darted about the room above the rim. Sophia stood quietly by his side as his intense scrutiny flitted about. He shared none of his thoughts with her, nor any of his wine. The awkward silence lengthened as Pasquale imbibed half the fluid in his glass.

“Ah,
bene
,” he announced, raising his scantily haired head with a satisfied nod and a barely contained, unapologized belch. He gave Sophia a smile, one that both surprised and disturbed her. “I believe we have met everyone. You will excuse me?”

It was an announcement, not a request. He turned and stalked away, away from Sophia and toward a large group of robed noblemen in the opposite corner.

Sophia took a stunned, reflexive step forward, reaching out a hesitant hand toward him.

“Signore?”

Pasquale spun back, the slight smile replaced with a pinched look of irritation.

“What?” He snapped off the end of the word between his teeth with irritation.

Sophia’s tongue tripped, her thoughts rambling and incomplete, astonished that he would leave her unescorted in this roomful of strangers, repulsed to consider begging for his company.

Pasquale flung a pudgy hand toward the table then out into the vast chamber.

“There is plenty of food, plenty of drink, and plenty of other women to mingle with. Enjoy yourself.”

And he was gone.

The sob caught in her lungs and her weakness taunted her; her future husband and his obnoxious rudeness, his complete lack of consideration, infuriated her. Layer upon layer of cloth covered her body, yet she felt naked and exposed. People stood on every side of her but she felt disconsolately alone. Stiff with anger and humiliation, she stood helpless among them.

From the first moment in Pasquale’s company at his family home, the question of love was utterly unconscionable; she would never garner any from this man nor offer any. He would take her from her family, and the glass. The pain of separation might well have been eased if the promise of love were in the offing, but she would never know.

She spun to the golden silk-cloth-covered surface and the bountiful repast spread out upon it, wanting nothing more than to disappear among the rest of the room’s accoutrements.

Silver salvers and gold-trimmed platters offered up scores of seafood dishes, oysters and lobsters, scallops and squid. Piles of sausage sat beside mounds of roast pheasant. Duck stuffed with fruit shared space with capons and chicken.
Lasagana
and
ragù alla bolognese
steamed in deep hot chafing dishes, the once-exotic fare still a popular novelty item at great feasts.

To Sophia’s left, two blond, fair-skinned men piled their dishes with savories, their elaborate costumes and guttural language marking them as foreign ambassadors. With clumsy attempts, they tried to use the pronged silver utensil not yet assimilated into other cultures. They laughed at themselves and their spastic attempts, nudging each other playfully, more like boys than diplomats, and their camaraderie made Sophia feel all the more alone.

She picked up a small roll of bread and tore it open, its outside hot and crusty, its flesh warm, soft, and still steamy. She had no appetite for this food or this night, but if she nibbled on her bread, if she kept her face turned away from the milieu, perhaps no one would notice her discomfort; no one would see the tears threatening to spill down her checks. Setting her shoulders and tilting her nose in the air, she ventured to parody the haughty assuredness of the other young women in the room, but felt it for the pretense that it was.

Her wary, narrow glance rose and Sophia faltered, hand suspended in flight inches away from her open mouth. All thoughts fled her mind as she beheld the wonder before her. The painting was as large as the entire wall; to Sophia it appeared as big as the front of her two-storied home. Dominated by blues, greens, and gold, with strong contrasts between dark and light, two elongated, life-sized figures occupied the center of the masterpiece, and she recognized Jesus and his Blessed Mother. From their apex at the top center, waves of men, half-circles of what appeared to be saints and princes, rippled out to surround them, all eyes raised up to their savior.

Sophia leaned over to peer at the small signature along the painting’s edge. She gasped, pop-eyed gape, rising back up. This was the work of Tintoretto, one of the world’s most revered artists, one of Venice’s most venerated sons. An acquaintance of her father’s, the two men drawn together on occasion by their art, Sophia had met him herself once as a small girl, not long before his death more than a decade ago. All that she had heard of this work, all the accolades she and Zeno had read, did little to capture its true splendor. Sophia put a hand upon her chest, as if to contain her heart hammering with joy; there was always a speck of light in every darkness, she just had to look harder to find it.

“Oof!” Her body lurched forward as a careening form bumped into her from behind. Sophia thrust her hands out, bracing them on the table that propelled against her thighs.

“
Mi scusi, mi dispiace
,” a soft, trilling voice rang out. “I’m so sorry.”

The young woman was perhaps a year or two younger than she herself, horrified repentance upon her pale, powdered face.

“Don’t worry,
non importa,
” Sophia assured the girl.

“You are not injured, are you?” the dainty beauty asked.

Three more young women stood behind their friend, all spectacular in beaded silk and beribboned satin, all similar in the richness of their jewels and that undefined hauteur of aristocracy. They were all of Sophia’s age and for a hopeful moment she wondered if she might find friendship among them, or at least conversation.

“No, not at all.” Sophia shook her head.

“
Bene
,” the pale blonde replied and turned away.

Sophia dropped into a deep curtsy. “I am Sophia Fiolario.”

She bit the inside of her cheek at the sound of her quavering voice. Unaccustomed and uncomfortable with anything other than an inconspicuous, unremarkable public persona, her genuine self was a secret to the world.

The four women, huddled close together like leaves on a clover, responded in kind.

“I am Bianca Ma—” the clumsy girl began.

“Fiolario?” One of her friends interrupted, with narrow-eyed regard blatantly inspecting Sophia, her face, and her dress. “I don’t recognize that name. Who is your father? Is he a
nobiluomo?”

Sophia felt the sting of the woman’s instant dislike, her ready condemnation. There would be no friendships made here.