Harem, page 9
He spared a glance for the Virgin in her extremis. He was sure she would approve of his intent, if not his methods. But then, she never had a beautiful daughter.
Chapter 22
Julia and Lucia sat on the terrazzo, their lacework resting on their knees, as the late afternoon sun dipped below the roofs of the palazzi. The duenna had retired but Julia had not yet heard her draw the heavy drapes at her bedroom window, which was directly above them. She suspected it was a stratagem to try and eavesdrop.
Lucia leaned forward and whispered: 'Did you meet him?'
Julia shrugged and mouthed: 'Perhaps.'
'Well?'
Julia smiled and said nothing.
A few moments later Signora Cavalcanti suddenly reappeared on the terrazzo. 'What are you two girls whispering about?'
'Nothing, Signora,' Julia said.
'I thought I distinctly heard voices.'
'I was singing to myself,' Julia said.
The duenna sat down and picked up her lacework, her face pinched into a scowl. The rest of the afternoon passed in silence. Julia felt two pairs of eyes fixed on her, watching her every movement, but she did not look up or say another word.
Chapter 23
Julia drew back the hood of her cloak, slowly and deliberately, savouring the look on his face. It was just vanity, the vice of the Devil, but she so loved the way he stared at her.
She had not intended that there should ever be a second time. But one afternoon, a week or so after their first meeting, the gondola had appeared again by the water gate and the temptation had proved too great to resist. She just needed to feel alive again.
The second time had made it easier to do it a third time, and even easier the next. How many times had they met now? Half a dozen, more? She had never possessed a secret until now and it afforded her a feeling she had never experienced before; she had power. She was no longer utterly in the thrall of her father and Signora Cavalcanti.
'Just for a few moments,' she said. She spoke the same words every time; it was like the bargaining chip that she tossed to Fate. Who could condemn for a few stolen moments? The rest of the day my Confessor will find me faultless.
He reached for her, his palms upwards. On the last two occasions she had allowed him to touch her and this was their signal. She put out her hand and he took it. He cradled it in his palm like a small, wounded bird.
'I love you,' he murmured.
'You cannot love me. I told you, it is impossible. This will be the last time. We have to stop.'
'I cannot stop. If they consign me to all the fires of Hell I could not be in worse torment than I am now. I will stop when they put me in the earth.'
'Abbas, I am to be married soon …' She wondered how she would live without this now. He had made her feel as if she were the most beautiful and important woman in the world. She felt more alive than she ever had. How could she ever go back to watching the world through her window now? In a way she wished this had never begun. Not knowing how life could be better was worse than knowing how it could.
'Come away with me.'
'What?'
'I can arrange passage on a ship.'
'Leave Venice?' She could not believe he could even contemplate such a thing. 'No!'
'We can go to Spain. We will be safe from your father there. My father will give us money …'
'Stop it. This has gone far enough. Take me back. Now!'
'You don't have to marry an old man! You don't have to spend your life shut up in a rich man's palace. You can be free!'
Julia was horrified. It had been easy, until now, to pretend to herself that this was just a game, to forget that the summer was passing quickly and that soon she would be married. But the game had gone far enough. Run away, leave Venice? To even contemplate such a thing was madness.
'What should I do in Spain?' she heard herself say.
'You will be my wife. I will find employment as a soldier there. My father knows many grandees who …'
'You say now you would marry me but what if you changed your mind? What if you grew tired of me? What should become of me, then?'
'I should never grow tired of you.'
'You say this now, of course. But Lucia has told me stories of men who have dishonoured their women and abandoned them. This is madness!'
'You would rather spend the rest of your life trapped in an old man's palace?'
'At least I should be safe there. And what of sin, Abbas? Do you know of it, in your religion? If we should do this, God would punish us, if not in this life, then the next. I should never find absolution anywhere.'
'Please Julia. Don't say these things! Ever since I saw you in the church, I knew I must marry you. I will do anything, anything! I would die rather than give you up.'
He means it, she thought. He will stop at nothing now. Suddenly he terrified her. 'Please take me back.'
'Tell me you will come with me!'
'I cannot.'
He took her by the shoulders and pulled her towards him. She felt his lips brush against hers, as gentle as his grip was fierce. She closed her eyes and kept perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, aware only of the soft scent of his clothes and the sweet cloves on his breath. Finally he pulled away from her.
'Come with me,' he repeated.
Oh, I will miss this, she thought. But I cannot throw away my whole life for the look in a man's eyes. 'I must go back.'
She jumped out of the gondola onto the water steps and climbed the stairs back to the palazzo in a daze. She looked back once, he had thrown aside the curtains and was watching her. He smiled and she smiled back.
She inched open the door at the top of the stairs. It creaked slowly open. The duenna stood waiting, her arms crossed across her chest. 'So, you have deceived me,' she said.
'Signora Cavalcanti!'
'What have you been doing?'
Julia turned around, slamming the heavy oak door behind her. She ran back down to the canal but the gondola was already gliding away from the steps. She would have shouted to him to come back, but then she heard her duenna's footsteps on the stone flags behind her and knew that to call out his name would be to betray him.
The old lady grabbed her by the arm and wrestled her back inside. She was surprisingly strong. Julia looked around a final time and thought she saw a movement of the curtains on the gondola as it rounded a bend in the canal, but she could not be sure.
***
Antonio Gonzaga wore the scarlet robes of a Consigliatore. He stood at the window, hands clenched into fists at his sides, staring over the roofs to the campanile of San Marco across the square from the Ducal Palace. What would they say about him there if word of this scandal ever leaked out? What would happen to his alliance with the Serena family?
His daughter! Behaving like a common prostitute! He wanted to cut her throat.
Julia stood in the middle of the room, one arm crossed across her chest. She would not meet his eyes.
'Who is this boy?' he growled.
She did not, would not, answer.
'I said, WHO IS THIS BOY?'
He saw Signora Cavalcanti waiting in the shadows, her eyes glittering with satisfaction. He would deal with her later. This situation would never have come about if she had done her job properly. Besides, if she had leave to wag her tongue, the story would be all over Venice tomorrow.
He crossed the room and slapped his daughter so hard across the cheek that the blow sent her crashing to the floor. He stood over her, daring her to stand up again and defy him. 'I will beat you like a dog until you give me his name.'
'Never,' she said.
The unexpected steel in her infuriated him further. He grabbed her hair and shook her, then dragged her across the room to the window. Handfuls of hair came away in his hand. He kicked her in rage, then again because he felt like it. Julia put her hands over head to save herself from further abuse and curled into a ball on the floor, sobbing.
'Excellency,' Signora Cavalcanti said, and even had the temerity to take a step towards him. She seemed shocked. Did she think a man of affairs did not know the way of the street? What did she think she might do - intervene? A look from him sent her scurrying back into the corner.
'You will tell me his name.'
He hooked his fingers around the puffed sleeves of her vesture and pulled her to her feet. He cuffed her twice more around the head with his open hand while she twisted and writhed to try and escape the blows. Finally he released her and she crumpled to the floor a second time.
It seemed he would get no sense out of her tonight. Well, no matter, there was plenty of time to change her mind.
He had torn the sleeve and bodice of her dress, exposing her breast. 'Cover yourself up, whore,' he growled. Julia fumbled to reclaim her modesty but her hands were shaking so violently she could not do it.
'Take her to her room,' Gonzago said to the duenna. 'Lock it from the outside. Then come back here. I want to talk to you.'
***
Signora Cavalcanti had never been so frightened in all her life. She had always revered His Excellency as a stern man; grave and menacing, a little like God, she supposed. But the scene she had just witnessed had shaken her. A righteous judge was within his bounds to pronounce sentence but to take a turn himself at the wheel of the rack was just plain savagery.
When she returned to the study Gonzago had composed himself. He sat at his desk, hands folded in his lap, and only his hair, still awry beneath his bareta, evidenced the violence that had taken place in the room just a short time before. 'My daughter is shamefully stubborn,' he said.
Signora Cavalcanti did not know what to say to that. She looked into the sorrowful face of Carpaccio's Virgin and felt ashamed.
'Is it possible she does not realize the extent of the injury she has done me?'
'I have instructed her faithfully in her filial duties, as well as her duty to the Republic and to God, Excellency.'
'Perhaps.' He pursed his lips and tapped a forefinger against his temple, as if deliberating a change to the tax on wool. 'But if what you say is true, why does she defy me this way?'
The duenna realized that it was she who was now on trial. But what was there to say in her defence? Perhaps she should have kept her discovery to herself, handled it her own way. Well, it was too late now.
'Many questions arise from this,' Gonzaga said. 'For instance, how were these meetings arranged?'
Signora Cavalcanti swallowed the urge to say: 'I don't know.' It would be tantamount to expressing incompetence. 'I will find out,' she said.
'I hope so, Signora Cavalcanti,' he said and smiled at her. 'In fact, I rely on it.'
She never liked it when His Excellency smiled. The effect was never pleasant.
Chapter 24
Abbas followed the coach on foot from the palazzo . He lost it along the narrow calles but caught up again in the bustle of the mercato around the Campo Santa Maria Nuova. He barged his way through the fruit sellers and peddlers, vaulted a handcart loaded down with bolts of silk.
The church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli was one of the city's most beautiful churches, its façade built from yellow and antique white marble. The coach stopped below the steps, and Abbas watched two figures step out; one was short and stocky, the other tall, lean and graceful. She was dressed all in black, and her face was covered with a veil, but he knew it was her, just from the way that she moved.
'Please, Abbas. Don't do this,' Ludovici said. He was out of breath after pursuing him through the streets.
'Have you really never been in love, Ludovici?'
'This is not love, this is an escapade!'
'I cannot live without her now.'
'You breathe, you eat, you drink. That's all there is to living. It's simple. Anyone can manage it.'
'That's not life, Ludovici! That's just taking up space.' He started toward the church. 'I just want to look. They will not see me.'
Ludovici gave up. What was the point? He was headed for disaster and could not see it. At the very least Gonzaga would ruin Mahmoud, and he and Abbas would be expelled from the Republic - if they did not end up in prison.
He watched his friend bound up the steps, blind to everything but his own whims. Like a child, Ludovici thought. A headstrong, passionate child.
***
The church was empty. Saint Francis pointed a long marble finger in his direction, as if singling him out for the Doge's soldiers. A frieze of naked putti danced above the main arch, mocking him. Where was she?
They were there, and then they were gone; shadows among shadows. They were already behind him, scuttling out of the doors. Why had they come and then left so quickly?
'Julia!'
She stumbled, dragged along by the old crone beside her. She threw back her veil and he saw the anguish on her face. He started to run after her, then stopped. What could he do?
When he came back outside they were already gone. He sat down on the top of the steps. Ludovici looked up at him, shook his head in frustration. Abbas supposed he had been right all along. A coach rattled away down the Via delle Botteghe, the horse's hoofs ringing on the cobbles. It had been a trap and it had fallen right into it.
***
'Abbas Mahsouf? The Moor's son?'
Signora Cavalcanti nodded eagerly, revelling in her own mendacity. She had lured him out so easily. She was sure His Excellency would be delighted with her.
Gonzaga jumped to his feet, his oak chair crashing onto the tiles behind him. 'A Moor?'
'He followed us inside, just like he did the first time. I saw him with my own eyes. He called her name as we left the church.'
'The first time? What was the first time? You said nothing of this to me.'
The duenna realized her mistake and her breath caught in her throat. 'It seemed like a trifle.'
'How did this … trifle … occur?'
'I thought nothing of it. Men stare all the time.'
'That is why she has a veil.'
'In summer she says it is too hot. Sometimes she pulls it back.'
'And you let her?'
'She is headstrong.'
'So do I pay you to be compliant?'
Signora Cavalcanti knew she must deflect his line of questioning, shift the focus elsewhere. 'I saw someone else there.'
'Who?'
'Ludovici Gambetto.'
He stared at her, appalled. 'You think she has had commerce with both of them?'
'No, of course not, Your Excellency! He was just looking on. I saw him watching as we left the church. I believe the Moor is friendly with him.'
Gonzaga went to the window, watched the gondolas and barges moving up and down the Great Canal. He need to think about this intriguing revelation. 'So. My brother-in-law's bastard! You think this is how messages were passed?'
'His sister Lucia visits here often.'
Gonzaga nodded. 'Of course. I congratulate you on your discoveries. You shall have your reward Signora Cavalcanti. You may leave me now.'
***
The door closed softly behind her. Gonzaga stood there for a long time, thinking it through. What was he to do? If he brought the matter before the courts he would be the laughing stock of all Venice. His daughter and a blackamoor! They would force him from his seat on the Consiglio di Dieci.
He could perhaps bring the matter to the attention of Ludovici's father, but that was just as perilous. Old Gambetto's wife - his sister - had been a long time dead, and now he was manoeuvring to be elected the next Doge, a rival to Gonzaga himself, and might welcome the opportunity to create a scandal.
The matter called for subtlety and patience. Ludovici could be punished in due course. The Moor must be dealt with now.
What was it that Signora Cavalcanti had said? 'His sister Lucia visits here often.' This was the key. Lucia was the conduit, then; but if water could flow one way, it could also flow the other.
But this time he would make it run to his own advantage.
***
When Lucia arrived that afternoon her duenna was dismissed and instead of being escorted to Julia's loggia or the drawing room overlooking the Great Canal, as usual, Signora Cavalcanti ushered her into Signore Gonzaga's private study where the Consigliore himself waited to greet her.
'Ah Lucia,' he said. 'How pleasant to see you again.'
'Excellency,' Lucia said, alarmed. She bent to one knee and kissed the hem of his sleeve.
'Come and sit here beside me,' he said. He dismissed Signora Cavalcanti with a glance.
They sat together on the divan by the window and he watched her, his face frozen in the travesty of a smile. Lucia squirmed in the silence. She wondered if he knew about the letters. Why else would he wish to talk with her alone? And how much had Julia already told him? If he caught her in a lie it would go badly for her.
'I believe you have something to tell me,' he said finally.
'I … I did nothing wrong.'
'I know you didn't. It's all right. Julia has told me everything.'
'You are not angry?'
'With her, yes. With you? Yes, I am angry with you, too, my dear.' He fixed his executioner's eyes on her, still smiling. 'But you may yet find pardon in my eyes. You were, after all, only a messenger.'
'You knew about the letter?'
'Of course,' he lied.
'I did not know what was in it! My brother asked me to give it to her. That's all I know.'
'You think this excuses your conduct in deceiving me and Signora Cavalcanti?'
She stared at her hands. 'I don't know.'
'Perhaps you are right. I think it does excuse you.'
'You do, Your Excellency?'
'You were asked to convey a message from a friend. Where is the sin in that?'
'There is none.'
'Of course. So you will not mind, then, extending me the same favours?'
