The Dark Lady's Mask (25 page)

Only when they took their seats in a gondola did his mood seem to lighten.

“What if we were to write a comedy,” Will said, his eyes full of mischief, “a romance of a young Jewish clothier in the Venice Ghetto who falls in love with a girl masquerading as a boy.”

Aemilia tried to smile. Then he grew more serious.

“Or a Jewish moneylender's daughter in love with a Christian,” he mused.

“A romance of a Jew's daughter.” Aemilia tried to picture her phantom sister, her phantom self. “Could it be a comedy or would it end in tragedy?”

“That remains to be seen.” His eyes lingering on her face, Will gave her new black jerkin a tug. “The clothier was right—you need to get those seams taken in, otherwise you'll look like a boy in his father's clothes.”

B
ACK AT THE INN
on Campo Santo Stefano, Aemilia opened her chamber door to find Jasper and the Weir sisters awaiting her. Only Enrico smiled, showing off his milk teeth as he crawled across the floor to pat his podgy hands on her new thin-soled shoes.

“Mama,” he said, for her guise made no difference to him at all.

Scooping her son off the floor, she buried her face in the crook of his neck to hide from Jasper's look of utter shock and disappointment.

“How could you just disappear like that, alone in a foreign city?” Her cousin's voice shook. “Have you any idea how worried we were?”

Stunned, Aemilia stared at him. Around his neck was a pendant cross she had never before seen. What would Jasper say if she told him she had spent the day in the Ghetto?

“Forgive me,” she murmured, unable to take her eyes off the pendant. “But I wasn't alone. Master Shakespeare accompanied me.”

At the very mention of the poet's name, Jasper's face hardened. “And was it he who encouraged you to buy those ill-fitting weeds? Aemilia, I took you here so you could finally lead a decent life with no more sneaking about.”

To think her cousin would upbraid her so harshly in front of the Weir sisters. Even in Venice, in her male guise, she was subject to a man's condemnation.

“Do you not remember, Jasper, it was you who first dared me to wear your old breeches when we were children and ran off to the Shoreditch playhouse?” She yearned to coax a smile from him.

“We aren't children anymore.” Jasper's eyes were stark. “You know it's a crime—you could endanger us all.” He sighed. “I only wished to see you at peace.”

Turning away from her, her cousin let himself out of the room.

The Weir sisters remained like statues, silent and wooden, until Winifred heaved herself to her feet.

“Mistress mine, for all we knew, you'd drowned in the lagoon.”

Aemilia trembled to see the tears in her maid's eyes. Before Aemilia could say a word, Tabby took Enrico from her while Winifred and Prudence opened the sewing box, preparing to take in her seams.

 

EMILIA STOOD AT HER
chamber window and watched Jasper stride across the
campo
and disappear down an alley, embarking on yet another exhaustive tour of the instrument-makers' workshops of the Castello. Though she'd suspected he would disapprove of her male guise, the dressing-down he'd given her yesterday left her wretched. Jasper had never spoken to her so harshly before. The only soul who seemed to truly understand her was Will. They had known each other a mere four months, yet he already felt like a kindred spirit.

Turning away from the window, she observed the Weir sisters, who seemed as restless as hens cooped up in too small a space.

“Why don't you go to the markets,” she said, handing Winifred a small bag of coins. “Take Enrico with you.”

Tabitha was already speaking enough Italian, Aemilia reasoned, to get by at the marketplace.

“If you say so, mistress.” Winifred insisted on addressing her that way even when Aemilia stood before her in breeches. “I think you should get some air yourself. My stars, I've never seen you so wan.”

Aemilia closed her eyes as Winifred's palm caressed her cheek. Though her new clothes now fit her like a second skin, she had the jitters about venturing forth by daylight after having come so close to giving herself away the day before, weeping in the synagogue. Venice unhinged her. Papa's presence seemed so tangible, not even a breath away. His ghost walked these narrow streets and footbridges. What if she stepped out that door only to lose her wits again, coming undone before strangers?

A soft tapping sounded on the door.

Prudence opened it. “Master Shakespeare.”

“Good morning, sir,” Tabitha said. She was fond of him for the way he doted on Enrico.

But Will's eyes fixed on Aemilia's downcast face.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, his voice rising in alarm. “Is the child not well?”

Aemilia was touched by his concern. “My boy is as right as rain, thank the heavens.”

She watched Will swing Enrico in his arms until the little lad shrieked with delight.
How he must miss his own children
, she thought.

“Did you not say we would see the commedia dell'arte today?” he asked her.

For him, this city has no ghosts.
Will's Venice
, she thought,
is a treasure box and he longs to caress its every jewel
. But in order to do so, he needed her to be his translator, his interpreter, his guide through this labyrinth. Grinning for the first time that day, she swirled her cape around her shoulders. Will's dear face, alight with enthusiasm, would be her talisman against the demons that chased her.

With Will, she felt like herself again—the self she aspired to be. As they clattered down the stairs and set off across the
campo
, her spirits leapt free. Most of all, she was grateful for his lack of judgment. Whether she appeared to him as Aemilia or Emilio, he was her friend, as true a friend as she had ever had.

T
HE TEMPORARY STAGE WAS
set up at San Cassiano near the Rialto market. Though the acting troupe had yet to appear, a sizable crowd had gathered, attracting a swarm of peddlers.

A pushcart vendor, seeking to impress Will with his wares, waved a picture in the poet's face that left him doubled over with helpless laughter.

“What is it?” Aemilia stepped close to see.

“You want to buy one,
signore
?” the peddler asked her, as if anxious to salvage his self-importance while Will heaved in hilarity. “I will give you my best price!”

The peddler brandished a painted miniature of a courtesan whose skirt flap lifted to reveal breeches beneath. It was nearly identical to the curiosity piece that Southampton so coveted. Far from being a rare, priceless work of erotica, Harry's treasure was cheaply painted pornography that anyone with a few
denari
might buy.

“You don't like it?” the peddler demanded. “What about this one?”

A miniature of a nun who—when her skirt flap was lifted—proved to be a courtesan beneath her habit. Will and Aemilia shook their heads, still laughing, and prepared to turn away when the peddler lost his patience.

“You love your coins too much to spend them,
signori
? Are you Jews?”

Aemilia reeled as though the man had punched her.

Will gripped her arm. “What did he say?”

Too angry to speak, she spat on the ground where the peddler had stood. Her eyes wandered off into the crowd. Everywhere she looked she saw lovers sharing kisses. Though Italian girls from good families were not allowed out unchaperoned, young women of the servant and artisan classes might court freely as long as any babies were born within the bounds of wedlock.

The couples' love-struck faces drove a blade into Aemilia's heart. To think she had once been that young and full of hope. She shook to recall the way desire had possessed her, driving her to gallop after Lord Hunsdon. The way she had surrendered to him, dissolving in bliss as he played her body like an instrument. She had gone from being his courtesan to a sexless thing that could scarcely bear to look at courtesans—or courting lovers.

All her desire had died the moment Lord Hunsdon had so unceremoniously washed his hands of her and given her in marriage to a man she despised. She would have to spend the rest of her life paying for what to him had been a passing pleasure. The only way for a woman like her to survive in this world was by remaining dispassionate. Friendship could be her solace but never love. Never again.

Now an old woman selling card decks approached her. She pressed a pack into Aemilia's hand and allowed her to shuffle through them and examine the intricately painted images. A lady in a sumptuous gown rode a white horse and carried an unsheathed sword as though she were a female knight errant. A woman in a nun's habit sat enthroned and crowned in the papal triple tiara. The deck was old and well-worn, its edges wrinkled and nicked, its paint fading in places or smudged by fingerprints. Still, it seemed a precious thing. She passed the cards to Will, who appeared just as enchanted as she.

“Ask her how much she wants for them,” he said. “I shall buy them for you.”

“For me?” she asked, utterly astonished.

“Why can I not give you a gift when you have given me so much? Am I to be only the receiver?”

“They are
tarocchi
cards,” the old woman said, smiling at Will while Aemilia translated. “You can play the game of
trionfi
with them,
signori.
Or you can use them to discover what Fortuna has in store.”

Her gnarled hand revealed a card depicting the goddess of fate and the ever-turning wheel of fortune.

After some haggling, Aemilia and the old woman settled on a price and Will bought her the cards. Delighted, she shuffled through them until she came to a trump bearing the image of a great globe.

“Look!” she told Will. “Fortuna shall give us the world!”

A cheer exploded from the crowd, for the players had arrived and soon the show would begin. There was much shuffling and chattering behind the patched canvas curtains. Pressing her way forward, Aemilia found a space to stand at the very lip of the stage.

A man in a mask and a faded satin costume stepped from between the curtains.

“Fair citizens of Venice,” he said, in a rustic dialect, “today we present to you
La Mirtilla,
a pastoral! For we've come from the countryside to bring its romance to your city.”

As he spoke, a bewitchingly beautiful girl, her long blond hair streaming like a mermaid's, squeezed her way through the crowd to collect
soldi
and
denari
for the players.

“Why can't a city as rich as Venice have a proper playhouse?” Will whispered, after they had paid the girl. “This ramshackle thing looks like it might collapse in a strong wind.”

“The ladies will enjoy our play, too,” the man on stage said, continuing his speech. “For this play was written by a lady, the great Isabella Andreini, who performed at the wedding of Ferdinando de Medici and Christine de Lorraine.”

The women in the audience shouted their praises for La Andreini. Aemilia felt light-headed. So the commedia dell'arte not only featured female players but also female playwrights who staged their creations in the highest aristocratic circles? She had never imagined such a thing. What if her mask was unnecessary and she could write as a woman under her own name?

A boy moved through the crowd selling cups of pale Veneto wine for less money than Aemilia would have paid for milk in England. She and Will raised their cups to each other.

“Did you know that in ancient Greece, the theater was part of Dionysus's cult?” she asked him.

“The god of wine and ecstasy!” Her friend threw back his head, as if reveling in this. “No wonder the Puritans despise the theater—it's heathen to the core.”

Minstrels played pipes and viols as the patched curtains opened to reveal the masked figures of Venus and her son, Amore, who lamented that mortals blamed him for their broken hearts. His mother offered her counsel.

But you with your wings carry your followers

to heaven, and time cannot damage

your powers, nor can death itself,

because you do not love fleeting beauty,

but that beauty which is celestial and divine . . .

You alone are the life in the life

Of every created thing.

Aemilia cast a glance at Will, who appeared transfixed by his first glimpse of a female player, a mature woman with a deep bosom and dark golden hair. They could even smell her violet perfume. How majestic she was, speaking in her natural voice. The lisping boy actors back in England with their padded chests and rouged lips couldn't hope to compare. Will's eyes shone.