The Dark Lady's Mask (26 page)

“That's what our English comedy writers forget,” he whispered in her ear. “Winged Cupid is a
god.
To fall in love is to be pierced by the arrows of a god.”

His words sent a shiver through her.

The
innamorati,
or young lovers, entered the stage—three shepherd boys and three nymphs. These were the only players who remained unmasked. How they suffered from the pangs of love! The nymphs Filli and Mirtilla both pined for Uranio, who desired Ardelia, who loved only herself. Iglio courted Filli in vain. Tirsi proposed to Mirtilla, but she rejected him, which only inflamed him all the more.

Though he struggled to understand the Italian, Will soon seemed to grasp the plot. “It's a pastoral like so many others I've seen,” he whispered. “Save for the masks and the female players. And yet the heroines change everything.”

The actresses played their roles with wit and aplomb. Far from being helpless damsels or mere objects of desire, they were fully fleshed characters, cunning and clever, giving as good as they got. Only Ardelia was as silent, chaste, and docile as a girl was supposed to be, yet she was so vain and foolish that she, like Narcissus, fell in love with her own reflection and the audience could only laugh at her.

The comedy darkened into tragicomedy when the satyr Satiro stalked the nymph Filli. The masked actor played his role with such menace that Aemilia felt her heart pound and her throat go dry.

If she won't surrender to my will,

I'll do her a thousand outrages!

Neither her beauty nor her loud cries

nor her request for mercy will help her!

But Filli, as wily as a seasoned courtesan, declared that she desired Satiro as much as he desired her and that she would do anything he wished if only he would first let her tie him to a tree. Once she had him bound, she yanked his beard and pinched him mercilessly while he bewailed his humiliation.

The courtesans and market wives in the crowd roared their approval, yelling, “
Brava!
”

Aemilia cheered herself hoarse. Never before on stage had she witnessed such a spirited heroine—neither a victim nor a scheming temptress nor even a shrew, but a resourceful young woman who knew how to survive and even triumph in a dangerous world.

Moved by the ecstasy of the moment, lifted outside of herself by the applause and the wine, Aemilia clasped Will's hand. He gazed at her, his eyes softening as she felt the heat rise in her face. She stared at their joined hands then, laughing in apology, tried to release him. But he held on for another moment, as if reluctant to let go.

The play concluded with Filli and Mirtilla saving their lovers' lives and accepting their proposals. Even Ardelia, haunted by the fear of losing her beauty and growing old alone, embraced Uranio. The three happy couples laid garlands of thanksgiving on the altar of Venus and Amore.

The play left Aemilia buoyant, as though she could float off on a cloud, and Will's happiness mirrored her own. How sparkling their own comedies would be if they could create heroines as fresh and witty as Filli.

Mirth seemed to settle on the entire crowd. Aemilia noted the camaraderie between the laughing young courtesans and the older market wives who offered the girls pears and honeyed hazelnuts. They appeared not to judge these girls but rather to acknowledge the world as it was and what a young woman must do to carve out a life for herself.

Presently, the courtesans returned to their usual commerce. Two young women sidled up to them, towering over Aemilia and standing as tall as Will in their chopines. When Will pointedly shook his head and Aemilia averted her gaze, the courtesans exploded in contempt.

“
English!
” one of them cried, glowering at Aemilia's riding boots. “They hate women! Their own Queen must remain a virgin because they only have eyes for other men.”

The speaker's companion caressed Aemilia's cheek. “
Madonna mia,
aren't you a pretty boy with skin as smooth as a lady's! I bet your friend loves to bend you over and bugger you.” She swiveled to address Will. “Does he have nice shapely buttocks,
signore
?”

With a most theatrical dexterity, the two courtesans proceeded to make obscene gestures concerning the carnal acts they presumed Aemilia and Will indulged in. Abruptly, the girls burst into peals of wicked laughter before racing away, their chopines smacking the cobblestones. Will swayed on his feet as though their performance had left him both speechless and deeply impressed.

“Do you require a translation?” Aemilia asked him, with a half smile. “Or was their meaning clear? By my troth, we've learned never to slight a courtesan.”

She wished she could send the girls to Southampton House to give Harry a good telling off.

“
You
display an astonishing equanimity,” Will said. “Unlike yesterday at the Ponte delle Tette, when I thought you were going to throw yourself overboard because you couldn't bear the sight of breasts. Which is a pity, seeing as the girls seem to prefer you over me.”

She flushed in spite of herself. “At least these girls had all their clothes on.”

What Aemilia hid from Will was how disturbed she truly was, not by the courtesans' bawdy insinuations, but by the accusation that she hated women. She felt sick to think how those girls had glared at her as though she were something despicable.

“W
HAT CARDS ARE THESE?
” Tabitha asked, fingering the brightly painted deck.

“The poet gave them to the mistress,” Winifred said, in a voice as dour as November.

Winifred had not been the same since they left England. Between her bouts of seasickness and the poor food aboard ship, she had lost so much weight during the voyage that her once-huge frame dwindled. Now that they were back on solid land, Tabitha had hoped her sister might regain her appetite and spirits, but Winifred was of the opinion that Venice, with its stinking canals, was the most unwholesome place she had ever seen. People here didn't eat honest food, as in England, she declared, but supped on strange spiny creatures dredged up from the lagoon. Tabby feared Winifred would soon be as thin as Prudence. Meanwhile, Tabitha bloomed.

Though Tabby had cried the hardest upon leaving England, she discovered she loved Italy more each day. She couldn't get enough of the fresh figs and pomegranates from the market, and she found swordfish and even octopus most delectable. Of her sisters, she was the quickest to learn Italian, her tongue savoring the words that sounded like angels singing. And she thrilled at the way young men gazed at her with adoring eyes as though she were an angel.

These painted cards were the latest lovely thing she had encountered in her beautiful new world. She smiled at the image of a golden-haired maiden dancing with pitchers in both hands. But she uttered a cry when she came to the card with the grinning skeleton armed with a giant bow and arrow. A shudder shot up Tabitha's spine when Prudence appeared, as though from out of nowhere, and took the card from her trembling hand.

“That would be Death,” said Pru, as unflappable as if they'd never left Essex.

Tabitha wondered what Pru made of their new life in Italy. Her eldest sister was increasingly silent these days, her eyes darting everywhere, examining everything, but she rarely gave her feelings away.

“Death?” Tabitha's heart raced. Where was Enrico? She whirled around then saw him safe in Winifred's arms.

“We should fling those cursed cards in the canal,” Winifred said. “What does mistress want with them anyway? They're the sort of thing that piss-pot astrologer Simon Forman would have in his rooms—if he isn't already dead of the plague!”

“Mistress says they're soothsaying cards.” Pru's brow remained unruffled.

Tabitha and Winifred drew close while Prudence shuffled the deck and laid out three cards.

In the first, an old bearded man leaned upon a staff and gazed at an hourglass. In the second, a young couple clasped hands beneath a canopy while above them hovered Amore—blindfolded Cupid—about to unleash his arrows. In the third, lightning struck a tower.

“Oh, Pru,” said Tabitha. “It doesn't look like good fortune to me.”

Pru passed Enrico to Tabby before taking Winifred in her arms and rubbing her hair.

“I'm fine!” Winifred sniffed, swiping at her tears. “Don't fuss!”

H
EARING THE KNOCK ON
her chamber door, Aemilia turned, her heart lifting, for she expected Will. But it was Jasper, his face unaccountably somber.

“Aemilia,” he said, for he refused to entertain her conceit of male disguise. “I've completed Her Majesty's business of buying instruments for the Queen's Musicke. Tomorrow the
Orion
sails for Southampton. I implore you to return to England with me, in a dress, if you please.”

His pronouncement struck her like a blow in the gut. They had only just arrived in Venice a fortnight ago. After taking such pains to bring her here, did he truly expect her and Enrico to return to a place where the plague still raged for all they knew? Return to a husband who hated her?

“What of our business in Bassano?” she asked him.

Jasper's face twisted. “The more I think of it, the more like madness it seems. Why would a stranger leave us a bequest?”

“Jacopo is our
kinsman
and he lies dying,” she said quietly. “Have we come this far only to reject his summons?”

Her cousin glanced at the servants and then back at her. “I would speak to you alone.”

Aemilia's stomach pitched when she realized he didn't want the Weir sisters to hear what he had to say. After Winifred, Prudence, and Tabitha had vacated the room, taking Enrico with them, Jasper grasped Aemilia's arms and spoke in such a low, urgent voice that she strained to hear him.

“How do we know we can trust Jacopo? I can little afford to risk my good name or the Queen's patronage to accept some nebulous bequest from an old man who betrayed our fathers. What if he means us malice?”

Jasper's suspicions dumbfounded her, as had the changes Aemilia had witnessed in him since their arrival in Venice. Not only had he taken to wearing a cross around his neck, he could hardly bring himself to speak of the Ghetto without his voice going cold and distant. And now he intended to avoid Bassano altogether. But finally she understood—Jasper was as haunted by Venice and the clamoring ghosts of their fathers' past as she was. It was not that he was ashamed of their patrimony but he was terrified of losing everything if they were unmasked as the children of Marranos.

“Jasper,” she murmured, wishing she could conjure the words to give him courage and comfort. “It's always been my dream to see the Casa dal Corno.”

Their fathers' fabled birthplace was only fifty miles away, yet it seemed more unreal than ever, glimmering like a fata morgana, just beyond her reach.

“Don't be blinded by sentiment,” he said. “Our fathers left this country for a reason. With each passing day, I better understand why they had to flee. Did you hear that in the church of Santo Stefano an old woman was reported to the Inquisition? She was a Jewish convert, as was her son, a prominent physician who donated half his money to the Church. And her crime? The senile old thing was gabbling to herself in church and they accused her of making a heretical mockery of the Mass. If they stoop to persecute some toothless crone, what might they do to us?”

Aemilia, already chilled from Jasper's story, leapt at the sound of a knock on the door. With a nod to her cousin, she went to open it. A burst of relief spread through her at seeing Will. But he appeared as solemn as Jasper.

“Your servants tell me you and your cousin are sailing for England tomorrow.” Will sounded devastated, his eyes touching hers so that she caught her breath. “I've come to bid you both fond farewell.”

“My cousin sails tomorrow,” Aemilia told him, her heart banging, “but
I
shall continue onward to Bassano.”

Resolution weighted her every word. Unlike Jasper, she had neither good name nor royal patronage at stake, but she stood to lose all happiness and freedom by returning to the life she had left behind. Staying on in Veneto promised adventure at the very least. With every fiber of her being, she longed to complete her pilgrimage to Papa's old home and meet her dying kinsman, come what may.

“You can't go alone,” Jasper interjected, with an air of utter exasperation. “It's neither decent nor safe. Please listen to reason for once. What if the Inquisition arrests you for cross-dressing?”

Smarting, Aemilia wondered how he could speak to her like that in front of Will. But then she lifted her gaze to Jasper's. “Does that mean you would accompany me to Bassano if I agreed to wear a gown?”

Jasper only stared at her, as if not daring to even reply with Will in the room. As the silence between them deepened, Aemilia sensed that no words of hers could persuade Jasper to make the journey to the Casa dal Corno, just as no arguments of his could drag her back to England.

As she and Jasper stood in stalemate, Will stepped forward. “Master Bassano, if Aemilia wishes to continue her travels, I promise to escort her and guard her safety at every turn.”

His loyalty kindled a flame in her heart even as she chafed under the notion that she needed his protection. He smiled at her in a way that made her swallow and blink before he turned to Jasper and held out his hand until her cousin reluctantly shook it.

Sighing, Jasper reached inside his doublet and handed her a heavy sack of coins. “This should suffice for the remainder of your journey.”

Aemilia embraced her cousin and kissed his cheeks.

“Y
OU'RE NOT BOUND TO
me, you know,” Aemilia told Will. “You're free to go anywhere your heart desires.”