Venom (44 page)

“Where’s Luca?” she asked as she descended to the entry hall.

“He had an errand to run,” Bortolo said. “Probably something to do with the young man he caught skulking about last evening.” The old butler was sitting upright on one of the divans with his eyes closed. Cass wondered if he was answering questions in his sleep.

She chewed on her lower lip. Luca could have told her he was going out, but he had been too concerned with shooing her away to finish dressing.
So that he could sneak away undetected
.

“You ladies look lovely, by the way,” the butler added with a wink. He stretched his spindly arms above his head.

“Oh, Bortolo,” Agnese said. “If only all men were blind. I would never want for admirers.” The old woman smiled. “Shall we go?” She offered Cass her arm.

The day was bright and clear. Mada would be pleased. Siena and Narissa helped Agnese down the crumbling front steps and over to the wooden dock. Giuseppe looked especially dapper in his blue and silver uniform, having added a plume of blue feathers to his hat for the occasion. He had even decorated the gondola’s prow with a blue and silver banner. “Thank you, Giuseppe,” Agnese said. “I may keep you around for a few years yet.”

The gardener smiled toothlessly. Cass knew if her aunt had her way, the old man would die within the walls of the villa. Agnese was fiercely devoted to her staff. It must be troubling for her to await Matteo’s decision about whether to sell the old estate. The boy was quite young to hold so many futures in his hand.

Agnese stepped carefully over a rotting plank and let Giuseppe assist her into the boat. The others piled in behind her.

Cass and her aunt settled in beneath the felze, safely protected from the sun. Narissa and Siena sat facing them in the middle of the boat. Tiny waves battered the gondola from all sides. Twice, Cass thought for sure that water would splash over and soak the hem of her dress, but Giuseppe proved to be an exceptionally skilled oarsman, navigating the gondola all the way from Agnese’s villa to the Grand Canal without allowing any of the water to make its way into the boat.

When they entered the Grand Canal, Cass opened the slats of the felze, and for once her aunt did not admonish her. As the palazzos floated by, each more beautiful than the last, Cass named some of them under her breath. Palazzo di Guda. Palazzo Nicoletti. Palazzo Domacetti. Palazzo Dubois. She shivered in the warm air when she thought of Siena’s sister, Feliciana. What had happened to her? Cass wanted to believe she was all right since her body hadn’t floated up in a canal, but what if she were lying in a crypt somewhere?

She wouldn’t think about it. It was bad luck to be preoccupied by such thoughts on Mada’s wedding day. She tried to focus on the activity around her: open-air boats of various sizes packed the canals, crowded with merchants or fishermen, and private gondolas floated serenely between them. As they approached the Frari, Cass could see a huge gathering of people in the campo outside. They formed a semicircle beneath the three circular stained-glass windows above the Frari’s main entrance. Just in front of the doors, a priest in black robes and a black skullcap waited, his golden crucifix gleaming in the sun.

Behind the church, residents of the neighborhood peeked out from back doors and windows. A handful of peasant children sat
cross-legged at the edge of the canal, watching. All of Venice loved a good wedding, and it was customary for the bride and groom to exchange their vows outside so they could be seen by as many people as possible before proceeding into the church for a traditional Mass. Cass saw many familiar faces: Signor Dubois, Don and Donna Domacetti, Hortensa Zanotta from tea. Even Maximus the conjurer was there, entertaining a trio of peasant children by pulling coins out of their mouths.

Cass, Agnese, Siena, and Narissa joined the group of people awaiting Mada’s arrival. Cass quickly found herself trapped within the crowd. She clutched her journal tightly to her side. The moist air intensified the swirling scent of lavender and rosewater perfume. Cass could practically taste the flowers on her tongue. Agnese blotted her face with a handkerchief and grumbled about the heat.

A cheer went up as a gleaming black gondola decorated with giant green and gold silk ribbons and strings of jasmine and orange blossoms approached the dock. Madalena’s father sat in the front of the boat and a pair of servants sat in the back. Mada appeared from beneath the felze as the gondola slowed to a stop. She stood up and waved. The crowd roared with applause. A group of barefoot children wrestled their way closer. The gondoliers moored the boat and then assisted Mada’s father onto the dock. Next came the servants, who turned to help Madalena.

Mada stood on the dock for a moment, allowing her lady’s maid to straighten her skirts and lift the train of her stunning blue dress from the gondola. Mada’s satin skirts seemed to change from blue to turquoise to deep indigo in the bright sunlight. It was the color of the open ocean, Cass decided, even though she had never been beyond
the nearby Adriatic Sea. The light bounced off the metallic fibers woven into the dress and made it glimmer, just like the sun reflecting off the water.

Mada’s dark hair was done up in several braids, half of them twisted into a flower shape on the top of her head, half of them hanging down over her shoulders and back. Her high jeweled tiara reflected the sunbeams, scattering points of light across the campo.

The semicircle of wedding guests split apart, creating a path to the doors of the Frari. Slowly, Mada began to make her way across the square. Children flung fistfuls of rice at her feet.

Marco’s gondola pulled up at the dock and the crowd cheered again. Madalena glanced over her shoulder and blew a kiss to her fiancé. He wore long, royal blue velvet robes. Everything was blue: the color of virtue. His dark hair was combed forward. He assisted his parents and his three younger siblings from the gondola before making his way to Mada and taking her arm.

Cass felt two emotions, sharply, at once. She was filled with joy for Madalena and Marco on their special day, but couldn’t help thinking that her own wedding day would not be nearly so blissful. And she would not have her parents there as witnesses. With Luca’s father deceased and his mother growing weaker, there might not be any parents present at all.

As Mada and Marco took their places below the largest of the stained-glass windows, just in front of the door to the church, and the crowd surged toward her, Cass started to feel faint. It was hot. Her stays were digging into her ribs.

She tried to focus on Madalena, but her friend’s image swam before her eyes. How had she never noticed the striking similarity between her best friend and Mariabella? The dark hair, the high
cheekbones. Mada looked so much like Mariabella that Cass could almost imagine the ring of bruising around her neck, the X carved in her skin, the blood blooming from her friend’s chest.

Calm down. It’s not real.
But she couldn’t shake the impression. She was parched; she needed something to drink. Cass fought her way back through the crowd, away from the building. She let the wedding-goers swirl around her, separating her from Agnese and the maidservants, separating her from Madalena.

A semicircle of people closed around the couple, seeming to swallow them whole. Once again, the mix of smells—sweat and perfume and orange blossoms—overpowered Cass. She couldn’t breathe. Breaking free of the throng of people, she stumbled across the campo toward the canal. Several people looked at her inquisitively, no doubt alarmed to see a woman unescorted, but she didn’t care. She needed air.

As Cass stood apart from the crowd, a pair of white- and gold-clad altar boys prepared to open the church doors. That meant that Mada and Marco had finished their vows. Everyone would now proceed inside for the remainder of the ceremony and a traditional Catholic service.

The great wooden doors swung open; the entrance into the Frari looked like a dark, gaping mouth. Cass was seized by a sudden fear: if Madalena went inside the church, she would never come back out. Cass had to warn her. Her heart was pounding. She had to warn Mada before it was too late.

The clear day seemed to turn hazy. The brightly colored clothing of the wedding-goers began to blur together. Madalena was at the threshold of the blackness, the diamonds of her tiara burning like white fire. Fire about to engulf her. Cass tried to yell across the open
space, but the wind carried away her warning. Mada flipped a quick glance over her shoulder as she gave herself to the blackness.

“No,” Cass whispered. It was no longer Madalena in the blue wedding gown. It was Mariabella. Drops of blood fell from her smile.

Cass’s mind started blinking like someone was lighting and extinguishing a candle behind her eyes. She wobbled in her chopines. She reached out, toward the wall of the church. Her fingers closed on air. The candle behind her eyes blew out and everything went dark.

C
ass’s eyelids fluttered open. Sharp stone pressed into her back and shoulders. A white blur moved in front of her face. Cass reached toward the blur and it stopped moving. It was a handkerchief. Siena was fanning her. She knelt beside Cass, her face wrinkled with concern.

“Signorina. Are you all right?” Siena wiped beads of sweat from Cass’s forehead.

Cass rubbed her eyes. The air smelled sharp, salty. She sat up slowly. “What happened?”

“I saw you run off as the procession started to move inside. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

“Where’s Aunt Agnese?” she asked. Her thoughts felt thick, as though her mind were muffled in a wet blanket.

“Your aunt got swept up in the rest of the crowd. She’s inside with everyone else.”

Then it came back to her: Madalena. The church doors. The white fire. “Is everyone okay?” she asked.

Siena nodded. “Everyone’s fine,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.” Cass struggled to her feet, although in reality, she felt dizzy. “I just need a bit of air.” Why had she seen the murdered courtesan in Mada’s place? It was as if she’d drunk Tommaso’s liquor again. She wondered if the combination of stress and sleep deprivation was causing her to lose her mind.

A seagull cawed as it passed overhead. Siena blotted her own face with her handkerchief. A bit of green embroidery in the corner of it caught Cass’s eye. It looked vaguely familiar. Cass reached out and snatched the handkerchief away from Siena, who gave a startled yelp.

Just as Cass suspected, the initials stitched in green were LdP. Luca da Peraga.

“Where did you get this?” Cass asked, struggling to keep her voice level.

Siena paled. “I found it in the portego and kept it. It probably fell out of one of his pockets.” She inched backward as if she thought Cass might strike her. “He doesn’t even know I have it. He—he doesn’t know anything,” she finished lamely.

Cass remembered the wax on the parchment she had opened at the dressmaker’s shop, how it had appeared to have been resealed. Siena. She read the letter, before Cass did.