“Have you seen your sister today?” Cass asked impatiently. She was quite certain she had not moped around the house like a shivery, wilting flower whenever anything bad had happened to Falco. Siena needed to pull herself together, immediately. “Luca is a man who can take care of himself. Feliciana is depending on us, for the time being. Try to remember that.”
Siena hung her head. “I was sneaking her a bit of breakfast when I saw the messenger approaching. She’s fine. Bored, but fine.”
“Good. Now help me get dressed before Donna Domacetti arrives and starts telling lurid tales without me.”
Siena pulled a cream-colored garment from Cass’s armoire.
“Not those,” Cass said. “My other stays.” Ever since Cristian’s dagger had narrowly missed her heart by embedding itself in the whalebone ribbing of her ivory stays, she had considered the undergarment lucky. With a runaway servant hidden in the storage room and Luca in prison, Cass would take all the luck she could get.
She slid her arms into the armholes, and Siena began to thread the laces from behind, her obvious distress causing her to cinch them even tighter than usual.
“Ouch,” Cass said. “Remember, I have to be able to breathe when you’re finished.”
Siena loosened the laces slightly and then began searching through Cass’s armoire for skirts and a bodice. She came back with a set of emerald-green skirts and a gray bodice with long silvery sleeves already attached.
Cass slipped the skirts over her slim hips while Siena went to work on the laces of the bodice. “Once I hear what the donna has to say, I plan to go to the Palazzo Ducale, to speak on Luca’s behalf.”
It was unlikely that the Senate would let her speak to Luca, but Cass was going to try. She couldn’t help him without more information, and she wasn’t sure she could trust a single word that came from the mouth of that gossiping crone Donna Domacetti. It couldn’t hurt to ask for a meeting. Maybe a little extra gold would open doors, literally.
Siena grabbed the silver-plated hairbrush from the dressing table and motioned for Cass to sit. Cass waved her away. “I’ll just twist it all under a hat,” she said, grabbing one made of gray velvet from a shelf in her armoire. “I don’t want to miss a moment of the donna’s visit.”
Donna Domacetti was just settling herself in a velvet chair when Cass returned to the portego. The woman lurched back to her feet, putting a dangerous amount of weight on the wooden frame of Agnese’s chair as she did so.
“Cassandra, you poor dear.” She leaned in and grasped Cass’s bare hands in her own. “My heart goes out to you.” Dressed all in red with her gray-streaked hair twisted into a high pair of horns, the donna looked more like an obese devil than Venetian nobility.
“Grazie.” Cass curtsied stiffly. Her eyes dropped to the donna’s fingers. In addition to a fat ruby and a diamond-encrusted circle of gold, the woman still wore the ring with the six-petaled flower design.
The donna gathered her wide skirts around her as she took her seat on the chair again. Cass noticed the scarlet gown was embossed with shiny metallic threads—gold, undoubtedly. Agnese was still seated stiffly on the divan, a blanket covering her legs and waist. As a kitchen servant appeared with a pot of tea and several cups, Cass realized she was the only one still standing. She pulled a chair over from the far side of the portego, passing by the life-sized depiction of The Last Supper as she did so. Cass shivered. She liked the work of da Vinci, but she always felt like the figures in the giant mosaic were watching her.
“We’re so grateful you took the time to come,” Agnese said. “A dreadful, dreadful business.”
“Indeed.” Donna Domacetti drained her tea in a single drink, leaving a smear of blood-red lip stain on the rim. “I was shocked. Luca da Peraga, taken to the Doge’s prison by order of the Senate. My husband and I could hardly believe it.” She lifted her hand and twisted her wrist at one of the serving boys. The boy hurried over and refilled her cup.
Cass set her cup gingerly on the table and glanced over at her aunt. She had plenty of questions for the donna, but it would have been rude for her to speak before Agnese.
“It’s absolutely absurd.” Agnese clucked her tongue. “Trumping up some charges against a good Venetian man who’s returned home for a betrothal ceremony? Exactly how do we go about getting him released?”
Donna Domacetti shook her head sadly, her multiple chins jiggling back and forth. “I wish it were that simple, Agnese. Not only was Signor da Peraga implicated through the bocca di lione—”
“The bocca di lione?” Cass nearly upset her cup. “They’re holding him based on anonymous accusations tossed into the mouth of a sculpture? I’ve seen children throw parchment in there as a joke.”
“You didn’t let me finish, dear.” Donna Domacetti took a long drink, swallowing slowly and dabbing at her crimson mouth with one of Agnese’s good napkins before continuing. “It seems there are also eyewitnesses to your fiancé’s heresy. Nobles who came forth to give testimony.” She said this with such undisguised enthusiasm that it took all of Cass’s self-control to keep from flinging her untouched cup of tea at the woman’s smug face.
“And who exactly are these confused nobles?” Agnese asked, shooting Cass a warning glance. Cass knew she was one comment away from being ordered to her room. She reclined in her chair and gave Donna Domacetti her most daggerlike scowl.
“I really shouldn’t say anything,” the donna demurred, “but rumor has it Don Zanotta’s own wife is one of the accusers.”
“Hortensa Zanotta?” Cass had met her when she visited Palazzo Domacetti for tea. What she remembered most was the deep gouge of smallpox scars on the donna’s cheek. That and how she had spoken so cruelly about the murdered women, as if they had deserved their fates. Scarred or not, a wealthy donna with a powerful husband could have whatever she wanted. Why in the world would she condemn an innocent man to die?
“Will there be a trial?” Agnese asked. Her swollen hands dropped to her lap. Cass realized her aunt was working the beads of her rosary. She watched Agnese’s fingers push a bead along the golden chain.
“I’m afraid not,” Donna Domacetti said. “That is why I came immediately, so that you both would know the gravity of the situation. The Senate has ordered Signor da Peraga to be executed, exactly one month from today.”
For a second, no one spoke. The room started to dissolve before Cass’s eyes, individual tiles of the da Vinci mosaic winking out like candles that had been extinguished. She fanned herself with one hand. Her bones felt weak, slippery. She had the strangest sensation that she might slide right out of the cushioned chair and onto the floor. When she opened her mouth to speak, her voice was that of a stranger, tiny and timid. “Executed?” she managed to squeak out. “What—what do you mean?”
Donna Domacetti cleared her throat to say more, but Agnese cut her off. “That’s preposterous.” She reached out to pat Cass on the arm. “Luca is an innocent man, a devout Catholic. Once the Senate has ample time to contemplate the facts, I’m sure they’ll reconsider.”
Cass inhaled sharply, and then again. It felt like someone had stabbed her in the chest. “But if there’s to be no trial, when will anyone contemplate anything?” she asked. The room started to come back into focus, but things were still a little off, like she was viewing everything through a smudged wineglass.
She watched her aunt struggle to her feet and motion to the donna. The two women slowly crossed the portego and hovered at the top of the spiral staircase. Their lips were moving, but Cass couldn’t hear their words. She wanted to get up and move closer, but her bones still felt soft, her muscles useless. She rested her head in her hands and tried to replay the parts of the conversation she remembered. Luca da Peraga . . . Doge’s prison . . . order of the Senate . . . eyewitnesses . . . heresy . . . executed . . .