'Well and so I am a lady – almost! It's a real pleasure to meet with such a discerning gentleman, Signor Officer. It didn't take you long to see that I don't belong here even if I am Zani's cousin. I'm just on a visit for a few days to see my cousin Annarella. I live in Florence, really.' She smirked complacently. 'I'm a lady's maid to Baroness Cenami who's companion to her royal highness Princess Elisa, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, God bless her!'
She crossed herself several times very fast as evidence of her devotion to so illustrious a princess. The effect, indeed, was magical. At the mention of Napoleon's sister, the officer's face relaxed. He drew himself up, ran a finger round the inside of his high collar and gave a twirl to his moustache.
'Indeed? Well then, my pretty dear, you can think yourself lucky to have met with Sergeant Rapin, a man that understands these things! Anyone else might have taken you in for questioning—'
'You are letting us go?'
'But of course! But we'll see you on your way a step, just in case you should happen to run into another patrol that might not know how to treat a lady like yourself…'
'But – we should not like to put you to any trouble…'
'Trouble! Not a bit of it! A pleasure! If you're going to San Trovaso, our way is in the same direction. You'll not have to look far for a ferryman to take you across the Grand Canal if you're with us, and besides…' he dropped his voice to a confidential whisper, 'Venice is not safe tonight. We've been warned to look out for conspirators! The south of Italy is full of them and they are sending their agents up here. Seems they call themselves Carbonari – charcoal burners, that is. Not that that makes it any easier to tell them in the dark.'
Delighted with this evidence of his own superlative wit, Sergeant Rapin gave a roar of laughter, dutifully echoed by his men, and then gallantly offered his arm to Marianne who was still gaping at the success of her diplomatic invention.
The patrol resumed its way, swelled by the addition of Marianne, walking ahead on Rapin's arm, and Zani who was so overcome with admiration for his new friend that he attached himself to her skirts and clung inseparably.
The light was growing swiftly, driving out the darkness with the eager haste of a summer morning. In the east the grey dawn was already tinged with pink. In a little while, people and things stood out clearly and the lanterns, now no longer needed, were put out.
Tired and anxious as she was, Marianne thought their curious procession certainly had its funny side.
'We must look like a village wedding gone wrong,' she told herself, as her unlooked-for gallant went on pouring nonsense into her ear, doing his best to obtain an assignation although it was not clear whether he was prompted by her personal charms or by her connection with the court.
The Merceria dived suddenly underneath a broad archway cut through the base of a tower supporting a vast clock surmounted by a bell. As they emerged on the other side, Marianne had a sudden sense that she had been transported into a fairytale, so beautiful was the spectacle which met her eyes.
She saw a cloud of white pigeons fly up into the pale violet morning, and go circling up, like spiralling snowflakes about a slender rose-coloured campanile. She saw the twin green domes and alabaster pinnacles belonging to a church that was like a palace, and a palace like a jeweclass="underline" delicate, flesh-tinted stone, gold mosaics, lace-work of marble and enamelled turrets. She saw a huge square fringed with a border of arcades and marked out in white marble like some outsize game of hopscotch. Last, between the splendid palace and another box-like building with a row of statues along the top, framed by a pair of lofty columns, one topped by a winged lion, the other by the figure of a saint with a kind of crocodile, there lay a wide expanse of silky blue that made her heart beat faster.
Lateen-sailed vessels moved like bunches of anemones over the silvery surface, and beyond them another dome, another campanile emerging from the misty distance. Yet it was the sea all the same, the roadstead of St Mark where Jason might be waiting for her…
Sergeant Rapin, for his part, had seen something rather different. He dropped Marianne's arm abruptly as they came out from beneath the clock-tower, for they were now in sight of the guards on duty outside the royal palace, formerly the Procuratie, and gallantry must yield to discipline. He saluted in correct military fashion.
'I and my men leave you here, Signorina, but you are not far from home now. But before we part, may I beg the favour of another meeting? It seems a shame that we should be such near neighbours and not see one another, don't you think?' He smiled engagingly.
'I'd be glad to, Sir!' Marianne simpered, with a readiness that did credit to her acting talents. 'But I don't know that my cousin—'
'You're not dependent on your cousin, surely? And you a member of her Imperial Highness's own household?'
Rapin's imagination was clearly as fertile as Zani's and in the short interval of time they had spent together he had contrived to do away with Marianne's supposed employer, the Baroness Genami, whose name evidently meant nothing to him, and remember only her august mistress, the Princess Elisa.
'No, no, of course not,' Marianne said hastily. 'But I shall not be here much longer. Indeed, I am leaving—'
'Don't tell me you are leaving tonight,' the sergeant interrupted her, giving another twirl to his moustache, 'or you will oblige me to stop all vessels leaving for the mainland. Stay until tomorrow… then we can meet tonight… go to a theatre… I can get tickets for the opera, at the Fenice. You'd like that…'
Marianne was beginning to think her importunate soldier would be more difficult to be rid of than she had anticipated. If she were to rebuff him, he might turn nasty, and Zani and his sister might have to pay for it. So she controlled her irritation and glanced quickly at the boy who was observing the scene with a little frown. Then, her mind made up, she drew the sergeant a little apart from his men. They, too, were beginning to show signs of impatience.
'Listen,' she whispered, remembering suddenly his questions to the child. 'I can't go to the theatre with you, or ask you to come to my cousin's to call for me. Ever since my other cousin, the courier from Zara, disappeared we have been more or less in mourning. And Annarella hasn't the same reason to like the French as I have.'
'I see,' Rapin breathed back, 'but what is to be done? I like you, you see.'
'I like you too, Sergeant, but the family would never forgive me. It's much better to be quiet about it – meet in secret, you understand? We shan't be the first.'
Rapin's plain, honest face lit up. He had been long enough in Venice to have heard of Romeo and Juliet and now he was obviously seeing himself in a mysterious love affair with a spice of adventure about it.
'You can count on me!' he declared enthusiastically. Then, remembering to lower his voice to a conspiratorial mutter, he said in muffled tones: 'Tonight… at dusk… I'll wait for you under the acacia at San Zaccharia. We can talk there. You'll come?'
'I'll come. But take care! No one must know!'
On this promise, they parted and Marianne had to bite back a sigh of relief. She had felt for a moment as though she were taking part in one of the farces so beloved of the strollers in the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. Rapin saluted, but not without stealing a furtive and passionate handclasp with one whom he evidently regarded as his latest conquest.
The weary patrol marched off into the palace, trailing their weapons, and Zani led his supposed cousin, somewhat to her disappointment, away from the sea to the far end of the square where workmen were beginning to arrive on the site of a new series of arcades destined to fill up the fourth side.
'This way,' he hissed. 'It's quicker.'