Danese grimaced. “Well, what if I was her mother’s paid lover? Does it make you happy to hear me admit that, Alfeo? Most of the last three years she’s been living at Celeseo and there’s totally nothing else to do there except count ducks. A common gigolo, tumbling a fat old woman on demand? I worked hard for my pay, but I swear I did not prey on Grazia. I did not sink to that. We spoke of love, but we never as much as touched fingertips. Not until I found her weeping in a corner a week ago and she told me of the wedding plans. I kissed her-that’s all, I swear! One kiss and I told her I loved her. Our first kiss. And right then her mother came around the corner and caught us.”
I sighed at this romantic cliche. “Paolo and Francesca?”
“Who?”
“A literary allusion,” I muttered, exchanging meaningful looks with the Maestro. The Sanudos had assured us that no household members were missing, but had not mentioned that one had been thrown out on his ear a few days earlier. Now we knew why the Sanudos were so insistent that there be no scandal. Grazia running off with a gardener would be a trivial misdemeanor compared to eloping with her mother’s pretty boy. If Sanudo had promised his daughter to a Contarini and the daughter had preferred the gigolo, then the Great Council would roll in the aisles for weeks. It would be the scandal of the decade.
“What do you want me to do, master?” I asked.
The alembic had begun to bubble. Nostradamus’s attention was wandering. He sighed angrily. “Is that the whole truth, messer? Did you purloin the lady’s jewels when you left? Help yourself to silverware?”
“Nothing,” Danese muttered, squirming in the nethermost pit of humiliation. “I give you my solemn oath. Grazia brought some jewels, but they’re her own. I have a few trinkets Eva gave me. She let me take them and my clothes. That was good of her, but I had done my best for her until then. Gesu, had I ever! Grazia was a virgin until last night- after the wedding! She isn’t now. What other prurient details entice you?”
I said, “The question is whether the Sanudos will accept you as her husband. Is that what you want? Or would you rather they just paid you to disappear?”
He flushed even redder. “If I had my sword-”
“You don’t. I do. You got yourself into this,” I said. “But I promise we won’t turn you in. For old times’ sake, I will not send you to the galleys.”
He muttered, “Thank you, Alfeo,” as if the words hurt. “I want Grazia to be happy. I love her, damn you! Have you never been in love? I want whatever she wants.”
The Maestro was peering into the alembic. “Alfeo, take her home. I want my fee. I earned it.”
Funny that I hadn’t noticed him rushing to my defense on the Riva del Vin. “Yes, master.”
“Negotiate anything else you like as long as it’s legal. And hurry back because I have notes for you to transcribe.”
That was ominous news. He probably meant he couldn’t read his own scrawl and wanted the rest of my Sunday. I led the way out into the salone and closed the atelier door.
“Well, clarissimo?” I said. “ Sier Zuanbattista really did tell me he wants his daughter to be happy. I don’t know if that means he will accept her choice of sleeping partner, but it’s up to you. You can trust him and come to Ca’ Sanudo with us. Or you can head for the Mestre ferry and vanish into the sunset. You decide.”
Danese dithered, looking everywhere but at me. “I want whatever Grazia wants,” he muttered to the floor.
Looking tiny as a doll beside the great statues, Grazia was running toward us from the kitchen.
“You wait here,” I told her husband. “I want to hear it from her own lips.”
I strode forward to intercept her; she tried to dodge; I sidestepped to block her. We studied each other appraisingly. I had not veered from my first impression, that Grazia Sanudo was cast from the same hard metal as her mother. She was wondering how to play me, which should not be a difficult decision, given our respective ages and genders.
“Madonna, I must take you home. My master’s orders. Do you want Danese to accompany us?”
She blinked several times, but no tears welled up in her magnificent eyes. “ Sier Alfeo, how could you? You think I would marry a man yesterday and cast him off today?” She dropped her gaze and smothered a dramatic sob. Better, but she needed practice. She had never learned how to speak to men other than relatives or servants.
“No. But he may be taken from you. I told you the message your father sent. Do you trust his word? Will your parents accept Danese now?”
Another dry little sob…“You realize what they may do to him? You condemn me to a life sentence in a convent? You will send your childhood friend to jail or exile?”
“No. If you think that, he is free to go.” Good riddance, mustn’t say so.
She hesitated, chewing her lip. The tragic heroine role is hard for fifteen-year-olds. We both knew that if Danese walked out of her life now she would never see him again.
I was confident that whatever choice she made would be the wrong one. The previous day, just for my own amusement, I had cast Grazia’s horoscope, using the date and time her parents had given the Maestro. The stars were very bad for her at the moment and had been for several days, with Mercury in the house of Virgo. Next weekend her fortunes should improve dramatically. Curiously, my own horoscope showed the reverse-good now, bad later.
“Your father said-”
“Yes, I know!” she snapped furiously. “I heard you. I always knew he would say that. Of course he will take me back! I never doubted it. But did my mother say the same? She’s mad because Danese loves me and she thought he loved her!”
Both ladies had relied on information from the same source. Love makes fools of us all.
“Won’t your father have final say? Why do you doubt?” I asked patiently.
“Because it’s too soon!”
Ah! The Sanudos were supposed to suffer. “Would it help if I asked them for you?”
She melted. “Oh, would you? Please, sier Alfeo?”
Back down to the gondola we went. Grazia naturally took the place of honor, the left side of the felze, and this time I did not stop Danese from joining her. He wrapped his good arm around her and the two of them sat there like birds in a cage, scowling at me. Giorgio pushed off. Nobody said a word until we emerged from the narrow ways onto the Grand Canal.
Grazia had not given up on me yet. “How did you find us?”
“The Maestro foresaw you.”
“That’s witchcraft!” She appealed to her husband. “Isn’t it, dearest?”
“Probably.”
She tried her best tigress stare on me. “We shall report you to the Council of Ten!”
“Don’t waste ink,” I said. “Every year Nostradamus publishes his almanac and includes a dozen or so prophecies. Every year I deliver a copy for the doge and another for the cardinal-patriarch.” I did not suggest that those esteemed gentlemen ever actually read the books, but they did not lay charges either.
“And can you foresee what my parents are going to decide about Danese?”
“The Maestro probably could, but he charges a lot of money for private predictions. I don’t have the knack. I can cast horoscopes, though, and I drew yours.”
She hesitated, but a desire to know the future stands very high in human wants. “And what did you foresee?”
“I saw your present trouble-which wasn’t difficult, of course,” I added quickly, foreseeing her sneer from the way her lip had started to curl. “But I also predict a dramatic improvement in your affairs about a week from now.”
She turned and beamed at Danese. Danese was quick; he saw the ambiguity right away, but he turned his snarl at me into a smile at his wife.