They walked through the calles. He delayed by a sweet-vendor, but of course, he seemed to recall mid-offer, la moretta could no more eat or drink than she could speak. He mimed realization to her, as if her silence was catching, and she took his arm, miming laughter. They walked on together, across the Ponte Vela, and on to her very door.
"Ah," he said, looking at the house, and at her, as if he knew, then, everything there was to know. Her heart sank. She was not among the highest of the city.
She turned to go inside, to end her fantasy, to be done with adventures for all her life, forever. But he caught her hand, and pulled her about, lifting her hand to his lips.
"Madonna, when shall I see you again? Tomorrow? Please say tomorrow." She was caught unable to speak, between longing and knowledge of her fate. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, her heart said. One more adventure. One more time, to see the sights of the festival—this time safer than before, escorted. Surely it was her best, her last chance in her life. And his voice was so kind, so persuasive. He, and not di Verona, was a gentleman. She turned away, her face to the door, let fall the moretta and snatched the bauta to her face, holding it in place with her hand. Then she faced him.
"At afternoon." That was her best chance to get away. Nonna napped then, and might not come out of her bedroom for hours. "I shall be here after noon, about one. By the water-stairs, on the Racheta."
"I shall be there," he said, her harlequin, flashing a broad grin, and kissed her hand before she slipped into her own front doorway and dropped the mask.
All that night she courted sleep, thinking of him, and not of di Verona, but she found no rest until late, and did not wake until the sunlight came full through her window. Then the servants brought her breakfast, since she had not come down, and she dressed in light fabric, and wrapped up in a shawl, and walked in Nonna's precious garden, thinking, building cloud-castles far more pleasant than any of Nonna's plans for her life—though she knew Nonna's plans would win, after all. Di Verona was her fate. Her harlequin was the fantasy. Nonna came out to sit in the noon sun, and said not a word. They shared a light luncheon out in the sun, and Nonna remarked how, when they had money again, she would make a fountain in the garden.
"If there is not money soon," said Nonna, "I shall tell you the bitter truth. We shall lose this garden. We shall lose the house."
Her dreams all faltered and trembled. "What about the gold, Nonna?" But when she asked that question, she knew there had been no property in Milano. Everything was a deception, all Nonna's stories, if she had been taking gifts from di Verona.
"Never worry," Nonna said. "You will win di Verona's heart. And very soon after, you will live in the Palazzo Ducale, where you belong, and I shall have title to this house. You will give it to me, will you not, my darling, my precious girl? I am too old to find another fortune. I've taken care of you; now you must take care of me."
It was the softest and saddest and most desperate she had ever heard her Nonna. It struck her heart. And she had the most dire feeling that Montefiori's will had not, as Nonna had said, granted the house to them. Nothing else of Nonna's assurances seemed to have been the truth. And amid Nonna's deceptions, weighed against greater lies, it was only a little rebellion she intended. Only one evening.
So, after noon, when all the city abandoned its business for an hour or so, when young and old took to their rooms for naps, and when the more energetic went out to enjoy the cafes, she put on her finery and the white bauta and tiptoed down the stairs to the canalside door, to the little steps where the water lapped.
Just as soon as she stood there, a sleek, curtained gondola, waiting silently down by the intersection of the Racheta with the Caterina, came to life. Its gondolier poled softly up, and a fine masculine hand drew back the curtain, and invited her aboard.
Her white harlequin was alone this time, but for his gondolier. He settled her onto the cushions opposite him, and smiled at her.
"My lady keeps her word," he said.
"So do you," she said. She had never seen a gondola so fine as this, with its black leather and red brocade cushions, nothing of faded splendor like Nonna's house, but all bright and new. Her harlequin was no poor man, not at all. He had such fine hands, carefully kept. His hair was dark, and curled beside his white half-mask. His smile was very kind.
"I should never fail madonna," he said. "What misadventures might she take to, without me?"
"I would have escaped those two," she said, self-defensive.
"Of course you would," he said, ignoring truth. "You were well on your way. But you would have splashed that lovely gown."
She thought he mocked her. But she looked at him and thought not. It was a day as bright as yesterday had been stormy.
And they ran the bull. They ran the black bull through the walkways from the far northern section of Venezia, once having to pull it from the canal, and chased it to the great piazza, to the very front of the holy cathedral, where it met its fate.
Giacinta hid her eyes. "It's cruel," she said.
"The bulls pay the penalty," her harlequin said.
"What penalty?"
"For our sins. But listen," he said, slipping an arm about her as they walked, "I shall tell you the real reason for the bull-running, which not many know. Once upon a time, when the sun was much younger, when there were no storms and no need of sea gates, we were off fighting the Paduans. Our neighbor Ulric of Aquileia attacked us. We attacked him back, and we won. And instead of plundering his city, we were, of course, moderate. We fined him in cattle. And that year we held carnevalefor the first time, and slaughtered beef instead of our neighbors, and held festival instead of war. We were even then an enlightened city, you see. And every year since, we remember our civilized act, even when the Aquileians ceased paying us the thirteen sacrifices. Every year we hold carnevale. And we risk our lives only with the bulls, which feed the poorest of our citizens. We are merchants. The sacrifice reminds us that nothing comes free."
"You are no merchant."
"Would it matter to madonna if I were?"
She had never quite asked herself. She had assumed. Now she made up her mind. "No. Never." He kissed her fingers, held them close, and a tingle went up from them, right to her heart. They walked, the gondola long abandoned. They dodged the egg-throwers, whose porcelain eggs burst with petals and perfume. They ate savory pastries from a strolling peddler, and drank wine from the public barrel in the piazza, and danced, oh, they danced and skipped to the songs of strolling violins and flutes, among crowds well-gone with wine. Then the square began to glow with lights from unshuttered windows, and the canals to shimmer with light from lanterns on the gondolas, and all the city was alive with music and laughter, with pranks and simpering gnagas, with foolish pantalones and balanzones, and black and white harlequins less dignified than hers.
"I must get home," she said at last.
"No, stay," he said. "Carnevaleonly truly lives at night."
"My Nonna," she said, "will never forgive me. Please let me go."
"Then I shall walk you home," he said, and took her to the place where the curtained gondola waited.
So they glided in grand safety up the Serpentine, with its firefly glows, lit by their own lantern, and with the curtains drawn back, in the privacy of night.
Then he kissed her, gently, quietly, and touched her cheek below the mask. For a moment she could hardly breathe.
"Set me ashore," she said. "I mustn't."