"Your invitation to the Doge's ball," he said, "as my betrothed. But we shall not become separated, shall we, love?"
She mimed exhaustion, and he closed her hand over the little scroll until it crumpled, until her hand hurt.
"You will dance," he said, "While I please."
It was past midnight that di Verona's gondola delivered her to her own water-stairs, and she closed the water-stairs door. Then and only then, she took off the mask, and wiped her tear-streaked face with the back of her hand, and took off her shoes. Her white silk stockings were bloodstained, where the once-soaked leather had galled her heels and pinched her toes. She padded upstairs, and tried in her silence to evade Nonna. In vain. Nonna met her and hugged her, and with that strangely potent handkerchief, dried her tears.
"There, there, my sweet, all our informers say it went so well. The whole city approves il duco's bride, this shapely mystery, they say, this so silent, so proper, so mysterious girl. La moretta!
You could not have done better for us."
"I want a drink of water, Nonna," she said, trembling, and had that, and a cup of wine, and a biscuit, which, besides the other biscuit at noon, was all she had had to eat that day. She wanted to go out again, to go back out into the calles to look for the harlequin who had haunted her day at the piazza, but she had hardly the strength, and the wine, unsupported by anything of substance in her stomach, quite undid her. She could scarcely climb the stairs or suffer the maids to undress her and wash and salve her feet.
She still had the invitation, crumpled as it was, in the bodice of her gown. The maids laid it aside on the nightstand, and she fell onto the soft mattress between the cool sheets, half-sensible, and then not sensible at all.
Thunder waked her. She heard the renewed pounding of rain against the roof, and heard the maids talking, how the rumor was the sea-gates were nearly overwhelmed, that water had risen into the back of the cathedral, and that the great waves, wind-driven, were splashing down over the great gates into the lagoon. "We'll all drown," one wailed, and the other said that the cathedral had lit candles and prayed for the city's salvation.
She went back to sleep and dreamed that the water came, that it rose up and up above the banks of the canals, and that they all drifted, dancing beneath the waves, the carnevalecarried on forever, and they all were ghosts, she and her white harlequin.
But morning came, and a shaft of sun broke through, and the canals had not flooded last night after all. She sat listlessly, refusing her breakfast, now with a notion of starving herself, of fainting senseless from hunger before the wedding, which Nonna said would be within the month. Could one possibly starve to death, within a month?
"You will learn to love him," Nonna said, in their little breakfast room.
"I never shall. I will not marry him, Nonna. I will not!"
"And what will you choose, else? For us to be poor, in Venezia? To be turned out penniless?
There's no worse fate."
"There is. Di Verona is worse. I don't care about being poor. I'd rather be poor, than face him for the rest of my days."
"Don't say such things."
Nonna was vastly upset. And she had had enough, suddenly. She stood up, her feet protesting even then. "He is cruel and spiteful, Nonna. He has a cruel nature, and cruel hands, and I detest him more the longer I spend in his company. I will never live with him."
"Let me show you something," Nonna said, and went to the cupboard drawer, and took out a little glass bottle, stoppered with waxed cork. Its contents were black, and left a brown stain on the glass.
Nonna set it on the table beneath them. "This is my alternative," Nonna said. "This is what I will choose, if you fail to secure our place here."
"Poison? Is it poison, Nonna?"
"Rather than poverty. Yes, it's poison. I want my garden, my girl, I want my garden and my house and my servants. I have earned them, in my old age. I have brought you up to use your wits and think like a practical woman. I have taught you to be practical. I have arranged the best marriage you could make, an alliance that will make you rich beyond anything I ever asked for myself, beyond anything your father had. You will be splendid, la duchesa in your own right. You will never, never be so foolish as to make me use this."
"Put it away," Giacinta said, sick at heart. "Put it away, Nonna." Nonna took the little bottle back to the cupboard, and shut it in the drawer. "You will go with il duco to the Doge's ball. You will, of course, stay well aside from any matters there. Stay with il duco himself. He will see you come to no harm, and his men will let no harm come near him.
"I don't know why he should care whether he marries me. I don't know why I should matter."
"Legitimacy. Legitimacy, dear girl. You are your father's daughter, as I am mine, but Cesare di Verona—lacks a certain certaintyin that matter, and you are the most beautiful, the most eligible—"
She was struck to bitter laughter. "So il duco is common! He is commonborn as the Doge, as the Council, as any of the merchant princes!"
"Common is as common does," nonna said stiffly, "and he has nobility of spirit, and he is, whatever they say, di Verona."
"He has money, Nonna, oh, say it! He has money, and he wantsnobility, which our name can provide him."
"He wants Verona, which rejected him."
"Oh, is thatthe key to his passion? Reject him and he immediately must have you? Go reject him, Nonna, and he will become your passionate suitor."
She had never used such a tone to her grandmother. But she had reached the end of her endurance last night, and Nonna only bit her lip and shook her head at ingratitude.
"He is cruel, Nonna. He has no heart. I found none."
"If he had more legitimacy, if he had a noble wife, it would be easier for him. If he ruled Venezia, ruling Verona would be certain. And then Milano. Never forget Milano, granddaughter." Oh, Nonna could never forget Milano, from which they themselves were exiles, her father's rights overthrown, and Nonna unable to prevent it. The fall of their family gave Nonna no peace, and di Verona was as much la duchesa's means to revenge on her enemies as she was di Verona's means to regain his city. It was all la vendetta. It was all revenge, and blood. She lost all interest in her breakfast, but she forced it down, foreseeing she would need her strength. She only half heard Nonna's talk about the old days, and the house, and the garden, and how they would plant a flowering plum, which loved to have its feet in water. Then they would have fresh fruit in late spring. Nonna was happy in her imaginings. But it was all nonsense to her ears. Everything had become clangor and nonsense.
She had one night, one night left before this disastrous ball at the Palazzo Ducale, when di Verona's plan would set itself in motion. And she had one recourse. She had her key. She had her one escape.
She went upstairs by midafternoon, when Nonna had taken to her bed, and had her maid lace her into her party gown.
She put on the shoes, never minding the pain of her bandaged feet, and slipped downstairs. And from the drawer she took Nonna's little bottle, and slipped it into her reticule, with her few holiday coins.
Then, wearing the white mask, the bauta, she went out the front door of their little house on the Priuli, and walked down the margin among the revelers, looking, looking, hoping her forlorn harlequin might have lingered somewhere near. The music echoed off the opposing walls, sounding out of key to her, and the laughter and the revelry she met were sadly distant to her ears.
She thought perhaps she should go down to the Palazzo Ducale, and ask to see the Doge, and warn him of di Verona's intentions in the plainest words. The consequences of that brazen action were unforeseeable, but she feared for Nonna if she did so, and yet she did not know why she cared for Nonna's safety, when Nonna had arranged this all for her. She was angry, and bitter, and so full of plots and possibilities that an angry mind could hardly sort through the consequences. She was young. She was new to connivance and conspiracy. The affairs of three states had gone on over her head. Never worry, Nonna would say to her. It doesn't concern you.