He had on, this time, the half-mask of a triton, plumed in azure and extravagant, overshadowing his cruel, beard-shadowed jaw. He stepped out and showed her aboard the barge with every grace, handing her down to the well, among the silver satin cushions.
He plucked the dagger from her waist, and flung it over the side, down, down into the opaque water. And smiled that predator's smile at her.
The oarsmen fended off smoothly and rowed down the Grand, past the Ca d'Oro and its silent windows, that kept secret their memories.
All the town looked on when they joined the processional of barges that led toward the Palazzo Ducale, the Doge's residence. And in her purse she still carried the Doge's ring, and the small black vial, her one recourse, in case everything went amiss.
She smiled her own smile at Cesare di Verona as they exited the barge and walked, grandly, across the great piazza.
"What amuses you?" he asked, holding her good hand fiercely, twisting it just a little. "What amuses you, girl?"
"Nonna," she said. "Nonna has such ideas."
They approached the doors of the Palazzo, with cheering townsmen on either hand, come to see the grand costumes of the rich and powerful. They joined the train of other guests, entered into the doors of the powerful, and, still in processional, mounted the stairs behind the rich merchant princes and their attendants. She imagined di Verona's thoughts—that he deserved to be first: no, that he deserved to own this palace. A bastard duke who planned to own the whole city walked tamely, with his men all in matching azure and silver, all costumed as lesser tritons. Up and up the steps, into the gold and glitter of the Doge's entertainment, where the primary guests waited, the oldest heads of merchant houses, their brightly-dressed sons and daughters, all in masks, a full score of harlequins, no few pantalones, and two gnagas, with a mocking falsetto, men masquerading as ladies—one of them in the duke's own exact azure, who saluted him with a curtsy as they came in.
The duke stopped cold. He need not have. Everyone in la Repubblica Serenissima understood clowns made jokes. But il duco abruptly changed his course, snatching Giacinta with him, and hurting her hand.
"Oh!" she said, protesting.
"Fool," he said. "This will be the last joke, I promise you." His men, his bodyguard, immediately deserted him, moving out along the edges of the hall. She saw it happen, so suddenly, so purposefully, she had no time to think, and her heart doubled its beats. Di Verona had no intention of waiting. The moment he was in the hall, his men were moving out, positioning themselves to strike, to take advantage of the panic that di Verona knew would come. And would the assassin who struck the Doge even wear di Verona's colors?
No, never, she thought, things coming clear in the reality of the moment. No, di Verona meant to be the avenger of the Doge, to size power. There were surely others, less obvious, in the crowd, men the Doge's guards could not spot, while his own men disposed of supposed traitors.
"You're hurting me," she protested when he pulled at her, and stumbled on her skirts. "You're making us a spectacle!"
Thatstopped him, when no other reason would. She saw it.
"They're laughing at us," she said. "Oh, I hatethis." Shehad seized power now. She suddenly knew il duco's weakness, and it was fear. He snatched her away, near one of the tables piled high with food. A fountain there spilled wine red as blood. Its vinous smell nauseated her. So did he. But now at least she could wholly despise him. She snatched a sweetmeat with her wounded hand, and popped it into her mouth, then snatched a cup, and let a servant fill it with wine. She sipped, then delved into her purse, slipping items into the black lace bandages of her hand.
Di Verona took another cup himself, drank, and set it down empty as trumpets sounded, as the Doge, Antonio Rafetto, came in, no longer the white harlequin, but wearing black, with his red cap, and his cloak, and lifting his hands to welcome his guests. Only one thing was not the Doge's. His littlest finger sparked white fire, the diamonds of her ring, their pledge. For a moment il Duce looked toward his prey. And quickly, slipping the little bottle into her fingers, Giacinta pulled the waxed stopper and poured the black liquid into her own cup, a little black swirl which immediately vanished in the deep, dark red. Onto her thumb she slid the Doge's ring, asking herself desperately how to warn him of what she saw, and knowing, if things went wrong, that this cup was her only rescue. She took it up and carried it against her heart, a heart that beat like a hammer.
"My guests," Antonio called out. "Welcome! Eat, drink, dance, everyone!" People moved forward to meet him, a surge like the tide against the gates, but the Doge's guards prevented them, to universal chagrin. The wave broke in confusion, and milled aside. She saw di Verona's face, saw him bite his lip. So one approach was frustrated. The musicians struck up a tune. Couples took to the floor. Di Verona, however, did not. She pretended to sip her wine, and di Verona looked about the edges of the room. She began to edge away, thinking she might make an escape, even warn Antonio's guards, using Antonio's ring, but di Verona seized her wrist.
"What will your men do now?" she asked him fiercely, and the triton-mask turned toward that challenge. "Oh, come, come, signore. I know. Do you think I'm a fool?"
"Don't risk being a dead fool."
"Shall I not? They failed to get near him." A wild, spur of the moment plan rose up in her mind, a last brazen chance, even with her hand held prisoner, and she took it. "Signore Rafetto!" she called out above the music. "Signore Rafetto! Di Verona hates you! But you know that. His assassins are in the crowd!"
"Fool!" di Verona cried, and the music died in discord, frightened couples seeking the edges of the ballroom, places less in a line between her voice and the Doge and his men.
"You asked me to marry you, Signore Rafetto! And I accept!"
It was embarrassment, public embarrassment, that deadliest thing to di Verona, that thing he could not survive. The crowd murmured in fear and astonishment as the Doge stepped forward a pace.
"Giacinta!"
"Fool, I say!" Di Verona wrenched her arm, making her spill a little of the wine. It splashed, dark, on her bosom. And suddenly there was racket on the sides of the hall, armed conflict that sent guests fleeing back to the floor, and toward the shelter of the foyer. But city police were there, armed, and in force, sealing the doors.
Di Verona saw it, too, and his grip faltered. Giacinta turned and smiled at him, Nonna's kind of smile, when they had left Milano, Nonna's smile when they had faced the rundown house and the weed-choked garden.
"Drink to the Doge," she said, cold as the depths of the canals. "Take my cup. It's your escape. They won't laugh, if you drink it."
"Damn you," di Verona said. Silence had fallen about the edges of the hall. There were other police, one might think, behind the masks in the crowd. There were weapons in this hall besides those di Verona had brought.
She offered the cup up to him. "They won't laugh," she said, as she would have said it to herself.
"They won't arrest you, or take you to the prison."
Di Verona seized it from her hand, wine slipping over its edge. His hand was white-knuckled on the cup, as if he would crush it. She thought he would fling it at her. Black and red harlequins were moving toward them both, shouldering guests aside.
But he drank, all at a draft, and flung the cup at them instead. The harlequins pulled his hand from her, and began to take him away. A bridge led from the Palazzo to the prisons. This hall was sometimes a court, so she heard.
He did not go beyond a few steps before he fell, and they carried him. There was, she had promised it, no laughter, only stunned silence throughout the hall.