Heart of Glass

41





I fall to my knees and cover his face with kisses.

“My darling,” I whisper. I don’t care if he’s streaked with dirt and sweat; he has never been dearer to me. I crane around the back of the chair and untie the knots in the rope. His wrists are bloody and the skin chafed from where he has strained to free himself. As the ropes fall into a pile around the feet of the chair, Roberto’s body slumps forward, and I have to push him back to prevent him from collapsing on the floor. His eyes roll back in his head as unconsciousness threatens to overcome him.

“Laura … Laura.” He says my name over and over again. I hook an arm around his waist and help him to his feet. “I thought you were … She told me …” His knees buckle beneath his weight.

“You must try to walk,” I say gently. He nods in understanding and licks his cracked lips. He takes a tentative step forward, and another, while I support him. So, we make our way slowly out of the abandoned building. I pause near the doorway, just in case Carina and Paulina are waiting, but no one is there.

We take a different route back to the shoreline. After a few turns, Roberto spots a brimming water butt beneath a broken drainpipe. He staggers towards it and leans over the edge, submerging his arms up to his shoulders. He cups great handfuls of rainwater and brings them up to his mouth. He plunges his head in the water and flings it back again so that sparkling droplets arc through the air. I wait as he drinks more and more, rivulets of water running down his chest, his body slumped against the butt. Finally, he braces himself against the side and rolls his body around so that he’s facing me. He grins with pure joy and I laugh with relief, running to him.

A sodden arm falls around my shoulders but I don’t pull away. He can ruin my dress. I care for nothing but him.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he says, his voice croaky. He drags me to him and kisses me passionately. “Carina told me you were dead. She even brought a lock of your hair and held it beneath my nose.”

“It’s a long story,” I tell him. “Stay here.”

From a stall near the harbor I buy a pot of pickled fish and a twist of sweetened bread. From another I find a simple hooded cloak. We make an odd couple. Me with my yellow silk dress, Roberto looking like a vagrant, cloaked on a warm day. Luckily, people are used to eccentrics in this part of the city.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt happier than I do now, feasting my eyes upon this filthy man cramming food into his mouth. “You saved my life,” he says.

“How did you escape from the jail?” I ask.

“I didn’t. A group of men attacked the guards and kidnapped me. They dragged me to that building and delivered me to Carina. I was just left to starve, with no food or water. From time to time she’d come to me. She’d taunt me. She said she had cut your throat. I thought I’d go mad—or die. Death seemed a better option.”

I feel the flush of guilt. I had let myself believe the worst, that he’d abandoned Venice and myself. And all that time he was suffering alone.

“But where did she find the men?” I ask.

“Ruffians can be bought, can’t they?”

“But these men must have been trained,” I insist. “They overpowered the guards.”

Roberto shrugs. “I couldn’t believe Carina was alive,” he goes on. “For a moment or two, I even felt sorry for her.”

There’s no time to talk about Carina now. I tell Roberto what’s been happening with Halim and the fleet. About the deception that has brought Venice to the brink of war, about the missing girl who looks just like the portrait of Halim’s sister, who could be the key to exposing it. I tell him about Allegreza, and he pulls me to him.

“I know how much you admired her,” he says.

When I talk of Massimo, and the rebellion within the Council, his features darken. “What shall we do?” he asks.

“For now, we hide. We need to weigh our options.”

I hold my hand out to him and, gratefully, he takes it. Then I lead him to a canal, where we find a gondola, and the two of us climb aboard.

Roberto settles in beneath his hood as the boatman pushes off.

“Where are we going?” Roberto asks. His eyelids are already drooping with fatigue.

“Home,” I say.

Through the gate, I can see some of the servants on stepladders in the courtyard, painting a section of the wall. Faustina is snoozing in a chair by the kitchen steps. I lead Roberto through a side entrance, and then upstairs. He’s as weak as a kitten and I must be patient as he slowly climbs the steps to my room.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he protests. “We’re not yet married.”

“Wedding vows can wait,” I tell him.

Roberto smiles. “You never did like being told what to do.”

I lean past him to open my bedroom door and usher him inside. He sinks onto my sheets, and within moments he’s asleep.

I slip out of the bedroom and go to the kitchens for a pitcher of hot water.

Fresh sheets of pasta hang from a line above the counter and—there!—a copper urn of water is steaming on the stove. Bianca is leaning over the deep sink, up to her elbows in suds and steaming water.

“I’ll just help myself to some water,” I whisper, not wanting to disturb Faustina, whose chair is visible through the open door. But as I step towards the urn, I trip over a coal scuttle. Faustina stirs in her chair.

“Is everything all right?” she asks. Her eyes fall on my dress. “Oh, Laura, you’re filthy!”

“I tripped,” I say. “I’m going to bathe.”

Faustina bursts out laughing. “That’s right! A lady drawing her own bath. As if Bianca or I would allow that! The household might survive many scandals, but not that!”

“Faustina, no, really …”

But it’s too late. She’s already cutting through the courtyard, into the main doorway and up the stairs.

“Stop!” I call after her. “Faustina, please …”

She bustles straight past the bathing chamber and turns the handle of my bedroom door. I rush in just as she shrieks, “Get out, get out, or have your filthy hands chopped off!” As she tries to run from the room, I seize her arm.

“Will you calm down,” I whisper, dragging her aside.

“Calm down? Venice is soon to be at war and there’s one of … one of … them in your bedroom!”

I give a deep, exasperated sigh. “That man isn’t a Turk,” I say.

“You’ve seen him!” Faustina does a rapid sign of the cross.

“Yes, I’ve seen him. I’m engaged to be married to him.”

I wait for my words to find their mark. Faustina blinks once, twice—then understanding dawns.

“That’s Roberto?” she whispers. I nod, but she still looks doubtful. “He’s losing his looks, Laura.”

“He’s half starved. He was kidnapped. I need your help to return him to health. And Father must not know.”

Faustina’s lined face is wracked with indecision. She looks at me, then back at my bedroom door, then at me once more. “I’ll get you some hot water,” she says.

I smile as she scuttles back to the kitchens, and I know that Roberto is in the best possible hands.

When I poke my head around the door, Roberto looks solemn. I sit beside him on the bed, and he reaches to stroke my hair.

“Each day I was tied up there, I would close my eyes and try to summon your face,” he says. “But you’re much more beautiful than my imaginings.”

I nestle my cheek against the warmth of his palm. “It must have been horrible.”

Roberto grimaces. “Carina … she didn’t just torture me with words. She kissed me too. She said we could be together now you were gone. I tried to get away, but …”

“Don’t punish yourself,” I say, feeling sick and guilty at the same time. How could I ever have doubted him? I think of telling him about Halim, not that anything really happened between us, but it would only cause him pain, and he is too weak to bear it. Perhaps one day I will reveal to him all that went on while we were apart. “It’s over now,” I tell him. “Your father will be reinstated and honor returned to Venice. Carina cannot touch us.”

Roberto’s hand drops from my face, and he gazes out of the open window. “I hope so.”