Her eyes flashed. “I wish now that I had!”
So did I. “But you didn’t. That left your brother.”
“Why do you say my father’s confession was an obvious lie?”
“Because it was ridiculous. A great minister certainly knows all about the Council of Ten, and the Council of Ten most certainly keeps its unwinking gaze on ministers. He could never have hoped to have an affair with a foreigner and keep it secret. Never! At best he would be stripped of his office and sent into exile. At worst he would die as a traitor. I don’t suppose he ever set eyes on Hyacinth Feather before tonight.”
I also had great difficulty imagining Enrico Orseolo losing his head over a woman like Hyacinth Feather, but love is blind and my opinions were not evidence. No matter-by elimination, the mastermind had been the drunken sot on the rug at our feet.
“It was me,” he said quietly, staring at the fire. “I found the foreigners in jail in Padua, charged with conspiring to murder a rich old woman. I paid for their defense by selling some jewels our mother left me last year. She did not leave them to Bianca, because Bianca was destined for the convent. I got the foreigners off and promised them more money if our grandsire died before Easter. I told them all about him, everything I could think of.”
I had guessed that. “Even his taste in wine?”
He nodded. “But he almost never went out. Not even to the Senate any more, just to sales of books or paintings. I suggested they pose as buyers to meet him. Bianca knew nothing about the Feathers, I swear!”
“But I kept writing you helpful letters,” Bianca said bitterly. “Day after day. I told you about every chance I got to go out, every trip to the market or the book dealers. I told you everything that was planned. I had nothing better to do than write you letters and dream of the next time Grandsire would take me to an art auction. That’s how that awful woman knew everything, messer -I told Bene and he told her.”
“When did your father find out?” I asked.
For a while Benedetto continued to stare into the fire as if he had not heard me. Then he muttered, “The night you went to the Feathers and started asking questions…You scared them. Bellamy came to see me and told me I must pay them right away so they could leave Venice. I had no money with me. I went and wakened Father. I confessed. He knocked me down, he was so furious. I got up and he knocked me down again. He said he would have heard by then if the Ten suspected murder, but he said we must stop Nostradamus. The old man was too clever, he said. If we could just remove you, then the man would be helpless and we would be safe. He paid Feather something to get rid of him. Then he and I went out together, to see some men he knew. It was not an area for a man to go alone.”
“But why kill old Bertucci anyway?” I asked. “Just because he was getting old and cranky?”
Benedetto turned to look at me for the first time. His eyes were still bleary but a sudden rage seemed to sober him. “Not for me. For Bianca. Because he was a tyrant! A despot. I could put up with him jerking my strings for a year or two more. But if he forced her into taking her vows, that was a life sentence! You know what they would do to her? She has to lie on the floor and be covered with a black cloth, while they sing and pray over her-three times they do that. And they take away anything pretty like embroidery. And then they cut off her hair, while the whole congregation watches. Every nun in the convent comes and cuts off a lock of her hair and throws it on the ground. Snip, snip, snip…They wrap her in sackcloth and put a crown of thorns on her head…” Bene began to weep. “And it’s forever! She’s locked up until she dies. Do you wonder she was terrified? The old man was crazy. He should have been locked up, not her. Father would never stand up to him, no matter how bad he got.”
So it was all his sister’s fault? What pathetic trash he was! He could not even kill himself properly. Bianca was sobbing too, silent tears flowing down her cheeks. In her place, I would have taken up the fire irons and made a clean sweep of the Orseolo males.
And that was the unthinkable love of the quatrain. I am certain that there was nothing carnal about it, just brotherly love carried to the point of madness.
It was time to go, or I would fall asleep in my chair. “Your father is trying to save you. He can only die once, so he took all the blame. I knew he was lying. The Maestro knew he was lying, and Inquisitor Dona knew he was lying-but he accepted the confession. You’ve got your life back, Benedetto Orseolo. Try to put the rest of it to better use.”
“You mean that?” Bianca whispered. “The Three won’t send Missier Grande to arrest him?”
“I don’t think so. Dona will have to talk the other two inquisitors into it, but I think they will go along.” The Lizard would make his last deal.
“You’re wrong,” the boy said. “They won’t hang father for trying to kill you. The Ten will take his money instead.”
Bianca stared at me, waiting for my comments. This was the crux of the problem. Shamefully, there are precedents. More than one noblemen convicted of murder has offered to pay an enormous fine instead and the Council of Ten has accepted it.
“That’s impossible now,” I said wearily. “He’s confessed to treason and parricide. They can’t overlook those crimes. If you interfere now, you’ll probably get both of you hanged. Sweat it out, boy. Your penance begins now.” I hauled myself to my feet. “If your gondolier is still awake, madonna, I would appreciate a ride home.”
28
N o matter how thick the drapes or what horrible hour of the night I go to bed, I cannot sleep past dawn. It is a curse upon the Zenos-my father had it also, or so my mother used to tell me. It was almost noon before the Maestro came huffing and thumping into the atelier. I had been at work for hours and his side of the desk was papered with examples of my peerless italic hand. Much to my amusement, Mama Angeli arrived right on his heels, bringing a steaming mug of dark fluid. The Maestro refuses to admit that khave is beneficent or even nontoxic, but he indulges when he has to, and this day was one of those days.
I was tempted to bid him a cheerful good afternoon but he was so obviously in no mood for chaffing that I resolved not to speak until spoken to. I went back to work. After a while he picked up some of the almanac pages, the legible copies I was making for the printers to set.
He said, “Bah! This is wrong. You are a line out on this table, all the way down the page.” He was restored to his usual self.
“Good morning, master.”
“Is it? I shall need all these sheets redone before you break for dinner.”
“Yes, master. We had a visitor last night after you went to bed-a lady who disagreed with your apportioning of the blame.”
He gave me the sort of look I associate with spiders, except that spiders’ faces are too small to show details. “I hope you told her to go home and count her blessings.”
I reported what had happened. He had been looking forward to explaining to me why Bene’s alibi counted against him, and was peeved that I had worked it out for myself. He was disgusted that the boy had not been arrested.
“I accused the father to try and shame a confession out of the son. I never expected Inquisitor Dona to accept such nonsense! You really think the Council of Three will let the boy get away with murder?”
“Yes. I think he will be left to live with his guilt.”
The Maestro shook his head. “I cannot see why they should connive at such a deception.”
“Family,” I said sadly. “The Orseolos provided some of the first doges, centuries ago, and Bene is the last of the line. His father must have foreseen the possibility of things turning out the way they did and warned him not to interfere if he took all the blame on himself. Inquisitor Dona understood that. Benedetto’s penance is to let his father die and live to carry on the family name.”