But instantly Helen was there in her place, hurling the book away, casting off the sheet, and extending the world’s loveliest arms in welcome. “Darling! I had almost given up hope! What in the world is that you are…were…wearing. Oh, you’re all…” Wet, perhaps, but she had no time to get the last word out before I was all over her, kissing her frantically.
“Saints preserve me,” she muttered when I gave her a chance. “I’ve never known you quite so… ardent!”
“Burning.” I kissed her lips again in passing.
“Combusting?”
“Deflagrating.”
“Cheat! No such word.”
“Is so. Ebullient, too.”
“Fervent.”
I thought, “Glowing,” but had no opportunity to say it and by then it didn’t matter. We never got to “Hot” or “Incandescent.” I do not recommend pyromancy to anyone, but it does have interesting side effects. It was almost dawn before I was completely burned out.
An hour before dawn the city’s churches ring for matins but I never hear them. Roosters scream and I respond with snores. Only at sunrise, a few minutes before the marangona rings, do I crack an eyelid-but that morning I suffered a sharp poke in the ribs.
“You must go.”
I grunted negatively and tried to cuddle closer.
“Listen to it!” she said. “You’ll have to go by the front door.”
The unpleasant noise in the background was a rattling casement and rain pounding the glass, which meant very high wind. In such a storm the high road would be close to suicide, so I would have to risk the watergate. Big storms are rare so early in the winter. Venice rules the seas but the weather pleases itself.
I persisted. “Luigi doesn’t open up until sunrise.”
“It will be sunrise in a few minutes. So stop that and go!”
I stole a last kiss, disengaged, and left her bed.
I shivered my way into my Guise of Night hose and smock, which were still damp, but were going to be a lot wetter before I reached home. I left Violetta’s apartment, locking it behind me, and trotted downstairs to sea level. Her timing had been perfect, because I heard the marangona -loud and clear, carried by the wind-as I let myself out the front door. Now workers would start emerging all over the city, a rising flow of men hurrying to their workshops, foundries, markets, and so on, hailing one another, stopping at churches and shrines for a hasty prayer. So far my luck was holding, for there were neither boats on the Rio San Remo, nor pedestrians on the fondamenta along the far side.
Getting into Ca’ Barbolano unseen would be the problem. Old Luigi unbolts the front door at daybreak and usually takes a look outside, just from habit. After that the Marcianas are supposed to post a boy to keep watch on it, except when the men are working in the androne, which is most of the time. But the old night watchman often interprets dawn a little earlier than the sun does, and adolescents have contrary instincts, so there can be a brief interval between man and boy. If I could slip in then, I should be able to run upstairs unseen. Of course I would leave a trail of wet footprints, but clean water does not show up on white Istrian marble.
So I crossed to the narrow calle and continued on to the Barbolano watergate, working my way along the ledge with my back hard against the wall, my toes over the lip, rain needling my face, and a howling gale trying to throw me off. No one saw me, or at least no one started a hue and cry about burglars, and with a sigh of relief I peered around the corner, saw that the great door was closed, and slipped into the loggia. Danese lay sprawled in a corner with the blade of a rapier protruding from the middle of his chest; the hilt under his back explaining his awkward, arched position. His doublet and the front of his breeches were brown with dried blood. His jaw hung open, his blue eyes stared in amazement at the ceiling, and he was very obviously dead.
This was an unexpected complication.
16
E nough rain had blown in to soak the loggia floor, so my wet feet should leave no traces. I went over to him and said a hasty prayer for his soul. This must be the murder I had seen in the fire, but I swear that this prompt proof of my talent for pyromancy gave me no pleasure. Although I had not liked Danese, I never thought he deserved such a sordid and untimely end. With his fishy stare and idiot mouth agape, he was no longer handsome.
I could not close his eyes, but rigor mortis begins with the face and there was still some play in his fingers, so the Maestro would be able to estimate the time of his death. His knees were scuffed and dirty, as were his hands and cheeks, which confirmed that he had scrabbled on the ground, as I had seen in the fire. There was blood on his right shin and calf. His head lay in the corner farthest from the arches; his legs and lower torso were wet, his hair and shoulders dry. I decided that the bloodstains had dried before the rain started blowing in, so he might have been lying there while I was speaking to Vasco upstairs. Would the judges of the Quarantia accept that argument? The case would never go before the Quarantia. Even without a possible link to the Algol investigation, the murder of a nobleman in another nobleman’s house would be taken over by the Council of Ten as a matter of state security.
What I needed least just then was Luigi coming out and finding me there in my bizarre burglar costume. There was still a chance that he had unbolted the door already and omitted his normal look outside, so I went to check that it was still bolted, which it was. Definitely I was not going to be sneaking in unseen through that door that morning. And now I saw that, while the floor of the loggia was cleaned frequently, the calle and the ledge never were, and my cotton hose had left a trail of muddy smears.
Think!
Cadavers in corners or face down in canals are not rarities, for Venice has its share of bravos and thugs. I dared not take time to search the body for Danese’s purse, but the killer had left a gold ring on his hand and a valuable rapier in his back. It had struck him almost horizontally from behind, missing his heart, for a heart wound would not have bled so profusely. Why leave him there to be found and not drop him tidily in the canal? Why had he returned to Ca’ Barbolano anyway, when he was supposed to be enjoying the connubial bed, back home in Ca’ Sanudo?
Grazia’s horoscope I must not think about. It had shown a dramatic upturn in her fortunes just about now.
Then the first bolt clattered and I was gone. The wind caught me as I swung around the corner, very nearly blowing me into the water, but I squiggled my way along the ledge and was almost at the calle when I heard Luigi scream. He would run inside for help, I knew, but my luck still held, for there was no traffic on either the water or the fondamenta opposite. Unseen, I reached the door of 96 and let myself back in.
While I ran upstairs, my mind flew even faster. Even if Luigi in his distress forgot that the vizio must still be upstairs, someone would think to summon the resident doctor. I must get back to my room soon, and if I could do so without being seen, Vasco himself would give me a perfect alibi. If I couldn’t, then I would have a lot of explaining to do. My backdoor highway would be exposed and then even Violetta could not give me an alibi, for a courtesan’s word is given little credence. In any case, I could have killed Dolfin on my way to visit her. I would do myself no good by going back to her then and might do her much harm. I went on up to the altana.
The wind on the roof was terrifying, eddying erratically off the higher Ca’ Barbolano. Had I waited to plan my jump I should have frozen in terror, so I just scrambled over the rail, took a last deep breath and a long stride down the tiles, then leaped into the gale. Obviously I did not fall fifty feet and break my neck, but I came unpleasantly close. My right hand caught one bar; my left slammed into another so hard that I twisted my wrist and failed to get a grip. My left heel found the ledge, my right missed it. As my fingers slid down the wet metal, I dropped, cracking my right shin on the ledge hard enough to bring even more tears to my eyes than the wind and rain had already put there. Forcing my left hand and wrist to do their duty, I managed to get a second hold and haul myself upright, getting first a knee and then both feet on the ledge. I clung like a spider for a couple of moments while my heart calmed down a little, then I pushed on the casement, but it was latched.