‘Look at me,’ Bianca says with a sad, disparaging laugh. ‘This fine new gown Bruno has bought for me – the lace around my neck is all damp.’
‘Even so, you will be the brightest star of the evening.’
‘It is a pity I may not march with you and Bruno in the procession. I should like that. If my parents’ ghosts are still here, they would be so proud. And I should like them to see my handsome English husband.’
‘Can you walk beside us in the crowd?’
‘I will try. The parade is always stopping and starting, so I should be able to keep up. And I know the route well. I know the shortcuts, if I need to use them.’
‘I’m going to leave now, to find Bruno. Are you ready?’
Bianca sits up against the bolster. She studies his face carefully, almost as if she doubts her eyes. Then she lowers her head, almost evasively.
‘I need to rest a little longer. I’ll follow, with Luca. But promise me that you’ll take one of the Corio cousins. I know this city, remember?’
Nodding his acquiescence, he says, ‘You’re tired – I understand.’
She places a hand over her belly. ‘We are tired.’
He rises, makes a gallant’s bow and – smiling – says, ‘Then I will see you in a while, in the Palazzo dei Signori… my ladies.’
‘I shall look out for you by Bruno’s banner, with its bright comet. A long-tailed star.’
She leans up to bestow a gentle kiss upon his mouth. When he opens the door, she calls to him, ‘A comet is a portent, is it not?’
He turns. ‘So it is said.’
‘Then I name Bruno’s comet as a portent of good fortune to come.’
The door closes. She hears the soft fall of the latch. She waits until she hears voices below the window – Luca ordering one of the Corio cousins to accompany her husband. Cautiously Bianca leans out a little way and watches until the two shadowy figures have been consumed by the mist. Then she closes the shutters, tidies the trim of her gown, covers her face with a lace veil, throws a cloak across her shoulders and goes downstairs to the street door, where she too exchanges pleasantries with the two remaining Corio cousins.
And then, rather than turn left to follow the general drift of people heading towards the Piazza dei Signori, she turns right – in the direction of the Porta Portello and the storehouse beyond.
Time has begun to run again. The Arte dei Orologiai has sent its best artisans to repair the clock in the Piazza dei Signori. Around its face – the colour of a Paduan sky in summer and rimmed with the signs of the zodiac – the hour-hand restarts its sweep just as Nicholas arrives in the square. He is welcomed by the deep tolling of the tower’s bell.
The piazza is filling up with people. In the mist they look like figures painted on a faded fresco, softened, indistinct. Torches bloom like fiery raindrops on glass, though it is not yet fully dark. In the centre of the square, set upon a trestle, a wooden replica of a Venetian galley awaits its bearers. When the parade begins, it will be carried to the Basilica of St Anthony, where the victory over the Turks will be commemorated and the banners of the Arti blessed.
The Podestà’s men have organized things with practised efficiency. The banners have been set out for the guildsmen to muster beneath, the senior guilds directly beneath the triumphal arch of the clock tower, the rest in the order of march.
It takes a while for the Corio cousin to help Nicholas locate Bruno’s banner – halfway down a side-street. Alone, Alonso holds onto it grimly as if he’s the sole survivor of a doomed last stand. Of Bruno himself, there is no sign. ‘No need to fear, Signor Shelby,’ Alonso says. ‘We have almost an hour before the procession will be fully assembled. He’ll get here in time.’
‘He’s probably in the piazza, trying to sell the Podestà a new clock,’ Nicholas says, trying hard not to let his concern show. ‘I’ll go and look for him.’
As he sets off, the Corio cousin makes to follow. Nicholas raises a hand and smiles. ‘I’ll be fine. Stay here with Alonso, in case someone tries to steal the banner.’
Re-entering the square, he walks among the swelling crowd, taking in the aroma of cooking meat from the vendors’ braziers. A corps of drummers in vividly striped tunics is practising its staccato tattoos. A nun pushes an old man in a wooden wheelbarrow, careless of who she barges aside in the effort to find a good spot. And all the while, more and more guildsmen in their fine livery gather to their banners like soldiers mustering for battle.
Nicholas has almost completed two laps of the piazza without sight of Bruno when he hears a male voice call out, ‘Physician – heal thyself!’
He turns and sees a familiar, bearded figure sitting on a bench, his back against the stucco wall, feet up on the table in front of him. He is waving a half-empty flask of wine at him, like a patient inviting him to check his urine for an imbalance of the humours.
‘Professor Galileo! Are you not marching with the rest of the learned gentlemen from the Palazzo Bo?’
The mathematician swings his feet off the table. ‘Are you mad? An hour of being kicked in the heels to see some overfed priest bless a toy ship? Besides, they expect me to wear that ridiculous toga. If I don’t, they look down their noses at me and call me a peasant.’ He nods at the flask. ‘This is far better company. You look at a loss. Join me. I’ll call for another cup.’
Nicholas comes to the conclusion that as the buchetta is close to the side-street where Alonso is guarding the banner, it is as good a place as any to keep a lookout for Bruno. With this thickening mist, he could wander the Piazza dei Signori for a week, pass him ten times and still not catch sight of him. Besides, he thinks, if two of its members have already been murdered, then the mathematician is as much in danger as any in the Arte dei Astronomi.
‘Just for a moment, Signor Galileo,’ he says, walking over. ‘Purely to rest my feet before the parade, you understand.’
The bridge to the Porta Portello curves ahead of her into the darkening night. Torches set into the parapet turn the faces of Padua’s heroes into lurid carnival masks. On the far side, Bianca can see barely a hint of the squat stone gatehouse. The storehouse a little further along the bank is invisible. She hurries across, the soles of her shoes tapping out a metallic rhythm, like the workings of one of Signor Mirandola’s clocks.
Reaching the far side, she breathes deeply to steady her resolve. She is determined to remain calm. Once more she commands herself not to scream, not to rail. Tell Hella to her face that you seek only to put aside what has passed between you. Then ask her to lift her curse.
‘And if she refuses? What then?’
Bianca wonders where the question has come from. Because it seems not to have come from inside her head. She could swear it came out of the fog. And there is no mistaking whose voice it is: Maria Caporetti’s. It is her mother’s voice.
‘What will you do then, my daughter?’
‘Then I will walk away,’ Bianca answers out loud. ‘I will seek out the apothecary, Tiziano. I will have him procure that cantarella we spoke of. Then I will do what we Caporettis have done down the long centuries, ever since we gave Agrippina the means to poison Claudius.’
‘Then be at peace, my daughter,’ says the voice.
And then its echo fades, leaving Bianca to wonder if her mind – or the fog – is playing tricks with her. She turns along the canal bank. The water murmurs as it flows past, mocking her with teasing little sucks and gurgles, as though preparing to digest her. When a twig snaps underfoot, Bianca has to suppress the notion that Hella is pouncing from the night, arms outstretched to push her into the river.