DELUGE Read online

  “Betarrini, Betarrini,” the fat man muttered, over and over again, as if trying to place it. Then his small eyes doubled in size and his hands splayed out. “Lady Betarrini! The She-Wolf of Siena?”

  “Indeed,” I said with a demure nod. Perhaps this key information would help him forget my drawing.

  He clapped his ham-like hands together. “What good fortune for me! Come along. I am on my way to see the doge and he shall be thrilled to learn you’ve finally come to visit our fine city.” He took my arm and turned me around, and we were instantly in motion. “With those kin of yours about, he’s constantly spoken of you.”

  “Pardon me,” Luca said, racing to catch up and blocking the man’s way, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “But we shall have your name.”

  “My good boy,” said the man, placing a hand on his round chest. “I am Lord Gradenigo, consigliere ducale of Venezia.”

  Luca’s breath came out of him in a rush. I stared at him as I thought, consiglee-what? But Luca’s face told me we were in some deep weeds.

  “Now come with me. Both of you.”

  GABRIELLA

  Mom and Dad came into the breakfast room as Marcello and I ate delicate slices of bread covered in French marmalade, a taste I couldn’t get enough of. I’d already had three slices and was eying a fourth when they came in, faces flushed from the cold, Baldarino and Matteo, two Forelli knights, carrying goods behind them.

  Mom had a look of glee on her face and rubbed her hands together when she saw we were alone. Caterina had already greeted us and left to see to some business, and Nicolo and his companions weren’t likely to rise early, given the amount of wine they’d consumed the night before. Mom hurriedly moved aside the remaining toast and marmalade—ignoring my frown—clearing the way for her goods.

  “You won’t believe what we found in the market this morning,” she enthused. “The men kindly retrieved them for me.”

  “Where’s Lia and Luca?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They left early, together.”

  “Ahh, well,” he said, picking up a basket. He handed it to me. “Here, honey. I always wanted to give you one, but we traveled too much. I can finally make that right.”

  I looked up at him quizzically, as I felt the light, tightly woven basket. Was something moving inside? Dad looked so proud, so excited…and his eyes were full of love. How glad I was that he was with us, here to experience all of this…to know his future grandchild.

  Tentatively, I lifted the lid and peeked inside. “Oh,” I said, my heart pounding. “Dad! I can’t believe it!”

  Inside, three puppies all wriggled forward, eager to see me. They were white and black, with the cutest little faces.

  “Oh, they’re so cute,” I said, reaching for the most eager one, who was climbing on his siblings to get to me, hopping. “I think I will call you Desi, for desideroso,” I said. That meant eager.

  Marcello laughed beside me and reached for another. “And this one should be Grasso, in light of his round belly.” He lifted the dog’s face to his, and the puppy licked his nose. He was a roly-poly of a dog, totally adorable.

  “Oh, Lia is going to go nuts,” I said, reaching for the third, who was trembling in the corner of the basket, as if afraid she’d been forgotten. With a puppy in each hand, I looked up at Mom and Dad. We had begged and begged for a puppy all our growing up years, but it had been as Dad had said. With us gone every summer on archeological digs, it’d been impossible. And Mom had thought pets were a bad idea…given that they were likely to carry fleas, which might be picked up from rats, which might be carrying plague.

  “I thought you were against animals in the castle,” I said, giving her a meaningful look. With the two knights in the room with us, we couldn’t speak freely.

  “I’ve seen some rats and mice of late,” she said. “I figure it’s best to try and keep the castello free of any rodents at all. But no, they should not be permitted to sleep in our rooms.”

  “We’ll keep them in their own quarters,” Dad said with a grin. He lifted a second basket, and I heard the plaintive meow of a tiny kitten.

  “What?” I said, rising. “Cats, too?”

  Dad opened the lid and tilted it to show me, so proud that you would’ve thought he’d raised them himself. I saw two kittens. “Oh, they’re so cute!” I squealed.

  “The man said their parents were both excellent mousers. And they’re from two different lines, so they can mate.”

  “We’ll be overrun!” Marcello complained, but his smile said he didn’t mind.

  I looked at the puppies, rubbing their soft fur against my cheek. The poor things might be the first to perish if plague managed to reach us. This was why Mom wouldn’t allow us to have them in our rooms or sleep with us. But the plague was still a couple years away. In the meantime, these animals could grow into maturity, and likely bring us all joy. I absently rubbed my belly. And give my child an experience I never had myself…

  “We also found all sorts of rare spices and herbs that will be useful,” Mom said meaningfully. She opened another basket and began pulling out sacks and boxes of camphor crystals and cloves, as well as jugs of apple cider vinegar and bottles filled with various essential oils, all natural remedies to repel fleas and ticks. The knights were used to my mom gathering such things in each city we visited—usually Siena and Rome. She’d become a kind of de facto doctor, seeing every person in the castle and most of the villagers around us when they fell ill.

  She was far more successful than the physicians from Siena, who favored leeches and herbal concoctions they refused to fully identify to my mother because they looked down on her as an untrained interloper. She threatened them with her success. It made me all the more proud of her. Even if she made every one of us eat obnoxious amounts of garlic at practically every meal because of its antioxidants and seemingly miraculous powers. Luckily we lived in Italia, and garlic was an easy addition. And if we all reeked of garlic, we didn’t notice it as much.

  She lifted the last bottle out of the basket and looked at the herbs swirling around inside. “I mixed up my own batch of Oil of Thieves,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, handing it to me.

  I lifted the bottle to the light, remembering how she’d said the oil was used to combat plague and infection in Europe. I waved the elegant bottle in a circle, watching the citrus peel and herbs float around inside. Venice had the most beautiful glass bottles and corks, waxed into place—something we’d seen little of. And here they also had the first true window panes—mostly opaque or blue with bubbles, so not clear-clear, but allowing light through. I’d glimpsed a palazzo that boasted glass panes from the top floor down, an extravagance, to be sure. Most still utilized their shutters for night or against foul weather, opening them during the day to allow the sunshine in. For a while in bed this morning, I’d fantasized about bringing some glass south with us to the castello to close in a few windows so it wasn’t always so dark, come winter. Or to make Mom’s solarium a true solarium, rather than a slightly-lighter-than-most-rooms room. But I knew it was too expensive, and they might not make it through the voyage and then across land without shattering.

  That was something I’d never thought about in modern times—how glad I was for windows. Just one of a million things I took for granted…

  A messenger appeared at the door and rushed toward Marcello. Frowning, he lifted the parchment paper and broke the wax seal. He unfolded the paper and turned toward the light, then looked at me and my folks.

  “Gather your things. We must be off at once. The doge has Evangelia and Luca.”

  “Wh-what?” I asked. “What do you mean, he has them?”

  “I do not know,” he said with a shake of his brown curls, lifting the paper. “Only that Caterina has sent for us. Mayhap they were discovered on the streets, and the doge was so anxious to meet you, he summoned them to the palace at once.”

  “I hope that is the extent of it,” I said, rising.
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  “It’s all rather kingly, isn’t it?” Mom asked, following us out of the room.

  “I don’t like it,” Dad said. “What right has he?”

  “The man has every right,” Marcello said. “And it isn’t just the doge who will find the She-Wolves intriguing. He is but the emblem of the Republic. Right behind him are the noblemen who rule this land and sea. Two hundred and forty of them.”

  I sighed as we gathered our gifts for the doge—a bolt of fine Sienese cloth, woven with bits of gold thread to symbolize the Forellis, and four ample jugs of the region’s finest Chianti wine. We hurried out the door of the palazzo, entering a long skiff on which two of Caterina’s men were already perched, ready to row us down the Canal. As our knights entered another skiff beside us, my heart pounded.

  So much for easing into the city, I thought, gradually letting the doge know we’d arrived and sought an audience. As usual, the She-Wolves’ entrance was about as subtle as fireworks above Times Square.

  CHAPTER TEN

  EVANGELIA

  I gaped as we were led deeper into the doge’s palace, four of the doge’s men before us, following Gradenigo, the Consigliere Ducale—who, Luca had explained en route, was some high-powered dude—and four of them behind us. Two Forelli knights—Celso and Falito, stripped of their swords—brought up the rear, looking concerned. They didn’t like to be told they were going anywhere that either Marcello or Luca hadn’t directed, even if we were in the very elaborate home of a supposed friend. Especially disarmed.

  The gothic loggias at the edges, that looked to me like stone lace, gave way to progressively heavier décor as we proceeded inward. The dark, brooding walls and massive wood molding of the future palazzo were happily not present yet…this version of the palazzo was lighter, brighter, with the familiar Italian plaster and big beams across the ceilings. Still, framed oil paintings of past doges peered out at us from under a layer of candle soot as we passed.

  We entered one interior waiting room with a merry fire crackling in a white marble hearth. Two figures were carved into it, as if supporting it. After a few minutes, we were led into another room, and then another. And so on it went, with little explanation, only continuous offerings of food and wine and promises that it would only be “but a moment more.” When we reached the fifth waiting room, I decided it was like one of Disneyland’s clever lines, wrapping from one section to the next, making you think that the wait was now over, but only sucking you in more deeply. And it was there that our knights were sent back to fetch the rest of our family.

  Luca was pacing, prattling on about what might have made Lord Gradenigo demand we accompany him. Had there been a standing order from the doge? Was the doge angry with Caterina for not escorting us here immediately? Was it because of my art? And why had they allowed Celso and Falito to accompany us for a time, then sent them back to the Brexiano palace?

  “Please, please, Luca,” I said. “Sit. Stop. You’re making me twice as anxious!”

  A door opened and a man in uniform bowed toward us. “Thank you for waiting. His Serene Highness shall greet you now. Please, follow me.”

  I shared a long look with Luca before I accepted his arm, glad that I hadn’t been alone when this dude found me. But I’d feel even better if Gabs was with us, too…Was that part of his plan? His eagerness to corral me? Some sort of perceived power gained with us separated?

  We left the hallway, and our guide opened two new doors, this set inlaid with gold. I hesitated at the threshold. The room was the size of a football field, the ceiling soaring fifty feet above us. It was divided into sections, and each section—like the walls around us—had been painted by various masters in elaborate frescoes, the scenes depicting battles on land and sea, victorious marches, processionals outside on the piazza de San Marco. I nearly froze in place. On the far wall, panel after panel continued one scene on the green Adriatic, a fleet of fierce, fine ships, sailing off into the sunset, their flags proudly displaying the lion. I so wanted to rush over to them, get closer to see what method the masters had used, but Luca was pulling me along, grunting my name in an effort to bring my attention back into focus.

  Twenty men and a few women divided to make way for us to approach the dais, where a man in an odd hat sat in a throne-like chair, his collar high, his salt-and-pepper beard long. He leaned his head up to better hear the man whispering into his ear, and then he was alight, swiftly moving down the stairs to greet us, a wide smile on his face.

  I dared to take a breath. Surely a man this glad to see us wasn’t bent on harming us.

  “My dear girl!” he cried, hands splayed outward, as two servants hastened to catch up with him. I caught sight of Caterina scurrying behind, and two men with my canvas between them, as if arguing who would hand it over. “Welcome, welcome, to Venezia,” he said.

  I bowed in a low curtsey, thankful for Luca’s strong hand in mine. “Your Highness, we bid you thanks for the kind invitation to court.”

  “Rise, She-Wolf,” he grunted. “Let me look upon you.”

  I did as he asked, lifting my chin and not dropping my gaze from his. He smiled, and I noticed he was about my height and roughly my father’s age. He took a turn around me and Luca, as if he expected a true wolf’s tail to emerge from my skirts, then came around to face us again.

  “You have taken a great deal of time to respond to my invitation, Sir Forelli,” he said to Luca, clearly knowing exactly who he was without introduction. Perhaps Lord Gradenigo had told him.

  “Constant upheaval between our Republic and Firenze kept our attention close to home, Serenissimo,” Luca said, with a graceful bow. “Believe me when I say that the Lady Betarrini and I would have enjoyed your court far more than the battles we have endured.”

  “Ah, indeed,” said the man, chin in hand. He studied Luca, clearly not missing anything, from his easy way with political matters to his proximity to me. He lifted his finger in the air and shook it. “You are not the first one of your kin to enter this court, Lady Betarrini.”

  “So I hear, your grace,” I said, biting my tongue when I felt like blurting, So…can I see them? We had to find the right time, the right way to approach it. Gabi, where are you?

  The man’s green-brown eyes twinkled with mischief. He knew I was curious, but he refused to give me any further information. “Over the years, I have heard many tales of you and your sister,” the doge said to me.

  “The people do love to talk,” I said.

  He smiled a little at that. “You are beautiful, yes,” he said, “but you are no finer than many of the women in my court. No more beautiful than my own daughter. Forgive me my disappointment, but to hear tell of your beauty is to believe that one might see someone more accustomed to angelic realms than our own waterways.”

  I suppressed a laugh at this, even as Luca shifted, clearly caught between protesting and remaining silent. “I imagine not, Serenissimo,” I said, adopting Luca’s title for him. The Most Serene. “Clearly, a man with such power as you would draw the finest of men and the most beautiful of women from far and wide.” I ducked my head in a way that I’d seen Caterina do.

  This made the doge smile. “Beautiful and with a measure of humility,” he said with admiration. So had it been a test? “This is good, very good.”

  He offered his arm and, after a hair’s breath of hesitation, I realized it was for me. I took it, trying to float beside him, as I’d been coached. “Now tell me, Lady Evangelia, of this other gift, of which I’d not heard. I’d come to believe I knew everything possible about you and your sister without meeting you, but here the Consigliere finds you sketching along the canal and discovers you are a finely gifted artist.”

  I laughed under my breath, hoping to diffuse this rumor before it got out of control. Dad’s gonna kill me… “It is merely a hobby, kind prince. And I would be most humiliated if others were to see it. It is for my eyes alone. Might you permit me to keep it that way?” I dared to lean closer. “I beg you to keep it a
secret, Serenissimo. Is there an artist’s guild who would admit a female?”

  He lifted his chin. “They would if I demanded it of them.”

  I swallowed hard over my fumble. “Certainly. But you see, Serenissimo,” I paused to lift my lashes wide, hoping I looked fetching, innocent, “most men do not favor a woman pressing too far into their own realms. And Sir Luca…well, he already must deal with courting a She-Wolf. That is quite enough of a challenge for one man, without adding another, yes?”

  He laughed. “Quite,” he said. He stared at me from the corner of his eye, as if waiting, and I saw that he’d led me to the closest fresco. “It is the newest one, created by Nato Natale himself. Do you like it?”

  I dropped my arm from his and paced to the left, then slowly walked to my right, taking in each successive panel. The way the man had constructed it, using foreshortening, it appeared that the fanciful loggia had depth, as if we were looking past a group of people in their finery at a party, out the far end, to sea.

  “It is magnificent,” I said to the doge, meaning it.

  He nodded, proudly. “I will arrange for you to meet him. Mayhap you can submit to his tutelage as you winter with us.”

  “Oh, nay, nay,” I said, shaking my head sadly. Two things alarmed me; his refusal to drop my skills as an artist and his idea that we were to stay here that long. “I’m afraid Lord Forelli will not allow us to tarry here that long. We are only to be here for a brief visit, but we shall be eager to return for a longer visit in the future.”

  “A brief visit!” he guffawed. “Many long to linger at court in our beautiful city. I confess I am tempted to take offense with your brief sojourn.”

  “I am well aware of the honor you’ve bestowed upon us, Serenissimo.” I put a hand to my chest. “I long to stay in your fair city for much longer, but Lord Forelli must return to Siena.”

  “Lord Forelli may return. As one of the Nine, I am aware how his duties must pull at him. But you, my dear,” he said, patting my hand, again on his offered arm, “and your knight, should he be vital to you,”—this, he added with a suggestive waggle of his brows—“may certainly remain here for far longer. Stay here, in the Palazzo Ducale. Experience the finest that Venezia has to offer.”