blood, that you are a Treschi, and master of my grandfather’s house. That you have in your keeping my infant brothers whom I would not orphan, that you for all your bitter complaint against it, do in the government of Venice carry our name!
“For all this, I would let you live, for all this I came here seeking to let you live, and for the wretched truth of it that you are my father, my father, and I do not want your blood on my hands!”
Again Tonio stopped. He held the knife still, and his eyes grew distant and dim. It seemed a great exhaustion had come over him, a great revulsion suddenly.
And keenly, Carlo marked this, though his face was full of mockery, unwilling to be deceived.
“And maybe, finally,” Tonio whispered, “because I will not allow you to force me to do it, I will not stand before God a patricide, whining as you have whined, ‘I had no choice.’
“But can you fathom this? Can you accept a wisdom beyond your willfulness, your own pride? Is there no way yet to unravel this knot of vengeance, injustice, blood?”
Carlo had put his head to the side and looked at Tonio through one narrow eye. His hatred for Tonio pounded in him as if it were the rhythm of his heart.
“I am done hating you,” Tonio whispered. “Done fearing you. It seems that you are nothing to me now but some ugly storm that drove my undefended bark off course. And what was lost to me will never be retrieved, but I want no more quarrel with you, no more hatred, nor spite.
‘Tell me, Father, though you begged for nothing, can you yet accept that I want no more now than your vow? You will not seek my life after this, and I shall leave you here unharmed. I will go out of Venice as I came, and never seek to injure you or those you love. If you do not believe it this moment you will believe it when I leave you, but for that, Father, you must bend just a little. You must give me your vow.
“This is what I came for. This is why I have not killed you before now. I want that it should be finished between us! I want that you should be restored to your house, and to my infant brothers. I want that you should give me that vow!”
Carlo made a slow scowl. In a low guttural voice, he murmured, “You are tricking me….”
A sharp spasm divided Tonio’s face. Then it was smooth again, seemingly incapable of malice. He lowered his eyes.
“Father, for the love of God!” he whispered. “For life itself.”
Carlo studied him. His vision was clear now, painfully clear, though the room had fallen into darkness, and he felt such pure hatred for the shadowy figure that stood over him that little else filled his mind.
He saw the knife in Tonio’s hands move. Gracefully Tonio had turned it and was now holding it so that Carlo could take it by the handle.
“Father, your vow. Your life for my life, now and forever. Say it!” Tonio whispered. “Say it so that I may believe you.”
Slowly, Carlo nodded.
“Say it, Father,” Tonio whispered.
“I vow…I will…I will never seek your life again…” he murmured.
And he watched in amazed silence as Tonio extended the knife. “Take it, cut the strap with it,” Tonio said. “Let us be free of each other once and for all.”
Carlo took the knife. He brought the blade up instantly to slash the leather just inside his left arm.
The strap gave with a loud snapping and Carlo’s chest and arms came forward. Cautiously, the knife in his hand, he rose to his feet.
Tonio had taken several steps backwards, but his movement was slow. The long cloak floated around him, the fire gilding the edges of it, and giving a glint still to his dark eyes.
Carlo’s eyes grew slowly bigger. If only he could see what lay under those black wool folds that shrouded the figure so completely, if only he could better gauge the expression on that face, but all the capacity for reason in him was yielding to that hatred which fed itself upon the long afternoon, its outrages, that Tonio had held him here, Tonio whom he loathed and should have killed a long, long time before now, Tonio, the eunuch who had made a fool of him in this above all.