fallen away, revealing a grey underskirt that contrasted sharply with the burnt umber of the rest of the building. It had a singular arched window just above and across from where I was. I wondered if, behind its glass, someone was watching me. I dropped my eyes just in case and noticed a pair of sealed water-gates. This little dead-end canal must be an exit and entrance point for the owners. I assumed it to be the same on my side, which explained the voices I heard. Business was being negotiated somewhere downstairs.
Floating on the water directly beneath me was the usual oily refuse and household litter that collected during low tide and made the canal look like an unwholesome stew. Being careful not to hurt my arm, I leant out as far as I dared, trying to see beyond this constricted passage. At the other end, I could see a bridge and another, larger canal. The voices of gondoliers calling ‘Premi!’ and ‘Stali!’ as they manoeuvred past each other and the intense chatter of merchants carried down to me. Boxes of fruit and bales of fabric piled atop gondolas slid past my line of vision, framed by the casa walls and captured beneath the bridge like a still-life nudged into motion. I tried to place where I was. My entire life had been spent in and around the Candlemakers Quartiere and, while I knew their rami as I did the lines in the palm of my hand, this area of Serenissima was as unknown to me as a foreign city. I didn’t belong here in so many ways.
I sighed deeply and eased myself back into the room. The Maleovellis were nobiles. I remembered something about the Eighth Casa … if that was so, then I was on Nobiles’ Rise, the Doge’s own province.
I leant back against the window frame. I’d literally put myself in enemy territory. If ever I needed my wits about me, it was now. I began to pace the room, aware that the conversation below me was getting louder. I tried to ignore it and focus.
My feet barely made a noise as I passed the cabinets, the bed, the door. I reached out to touch the handle and turned it slowly. It was locked. So, my being here was conditional: I couldn’t leave my room. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but I didn’t like having the option taken away from me. My stomach growled loudly and I clamped a hand over it. How long since I had eaten? I turned and retraced my steps. I would have to wait until someone came and … released me? Explained to me why I was here and what they wanted from me? What if I didn’t like what they proposed? I stopped. Could I say no? I almost laughed. Hardly. Where would I go? Who could I turn to? Even if Dante had been alive, I wouldn’t have returned to him. Just as I could no longer go to Pillar now that people suspected who and what I was. Not even Katina was available to me anymore – not after what had happened. My old life was forever closed to me.
Without Dante, it is meaningless anyhow.
The tightness in my chest returned and I fought to control the tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks. This wouldn’t do! I had to get a hold of myself, at least until I knew what I was facing.
As I passed the first cabinet, my eyes caught the glass ornament. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. It was a miniature harlequin. During Carnivale, you always saw men dressed in the vivid colours of the popular jester, bells on their collars and the funny, pointed hat pulled on their heads, turning cartwheels, jumping, playing the mandolin and singing crude tunes to make the crowds laugh. I always enjoyed their antics. This one was perfectly formed, with the scarlet, cyan and gold of its costume coiled around each other within the clear glass body.
Before I could help myself, I began to extract, to draw the essence of those who had held this lovely object. I sensed fear, betrayal, caution and need. They so strongly resembled my own that at first I thought I’d placed those feelings there, but they were not mine – they belonged to others. I caught glimpses of youth, innocence, terrible sadness and then … nothing but a deliberate emptiness, as if all feelings had been