Halim shakes his head. “Even now, you damn yourself with lies. I would have expected better.” He throws the parchment on the table in front of the judges.
My vision blurs as my eyes fill with tears.
“Are you all right?” the woman beside me asks as she takes my elbow and holds me upright.
I manage to nod. “Yes, I’m sorry,” I gasp. “It’s the heat.”
Up onstage, the judges are passing the letter among them.
“Do you have anything more to say?” one of them asks Roberto. “I taught you to read and write as a child. I would know your handwriting anywhere.”
Roberto looks bereft. “I’ve told the truth,” he says.
“Were you in Constantinople?” another judge demands, his face cold with fury.
Roberto nods. “You know I was. I supported the trade delegation but two months ago.”
The crowd erupts in roars and the judges exchange glances. They don’t even need to speak to one another; they already know what they’re going to say.
“No!” I cry out.
“Shush, child,” the woman tells me. “Don’t excite yourself.”
Roberto is looking at me now. My own eyes are fixed on his, unable to break our shared gaze across the stage that stretches out between us. He is so close, yet totally out of reach. Tears are running down my cheeks. Roberto shakes his head, and I read the words that he mouths to me: “I’m sorry.”
The cloaked man steps forward again and the blow of his staff against the stage floor rings out. “The judges have come to a decision,” he announces. Low whispers travel through the crowd, but his eyes stay fixed on the balconies at the back of the square. “Silence!”
The voices fade away, and one of the judges stands up from his seat, clearing his throat. My fingernails cut into the palms of my hands.
“The prisoner is found guilty of the crime of heinous murder,” announces the judge. “He will be executed an hour after dawn tomorrow.”
The crowd erupts in a roar of thirst for blood.
I turn and push through them. I can hardly breathe. “Let me out, let me out!”
Everyone is shouting, and I keep running, pushing people aside. My bonnet is torn from my head, but I don’t stop to retrieve it. A voice rings in my ears, calling over the heads of the crowd. Unmistakable. It’s Roberto.
“Laura!”
But I don’t stop and I don’t call back. I plunge down a narrow street leading from the square, until I’m quite alone in a courtyard. Everyone else is at the trial, and I hear their distant hoots and catcalls. I pause for a moment, leaning against a wall to catch my breath. The sun beats down on my head, and white stars dance behind my eyes. My hopes, the prayers and sureties that had supported me, seem to have crumpled like some cheap stage trick. Judgment has been passed. There’s nothing I can do. Nothing the Segreta can do. Nor the Doge. Roberto’s guilt has been signed by his own hand. He is to be executed tomorrow, at sunrise. The law has the final say.
I manage to walk on. Even the words of the letter sounded like Roberto’s. Like the words he used to speak to me.
I hear quick steps behind me. As I turn, before my eyes even take in the figure, a burlap bag is brought down over my head. I stumble and scream. It’s suffocating, and I can see only tiny squares of light seeping through the sacking. I hear the sound of feet scuffling against wood, and I am dragged inside a doorway. I kick out, but it’s hopeless. The arms that grip me are strong, and it’s all I can do to stay upright. We move farther into darkness and a cool interior. There’s another set of arms, a muttering voice I can’t make out. Then my legs are kicked away, and my rear lands on a wooden seat.
Someone pinions my hands behind my back, and I feel ropes on my wrists. I hear heavy panting beside my ear as a body leans over me.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I ask.
Nothing but a low chuckle of laughter. Rough fingers grip my wrists, and the ropes are pulled painfully tight. Footsteps move away from me, growing faint, and there’s the slam of a door.
Am I alone? My chest heaves as I struggle to draw in air through the coarse cloth. I feel myself gagging as panic rises within me.