me. I think of Emilia, and hope their life together is a happy one. I even feel a long-forgotten fondness for my foolish old father. Beatrice, I shall be with you soon.
The knife is cold as she places it along the top of my ear.
“Do you know how it feels to be disfigured?” she whispers.
I feel a sharp tug, and pain. Then there’s a pressure on my wrists, and suddenly they’re free. My hand goes at once to the side of my head, but I can’t find any blood. I climb from the chair. Carina stands by the doorway. In her hand she trails a few locks of long, curled hair. “I could have killed you, Laura, or I could have made your face like mine. Perhaps one day I will. But for now, I want to see you suffer. I want you to wake each morning and feel the pain I do, never knowing when your end will come, when I will appear to you again.”
She places her knife back in the hidden pocket of her skirt and turns away from me, striding from the room. After catching my breath, I follow. I wouldn’t put a final trick past Carina. But the corridor is empty, and daylight glows from the far end. I walk out into an empty street.
I go straight home, walking rather than hailing a coach, with my hood pulled up. I need time to think. When I arrive back at the house, Father is in his study, and I can hear raised voices through the studded door. I can only catch the odd phrase, but enough to tell me the men inside are arguing about the Doge. Is this the faction of which he spoke? Members of the Grand Council, planning to usurp him? I creep closer and rest my ear against the leather-paneled door.
“… his infirmity …,” a voice says.
Another joins in—Father’s. “… need a strong leader, one who isn’t compromised by personal problems …”
There’s no place for loyalty in the circles among which my father moves.
I check my head in the hall mirror. By rearranging my hair a little, those missing locks are hardly noticeable.
The voices are getting louder. “But who can possibly take over?” says one man. Other voices clamor to be heard, and now I can’t make out anything other than a general sense of anger filling the room. I step away. Is this what Venice has become? Full of hatred, deceit and politics. Or perhaps it has always been like that, and the shroud is only now being torn away from my eyes.
It doesn’t have to be like this, I tell myself, remembering Emilia’s offer. I could leave. Perhaps if the ruling class left, Venice could become a better place again.
I start to ascend to my room, when the door is flung open and men stride out into the hallway. As I pause on the stairs, one of them throws me a surprised look and I bend my head deferentially. The others are grim faced and leave without casting me a glance. My father emerges last.
“Happy now?” he says, glaring at me. “You still want to marry that fiend?”
Then he walks back into his study and slams the door shut behind him.
“You’re back,” says a voice.
Lysander appears at the door to his chamber. He comes to take my arm and leads me farther up the stairs towards my own room.
“You must have been at the trial, I think.” He casts a wry glance at my outfit, and I remember for the first time how I must look.
“I had to go,” I say.
“Then you know about the Doge?”
I shake my head. “I couldn’t stay,” I tell him. “I couldn’t watch them take Roberto away.”
Lysander’s face is grim. “Forget that man,” he says. “His life is over, and it’s all he deserves.”
Each word cuts me. “How do you know that?” I say.
“The Doge had a fit after you left, Laura. He and the Duchess came onto the stage to speak with the Council. She tried to conceal it, leading him away, but everyone could see how he wasn’t in control of his own body. It was awful.” Lysander gathers himself. “It’s clear that something is seriously wrong. The Doge’s days are numbered, one way or another. Venice will be in turmoil.”
I realize I no longer care.
30
I climb out of my simple clothes and pack them away, back in Bianca’s chest. Brushing a hand over the rough linen, I think, for the hundredth time