The Stargazer (29 page)

The judges passed before the spectators and seated themselves in their mammoth chairs. The crowd outside was making loud noises of protest as the porter struggled to shut the massive door on them. If they were not to be admitted, they argued, couldn’t he at least leave the door open so they could hear. He looked imploringly toward the judges, who often agreed to the measure, but they gave a unanimous “No.” They knew from experience that murder trials were apt to stir the passions of the masses, and this was no ordinary murder trial. When the door closed with difficulty, an ominous hush fell over the chamber.

Bianca stood alone in its middle, the light of the window hitting her squarely in the face, and did not flinch. Her earlier resolution returned and she determined to fight. She would not give Ian, who seemed unable to even meet her eyes, the pleasure of getting rid of her so easily. One of the judges, a tall thin man Bianca recognized as Alvise da Ponte, rose. The only difference between him and a corpse, Bianca thought as he opened the proceedings, was that corpses’ beards could not grow. Neither his outward aspect nor his hollow, ghostlike voice did anything to improve the atmosphere of dark foreboding that permeated the chamber. When he had wheezed the customary opening prayer for wise judgment, he turned his long, death-mask face to Bianca.

“Signorina, as you know, the court does not act on anonymous denunciations unless they are accompanied by compelling proof. The accusations against you are weighty and well documented. You are denounced for the murder of Isabella Bellocchio, courtesan in this city. If you do not admit to the crime, you will be confronted with the proof we have and be given an opportunity to make a defense. The process will likely be time consuming and pointless; the proofs against you are manifold. I therefore advise you to admit your crime now. Doing so will save all of us much trouble, and God will be clement in his mercy. Will you?”

Roberto and Francesco stopped breathing.

Bianca looked right at him and spoke in a voice that did not falter. “I did not murder Isabella Bellocchio.”

Ser Alvise sighed with disappointment. He had hoped to spend a few days at his house in the mountains, out of the rain, but now it looked as though he would be stuck in Venice. “Very well. The accusation claims the following: on the afternoon of eleven November of this year you took the life of Isabella Bellocchio, courtesan, in her own bed. It says that having pressed your advances unsuccessfully upon Signorina Bellocchio for a long time, you were finally seized by a fit of jealousy and driven to stab her in the heart. Still not satisfied, you sequestered the body and spent days dismembering it and, what is worse, drawing it.”

Ian suddenly rose from his seat and loudly muttered, “
Ha-ha!
”

Ser Alvise turned his spectral face toward the disturbance. “I shall have to ask you to keep your seat, d’Aosto, or leave the courtroom. Another outburst like that and you will be escorted away.”

Ian, who had already reseated himself, was too preoccupied brooding over his lap to make any sort of response.

Even before he had interrupted the proceedings with signs of obvious delight, Bianca was fuming at Ian. Denouncing her for murder was nasty enough, but it was needlessly cruel to talk about her anatomical work and precious drawings as if they were signs of perversion and derangement. She turned to glare at him, the fiercest, meanest glare she could muster up, but her line of sight was interrupted by a guard holding something before her.

“Your fierce scowl suggests that you recognize the paper, signorina.” It was not a question, which was just as well, for Bianca could scarcely have explained that she had intended the scowl for her betrothed.

“Yes, I do, Your Excellency. It is Petrarch’s third sonnet.”

Archimede Seguso, the second judge, regarded her through his slitlike eyes. “We are not here to see displays of your learning, signorina. Do you recognize the hand in which the poem is written?”

Bianca nodded slowly, with dawning comprehension. “Yes. It is mine.”

“How many such love sonnets did you send Isabella Bellocchio?” That time it was more of a demand than a question.

“None.”

Ser Archimede opened his eyes as wide as they would go, about the width of a cat’s whisker. “Kindly explain how this love sonnet written in your hand came to be found in Isabella Belloccio’s lodgings.”

“I wrote it there.” Bianca was calm. Even someone with eyes as small as Ser Archimedes should be able to see she was telling the truth. “Isabella was illiterate, and I was teaching her to write. She asked me to leave her a love sonnet that she could practice copying over in her own hand.”

She had miscalculated her audience. The eyes again became slits. “I advise you, signorina, not to overtax our credulity. For how long were you in love with Isabella Bellocchio?”

“I was never in love with Isabella Bellocchio.” Bianca shifted, trying to keep her wet feet from getting numb.

“Of course. Perhaps your type does not call it love. When did you begin making advances to her?”

“I never made any advances to her.” It was hopeless. The numbness was moving up her legs.

“Signorina Salva, consider your position. We have ample proof that your interests do not run toward men.”

“Indeed.” All the warmth in her body seemed to be leaving, taking with it her self-control. “I hope you will produce it. I am sure I shall find it diverting.”

The third judge lifted a large magnifying glass to one eye. Cornelio Grimani was known for his inscrutable statements and his ineffable ability to catch criminals. Many people ascribed the latter entirely to his magnifying glass, which was supposed to possess the power of revealing people’s thoughts and penetrating their souls.

More spirited men than Bianca had felt their strength ebb under the scrutiny of his glass, but she did not even flinch. She was too busy trying to figure out what Ian had intended by including this in his denunciation. For while it was just slightly probable that despite his interest in science, he thought her anatomical drawings were perverse, it was completely inconceivable that he thought she did not like men. She could think of no purpose that such a lie would serve, nor could she believe that Ian would be purposely deceitful in his denunciation. Could he really have understood her that badly, even after all they had shared?

“You may be right,” Ser Cornelio said at the conclusion of his examination of her, jolting Bianca back to attention. “I believe it will indeed divert you,” he added after a pause, then gestured for the guards to bring the witnesses in.

To Bianca’s utter surprise and later horror, Giulio Cresci entered the room. He looked around, bowed slightly in the direction of the spectators, then faced the judges.

“Signore Cresci, please repeat what you told us earlier,” Ser Alvise commanded, and although she was paying close attention, Bianca was not sure his lips actually moved.

Cresci made a face designed to suggest deep thought, but which looked more like acute constipation from where Bianca stood. After he had held the expression for a moment, he whined loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the door. “I think I started off saying, ‘Everyone says that Bianca Salva is as cold as they come.’ ”

“Yes, you did.” Ser Cornelio made a face. “What we would like to hear is not what you have heard, but what you personally experienced.”

Cresci’s eyes darted furtively to Bianca. It had been easier to tell the story when there were only men around. Or maybe just when she was not around to challenge him. “It was Monday night, at her betrothal ball. I went to give her my congratulations on her marriage, perhaps help her with a few pointers, and you will never believe what she did. She stood up, looked at me as if I were a vile rodent with beady little eyes and greasy hair, and marched away.”

Bianca was torn between trying to make him repeat the exact comment that had made her march away and commending him for his admirable self-description.

“What conclusion did you draw from this, Signore Cresci,” Ser Alvise probed.

“Why the obvious one.” Cresci shifted to give the spectators a view of his heavily padded legs, a posture designed to underscore Bianca’s obvious lack of appreciation for male beauty. “I concluded that she hated men.”

“Wouldn’t the more obvious conclusion be that she hated you?” Ser Cornelio asked seriously.

For a moment it looked as if Cresci was going to challenge the judge to a duel, but since dueling was illegal in Venice and Cornelio Grimani had celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday several years earlier, Cresci decided against it. The old man was known to be a little loose in the head, he reminded himself. It must have been a joke.

“That is funny, it really is. But as I told you, there are many more than me who have gotten the same treatment at the hands of Signorina Salva. And you heard that fellow about the clothes.”

Bianca cocked her head to one side and looked at the judges. It was Ser Archimede who spoke. “A servant belonging to the Foscari palace has testified that you gave him a rather large sum of money in exchange for his clothes. Would you like to see him?”

“No, it is true.” Bianca saw no reason to conceal it, and there was no reason to prolong the ordeal. The numbness was beginning to creep into her stomach, and soon her blood would be frozen in her veins. “But what can that possibly have to do with the murder of Isabella Bellocchio?”

“The assumption is that women who like to fill men’s clothing, also like to fill men’s places in other ways. For example, in the bedroom.” Ser Cornelio’s tone suggested the theory had been developed by someone with considerably less judgment than himself.

“By Santa Teresa’s collarbone, that makes no sense!” The stupidity of the idea reheated Bianca’s blood. “For one thing, if I hated men, why would I want to act or dress like them? For another, there are plenty of good reasons a woman might want to wear men’s clothes besides impersonating men.”

“Perhaps you will enlighten us.” Ser Cornelio had his magnifying glass out again. “I can think of several reasons, but none of them are good. What was your
good
reason for wanting men’s clothes.”

Bianca realized she had made a mistake. If she explained why she had procured the clothes, to break into Isabella’s house and snoop for evidence, her guilt was as good as confirmed. But she was convinced that if she lied, Ser Cornelio would see through it in an instant.

“They allow greater freedom of motion,” she answered in compromise, then hurried on with a question of her own. “Why would proving that I dislike men, which I deny, mark me as a murderess?”

It was Ser Alvise who answered. “It does not mark you as a murderess, but it certainly increases the likelihood that you were in love with Isabella Bellocchio.”

Bianca was puzzled. “You seem to be concluding that I was in love with Isabella Bellocchio simply because I am not in love with Giulio Cresci. Is that correct?”

The comparison between the shapely, sylphlike courtesan and the spindly legged, self-described rodent was patently ludicrous. Anyone in their right mind would have preferred even a dead Isabella to a live Giulio.

“We have concluded nothing. We are merely acting on the information provided in the denunciation,” Ser Archimede interjected swiftly. “Can you deny that you had a conversation with Signore Cresci that ended as he has described?”

All at once, Bianca saw how she had been betrayed. Ian had led her on, taught her to trust him, only so that he could use what she told him against her. Like a bloodthirsty tiger, he had leapt at the tiniest scrap, even her brief conversation with Giulio Cresci. He had spared nothing in his exertions to have her condemned for murder, refusing to believe in her innocence despite all of her efforts. His hate for her obviously ran so deep that he would stop at nothing to prove her guilty.

Not even faking a robbery.

Without even thinking, she asked in a low voice, “At the beginning, you mentioned some drawings. Do you have them?”

“I don’t see what bearing this has on the question of your affection for Isabella Bellocchio.” Ser Alvise adjusted the cuff of his robe, the equivalent for him of a massive fit of the fidgets.

“Nor do I, Your Excellency. I was just wondering if you have them.” She had not realized that she was holding her breath for the answer.

“No. Or, I should say, not here. But we have seen them. They were submitted with the denunciation and we do have them. We decided they were too,
ah
, detailed for this setting.”

It was the answer she both feared and anticipated. Bianca stepped backward, suddenly unsteady on her feet as the full scope of Ian’s perfidy struck her. He himself must have arranged to have her drawings stolen, wanting to have them in safe custody when he decided to submit the denunciation. With growing anger, she remembered the way he had berated her that night, accusing her of having an accomplice who stole her papers and ransacked her tools for her, when all along it had been him. He had known she was telling the truth when she denied his accusations because he had been behind the theft himself, but he had persisted anyway. He had purposely framed her for murder, had purposely betrayed her.

Suddenly everything was so clear. It was he who had an accomplice,
he
who was protecting someone. Someone about whom he cared more than anything else. Someone whose regard he valued so highly that he would do anything to secure it. Someone like Morgana da Gigio.

Ian had plundered Bianca’s body, had toyed with her, had lied to her, all to protect the woman he really loved and had always loved. Bianca cursed her lack of self-control as despair for the love she could never inspire in him tried to overtake the deep and horrible feeling of betrayal that had settled in the pit of her stomach. She would not allow herself to keep on loving him. She would not mourn for the fact that she could not occupy his heart. She would hate him for deceiving her, for repeatedly beguiling her, for purposely making a fool of her.

Color rose in her cheeks as she imagined first the immense effort it must have cost Ian to pretend that he enjoyed making love to her, and then the hours he must have spent regaling Mora with tales of Bianca’s naïveté, her pathetic attempts to win his heart, or at least his concern. What made it worse was that he had gone to such lengths to trick her, even fabricating that nightmarish tale about Sicilian bandits and cowardice and being left by Mora. Her anger rose with her color. He had gone too far. She would not allow herself to be used as a scapegoat. She would no longer play the fool. She would not allow him to sit placidly by as she was condemned to death for a crime his lover committed.