The Stargazer (34 page)

She paused to let her words sink into Cecco’s mind, like the water that had been inexorably seeping into her gown. For several moments the two of them, the drenched dwarf and the bedraggled Bianca, stared at each other, their eyes locked in a battle of wills. Finally Cecco spoke.

“I bet you can’t even swim, can you?” When Bianca did not contradict him, Cecco shook his head. “I ain’t risking my life again for a lady, especially one as can’t even swim. No thank you. Promises. Bah.”

“You won’t take me with you? You won’t help me escape?” Bianca could no longer keep the desperation out of her voice.

“An’ how can I, even if I was liable to—which I ain’t, make no mistake—how can I if you don’t got the good sense to know how to swim. Plus you’re too big. Them sewers can’t barely hold me.”

“You swim out through the sewers? Couldn’t you just lead me to them and then go on your own? Couldn’t you just point me in the right direction?”

Cecco made a new face. “That would be plenty joyful, to come back here in a few weeks an’ find your corpse a-stinking up my front door.”

“Please, please, you must help me. I must get out of here. I am not a murderess. I don’t want to die.”

“Why didn’t you tell that to the judges when you had the chance?” Cecco’s tone softened a bit, as he pulled himself to the edge of the divan. “Look, mistress, I believe you ain’t a murderess, you ain’t got the stuff for it, but I still can’t take you with me. Maybe, if you’ll put in a good word for me with that Foscari devil, maybe I’ll carry a message to your friends.”

As he spoke he rose to the edge of the platform on which the divan was perched and made preparations for his departure. Bianca saw that this was her last chance, indeed her only chance. She could and would try to follow him, but the goddess of fortune seemed predisposed against her. At least she could see that Ian knew the truth about what had happened in Sicily and the truth about her innocence. It could be her gift to him, she thought dramatically, still harboring a secret hope to inspire some strong emotion in his breast. Even more secretly she imagined an emotion strong enough to compel him to rescue her from prison. She would have plenty of hours for these idiotic fantasies, she told herself, while she was waiting to drown. The time called for action, for the sooner that Cecco left and she followed him, the better her chances of survival.

With a deep sigh, she realized she had no choice but to place her fate in the hands of the recalcitrant dwarf. It was probably for the best that she be left there to drown, she assured herself, because otherwise she would not be strong enough to keep from seeing Ian. “I would be most grateful if you would go to Palazzo Foscari,” she instructed the waiting Cecco, “and tell Ian Foscari everything you have told me. Tell him how we met and that I sent you. Then tell him I am innocent, that Angelo, my cousin, is the murderer I was seeking.” She paused, considering the impropriety of her next words and deciding that since she would soon be dead, it did not matter much anyway. “And tell him that I love him.”

Cecco grimaced. “I should have known a woman would go aputting them womanly sentiments in it. I’ll say what I say, an’ then we’ll see how good them promises of yours are.” With that, he leapt into the water and swam over to the far corner of his cell, dived down, and disappeared.

“Signore! Signore Cecco!” Bianca called, slipping from her stool into the water which now came just below her breasts, and moving toward the spot where she had last seen his head. She moved her feet and hands over the walls and floor around her but felt nothing. He had disappeared completely, leaving her alone with the eerie sound of water seeping ever faster through the cracks in the prison walls.

“That is only the beginning of the reward for your fine work,
angelo mio
,” she said huskily when their eyes met again. “You shall have everything you have ever wanted.”

“Right now, all I want is to feel your hands caressing my cock.” The young man spoke insistently, newly confident.

She rolled her head back and laughed, a slow, deep ripple that made the veins on her creamy throat tremble deliciously, then turned the half smile on him. “I see we are already learning to command. But that—”

There was a knock at the door, and two men dressed in her brother’s colors entered the room, interrupting her. The woman immediately recognized them as her brother’s personal guards, Jenö and Roric, gifts from the pope himself. They were a pair of fair giants, with the light golden hair and piercing blue eyes of people from the northern countries. They were so tall that they had to bend their heads to avoid hitting them on the lintel, and their broad shoulders barely cleared the doorway. In answer to the woman’s gesture, they approached the couple on the divan, each making a deep bow.

“Well?” The woman sat forward, her eyes alight with expectation.

“Your brother sends his regards and asks us to report that all has been prepared exactly according to your wishes, madonna.” The elder of the two spoke with the slight accent of his country.

A new fire came into the woman’s eyes. It was the news she had been waiting for, the news that her victory was at hand. She had only to wait for her triumph.

“The boat is prepared and awaiting your embarkation,” the fair giant went on after a pause. “Your brother will join you within three days. In his place he offers you our company, to provide any assistance or service you may desire.”

The woman let her eyes linger over the two immense, muscular bodies before her and smiled appreciatively at her brother’s choice of messengers. She was pleased to see he prized her at her worth, sending the guards he adored most to protect and care for her on the journey like the treasure she was.

“You will do nicely,” she said finally, turning back to her companion. The young man had risen and was moving toward a passageway that led directly to the canal and their waiting boat, but he halted abruptly when she called to him. “Soon, my angel, soon we shall go, but not yet.”

“This delay is stupid,” the young man whined, his hand lingering on his codpiece. “We would be so much safer and more comfortable in the gondola.”

Inexplicably, she had grown fond of the young man, and therefore tried to keep the displeasure out of her voice. “My dearest would not begrudge me my crowning moment of triumph, would he?” she coaxed him, using her hand to move him toward her. As she was cooing at him, the sounds of commotion outside the door filtered into the room. The woman stopped talking and listened with concentration for a moment, then smiled widely.

“At last. This promises to be very diverting.” The young man had just resettled himself alongside her on the divan when the outer door burst open, admitting her Moorish servant, turban askew and very harried, being carried in by two tall men. The servant was trying to speak, blustering something about daggers and orders from the Senate, but the woman silenced him with a nod. When he had departed, so distraught that he forgot to shut the door behind him, she focused her attention on her two unexpected but not unwelcome guests, favoring them each with a devastating smile.

“I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see you, Ian,” she said in a voice filled with genuine satisfaction. “Although I am not surprised, I had planned it this way. However, the hour was growing so late that I feared I would have to make do with secondhand reports of your suffering. It will be much better to witness your demise
in proprio persona
. How nice of you to oblige by calling upon me so opportunely.”

“I fear I shall have to disappoint you, Morgana, for I have no intention of dying just yet, nor have I come to see you.” Ian spoke with deep disdain. “I console myself with the fact that you have grown to expect such unbecoming behavior from me.”

“He used to call me ‘Mora’,” the woman said not to him but to the assembled company at large, “and hang dotingly on every word I said. Though he was clumsy and ill-mannered, I kept him on out of pity. But now look at him. Invading my house, gracelessly challenging my authority.” She shook her head with reproof and addressed Ian specifically. “Yet again you fail to understand. You have indeed come to call on me. And you will indeed meet your end soon. In one way, however, you are correct. You shall not die right away, for I have decided to destroy you before I kill you. What I have planned for you is much more hideous than mere death. And completely unstoppable.”

“The prospect is thrilling, and I would love to hear more,” Ian, followed by Crispin, moved toward the young man, “but we have actually come to arrest your new favorite for the murder of Isabella Bellocchio.”

“No,” Mora shook her head, “that won’t do at all. Another of the little fictions you devise to console yourself for your incompetence, Ian. Your arresting him would be most inconvenient. You see, Angelo and I were just leaving for a journey to Zante.” As she spoke, she made a slight gesture to Jenö and Roric, who stood on either side of the divan. “I hear the climate there is much better than this dreary rain, which I find does nothing for my disposition.”

Ian looked serious. “I would hate to interfere with the improvement of your disposition. By all means, leave at once. It is only Angelo Grifalconi that we want. You are free to go.”

Ian made a move to take Angelo’s arm, but was stopped by a supernatural force that held him immobile. His first irrational thought was that Morgana was indeed in league with the devil and had cast some sort of infernal spell on him, but he soon realized that it was no more than one of the giants gripping his arms from behind. Mustering up all his energy, Ian jammed his elbow back ward into Jenö’s abdomen and received nothing but a grunt and a sore elbow for his pains. The man was made of some sort of metal, he decided with alarm. Turning his head, he saw that the other giant had seized Crispin’s right arm in a similarly disabling fashion, but had allowed his left arm to hang free. Ian said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity had made his brother left-handed.

It was the only advantage they had, and he would have to use it to its utmost. Clearly brute force was not on the side of the Arboretti. They would have to rely upon their wits to free them selves, let alone to take Angelo prisoner. And they would have to do it fast, before Morgana decided it would be diverting to listen as their necks were snapped in two.

“Call off your little toys and let me have Angelo.” Ian’s voice was commanding. “I really do not have time for these games.”

Mora regarded him with unfeigned merriment, both sides of her mouth curved into a smile. “I’d forgotten how diverting you could be, Ian. Describing Jenö and Roric as ‘little.’ Indeed!” She laughed to herself softly. “You must know how it pains me to deny you anything, after what we have been to one another, but Angelo is going nowhere with you.”

Crispin had been studying his brother with astonishment. What could he possibly be thinking? No one knew better than Ian how cunning Mora was, yet he was acting as if he were negotiating with a child. At the moment in his life when he needed to be the most subtle and coy, Ian was coming out with direct orders and proclamations. Maybe the tension had gone to his nerves, Crispin thought with panic. His panic deepened as he watched Ian’s head and left arm jerk slightly. Was his brother going to have some sort of nervous fit, right there, with so many lives hanging in the balance? Acting on instinct, Crispin was about to reach his free arm toward Ian to steady him when, all at once, he understood.

“Morgana, I am surprised at you.” Ian worked to keep the relief out of his voice when he saw that Crispin had gotten his signal, focusing instead on holding Mora’s attention. “What has Grifalconi got that a thousand other men, and at least a hundred dogs, could not offer in equal measure?”

“You are jealous!” Mora closed her eyes to savor the prospect, just long enough to keep her from seeing the slight motion of Crispin’s left hand. “At least you have finally come to know my value, to appreciate what I might have been to you if you had been brave enough.”

“You really know how to drive a point home, doesn’t she, Crispin?” Ian asked, willing his brother to look at him. As their eyes met, Crispin winked and then jammed the dagger he had quietly freed from the waist of his doublet deep into Roric’s left thigh. Roric emitted a groan so loud that it startled everyone, including Jenö, whose grip loosened for split second. That was all it took for Ian to wriggle away, freeing his long sword from its sheath at his side. He moved directly toward the divan, sword drawn and aimed at Angelo’s heart.

“If you come any closer, I am afraid your brother will have to die,” Mora said in a conversational voice, as if passing a polite remark at a party.

Ian stopped where he stood, a hand’s width from where Angelo sat languidly on the divan, and turned to look at his brother. Roric had pinned Crispin’s arms behind him and had pressed a dagger to his neck. While Ian watched, Roric demonstrated the dagger was not just for show by pricking Crispin’s throat ever so slightly, just enough to draw a steady stream of blood.

And then everything blurred. As Ian watched, the luxurious hall became the plains of Sicily, Crispin’s face became Christian’s, the blood dripping down his cloak Christian’s blood. The nightmare was becoming real again, he was in it, but this time he would not let Christian die. This time, he would charge the assassin himself. This time he would drive his sword straight into him. Still in his dreamlike haze, Ian pulled his sword up before him and moved directly toward Roric and Crispin. Crispin watched Ian first with surprise and then horror as he drew closer, his eyes unseeing, completely devoid of emotion or personality. Roric’s dagger dug deeper into Crispin’s neck with every step Ian took toward him.

“Ian!” Crispin called to his brother, desperate to penetrate his horrible daze and pull him back into the present. “Ian!” he gasped again, Roric’s knife piercing deeper into his throat.

Ian neither stopped nor slowed. He kept coming, moving closer with clocklike precision, his expression glacial, his intent clear. Crispin, seeing that his death was on the horizon, had just begged the Deity to be merciful with his soul, when Ian halted.

He was almost close enough to drive his sword into Christian’s assassin when a curtain lifted from his mind, and he found himself standing before Crispin and Roric. Ian looked quizzically at his sword, extended in front of him and ready for battle, then at his brother. Crispin, cloak covered with blood, was regarding him with terror and dread. Even with the haze lifting, it took Ian a moment to realize where he was, and another to grasp what was happening.

Ian’s arm dropped to his side. The full horror of what had almost occurred washed over him in a disabling wave.

“Ian,” Crispin mouthed plaintively, relief warring with worry as he watched the dead look in his brother’s eyes replaced with a deep despair. “Musn’t…give up…Remember…Bianca.”

As Crispin spoke, a clock somewhere in the house struck nine times, breaking through Ian’s lethargy. Sicily and the horrors it held for him receded, allowing his reason to return and with it his determination. He may have failed Christian, but he would not fail Bianca. Or Crispin. Damn it, he would not again stand idly and watch as another of the people dear to him got his throat cut. He was being given a second chance, and he was going to take it.

Ian’s mind whirled, examining—and then discarding—every possible course of action. He knew Mora well enough to know that she was in earnest, and that she would not hesitate to kill Crispin if Ian took another step toward her favorite. He knew equally that surrendering his sword probably would not keep her from having Roric kill Crispin, just for the pleasure of it. And if she had Crispin killed, there was no question but that she would kill him too.

When he heard Mora shift on the divan behind him, Ian’s spine stiffened, preparing himself for her taunts. But instead of mocking, her voice came even and unhurried, as if he had not fallen into a strange stupor, indeed as if nothing at all had happened since she issued her ultimatum.

“I find it excites me to have drawn swords in the house,” Mora said with a playful shudder that brought a smile to Angelo’s lips. “If you care at all for your brother, I suggest you resheath yours. Now.”

In a flash, Ian realized that she and Angelo, still seated behind him, could not have known of his murderous daze or seen what had just happened. That was what gave him the idea.

It was a dangerous plan, but from where he stood, it was the best he could think of. Praying he still knew her well enough to gauge her responses, he took a deep breath and turned to Mora again, working to keep his face a stony mask. “You should know better than to use such threats on me, Mora. You know that since you left me I have been incapable of feeling anything for anyone.”

“It is all your own fault, you know. I tried to teach you how to love, how to sacrifice yourself for others, but you were too selfish. You understood only when it was too late, after you had lost me.” Mora sighed deeply with the memory of her wasted effort. “And yet, I could never help feeling that even once you had ceased to care about others, even then, you harbored a certain fondness for your brother.”

Ian’s heart was beating fast. “No, your destruction of my emotions was complete. I care no more for Crispin than I do for that whore I was betrothed to or some stranger I might meet on a deserted street.” Ian’s tone became confidential. “In fact, I find him tiresome. You can hardly imagine what a trial it has been to put up with him these two years.”

Mora eyed her former lover intently. Even after the transformation her leaving him had wrought, he could not possibly be as completely heartless as he was pretending to be. It was impossible that he felt nothing for his kind and loyal brother. He had to be bluffing. But he was a fool if he thought she would not call him on it.