Fiona Paul: Belladonna

Executed.

Luca had gone to meet with Joseph Dubois and now he was in prison. Executed. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. If he was arrested because of something he’d said to Dubois, it probably had something to do with Cristian. Which meant it had something to do with her. Executed. Cass touched the lily necklace through the fabric of her bodice. Luca had saved her once. Now it was up to her to save him.

Cass and Siena left for the Rialto just moments after Donna Domacetti waddled down to the dock and disappeared into her own boat.

Summer was preparing for its arrival in Venice. Despite the breeze off the water, the late-spring air was still muggy and thick, the high sun obscured by a ribbon of clouds. Cass fanned herself with her favorite ostrich-feather fan as she settled in beneath the felze of Agnese’s gondola.

Siena gathered her muslin skirt around her as she scooted next to Cass. Behind them, Giuseppe—her aunt’s gardener and personal gondolier—hummed an unfamiliar tune as he expertly navigated the coastline of San Domenico north toward the lagoon that separated the Rialto from the outlying southern islands.

Cass fiddled with the rosary that hung from the waistline of her skirt. Her mind was whirling as she tried to remember all of Agnese’s instructions. Be polite. Stand up straight. Inquire about the possibility of a trial, but don’t be demanding.

“Are you all right?” Siena asked.

“Fine,” Cass said tightly. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. If only her aunt had felt well enough to accompany her.

“I wish I was up for the journey,” Agnese had declared as she told Cass what to say. “It’s a grim business for a girl your age.”

Murderers. Grave robbers. Cass was more familiar with grim business than her aunt ever would have guessed.

A fish jumped in the nearby water, sending a spray of droplets cascading through the air. Cass looked up. Stonemasons dangled from the roof of San Giorgio Maggiore, chipping and carving details into the façade of the grand church, while a flurry of men hollered instructions to them from the ground. The gondola bobbed slowly past San Giorgio Island, and she turned her attention to the tiny waves of the lagoon that sloshed back and forth against the boat.

Giuseppe docked the gondola just south of the Palazzo Ducale. The enormous palazzo loomed over the Piazza San Marco, bridging the gap between the basilica and the edge of the lagoon. Bricks in shades of brown and bronze glittered in the daylight. Elaborate friezes and bas-reliefs adorned the larger arched windows. A breezeway ringed the building’s perimeter, supported by Gothic columns, each topped with a clover-shaped cutout.

Cass had passed the Palazzo Ducale many times in her life and always thought of the building as a magical place where the Doge and Dogaressa lived and threw spectacular parties. She knew the palazzo was also home to Senate meetings and other official government functions, but she had never thought of the gleaming U-shaped building as a prison. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she must have always known about the pozzi, the tiny dank cells on the palazzo’s first floor, and the scorching-hot piombi, additional cells for “special” prisoners beneath the lead-plated roof of the building, but she had never really thought about it.

Until now.

She imagined the worst: Luca buried in blackness, locked away among dark and creeping things. Foul canal water rising up, threatening to drown him while he slept. Rats scrabbling through the bars, sinking their teeth into his flesh. She felt a sharp pain in her chest. It was hopeless. She was one girl against Dubois, against the Senate, against all of Venice. Would anyone even agree to see her?

She took Giuseppe’s hand as she alighted from the gondola. Siena followed her. Striding forward as if she clearly belonged there, Cass considered the Palazzo Ducale’s many doors and made for the porta della carta, the main entrance.

The wooden door was at least ten feet tall, with flower designs carved into the wood at regular intervals. A sculpture of a previous Doge facing a winged lion decorated the top of the door, an elaborate arched window above that. Towers of additional sculpture work flanked each side of the entrance. Cass recognized the figures of Charity, Fortitude, Temperance, and Prudence, their flowing gowns painted in brilliant blues and yellows. Where had those virtues been when someone was dragging an innocent man to prison?

Two soldiers dressed in scarlet and gold were standing guard. “What is your business today, Signorina?” the taller soldier asked gruffly.

“I wish to speak to the Doge,” Cass said, raising her chin. “Or to a member of the Senate.” In her chopines, she stood slightly taller than the soldiers, and for once her height didn’t feel like a liability.

The other soldier grunted with laughter. “Don’t they all,” he said. “Do you have an appointment?”

The lie was on the tip of her tongue—of course she had an appointment—but she couldn’t manage to spit it out. She swore under her breath. Falco would have coughed up a lie without hesitation. “No, I don’t,” Cass admitted. “But I will wait as long as necessary.”

The soldiers laughed again, their tan faces turning pink with amusement. “We’ll send someone to fetch a chair,” the shorter one said. “It might be a couple of fortnights.”

Cass was tired of being laughed at. “Listen,” she started, trying her best to look menacing. “It’s imperative that I speak to someone, so if it cannot be the Doge, then let me speak to one of his associates. I’m here to discuss Signor Luca da Peraga. I believe he has been imprisoned on false charges.”

“Ah.” The taller soldier ran a finger through his beard. “Signora da Peraga.”

Behind her, Siena coughed. Cass started to correct the men that she and Luca were not yet married, but thought better of it. “That’s right,” she said smoothly.

The guards exchanged a look. Now she could tell that they pitied her. “I suppose we can find someone who can better explain to you the charges.” The guard motioned, and the girls followed him inside the Palazzo Ducale. Cass slipped out of her chopines and left them just inside the door. She and Siena were ushered up a staircase covered in gold leaf. Servants passed them on the way down, their chins tucked low, eyes toward the ground. The guard led Cass and Siena across a square vestibule to a large room with four doors.

The room was supported by black marble columns, with threads of white running through them like veins. The long walls were paneled in dark wood and embossed with gold. Paintings of religious figures adorned the ceiling: images of God and his angels.

“Wait here,” the guard instructed her, and then retreated back the way he had come.

Cass wondered where the other three doors led. Was Luca somewhere nearby? Would he hear her if she called out to him? She went to each door in turn, pressing her ear to the wood. She couldn’t hear anything. Did she dare open the door a crack? She tried the first one. Locked. She tried the others. Also locked.

Cass sighed. A hard wooden bench ran along one side of the room. She gathered her skirts and took a seat. Siena paced back and forth, wringing her hands. Cass watched her handmaid’s plain leather shoes cross the room, her worn soles temporarily obscuring shining specks of pink and gold embedded in the marble floor.

After what felt like an eternity, a short man dressed in black breeches and a bright purple doublet skittered out from one of the doors. He was about Luca’s age, with wire-framed spectacles and a hooked nose that made him look more like a bird than a person. “Signora da Peraga?”