Amanda McCabe - A Notorious Woman

“Just a dream,” she whispered. Not even a dream she could remember. Only bright, flashing fragments of movement and colour remained. And a pair of searing turquoise-blue eyes.

Julietta tossed back the bedclothes and swung her legs to the floor, wincing as her bare feet touched the cold wooden planks. Her fur-trimmed dressing gown was tossed at the foot of the bed, but she ignored it, crossing over to the window in only her thin linen chemise. The cold was good. It shocked her into a waking reality where no dreams could touch her.

The moon, a glistening, silvery-yellow crescent, hung high in the glossy black sky. ’Twas hours until daylight, then. Hours until sunlight and work could distract her. Everything always seemed closer, more suffocating in the night. The past, the future, all inescapable.

But Venice belonged to the mysteries of night, to darkness and deep waters and shadowed doorways that promised so much. It made the night so tempting, ever beckoning her forth from the careful construction of her safe lies. “Come to us,” the waters whispered. “Come to us, belong to us, as you know you do, and we will show you delights you could not even dream of. We will give you all you desire, all you seek, if you will just surrender.”

Surrender. The one thing she could never do. Julietta Bassano was born to stand solitary, to fight always against who she was, who she feared to be. Yet on nights like this one…

On nights like this, Eros and Thanatos, love and death, entwined in the narrow calli of the city, and she had such sharp, sweet longings. She loved Venice, because she and the city were one in the night, neither of them ever what they seemed to be.

Julietta leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the deserted campi below and remembering the man who had visited her shop that morning. Il leone. Marc Antonio Velazquez. By whatever name he went, he was dangerous. She knew that the instant he touched her hand, and her flesh came alive at the stroke of his.

Shrugging the heavy braid of her hair back from her shoulder, Julietta reached out to push open the window. She closed her eyes as the cold night air washed over her face and throat, along the curve of her breasts bared by the low neck of the chemise and, for one moment, she imagined it was his hand on her skin. His callused sailor’s touch sliding roughly over her shoulder, tracing a crooked line of fire lower, ever lower, his breath cool and sweet, making her shiver in sweet anticipation…

Madre de dio! Julietta’s eyes flew open, and she found herself alone, staring down at the emptiness of the campi. From a distance, echoing, she heard laughter and music from some merry gathering, but no turquoise-eyed sorcerer watched her. No caresses reached out for her.

Dangerous, indeed. Once, long ago, when she was young and foolish, she had thought her husband handsome and charming, had fancied herself in love with him like a maiden and a knight in a poem. She had craved his kisses, worshipped his voice and touch and glance. That had shattered in an unfathomable rush of hellish violence that killed the girl she had been for ever.

After Giovanni died and she came to start a new life in Venice, Julietta took a couple of lovers, gentle, unassuming, discreet men whose kisses were pleasant and sweet, but did not move her to the dizzying heights she felt when first with Giovanni. Neither did they ever cast her into black despair.

Marc Antonio Velazquez could do that. She sensed it, knew it. There was something hidden about him, concealed behind his good looks and fine clothes, his polished manners. Only one cloaked soul could recognise another. He was a complication she did not need. Her life was good now. Settled. Safe.

As safe as she could ever make it.

Men such as Il leone had no place in her world. She had to make sure of that.

Julietta shut the window and latched it before taking up her dressing gown. As she slipped it over her chemise, she left her chamber on careful, silent feet. Bianca snored softly on her truckle bed in the corridor, but Julietta just crept past her, down the narrow stairs to the darkened shop. The shutters were drawn tightly over the windows, the door solidly locked and barred; no one could possibly be spying on her here. Still, she glanced carefully over every inch of the room, every vial and jar, before creeping over to the hidden panel set in the wall.

Her fingertips quickly found the tiny knot of wood and pressed hard. The panels slid apart to form a fissure just large enough for her to move through. She lit a branch of candles before shutting the secret door behind her again, closing herself into her own private world.

There were no windows or skylights in her hideyhole; the only light came from the soft flicker of the candles. It was a small chamber, yet held all she could need. Long, narrow tables were pushed against two of the walls, laden with scales, beakers, silver bowls, a mortar and pestle and a variety of spoons and knives. The other two walls held shelves piled with books: ancient volumes she had painstakingly and at great expense collected over the past three years or had inherited from her mother and grandmother. There were also several covered baskets and pottery bowls, rows of stoppered bottles. Suspended from the dark wood rafters were bunches of dried herbs along with other, stranger materials. Ones she would never want the patrons of the perfumery just beyond the wall to see.

Never.

Julietta quickly went to work, for the night was half gone already. She spread out her materials—a beaker filled with clear liquid, small scissors, the mortar and pestle—and lit a small bowl of oil. Narrowing her eyes, she gazed up at the herbs, gauging which ones suited her purposes tonight. Angelica, yes; nettle, rue, and marjoram—all of them held great powers of protection and wisdom. Using the little silver scissors, she snipped a sprig from each and put them in the silver bowl.

Her herbs gathered, she knelt beside the table, hands tightly clasped and eyes shut. “Oh, Great One,” she whispered. “I pray that the mysteries will be revealed to me this night, and my place in the world restored. Help me to see the truth. Guide me in my actions. Protect me.”

And help me to divine what this Signor Velazquez seeks here in Venice, she added silently.

“Amen.” Julietta crossed herself, and stood up to reach for the herbs she had chosen, the mortar and pestle. These hours, deep in the secret cloak of night, belonged only to her, to the lessons she had learned so long ago from her poor mother, from her grandmother. They had to belong only to her—or they could mean her very death.

Yet somehow, despite the dangers she knew all too well, she was compelled to this. Compelled to use her knowledge to help other women whenever possible. Women like Cosima Landucci—women like herself. Not even the threat of the stake could stop that.

And not even a sorcerer’s turquoise eyes could turn her purpose. It was set—and done.

“Madonna!”

Bianca’s voice, echoing amid the crates and boxes of the store-room, startled Julietta, nearly causing her to bash her head on the case she was unpacking. As it was, she stumbled backwards, a jar of oil clutched in each hand. She had been counting the new arrivals, completing the shop’s inventory, but really, her thoughts were far away, drifting inexorably to the experiment that bubbled and fermented quietly in the secret room.

And trying not to drift to Il leone.

“Yes, Bianca, what is it?” she said, placing the jars carefully back into the padded case. “Do you need my help in the shop?”