Belladonna

twenty

Cass woke from a dream, disoriented by the darkness. Her chest went tight for a moment until she remembered she was at Belladonna’s villa. There was a faint padding noise, and she saw a flash of movement as the blackness distorted around her. Someone else was in the room.

“Piero?” she croaked out. “Is that you?”

A candle flame sparked to life. “Sorry to disappoint.” Falco’s teasing grin materialized in the soft yellow glow.

Cass smiled and then immediately winced. Why was it that she couldn’t do anything except lie like a block of marble without her arm starting to throb? She adjusted the pillow behind her back. Mannaggia. She felt as broken-down as her aunt Agnese.

“Should I send for Dottor Basso?” Falco asked, sounding as if it were the last thing he wanted to do. He knelt down with the candle so their faces were just inches apart. “You were thrashing about in your sleep. Is it the pain?”

Cass shook her head. For once she couldn’t remember her dream, which was undoubtedly a blessing. “I’m fine.” Her arm was aching, but she didn’t want Piero. She didn’t want anything to steal away these precious moments with Falco.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Falco set the candle on the table next to the bed. He traced the hollows under her eyes, skimming a finger across the bridge of her nose. “You look so pale,” he said. “Like a ghost. I can’t believe I could have lost you. What were you doing all alone in the woods?”

Cass told him about de Gradi accosting her in the library, how she’d panicked and fled the villa. “Did you know that he was here?” she asked.

Falco wrapped the fingers of her right hand in his. He sat next to her on the bed. “He’s heard about the trials, about the people drowned and then dumped in graves outside the city.” His mouth tightened into a hard line. “Easy pickings. He’s been . . . encouraging me to go back into my former line of work.” Falco added quickly, “I said no, of course.”

Cass felt her stomach seize. Thinking of what he had done in Venice for money still made her queasy. “How many bodies can de Gradi possibly need? Surely Venice has its fair share of the dead.”

“I suspect there are other reasons for his presence in Florence,” Falco said. “He’s the one who told me about the showing at Don Loredan’s. Maybe he knew Belladonna would be there; he seems to be quite enamored with her.”

“She seems to be quite enamored with you.” Cass did her best to keep her voice light.

She was hoping Falco would deny it, but he merely shrugged. “As you’ve probably noticed, she’s quite fond of most pretty things. She seemed quite taken with you at her birthday dinner.”

“True, but she’s not posing nude for hours in my company.”

Falco laughed. “She might if you asked nicely. She’s not particular when it comes to her admirers.” He reached out and ran the back of his hand down the side of Cass’s face. His voice lowered. “She’s nothing compared with you.”

Warmth bloomed in Cass’s chest. Falco’s gentle touch never failed to melt her. Did he really find her more beautiful than his stunning patroness?

Falco lifted her chin and leaned forward. His lips grazed her cheek. “There’s something hard about her, like she’s part sculpture. Unreal,” he murmured. “You are all softness, and all real. You are ten times as beautiful as she is.”

He leaned in even closer, and then hesitated. Cass knew he was waiting for her to close the almost-nonexistent gap between them. She didn’t do it. She couldn’t. She had come to Florence with the noble intentions of clearing Luca’s name. And what, exactly, had she accomplished? She’d betrayed Luca yet again and almost gotten herself killed.

But maybe she had crossed paths with Falco for a different reason, a higher purpose. He could help her. He could be her eyes while she was trapped in bed.

She pressed her forehead against his cheek, but turned her lips away from his mouth. His face felt cool against her damp skin. “I need your help,” she whispered.

“My lovely tormentor,” Falco said softly. “How can I be of assistance?” Cass could hear the hurt in his voice.

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “The Book of the Eternal Rose—” she started to say, and then gasped as something flickered in the corner of her vision. In the dim light she could just barely make out the door to her room. It was open, only a sliver, but Cass swore she saw a face in the hall. Was it Piero coming to administer medicine? Signorina Briani coming to check on her? Or was someone spying on them?

She sat up quickly, pulling her covers tight around her. Her arm throbbed in protest, and Cass bit back a cry of pain. The face disappeared from view.

“What is it?” Falco asked.

“I saw someone,” Cass faltered. “A face, looking through the door.”

Falco stood and took the candle from the bedside table. He strode across the room. “The door is closed,” he said. He pulled it open and peered out into the hallway. “The whole villa is dark. Could you have imagined it?”

Cass sighed. Was she really so terrified of giving in to Falco’s affections that she was hallucinating?

She was suddenly seized with a terrible idea: was she getting sicker? Perhaps her fevers were attacking her brain.

“I—I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I need you to find that book for me.”

“Cass,” Falco said, watching her with concern. “I’d better go. You need your sleep.”

“I do not need sleep. I need the Book of the Eternal Rose.” She sighed in frustration. “I know you don’t believe me. Just promise that you’ll at least skim the books in the library for me.” She should have gone through them the night of the party, headache or no. Even if she did feel strong enough to make it to the library, she might not get a chance with Piero watching over her at all hours of the day.

Falco nodded. “Fine. I’ll look for your book. And I’ll come visit you again tomorrow night.” He placed a hand on her head, and then pressed his lips to her cheek again. “I promise.”

This time, when she slept, she dreamt of Falco.

Madalena and Siena came to visit early the following day. Cass had just taken another draught of pain medicine, so when Mada glided into the room in a brilliant blue dress with a matching hat and gloves, Cass blinked hard, wondering momentarily whether her friend was a vision. But then Siena and Eva followed, hanging back from the bed as Madalena approached with a pitiful look on her face.

“Oh, Cass,” Mada said. “I feel just terrible. You wanted to leave the party, and I insisted you stay . . .”

Cass rubbed her eyes. Madalena was pacing back and forth across the stone floor, and for a moment it looked as if there were two of her. “I’ll be all right, Mada,” Cass said. But she wasn’t sure if it were true. Madalena’s crestfallen expression made Cass wonder whether Mada knew something Cass didn’t. “Piero said I just need to rest.”

Mada’s lower lip trembled. “People die from dog bites, Cass!”

“Thank you for reminding me,” Cass said. Madalena’s form blurred. Cass closed her eyes. She didn’t know if it was the medicine or the pain that was making her see things. Or something worse. She inhaled deeply. “I don’t suppose there’s been any word from my aunt, has there?”

“No, but I plan to send a message to her as soon as we return to the palazzo,” Siena piped up. “I just wanted to be able to tell her that you were all right.”

Whether she was truly all right was still a matter for debate, and Agnese didn’t need any bad news; her constitution was hardly fit for it. “Please don’t,” Cass said. “By the time the letter reaches her, I’ll be healed, and you will only worry her for no reason.” Her arm was starting to tingle again. After the tingling came the burning, and after the burning came the throbbing.

“But Signora Querini would want to know . . . ,” Siena trailed off.

“You have kept many things from my aunt that she would have wanted to know,” Cass reminded Siena. “If you really want to help me, you’ll get me out of this skimpy chemise and into a proper sleeping gown. If I’m going to be trapped here for days, I would prefer to be decent.”

Madalena was already going through the armoire. She held up a cotton nightdress. “This ought to work,” she said breezily. “Looks like something old Agnese herself might wear.” Together with Siena, Mada stripped Cass out of her sheer blue chemise. They had only just gotten her dressed again when Piero barged back into the room.

“Did you sleep well, Signorina?” he asked, barely glancing at Siena and Madalena as he approached the bed.

Was it her imagination, or did the words contain a challenge? Had it been his face at her doorway in the middle of the night? Had he seen her with Falco?

Kneeling down, Piero took Cass’s left hand and straightened out her arm. She flinched, first from his warm touch and then from the pain. “Your bandages need changing,” he said, pointing at a light pink spot seeping through the top layer of cloth. He turned to Madalena and the handmaids. “Ladies, I can assure you, the occasion doesn’t merit an audience.”

Cass felt sick. Maybe Piero could give her a tonic to make her go to sleep. She flashed back to the attack, saw the dog’s canines sink deep into her flesh. Penetrating. Tearing. She wasn’t ready to see what lay beneath the bandages. At the same time, she was desperate to know how much damage had been done.

Piero left to gather the necessary supplies for the dressing change. Siena and Madalena both leaned in to hug her and promised they would return for a visit the following day.

“How’s Feliciana?” Cass asked, trying to delay their departure.

“She’s fine,” Siena said. “She’s worried about you, of course.”

“We all are,” Mada blurted out, and then quickly corrected herself. “We were, I mean.”

Cass could think of no further questions, no way of detaining her friends, so she forced a smile and assured them she’d be home, and healthy, very soon.

Piero returned with a black cloth bag, an armful of plain white fabric, and an empty basin. As he organized his equipment on the table next to her bed, Cass tried to imagine what she might see when the bandages came off: flashes of bone and blood, blackened flesh. Her stomach churned, and she whimpered slightly.

“Are you all right?” Piero hurriedly set down a small silver vial from which he had been pouring.

Cass shook her head. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears.

Piero’s normally teasing voice turned soft. “What is it? Are you hurting?”

She couldn’t bring herself to voice her fears, but Piero seemed to understand. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” he asked, and she nodded, feeling like an idiot, mentally berating herself for being so weak.

“The pain should be tolerable,” he said. “There will be some stinging when I actually clean the wound, some pressure when I reapply the bandages.”

Mannaggia. She was so worried about what her arm might look like that it hadn’t even occurred to her that the procedure might hurt. She felt the blood draining from her face.

Piero pulled a pair of vials from the black bag and mixed their powders together in a silver tumbler. He added a splash of ale from the pitcher at Cass’s bedside. “I can give you something,” he said. “Mandrake and feverfew. It should calm you and keep the pain at bay, perhaps even put you back to sleep. Although it may cause unusual dreams,” he cautioned.

Cass accepted the tumbler. “Thank you,” she said, sipping the potion slowly. It was mild-tasting, like a thickened version of herbal tea.

Piero turned back to his table. Cass watched as he cut a square of white cloth into strips with a scalpel blade. He piled the pieces of white neatly on one side of the table. The sharp smell of vinegar filled the air. It was a common wound cleanser, but it always made her eyes water. Finally, as Cass watched, Piero removed the stopper from a tiny pot of salve. “Theriac,” he explained.

Cass knew theriac well. It was an expensive cure-all, prepared from more than sixty different ingredients. Powdered herbs. Flower petals. Crushed viper skin. There were as many different recipes for the medicine as there were apothecaries. Cass’s own father had tried his hand at a theriac elixir when she was a child. For a few months, she and her parents had all choked down a spoonful of his concoction with the morning meal. Luckily, he had eventually run out of one of the ingredients and his interest in the medicine had waned. Cass had likened the taste to a mixture of canal water and chimney soot.

“What is her condition?”

Cass flinched at Belladonna’s voice. The woman strode into the bedroom without so much as a knock or a cough. She was dressed in a low-cut indigo dress with a black lace overskirt. Ignoring Cass, she spoke only to Piero.

“She’s in pain,” Piero said, without looking at her. “And she’s lost a lot of blood.”

Belladonna’s eyes met Cass’s for only an instant. They were like two hard stones—no trace of the warmth or charm she had exhibited at her birthday party. “Not too much blood, I hope.” She turned to leave, pausing at the doorway only to add, “Keep me informed.”

“Friendly,” Cass said. Her mouth seemed to take a long time to form the word.

“She’s just worried about you.” Piero hovered above Cass with his scalpel, preparing to cut away the soiled bandages. He was still talking, but his voice had slowed down. Everything was slowing down. Cass swore that even her heart slowed to a stop beneath her rib cage. She was sinking into a gentle pool. No, a well. Down. So far down. “Piero,” she murmured, lifting her good arm toward the light.

He peered over the side of the well, smiling. Could he see her? She didn’t think so. It was dark. So dark. But she could see his face, backlit by the daylight behind him. Only he didn’t look like Piero. He looked like Falco.

“Shh,” Piero-Falco whispered. “Just relax.”

She blinked, and suddenly he was down in the well with her. She sensed bandages falling to her bedsheets, but she couldn’t see her arm anymore. It was too dark. Her eyelids were heavy. It was time to sleep.

The elixir of mandrake and feverfew helped Cass sleep so soundly that when she woke up, she felt better than she had in days. She was able to eat for the first time since her attack, and she also managed to drag herself out to the garden to get a bit of sun. When it was time for her to go to sleep again, she begged Piero for another dose.

“Did it give you strange dreams?” Piero asked.

Cass thought of the well, and the fact that Piero had become Falco. “They were unusual,” she said cautiously. “But not unpleasant.”

“I suppose another dose wouldn’t hurt, then.” His hair fell forward over one eye. “You do seem to be in exceptional spirits.”

She took the silver tumbler and drank willingly. She hoped Falco—the real one, not the one from her dream—would be able to sneak into her room for another visit.

When she drifted off, she had the same odd sensation of sinking straight down into her mattress, just like going into a well. Again Piero-Falco appeared at the top of the well. Cass called out to him and he reappeared by her side. “How did you do that?” she asked.

He smiled but didn’t say anything.

“Are you really Falco?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

Cass tried to stand but couldn’t. She was completely surrounded by water. “What am I doing here?” she asked. “What am I looking for?”

His eyes flashed dark for a moment and he became someone else, a stranger. But then he ran his fingers through her hair, pushing her tangled tresses back away from her neck. Cass relaxed. She would know Falco’s gentle touch anywhere. His lips grazed the soft skin of her throat, and her whole body went soft. She was melting. She was liquid. She was fading away . . .

And then there was a crash, and a dripping sound. Cass groaned and opened her eyes, one at a time. Her eyelids felt heavy, as though they’d been weighted overnight. What was dripping? Why was it so bright? Had Falco come to visit her last night as he had promised?

“Mi dispiace, Signorina.” A terrified servant girl was wiping the surface of the bedside table. She had knocked over a goblet, and a puddle of pale liquid was slowly raining itself over the edge of the table down onto the floor. Cass glanced over at the clock on the wall. It read one thirty, but that was impossible. Cass never slept so late. And she still felt tired.

The servant went to the window and opened the curtains. “We thought maybe you were going to sleep away the entire day.”

“Is it really midday?” Cass asked. She wanted to sit up, but her body, too, felt weighted.

“That it is,” the servant said. “Your friends came for a visit, but Dottor Basso told them you were sleeping and turned them away.”

Could she possibly have slept fifteen hours again? If so, why did she still feel exhausted? Her limbs were anvils. Cass knew she’d fall right back to sleep if the shades were drawn again.

The servant left and returned with a tray containing sliced fruit and a bowl of tomato soup. Cass took a spoonful of the deep red broth. Her fingers were shaking. For a second, she saw two hands, holding two wobbling spoons. The soup was far too salty, and its color reminded her of blood. It even smelled like blood. She dropped the spoon and pushed the whole tray to one side.

Piero came into the room with her medicines. She tried to sit up, but her head still felt like it was full of wet cloth. Her soft mattress drew her down into its depths, like the ocean welcoming an anchor. She managed to turn toward Piero. He was cloudy at the edges, his hands disintegrating into fog. For a second it seemed like he was floating. Hovering. Cass blinked hard. She rubbed her eyes. Piero stood on the floor, just as he should.

“I think the mandrake is making me see things,” Cass said.

“What do you mean?” Piero looked concerned.

“I’m not hallucinating,” Cass said quickly. “But objects look hazy instead of clear. Sometimes my vision seems to double.”

Piero nodded. “It happens. How is your pain?”

“Better,” Cass admitted. She looked down at her newly bandaged arm. “But I can’t believe I slept all day and still feel so weak.”

“You do look pale.” Piero touched a hand to her cheek. His fingers felt so warm against her icy skin. “I think it’s best if you continue to rest,” he said.

“More sleep?” Cass heard the pinch of frustration in her voice. “But Madalena and Siena—”

“Can wait until you’re feeling stronger,” Piero interrupted her. He handed her a cup of cloudy gray liquid. “No mandrake,” he said. “Just something to keep the pain away.” Cass drank it, despite its foul smell. He was a doctor, after all. He would make her well.