Venom (2 page)

“Aunt Agnese,” Cass whispered sharply.

The old woman awoke with a grunt and refocused on the service, where the priest was now talking about how death was the great equalizer of men.

As the priest droned on, Agnese’s eyelids drooped again. The stiff lace collar of the old woman’s dress kept her head from bobbing back on her neck, but her legs started to wobble. This time it was Siena, on Agnese’s other side, who steadied her. The lady’s maid flashed Cass a small smile before turning back to the ceremony.

The priest waved his wooden crucifix in front of him. “It is not only the wicked that the serpent chooses to tempt. Like Eve, the righteous may also fall victim to his trickery.” His voice was reaching a crescendo. He slashed the air with the crucifix again, as if it were a weapon and he thought the devil himself might be present at the funeral. “You must
always
be mindful. Even in the waters of this city—no,
especially
in the waters of this city!—evil flows silently among us like venom. We are at its mercy.”

Cass swore the priest’s eyes lingered on her for a moment. She suddenly felt unsteady, as if she were standing on water instead of solid ground. Recoiling slightly, she stepped backward to maintain her balance. She was grateful when the priest motioned for the mourners to be seated.

As she gathered her skirts and settled into the wooden pew, Cass’s eyes flicked around the inside of the church. Everything looked slightly off, the way it did in dreams. Darkness merged with light. Liviana’s family and friends sat in orderly rows, black hats and veils obscuring their pale faces. Sunbeams ignited the brightly colored panes of stained glass, bathing the deep mahogany altar in hues of gold and green.

The first days of spring had been wet and gray as always, but today had brought a brief reprieve: outside the church, songbirds warbled and tree limbs bowed toward the ground, heavy with white
blossoms. The sun filtered through a new layer of haze that had just begun to settle over the city, and the wet surfaces of walls and cobblestones almost seemed to sparkle.

It would rain again, and soon. But for now, it was like God was watching down on Liviana’s service, waiting for her to ascend. It gave Cass a strange feeling of hope intermingled with a restlessness to be out, away from the ceremony, away from all the death. Her heavy dress was too hot, too tight. It was suffocating her. The funeral was suffocating her.

The idea of her whole life already decided, that was even worse—strangling.

Beads of sweat formed on the back of her neck. She needed to get out.

She blotted her eyes and scooted away from her still-dozing aunt. Sliding past Madalena, Cass tiptoed down the side aisle of the church. She made her way to the narthex and slipped quietly through one of the heavy wooden doors. Outside, a few men from Liviana’s family stood stiffly in their mourning attire; they would be in charge of moving the body from the church to a gondola for the ride out to San Domenico Island.

Cass headed past them, to the corner of the cobblestone street that ran along the Grand Canal. If only she had her journal with her. She could jot down some thoughts, calm herself, see things as they really were. Cass’s journal had become a necessity; she wrote in it daily, and even when she had nothing to write about, the mere feel of her quill scratching across the paper soothed her. Agnese had forbidden her to bring it today, and Cass felt almost as if she were missing a limb.

She paused in the shadow of a stately palazzo, leaning against the
smooth marble wall, breathing in the familiar smells of Venice: moss and salt, the faint tinge of rotting garbage. Cass often took walks around her aunt’s estate at night; being unaccompanied in the light of day felt strange and a little bit frightening—but also freeing. She probably had only a few minutes to herself before Agnese woke up and sent Siena after her.

Thick clouds were rolling in, but the spring day was still humid and hot. Cass pulled a black lacquer fan embellished with amethyst and gold leaf from the pocket of her cloak and waved it in front of her face. A piece of auburn hair fell across her eyes. She tucked the wayward strand back into her bun as she watched the people bustling past her—merchants carrying baskets of fish and vegetables, a pair of soldiers walking stiffly, the hilts of their swords clanking against their armor, a man with a long gray beard wearing a bright red cap that marked him as a Jew.

This was more of Venice than Cass usually saw. Agnese rarely permitted her to leave San Domenico anymore. Even when she had lived on the Rialto, the commercial center of Venice proper, Cass’s parents had always given the gondoliers extra gold to take Cass and her lady’s maid straight from doorstep to doorstep. She had never been allowed to walk along the canals or loiter in the street as she was doing now. It wasn’t safe, her parents said, and of course, it wasn’t proper.

Down the street, two men were shouting at each other in the alley outside a butcher shop. The argument seemed to be about a small white goat that the larger of the two men was holding. The other man kept trying to grab the goat. The poor animal bleated in fear as the men threatened to tear it in two.
Venice…la Serenissima. The most serene republic.
Cass knew Venice had gotten the nickname because the government preferred trade to war, but that didn’t mean the place was always peaceful.

Just beyond them, a circle of boys were waving and hollering at her. They pushed and shoved one another and laughed as they beckoned. She scanned the group, looking for someone she recognized. There were four of them: unkempt hair and plain clothing marked them as commoners. One had an old fraying hat tipped at a crooked angle. The tallest of the group wore a brown suede doublet, covered in splotches of blue and green paint.

Cass felt her heartbeat quicken.
Artists.
She had always been fascinated by art, but she’d never met a real artist. So why were they acting like they knew her? The tall boy paused to take a long drink from a leather canteen. He tossed the container to one of his friends, who caught it just before it would have bounced off the damp cobblestones. A couple of peasant children hanging out of a doorway cheered and applauded. Maybe the boys were drunk and had confused her with someone else? Still, Cass raised her gloved hand in a hesitant half wave.

Too late she realized the boys weren’t motioning to her at all. They were looking past her, shouting at someone behind her. She had just started to turn around when a boy slammed into her with the force of a bull.

“
Accidempoli!
” Cass hit the cobbled ground hard, her back landing in a dirty puddle, the palm of her left glove ripping on the rough stone street. Miraculously, she had not hit her head.

Cass felt warm breath against her chin. She had clenched her eyes shut, but opened them now to find herself pinned underneath a boy a couple of years older than she was. She could feel his body radiating heat into hers. The boy wore a thin smock spattered with paint.
Dots of blood red and bright yellow swam before Cass’s eyes. She struggled to focus.

He had dark brown hair that curled under at the ends and eyes as blue as the Adriatic. His smile tilted a little to the right. It was the smile of someone who loved getting into trouble.

“
Molte scuse!
” He hopped back onto his feet. “I didn’t see you at all,
bella signorina.
” He bowed, then reached out a hand and yanked Cass off the ground unceremoniously. She felt a little dizzy as she stood. “Though I can’t say it wasn’t a pleasure running into you.” Letting go of her hand, he brushed a droplet of dirty water from the side of her face. He leaned in close to murmur in her ear. “You should be more careful, you know.”

Cass opened her mouth but no words came out. Again, she felt her stays crushing down on her chest. “Careful?” she managed to croak. “You’re the one who knocked me over.”

“I couldn’t resist,” he said, and he actually had the nerve to wink at her. “It’s not often I get the chance to put my hands on such a beautiful woman.”

Cass stared at him, speechless. Without another word, he turned away and followed the group of laughing artists into a crowded
campo,
his muscular form disappearing among merchants’ sacks of cabbages and potatoes. The scene blurred a little, like a painting, and for a second Cass wondered if maybe she
had
hit her head and had imagined the whole exchange.

Liviana’s uncle Pietro materialized suddenly by her side, followed by Madalena. “What were you thinking, running off by yourself?” Pietro frowned severely. “And that common street thug put his hands on you! Do you want me to go after him?”

“No, no,” Cass said quickly. “It was just an accident.” Still, the
nerve of the boy to tell
her
to be careful. He, clearly, was the one who needed to watch where he was going.

“Your dress!” Madalena reached toward Cass, but stopped short of touching the soiled fabric. “You must be furious.”

Cass looked down at her soggy gown. Even the rosary hanging from her belt had gotten dirty. Cass wiped the coral and rosewood crucifix clean in the folds of her skirt. The dress was obviously ruined, but she had always found it a bit uncomfortable, and she had plenty of others.

“You’re lucky you weren’t hurt,” Liviana’s uncle said sternly. “I hope that teaches you not to wander the streets unaccompanied again.”

“Who was he?” Madalena asked in a whisper as Cass allowed her to take her arm and lead her back to the church.

“No idea.” Cass realized she was trembling. Her heart thudded against the walls of her rib cage. The sting in her palm was already fading to a dull throb, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the boy’s devilish smile, or the feeling of his hands on her. Mostly, she couldn’t shake the image of those bright blue eyes that just for a second had gazed at her so intensely, in a way no one had ever looked at her before.

T
he gondola moved slowly through the murky water of the canal. A warm rain began to fall, clouding the air with a pale white fog. Cass, Siena, and Agnese huddled together in the
felze,
the three-sided enclosure in the middle of the boat. With a vigorous tug, Cass flipped open the slats on the felze and peered out across the canal. She followed the path of the rain, watching the drops form tiny circles on the surface of the water. A cluster of grand reddish-brown stone buildings floated by, their black shutters pulled tight like closed eyes. Agnese leaned over and snapped the blinds closed.

Cass sighed. “I still don’t see why we had to disturb everyone by leaving in the middle of the service.” Her face burned as she remembered the way her aunt had grabbed hold of her and Siena and dragged them through the group of mourners, coasting from the church on a wave of concerned whispers.

“You should have thought about that before you went tramping through mud puddles.” Agnese clucked her tongue. “At a funeral one must always respect the dead and one’s attire. Today you showed respect for neither.”