Belladonna

eleven

Vampires?” Mada squeaked. Cass could only stare. The brick had been forced so far down the girl’s throat that it looked as if her jaw had been dislocated.

“Bitten, anyway,” the man said. He let the white shroud fall back over the girl’s face. “We bind their hands with silver and put the bricks in their mouths so that they cannot escape their shrouds if they turn.” He looked Cass and Madalena up and down with his dark, sharp eyes. “You’d best be careful if you stop in Florence. There’s been a run of vampire attacks recently, mostly on young women.”

“A girl is attacked by a vampire and your solution is to kill her and dump her body in the countryside?” Cass asked, her voice rising in pitch.

The man glanced over at the two men digging. The pile of soil at the edge of the trench was growing in size. “There is no cure once you’ve had the bite. You’ll either die or become a vampire yourself. We’ve started drowning them.” He spat on the ground. “The magistrate won’t allow us to stake them or burn them because he thinks the blood and ashes might spread the affliction. The way I see it, no matter what, we are doing them a favor.”

Cass looked toward the trench and felt nausea welling in her chest. “But what if they do wake up in there? They’ll be trapped underground, for eternity.” Before anyone could stop her, she headed across the high grass toward the wooden cross and the hole in the ground beside it. Mada hurried after her, and the maidservants followed.

The girls stood around the open grave. Cass couldn’t help but remember the nightmare she’d had before she left Venice. The one of herself stretched out beneath the ground, bound to the bones of her parents. As she and the others watched, the two men flung shovel after shovel of dirt onto a pile. The hole grew deeper and wider, like a mouth waiting to swallow them whole.

The men ignored the girls completely. When they were satisfied with their work, they dropped their shovels and went to retrieve one of the bundles from the cart. Madalena looked positively horrified as the men carried over the first girl.

The first body.

The first vampire.

Cass took a step back from the edge of the grave, again envisioning herself encased in dirt, white-wrapped bodies falling from the sky, as they had in her dream. She couldn’t help but wonder what Falco would have thought of this scene. He didn’t believe in vampires. To him this would be madness. Paranoia. Murder sanctioned by the Church.

For the thousandth time, she was struck by the differences between herself and Falco. The two of them had lived in the same city, but in completely different worlds. Cass was foolish to ever dream they could be together. Her parents and Aunt Agnese, they had been right all along. Luca da Peraga was the proper man for her. Regardless of whatever charges Dubois had trumped up against him, Luca was a good man who believed in the Church. In right and wrong. Luca was the same as she was, when it came to the things that mattered.

A second white-wrapped body went into the hole, sending up a sudden draft from deep beneath the ground. Cass shivered. She wished Feliciana and Siena would step back from the edge of the grave.

A clap of thunder sounded. Cass glanced up at the sky. Billowing gray clouds were rolling in. She could just barely make out the hazy tips of the Apennines behind them. The third body landed with a soft thud.

A guttural wail broke the grim silence. Cass snapped her head around to where the pack of dogs had been. They were scattering into the trees, as though even they could not bear to stand witness to this. The two men with shovels began to replace the dirt over the white-wrapped corpses. There was no funeral, no priest. There were not even any words spoken.

“What of their families?” Cass asked, her voice trembling. “Is there no one here who will speak over their bodies?”

“They don’t have families anymore,” one of the men said. He pulled a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his brow. “They are not human. No priest will speak for their souls.”

The sky rumbled again. The air was still dry, but the wind had picked up. “What proof was there that they were bitten by vampires?” Cass crossed her arms, warming herself.

“They have all the symptoms,” the man said grimly. “Weakness, pale skin, delirium.”

“But that is nothing,” Cass protested. “Maybe they just fell ill. Maybe they succumbed to a new strain of plague.”

The man shook his head. “They had the marks too. Puncture wounds on the neck, all identical.” He looked back at Cass. “Fangs,” he said, as if she hadn’t understood.

Marco had stayed near the wagons this whole time, overseeing the men struggling to fix the broken axle. Now he strode across the grass and joined the girls by the freshly dug grave.

“This is far too gruesome a scene to attract the attention of ladies so lovely.” His voice was light, but he drew Cass and Mada firmly away from the gravesite. “The axle is almost fixed and a storm is brewing. We should be under way shortly.”

“But Marco,” Mada protested. “These men say that Florence is overrun with vampires.”

Marco touched his hand to Madalena’s lower back and steered her across the grass. “Come, my goddess. You’ll have nightmares.” A gust of wind stole away part of his next words. “. . . die before I let anyone hurt you, right?”

Mada rotated her face in toward Marco’s chest. “But you’re going to be so busy.” She sounded childlike, honestly afraid.

Marco kissed the top of her head. “Not too busy to protect my beautiful wife.” He led her back toward the carriage, and the rest of the girls turned away from the grave as a group.

The driver took the repaired carriage for a short test loop around the uneven ground of the field and then declared it fit for travel. Cass hopped back into the travel compartment and pulled the curtains closed across the window. Within moments, the group was heading toward Florence again.

A clap of thunder made the seat beneath Cass tremble. Parting the curtains with her fingers, she peeked out, expecting to be pelted with cold rain. But the air was dark and dry. The storm was chasing them, but it hadn’t yet caught up.

They left the field and the graves behind, passing through a series of rolling green hills. A sharp breeze tickled her skin as Cass leaned slightly out the window. She could just barely make out a jagged skyline in the distance. Florence. After a grueling week of travel, they were finally there.

By the time the carriages reached the outskirts of the city, the storm had blown past and night was beginning to fall. Again, Cass peeked out through the curtains.

Her first thought of Florence was that it was heavy and deserted. Large, hulking palazzos made of red and tan brick lined both sides of the cobblestoned streets. Elaborately painted chimeras loomed from the rooftops like hideous protectors. Most of the houses looked abandoned, their shutters pulled tight against the gathering dusk. The streets were mostly empty; there were no merchants returning home from a long day at the market, no peasant boys prowling for women and wine.

Cass inhaled deeply. The air was different, sharp and crisp, with only the faintest tinge of stale water from the Arno River, which cut through the city. She had grown used to the sweet moldy smell of Venice, to the low-hanging fog that blanketed everything. The air of Florence was a welcome change, clear and fresh.

Cass heard the crescendo of angry voices as the carriages rolled past a large, open piazza with a statue at its center. Here was where all the people were gathered, apparently. Peasants in brightly colored breeches and doublets stood in a throng around a statue. One of them was waving a piece of parchment.

“What are they doing?” Cass asked.

Marco leaned over to look out the window. “This is the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio, where the townspeople shop and gossip. It looks like they’re posting pasquinades.”

“Pasquinades?” Mada repeated, wrinkling her nose.

Marco gave her a squeeze. “Complaints against the church, public statements, and pronouncements. Nonsense, mostly. The citizens are always complaining about something.” He frowned. “The place where we’ll be staying is just off the piazza. I knew the square was always full of people, but I hope we won’t have to suffer their constant noise.”

“Here?” Mada squealed, wrinkling her nose. “This isn’t how I remember Palazzo Alioni at all. This whole neighborhood looks so run-down. So old.”

Marco nodded grimly as the driver slowed the horses to a stop. “Your father sent word to warn me that your aunt’s living conditions had deteriorated, but I had hoped for better than this.”

They had pulled over in front of a three-story palazzo made of red stucco and trimmed with marble. The chipped roof tiles and peeling paint made Cass think of Agnese’s villa. “It’s not so bad,” she said, with forced cheerfulness. “It looks lived-in.”

The carriage driver opened the wooden double doors that led into the palazzo’s courtyard. Mada’s face fell even further. Up close, the house looked even older than Agnese’s villa, and the only thing growing in the garden was weeds. A rusty bucket sat on the edge of a well. Mada turned to Cass incredulously. “It looks like no one’s lived here for a hundred years,” she insisted. “There’s no one outside to greet us and not even a candle burning in the window. Did they forget we were arriving today?”

The driver had returned to the carriage and prepared to help the ladies out. He caught Mada’s last few words. “Many are afraid to be out on the streets after sunset,” he explained as he helped Cass step down from the high carriage. “Because of the vampires.”

Cass and Madalena exchanged a look. Mada reached down, her fingers finding the crucifix that dangled from her belt.

They made their way across the uneven stone courtyard. Each side of the palazzo’s wooden door was flanked with a faded banner emblazoned with a pair of white unicorns, their horns crossed as if in battle. Marco reached out and rapped sternly on the wood. A stooped and sagging butler opened the door after a few moments. He ushered them into the house and up into the portego.

The inside of the palazzo was a slight improvement over its exterior. The portego was wide and airy with high, vaulted ceilings and solid, if slightly worn, furniture. Giant murals decorated each wall, though the paint was faded in places, revealing the cracked plaster underneath. The candlelight illuminated only portions of the murals, so it took Cass a moment to realize she was standing next to a giant nude Eve holding an apple. She flinched slightly and turned away, but not before her eyes traced the Serpent’s coils all the way out to the forked tongue that was flicking in the direction of Eve’s exposed breasts.

The far wall was even worse: a white-wrapped Lazarus emerging from his tomb. It made Cass think of Liviana and the vampire girls and her dream of being buried alive. She shivered. The butler had disappeared into the bowels of the house. Cass hoped he was alerting the kitchen staff as well as the mistress about their arrival. She needed a cup of tea and something to eat.

Feliciana came up behind Cass. “This is where you expect me to find employment?” she whispered. “They don’t look like they are able to feed the staff they already have.”

“Don’t worry,” Cass whispered back. “If they can’t use you, we’ll find someone else here who can. At least you’re safe now.”

Madalena’s father emerged from the back of the house, his brilliant green-and-gold breeches lighting up the dingy room. A plump older woman in a lilac gown trailed behind him. Cass assumed this was Madalena’s aunt.

The woman smoothed the front of her bodice. “I’m Signora Stella Alioni.”

The signora had grown up on the Rialto with Mada’s father, and remnants of her Venetian accent still lingered. Cass found her speech easier to understand than that of the men outside the city.

“My husband is already asleep,” Signora Alioni continued. “He’s leaving for Padua in the morning on business. I’m so glad I’ll have a full house to keep me company while he’s away.” But as she looked over the group, her lower lip twisted into a frown. Perhaps she hadn’t anticipated hosting so many people. “The servants can double up with some of my staff, and I have a pair of empty bedrooms, one on this level and one upstairs. I do hope the noise from the piazza won’t keep you awake. This district has gotten a bit rough. All day I get to listen to angry peasants. At night, the square fills up with drunks and revelers.”

Cass was given the smaller room on the upper level of the house. Unlike parts of Venice, where first floors were unlivable because of the moisture that seeped up through the rock, the palazzos in Florence had actual cellars, which housed the wine and foodstuffs along with most of the serving staff. The upper level was usually for the senior staff: the butler, the head gardener, and the ladies’ maids.

Cass’s chamber was empty except for a bed, a washing table, a ratty old chair behind the door, and a dusty painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall. The floor was in need of a good sweeping, but otherwise the room was satisfactory, though it lacked an armoire, meaning Cass would have to live out of her trunk. As she perched on the edge of the small bed, she again felt a pang of loneliness for Slipper. Narissa had promised to attend to him while Cass was gone, but he was used to being spoiled, and Narissa would put a stop to that immediately. She had probably already put him to work in the butler’s pantry as a mouser. Cass smiled to herself. If Slipper did manage to catch a mouse, he’d be more likely to play with it than eat it.

Someone knocked loudly at her door and she jumped up, hoping it would be a servant offering her something warm to eat or drink. No such luck. It was the driver of the carriage, with her trunk. He dragged it unceremoniously into her room and left it sitting by the wall.

Cass pulled out her journal and checked to be sure the leather bundle of parchment was still hidden at the very bottom of her trunk, beneath her skirts and stays. It was. She dragged the old chair over to her washing table and pushed the basin for soaking collars and chemises back toward the wall. This would work just fine for writing in her journal. Now to find some ink.

She wandered back down to the piano nobile, the main floor of the palazzo, where she saw that the carriage drivers had just finished unloading the servants’ small trunks. Marco’s attendant, Rocco, was offering to carry Feliciana’s to her room for her. Cass raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a smile. Even skinny and bald, Feliciana managed to attract the attention of every man she met. A servant hurried by, and Cass asked for a pot of ink.

Ink in hand, she returned to her small room and sat down at her makeshift desk. She turned to a blank page and began to write.

The trip to Florence was long and bumpy, but breathtaking in places. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a forest, so many giant trees reaching for the heavens, with feathery green needles flaring out like fans. Even the air feels different here. Like for the first time in my life I’m able to breathe deeply, completely.

Our carriage broke an axle just outside of Florence. We came across a trio of men. They were digging a mass grave for a group of women who had been bitten by vampires; they are apparently running loose in the city of Florence. It was horrible. The men used bricks to—

The tip of her quill punctured the parchment. Cass realized her hands were trembling. She was thinking of the dream again, of being buried alive. It was almost worse than the dream of being attacked by Cristian. She wondered why she was being plagued with nightmares every time she closed her eyes. She laid the quill down on the washing table.

The letter from Falco poked out of the back of her journal. Cass resisted the urge to unfold it and read it for the thousandth time. His soft words would soothe her, but she was here to save Luca. He had led Cass here, to Florence. Now she just had to find the Book of the Eternal Rose, or at least Hortensa. Cass didn’t know if the donna was a member of the Order, but her husband was. Even if Hortensa refused to recant her testimony, she might say something useful. Something that could give Cass a place to start looking for the book.

Hooves thundered just outside her window. Cass peeked out, surprised to see not only a carriage passing by, but also seven or eight men mounted on horseback—servants, from the looks of their simple attire—riding alongside it. Silver bells hung from each horse’s bridle, jangling loudly as the group rode by. The handful of peasants still gathered around the statue in the piazza turned to watch the procession before returning to their conversation.

A boy wearing a leather doublet and a hat pulled low over his face appeared at the far side of the piazza. Cass watched him stumble across the cobblestones, a canteen dangling from one hand and a roll of parchment from the other. He could have been anyone—a student, a messenger—but Cass saw the parchment and could think only of artists, and of Falco. Midway across the piazza, the boy weaved dangerously and nearly bumped into one of the peasants.

Another carriage rolled by, horses whinnying sharply as whips cracked down on their hindquarters. Four men on horseback followed the carriage. One hollered a greeting to the peasants as he rode past.

Cass sat on the windowsill and gathered her skirts around her. She might not get much rest here, but at least Florence was more interesting than being isolated out on San Domenico Island. And the signora was right. The streets might be bare, but the piazza seemed to be full of traffic at all hours of the day.

Someone out there would be able to help her in her quest. Cass was certain of it. Hortensa Zanotta and the Book of the Eternal Rose were both in Florence, and Cass was determined to find them.