Chapter 12 #4
Roughly pushing his captive down into the boat, he pulled a dark cloth over her head.
Francesca was still screaming for help that didn’t come.
The truth was her voice wasn’t even heard over the shouting of the bargemen, Alessandro Venier’s servants, and her own gondoliers, now splashing about in the waters of the canal where they had been tossed.
What was happening to her? Who was this man dragging her from the wonderful life she had planned?
Francesca began to cry. She was suddenly very frightened, finding it difficult to breathe, and her belly was roiling in her cramped, overheated position. Without warning, she fainted.
When she opened her eyes again she found herself suspended in the air between the little gondola below and a larger vessel above.
Beneath her, she saw the oars of a galley.
Francesca shrieked as her body, still sheathed in the wedding gown, swayed.
She was being winched up, she realized, as a ship’s rail appeared just beneath her.
Several men ran to bring her on board, gently swinging her over the rail, lowering her to the deck, and unfastening her from the device that had held her.
Freed, Francesca found her legs were somehow managing to keep her upright despite her terror.
“Beloved!” A tall, handsome man hurried forward.
He was dressed in full white pants sashed in dark green and a white shirt open at the neckline, which displayed in part a bronzed chest. His face was clean-shaven but for a well-barbered dark goatee, and his eyes were a gorgeous shade of dark blue.
“Did I not say I would come for you, Bianca?” He lifted the veil covering her face, looked at her, and stepped back in surprise.
“Who in Allah’s name are you?” he demanded.
He whirled about, roaring, “You have taken the wrong woman, you fools!”
Francesca began to laugh as her fears evaporated with the knowledge of who this man must be.
“No, no, signore, do not berate them. My sister and I exchanged places this morning, for I love Enzo Ziani and she insisted her prince would come.” Then without warning her belly rebelled and she vomited all over the toes of his dark boots.
“Who are you?” he asked her, signaling a seaman to clean the mess up with a bucket of seawater. “Let us walk the deck,” he said to the bride, “and you will tell me.”
“I am Francesca Pietro d’Angelo, signore, Bianca’s younger sister.
I have been living with my grandfather here in Venice since I turned twelve a year and a half ago.
I was being prepared for a Venetian marriage.
Then our parents sent Bianca here, and Nonno decided that Bianca was to wed my Enzo.
” Francesca went on to explain the whole plot to him.
Amir ibn Jem could not help but laugh when she had finished. His clever Bianca had been fortunate in having this younger sister who was willing, nay, eager to help her.
“Where is she now?” he asked Francesca.
“Hiding at Nonno’s palazzo,” the girl answered him.
“If you wish to rescue her, you don’t have a great deal of time, signore.
And you must escape Venice as well, for they will know it is you who has taken her.
She has insisted for months to any and all who would listen that you would not fail her. Where are we now?”
“Anchored in the middle of the lagoon between the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Lido,” Amir replied. “How far is that from your grandfather’s palazzo, Francesca?”
“The little canal to his palazzo is towards the end of the Grand Canal just past Santa Maria della Salute. I can show you, for you will have to get me back.”
“I apologize for spoiling your wedding day,” Amir said.
“It wasn’t really mine,” Francesca responded.
“I will marry Enzo one day, but when I do he will know it is me, and that I love him. I was foolish to believe otherwise. I think everyone is correct. I am too young to marry right now. But had you not kidnapped me, signore, I should not have had the time to realize it. There is a great deal more to marriage than just a beautiful gown and a flower-bedecked gondola, I am told. But we must hurry now or you will lose the opportunity to regain your own love.”
“I told my bargemen to keep everyone busy until my ship had a chance to make the open sea. They will do their best to delay the search for the stolen bride, but you are correct in that we must hurry,” Amir told the young girl.
He gave orders in a language that Francesca didn’t understand, and then she found herself being lowered once again into the small gondola.
Amir swung himself down beside her, and then they were being poled away from the prince’s ship.
The gondolier rowed very quickly across the lagoon and into the Grand Canal.
Francesca directed him to the little side canal where her grandfather’s palazzo was located.
“The servants will all be busy preparing for the wedding feast, and drinking Nonno’s wine while he is not there to catch them,” the girl told the prince. “If we are careful and quick we can slip into the house easily.”
And they did, hurrying up the wide marble staircase and going down the hall to the apartment that the two sisters shared.
Agata jumped with surprise when Francesca came into the room, but then seeing the familiar figure of Prince Amir she gave a little cry, which caused Bianca to come forth from her bedchamber.
Seeing her sister, she gasped with surprise, but then she saw Amir. Her aquamarine eyes widened, and then filled with tears. “You came!” she said, and the tears spilled down her pale cheeks.
He stepped forward, enfolding Bianca into his arms. “I came,” he agreed. “Did I not promise you that I would?”
“It seems as if it has been forever,” Bianca told him.
“We have not much time in which to make our escape, beloved,” he told her.
“Agata, come and help me get the dark color out of my hair,” Francesca said.
“Do not be long,” the prince warned the servingwoman. Then, taking Bianca aside, he explained to her the farce that had transpired as he kidnapped the bride and had her brought to his ship.
Bianca found the whole thing very funny, and laughed as she had not in many months. But then realizing that they were still in danger, she stood up. “What shall I take?” she asked him.
“Nothing but Agata, if she would come,” he said. “I have the proper garments for you both upon my ship, beloved. Your Venetian finery would not be at all suitable for the life you are to lead. Are you still certain you would come with me, Bianca?”
“Yes! And yes a thousand times, Amir ibn Jem, heart of my heart,” she told him.
“Agata, come! We have to go now or we risk being caught.”
Francesca’s hair was now free of the dark dye, but wet. She ran to Bianca and hugged her hard. “Be happy, dearest sister!” Then she whispered, “He is quite outrageously handsome, Bianca. I don’t blame you.”
“I’m so sorry your wedding to Enzo was spoiled,” Bianca told her younger sibling. “If you truly love him, Francesca, do not settle for another.”
“I won’t,” Francesca replied. “But first I will make him jealous. Now go quickly before you get caught, and your prince imprisoned. The doge would love such a captive.”
The two women and the prince left the apartment and hurried downstairs to flee the palazzo.
Francesca had been correct. The servants had been so busy drinking their master’s wine, and preparing for the wedding feast expected to commence shortly, that the fugitives had managed to come and depart without ever being seen.
They entered the waiting gondola. Within a short time, they were rowed out of the Grand Canal and across the lagoon and hoisted up onto the deck of the galley.
The gondolier, to their surprise, came too, for he was actually one of the prince’s men. The little vessel floated off.
Bianca and Agata were escorted to a large cabin, where Amir left them to change into their Turkish garments while he gave orders for the ship to escape Venetian waters before the precious cargo it carried was discovered.
The clothing, while totally different from what they had worn all their lives, was beautifully made.
They each pulled on pantaloons, which they sashed at the waist, a modest long-sleeved shirt, a sleeveless vest, and comfortable slippers.
There was a single sheer silk veil for head and face that they quickly realized was for the younger woman.
The clothing was exquisitely made, of the finest materials.
One set was the shade of a ripe melon, and Agata had immediately realized it was for her mistress, as it was decorated with small jewels and gold fringe.
The other, which she now wore, was plain but actually a very pretty sea blue in color.
When the two women ventured back onto the main deck, suitably clothed in their new garb, it was to see the shining towers and domes of Venice fading into the distance, and the open sea stretching ahead of them.
A new life awaited them, and Bianca looked happier and more at ease than her servingwoman thought she had in months.
Agata did not know what awaited them beyond the sea ahead, but Bianca’s joy was too potent to ignore.
Whatever they faced, it would be good, the servingwoman decided.