CHAPTER NINE
Madame Culatello, Quartiglia and I watched from the street’s shadows as, unnoticed as part of the crowd, Venera, Fennina, and Gordiana mingled with the masked and costumed partygoers. Like me, like Madame and the other ladies who’d volunteered for this caper, they wore cat masks and dressed like lads, and like me, each carried a wooden strongbox. One by one, they climbed the steep steps and entered the oak double doors of Count Prospero’s tall mansion.
Unsmiling, burly men wearing Count Prospero’s livery held torches and scrutinized each guest. At one point they blocked a masked gentleman from entering, and when he tried to force his way in, they scuffled with him until he abandoned his quest and fled. What he’d done to incur Count Prospero’s wrath, I didn’t know, but clearly these men were no simple servants. Rather they were bodyguards hired to protect their cruel lord, his belongings and his debauchery.
Intent on her mission, Berengaria disappeared around the corner into the darkness which shrouded the count’s house in secrecy. When the city clock rang out the hour, Madame Culatello, Quartiglia and I followed and discovered the gate in the wall that protected Count Prospero’s garden gave way when we touched it. Berengaria had picked the lock. We entered the grounds and hurried along, holding close to the tall house, until we reached an open window set on the wall above where we could see a single candle burned.
“What is that place?” Madame Culatello murmured softly. “Is it safe for her?”
For me, she meant.
Berengaria’s touch on my arm made me jump and gasp. She had swiftly returned, mission accomplished. Putting her finger to her lips, on the lightest breath she said, “I’ve only been in there once, for I had no talent for his vile games, but I believe that’s where the count sits for business.”
“What’s in there?” Madame asked.
“Not much. A desk. A chair. How much luxury does one man need to count his filthy money?”
“Go then,” Madame Culatello told her, and Berengaria and Quartiglia walked briskly to the back, then wandered into the house through the doors on the veranda, strongboxes in hand.
Then me, the last to arrive in Count Prospero’s home and in the most stealthy manner. Madame hoisted me up to sit on her bony shoulders. One at a time, keeping my balance, I put my feet under me and stood, pulled myself up and through the window to slide into his shadowy office.
Count Prospero’s lover, Uria, would not be joining us. She was confined in La Gnocca’s basement with an iron cuff around her ankle. When Madame Culatello questioned her about Count Prospero and what Uria had told him, she did not take betrayal lightly.
I leaned out to assure Madame Culatello I had landed safely and to take my two strongboxes from her outstretched hand. Struck by a sudden thought, I asked, “Madame, where will you be?” For in all our planning, she had never made that clear.
“I have my tasks to accomplish, Rosie. I intend that you’ll see me again tonight.” So saying, she was gone and I was alone in the den of a wealthy beast Machiavelli himself would be proud to claim as his own.
In stark contrast to the rest of the house, his office was utilitarian, with a wooden desk, an uncomfortable folding wooden stool, stacks of parchment, and a single candle lit to illuminate the numbers that added up the profits from whatever nefarious ventures Count Prospero supported. One painting hung on the wall, a terrifying rendition of the prince of darkness rising above hell’s flames, where the condemned writhed in eternal agony. I performed a quick search that revealed nothing, lifted the painting and looked beneath. Not a secret hiding place; merely a plaster wall. Naturally Prospero didn’t leave the diamond ring unguarded, curse him. That would be too convenient.
From his office I slipped down the dim corridor where lovers kissed and groped and in one case grunted in rhythmic animal delight, following the lights, the noise and the music to the ballroom.
There gilt, satyr-shaped sconces grinned and glittered in the flames of their countless candles; such an illumination was itself a conspicuous display of wealth.
The room smelled of sumptuous foods perfumed with cinnamon, long pepper and grains of paradise, and of sweat caused by the crowds of masked revelers who ate, danced, fought and flirted with abandon.
These men and women I possibly knew but didn’t recognize, for they arrived at this party to behave with a delirium they would never dare in daylight and with exposed faces.
Servers wearing Count Prospero’s livery carried flagons of wine and filled cups held out by greedy hands, and these men, like the ones outside with the torches, were cut from a rougher cloth than most household attendants.
Each seemed chosen for his height and bulk, and they viewed the merrymakers with a faint contempt that made me shy away from the drink they served.
Count Prospero, I feared, wouldn’t hesitate to add an aphrodisiac or a sleeping potion to the cups...or poison.
Whatever would serve his purpose.
Among the crowd I observed my compatriots; Madame Culatello’s most trusted ladies, all dressed in a variety of male garb like mine, each holding a wooden box and wearing a cat’s mask with a jewel that pierced its ear.
Gentle reader, you might wonder how a house of women dedicated to pleasure could on the spur of the moment scrounge up five costumes of male garb.
When I asked, they chortled, and Venera informed me that some gentlemen enjoyed the attentions of women dressed as boys...and some gentlewomen, also.
All laughed again at my astonishment, and Quartiglia teased me as all do about my virginity.
I wanted to indignantly inform these five women that while it’s true my imene is intact, thanks to their ceiling I know perfectly well what goes where.
I didn’t say a word.
I knew they’d only laugh more merrily.
Who was I to tell these women anything? Apparently I comprehended little about the sexual varieties available apart from the basic act, for the ladies assured me that role-playing, games and other deeds—they poked each other with their elbows and refused to discuss these—were also part of the activities.
I supposed that explained my parents’ constant and inexplicable enthusiasm for il reporti sessuali, and I stowed my new knowledge away, somewhat comforted by the realization I didn’t have to spend an hour every night bored by the marriage bed goings-on.
Although this evening Prince Escalus had showed remarkable aptness for...
He wasn’t here, thoughts of him would not intrude on my night of freedom and most definitely not on my mission, and I thrust him from my mind.
Yet a small thought of him did linger, for I knew the dire outcome if he discovered tonight’s escapade.
Which would release me from this abhorrent betrothal...and, at best, send me to a nunnery as a penitent whore.
Failure was not an option for all the reasons, selfish and unselfish.
Like duke of some great city, Count Prospero occupied a throne on a dais at the head of the ballroom. I was struck by this powerful man with his vigorous build, tall and broad shouldered, muscled like a farmer that in his youth labored behind a plow, and by the elegant garments designed to accentuate his brawn and intimidate his guests. The full-face scarlet mask, with its twisted horns and glittering gold liner around the eyes and on the smiling open lips, heightened his demonic menace.
Guests lined up before him and, when directed by his majordomo, removed their masks, knelt before the count, kissed his ring, prostrated themselves, clasped their hands in supplication, cringed and cried. The procedures hypnotized me with the complexity of the ritual, the palpable fear and the sensual scent of evil that surrounded the dais.
Yet I experienced the euphoria of knowing that because I could successfully scheme to adjust my life and the lives of others, we would not pay his mighty ransom. We would recover Princess Isabella’s ring. Most important, Count Prospero would learn a lesson he would never forget.
Now, I realized this man plotted and schemed with a craftiness equal to mine, but while my plans helped the innocent and adjusted events for good, Count Prospero wielded a whole different weaponry that could result in victory for him.
Berengaria eschewed the steps and leaped up on the dais, a formidable jump that only a woman who could crush a man between her strong thighs could perform. He flinched when he caught a glimpse of her, so close when he was unguarded. A quick examination provided evidence that she was merely a female, and he was intrigued enough to beckon her forward.
She handed him the note.
He took it in big, battered, beef-shank-sized hands, broke the wax seal, read it. I knew what it said, for it had been dictated by me and penned by Madame Culatello.
Egregio Count Prospero, feared and loved, most repellent of dreadful nobles, he who brings calamity before him and trembling in his wake,
I offer a wager of interest to the great lord in the scarlet satyr mask,
As you instructed, the whole of the ransom is inside of a strongbox. In fact, in one of the strongboxes you see carried by the ladies disguised as lads. Should you immediately choose wisely, the whole of the ransom as well as the ring are yours.
Game over.
In each of the other strongboxes, a portion of the ransom is within. That portion is yours, but you lose 25 gold coins from the whole. With the second, fifty. If you again choose poorly, you’ve lost the wager and will deliver the ring to La Gnocca with your vow to never speak of these circumstances and this night.
You may, of course, keep the gold coins you have obtained during the process of the wager.
Game over.
Signed,
Your admiring servant, least among least, unworthy but ever a gambler in life and with chance... Do you have the courage to accept those terms?
I hear you. You’re saying, Rosie, this is your brilliant plan? Upon what do you predicate your success? Even if he fails to choose the strongbox with the hundred gold coins, will he honor the wager? Will he produce the ring? And if not, how will you find it?
When he finished reading, he spoke to Berengaria.
She nodded, the signal I needed.
He had agreed to the wager.
She offered her strongbox.
He laughed and waved it away, not believing the strongbox so easily held by one woman could have contained the heavy coins.
His mistake, for she did indeed carry the ransom.
As Berengaria turned, she faced the ballroom, I saw her lightly stroke the finger of one hand with the finger of another.
A signal.
She then leaped like a gazelle off the stage onto the tile floor and disappeared into the crowd.
Count Prospero’s cold-blooded gaze followed her.
Somehow, although her back had been turned, he’d discerned her action, for he lifted his right hand, bare except for one small ring worn on the second knuckle of his little finger.
A ring that glittered with the dark fire of a large and dangerous stone.
Well. Now I knew where it was, and for a moment, my courage failed me, for how could I win against such a devious, evil, vigorous beast?
His gaze now flicked over the ballroom, looking for the women dressed as lads, and perhaps for the one to whom Berengaria had passed her message.
I quickly turned away, but something compelled me to glance behind.
He had fixed his concentration on me. Somehow, somehow, he identified me as his foe...or his prey.
Did I stand out so much? Or was he so good at reading the masses?
Beneath his mask, pale eyes glittered. His tongue, snakelike and greedy, flicked out from between the mask’s horrible, grinning lips, tasting the air as if he recognized his plan was coming to fruition. He waved his sycophants away—they scurried like cockroaches—and stood, his gaze still fixed on me. One supplicant dared touch his thigh; he kicked her away and continued on his path.