CHAPTER TEN
I stood, frozen like a mouse caught in the hungry gaze of an asp. Indeed, everything about Count Prospero seemed compelling, an illusion created to fascinate and frighten.
He had one foot on the step that would put him on the dance floor when a strong hand grabbed me by the wrist and yanked so hard I stumbled sideways and into the midst of a formation of women dressed like lads.
Venera grasped my arm and led me forcibly into the swirl of guests. “What were you thinking, Rosie?”
“I wasn’t—”
“Obviously!”
As we walked, Quartiglia stripped me of Isabella’s short blue cape and wrapped me in her long cerise cloak to disguise me and cover the box I held. Berengaria shoved her box at me and took mine, then passed that one off to Venera. Fennina jostled through the crowd, another two boxes changed hands, and anyone who watched was confused by who was who and who carried what.
I hoped.
I glanced behind me but could see nothing but swarms of masked guests and Gordiana, who brought up the rear. “You don’t engage that man in a pissing match. You of all people!” she scolded.
“Not if you want to come out unscathed. For this to succeed, you must remain free!” Quartiglia body-blocked a gentleman who sought to break through our circle.
It occurred to me, as we hustled into the relative safety of the crowd, that these women were tall.
I mean...tall.
Not possibly man-tall like Madame Culatello, but woman-tall like, um, tall women.
Their boobs were at my eyesight line.
Was this what it took to be a desirable, successful sex salesperson in Verona? Did men want to be intimidated? Because while I was not woefully lacking in height, I did not possess the Amazonian dimensions of these women.
Usually if I lacked confidence, I assured myself I was smarter than anyone around me, but these women—they survived and thrived in a tough market.
Truly, I perhaps viewed the matter incorrectly.
Maybe to be successful, they had to live through each encounter and their strength, reach and agility would discourage a vicious male and enhance their chances of survival.
Certainly having them on my team meant we had a better chance of tonight keeping Madame Culatello’s fortune and winning custody of Princess Isabella’s ring.
Satisfied with my analysis, I watch them as they displayed their wares in ways that riveted the attention of men and women.
They hid in plain sight, obviously female and definitely scandalous, and among them, I had vanished.
The results of this night, I realized, would bring an increased trade to La Gnocca, but first they had to live through it. We all had to live through it...or none would survive.
I set my mind to the plan. “Has Count Prospero once again mounted the dais?”
Berengaria joined us, and she held her strongbox in her hands. “Yes, but he’s dispatching his guards around the ballroom. They’re on the hunt.”
“Break off two by two,” I instructed. “Then go alone. If you’re captured by one of Prospero’s knaves, open your strongbox and use the distraction to escape at once. Return to La Gnocca and wait for...” I glanced around but could see nothing but guests. “Has Madame Culatello not joined us yet?”
Heads shook.
“Where did she go?” Quartiglia asked.
I saw the great concern her absence caused her ladies. “She said she had a task. She is most competent and we can trust she’ll return without delay.” I crossed myself in reverent hope.
The ladies followed suit.
“Now go!” I gestured.
The ladies moved quickly, at once losing themselves in the crowd, and I was left to make my own way among guests, distracted time and again by a laugh that sounded familiar or a costume that glittered with gold thread. Neighbors who embroiled themselves in scandal, I thought, and, knowing the Montagues and the Capulets, family.
I heard murmurs start, for while I had bound my breasts and fluffed my codpiece, Madame Culatello’s ladies had not. They looked like, moved like sensual cat women on the prowl.
Speculation started, too, from men and from women.
“What are they holding?” “What could be in the strongboxes?” “Money? A message? Is there holy symbolism? Or devilish meaning?”
And of course, “Who are these women who so boldly go among us in male garb?”
Like a drumbeat of doom, the first of great wooden outer doors slammed shut, then the second, then one of Prospero’s henchmen lowered the bar and hooked it through the iron fixtures. Those of us at the party were trapped, and a man’s gravelly voice proclaimed, “Count Prospero has proclaimed all will unmask when the city clock chimes lauds!”
Lauds. The dawn. That first indication of morning’s light...and far too soon for my plan to succeed.
Shouts of denial issued from every throat and echoed back and forth between the walls, up to the high gilded ceiling and down to the tile floor.
“You have one hour!” the gravelly voice shouted.
No upright citizen of Verona wished to display themselves in this notorious masquerade.
Were they married? They could lose their families.
Were they perceived as honorable? They could lose their prestige.
Were they holy, monks, nuns, saints? The taint of this unhallowed place would tarnish them in the public eye and the eye of the Lord.
Yet for me, a single thought cheered and calmed. Count Prospero challenged me, for he feared he could lose: the wager and his own unblemished reputation for terror.
From behind me, I heard Venera’s panicked voice. “Rosie, the way out is gone. What do we do?”
I turned toward her, still smiling. “We follow through with our plan with increased vigor, for now unless we wish to show our faces—”
“You do not.”
“No. So we have a deadline.” I grinned at her. “Count Prospero seeks to frighten and intimidate, but remember, we’re not lofty nobles. We’re molded from the common clay.”
Venera stilled. “Are we?”
“My family are vintners.” It was true. The Montagues made fine wines. We had risen from the rich dirt of the Veneto to be prosperous and respected, and at the same time, we kept our estates where we grew our grapes. “What about your family?”
She hesitated as if the memories pained her, then confessed, “Long ago they were respectable merchants in Florence. They wished me to marry a toothless decaying lord to gain a title for our family. I would not, and my parents...I don’t care where they are. I’ve made a new life, and now my family resides at La Gnocca.” She nodded decisively. “Yes, it’s well to remember who we are and what we seek.”
“We can escape through back entrances and open windows, and we don’t hesitate to descend to a lower level to leave this place. No locked and barred doors can hold us, and we have no fear for our plan is sound.” If I do say so myself, I give a good pep talk.
“Look, there he is, Count Prospero himself.” Venera pointed at a satyr-masked man in shadowed clothing and gave me a push. “Go quickly!”
I ducked through the crowd, and as I did, from across the ballroom, I heard Gordiana shout, “My strongbox. He took my strongbox! Thief! Thief!” She projected well; had she once been a singer in the trovatori?
A few voices took up the shout of Thief!
Then a call of, “What’s inside? Let’s see what’s inside!”
Ah, curiosity. I had depended on that, and when men and women started screaming and, toward the door, shouting to Prospero’s henchmen to open, I knew my plan was proceeding as I desired.
Berengaria bellowed, “Open or die!”
How I loved these women! How well they improvised their parts!
Quartiglia bumped me from behind.
Startled, I jumped.
“Getting nervous, Lady Rosaline?” She grinned cheekily.
It seemed I was.
“I see Count Prospero to the left. Go right!” she instructed.
I nodded. We exchanged boxes and parted ways, with me going across the river of people flooding toward the front door.
The box weighed more than any of the others I’d held. With the rushing here and there and the being on constant lookout, I was tiring, and the burden dragged at my arms.
Then! Somehow, Count Prospero found me again. I caught a glimpse of him fighting his way toward me. I fled, glancing behind me, not understanding how he had tracked me, how he managed to be so many places at once.
I was sweating, wrapped in the linen to disguise my figure, and sweating more as thoughts unnerved me. Was Count Prospero indeed demonic? In league with the devil himself?
As I looked back, I slammed into a man’s body. He grabbed me by the arms, steadied me, and asked, “Rosie, what’s wrong?”
I stared in astonishment. In the light, Madame Culatello in gentleman’s clothing looked very manlike, her voice an octave lower than I’d previously heard, yet her face was as feminine as before. She held a strongbox tucked under her arm, and when I said, “Come on!” she followed without question.
I dragged her behind a velvet curtain. “Count Prospero has tagged me. He finds me wherever I am.” I feared him, a man who reveled in and abused his power, and I admit to panic. It had seemed so simple tonight when Count Prospero had thrown down the challenge. Now I realized how much more I had to lose than I had imagined: if he hunted me down, I would die.
She peeked out the right side of the curtain and stared over the heads of the milling crowd. “No. Oh, Rosie, no! That’s—”
On the left side, a massive, battered, beef-shank-sized fist clutched the velvet and the man in the scarlet satyr mask flung it back to reveal us.
Madame Culatello gasped. “No! Rosie, run!” She leaped at him, slammed herself into him. It was like seeing a ram attack an ox, for Count Prospero both outweighed her and contained within himself the ability—nay, the desire—to subjugate and harm.
I did run. I darted toward a heavy pewter candlestick, seized it and ran back to find a smiling Count Prospero held her by the throat.
I slammed him in the ribs with the candlestick, and gentle reader, I was fighting for a friend. I connected with a solid thump.
He shrugged off my blow and smashed her in the face with his fist. She flew backward and hit the window. The precious glass broke beneath her skull and shattered outward and she collapsed.
Her strongbox flew from her hands, bounced on the tiles, opened and—two squeaking dormice skittered in opposite directions, and four gold coins rolled in crazed circles across the floor.
I wound up for another hit.
He batted my weapon away as if it were no more than a mosquito.
The worst had happened. Count Prospero had hunted me down. My protector had been vanished. I was weaponless, on my own, and there was no point in being afraid now. I looked into the pale eyes behind the mask, and with a calm that denied the crowd’s screams, the fights starting all around, and his towering menace, I said, “That’s your second box, Count Prospero. You have only one more to choose, and you lose the wager.”