The dinner was over. Now the lush table looked more like a beach after a storm, and silent figures of the servants were trotting about it like the crabs cleaning up the leftovers. Everyone went to the salon filled with bitter-sweet aroma of coffee, that evoked dreams of hot deserts and fairy tales of the Arabian night. I quietly left the other ladies after a while and went out onto the terrace.
After my “testing” I needed a moment to recover. From the terrace I could see the cage being carefully loaded into the boat. “Assunta will be delighted!” I thought with a little mischievous complicity. Maybe she would even lock herself in her rooms for another week or two. That would be lovely.
I admired the velvet night sky. The light breeze chilled my skin, and the charming fragrance of the night made me a bit dizzy. The tops of the cypress trees looked silver-blue in the moonlight and I could hear the dark water whispering something to the mossy steps below in the canal.
“So you do have the gift of chiamata. I was surprised, really.”
A familiar slender figure stepped out of the darkness into the torchlight. Alessandro had replaced his usual black doublet with a dark blue one, though of the same dull cut, without any adornment. Well, let him get a smile after all he`d done for me at that dark cage.
“Now I hope you have no doubt that I am the real Julia Granacci, do you?”
I could feel his long glance from the dark shadow. He didn`t answer. He was thinking something over. Old suspicions, new facts, new guesses. New questions for me, I guessed. Well, this time I was all prepared.
Pulcino, my personal little bird, told me a lot of interesting things about that man. Signor Alessandro di Goro had been living in don Arsago's house since his childhood. His father died with signor Granacci back at the beginning of the Doge Soranzo's reign, when some patricians decided to remove don Arsago from his power. The conspirators attacked the Count in the temple with daggers – a betrayal and a sacrilege at once! However, don Arsago came out unscathed, though he lost two of his most loyal supporters. In memory of the merits of his father, the Count brought up his son, Alessandro.
Segnor di Goro lived in the Count`s mansion and was paid a big salary, yet he preferred to live like a monk: no gambling houses, no women, no satin or velvet. He only had one weakness: good weapon. Nobody could wield a sword better than he did. I had no idea what kind of man had managed to put a scar on his face, but to the best of my knowledge even the most notorious bravos refused to cross swords with him. But he wasn`t arrogant, not at all. And he didn`t wear a mask, though in Venetta no one would ever say a word about it. Was he deliberately making his own life more complicated?
“How on earth can you smile after all that`s happened?” he said. “Why… Do you realize how dangerous that could be? If the worst happened, I wouldn`t be able to help…”
“Oh, right. I could see you − armed at all points with a bowl of olives. I bet you were scared to death. And wished you had brought your sword with you!”
I was teasing him, but Alessandro didn`t show even a bit of an embarrassment. He only shrugged and smiled instead.
“That bowl seemed heavy enough…”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
His words made me laugh. I realized that it wasn`t decent or ladylike to be alone with a man and laugh like a drain, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to release the tension that paurozo had put me through.
“Then you are a hero! A knight of the tin bowl ran to save a poor girl from a sea monster!”
“Now you laugh again!” There was a kind of disapproval and relief in his voice. “All the guests were trembling with fear and only you were brave enough to tame that monster! Bravo, senhorita!”
We both laughed and that finally broke the ice between us. Well, just a little bit.
“That’s what they taught me at Terra dei Miracolo, after all. The ability to cope with your fears.”
That`s right. That was our third rule: every day when the time comes you have to go down into the crypt and wait. You don't know what will come out of the water. And whether anything will come out at all. But whatever comes to you from the sea, you must accept it.
Once I started talking, I`d never stop.
“There are two kinds of fear, you know? Everyone has their own phobias which seem common enough. But the fear of the unknown is worst of all. You can heal your phobia with meditation and some practice, but they won`t help you overcome the fear of something-you-have-never-seen. Have you ever thought about the old legends? People try to keep the names and habits of the sea creatures in any detail. That won`t protect them from the danger, of course. But these legends make the monsters more… understandable. Not so scary, you see. If you`ve heard a lot about the creature that`s looking at you from the depth now, at least you won`t go mad with fear.”
“Yes, I see.”
Alessandro`s voice was soft and deep. I saw him hold out his right arm. It was covered with ugly scars as well as his face, and two fingers reattached themselves badly, all crooked.
“That was my biggest fear. Since my childhood I`ve been afraid of being weak and useless. It`s been chasing me, my darkest nightmare. But when it actually happened… well, that day one big fear split apart into small understandable tasks. How long can you survive without opium? How many minutes a day do you have to torment your hand with exercises before the fingers become flexible again? And these tasks helped me overcome my fear. However, they didn`t save me from being a cripple.”
We went silent for a while. I couldn`t see his face in the darkness, and that must have given him some confidence to speak to me like that.
“Still, your gift is very dangerous, in spite of all your training and experience.” Eventually, he wasn`t going to give it up so easily. “Yesterday I learned that a girl had died on Terra dei Miracolo. About a week ago – just when you got here. One of the novices.”
“You weren’t wasting your time, obviously.” I thought to myself.
“Did the fishermen tell you? Don`t worry, they`re just rumors.”
Don Alessandro, however, looked incredulous. His straight brows were set in a stubborn frown. I tried to laugh, but it didn't work.
“There are many frightening tales about chiamata. You don`t really think that the stones in our crypt are soaked with the innocent blood, do you? I understand, it`s all about the legends about the saints and the Holy Viadora. As for me, I believe that the sea is falling into a deep sleep every year. It can hardly hear us. You can spend years in a convent and yet never have a chance to see anything coming from the sea.”
“So there were no accidents during your stay on Terra dei Miracolo?"
“Never.” I was honest that time. “But all those rumors just help people overcome their fear of the sea. You know what it`s like: to be completely dependent on the sea, when your boat may be swallowed by a storm tomorrow, or the fish will suddenly disappear from the lagoon, or you won`t find a trace of your neighbor in the morning… Chiamatie is a kind of intermediary, or better say, a scapegoat for them. That`s why they make a big thing out of any news leaked from the convent. "Those-who-live-under-the-waves have taken another victim." That gives the fishermen more confidence and help them live on.
Alessandro didn`t answer. He kept staring at the moon that rose higher and painted the roofs and shutters with silver, creating strange vague shades between the houses. I caught my breath.
“Even now, when the light of the true faith has reached the most distant lands, there are still people who believe that human blood spilled on the altar is much better protection. More reliable than all the prayers and righteous deeds.”