Candle in the Attic Window(54)
Returning to my lodgings as fast as my shaking legs would carry me, I ordered a magnificent supper, along with a basin of warm water and some scented soap to be sent up to my room. Once my feast had been laid out, the curious eyes of the servant had departed and my cleaning materials set out, I removed the miraculous deck from my pouch. My first thought – to remove all trace of that painter’s contamination from the lovely images. As I worked-oh, so carefully – wiping the grime and mire of his fingers from the beautiful faces and gowns, I felt a warmth growing in my breast. A stirring of love such as I had felt for no living creature in my existence.
When my toilette of the cards was complete, I poured myself a goblet of golden wine. Before bringing it to my lips, I dipped my finger in the warm liquid and turned up a card, touching a drop of wine to that first card, The Empress. The card and I shivered as one. She was pleased.
Throughout the long night, I brought forth one and then another card, each succeeding image more beautiful than the previous one. Truly, Della Gabella had been a master. The miraculous pictures shewed story after story: dreaming cities where nothing living stirred, peopled with strange, angular towers of jade and obsidian that twisted and turned, seeming to disappear into themselves. That night, the cards took me to places that mere mortals had never been – even in dreams.
By morning, I was exhausted and exhilarated beyond words. The perfume from the images, exotic hints of violets, earth and despair, had lodged itself in my brain. When the peal of the carillon announced it was time to return to Ferrara, I experienced an anguish that wracked my bones, causing me to tremble in the fibre of my being. I now was certain of only one thing. I must possess them ... this ... miracle – but how?
The High Priestess
Zoesi’s appearance when he returned from that excursion – spinning, fizzing with unharnessed energy – frightened me. It told me that something untoward had occurred.
“Were you successful?” I questioned.
“Oh, yes, My Lady, beyond all expectations.” His voice was so low, so slurred, I could barely hear him.
“May I see them?” I said, holding out my palm. As he slipped his fingers inside his tunic to retrieve the deck, his hand shook like an ancient’s crippled with palsy. Claw-like fingers gripped the gilded packet as I wrenched my treasure from them. His pallor spoke of torment at relinquishing the prize. But it was his eyes, the rage in his eyes, which set my heart racing and my limbs shaking with fear.
“Thank you, Zoesi. That will be all.”
“My Lady.” Without another word, he turned and stalked out of my chamber. Observing his retreating back, I knew I had made an enemy.
In the days after his return, I observed Zoesi’s behaviour. His eyes, when he watched me, were twisted with lust and anger. If I did not know that he preferred the hard, smooth limbs of young men, I might have mistaken this as frustrated desire for my own favours. I knew better. Zoesi’s passion was for my golden Imperatori Tarocchi di Firenze.
He could not, would not have them. They were mine! The minute those golden gems settled like a lover or a child into my tiny palms, I knew that we had been intended for each other. The blackness of his eyes told me that Zoesi wanted my treasure. How far would he go to possess them? This would be a battle to the death, if need be. I trembled with fear at thoughts of the outcome.
I was girding myself for the conflict, rehearsing reasons I could give my husband for dismissing Zoesi, when I received an unexpected boon. Plague had spread its ugly countenance over the rat-infested streets of Ferrara. My husband, fearing for my safety, ordered that I withdraw for the summer to the countryside and take my stepson with me. I determined to take the golden deck with us, believing that removing the cards from Zoesi’s proximity would diminish his lust for them.
Ah, if that had been the only snare of which to be cautious. A far greater danger awaited.
Codigoro, away from the miasma of Ferrara, was lovely that summer. In the long, clement evenings, Ugo and I would sit close together in a bower by the River Po. Sheltered and screened from servants’ prying, in our canopy of vines and willows, we laid out the cards again and again, letting the magical images transport us to gardens filled with rosy fruit and fantastical, half-seen animals.
The scent of lilac, hyacinth and violet flowers pervaded the air around us. Their miasma gave the impression we had been transported to a new heaven. Experiencing ourselves high up in a crystal tower overlooking the entire Delta, we could see all the way to a strange ocean, alike and unlike the familiar Adriatic. Ferrara and my husband seemed an eternity away. In those nights, transported by bliss, we became lovers. It seemed so natural, inevitable ….
I say to you, that summer was the one period of my life when I knew true happiness. Alas, too soon, autumn rains washed away our idyll. It was time to return to reality.
The Knave of Hearts
That summer, Alicia, left behind, had become one with the gryphons guarding the roofline of the castle. Daily, she occupied the high, west-facing rampart scanning the horizon, as if by her presence she could will an apparition into being.
“Oh, I am so unhappy!” she cried to the clouds. “Has ever any mortal suffered such pangs as I? Where are you, my beloved?”
She might have enjoyed the respite from work occasioned by her mistresses’ absence, had not the thoughtless Marquis also sent away his son, heir and her beloved, Ugo, to accompany his stepmother.