Читать книгу Raine - Elizabeth Amber - Страница 10

More than an hour later, the crowd in the medical theater had finally exhausted their questions and departed. This left only a select group of five men, each of whom had paid Salerno a premium for a more private examination of her. Once they’d gathered onstage, Salerno swished the curtains closed, cutting off Jordan’s view of the now-empty seating area and creating a more intimate setting for the remaining group.

Outside she heard the clock bell in the piazza strike seven. She wouldn’t be officially free to return home until midnight. Five hours to go.

But no one here was in a hurry to end the evening except her. Wine and a tray of stemmed glasses were brought out, and the men prepared to idle the evening away in her company.

Two of the guests were Venetian aristocracy, she quickly deduced. With nothing better to do and more money than they knew how to spend, they’d lingered here to relieve their boredom at her expense.

A third one was more serious, an Englishman who nudged his glasses up and down his nose every so often. It was likely he at least had stayed for the purposes of true medical study.

The fourth was a large, bearded Sicilian whose deep-set eyes studied every inch of her as thoroughly as the artist had. A back-row type, his interest was obviously selfish and prurient.

The fifth man was a late arrival, one she’d seen before. It seemed the bishop who’d decried her earlier was back for another look. Unfortunately his tall friend was nowhere to be seen.

“There’s nothing here to interest a man of the church,” Salerno said suspiciously, when the bishop tried to make his way backstage to join the others.

“On the contrary,” the bishop returned. His eyes searched the interior of the stage beyond Salerno, lighting on Jordan. “I assure you that my purpose here is not on the church’s behalf. I come asking a favor. One that will benefit your purse.” He whispered something to Salerno that Jordan couldn’t hear.

“La Maschera is not for hire,” Salerno told him, shaking his head.

The bishop’s face mottled, his displeasure at being refused apparent. His tone turned louder and wheedling. “I will pay whatever you deem fair.”

But Salerno still held him off. “La Maschera is mine for this day only. At midnight, it must be returned to its domicile. Now be off.” He tried to swish the curtain closed on the stout man.

“Wait!” the bishop insisted, grabbing the edge of the velvet drape before it could shut him out. “Though the church is my calling, I assure you that I take a strong interest in numerous scientific matters.”

“And in abominations as well?” Jordan asked, pitching her voice so he would hear.

The bishop’s eyes impaled her, stopping the very breath in her throat.

He pulled out some currency and made a show of stuffing it in Salerno’s hand. “When I accidentally bumbled into your theater earlier, I was told tickets were required for this event. You’ll take this I trust in lieu of the usual purchase price?”

Salerno peered inside the bag of coins, jiggling it to test its weight. Grudgingly, he moved aside so the bishop could enter. “Very well. I’ll not argue further. In view of unforeseen developments, I’m anxious to get on with tonight’s examination.”

The clink of crystal told Jordan some of the others had begun filling their glasses. Leaving his guests to their own devices, Salerno came to her side holding a toolcase, a pen, and a small notebook.

“These are new, eh?” he asked her, rubbing a finger along her plumped labia.

She shrugged. Three of the guests gathered around them—the bishop, the Englishman, and the Sicilian—watching as Salerno again palpitated the twin lumps in her labia. Mentally distancing herself from what was happening, she stared at the ceiling, noting a rather large water stain that had been caused by a leak at some earlier time. It resembled a brown rabbit with unusually long ears. She tensed, realizing where she’d seen just such a rabbit before.

In her dreams.

Transfixed, she felt herself fall helplessly into the pit of her nightmare.

“Hello? Hello?” Salerno’s loud voice jarred her. “When did you first notice evidence of testes forming in your labia?”

Her eyes jerked toward him. He was looking at her strangely as though he’d been trying to garner her attention for some time. She swallowed, finding her throat dry. The pull of the dreams was growing stronger, reaching her even during waking hours.

“Testes?” Jordan repeated. “But are you certain that’s what they are? They’re so small.”

He waved her question away. “Don’t quibble with my medical expertise. I know what I see! When?”

“About ten months ago,” she replied.

His cold, veined hands lifted her phallus—limp now—and twisted and turned it, examining. Calipers were brought out of his toolcase to measure its length and girth at rest.

By now, she was inured to such examinations. Or so she told herself. Disassociating herself from what was happening, she continued to locate animal shapes among the ceiling’s water spots.

“From this angle the creature could be male or female,” a tipsy voice said from somewhere behind her. The two Venetians were apparently well on their way to becoming drunk. And from the sound of things, they were busily viewing the portraits the artist had made of her.

Jordan knew which particular drawing they were studying. It was the only one that could be described in that way. It was a rear view. She’d posed for it on her knees, her head bent low to rest on her folded forearms. In that position, the puckered ring between the cheeks of her buttocks gapped slightly. But they were right. It was one view in which she appeared normal, yet it was impossible to tell her gender.

“And who would know the difference in the dark?” came the first man’s slurred rejoinder.

“Not a buggerer like yourself I presume…” Jordan quipped, twisting to fling the words toward them.

The man’s companion slapped the fellow on the back, guffawing. “I do believe you’ve been insulted, il mio amico.”

Too soused to take affront, his friend only raised his glass in a sloshy toast. “A bung is a bung is a bung is amongus,” he singsonged.

Jordan was immediately angry with herself for reacting. Her eyes sought the ceiling again, but the water stains failed to recapture her attention.

“No change in size from last year,” Salerno announced. Having measured her flaccid shaft in all dimensions, he scribbled a notation in his book. Then he asked the question she’d known would eventually come. “On what date did your penis first engorge?” His pen hovered over the page, waiting.

When the dreams had begun to plague her in earnest. When they’d become so frequent and compelling that it had become difficult to discern the difference between wakefulness and slumber. On the night dark masculine voices had begun to whisper carnal suggestions to her, causing her to writhe and gasp. Causing her shaft to harden and lift and to spill its ecstasy, despoiling her bedsheets. But she would tell him none of that.

“Well?” he prodded, scrutinizing her. “Is the question so difficult?”

“Ten months ago, the same as when the lumps formed in my labia,” she answered truthfully.

“I’d like to measure it at full attention,” Salerno told her. “Stroke it into tumescence for me.”

She glared at him, appalled, but he took no notice.

“Shall I do it?” he inquired helpfully when she didn’t obey. “Or one of the others here? Or would you prefer that I bring in a female to provoke it? There are doubtless plenty of whores prowling the streets, even on a night like this.”

Salerno would do exactly that, she knew. He was oblivious as to how revolting his suggestions would seem to her. Even if she explained, there would be no way to make him understand. He was as ever incapable of empathy with another human being.

“Whores?” one of the drunkards echoed, his interest perking. “Where?”

He and his tipsy companion roused themselves to gather with the others around her, intrigued by the prospect of new entertainment.

“I’ll do it. But I require privacy,” said Jordan.

Salerno tsked and blustered, shaking his head. “This is no time for false modesty. I want to observe the process to see if it proceeds normally. Where’s that tub of ointment?”

The bishop located the pot and extended it toward her.

She frowned at it.

“Do you require assistance after all?” the bishop asked.

“Not from the likes of you.” Jordan snatched the cream, swirled two fingers in it, and then curled her torso into the most concealing hunch she could manage. Closing her eyes, she blocked out her observers.

At ease, her phallus was only slightly longer than her palm. She worried at it for a few moments, searching her mind for inspiration. A vision of the shadowy, taller man who’d earlier come into the theater with the bishop sprang to mind. Her shaft invigorated. Six silent men watched her stroke herself to hardness.

“Ah, to be young and have a cock that rises so eagerly,” said one of the drunkards, toasting her.

Two droplets of red wine splashed on her thigh. She stared at them. The splotches looked like—blood. This, too, was just as she’d seen it in her dream.

Her gaze darted around the room, searching warily. Where was the third part of the dream? Where were the ribbons? When would they come to her? And from which direction?

Salerno shoved her hand aside and took the measurements he required. “Five point one inches.” He scribbled in his notebook, and then replaced his silver tool in its velvet-lined case.

The two drunkards watched as the bishop’s hand took over her movements on her shaft, squeezing toward its tip. She put a hand over his to stop him, but his fist tightened on her cap, forcing the slit at her tip to separate like a tiny mouth.

“An excretory canal for urine,” supplied Salerno, leaning over to observe.

“And sperm?” The bishop gazed directly into her eyes. She felt a brief flash of recognition. But she was certain she’d never met him. Surely he only resembled someone else she knew.

With a mighty shove at his chest, Jordan pushed him away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Answer him,” said Salerno, his pen poised once again to note her reply.

Though her blood boiled, she made a show of studying her nails, affecting boredom. “Yes,” she replied.

The Sicilian stroked his beard. “Then do you suppose the subject could actually father a child?”

Salerno eyed her speculatively. “Difficult to say. I suppose a whore could be brought in to test the theory in actual practice.”

“I’ll not impregnate any whores for you,” Jordan protested, pulling herself into a tighter ball and wrapping her arms and the cloak around her knees. “Even if I’m able to. Which I’m not.”

“You deny that you possess testes? A phallus? You deny all evidence of your God-given maleness?” asked the bishop.

“No! In a physical sense I’m not completely male or female. And I accept that. I simply wish in my heart to live as a woman in this world.” How good it felt to say it aloud.

“Are you sexually aroused by men?” asked the Sicilian.

“Yes.” She glanced at the overabundance of sweaty black hair that swelled from his collar and between the strained fastenings of his shirt. “Well, not all men.”

“Disposed toward men,” Salerno noted in his black book.

“So you wish to engage in sodomy?” the bishop inquired.

“Thank you kindly for the offer,” said Jordan, “but—”

The bishop hissed between his teeth, raising a hand as though to strike her before catching himself. “Blasphemous creature! If you must wear the Carnivale mask, it should be the moretta. Lips as foul as yours should remain forcibly buttoned.”

The moretta he referred to was a mask that covered the entire face but had no string attached to tie it fast. Instead, it was held in position by its wearer biting a button on the inside of the lips. This necessitated that its wearer remain mute or lose the mask!

“Have you ever been sexually aroused by a woman?” one of the drunkards inquired, drawing her gaze.

She shrugged, a little embarrassed. “Yes, but likely no more often than any of you have been aroused by a man. Whether its owner is male or female, a beautiful body, face, and spirit combined in one package tends to draw every eye. Do you not agree?”

The men shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to admit the truth of what she said.

“But if you were forced to choose one and only one gender as a sexual partner for the rest of your life on this earth, which would it be?” prodded the bishop.

It was a question that dogged her. Did the circumstances of her body dictate that she could never be satisfactorily partnered for life with only one gender? If so, how could she ever hope to find love—unless she found another hermaphrodite who happened to suit her disposition! And what were the chances of that?

“Must it be one or the other?” she asked. “Can your God not find it in His heart to allow the possibility that there might be a sliding scale in such matters? Can a body such as mine not seek its pleasure with both genders?”

The bishop’s doughy complexion turned an apoplectic hue. “Again you blaspheme!”

“But earlier tonight, you said you do not bleed,” the Englishman insisted, ignoring the outburst. “Aside from your breasts and vaginal canal, what is the source of this belief that you’re female?”

Tapping her head, then her chest, she said, “It’s something my mind and heart direct me toward.”

He nodded, seeming to understand.

Salerno gestured toward her testes and wilting cock. “I must agree with the good bishop. With these new developments, your claim to womanhood seems to be hanging by a fragile thread.”

He leaned low to her ear. “Perhaps my lie to your family was not so large after all.”

She turned her head, whispering, “Then your hold on my family lessens.”

His eyes slitted. She’d spoken unwisely.

When she averted her gaze from him, it fell on the bishop. He’d overheard their conversation, and she saw the flash of curiosity in his eyes. She patted her mask making certain it was still in place.

“What if you were to mate the subject with a man?” the Sicilian inquired suddenly. “If a child resulted, would that not prove it to be a female?”

The six men studied her speculatively.

Salerno tapped his chin with a long finger. “Or what if the subject were to mate with both a man and a woman, all under the strict surveillance of a theater full of medical men? And what if, in the course of such an experiment, La Maschera were to become both father and mother, all in the course of a single night?”

The Sicilian’s eyes lit. “Now that would be something to draw crowds!”

“I’ll never agree to such a thing,” said Jordan. “You know I wouldn’t. I’m no animal in heat to be caged and mated. And I would never indiscriminately bring children into this world. If I were ever so fortunate as to bear offspring, I would want to parent them for all the years afterward. If I were a wife—”

“What man would take you as a wife if it turns out that you cannot bear his children?” one of the Venetians countered.

“A man that loves me,” she replied heatedly, though even she didn’t believe her own claim.

Salerno raised his hands up and down as though patting out a fire. “Calm down. It’s not possible to experiment tonight anyway. To ensure accurate results, any woman you mated would have to be quarantined for nine months prior to copulation. And for as many months afterward, it would be someone’s task to ensure she remained celibate. That’s the only way to validate that any offspring she bore had resulted from your seed.”

“But what of my suggestion? The subject could still be given the ultimate test of femininity—one that would determine if it’s capable of motherhood,” the Sicilian insisted. From the bulge in his trousers, Jordan garnered the distinct impression he was willing to take on the job.

“My family wouldn’t be pleased by such a result,” she said, eyeing Salerno pointedly.

She sensed the bishop paying close attention. “Is there no medical inspection that could satisfactorily determine gender?” he inquired. “Some evaluation of femaleness other than the ability to bear children?”

Salerno shrugged. “A woman is what she is because of the uterus. This dictum has been relied upon by the medical establishment since first decreed by Jan Baptist van Helmont, the Flemish physician in the seventeenth century. However, the factual presence of such an organ can only be determined by an invasive physical search.”

“One that could be performed tonight?” the bishop prodded.

The spectacled Englishman spoke up, shaking his head. “Gentlemen! You’re not contemplating—? No! It’s too dangerous.”

“What would you have to do exactly?” Jordan asked, feeling reckless with the desire to strengthen her claim to femininity.

“Don’t agree to this,” the Englishman warned her.

“Bah!” Salerno said, waving away the other man’s plea for caution. “The subject is here to be explored of its own free will. What I suggest is a routine procedure I’ve done several times before. A well-informed hand such as mine, lubricated and inserted into its rectum, would quickly detect the shape, size, and location of a uterus if one exists. Any discomfort would be minimal.”

“Minimal!” scoffed the spectacled man.

Paling at the description of what was involved, Jordan beckoned Salerno closer.

“A private moment, gentlemen!” he told the others. They grudgingly turned away as he leaned in to listen to her.

“If you dare perform such a search,” Jordan whispered, “regardless of what you find, I swear to you I will put an end to these annual demonstrations.”

“What will your mother have to say on that?” he asked mildly, unconcerned at her threat. She’d made it many times before.

“I don’t care,” said Jordan firmly. But they both knew she was lying. Her mother was beautiful, sought after, and self-centered. Jewels, society, and gaiety were the substance of her life. Sudden poverty would not agree with her. If Jordan were exposed not to be a verifiable male, her cousin would inherit. She wouldn’t see her own mother cast into the streets, and Salerno knew it.

His beady bird eyes bored into hers. “Don’t make threats on which you cannot follow through. I believe I’ll perform the search tonight, with or without your agreement. However, I’ll offer to strike a different bargain with you in exchange for your cooperation: one birthday.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you make this easy, I’ll not come for you next year on your birthday.”

Her heart skipped a beat. He was offering two years of freedom. It was almost worth it. Almost, but—

Without giving her a chance to decide either way, Salerno straightened and craftily rubbed his hands together.

“The search is on! First, I’ll need my clyster apparatus to cleanse the creature’s rectum. Where’s my medical bag?” He rummaged around, found the bag, and pulled a metal syringe from it. As long as her forearm, it had a thick needle on one end and a pump handle on the other. It was the French type of syringe that worked with a piston.

He gestured to the Sicilian. “You. Go for warm water. Quickly.”

“Warm? Where am I to procure warm water in this neighborhood at this hour?” the man inquired.

“You’re right,” said Salerno. “Fetch two pitchers of whatever you find. We’ll make do.”

The Sicilian made his way through the curtains, hurrying off on his errand.

The Englishman’s glasses slid to the bridge of his nose and he pinched the skin between his brows as though he were getting a headache. “Gentlemen! I must insist that the danger of potential injury prohibits such an experiment. There are severe health risks, as you know.”

“What risks?” asked Jordan, with increasing concern.

He eyed her anxiously. “If done improperly, an examination such as they’re proposing can result in serious injuries. Torn bowels, infections, bruising, incontinence, sterility.” He counted them off on his fingers.

“Nonsense. A rectal examination done with proper care by a medical practitioner carries a low risk of injury,” said Salerno.

“I won’t be a party to this!” said the other man, ripping off his glasses to emphasize his protest.

“Then hustle yourself off,” Salerno told him diffidently. “We’ve determined our course. And the subject isn’t protesting.”

“Your subject is hardly in a position to get its way! You’ve obviously got some sort of hold over it.”

“Your imagination runs away with you,” said Salerno. “For its cooperation, La Maschera is paid in a coin you wouldn’t understand.” He looked her way. “Aren’t you?”

Jordan averted her eyes, hating him.

Shooting them all a disgusted look, the Englishman donned his glasses, coat, and hat in that order. The door at the back of the stage let in a bluster of rain, then banged shut as he deserted them.

His colleagues scarcely noticed. But Jordan knew her only ally had gone.

Salerno dug through his bag and pulled out a stoppered bottle containing bits of black root. Selecting one at random, he extended it to Jordan. “Chew this while I prepare myself.”

“What is it?” asked the bishop, intercepting and studying the root before passing it to her.

But Jordan knew the substance well and popped it in her mouth. Salerno had dosed her with it to calm her when she’d been younger and given to screaming fits during examinations.

“It’s an herb that will relax the subject’s muscles,” said Salerno.

Jordan chewed, watching as he began filing the nails of his right hand with the rasp of a particularly evil-looking file.

“Once stuck my hand inside a woman,” one of the drunkards ruminated. “In her cunt though, not her ass. Did it on a bet with my brother. Devil of a time getting my knuckles inside her as I recall. Once inside I made a fist though—in spite of her caterwauling—and won the wager.”

“Was there any injury?” Jordan couldn’t help asking.

“My hand was a little stiff and bruised the next day. Nothing serious.”

Jordan rolled her eyes at his stupidity. “No, I meant was there any injury to the woman.”

The man scratched his chin and looked perplexed. “Dunno. Never saw her again after that night. Whore, you know.”

He turned to Salerno, holding out one of his hands for inspection. “My hands are smaller than yours. And I’m a man of experience. Maybe I should have a go at it.”

Salerno shook his head. “You won’t know what you’re searching for. The shape of the organ is specific and requires a knowledge of internal anatomy.”

“Well at least tell me this. What’s your secret for getting the knuckles in?” the drunkard inquired with an air of seriousness.

“Adequate lubrication is the ticket to the whole endeavor. I start in with two fingers straight,” said Salerno, holding up his index and second fingers to demonstrate.

“As you add more fingers,” he went on, “crowd them together so the index and small fingers slide under the middle two.”

“Yes, yes, but the knuckles?” the drunkard prompted.

Salerno nodded, pleased as always to have a fascinated audience. “They’re the widest part of the hand, so one always encounters resistance during either vaginal or rectal insertion, though more so with the latter, naturally. As I push inside, I tuck my thumb under my fingers, forming a sort of wedge shape. Here, it’s best to heed any complaint from the male patient. However, in my opinion females are more prone to hysteria so one should insist upon proceeding regardless. Once the knuckles slip past the outer ring of muscles, one must press on gradually and with utmost care.”

Jordan’s anxiety escalated as he proceeded to illustrate the best manner in which to infiltrate her anus. As a crack of thunder came from outside the theater, a twin bolt of anger shot through her. Suddenly, she wanted to rage at all these men. To slap their satisfied faces and punch their paunchy bellies.

She’d reached her limit of enforced obedience. She’d rather die than return for this sort of treatment next year or even two years from now. No matter how her mother begged, this would be the last birthday she’d allow herself to be subjugated in this way. If Salerno exposed the true facts of her gender and they lost everything, so be it. She would find work. Or perhaps she could convince her mother to marry one of the many swains who doted on her.

The Sicilian returned then with two pitchers of water. Her eyelids slitted as she measured the distance to the door. He blocked it now, but she would watch for an opportunity to cut the evening short.

With a final flourish of his nail file, Salerno flexed his fingers and pronounced himself ready. After filling the syringe from the pitchers, he went to stand at the back of the stage, near the wall.

“Come over here so you don’t soil the table,” he told her, motioning her forward with one hand. “Cleansing with a clyster can be a nasty business.”

Pretending to be woozier than she was, Jordan slowly gathered herself and half-rolled off the table. Stumbling, she made her way toward the rear of the stage where Salerno waited.

He eyed her critically as she approached. “Is that my cloak?” Aghast when he determined it was, he thrust his equipment into the bishop’s hands. “Take it off before it becomes soiled beyond redemption.” He yanked the garment from her. Shaking out its folds, he carefully draped it over the back of the chair the artist had left positioned by the door.

When he returned, he neglected to reclaim his device from the bishop. “On your knees now,” he told her. “In a squat. That’s right.”

His hands pressed her shoulders downward and Jordan sank to her knees. A bucket was set on the floor, just behind her between her ankles.

“Lean forward.” She didn’t budge.

“The root has taken effect,” he told the bishop over her head. “You’ll have to wield the syringe.” Salerno came and stood in front of her, holding his hands under her armpits. She had no choice but to bury her nose in his crotch.

Within his trousers, his prick dangled, soft against her cheekbone. Working with her never excited him physically. She wondered if anything ever did.

Hands fumbled behind her, spreading the cheeks of her bottom. The bishop’s robes puddled over her feet as he bent closer. Cold metal prodded her anus.

Perhaps she should pretend to faint. Or to vomit. She had to do something that would offer a distraction in order to escape.

The sound of someone clearing his throat just outside the theater curtain came to her like a gift from heaven. The remaining men turned their attention away from her and toward the interruption.

“Don’t do anything until I return,” Salerno muttered to the bishop. Leaving her on all fours with the bishop positioned behind her, he went to the curtain.

“You think I’m stupid?” the bishop whispered to her when he’d left them. “You think I don’t know?”

Jordan froze, looking back at him over a shoulder. “What the hell are you talking about?”

His eyes turned something less than lucid and his features took on a demented twist. “I saw how you made him want you. I saw. You put the idea in my head to share him between us, witch. You would take him from me if I let you.”

“Who are you talking about? Never mind. Whoever he is, keep him. I don’t want him,” Jordan assured him.

Blood suffused the bishop’s face. “You lie—”

Without warning he knelt over her and caught a hand under her midsection. His other hand worked behind her. The point of the syringe poked, then found its way into her rectum. She heard the squeak of metal and a squishing sound as he awkwardly tried to work the brass and tin piston with the use of only one hand and arm.

She tried to wriggle free of the discomfort, knowing that in seconds she would feel the cold chill of water flushing her bowels into the waiting bucket.

The voice at the curtain rose. “I bring a message for the bishop,” it announced. “Regarding the matter we discussed earlier. I come to inform him that his companion has just departed in a group of others.”

The clyster left her and hit the floor with a clatter. The bishop hurried off, forgetting her and his crazy threats. With a twitch of the curtain, he stepped outside it to speak with the interloper. There was a brief conversation to which Salerno and the others listened unabashedly.

This was her chance.

Jordan stumbled upright and managed to stuff her bare feet into her sturdy buckled man’s shoes, which had been set by the door. Salerno’s cloak, lying across the chair back, brushed her arm. She snatched it up to cover her nakedness. All this seemed to occur in slow motion, but when she glanced behind her, no one had moved and she knew only seconds had passed.

Carefully, Jordan opened the back door the disgruntled Englishman had so recently used to exit the theater. The streets here were dangerous. But remaining in the theater posed a danger as well.

Behind her, someone shouted, noticing she was poised for flight. She plunged from the room into the nearly deserted street outside, making a run for it. The door banged behind her, echoing across the piazza. She heard it open again, and then came the sound of pursuit.

The tattoo of her own clunking footsteps on the rain-washed pavement drowned out any further sounds. Any minute she expected Salerno’s hands to grab her. Her breath was strangled with the fear of imminent capture.

But it never came. The cloddish shoes were practical and carried her swiftly away from the theater, along winding brick streets. The root had dulled her reflexes and confused her mind, but the sweet smell of rain-scented air was quickly dispelling its effect.

Footsteps sounded behind her. She turned into an alley, ducked into a crevice between two buildings, and waited. The steps faltered. Nearby, she heard Salerno’s voice.

“I’m searching for a young—person—wearing a crimson cloak,” he told someone. “And possibly the bauta as well.”

She couldn’t decipher the mumbled response he was given but knew it had displeased him when his sharp curse cut the air. This was quickly followed by the sound of his footsteps veering away.

When they grew faint, Jordan slipped from the alley and ran in the direction opposite from that which he’d gone. The streets twisted and angled, but she knew her way home from here. First, she had to get over the Rialto. Once beyond the bridge, home was only thirty or so turns away by street.

Then it occurred to her that home was out of the question. Salerno would look for her there immediately, claiming she owed him more hours of her time.

Could she find harbor with one of her male friends tonight? Paulo and Gani could always be counted on to join in any escapade. But if she turned up at either of their homes wearing only a cloak, they would whisk it from her, teasing. And when they discovered her true sex—when they discovered the deceit she’d perpetrated for all the years that she’d known them as friends—she feared what their reactions might be.

She scurried onward, unable to think of anything except the need to reach the bridge, which served as the only link across the Grand Canal that divided Venice. In the distance ahead, she saw its stone arch. The smell of the sea stung her nose as she rushed toward it.

She saw no one behind her. Heard no one. But still her heart thumped in time with her steps. Her breath was tortured, her entire body tense with fear of discovery. Would Salerno jump out at her from a cross street or one of the alleys, preventing her from reaching the bridge and any chance of escape?

Only a single gondola bobbed along the quay ahead, clacking softly. She had no money for its hire. Where would she go even if she could pay?

Lanterns along the bridge flickered, casting diamonds across the murky waters of the canal. The rain had stopped, and the night was turning foggy. The Palazzos Manin and Bembo along the Riva del Ferro, where shipments of iron were unloaded by day, were barely visible across the canal. An inky blackness of sky and sea loomed like a gaping maw waiting to swallow her.

Above her, on the balconies of the houses along the Riva del Vin, courtesans with bosoms far more ample than hers discreetly offered the use of their bodies to passersby in spite of the weather. If she called to them would they take pity on her? Unlikely, unless she had coin to offer.

Most of the vendors in the shops that stood atop the Rialto had gone home for the day by now. Cries from those who dwelled in squalor under the bridge came on the wind, frightening her.

If she’d been pronounced a girl nineteen years ago, she and her mother might be there among them. They would only have received a small dowry that wouldn’t have lasted long in view of her mother’s capricious spending.

Whores and beggars were rife in Venice since the French had sacked the city under Napoleon. By now the two of them would be huddled under the bridges like the rest of Venice’s poor. Though she might have somehow managed to find a way to survive, her mother would have withered under the strain and degradation.

Ahead, the bridge-dwellers stirred, calling to a well-dressed gentleman. “Signore! Signore! Look my way.”

She heard a noise behind her. Salerno? Turning back to look, she lunged forward…

And crashed into a human wall.