The Journeyer by Gary Jennings Page B

seen no one else hereabout? Are you alone?”
    “No, he is not,” said another voice, a very quiet one.
    I turned about and realized that a sword’s point had been very near the back of my neck. It was just then withdrawing into the fog, and it glinted a gleam of cold, bedewed steel as it vanished beneath the cloak of its wielder. I had thought the voice was that of Ilaria’s priest acquaintance, but priests do not carry swords. Before I or she could speak, the hooded figure murmured again:
    “I see by your raiment tonight, my lady, that you are a mocker. So be it. Now is the mocker mocked. This young intruder desires to be a lady’s bravo, and will serve for no hire but love. Let him, then, and let that be your penance for mockery.”
    Ilaria gasped and started to say, “Are you suggesting—?”
    “I am absolving. You are already forgiven whatever must be done. And when the greater obstacle has been removed, a smaller one will be more easily dismissed.”
    With that, the shape in the fog moved farther back in the fog and blended into the fog and was gone. I had no idea what the stranger’s words had meant, but I did perceive that he had spoken in my behalf, and I was grateful. I turned again to Ilaria, who was regarding me with a sort of rueful appraisal. She put one slim hand inside her robe and brought out the dòmino and raised it before her eyes as if to mask something there.
    “Your name is … Marco?” I bowed my head and mumbled that it was. “You said you followed me. You know my house?” I mumbled yes. “Come there tomorrow, Marco. To the servants’ door. At the hour of mezza-vespro. Do not fail me.”
    7
     
    I did not fail her, at least in the matter of promptness. The next afternoon, I presented myself as commanded, and the servants’ door was opened by an ancient hag. The hag’s little eyes were as mistrustful as if she knew every shameful thing about Venice, and she admitted me to the house as distastefully as if I had been one of the worst. She led me upstairs, along a hall, pointed a withered finger at a door, and left me. I knocked at the panel and the Dona Ilaria opened it. I stepped inside and she secured the latch behind me.
    She bade me be seated, and then she walked up and down before my chair, regarding me speculatively. She wore a dress covered with gold-colored flakes that shimmered like a serpent’s scales. It was a close-fitting dress and her walk was sinuous. The lady would have looked rather reptilian and dangerous, except that she kept wringing her hands the while, and thus betrayed her own uncertainty at our being alone together.
    “I have been thinking about you ever since last night,” she said. I started to echo that, wholeheartedly, but I could not make my voice work, and she went on. “You say you ch-choose to serve me, and there is indeed a service you could do. You say you would do it for love, and I confess that arouses my … my curiosity. But I think you are aware that I have a husband.”
    I swallowed loudly and said yes, I was aware.
    “He is much older than I, and he is embittered by age. He is j-jealous of my youth and envious of all things youthful. He also has a violent temper. Clearly I cannot enlist the service of a—of a young man—not to mention enjoy the love of one. You understand? I might wish to, even yearn to, but I cannot, being a married woman.”
    I gave that some thought, then cleared my throat and said what seemed to me obvious, “An old husband will die and you will still be young.”
    “You do understand!” She stopped wringing her hands and clapped them, applauding. “You are quick of intellect for such a—such a young man.” She cocked her head, the better to look admiringly at me. “So he must die. Yes?”
    Dejectedly I stood up to go, supposing that we had agreed that any yearned-for connection between us must simply wait until her bad-natured old husband was dead. I was not happy at that postponement, but, as Ilaria said, we