“Would you have her be their whore, then, my lord Alessandro”?
The man smiled. It was a slow, deliberate smile, much like the one of a fallen angel.
“No. I would have her be their undoing”.
He gathered his cloak around him and stepped out of the child’s bedroom. The Contessa followed him. He led her to a large room built of marble and gold and she lied down to the cushioned sofa. He approached the fireplace and stood there for a long time, his back turned to her. Bright light spilled down the mass of his auburn hair, but his face was in the dark and she couldn’t make out his features. There was no need, though; she already knew his face by heart. She looked at the large portrait, hanging above the fireplace. It was Alessandro’s masterpiece and it summed up his nature better than any poem or ballad ever written about him. He seemed cold in that picture. Detached. And almost unbearably beautiful. He was naked, his skin gleaming like wet marble, and his blue eyes blazing like a tempest. He had wings, a pair of goldish, feathery wings. But his wings were on fire and his mouth was half-open in a scream of agony.
“You’re crying”, he said softly, almost indifferently.
She hadn’t even noticed.
“Why are you doing, this, Alessandro”?
“You know why. For vengeance”.
“But this child…this poor child…don’t tell me you’re so far gone that you don’t even feel the slightest remorse for what you plan to do with her”.
He turned around, then, and stared at her for a long moment.
“Many would kill to trade places with her. Being adopted by a noble, brought up in luxury, studying with the best tutors of our age…point me one orphan who would consider this fate unfortunate”.
“She will lose her eternal soul! She will burn in the pits of Hell”! the Contessa protested.
But Alessandro just laughed.
“Nothing is eternal. And we are all sinners, my dearest. We are all going to burn”.
She felt tired, all of the sudden. She got up and left the room without a word. Alessandro stood there for a while, then returned to the child’s bedroom.
She was a beautiful girl, small and fragile, no more than five years of age. She seemed so innocent it was almost heartbreaking. Almost. The Contessa was wrong. He did feel guilty about the child. But he had made an oath and he planned on keeping it, no matter what or who got in the way.
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that my life began the day Alessandro took me away from the monastery. I was five, maybe six, and all I could recall from my life with the nuns were the constant beatings. It didn’t matter whether I was disobeying or not, it didn’t matter whether I was being a good girl or not. Too much beauty was offensive to the Lord, or so the nuns said.
Alessandro, though…Alessandro was nothing like the nuns. He was beautiful and sad and his voice sounded like rain falling on leaves. His villa was twice as big as the church and much brighter. Alessandro loved light. The villa had a hundred windows of plain and painted glass and, during the day, it was as warm as heaven must have been.
I was happy. I had the best tutors and I was an eager student. History, philosophy, rhetorics, manners of the court, politics, even fighting. All he could squeeze into the few hours of his precious daylight, Alessandro would have me learn. Then, at night, he would talk to me about art and religion, or he would ask me to attend a gathering of his friends. The Contessa was a frequent guest. Sometimes I would catch her looking at me with what seemed like pity or sorrow. But I never paid much attention.
When I turned twelve, Alessandro gave me a gift. A new teacher. Francesca Giacomelli was a famed beauty in her youth and the greatest courtesan Venice had ever seen. I didn’t understand, at first, but Alessandro asked me to pay special attention to this particular class and whatever Alessandro asked, I did. I can’t really say whether I was in love with him or whether my loyalty was due to the fact that he was the only family I had ever known. It matters not.
Francesca proved to be a rather interesting person. She was educated and smart and charming. And she was proud of being who she was.
“Life is too short to spend it locked up in a room afraid of doing anything because God might punish you. It is short whether you live twenty years or a hundred. It is short and we only get one. I almost died once. So, trust me when I tell you that existing here, in this place and in this time…simply…being…is a gift. A gift, child, and you should not waste it with prayer and remorse. Do you really think God will punish whores and thieves when there is true evil in this world? I doubt it, little one, I really doubt it. So why should we spend our precious time on earth torturing ourselves about right and wrong, about morality and faith while life leaves us behind? When they offer you an apple, you eat it. Why then should you not make the most of your life”?
For three years she taught me and when there was nothing left to teach me, she wished me luck and kissed me goodbye. Then, Alessandro explained to me why he insisted on me learning the arts of the bedchamber as well as those of the court.
The story went way back, before I was even born. Alessandro was a noble and a prominent painter and the son of the Doge of Venice was his lover. When Domenico Contarini fell ill, many thought that he would be followed by his son, Valerius. But some of the noble houses had other ideas and Valerius was murdered. Alessandro mourned for a long time and for a long time he tried to bring the murderers to justice. That proved to be impossible, though, and that was when I got into the picture.
“To find a child, raise it to love me above all, teach her all I knew and even some things I didn’t know…and then unleash it and let it destroy the houses from within, using secrets whispered during lovemaking and knives in the dark. So here is the question, my dearest. Do you love me above all”?
I did. Of course I did. And I did become his knife in the dark and I did help him bring down some of the houses. But as all things, this too came to an end. One night I came back from an afternoon spent with one of my lovers, and Alessandro was gone. There was blood everywhere and all the servants and the guards were dead, but Alessandro was nowhere to be found. After some months he was proclaimed dead and I found out that he had left everything to me. It was a small compensation for what I had lost.
One day, I was sitting near the fireplace and, suddenly, my eyes fell to his picture, the one portraying him as a fallen angel with burning wings. And the light glimmered on his hair and on his eyes and he looked so vivid that, for a moment, I almost thought he was alive. That day, I cried myself to sleep and when I woke up I knew what I had to do. I was Raffaella Del Vasto, daughter of Alessandro Del Vasto. I had to avenge my father.
