As she observed the progress of Jenny's inquiries, she dabbed absently at the corner of her mouth with a folded bit of cloth. The cloth was already stained with her blood. Her body ached where Bravo had struck her, but it was a delicious pain, verging on the erotic, and the breath came hot in her throat. To be in physical contact with first Jenny and then Bravo, to feel Jenny's warm weight in her arms, to know that she was utterly helpless, and then to move on to Bravo, to know that the two had been lovers, to sense in their musculature the other, like a shadow or an indentation in a pillow with all its intimate scents, stimulated her like nothing else could.
Bravo had not, of course, been as pliant as Jenny. He had fought her, enabling her to assess firsthand the job his father had done with him; it brought him closer to her in a way she found enjoyable. Over the years she had probed and prodded Bravo, mainly through Jordan, in ways he'd never been aware of. It felt good to take the physical measure of him-more than good, it felt right, as if like a sorcerer she had been able to transform an image in a photograph and bring it to life. He was like a beautiful chair she had once coveted, with one leg torn away, tottering, ripe for a fall.
Of Father Mosto she thought not at all. He was of no consequence to her except as an object through which she was separating the lovers, isolating Bravo, revealing the vulnerable spot by which she would at long last destroy him.
Jenny, leaning on the stone parapet of the bridge, was assailed by doubt. She was in the middle of a nightmare, much of it of her own making. She had been so tied up in knots over her growing feelings for Bravo and her guilt in not telling him the truth about herself that she'd allowed her instincts to be dulled. She had forgotten who she was and so had been vulnerable to a clever attack by Knights in priest's robes, for that was the only logical explanation for what had happened. Now Bravo was in the enemy's hands-the worst had happened, and she was to blame.
On top of that, she was acutely aware of being under surveillance. She didn't know by whom. Though only an hour ago she would have assumed it was Michael Berio, now she refused to accede to any such leap of faith. The worst thing she could do was to go by old assumptions. She was in an entirely new game, and if she couldn't adjust-and quickly-the Order would lose everything.
Much as she hated to do it, she'd have to call Paolo Zorzi and admit her failure. She needed help. Reaching for her cell phone, she braced herself for the shower of invective he would direct at her. Then her blood ran cold; her cell phone was gone, too.
She closed her eyes, trying to will away the pain in her head and neck. Breathing slowly and deeply, she allowed the added oxygen she was drawing in to do its work. First things first. She needed to get out from under the surveillance. In Venice, she knew, she could walk for the entire afternoon and still not feel confident that she had lost her watcher. There were no vehicles to get her away, and the boats were all too open and slow to be of any use to her.
Then she remembered something she'd read while glancing through the Michelin guide. Rising from her position, she looked this way and that, as if unsure of which way to go-not so far from the truth. Crossing to the far side of the bridge, she went through the small campo, turning into a side street. She entered a store selling masks. While the proprietor rang up and wrapped a mask for a customer, she had a look around, examining the rows of leather masks that hung on the walls. As its artisans had done with glassblowing, marbled paper and Fortuny silks, Venice had turned mask making into a high art. Masks depicting characters, many from the commedia dell'arte, were worn during Carnevale, which traditionally began the day after Christmas and went to the day before Ash Wednesday. All laws were suspended during Carnevale, and everyone, high-born and low, mingled together-a practice bom of the doge's desire to be able to walk the streets of his city and visit those he wished to lie with, in complete anonymity.
A horde of sad eyes, grotesque noses, grinning mouths peered down at her, and such was the skill of the artisans that each mask seemed alive with emotion: ardor, mirth or menace. There were also long cloaks of sumptuous fabric. These were called tabarro, the shopkeeper explained. When celebrants donned this, along with a mask and a bauta, a black silk hood and short lace cape, they were able to pass their own wife or sister without being recognized.
When the proprietor asked how he could help her, she asked for directions to Rio Trovaso, which, as it happened, was closer than she had thought. She quit the store reluctantly, as if leaving a party filled with fascinating new acquaintances.
It was not difficult to find Rio Trovaso, and she followed it until the intersection with Rio Ognissanti. Turning the corner, she came upon the Squero, one of the few remaining shipyards that built and repaired the city's ubiquitous gondolas. It consisted of three wooden buildings-odd for Venice-and a small dock that fronted the workshop itself.
At once, she went inside. One of the banes of Venice now worked to her advantage. Offering a good deal of money got her an outfit of workman's clothes. Not a single question was asked by the master shipwright who directed the work at the Squero-all the answer he required was contained in the euros she placed in his extended hand. The outfit included a cap under which she placed her hair. Pulling the bill low on her forehead helped, but for good measure, she took a piece of charcoal from the workshop and streaked her cheeks, rolling it between the palms of her hands to darken them, as well.
For another somewhat smaller sum, she had the shipwright take her by means of an interior passageway into the adjoining building, where the workmen lived. He led her through the ground floor and out a side entrance, walking several blocks with her as if she were one of his staff. They entered a cafe, and he left her there some moments later.
In her new disguise, she left the cafe, walking aimlessly, it seemed, for some time. In fact, she was checking for tags, slowly and painstakingly backtracking, doubling and redoubling through streets that were now as familiar to her as her own hometown, until she was satisfied that she was clean.
Then she returned to the area of the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo` in I Mendicoli. She stood for a moment, taking stock of the environment. The street was dominated by police and gawking tourists. Obviously, Father Mosto's body had been discovered.
She wondering if the Knights still had the area under surveillance. They had lost her, that was for certain; would they keep personnel here? She thought not. They would know that she, having lost Bravo, would have no reason come back here. She had to figure that they would be scouring a circular section of the city with an expanding radius as time passed and they failed to find her. They would, in fact, be moving further and further away from this locus.
Setting off, she bypassed the entrance to the church, which was in any event clogged with police and forensic personnel. Instead, she turned the corner and passed into the next street. At the entrance to Santa Marina Maggiore, she stopped and, using the brass bell set into the stucco wall beside the indigo-painted wooden door, announced herself.
If the first order of business had been to free herself from surveillance, the second was to find succor and aid. She could think of no better place to find it than with the nuns of Santa Marina Maggiore.
The door was thrown open almost at once and she was confronted by a pale oval face riven by fear and suspicion.
'What is it, signore?' The nun was young; the horror next door made her query uncharacteristically abrupt and somewhat hostile.
'I need to see the abbess,' Jenny said.
'My apologies, signore, but today it is impossible.' She could not help glancing up the street toward the side of the church. 'The abbess is very busy.'
'Would you turn away a supplicant at your doorstep?'
'I have orders,' the young nun said stubbornly. 'The abbess is seeing no one.'
'She must see me.'
'Must she?'
At the sound of this deeper, mote mature voice, the young nun started, and turning, saw another nun standing at her shoulder.
'That will be all, Suor Andriana. Tend to the herb garden now.'
'Yes, Mother.' Suor Andriana made a small genuflection and with a terrified backward glance hurried off.
'Enter, please,' the older nun said. 'Excuse Suor Andriana, she is young, as you can see, and she is a
