All For Love

Chapter 1: Adversary

All rights reserved to the producing company, the creativity of screenwriters, and the brilliant Alexandre Dumas :) I only own Antoinette

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All For Love

Chapter 1: Adversary

It was only midday do the Venetian merchants sell their wares on paved streets. Interlocking the woven buildings and streams dot the tiny vendors the size of small caravans. Dirt poor beggars swindle money, hiding their mug faces in between the rich palette colors of buildings. Small children chase after their mothers' prized chickens while the Italian greyhounds eager to run after them however chained to leather leashes by servants of lowly cavaliere.

Street performers such as those of the wretched Roma infiltrate the markets with their illusive contraptions. The burly pirated men interest the bounty of stolen treasures from other worlds while the gypsy women seduce passing patricians for spare coin. The twists of vibrant, awing color from their skirts sweep the gravel of cracked stone broke by Venetian sweat and blood.

Perhaps the "jewel" of the city of Venice was not the local markets scattered in between equally beautiful palatial residences of viscontes and widowed duchessas. Baladassarre Longhena's latest creation is yet to break ground in Venice. A new Catholic Church for the people to be hospitalized from the oncoming outbreaks of the Black Death and it's sister plagues. Demolition was yet to be ratified on the barraged estate.

Broken shards of glass and outdoor chandeliers crackled in the sunlight. Bird droppings sat ceremoniously on the front steps and decorated the adjacent cracks to the left side. A single shade bent out of place batted the window like an out of tune claronet.

As a woman, dressed in Venetian burgundy cloth topped with a feathered ostrich plume, cocked an eyebrow at the desolate and hopeless cause for sight unseen she averted her eyes to the changing of the guards prior to her arrival.

A fan, bought and sold through the old silk roads embraced cold chills coveting from the Grand Canal. The tell tale waterways danced boats and gondolas rich and poor under narrow bridges and sidewalks. The cool air brushed back the concealed woman's brunette curls. The tressels all perfectly in order moved in the disturbance of motion. The perfume dabbed on her neck and the ends of her hair wafted into the breeze.

Across the way mingling with the social people stood a dubious peacock of a man. His proud plummage recorded the incredible wealth and significant power he just recently obtained by order of the Church and Venetian Institutes. He over-elaborated the tellings of brave pursuits through wild gestures and consumed his crowd of servants, guards, and waiting-in-line mistresses' reactions.

"... And then of course for merit of reward the Bishop granted me the privilege to hold top security of Venice's oldest vaults," he said flaring his arms in stance. Swooning of women's gasps and their eager claps mingled with the other men's congratulatory responses.

The woman behind the mask of paper and constuction grinned sardonically as she tipped the hat to a side. A glint of gold and jeweled hair decoration shined in the Mediterranean sun. The angle of the sun hit its reflection from afar to the shoulder of the pompous nobili.

As the reflection caught hold of the nobleman's puffed sleeve, his eyes burned at the heat building up from his shoulder. The tiny glimpse of light distracted him long enough for his crowd of patrons talking amongst themselves- surely about him. At the moment he touched the blasted shard, it moved down his body and next to his left foot.

Foolish to think otherwise, he did not squash the brightness that interrupted yet another tale of his imaginations. Instead, he traced the lining of the light to the person who caused it. His sigh revealed a woman by the waterways with her back facing him.