The Mosaic

Chapter 23

Alessandro blinked. "You punched Antonio Morosini."

"I punched Antonio Morosini." Laelia felt her lips pull upwards stubbornly - the kind of grin you knew you shouldn't grin, the one you tried to push back with seriousness, but the more you tried, the wider it got. He had had that punch coming for a while.

"You punched your fiancé."

"Yes." She felt the grin proudly draw from one ear to another, remembering the starstruck expression of Antonio, mouth forming a perfect 'o' shape. If a unicorn had run him through with its horn, he couldn't have looked more surprised.

"Why would you punch you fiancé?" Alessandro closed his eyes. "He's one of the most powerful men in Venice. If not in all of Italy"

"He's also an ass." Laelia crossed her arms.

"He's the duke's nephew."

"Still an ass."

"He's the duke's favorite nephew."

"Of course he is, the other nephew is Lorenzo. Not much of a choice there." Laelia rolled her eyes.

Alessandro pinched the bridge of his nose. "You punched Antonio Morosini-"

"The duke's favorite nephew."

"-yes. Because he was an ass? Where did that come from all of a sudden?"

Laelia stayed silent for a while, suddenly very interested in the rough wooden table between them. She traced the little maze woodworms had gnawed into it, long ago, when it was still a tree, tall and proud, it's branches swaying in the breeze, leaves rustling -

"If I am correct in my deduction, and I am, he was an ... ass," Alessandro cringed at the word, "beforehand as well. Why punch him now?"

Her head snapped up, caught. She pitied anyone who ever had the - arguable - pleasure to be interrogated by Alessandro. She didn't doubt he could make the devil spill his secrets.

His eyes weren't really brown, more like gold, amber perhaps, giving his gaze a strange intensity. The unnatural color made him appear like a god of justice, descended to pull the truth out of all with his calm eyes that somehow saw everything and those unyielding questions. What would happen if she locked him and Giacinto in a room together? The man that always got an answer and the man that replied but never answered. Probably murder. She grinned at the thought of them butting heads again.

"Laelia."

"He refused to free you two," she muttered.

"What-"

"It's stupid, ok?! I know it is!" The tiny spark of stubborn resistance her mother had always tried to put out ever since she'd stomped her little feet as a child and demanded a dog from her father sprang to life. "I heard you got arrested for treason! You would never do that! Giacinto is a bit strange and I don't really know you, but I just knew something wasn't right!"

"So you went to Antonio and demanded he'd use his power to get us out."

"Yes. So what? He didn't do it anyways."