The Plague Doctor's Daughter

5. Matteo

"Who are you calling unworthy?" asked Simone, his mop of wavy blonde hair framing his grinning face.

Gathering his wits, Matteo quickly looked his friend up and down. He had been mistaken about Simone's whereabouts. Apart from being even more tardy than he had been, Simone was definitely also wearing yesterday's garments. To his credit, at least he'd managed to pick up his robe on the way. But his unflappable demeanor would serve him well to get a straight answer to his question. Because unworthy was certainly the right descriptor for a young man who had promised his hand to Clara Delfini and still so brazenly spent many a night with his favorite courtesan, since there was no doubt that's where he'd just come.

"Speak of the Devil and appear he shall!" Matteo exclaimed, suppressing an urge for tawdry discourse and making due with an understated idiom. He must have learned that from his mother.

She—in true Ippolita fashion—completely shunned the new arrival and addressed her husband, instead. "Quick, Lorenzo. Go on ahead, and at least save me from Tomaso. We are turning into quite a scene, and I couldn't bear to have tongues wagging about our families appearing overly affable."

The career politician knew better than to argue with his wife. With a slight nod and a faint sigh, he dutifully strode away to intercept the Delfinis. After a brisk greeting, the two patriarchs accompanied each other toward the Doge's palace, while Clara and her mother continued with their approach. As a dutiful son-in-law to-be, Simone stepped forward to meet them.

With his friend's back turned, Matteo rolled his eyes at the charade. He had meant what he had told his mother earlier about Clara's feelings toward Simone. The look of pure adoration—perhaps even reverence—on her pretty face even as she approached now was undeniable. But even if Simone had loved her back with an equal amount of fervor, their relationship would still have been in a social imbalance. Because while the Delfinis, like the Faliers and Barozzis, were among the original founders of Venice and considered of the highest ranking nobility, their civic esteem of late had fallen considerably.

A few years earlier, Clara's brother Daniele shunned his familial duty to enter politics and instead ran away to Bologna to pursue poetry under the tutelage of Claudio Achillini. Luckily, her sister Alessandra's marriage to an up-and-coming military man the following summer seemed to dispel the shadows brought by Daniele's scorn for responsibility over the family. The opportune union even produced an heir. But the birth of little Rocco came almost too soon for some of the more cynical neighbors. When the unceasing war in the Holy Roman Empire made Alessandra a widow not long thereafter, the suspicious timing of the child's conception was no longer pertinent. But a stain had already been cast on the Delfini name.

Therefore, an arrangement of marriage between Simone Falier and Clara Delfini was clearly more of a benefit to one party than the other. And because Simone already had wealth, stature, and—most importantly to him—an eager partner for a warm bed in the person of Tullia d'Rovigo, Matteo couldn't understand why he accepted his upcoming matrimonial fate so willingly.

". . . in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, without self-control," announced a strong voice from nearby, breaking Matteo out of his musings. Looking around, he saw a man—dressed in the threadbare clothing of a fisherman or farmer—standing on top of a crate in the middle of the piazza. The guards must have not considered him a threat, and now that almost everyone had entered, his warnings quoting what may have been the second epistle to Timothy rang clear.

Venice had over seventy parishes, and hearing the Word of God echoing off its stones wasn't unusual. But proselytizing was more often done by men of the cloth, whether a Catholic priest or friar. Monastic orders were also aplenty with Franciscans, Dominicans, or Carmelites although most recently they hadn't included the Jesuits who'd been banned by a papal edict from Venice twenty-five years earlier. So it was quite unexpected for a layman to occupy such a prominent spot in the Piazza San Marco, especially with a young girl cowering at his feet.

She was small and thin, perhaps five or six years of age. But while her long, blonde hair covered most of her face as she huddled cross-legged on the ground, her dark eyes peered out from behind with a keen intensity. It was as if she could see directly into Matteo's soul.

"Care to join me, my lord? Or dost thou require the invite of His Serenity, himself?" Simone asked teasingly, drawing Matteo's gaze forward with the reference to Doge Grimani. The three women were already heading for the Basilica, while his friend stood alone, waiting.

It was a stark reminder of their compounding lateness, and Matteo needed no further prompting. Quickly forgetting about the girl, he rushed to Simone, and without breaking pace, they continued on toward the palace gate.

"What's that you've got there?" Matteo asked, noticing his friend fiddling with a small parcel wrapped in cloth.

Simone held out the bundle and folded back one corner to reveal a golden brown pastry the shape of an oblong jewelry box. "A gift from Clara: rabbit pie of game her huntsman trapped last week. She supposedly baked it herself."

Matteo's stomach rumbled again. "Are you going to eat it?" he asked, already salivating.

Simone laughed. "Did you not hear me? It was made by Clara Delfini's own hand. Of course I'm not going to eat it. Why? Would you care for it?" He raised the flaky morsel and drew it under Matteo's nose.

"Oh, give me that, you filthy ruffian!" Matteo grabbed the parcel out of Simone's grip before he could draw it away and took a healthy bite. Chewing vigorously, he wiped his chin of a bit of spilled gravy. "Not quite spiced to my tastes, but right now, I'd eat a raw turnip if there weren't anything else."

"Well, consider this gone, as well," Simone said, pushing the pie back into its coverings as he hurried alongside his friend, urging for more discretion. "We're nearly there, and you can't enter the Grand Council Chamber devouring a late breakfast on your feet like a common churl."

Matteo swallowed the last bit of the much-too-small sampling and sighed. Wrapping up the food, he tucked it away into his robes for later. Entering the palace courtyard, a final exclamation from the peasant preacher caught his ear.

". . . and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds." The source of this passage Matteo was certain about. It was from Revelations and was meant to offer comfort with the promise of Resurrection and eternal life, but for some reason, a shudder ran through him.