The Plague Doctor's Daughter

14. Giovanna

The Procurator's son wasn't the only man under Giovanna's care who had survived the night. When she arrived home, her father—albeit tremendously weak and continuously feverish—was thankfully also still alive.

While helping him drink a cupful of bone broth infused with basil and ginger, Giovanna inspected the buboes on his neck and torso. Although red and swollen, they weren't nearly as bad as some other cases she had observed. Their lack of intensity most likely attributed to the doctor's continued survival, and while many of the plague's victims died within the first twenty-four hours after first contact, Agostino Rienzo had made it past that hurdle. His chances at full recovery were now much greater.

Content with her father's progress, Giovanna finally allowed herself to rest. Yet slumber wouldn't come as her mind filled with anxious thoughts. After cracking open one of her father's medical books, Giovanna's vision soon blurred as her heavy eyelids drooped. Intending to sleep for no more than an hour, she awoke from her cot with the sun high in the sky. In spite of amusing dreams involving a dark-haired boy chasing her, she was less cross with herself for nearly sleeping the whole day away than at the realization that she wished he'd caught her before waking.

Matteo Barozzi was dangerous. Not explicitly, of course. Why, before last night Giovanna had never even met him. But she had known of him, and most importantly, of men like him. Second only to Niccolo Grimani among bachelors within the city who sat so close to power they could taste it, he may have seemed tempting—oh, so tempting—but she had to keep her distance. That's why she had made one of her demands last night that he stay away from her. It may have appeared to him that it was to keep her father's secret safe, but it also ensured to guard her heart. Ottavia's dread of becoming tied to the man whose family openly ruled Venice politically and in the shadows economically had been a forewarning that Giovanna could not ignore. And while her poor friend had no choice in the matter, she wouldn't have risked her own future for a fleeting dalliance.

Not that it could ever become a possibility, anyway. Matteo most likely looked down on girls like her. Girls whose family name couldn't be found in the great book or who had to work for coin to keep food on their table. His appreciation last night came from a place of delirium rather than conscience. If their paths were to cross along the canals, she was sure he'd have no trouble keeping to his promise of looking away.

For a brief moment, that determination made Giovanna's heart ache. But just as quickly, she realized that Matteo wasn't less threatening than Nicco, but rather easily surpassed him. Because while Nicco had very little chance of ever ascending to his father's position of Doge because of the nature of Venetian politics, Matteo was practically guaranteed his place as Procurator.

But enough of daydreaming!

Jumping to her feet, Giovanna diverted her attention to more important things by inspecting her stock of medicinal ingredients. Having brewed numerous batches of elixirs the previous day, she'd depleted several of her most useful materials needed to make the healing potions. Although some supplies like turmeric and honey could be easily procured at a local market stall, many of her special herbs and fungi had to be harvested on the mainland.

Although Giovanna hated to leave her father alone again, she felt as though she had no choice. After giving him more of the broth and finishing the rest herself with a bit of dried bread, she reluctantly donned her cloak, grabbed a wicker basket, and set off.

She walked to the canal behind San Polo's church and found one of her favorite oarsmen there. The Republic paid her father's monthly stipend, and along with it, his transportation costs. As his assistant, Giovanna could utilize his running bill throughout the city and only needed a polite nod and smile to secure a lift.