presents...
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Time for Troubles
Game Date: 06/02/06
Voltadi, Quintus 7, evening Much to Aldo Falisci's dismay, Salvador took "Vanya," his favorite, out for dinner. After suggesting a fine place for the other Donati to dine, she suggested to Salvador that they simply get food from a street vendor and continue their discussion aboard a gondola. The gondoliers, she explained aboard, provided a necessary service on islands teeming with spies and informants: they let you get away from them. The princes would be just as happy if they were the only ones on their islands with secure and private chambers in their palaces; however, everyone else (their own agents included) found the gondolas indispensible. The gondoliers, then, had become nearly sacred in their silence - almost like a priest in confession. She would have probably continued to talk about the role of gondolas indefinitely if Salvador hadn't brought the conversation around to the question: what was she doing here? The question itself seemed to offend Vanessa. Did Salvador really think she'd been reduced to such a position? Well, no of course not, but... Vanessa as much as said that the obvious deduction one might make upon learning that one's Vesten lover was really a Vendel merchant's daughter - that is, that she was a spy - was the correct deduction. Her brothers had been involved in "digging" - uncovering Syrneth artifacts for trade - and Caligari had taken exception to their activities. The information she was collecting would be used to avenge their deaths. She was not especially enjoying her time in Vodacce. She apologized to Salvador for leaving Castille without even a good-bye - she'd since learned that Vodacce men were much more patronizing than he'd been, and allowed as how she'd overreacted. Salvador protested that Vodacce wasn't such a bad place; Vanessa agreed, but only if you were a noble and a man. "Or a nobleman's wife," Salvador tried, but Vanessa had seen too much to believe it. Cloistered, closeted, ignorant and ignored - that seemed to be the lot of the Senzavista and, frankly, most of the strega until their husbands wanted a reading done. They spoke briefly about Salvador's new ambitions, and then she asked him if he would tell anyone who she was. He was perhaps as wounded by the question as she'd been by his earlier doubts as to her actual role in Aldo's household: of course her secret was safe with him. The gondola returned to shore, and Salvador walked "Vanya" back to Caligari Palace. The rest of the Donati were having an excellent fish dinner and several of them were having too much wine. Thoroughly rattled by Beatrice Caligari, Pietra was drinking more than her small frame could handle. The awkward adolescent questions she usually bit back came tumbling out; Francesca tried her best to answer them. Her little brainstorm that Angelo could put a knife in Caligari earned her a reprimand from the usually quiet Renato Vasari; the Knight of the Rose and Cross was all too aware of the presence of spies in the islands. Across the table, eyebrows had been raised at Francesca's answers. They seemed a little too knowing to be appropriate. Francesca, herself a bit into her cups, sniffed that she couldn't help it if she'd been taught by Father's courtesans since (and she started sobbing) her mother wouldn't have anything to do with her once the family learned she didn't have Sorte. Marco tried his best to console her - she was with a new family now, and they loved her - and at Father Donati's signal, comforted her right out the door and back to the inn. He sat next to her on her bed with an arm around her, letting her cry. Eventually, he couldn't stand to see her still so upset and offered to read some more of the book they were working through, to try and distract her. To his relief, she snuffled and accepted. And so they sat together until the others returned. Soldi, Quintus 8 Mass at Reinascienza's cathedral of St. Agnese was remarkable. The structure was impossibly tall and slender, a wonder of modern architecture, science, and Sorte. Not even the archbishop's droning could distract from the gilded beauty of the columns and arches. Afterwards, Father Donati chatted up the local priesthood, making excellent impressions everywhere he went. Leaving Pietra behind, he then went to visit Beatrice Caligari again, taking with him a present for her. It was not very well received, and Angelo followed up with an explanatory letter entrusted to her maidservant. Salvador wrote a thank-you letter to Aldo and another to Vanessa. In hers, he encoded the name of a local genne house connected to the Daughters, where she could go for aid if her current situation turned dangerously ugly. The ladies went for a stroll with their chaperones, finding the hedge maze in the "haunted" Piazza di Castillia. (The Donati figured it couldn't possibly be more haunted than the places they'd already been.) All was merry for three minutes, at which point the two sisters differed on which way to go. They split up. If the men thought they were to have a pleasant shady stroll with the ladies, they were mistaken. Sibling rivalry took over in a grim race to find the center first. Francesca knew a bit about hawking and hunting and used some tracking tricks to determine where other people had gone through the maze before them. Gianina's Sorte-enhanced intuition brought her to a shortcut. Both ladies entered the maze's center garden at the same time, via alternate entrances. With the contest over, good spirits returned, and the young people enjoyed the garden, aping the pose of the statue of Velme there and smelling the blooming flowers. Continue to next game.
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