presents...
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Love and Madness
Game Date: 07/28/06
It wasn't going to work out. After days of talk, trying to convince themselves otherwise, Francesca and Marco came to that conclusion. Going back to Monfalcone was only going to cause trouble. They could run away together. Marco proposed the Midnight Archipelago, a tropical paradise where they could live in a hut on the beach, eating fruit and fish. Francesca was worried about being followed, and about what Antonio might to do Gianina. Marco thought that his father would be too busy with his plots and plans to go tearing off after his vedova, and his weak attempt to convince them both that Lady Donati would be fine seemed sufficient. With surprising speed, the two went back to the rooms to get what valuables they could carry (Francesca scrupulously leaving Gianina's jewels untouched, and Marco less scrupulously helping himself to whatever he could grab), sold off some for cash, and booked passage on a ship that was leaving immediately for Castille. As the ship pushed away from the Reinascienza harbor, Francesca slipped off her wedding ring and flung it over the side. Lady Donati had been out shopping, to replace the dress that got ruined in the catacombs. Returning with Renato, they soon discovered that Francesca and Marco were gone, along with all their things (and some of Renato's, and some of Father Donati's). Gianina was unconsolable. Thinking hard, the knight of the Rose and Cross came up with a plan to sacrifice his good name, and possibly life, for the happiness of the two sisters. Gianina should tell her husband that Renato had gotten too familiar with the ladies and eventually tried to force his attentions on pretty Francesca; Marco intervened and there was a fight, in which the two were killed. He gave her the enameled Rose and Cross pendant he wore in Vodacce in lieu of a tabard; he didn't tell her, but he didn't expect to be a member of the order much longer. She hesitantly offered him a blessing, which he regretfully declined. She did give him the rest of her shopping money, which he did take. After a brief embrace, he disappeared into the streets of Reinascienza. Father Donati was the last to learn of all of this; he was visiting Beatrice Caligari, informing her that her father wanted him to seduce her. She wasn't very surprised; Vincent had been similarly tasked. He had declined, and Prince Caligari couldn't pressure Duke Vincent Gaulle dul Motte of Montaigne quite the same way he could a Mantuan priest. She assumed that Angelo had accepted, since he was here with her and not in one of her father's "boxes." The question, then, was whether or not he'd lied to the prince. His answer - that he'd said what he had to say to survive - dodged her question, but she didn't notice, taking it as a negative. He had said before that he enjoyed talking to her, and she decided that must be the extent of his interest. She wasn't entirely sure if she was disappointed or relieved, and if his refusal on pain of death was out of respect for her, or out of fear. He hadn't shown fear so far. She would have liked to help, somehow, but couldn't see how, past warning him about the Lord's Hands and telling him to leave the island soon. She couldn't find his strands to keep enemies out of his path, and she certainly wasn't going to offer herself if he wasn't even interested. The general awkwardness got swept away when conversation turned to what she'd been doing. She and Vincent had had a great success in their experiments, and - even thought it was dangerous to do so - she wanted to talk about it. He had opened up a Portal to a blooded object back in Montaigne, and she had used her own black strands to grab onto his strand to it - it was a valuable item, so there was a Coins - and pull it through the hole. She'd had to snap the Coins strand afterward, since it was turning black near where she'd taken hold of it. That might not have spread, but discovering that was an experiment Vincent was not eager to attempt at present. This was clearly not on the level of the sorcery at Agitazione - it wasn't through time, the Portal went to a pre-exisiting blooded object and there was a pre-exisiting strand going to it right in the room with her. But it was a start. She also mentioned in passing her ideas to represent strand interconnections on a loom; one of the problems she was having was trying to see very many strands all at once. Just like it was easier to do sums on paper than in one's head, she felt it might be easier to do the sorcery if she had some other representation of it. He kissed her hand when he left, which just perplexed her further. So Angelo's mood was good, but underpinned with a sense of urgency, when he got back to the inn. "Wait'll you hear what you missed," Pietra greeted him, tugging him upstairs to talk with Gianina. He could work with the story she spun out, but there were two immediate problems. First and most importantly, Gianina couldn't lie to save her life. She started out trying to tell him the cover that Renato had concocted, but didn't even get five words in before she just told the truth. Second, there was nothing to back the story up if Antonio investigated it. If Francesca and Marco were killed, there should be a funeral at the very least. If there was to be a funeral, he couldn't leave the island tonight. But Gianina had kept Pietra's secrets when he'd confided them to her, so he felt that he should help her with this. So they stayed an additional day; Pietra acquired some bodies from somewhere and the sad and untimely deaths of the pair (from cholera, they let it be known) were lamented. Not too many people came to the funeral, since the Donati were strangers, but the pair of black-clad, dark-eyed men in the back looked just like Beatrice's description of her father's Hands. Angelo went right up to them after the service to deliver his progress report to the prince. The prince did not consider a kiss on the hand to be adequate progress. He ordered a very unfortunate Hand to escort Angelo to Donna Beatrice's quarters, make the matter plain to her, and wait until things were resolved satisfactorily. She could sense the Hand coming, and her door swung open while the men were still a good fifteen feet from it. She was angry, and let it show in her body language. The Hand managed to stammer out his message. She looked at Angelo, but he was silent. "Leave us," she commanded the Hand. He was shaking, but he stood his ground: he had orders. Beatrice lifted her veil and he paled; she reached into the air and made a swift jerking motion, snapping his Rods strand to her father. Angry, she pulled too hard - she could feel the Fate Lash silently rip down the side of her face. She ignored it. "You have no loyalty to my father, and you are very frightened of me. Leave us," she repeated. He took off down the hall, not looking back. Angelo was full of concern and wanted to tend to the wound. She tried to shrug it off, but he insisted and it was bleeding all over the place. It was... disconcerting to have him standing so close and to feel gentle hands on her face and neck as he cleaned and salved the Lash. She reminded herself that he was a doctor and could scarcely do his job from across the room. He enjoyed her conversation. But when he finished, he didn't step away, and looked into her eyes. Beatrice Caligari had, under the cover of her veil, seen many people watching her. She could see their eyes when they could not see hers, and she knew what their fear looked like. Much, much more rarely, she had gazed unveiled into someone else's eyes, either to bless or to curse them. Always, always there was the fear there. Only Morella, a long time ago, had ever met her eyes without fear, and it had begun to creep in after Beatrice had made her prophecies for Morella. Fear was the only expression she could reliably identify without needing to look at the strands. Angelo Donati was not afraid. I felt a deep connection with you. She believed it, finally, and found it suddenly difficult to breathe. He kissed her, and she did not for a moment wonder if her father had anything to do with it. While it might have been gratifying to continue this odd courtship at a slower pace, their desires were aligned and there was a pressing and practical reason to rush headlong toward that happy reward. There was, unfortunately, a wrinkle. Beatrice utterly lost control of her cursed black strands for a moment, which terrified her. On top of that, left to their own devices, most of the strands wrapped themselves around Angelo, an unnatural and horrifying sight for the strega. Love-play came to an abrupt halt. A good deal of comforting later, Beatrice was able to explain something about her curse. She had spent most of her life trying to gain a measure of control over the strands. Sometimes, they seemed to strike out at random, but they also enacted her passing fears or hatreds. She knew that many people had impulses to hurt or kill others, but of course you didn't act on them - they were momentary violent fantasies. (Angelo felt a stab of guilt at that.) Her strands would, if allowed, enact those fleeting desires, reaching out to cause deaths. The rooms above and below her chamber were empty; she didn't think she'd harmed anyone just now. When she'd regained her composure, the two said their goodbyes. Beatrice wrote a note to her father (she'd "arranged" for a tutor for herself; she couldn't very well keep good experimental logs without knowing how to write) informing him that all had gone well and that he should assist Father Donati in making any return trips to the island that he wanted. (Angelo had tried to arrange for easy Porte access to the island through Vincent Gaulle dul Motte, but the Montaigne lord refused him.) He promised to write, and to return when he could. He asked if she could perhaps come to the mainland. She started to say that it was impossible - it was difficult for her to travel - but stopped. She could arrange it if she wanted to, and she thought that she did. So she said she would try. Continue to next game.
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