Game Log

Better Left Unsaid

The candle was shielded in a little half-bell, directing its light toward the page and away from the door. She didn't want anything to be visible in the hall, after all.

Pietra was racing through one of the journals she'd pulled from Antonio's shelf, making mental notes. There was a lot here that was unfamiliar - no obvious clues - and she'd have to follow up on -

By the time she registered the sound of the key in the lock, the door was already opening. She stared up, stunned, and found Don Antonio staring back. She didn't move, or speak, waiting to see what conclusions he'd draw.

After a long moment of silence, he stepped into the room and half-turned to shut the door. "Sloppy work," he commented.

She bristled, but still didn't speak. He turned back around to face her. "Don't you know I sometimes work at night?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you were what? Hoping? That this wouldn't happen? Little wishful thinking?"

"No, sir," she said, a little warmly. She wasn't stupid. "I... thought I would hear you coming. The floor out there is squeaky."

"The floor out there is a nightingale floor," Antonio replied, stepping closer to the desk. "I had it installed. Good that you noticed, bad that you assumed I hadn't." She'd left her stupid veil off, and she noticed that he wasn't meeting her eyes. He was looking at her shoulder when he asked, "Are you here on your own behalf, or on Angelo's?"

Maybe I should tell him Gianina sent me down, she thought, then dismissed it as being too easy to check. "My own," she answered steadily.

"Hmp. I would normally let your father handle your punishment for this, but he's not here. For this - " and he gestured widely to his office, " - I think being found out is punishment enough. Welcome to the Great Game, Donna Pietra. I will consider myself warned. Now," and she noted with some alarm that his voice darkened by several degrees, "for this - " he placed one hand down on the open book on the desk. She automatically looked down at it; when she quickly looked back up, she caught his other hand across her cheek in a stinging slap. Her eyes got darker in the dim light.

"You. Don't. Read." Antonio's face was calm, almost placid, and his voice was controlled. "Do you understand that? You don't read, or the next time the Tessatore are here, they'll take you away and there won't be a thing I or Father Angelo or Prince Mondavi can do about it. Don't look at me like that." He looked in the general direction of her face and waved his finger diagonally in the air, tracing out the slope of her scar. "You're strong. It's your pride that's hurt, and that's the only way you're going to learn, isn't it? Your mother's daughter," he muttered. "Nobody must ever see you with a book. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," she said, as carefully neutrally as she could.

"And what's worth risking the pyre for, eh?" He picked up the book, squinting in the dim light. He flipped back and forth a few pages. She sat, quietly, while he put the pieces together. It was a boring old journal, a daily record of household activities and expenses, no hidden secrets at all.

It was also from fourteen years ago, when dozens of suitors had come calling on Angela Donati. All their names, and the dates they'd arrived and left, were recorded there.

He closed it carefully and placed it back on the shelf. He lingered there for a moment. "You don't need to know that."

"Yes, I do." Don Antonio wasn't stupid. Maybe he could be reasoned with. "Look. I'm a mainland parish priest's bastard daughter, right? To be made baronessa? How many powerful, connected Chiarisa families are going to be my enemies? If they can't find my mother, they'll invent one for me - something awful. Maybe threaten to sink Father's career with her. And then I'll tell them who my mother was, because she tried to kill me twice and I really don't care about a dead woman's reputation, whereas I do care about Father's. And then we start it all over again, but now with a missing father, but if I know who it is ahead of time, maybe I can work out some damage control now."

Don Antonio was still standing by the bookshelf. "You don't need to know that," he repeated, a little hoarsely.

She softened her tone. "I don't blame you at all. If you'd guarded her better, I wouldn't even be alive, right? He can't have been a servant, because I'm a full strega, and you said it wasn't Tigran Mondavi... I didn't see any other names that are even half as infamous today, maybe they were bad back then. I can handle it."

She heard him take a deep breath as he turned around. "I promised your father - Angelo, that is - that I wouldn't speak of it to anyone. Including and especially you. So - "

"What about Prince Mondavi?" she interrupted. "What if he asks you to tell him?"

He paused. When he spoke, it was very slowly. "I will tell the prince that I did not see the man who got past me. Look. Angelo and I are the only two who know. Neither of us will speak a word of it."

The candle sputtered and hissed in the sudden, profound silence. Angelo and I are the only two who know. "Isn't there... isn't there at least one other person who knows? My father?"

It was hard to read body language by half-shadowed candlelight, but she would've sworn that he was suddenly frozen rather than still. There was another silent pause. "Angelo and I... are the only two alive who know," he finally amended himself.

But in the silence, she remembered, back to the rectory. Antonio's evasion, his anger, and mostly his shame, that seemed so out of proportion to his failure. And how Angelo, doggedly questioning him, had suddenly stopped and backed off.

The knowledge settled into her gut somewhere - she felt it even as she avoided thinking about it. "Well. I guess... if you're sure it will be all right... then I'll... I'll just leave it alone."

She heard the breath go out of him. "Good. Good," he said, and she couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed. "Now. Get the hell out of here."

"Yes, sir." Moving quickly but neatly, she circled the desk and pulled the door open, disappearing into the shadows of the front hall.

Continue to Game 26.