strawberry gashes
He sank his blade into the base of her skull, killing her instantly. Then he did the same to the nearly full-term baby still feebly kicking inside of her womb. Ezio’s fingers gently closed her beautiful green eyes.
Requiescat in pace…
Taline gasped awake, her shivering body drenched in cold sweat, and started crying. She had started going into Ezio’s dreams while he slept after his nightmares had begun bleeding into hers, and now she dreamt his nightmares on her own. He dreamed of killing her cousin Anoush – they had looked so alike as children they were often mistaken for sisters, sometimes even twins – over and over again. Often it woke him, and he made love to her desperately – per favore, perdonami, mia dolce mogliettina, perdonami[1] – before falling back into fitful sleep. She wondered if Anoush had been pregnant when Ezio killed her. She didn’t really want to know.
He also dreamed of sex with Cristina, of hasty but enthusiastic encounters in an alarming array of locations, of the rough, passionate coupling she was so uncomfortably familiar with, but he also dreamt of slow, gentle lovemaking – soft touches and tender kisses, intimacy and affection – and it hurt how desperately she wanted it to be like that between them. She wished there was a way for her to ask him to be like that with her, without him getting angry that she had seen his dreams, his memories. She heard the door open and hastily wiped away her tears.
“Khanum? Are you awake?”
She allowed herself a brief grimace before she sat up and forced a smile.
“Yes, I am awake.” She recognized the girl that had been sitting on Ezio’s lap that first afternoon, when she had gone to find him in his mother’s brothel. Something in her chest twisted tight with jealousy. She’s just one of the Madonna’s whores, she reminded herself firmly. Not another Ingeborg. Not a threat. “Is it Ezio? Has he sent for me?”
“No, Khanum,” the girl replied in careful Arabic, expression stretched tightly into something more like a grimace than a smile. “The Madonna commands you come.”
Of course. He’s never sent for you to come to him while he’s working, she reminded herself as her heart sank. Don’t be foolish. Ezio had promised to show her around Rome, but she was beginning to suspect he’d forgotten making that promise; he’d been inundated with demands on his time by his family, friends, and former students since they’d arrived.
“Is she in the upstairs parlor? Please tell the Madonna that I’ll just be a moment,” she said as she stood, reaching up to smooth her hair as she made her way to the standing mirror.
The girl hesitated. “She said to bring you.”
“Oh-” her hands momentarily froze in the act of repining her hair, but she caught herself quickly. And to watch me. She forced a smile at the stranger’s reflection. “Yes, of course. I won’t be long.”
The girl made some effort at masking her scrutiny with a flimsy charade of embarrassed indifference, but her skin prickled with warning at the predatory glint in that studiedly disinterested gaze and her hands’ well-practiced movements became clumsy and uncoordinated. She knew the girl noticed. The Assassins had always frightened her a little when she was still working at the cabaret; they watched her differently than other people had when she performed –cold, calculating eyes, and a characteristic half-heartbeat hesitation before they smiled. It never took long for the cabaret’s new employees to learn how to recognize Assassins.
“My name is Violetta,” the girl said suddenly. “Violetta Milani. I’m not just a, una puttana. I do the Order’s work.”
“I’m sure you do,” she replied after an uncomfortable pause, mentally cringing over how awkward she sounded. She was tempted to ask if sitting on Ezio’s lap was part of doing the Order’s work, but decided against it. She didn’t want her mother-in-law to think she was jealous or insecure. Even though I’m both, she privately admitted, grimacing at the sharp sting of a hairpin scraping against her scalp as she pushed it through a coil of her hair. The girl watched as she finished fixing her hair and retouched her smudged eyeliner in thickening silence.
“Did Ezio make those?” Violetta abruptly asked, motioning to the fresh bruises wreathing her wrist.
Her heart was hammering and her palms were suddenly damp and she could sense the effervescent tingle of the Assassins’ magic humming through the girl’s hidden blades. Don’t let the others know what you can do, it’s not safe. She turned her back to the girl as she moved to set her eyeliner brush down with her other toiletries on top of the dresser and wrapped the fingers of her other hand around her injured wrist. The glamour must have broken while I was dreaming; how strange. She really didn’t want to think too much about what might have caused such a thing and silently recast the glamour. She was glad of the elbow-length sleeves of her cardigan; it would have been impossible to cast a second glamour over the yellowing bruises on her upper arm unnoticed. They can see fear, she reminded herself and drew a careful breath.
“Did Ezio make what?” she asked lightly as she turned back to face the girl, glamour restored and the skin of her wrist once again appearing smooth and unmarred. She tilted her head and arched a brow as her hand settled on the subtle swelling of her lower abdomen. “Surely, you’re not asking me if this is his child, are you?”
Violetta’s eyes flashed gold before her lashes drooped into a languid look and a well-oiled smile settled into place.
“Of course it’s Messere Ezio’s child. No one would dream of questioning that,” Violetta purred. “Are you ready, Khanum? The Madonna doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“Yes, of course.” Her smile felt brittle and she could feel the Assassin’s magic swirling through the space between them.
Violetta led her, not to the private parlor she’d expected, but to another room. It was smaller than the parlor, dominated by a large desk with curving legs that ended in meticulously carved lion’s paws, claws extended. Madonna Maria was seated behind her desk on a high-backed armchair that almost looked like a throne – gleaming red wood and creamy tufted leather – Filomena hovering over her shoulder to view the enormous open ledger on the desk as they discussed something in low-voiced Italian. Filomena’s expression looked strained; her mother-in-law’s did not.
Bathed in the phantasmagorical light streaming through the beveled glass panes of the enormous arched window directly behind Madonna Maria’s desk, the two women reminded her of paintings she’d seen as a child with her father when he’d taken her to the National Gallery in Yerevan. Even the subject of the scene – the madam reviewing her account books and correspondence – seemed to fit the style of an old European masterpiece. Her mother-in-law was certainly beautiful enough to have been painted by one of the Dutch masters. She nervously smoothed one hand over her hair and twitched the folds of her skirt straight with the other.
“Taline,” Maria greeted her with a sphinxlike smile as she dripped bright crimson wax onto the document in front of her. “I hope Violetta didn’t disturb you. I thought perhaps we could have a little chat over tea, get to know one another a bit better, without Ezio getting in the way. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
She blinked and forced a smile. Maria studied her, the moment measured out by the sound of the Order’s heavy seal squelching into the pool of melted wax on the document, and her skin crawled at the sound of the metal nib of Maria’s delicately carved ivory quill slicing her signature into the parchment. No, that doesn’t sound nice. For what felt like the hundredth time already that day, she wished she was back at Alamūt. Taghrid’s drinking her tea right now while the little ones have their morning nap. She wanted to be home, drinking tea with Taghrid and teaching her students.
“Yes, Madonna,” she dutifully murmured and lowered her eyes.
She could feel Filomena and Violetta watching her, taking her measure and finding her lacking. She knew Filomena was looking for signs of fresh injuries, additional evidence of her unsuitability, and that Violetta would tell her what she’d seen. Filomena thinks you beat Taline because she is displeasing to you, Altaïr had stated to Ezio that morning, his flattened tone seething with disapproval. She’d noticed the phrasing of Altaïr’s statement – Filomena thinks you beat Taline because she is displeasing to you – that those around her weren’t questioning if she was being beaten, only what she’d done to deserve it. She’d also noticed that Altaïr’s disapproval was focused on the effect of Ezio’s actions – but you hurt her – and not what she may have done to provoke him. Sometimes, it made her a little uneasy, the way Altaïr always seemed to see her, the way he noticed things. She’d spent just about half of her life trying not to really be seen, and none of her tricks for remaining unnoticed seem to work on Ezio’s cousin; Altaïr, she had the distinct and unsettling impression, noticed everything. She wondered if Madonna Maria would be the same and reinforced the glamour she’d cast over the bruises on her wrist. Ezio hadn’t wanted his mother to see those and she worried what would happen if she did. Don’t let the others know what you can do, it’s not safe.
“Leave us,” Maria commanded as she rose, placing her ivory quill on the desktop with exaggerated care and then smoothing invisible creases from her narrow sheath skirt. Her mother-in-law was dressed in a winter white blouse and dragonskin heels with a pale pearl-gray skirt, and her nails had been freshly painted in a slightly different shade of dark crimson than they’d been when she and Ezio had finally come down for breakfast, only hours before.
Violetta scuttled from the room after casting a quick glance at Filomena, leaving the door ajar behind herself. Filomena, who had straightened her posture when Madonna Maria stood, clucked her tongue in disapproval and bustled over to close the door, busily smoothing the sides of her enormous pompadour as she went.
“You as well, la mia amica,” Maria murmured, after Filomena had closed the door and turned to rejoin them. “Please tell the elves they may now serve my daughter and I tea. Thank you-” Madonna Maria’s smile was chilling “-for doing me this service.”
Filomena’s mouth twisted as though she’d just tasted something unpleasant and she breathed loudly through her nose before responding.
“As you desire, Madonna.” Filomena added something in Italian and Taline’s skin crawled under the hostile look the older woman shot her as she left the room, shutting the door sharply behind herself.
Madonna Maria sighed and turned to her with an artfully constructed tired smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“My apologies, for that, outburst-” Maria paused for a moment, one hand idly adjusting the tiered strands of pearls she was wearing. “-Filomena, has very particular ideas of protocol, and can be fierce in her affection for my son, having had no children of her own. I’m sure you understand.”
Whatever her mother-in-law had just cast brushed against her skin like spiderwebs and nausea tickled the back of her throat. She didn’t understand what Maria’s explanation was supposed to mean.
“Yes, of course, Madonna,” she replied and hoped the effort behind her smile wasn’t apparent. The silken fabric of her undergarments felt clammy against her skin and the top edges of the lowcut cups of her balconette brassier chafed her swollen breasts and the brief nap she’d managed to take had done nothing to alleviate the unshakable miasma of fatigue that had so far accompanied their stay in Rome. “Ezio has spoken to me of Filomena’s great affection for him and Mari-”
“You may speak to me in Turkish, if that language would be easier for you,” Maria abruptly declared, motioning her towards one of the armchairs placed next to the room’s second largest window. The view was of the back of the neighboring building and a narrow, cobble-paved street, nearly deserted, save for a flock of busily pecking pigeons and a mongrel stray dog napping on the sun-warmed stones.
“My command of the language has decayed over the years since I last spoke it regularly, but I was quite fluent,” she continued in elegant Ottoman Turkish, her Persian accent only discernable because Taline knew it would be there.
My Arabic can’t possibly be that poor. My students understand what I say to them just fine. And the patrons at the cabaret when I was still dancing never seemed to notice anything wrong with how I spoke either.
“Thank you, Madonna, that is very kind.” She took the seat indicated and carefully smoothed her skirt, mindful of her mother-in-law’s impeccable grooming and her own inadequacies in that area. It didn’t help her confidence that she’d been repeatedly told how to dress that week – Ezio overruled her jewelry choices, Madonna Maria decreed what shoes she was allowed to wear, Mari kept waspishly telling her to cover her arms and Lucia made backhanded comments about the cut and fit of her clothing. Only Altaïr hadn’t commented on her appearance, which hardly seemed his habit anyway. She hadn’t really appreciated how good it felt when Taghrid paid her little daily compliments or when the girls she taught math tried to copy her hairstyles and the way she winged her eyeliner. She realized with an uncomfortable jolt how much she missed being seen as stylish and pretty. Here everyone just sees me as some squat country bumpkin that’s gotten a little fat after hooking herself a man who’s too good for her. Yusriyah Hekim kept telling her not to worry about the weight she was putting on, that it was necessary for her pregnancy to go well that she allow her body to gain the weight it needed. Ezio seemed to like the weight pregnancy was adding to her body, really, really like it, but she couldn’t help wondering how much longer she had before he would start to be swayed by the less than positive opinions of her appearance expressed by nearly everyone she had met so far in Italy. That train of thought unwillingly reminded her again of how tall and slim and pretty Cristina had looked.
“I understand that you’ve been serving the Order as a teacher,” Maria continued, sinking onto the seat of the other chair and carefully crossing her legs so as to visually emphasize their shapeliness and length. “Al Mualim has told me how pleased the Order is with your work.”
“Yes,” she hesitated, blinking back the swell of panic she felt at the thought of someone like Al Mualim being aware of her mundane day to day activities. “I help Taghrid in the mornings with the little ones, although that hardly counts as teaching, not really. They’re mostly too young to learn much beyond words and manners, honestly –” stop babbling. Nobody wants to hear about glorified babysitting “– and in the afternoons I teach older students, Turkish and mathematics,” she finished in a self-conscious rush and forced a smile. The side of her neck itched horribly, but she wasn’t going to scratch herself like some feral dog with mange in front of her glamourous mother-in-law.
The door swung open to admit an elf bearing a heavily laden tray which it soundlessly deposited on the low table between them and then waited, eyes respectfully downcast, while Maria inspected the tray’s contents before leaving just as silently as it had arrived at her dismissal.
Her mother-in-law’s tea service was exceptionally beautiful. The body, spout, and lid of the tall pot were made of some sort of ethereal crystal or glass, beautifully opalescent with shifting swirls of deep amber and pomegranate red, cradled in a footed base of silver sculpted tulips, hammered impossibly delicate and thin, with a long, swooping handle connecting the base to the matching silver band of tulips around the pot’s high, thin neck. The elongated, misty-colorless cups were cradled in silver footed bases, also in a tulip motif, with similarly styled attached handles that matched the pot. The tea service was accompanied by delicate bone china plates of small cakes and toast, a variety of spreads and small fruits, and a glass jar of what looked like smoked caviar. This is what Ezio grew up with. She suddenly felt even more out of place, meretricious and unsophisticated. No wonder everyone thinks he married down.
“It sounds like you are keeping very busy,” Maria commented as she poured their tea after an uncomfortably long silence. “Be careful not to tire yourself out too much with other things, joon-am; being with child itself can be very exhausting, especially as your pregnancy progresses, and my son requires a lot of… attention. As I’m sure you’ve already noticed.” Her mother-in-law’s smile was uncomfortably knowing.
“I, um, yes. Yes, of course, Madonna,” she murmured and hid behind taking a careful sip of still too hot tea. It felt like her face had been scalded with boiling water. I should have just pretended to be asleep or said I felt unwell. The steam from the tea burned her eyes and her throat suddenly felt tight. I want to go home.
“To blush like that, you are either an uncommonly excellent actress, or you really are as much of an innocent as my son claims you to be,” Maria hummed, with an almost sympathetic look. “Either way, this hasn’t been easy for you, has it?”
She momentarily froze, heart hammering against ribs. She couldn’t tell if her mother-in-law was making sympathetic conversation or trying to entrap her. You’re being paranoid, she told herself firmly, took another careful sip of tea, and tried to ignore her increasing instinct to flee. Where would you run? There’s nowhere for you to go, no one to take you in. What would happen to your baby? The pasha’s pendant was cold between her breasts. I’m so sorry, Uncle. Her hands were trembling and she cleared her throat to cover her teacup rattling against its saucer as she set it down.
“My life is very different than it was, before Ezio,” she carefully admitted. “But I think it is much better now, with him, then it would ever be otherwise. He is very kind to me and we’re both so happy to be having our first child.”
“We, myself and Mario, are so pleased for you both, we all are. Children bring much happiness to a home.” Maria’s voice was pitched low and soothing as she drew Taline’s teacup to herself and carefully refilled it. “Have you and Ezio discussed names? I trust he’s told you of the tradition in our family, that if your child is a girl her first name must be Maria. Naturally, her second name would be your choice. Such as your mother’s name, perhaps?”
“My mother’s name was Sophia,” she replied, answering her mother-in-law’s obvious but unspoken question as she accepted the refilled teacup Maria was handing to her. “She was born in Constantinople, near the great mosque. I was told that her father was an architect, and he so greatly admired that holy building’s beauty, its resilience and strength, that he wanted my mother named after it to encourage those traits in her.”
“What a lovely story,” Maria hummed, taking a dainty sip of her tea. “Have you and Ezio discussed any names if your child is a boy?”
She hesitated, nervously toying with her pendant as she considered her response. She and Ezio hadn’t really discussed possible names for their child at all; not directly, at least. He’d mentioned the possibility of naming their child after his brother, Federico, or perhaps his Uncle Mario, but only in passing. If she had her choice, she’d name a son after her father, or one of her brothers, but she already knew her preferences would hold little sway in what their child was named and it almost seemed cruel for her mother-in-law to pretend otherwise. She realized with an uncomfortable jolt that she still wasn’t entirely sure what Ezio’s father’s name had been, but was too ashamed to confess her ignorance to her mother-in-law. That she lacked such basic knowledge about her husband’s immediate family only emphasized how little she and Ezio really knew about each other, how thoroughly she was failing to fulfil her role as his wife and help mate.
“Not really,” she carefully admitted, as a way to indirectly ask what Ezio’s father’s name had been occurred to her. “I imagine Ezio would want to name a son after his father-” She startled at her mother-in-law’s not entirely suppressed cough of incredulous laughter.
“My apologies,” Maria chortled, lips curved with the hint of a vicious smile. “But I sincerely doubt that my son has any desire to name his first child – or any child, for that matter – after my fallen husband.”
It struck her as decidedly strange that Maria had very specifically said my fallen husband and not his father, or even just the man’s name. My parents hated each other. I think she was glad when my father died, Ezio had confided to her, after he’d been drinking heavily. She suddenly realized that was the only thing he’d told her about his father, aside from that he had died with Ezio’s much-loved older brother while out on a contract when Ezio had been fourteen.
“Was his father so unkind to him?” she asked hesitantly. It felt uncomfortable, somehow, to wheedle information from her mother-in-law that her husband hadn’t shared with her himself, but felt important that she know these things, to better understand Ezio and his mercurial moods, if nothing else.
Maria sighed and looked out the window, seeming to stare blankly at the peeling paint of the neighboring building’s wall as she toyed with a strand of the triple tiered icy-white pearl necklace she was wearing, posture stiff and guarded. She suddenly tasted a whisper of long-simmering rage, touched with something acerbic and strangely oily, almost like regret, in the air between them and wondered what her mother-in-law was thinking.
“Ezio has the most remarkable capacity to love,” Maria finally said slowly, still staring blankly out the window. “Unaffected by jealousy, envy, and regardless of whether his love is even returned in kind. Giovanni doted on Federico, in his way, but never had the time or even a kind word for Ezio, and I know Gio’s indifference hurt him terribly. But Ezio never stopped trying to love him all the same, and he didn’t let Gio’s treatment taint the love he had for his brother. Ezio and Fredo adored each other, and Mari too, of course. It is my brother-in-law, actually, who really loves Ezio, he’s the one who showed interest in him and his training and education when he was a boy. Mario has always been more fatherly to Ezio than Giovanni ever was.”
A vivid memory of her cousin Garegin, the eldest of her Uncle Krikor’s sons, working on one of his large jigsaw puzzles in a basement room of his father’s house came to mind. Garegin was completing the edges, working his way inwards towards the already pieced together parts sitting in the otherwise empty middle like a chain of islands. The puzzle was still too unfinished for her to tell what the picture was supposed to be, but that never bothered Garegin. The beautiful certainty of puzzles, little cousin, is that every piece, no matter how strangely shaped or odd looking, has a purpose and a place. Understanding Ezio felt like she was trying to piece together one of Garegin’s massive puzzles alone in the dark, without knowing what the final picture or dimensions were, and the pieces were being handed to her only a few at a time. She wasn’t even sure all the pieces she was collecting were even part of the same puzzle. Her throat tightened and eyes stung. She missed her eldest cousin; Garegin was so good at puzzles, at finding missing pieces.
Maria cleared her throat with a demur cough and took a dainty sip of her tea. Her mother-in-law’s smile was sharp, speculative, and it made her suddenly aware of the swelling silence that had fallen between them.
“Even a relative outsider such as myself can see how much Messere Mario loves my husband,” she finally said, picking up the dropped threads of their conversation, artfully tempering her tone and choosing her words with care. She intuitively knew Maria was handing her an important piece of information, but she wasn’t sure, exactly, what that information was or where it fit. “It shines through his eyes whenever he’s around Ezio.” She carefully adjusted her teacup’s position on its saucer as she framed her next sentence. “I think some of it’s even rubbed off on me. Messere Mario has been very kind and welcoming – you both have – and I appreciate it very much. I know how much your approval matters to Ezio-”
Maria interrupted her with a sardonic huff. “Ezio’s desire for our approval is a somewhat recent development. He went out of his way to make it abundantly clear that he didn’t care at all what I, or anyone else for that matter, thought about his relationship with that entirely ill-suited kāfir.”
She was intensely curious about Ezio’s relationship with Cristina, but even skirting the topic with him went very poorly. Altaïr, who was generally receptive to questions regarding the family he shared with Ezio, neither knew Cristina nor had had any interest in knowing her. What Altaïr had told her was that Cristina was a witch – one of those kāfir who need a stick to wield their magic – and also that, while not ideal or encouraged, a Cathari was far preferable as a spouse than a Witch or Wizard in the eyes of the Order. Mari clearly knew Cristina, and had seemed to have been friendly with her, but anything Mari told her about Cristina would probably be a half-truth at best and only shared if it was calculated to be hurtful. Madonna Maria clearly didn’t like Cristina, and seemed to have disapproved of her from the moment she’d caught Ezio’s eye, from the sounds of it, but Maria also seemed the most likely to answer her questions about Cristina at least somewhat honestly. There was so much she desperately wanted to know about Cristina, about Ezio’s relationship with Cristina, about how and where and when and why it went wrong.
“Do you mean the woman Mari was talking to outside the bookseller’s shop, Cristina?” she finally mustered the courage to ask.
“Yes.”
She flinched at the crisp finality in the delivery of that one-word response; clearly further questions about Cristina would not be welcomed. Madonna Maria finished her tea with almost exaggerated care, set her teacup down precisely in the center of its saucer, and then daintily dabbed an errant drop of tea from the corner of her mouth with her ring finger before leveling another strangely opaque smile at her.
“You haven’t eaten a thing, joon-am,” Maria hummed, watching her through her lashes. “Would you like a piece of honey cake – it was a special favorite of Ezio’s, when he was a little boy – I assure you that the elves make it quite well.”
She felt her stomach rumble as she glanced at the sticky golden cake; it looked delicious, rich, and she couldn’t tell if her mouth was watering in anticipation of eating the cake or of vomiting it back up. She was so tired of the constant anxiety she now felt when faced with food – wondering if she’d be able to keep it down, how unpleasant it would be when she threw it up if she couldn’t.
“Or perhaps some toast, if you aren’t in the mood for sweets?” Maria continued smoothly at her hesitation, picking up a slice of toast and spreading it thickly with some creamy soft white cheese. Her mother-in-law set the piece of toast on one of the small plates the elf had brought with the tea service, sliced it into bite-sized wedges, and topped each wedge with a careful spoonful of smoked caviar. She added a few springs of dark red cassis berries and some strange fruits that looked like oranges, but were the size and shape of a large olive, as well as a few leathery black actual olives, with another unsettling smile.
“Growing a child is such hungry work. Surely, you must feel famished.”
“Yes, thank you, Madonna,” she murmured, hurriedly setting her teacup down to accept the laden plate her mother-in-law offered her. She was hungry – ravenous, actually – but for the rather bland, familiar foods she knew were easiest to keep down, and therefore usually the safest to eat. She spared a quick glance at the wetly gleaming tiny black pearls of caviar sticking to the strange cheese spread over the toast her mother-in-law had given her and tried to swallow down her apprehension before returning Maria’s smile. “It all looks so-” unfamiliar,expensive “-so delicious,” she offered lamely. “Thank you.”
“Of course, joon-am. Please, tell me if there’s anything further I can do that would make your visit more enjoyable,” Maria said, expression momentarily, frighteningly, intense before she swiftly resumed her smile and took another dainty sip of tea.
She wondered, with an unwelcomed burst of genuine fear, what her mother-in-law’s real purpose was in commanding her presence for this private tête-à-tête. What doesn’t she want anyone else to hear? Is she hoping that I’ll somehow betray Ezio to her? Is she testing me? She suddenly felt morbidly self-conscious of everything – the way she was sitting, the shape of her legs and her thickening ankles, the unflattering way her clothing was stretched too tight in places by her changing body, the puffy pallor of her face and her slovenly upswept hair, the awkward way her hands attached to her wrists. Her smile felt fragile and foreign and strained. The strap of her brassier was cutting into her left shoulder and she could feel the tops of her doughy-pale breasts swelling, almost spilling over the tight cups with every breath she drew. The ring Ezio had put on her finger felt too large and heavy and loud, like he’d gotten it for her to prove something that wasn’t really about her at all. Don’t let the others know what you can do, it’s not safe. The pasha’s pendant was cold between her breasts, cold as the fresh graves back in Armenia. I’m so sorry Uncle.
She hadn’t really believed Ezio when he’d said he wanted to marry her that first night, when they were in her bed above the cabaret together, her completely naked and him nearly so – not that he had seemed at all drunk when he made that promise, but she had assumed inability, rather than decency or restraint, was the most likely explanation for why he hadn’t raped her – and certainly not after he slipped away before the day had dawned, following her foolish confession of how her father’s brother had already and thoroughly despoiled her. She had felt foolish packing her case and putting on her best dress just in case he returned for her, styling and restyling her hair as she waited to settle her nerves and pass the time. But Ezio had returned for her, almost immediately, in fact, and he had seemed so relieved that she was packed and waiting for him, almost like he’d actually believed that she would see an opportunity to escape a future of nothing but uncertainty, poverty, and loneliness and not grab it with both hands, and he was such an unbelievably beautiful man, with rarefied manners and expensive clothes, he could have easily gotten anyone he wanted, but he wanted her and how could she say anything but yes to him. She kept saying yes, please Varpet, yes, and he gave her a place to belong and a comforting sense of security and a new married name, lavished beautiful clothing and jewelry on her and fully furnished their house, and in return all he wanted from her was loyalty and children, to father her children. She had always wanted children, and now she desperately wanted to have his children. Everything between them should have been perfect, they both wanted this baby so badly…
“Everything is well, between you?” Maria abruptly asked, gaze suddenly, uncomfortably sharp, penetrating. “Ezio has so much love to give,” she continued, “and such a great need to be loved. I imagine that can feel a bit, overwhelming, at times?”
She froze, gripping the dainty plate of food her mother-in-law had handed her so tightly the edges were cutting into her fingers. Why is she asking me this? Am I being tested? Does she think I’m not loyal enough to Ezio? Does she think I’m unfit to be his wife?
“Yes, of course yes. Everything is well – wonderful, everything is wonderful, Madonna,” she blurted out in a rush. Her eyes were stinging, for some stupid, treacherous reason, and she was trying to blink back the tears without it being obvious, while also smiling and steadying the trembling of her hands. “I’m so very lucky to have Ezio as my husband. He’s such a wonderful man and so very kind and patient to me.”
“Is he really?” Maria hummed, the doubt bleeding through her tone stinging and acidic. “Why then are you so anxious, Taline? What’s wrong?”
She thought of that first medic she’d seen at Alamūt, of the gossip and hurtful looks and giggling conversations that suddenly went silent at her approach and bubbled back to animated life when she was judged to be safely out of earshot, and how Ezio had found out she’d lost their first child almost as soon as he’d returned from Armenia, even though she’d been assured that he wouldn’t. Her skin was stinging and her mother-in-law’s expectant silence burned in her lungs when she breathed. No, she’s not like Ezio, Altaïr had said. Between the two of them, I suppose she’s more like Maria. She thought of Mari’s cutting comments whenever she saw the bruises Ezio had left on her body, her constant, undisguised hostility in general, and took a careful breath, and then another.
“Nothing is wrong, Madonna-” she started, tone carefully tempered even.
“Taline,” Maria sighed, setting her teacup down sharply on its saucer, “I don’t like it when people try to lie to me. I don’t expect you to immediately take me into your strictest confidence, but I do expect to be told the truth when I ask a very simple and straightforward question.”
She blinked slowly, her eyes stinging with unshed tears, but also somehow strangely gritty-dry, and her tongue felt too thick and awkward in her mouth. I want to go home. Dark Mother protect me and my baby. Madonna Maria shifted in her chair, uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs in a slightly different position, watching her all the while with the serene expression of a plaster cast saint, but her eyes were dark and hard. Assassin eyes.
“I know my son, his virtues and his faults, better than anyone else,” Maria finally said. “And I know that Ezio can be kind, and patient, but he can also be selfish and short-tempered. He has an unfortunate habit with those closest to him, and those he wants closer to him, that he only sees who he wants them to be – or who he thinks they should be – and it hurts him terribly when he is forced to see them as they actually are. I thought – hoped – that he’d outgrow that habit, that training would grind it out of him, but it seems not.” Maria sighed, expression softening, and something that might have been a feeling of tiredness momentarily tempered the hardness of her eyes. “Being placed on a pedestal – whether one is treated as a trophy or worshiped like an icon – becomes very lonely. It puts enormous strain on a marriage when one of the partners in it isn’t really being seen as who they are.” Maria’s meticulously groomed brows drew together. “Are you being seen, Taline?”
Her lips had gone numb and the muscles of her throat seemed to have forgotten how to work properly. She didn’t understand her mother-in-law’s expectations, what to say, or what was even safe to say, in response. Maria’s motives were blurry, uncertain, and she couldn’t tell if she was being offered assistance, or being lured into trap. Please, Dark Mother, I beg of you. Protect my child.
“Of course, Madonna,” she rasped and tried to smile. “I have withheld no secrets from my husband.”
Maria searched her expression for a moment, her mother-in-law’s magic prickling over her like St. Elmo’s fire, before leaning back with a sinisterly serene smile. She flinched before she could stop herself when Maria’s hidden blade slid silently out of its sheath.
“All wives should have some secrets,” Maria hummed. The edge of her blade chimed against the delicate edge of her teacup in the carefully timed pause. “Every husband certainly keeps a few secrets of his own.” Her smile was serrated. “And some keep more than others.”
She was suddenly reminded of the stories her Aunt Siran had told her back in Yerevan. Stories of rusalki and sirens – creatures that disguised themselves as beautiful women with dark eyes and sharp smiles – who lured men into their waters to be seized and drown and then took the bodies with them back down into the depths where they sucked the meat from their bones. A chill slithered down her spine as she watched Maria take a careful sip of tea. Rusalki are created from the souls of women wronged, of women drowned in rage. Stay away from their streams, and never come between them and their prey, Siran warned her and Anoush when they were young. Would I recognize a rusalka, if I saw her? she had asked as her cousin giggled nervously, their fingers tightly intertwined; Anoush had always been frightened of death and spirits and other people’s magic. Perhaps, Siran had said with a gentle smile. Rusalki can be difficult to recognize until it’s almost too late and you’ve already got one foot in the water. While she didn’t think Maria was actually a rusalka, she suddenly realized that her mother-in-law had been artfully drawing her into deeper and more perilous waters from the moment she’d entered the room. She needed to get back to the relative safety of solid ground. They built this city in a swamp, Altaïr had told her, with an almost uncharacteristic curl to his lips, shortly after he’d arrived in Rome. You can smell the earliest layers still rotting away in the mire they keep building over. Her heart was pounding against her ribs. Alamūt is built on rock.
“Secrets can be useful,” she admitted carefully as she picked up one of the wedges of toast Maria had prepared for her. She forced a smile at her mother-in-law before biting into the toast with far more enthusiasm than she actually felt. The cheese was creamy, rich, and the caviar exploded on her tongue in tiny bursts of brine. She wished she wasn’t so worried about being able to keep it down and could just let herself enjoy the flavors. She ate some of the cassis berries and one of the olives next, uncomfortable and awkward and morbidly self-conscious, as Madonna Maria silently sipped a fresh cup of tea and watched her eat.
“Do you like the caviar, joon-am?” Maria hummed, carefully adjusting her teacup a quarter turn. “I’m happy to send a few jars home with you to Alamūt, if you’d like. It’s always good to have some quality caviar on hand, for unexpected guests.” Maria’s lips parted slowly in a sinisterly syrupy smile and her eyes were shuttered. “Or private dinners, for just the two of you,” she continued smoothly after an uncomfortable pause. “Which will become a luxury unto themselves, once your child is born.”
“Yes, thank you, Madonna,” she replied, hand shielding her mouth from view as she hastily tried to swallow the bite she’d only just taken. She felt the under-masticated toast scrape all the way down her esophagus as she swallowed and forced her smile to steady as she reached for her teacup. “Could I please get the honeycake recipe, the one Ezio liked so much as a child, before we return to Alamūt?” She took a small sip of tea to cover her nervousness at asking for a recipe she really had no idea how to make, or even how the finished cake should taste. Hopefully Taghrid will help me bake it. It seemed like the kind of cake Taghrid would like. She could also ask their house elf for help, but she didn’t know much of their sign language, so it would be harder to understand the answers if she had any questions.
“Yes, of course,” Maria smiled. “Your students will undoubtedly enjoy sampling your elf’s first attempts. Better to surprise Ezio with a dish after the recipe has been mastered.”
She immediately thought of the especially disastrous dinner Taghrid had helped her make, her various attempts at making Ezio’s morning coffee, and felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. Her prior overconfidence in the kitchen now felt especially foolish in hindsight. Better to let the elf make the cake than to spoil it for him. I’m no baker. She carefully adjusted and then readjusted her teacup on its saucer.
“Yes, of course,” she rasped. “Naturally.”
Someone knocked on the door – hesitant, respectful, more like taps than knocks, really – but it still startled her so badly; she barely managed to catch her teacup before it fell to the floor. Her lap was drenched in fragrant black tea, where it pooled between her tightly clenched thighs and soaked through the front of her underwear. The feeling of the hot tea dripping down between her thighs to soak into the heavy brocade seat of her mother-in-law’s beautiful armchair was uncomfortably familiar, similar to how it’d felt as she bled in the infirmary, when she’d lost the first child Ezio had given her. No, no. Not again. Her throat was so tight she could scarcely breathe. Dark Mother please, not again. Protect me, Mother. The faceted edges of the pasha’s pendent were icy sharp between her swelling breasts. The lives the rusalki take from others they bestow upon the land, the fields, her aunt Siran had so often told her. Lives taken to feed all life, to avenge the lives that had been stolen, Siran had said. I never meant my revenge to be taken so far. Please, I’m sorry. Let me keep this baby.
Maria tutted softly, almost under her breath, and vanished the mess she’d made of her tea with an elegant flick of her fingers before she turned her attention towards the door.
“Accedere.”
The door creaked open just enough for a gangly youth to slip into the room. He hesitated, darting nervous glances between her and her mother-in-law through the long forelock of his undercut hair, and then slinked up to almost within an arm’s width of the Madonna before he abruptly halted and drew himself up to his full height, chin lifted and shoulders thrown back. She could see fine beads of perspiration forming along his hairline as he nervously curled and uncurled his fingers in the fabric of his robes and remained silent, waiting for permission to speak.
“Yes, what is it?” Maria finally demanded in Arabic. “What does the Granmaestro want from me now?”
The youth stammered out something in Italian and edged closer to thrust a folded letter at her mother-in-law, the heavy wax seal had cracked in several places from how tightly he’d been holding it and the folded corners of the parchment had become velvety from perspiration. Madonna Maria arched a severe brow at the boy as she accepted the letter from his slightly shaking hand and she was suddenly reminded of her student, Ramses, being reprimanded by Ibrahim in the middle of Alamūt’s training grounds after he had so helpfully volunteered to escort her to her husband when she’d asked because she couldn’t bear waiting any longer to tell Ezio about their baby. The youth snuck another glance at her under the cover of brushing his hair back from his face, clearly curious about her, and she wondered if he had been one of Ezio’s students before his transfer to Alamūt.
Her mother-in-law took her time unfolding Mario’s message and artfully held it at an angle so that neither of the other people in the room were afforded even a glance at the contents or the barest impression of the note’s length. Maria’s lips slowly curled into something almost like a smirk and she realized that her mother-in-law had also been covertly watching both her and the youth the whole time they’d assumed she’d been reading the letter.
“He volunteered to deliver this to get a look at you,” she murmured in Turkish, scraping a long lacquered nail against a crease in the parchment. “You should at least smile for him; undoubtedly the competition was very fierce.”
She tipped her chin and flicked a glance at the youth through her lashes, donning the distant, vaguely smiling expression she had always used when she danced. The effect was immediate; his lips quirked with a reflexive return smile as he quickly dropped his eyes to study the toes of his boots and the pattern of Madonna Maria’s intricately parquet floor. She was tempted to flash him an actual smile when he snuck another quick glance up at her, but she’d learned long ago not to smile too easily for strangers.
“My husband can be very jealous of my smiles, Madonna,” she carefully replied, smoothing a stray strand of hair back from her face and pressing her knees more tightly together. “And boys like to boast. I would prefer, if he attracts Ezio’s wrath, that it’s for a complete fabrication entirely of his own imagination, and not something with the smallest kernel of truth beneath it.”
The parchment crumpled in Maria’s hand as her mother-in-law leveled a frighteningly intense look at her, and she realized, with an electric current of fear and foreboding, that her carefully constructed response had just gotten her Maria’s complete and undivided attention.
“Il Granmaestro non avrà alcuna risposta al suo attacco. Destituito,”[2] Madonna Maria snapped at the unfortunate messenger. The startled youth barely managed to scrape out an abbreviated bow in his haste to escape the Madonna’s sudden and obvious displeasure. The door shut loudly behind him and she wished with all her being that she had been able to escape the room as well.
Her mother-in-law allowed the oppressive silence to thicken between them and her heartbeat echoed, amplified, inside her skull.
“It can hardly come as a surprise that Ezio guards you jealously,” Maria finally said. “Surely you are aware of how much he values you? The Order’s acceptance of your marriage was dearly granted and cost him much.”
Always, always the cost and burden on Ezio for our marriage. What about the cost to me? Why is my loss calculated to be of so little value that it is never even considered?
“Yes,” she whispered. “I am aware, Madonna.”
Maria had almost started to say something, but seemed to have changed her mind at the last possible moment and took another long sip of tea instead. She wondered what that meant, if Ezio would be able to tell her, provided she could summon the courage to ask him, that is.
“I don’t feel very well, Madonna,” she murmured into the spiraling silence. “May I go back to Ezio’s room, to rest? My head aches.”
Madonna Maria looked her up and down for a long moment before finally offering an opaque smile.
“Of course, joon-am,” Maria replied, lowered lashes veiling her eyes as she took a languidly elegant sip of tea. “It’s your room now too, you know, not just his.”
“Yes, of course, Madonna.” She hesitated. “I’m just tired; Ezio came to bed very late-”
“And very drunk,” Maria prompted softly, eyes glittering sharp. “I understand your meaning perfectly, joon-am.” She carefully uncrossed her legs and rose to her feet, setting her tea aside and smoothing her narrow skirt. She realized that her mother-in-law must have enhanced her appearance with magic, at least a little; Maria had neither the looks nor the figure she would have expected of a woman who’d born three grown children and burried a husband. However, it wasn’t difficult at all after actually meeting Maria to believe her capable of commanding both a thriving business and a high level intelligence ring.
“Yes,” she acknowledged softly, rising to her feet and taking a tentative half step towards the door. “I believe he may have drunk overmuch. More than he is accustomed to, at least.”
“Does he habitually drink past the point of intoxication, Taline?” Maria queried, head tilting slightly as she studied her, eyes gleaming with a brief sheen of gold. “My girls have reported seeing bruises, is that how they happen? Is that why you flinch from his touch? I raised my son to be a better man than that, sober, at least.” Maria heaved a sigh and idly adjusted her pearls, eyes hard and speculative and the muscles of her face tight under the serene mask she had donned. “Despite what Mari says, it doesn’t look like he hits you; men tend to go for the face when they do that...”
She clenched her teeth and eased another step and a half towards the door. Should have shut up after Yes. Should have just agreed and smiled and escaped. He hadn’t said anything to her, not directly, but she knew Ezio hadn’t wanted his mother to see her bruises. She knew he’d be frustrated, annoyed – but not at her, probably – and that he’d only drink more to cope with incurring his mother’s displeasure. She dreaded that.
“My husband does not hit me, Madonna,” she insisted smoothing her skirt, trying to unobtrusively dry her suddenly sweaty palms on the rough-woven fabric. “He is very kind and I am very lucky and grateful to be his wife. Please, may I go? I feel very unwell.”
A line appeared momentarily between Maria’s brows as her mouth half twisted with something before she exhaled and was again half-smiling and serene, the fingers of one hand clenched against the side of her thigh while the other gestured towards the door with an elegant roll of her wrist.
“Of course, joon-am. You are my guest, not a prisoner here. Safety and peace be upon you.”
“And upon you as well, Madonna.” She bobbed an abbreviated bow and slipped out of the room, forcing herself to walk slowly down the hallway and the stairs and another hallway again.
Her journey to the relative safety of Ezio’s bedroom – stolen moments of peace and solitude guarded by a thick door with a strong lock – felt like miles from the Madonna’s private office. The girl Maria, or more probably Filomena, had sent to fetch her – Violetta, Violetta Milani, servant of the Order; Assassin – was loitering on the landing between the last two short flights of stairs between her and safety. Violetta’s hand brushed against her bruised wrist with a knowing smile and an indistinctly murmured polite phrase, eyes cold and sharp and hard – my girls have reported seeing bruises... – and she felt Assassin magic ripple over her glamour. Filomena was lurking somewhere behind her, emanating suspicion and disapproval and judgment, and she caught herself as she recoiled, forced herself to smile and tip her chin towards Violetta in response like nothing had happened and everything was fine, fine, fine. Don’t let the others see what you can do, it’s not safe. Her breath rushed out in a deep sigh of relief once she was in Ezio’s room, after she had closed the door and pressed her back against it. Safe.
[1] Please forgive me, my sweet little wife, forgive me
[2] The Grandmaster will have no response to his attack. Dismissed.