Page 12 of Dark Tides
“Yes,” Alys said when her mother said nothing. “Yes, he was.”
“When I had to leave Venice and go back to my family house in the hills outside Florence I thought I would never see him again. But he followed me.” She put her hand to her heart. “He came to my family house and he told my cousin, the Signor, the head of my family, a very great family, that he loved me. It was the happiest moment of my life. The happiest ever.”
“He wrote to us that he had met you, and that he admired you,” Alys confirmed.
“Yes, he did,” Alinor said. “And when he wrote to us that he would marry, we sent you some lace to trim your gown. Did you get it?”
“Oh yes, it was so beautiful! And I wrote in reply with my thanks. Did you receive that letter?”
Alys shook her head.
“I’m so sorry! I would not want you to think I was not grateful, and so glad of your good wishes. I wrote you a long letter. I sent it by a merchant. But who knows what happens to these ships! Such a long voyage and such dangerous seas!”
“Yes,” Alinor agreed. “We’ve always lived on the edge of deep waters.”
“So, we married quietly in Venice and we defended ourselves against my first husband’s family.”
“Against what?” Alys asked.
“Oh, they were jealous! And they said all sorts of things against me. Then, I found I was with child, and we were so glad. When little Matteo was born we knew that we had found true happiness. Then—ah, but you know the rest—”
“No, I don’t,” Alinor interrupted. “You have told me nothing!”
“You only wrote that he had drowned,” Alys reminded her.
Livia took a sobbing breath. Clearly, it was an ordeal for the widow to speak. “Roberto was called out to one of the islands on a stormy night. I went with him, I often went with him. There was a terrible wind and our ship overturned. They pulled me out of the water at dawn, it was a miracle that I survived.” She turned her face from the brightness of the window and hid it in her little black-trimmed handkerchief. “I wished that I had not survived,” she whispered. “When they told me that he was dead… I told them to throw me back into the waters.”
Alys looked at her mother, waiting for her to speak with her usual compassion; but the older woman said nothing, just watched, her gray eyes slightly narrowed, as if she were waiting to hear something more.
“So terrible,” Alys whispered.
Livia nodded, dried her eyes, and managed a trembling smile. “Iwrote to you of his death—I am sure I made no sense at all, I was so grieved! I knew I should come to you, I knew Roberto would have wanted it. So, though I was quite alone in the world, I packed up our little house, I spent all our savings on my passage on the ship, and here we are. I wrote to you as soon as we landed, and then I hired the coach and came. I have brought my English boy to his home.”
There was a silence.
“And we’re so glad you’ve come,” said Alys too loudly into the quiet room. “Aren’t we? Aren’t we? Ma?”
“Yes,” Alinor said. “Did they find the body?”
The question was so coldly abrupt that both young women stared at her.
“The body?” Livia repeated.
“Yes. Rob’s drowned body. Did they find it? Drag it from the water, bury him with the proper rites? As a Protestant?”
“Ma!” Alys exclaimed.
“No,” Livia said, the tears welling up again. “They didn’t. It’s so deep, and there are currents. They did not expect to find it—him—not after he had… sunk.”
“Sunk,” Alinor repeated slowly. “You tell me that my son—sunk?”
Alys put out her hand as if to stop the words but neither woman noticed her.
“We held a service of memorial at the place that he was lost,” Livia said, her musical voice very low. “When the sea was calm, I went out on a little rowing boat; it was halfway between Venice and the island of Torcello. I put flowers on the water for you: white lilies on the dark tides.”
“Oh really,” Alinor said indifferently. She turned her head and looked down to the quayside. “There’s that ship factor again,” she said.
Livia leaned towards the window and glimpsed James Avery on the doorstep, being admitted to the house. “Oh, that is not a ship’s factor,” she said. “That’s Sir James Avery, Roberto’s tutor and friend. I met him yesterday.”
