“Lucia you have to leave; tonight. Come with me.” Paolo said.

“I cannot Paolo. Where could we go in Venice? People know us too well. We would be ostracized and rejected by society.”

“We will have to leave Venice, Lucia,” Paolo said softly. “It’s either that or you will have to continue to live with the old man and I will have to stop seeing you.”

“Leave Venice?” she asked and then a small smile touched her full lips, “yes we will leave this wicked place. I will get my cape and a few belongings and we will leave. Wait for me Paolo. Go to your gondola and wait for the last time. Soon no one will be able to keep us apart.”

With that she turned back and closed the door behind her. Paolo walked back to the edge of the canal and started to pace nervously to and fro. The church bell struck one o’clock. He was still pacing when it struck the quarter hour. He was about to walk back towards the door when a woman’s shrill scream broke the silence of the night. Hearing it, he ran towards the door of the palazzo and was about to knock on the door when it opened smoothly on its hinges. He rushed into the lamp-lit courtyard but a burly figure knocked him on the head with a club. He sank towards the floor but two muscular arms held him up and tied him to one of the columns in the colonnade. He could see that Lucia was tied to another column. Her face was slashed and a deep gash ran from beneath her eyes to her chin on both sides of her face. Her gown was soaked in blood and her chest was heaving from the sobs and the pain. He looked at her unable to do anything except call out, “Lucia….my love…. .”

From the shadows the figure of a grey haired man emerged. The flickering light of the lamps made the long sharp stiletto he carried in his hands glint like polished silver but  Paolo could also see that the edges were red with Lucia’s blood.

“Count Stefano de Merici,” Paolo said bitterly, “I am happy to finally make your acquaintance. I have heard much about you.”

“And much if it is bad, I am sure Paolo de’Angeli….thanks to that whore. You have finally walked into my trap and now you shall die like the adulterer you are.” With that Count Stefano lunged forward and plunged his stiletto deep into Paolo’s chest. The last thing that Paolo heard was Lucia’s agonized scream.

Stefano turned to his manservant and said, “Gino untie her and throw her out on the streets. She will have to beg for a living until the day she dies. As for him,” he kicked Paolo’s corpse, “put his body into his gondola, and throw it somewhere into the lagoon.”

Lucia was untied and thrown out into the street and Gino dragged Paolo’s lifeless body across the cobbled square into the gondola. Lucia continued to sob and shriek, clinging to her lover’s dead body but Gino kicked her until the screaming stopped. Not caring whether she was alive or dead he threw her senseless body into the gondola together with Paolo’s and then rowed out of the city to the open expanse of the lagoon…..

The mist started to receded; the reflection of the gondola on the water was clear once more. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I had been dreaming or if the gondola had told me its darkest secret.

For more articles about  Venice go to:

http://www.trifter.com/Europe/Italy/Places-of-Interest-in-Venice.463595