In the golden dimness of a room overlooking the Grand Canal, Isacco Luzzato reads a letter redolent of wax and secrets. The words, sealed by the power of Palazzo Morosini, slip through his fingers like sweet poison. He knows he's won an invisible game: he's obtained his spy, a man willing to sell his loyalty for a moment of pleasure. Venice sleeps beneath the fog, unaware of the fire he's just ignited by throwing that letter into the flames.
In the silence of the room, Luzzato writes another, anonymous, precise, like a warrant of execution. It is addressed to Don Rodrigo Salazar, the Spaniard with the steely eyes and the scar on his eyebrow. The letter passes from hand to hand, discreet as a sin. During the night, Rodrigo gathers his men, twenty shadows who know death better than mercy. Between maps and whispered orders, a perfect plan takes shape, an attack that must take place at sunset, along the road to Mantua. There is no anger or haste in those men—only anticipation. Fate, like the waters of Venice, flows slowly but inexorably, and someone, very soon, will be overwhelmed by it.
Vengeance, Spies and a Caravan Poised Between Fate and Betrayal
by Marco Arezio
Isacco Luzzato slowly lifted his eyes from the sheet, letting the last words of the letter slide across his vision like bitter wine. The red wax from Palazzo Morosini had barely melted, staining the lower corner of the paper, and the smell of the missive — a blend of fine paper and sandalwood-scented wax — lingered between his fingers.
A thin, almost imperceptible smile rippled his lips. He had obtained what he wanted: a well-placed spy in the very heart of the power he intended to destroy.
He rose slowly from his desk, stretching his torso and letting the dark green velvet cloak slip from his shoulders. Outside, the window of his room opened onto a quiet stretch of the Grand Canal, where gondolas rocked lazily beneath the flicker of lanterns. The city breathed a suspended silence: the Venetian night always had that air of complicity, as if the walls themselves listened.
On the table the silver inkwell reflected the candlelight, and beside it a small crystal cup still held the last of a sweet Cretan wine.
Luzzato took a deep breath and thought of the man who, in exchange for the pleasures of Madonna Gisella’s house, had sold his loyalty to Morosini.
“Men,” he muttered to himself, “are bought with what they desire. Some with power, others with flesh.”....
