Read Online Heart of Glass by Sasha Gould - Free Book Online

their heads as we go by. I sense that we are passing through the entire length of the palace. Only once do we cross an outdoor courtyard, heading through what seems to be a part of the palace under renovation. We enter a rougher section of the building, half finished and uninhabited. We climb several flights of rickety stairs. Such are the quirks of Venetian architecture; I feel we’ve traveled in a circle. A rat has died in one of the dusty passages. Then ascend higher and higher, the airgetting hotter and hotter. At last the Duchess pauses at a door, half hidden in the shadows. I put my hand against it and the surface is cold—it’s made of metal.
    “The Piombi,” I murmur. The leaded prison. There is another entrance. I taste the cruel irony of Roberto’s situation—locked in a jail under his own roof.
    “I cannot go any farther,” the Duchess explains. “It would be a scandal for the Doge. Here.” She hands me the ducal seal, cast in wax. “Show this, and the warden will allow you access.” Her glance drifts to the secret door. “To think my son is through there somewhere and I cannot even …” She turns her face away to hide her emotion, then retreats back down the corridor. I’m on my own.
    The door clangs as I knock on it, then slides open. A man gives me a lecherous, gap-toothed smile, his face red and greasy. “A jewel amidst the pig swill,” he comments. “What brings you here?”
    I feel perspiration prickle beneath my armpits. “I am here to see Roberto, the Doge’s son.”
    The warden laughs and spits on the floor, littered with damp and rotting straw. “Oh, that one!” he remarks. “Yes, he looks handsome enough to catch a prize such as you. But I don’t think he should be allowed to look upon you now.”
    I show him the seal, and he nods thoughtfully before turning his back. “Follow me.”
    Immediately, the stench hits me. I can smell sweat and dirt, feces and blood—but, more than that, I can detect the scent of desperation.
    This is it, then. I must follow.
    As we climb a set of stairs, the heat increases. I am soon aware of the circles of sweat staining the fabric of my dress.Beneath our feet, I can see rows of roofless cells with men lying or squatting on the packed dirt floor. White half crescents shine from their filthy faces as their eyes watch me, and clothes torn into rags only just cover their bodies. One man is almost naked but for a loincloth, his body writhing as he stretches across his cell, froth at his mouth.
    “That man there!” I put a hand on the warden’s shoulder to stop him. “He needs help.”
    My guide glances down. “That man needs nothing. He’s spoilt with attention. He’ll be well again soon enough.” I am forced to continue, as the prisoner’s distressed cries fill the air and a jerk of his foot sends a gruel bowl spinning.
    I almost wish I’d taken the man’s handkerchief; the heat and the stench are overwhelming. Bile rises in my throat and I think I’m about to be sick. The sensation passes. I wipe the sweat from my face and carry on climbing higher beneath the lead roof that gives the prison its name, the metal taking the heat of the day and doubling it. I hardly dare think about what I’ll find when we reach Roberto.
    Finally, we stop climbing. The man jerks his chin towards a cell in a far corner and departs back down the stairs. “A few moments only,” he snarls.
    I walk across the floorboards, the gray roof low over my head. The heat is unbearable now. As I come to stand before the cell, I see a shape slumped against the back wall. At first I think it is an abandoned sack, but then there’s a movement and the flicker of white eyes.
    “Roberto?” I whisper, throwing myself forward to grasp the bars of the cell.
    A head rises and a smile spreads across my love’s face. He gets to his feet, moving stiffly, and as he hobbles acrossthe cell towards me I can see that every movement causes him pain. He leans to one side as though his