Carpathian 00 - The Scarletti Curse

demands she had made on it. Her feet did hurt. Everything seemed to hurt. She lay down in the too-large bed. It was on a raised dais, a huge, heavy piece that did nothing to dispel the general gloom of the room.
    On the ceiling above the bed were more carvings of sea serpents. She studied them as the firelight danced and played in the drafty room.
    "Why do you think they put all these strange carvings on the walls and ceilings like this, Maria Pia?" she asked, looking at a particularly scaly, eel-like creature with fangs. "Who would want such things in a room where people sleep?"
    "You sound like Ketsia, with all her questions," Maria Pia answered grumpily. "Go to sleep, Nicoletta. In this place they are heathens, and their rooms are designed for heathens. Say your prayers, and thank the good Madonna for watching over you."
    Nicoletta sighed and continued to stare up at the strange carvings. She wished she could touch them.
    "Do you think she was watching over me? I thought perhaps the good Madonna was answering prayers in a distant land, as she did not answer mine. Or perhaps she answered the don's. Perhaps he lit more candles than I did," she said sardonically.
    "Nicoletta!" This time Maria Pia meant business, her outrage spilling into her voice so that Nicoletta muffled her laughter and apologized instantly.
    "I did not mean that the Madonna would take a bribe, like an elder might," she tried to explain. The creatures above her head were fascinating, coiling in the water. If one looked at them long enough, they appeared to move, slithering through the waves, shimmering down the wall into the hideous mural of the sea closing around the unfortunate drowning souls. The art was cleverly done, creating an optical illusion that the shadows from the flames helped to enhance.
    "Maria Pia, this is all truly is a work of art," she announced a few moments later in the silence of the room, "if you do not allow your imagination to take over." Her imagination was vivid and very capable of terrifying her; she wanted the comfort of Maria Pia's voice scolding her.
    Only the crackling of the flames answered her. Nicoletta sighed softly. The wall directly at the head of the bed was covered in carvings, too. She turned over to study it. The entire theme of the room seemed to be of damned souls drowning or being devoured in a sea boiling with serpents and other monsters of the deep. Here, at the head of the bed, strange panels of flowing, scaly creatures were carved into the marble, seeming to ripple with life. She stared at the room's paintings and carvings, trying to be objective, trying to see how the artist had woven the painted mural and the marble carvings together.
    She curled up beneath the coverlet, listening to the sounds of the house. The palazzo was enormous, several stories high with wide, vaulted ceilings. Sounds echoed eerily yet were muffled by the thickness of the walls. Could an outside source have created the strange whisperings in Sophie's sickroom? Was the don capable of making all in his household hear the strange murmur of his voice at will? That thought came unbidden to Nicoletta.
    She thumped the mattress hard, half wishing she had done so to the don. She had no desire to meet the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    other members of the household again, and certainly not in the capacity of a captured, guarded bride-to-be. It was intolerable! She plucked at the coverlet. Don Scarletti had made certain she was on the second floor, too high to escape through a window. She was stuck, and the dressmaker was coming at midday. Determined to go to sleep, she breathed deeply and evenly. She was beginning to drift off when a strident voice in the corridor outside her room roused her. The woman's voice was clearly demanding entry into Nicoletta's bedchamber.
    Nicoletta sat up quickly, drawing the nearest thing—the don's coat—around her to cover her nightshift as she hurried to the door. She unlocked it quickly and opened it a tiny crack to peer out.
    Portia Scarletti was raging at the guards. "How dare you defy me! I demand you tell me who is in that room. Open the door at once!" Her voice was shrill and shaking with fury. "What manner of prisoner does Don Scarletti bring into our home that his elite personal guard must watch day and night! Are we to be murdered in our own beds?" She was breathing fast and deeply, her bosom heaving, straining at the low neckline of her