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Every night, as darkness folded over the Castello di Speranza, the little Contessa, Teresa, descended to gloat over her prisoner. There were formalities to this visit, each stylized as the motions of some pagan priest celebrating some high and ancient ritual before the altar.
First she dismissed all of her servants, even the deaf-mute Rondo who obeyed her as a trained dog. Then, each night bruising her frail hands anew on the steel, she drew the bolts of her chamber and fastened the locks of each casement. If some mythical observer could have hidden behind the arras he would have seen a strange thing; into each metal bolt, roughly and painfully scratched by hands unused to such labor, the sign of the cross had been inscribed.
Then she knelt for a moment before the oaken priedieu, clasping her fingers about her beads; mere habit now, for she had long ceased to pray. The mirror at the far end of the chamber gave back her reflection dimly, a shadow pattern in black and white; the black coils of her hair netted with thin lace; the close black of a mourning gown crossed by the clasped fingers of white hands on ivory beads, her face--drawn to the whiteness of bone, of alabaster--brushed with black silken brows.
