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“All right, babe, what’s the plan?” Sara asked, collapsing excitedly onto the huge king-sized bed in their hotel room, which was decorated with red and gold patterned wallpaper, deep red curtains, original polished floor boards, an ornate ceiling and cornices, and a Murano glass chandelier. As far as the team were aware, Sara and Ava had gone out for a couple of nights to inspect wedding venues as the truth would have turned their much-needed mini-vacation to Venice into a chaotic family vacation. Two nights wasn’t nearly enough time to see all the city had to offer, but they were willing to take whatever they could get.
“First, we need to unpack,” Ava said, unzipping their suitcase and taking out the various suitcase organiser bags which she had expertly fitted in. “We don’t really have enough time to visit any galleries or museums this afternoon, but I’ve planned a route for a walk which includes the Rialto Bridge, sampling what is supposed to be one of the best gelatos in Venice, and visiting three old and important churches. I estimate that that will take about an hour and a half to two hours, and will end at St Mark’s Square when we can enjoy an aperitif, before going on a sunset gondola ride. After that, I’ve found a wonderful, traditional trattoria for dinner, then we’ll come back to here to bed,” she recited, taking a narrow binder out of the suitcase and handing it to Sara.
“When did you have time to prepare all this?” Sara asked as she propped herself to have a look in the binder, thinking about the seemingly dozens of things which had happened all one after the other since she’d arrived back at the Waverider. “I mean, this is amazing babe,” she said, genuinely impressed as always by Ava’s meticulous organisation as she flicked through assorted dining options before finding the picture of the route for this evening’s walk.
“If you just want to lounge about here, and maybe only go for the gondola ride and dinner…” Ava said, feeling a slight panic rise within her that Sara might not want an overly-scheduled trip. Sara was happy with spontaneity, and Ava wanted Sara to be happy and -
“No, Ava,” Sara said, reaching out and pulling Ava onto the bed beside her. Ava didn’t need to say anything for Sara to know where her thoughts were going. “If I wanted to lie around, we would have gone to some tropical beachside resort. But we came here because we want to see some cool old stuff, and visit some amazing places. To do things that are different and go back home with a couple of stories to share. ”
“I’ve scheduled in a lazy morning,” Ava said with a small smile, buoyed by Sara’s reassurance. “Almost nothing opens before 10, and because this was rather last minute I couldn’t get us into any of the early morning tours at the Doge’s Palace or St Mark’s Basilica, so…”
Sara leant over and gave Ava a kiss. “Babe, whatever you have planned it perfect. If we ever need new careers, you would make a brilliant travel consultant. But for now,” she said, sitting up and getting a glimpse of the narrow canal out the window, “Let’s go exploring.”
It was almost nine o’clock before they returned to their hotel, happy to finally get their shoes off and make good use of the large bathroom with its marble double vanity and extra wide rain shower. Propped up in bed between high thread-count sheets with the TV on an Italian comedy film, Sara and Ava felt completely content.
“You know what I like?” Ava asked, sliding closer to rest her head against Sara’s shoulder.
“What’s that?” Sara asked.
“That riding in a gondola with you through the canals of Venice is no longer a fantasy but a very happy memory.”
Sara beamed. “I have to admit that I thought that was going to be a bit clichéd, but I loved it too. It’s a cliché for a reason, and a very good one.”
Ava kissed Sara on the cheek.
“The walk was brilliantly planned,” Sara said. “The amazing renaissance art in some of the churches - I mean, it’s right there, you don’t need to queue or anything and you can see it for free or drop a euro in the offering box. That gelato was close to unbeatable. Aperitifs in St Mark’s Square were fun and the view was great, but it was very touristy. The restaurant however felt genuine, I loved the setting with the beams and the fireplace, and the food was fantastic. Nothing pretentious or touristy about it.”
“That was the best seafood pasta I’ve ever had,” Ava said. “I’m very glad you liked it.”
“The pasta was amazing. And the wine. And the company,” Sara said lowering her voice and slipping her hand up Ava’s pyjama top.
Ava giggled and flopped back agains the pillows. “Is this room service?” she asked, running her tongue across her teeth.
“Oh, there will be servicing in this room all right,” Sara grinned as she straddled Ava’s hips.
…
“Good morning, babe,” Ava said, sounding a lot chirpier than someone waking up before seven o’clock whilst on vacation rightfully should. “I know I said nothing opens until ten, and it doesn’t but I’d really like to go for a little walk down to St Mark’s Square to have a look around before all the crowds arrive, and I think that the light would be amazing for photos.”
Sara mumbled into the pillow and rolled over, very comfortable in the big bed, sandwiched between the silky sheets and the perfectly weighted cover.
“Just put on your leggings and sneakers,” Ava said, opening the curtains. “Then we can have breakfast at the hotel buffet when we return, before coming back up here for a couple of hours. I was thinking that today - oh my god!” Ava exclaimed and jumped back as she looked out the window.
“What?” Sara muttered.
“There’s a dead body in the canal!”
“What?”
“A body that is no longer alive,” Ava stated, trying to stay calm. “Floating by in the canal outside outside our window.”
Sara rolled out of bed and shuffled over to have a look. Sure enough, face down in the water slowly drifting by was the body of a man. “Huh,” said Sara, still waking up.
“Babe, we need to call the carabinieri,” Ava said.
“We need to call Gideon,” Sara said, taking hold of Ava’s hand as she looked at the body.
“How is Gideon going to help? What if someone else wakes up and sees this…” Ava said, looking at all the many windows opposite which also looked onto the canal, not to mention all the others on their side.
“What do you notice that’s weird about the body?” Sara asked.
“Well, that there is a body is pretty weird…”
“He’s wearing breaches and tights and buckled shoes.”
“So? This is Venice, babe. People play dress-ups.”
Sara pursed her lips. “If Gideon confirms that this isn’t so timeline anomaly, then we can call the carabinieri, ok?”
“Ok,” Ava nodded. As much as she liked a good murder mystery, she didn’t exactly like them floating past her hotel window first thing in the morning.
“All right, Gideon, what’s going on?” Sara asked, Gideon answering the phone before it even rang.
“Do you mean onboard the Waverider, or in regards to the Level 1 Anachronism floating past your hotel room, Captain?”
“Why? What’s happening on board the Waverider?” Ava asked, squeezing Sara’s hand.
“Nothing that can’t wait, I assume,” Sara said, patting Ava on the arm. “So buckles and breaches out our window is an anachronism? How? Have the team wrecked the timeline in less than a day?”
“No, Captain. Occasionally people and things slip through weak spots in the fabric of space-time, especially in places where history is so abundant, as is the case in Venice,” Gideon explained.
“But he’s a Level 1, so…?”
“It’s best he’s returned to a canal in his own time period, Captains,” Gideon said. “My understanding is that the gentleman, if you can call him that, is named Gianluca Bianchi, commonly know as Il Gallo or Aldiyk.”
“Aldiyk?” Sara asked. “But that’s rooster in Arabic. Why would he - oh, seriously, Gideon?”
“What?” Ava asked, looking at her fiancée.
Sara sighed. “There was this myth that for several hundred years, the League of Assassins had an outpost in Venice. Venice was effectively the centre of the world back then, because of all the trade which went through here. There was little you couldn’t buy here, and the services of the assassins were well utilised. There were rival factions and organisations, of course, and I don’t know how powerful the League was in Venice during that time because like I said, everything I do know is a myth at best.”
“There’s Rio Terra dei Assassini not far from here,” Ava said, having studied the map of Venice, though when on the ground, the maze-like streets still managed to confuse her. “But I thought it got that name because a number of violent crimes happened there.”
“More likely it’s named for what it really was,” Sara said. “The street where you’d find the Venetian outposts of the various leagues of assassins. So this guy, Gideon, Gianluca whatever his name was, he was part of the League?”
“I believe so, Captain, but as you say, he was a mercenary assassin, ultimately working for R’as Al Ghul, but his day-to-day bread-and-butter came from the highest bidder.”
“And now he’s dead in a canal what - three hundred years after he died?”
“Close enough, Captain,” Gideon said. “During the Carnevale of 1773, a number of revealers were discovered dead in the canals. This was not uncommon and many of the deaths were written off as accidents, but the number was suspiciously high, and few of the bodies were claimed.”
“Someone was killing the killers?” Ava asked.
“It would appear so, Captain Sharpe,” Gideon said. “Though the deaths soon died-down, if you’ll excuse the expression, and the perpetrator was never caught.”
“But why have I never heard about this?” Ava asked, having thought that her knowledge of historical serial killings was quite substantive.
“The League tends not to leave evidence,” Sara said.
“So was someone cleaning house, or was there a serial killer knocking off the assassins, or - ?”
“Hold up on the enthusiasm, babe,” Sara said, peering back out the window. “Gideon, what do we need to do?”
“Signor Bianchi needs to be returned to his own time,” Gideon said. “A Level 1 Anachronism could be allowed to pass, but - ”
“Nope, we’ve got it,” Sara said. “We’ll take him back to 1773. Thanks Gideon.”
“I’ll send you the coordinates you need for the time courier, Captains.”
“Thanks,” Ava said, taking another look at Signor Bianchi. “So, babe,” she said, turning to Sara. “How do we do this? Just open a portal and let the body drift back into the 18th century?”
“I don’t think it’s going to be quite that easy,” Sara said as the message came through on her phone from Gideon, and feeling a little calmer after the rude shock of finding the body now that they had a plan. “Gideon’s given me the coordinates, but also the website for a costume shop in Cannaregio. I think we need to fish that body out, put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on our door, and go find ourselves a wig and mantua because we are going to Carnevale.”
Sara and Ava got dressed and went downstairs, praying that no one else saw the body in the meantime. If they had to, they could go and get the memory flasher off the Waverider, but if possible, it was easier to deal with this with just the two of them. Around the side of the hotel was a very narrow laneway which ended at the canal, most likely once used for boarding gondolas.
“Babe, we need to do this quickly,” Ava said what they were both thinking, looking around as Sara knelt down and tried to reach the body.
“You don’t happen to have some sort of long implement with which we could drag this guy closer?” Sara said, holding onto the wall with one hand to try and keep her balance. “This would be so much easier if he was wearing trousers, silk stockings are hard to grab hold of. And I don’t care if the canal is only a foot or two deep, I am not standing in it. Hang on… got him!”
Sara grabbed the body by the ankle and pulled him towards herself and Ava. Ava opened a portal back to their hotel room, and together they managed to hurl the man out of the canal and push him through the portal.
“All right, babe,” Sara said, throwing a couple of towels over their unexpected guest. The corpse was fairly fresh, but he’d still be floating around in the Venetian canals for a good half hour, and Sara would rather not have to look at him. “A good morning’s work. Now, time for breakfast before the costume shop opens?”
The extremely generous breakfast buffet was almost enough to make Sara and Ava forget about the body of the dead 18th century assassin lying in their bedroom, and they could only pray that the housekeeping team would respect the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on their door. Ava looked up the costumier Gideon had suggested, and discovering that they opened at nine, she and Sara quickly got ready before winding their way through the maze-like streets of Venice, twice getting lost, in order to be the first customers of the morning.
“Buongiorno! You are the American ladies?” the gentleman straightening the hats on display said when Sara and Ava entered with expressions of awe at the quality and quantity of costumes inside the exquisitely decorated store. “Yes, good, good, I have email from your friend saying you need dresses for the party. I have all the specifications and can show you some very nice options. Your friend send your sizes too. Very nice, I can help you very much.”
“Was that Gideon?” Ava asked, not having expected such a welcome.
“Yes, Gideon is your friend, yes?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Ava said, as Sara was getting distracted by the swords on display. “Wonderful. Well, ah - we’d love to see what you’ve chosen.”
“Yes, come with me, we get you all fitted up for party. Very nice. Come through this way.”
Sara and Ava followed the man, feeling as though they’d entered some sort of magical lair.
“I like those tricorn hats,” Sara mumbled to Ava, but the man heard.
“Depending on dress and wig, there may be hat that will go. Carnevale-theme party, anything goes!” he smiled broadly.
It was almost two hours later when Sara and Ava left the store feeling like children in a candy shop. Of course, they dressed up in historical clothing all the time, but it was one thing to go and collect whatever Gideon had fabricated for them and figure out how to put it on, it was another to try on numerous of gowns and wigs and masks and accessories to get the effect just right, feeling all the while like little girls playing dress-ups. They then waited while their chosen costumes were ever so carefully packed into suitcases and boxes, ready to be carted back to the hotel.
“Please can we find an empty alleyway to portal back to our rooms?” Sara asked while the man disappeared out the back to get more tissue paper.
“We absolutely can,” Ava said, the time courier on her wrist.
Back at the hotel Sara and Ava set to work getting dressed once more into their costumes. They had everything the needed, all the correct underwear, stockings, shoes, bodices, gowns, jewellery, wigs, hairpieces and accessories. They laced one another into their corsets and panniers, figured out how to do their hair to get the wigs on and secured, laced one another into their gowns, fixed their make-up and jewellery, secured their masks, and had a look in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door at the final result, ignoring their deceased roommate underneath the towels beside the bed.
“Wow,” Sara grinned, taking a step back to try and fit her whole reflection in the mirror. She was in a gown of navy blue with gold embroidery, and stark white lace around the neckline and ends of the sleeves. She had ended up with a brunette wig, and a gold-trimmed tricorn hat, embellished with feathers and velvet bows. Her masks was gold, and her chunky, over-the-top, but fitting jewellery glittered even in the dim bedroom light. “We need photos of this.”
“Definitely,” Ava smiled, in a dress similar in colour and pattern to the one she had worn to Versailles. Her wig was white and decorated with numerous silk flowers, her mask was also gold and her jewellery just as outlandish as Sara’s.
“I wish we could have hired one of those cool capes too,” Sara said, grabbing her phone off the bed to take a few pictures. “All the same, babe, we look outstanding. Ok, we ready to return Aldiyk to a canal in his own time?” she asked, putting her phone on the charger.
“Hold on,” said Ava opening the door to remove the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign, as she wanted housekeeping to replace the towels which had been lying over the Rooster. “All right. Throw the towels in a pile in the bathroom, then let’s get this guy back into the canals he belongs.”
It took mere minutes to roll The Rooster through the portal and back into a canal in his own point in time. The body would now be discovered by the correct local authorities, and the League of Assassins would scramble to find whoever it was that was bumping off its members.
“So now what?” Sara asked as the body drifted along past the buildings which lined the canals. “Getting all dressed up for a five minute mission in which no one saw us anyway seems like a bit of a waste.”
Ava looked at Sara’s expression and narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing!” Sara said, unable to keep a straight face. “Ok, ok, I was thinking now that it’s mission accomplished, let’s make good use of these costumes. I wanna go dancing at a Carnevale party with my fiancée.”
“Babe, it’s 1773.”
“And it’s Carnevale, babe. It’s one of the few events in history where pretty much anything goes. I mean, look at us! Come on,” Sara said, pouting just a little as she took Ava’s hand. “It’ll be fun, I promise, and as soon as you’ve had enough we’ll find a quiet corner and use the time-courier to get out of here.”
“You don’t think our presence here will mess up the timeline?”
“Babe, it’ll be a couple of hours at most. We look the part and Venice is full of tourists and foreigners in every age. I know this wasn’t in your binder, but - ”
“Neither was finding a dead body in the canal outside our window,” Ava grumbled, noticing that Sara was already slowly leading the way down the narrow street towards the sound of music in the nearest Campo. “I thought having canal views would be nice, not… you know. Corspy.”
“I thought you liked a good murder mystery,” Sara teased.
“Not outside my hotel room when I finally get a couple of nights away with my best girl.”
“I know what you mean. Come on, babe,” Sara said. “Less morbidity, more dancing. Let’s go find a Carnevale party in one of those grand mansions to crash.”
…
“Good morning, babe,” Ava said, opening the curtains to another lovely day in Venice. The soft morning light filled their opulent bedroom where pieces of their Carnevale costumes were strewn about.
Sara rolled over. “No bodies?” she mumbled into the pillow.
“No bodies,” Ava said with a smile, throwing open the windows to let the briny air in. “Only a seagull floating by. A live one, I mean. Not a seagull body. And some pigeons on the rooftop opposite looking at me.”
Sara pushed back the covers and looked at Ava. She smiled, seeing her fiancée in the gentle dawn light. “Sorry that your wonderfully planned plans for yesterday got kind of thrown out.”
Ava came over and hopped back into bed. “We still got to have cicchetti and drinks at the brilliant little hole-in-the-wall place I wanted to go to for dinner, though.”
“Who knew whipped cod on little slices of bread could be so delicious?” Sara said, having very much enjoyed the local speciality. She snuggled closer to Ava. “I’m guessing you have plans for this morning?”
“We have about six hours before we have to return to the Waverider,” Ava said. “I know we technically could stay longer because we have the time courier, but I think we’ve left the kids home alone long enough, right?”
“I can’t imagine what sort of trouble they might have gotten into,” Sara said. “Actually, I can quite specifically imagine the types of trouble. Yeah, we’ve left them long enough. But you still have plans for this morning?”
“First up is that morning walk around St Mark’s Square before the crowds get there,” Ava grinned, excited to be getting back to her plans. “Then breakfast back here, return our costumes, a tour at the Teatro La Fenice, check out Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, a bit more of a walk around, early lunch and a gelato, then I guess we better go save the timeline from the Legends. And as much as yesterday didn’t go according to plan, I’m very glad I got to spend it with you. You do bring chaos and craziness into my life, but I love every moment of it and there is no one I would rather go crashing parties and dancing with at Carnevale in the 1770s.”
Sara grinned and gave Ava a kiss. “And there’s no one I’d rather have plan me perfect vacations. We have to come back to Venice, by the way, because there is so much here to see, and not just because yesterday ended up being interrupted.”
“I could easily make us up a week-long itinerary,” Ava said, ideas already forming. “And you know, I think Gideon always knew we’d end up at that party.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest,” Sara said. “Maybe we could find that mansion again too? I wonder if you can do tours there now?”
“We’ll have to look it up for next time,” Ava smiled.
“I’m looking forward to it already, if we do have to bring the kids,” Sara said, giving Ava another kiss before throwing back the covers. “Ok, babe, where are my leggings and sneakers? Because for now, we have some regular, ordinary touristing to do.”