The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  Oldcastle made to speak, to beg only the comfort of a few nights’ rest before they made for England, but the Duke had turned from him.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Sir Nicholas’ steward, his some-time lieutenant, and his dancingmaster, John Russell is my name,’ said Hemminges.

  ‘A man of many parts, eh?’ said the Duke to this answer. ‘And an Englishman, as your master. Seen your share of fighting, have you?’

  ‘I have, my lord.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Many places, my lord.’

  The Duke looked Hemminges over and nodded. ‘A man of few words, that I can respect. The Spartans were of your habit and dimension and for fighting men there were none to match them. Welcome to you also, John Russell. Yes welcome indeed, for I have in mind some small employ for you, dancing-master. If you be willing.’

  Her father looked up and about the hall, searching for someone. Aemilia blushed crimson when he caught sight of her standing on the chair and she hastily climbed down. Her father’s eye swept on to find his own steward and give orders for his new guests to be housed and clothed and fed. Aemilia thought it wise to depart; and if I am bold, her thinking continued, the arrival of these Englishmen might prove distraction enough to make a meeting with Valentine.

  For you and I are past our dancing days

  Her father found her again in the walled garden.

  ‘Who was that I saw you with just now? Valentine?’ demanded the Duke.

  For a moment Aemilia considered throwing her cousin’s continued wooing in her father’s face. Then she remembered how Valentine had urged her not to.

  ‘No, Father, no. A servant sent to fetch me water.’

  Her father looked to where Valentine had fled and then wafted the question away with a hand.

  ‘Daughter, this is John Russell, one of the Englishmen that you were so unseemly curious about.’

  Aemilia curtsied and Hemminges bowed in answer. The Englishman looked some thirty or so years old, about Valentine’s height, which was to say a little shorter than she, but built like a barn where Valentine was a dovecote. His square, handsome face was weather-worn and his hands had none of Valentine’s soft delicacy. Oh Valentine, let your plans to win my father’s favour be hastily drawn, she thought, at memory of his hands in hers.

  ‘Master Russell is Sir Nicholas’ dancing-master. I realise, Daughter, that I have neglected your gentler instruction. So, I have imposed on Sir Nicholas to lend me Master Russell’s services for a while.’

  Aemilia looked again at the Englishman, who did not seem built for the dance hall but rather for the wrestling ring.

  ‘Where is your maid, Aemilia?’ said her father, looking about with suspicion on his brow.

  ‘Sent for water, Father, as I told you.’

  ‘You should not walk unaccompanied, child. It is not seemly. I shall send your maid to you. Mark you stay in her chaste company henceforth. Master Russell, I leave you to the teaching of my daughter.’

  The Duke turned and left them standing in the walled garden. Aemilia looked to Hemminges and he to her, each waiting for the other to speak and move matters on. It was Aemilia who broke the silence.

  ‘What are we to learn?’

  ‘As you wish, Lady Aemilia, the galliard, the pavane, the lavolta.’

  ‘Let it be a galliard, Master Russell,’ Aemilia spoke. She wanted to see this rock of a man jump and could not believe him capable of it, so anchored to the ground did he look. Hemminges bowed to her and stepping back began to dance. Aemilia noted, as others had before, the strange division between Hemminges’ solidity and the grace with which he moved. He finished the measure with the cadence leap and posed. Aemilia clapped.

  ‘I did you disservice, Master Russell. I had thought that my father sent you less to teach than to watch over me,’ she said. ‘You have more the look of a guard dog than a dancing-master.’

  ‘Oh, I am both, Lady Aemilia. Your father expects that I shall keep you too busy to stray from the path of chastity, should your thoughts that way incline.’

  Aemilia had thought to provoke Hemminges by the frankness of her talk but it was she that blushed to hear the Englishman answer so freely. Hemminges ignored it, clapped his hands and gestured.

  ‘First position please, lady. The leg thus, the hands beginning here.’

  And the young woman began to discover, as another youth had done some months before, that there was no schoolmaster so exact and so demanding as John Hemminges.

  I have no way and therefore want no eyes

  The Veneto

  Marco Venier’s men had poled William in a barge to the mainland and left him. A day he had walked since then, though he knew not where he had started nor in which direction he had travelled. He walked for want of better purpose and when dusk fell he sat beside the road, pulled his cloak about him and fell asleep.

  Hunger woke him as dawn crept in. His joints, stiff and cold, muttered grudges to him as he brought himself to his feet. The day before he had walked without truly seeing. Now the rising sun showed him at the edge of a great wood. He put the sun to his back and trudged on into the forest.

  His stomach admonished him for his want of care in the journey but he heeded it not. The sun hauled itself up ever higher, till it stood above the trees and on, till at last it was suspended over him. William looked up at it and thought of the hours that had passed as he made his weary way. Now we see how the world wags, he thought, hour and hour we ripe and ripe and hour and hour we rot and rot. The sun does not care for my passing or for Isabella’s. What a deal of pain there has been and stemmed from so much pleasure, a bitter harvest. Was it better to have loved so deeply and so well or to have gentle but unmissed company?

  A line from the song that Hemminges had sung so few weeks ago came unbidden to his mind: youth’s a stuff will not endure. He longed to see his children again and feared to do so, wondering how they might find him changed. Would he still have love in him or had the wondrous and terrible days with Isabella taken all with their ending? Would it be better not to be than face what he had become?

  ‘Hold there, ho!’

  The quiet of the forest was broken by a shout. William looked about him. Having gazed at the sun a minute before now the canopy of the forest cast a double darkness about him and it was a moment before he made out figures emerging from the trees.

  ‘Well met, fellow,’ called one to William. ‘Where are you going?’

  William thought for a moment. ‘Truly, sir, I know not.’

  His answer was the cause of laughter among the dozen or so men now gathered about him.

  ‘In truth, sir,’ the man said, ‘we care not. Though we do have a care for the content of your satchel.’

  William reached absently down to his satchel and the movement of his hand was accompanied by the sound of the men drawing swords and baring cudgels.

  ‘Gently, sir, your dagger is not needed this day.’

  William looked down and saw that his hand in reaching for the satchel had strayed near the blade at his belt. He let his hand drop.

  ‘You are bandits,’ he said.

  ‘No, sir, no,’ cried the leader. William looked at him more closely and saw a goodly man of fair height, long, black hair tied back by a cord, a lustrous beard that curled about and a suit of buckram over his clothes. ‘We are not bandits but bankers, sir,’ the man went on, ‘and make an audit of these woods and all that’s in them. When our audit’s done then we make a reckoning.’

  He looked about, searching for sign of another ambush to add to their own. There was something in William’s stillness that unnerved him. A man about to be robbed should have something of fear or anger or both in him. This figure had none.

  ‘You are alone?’ he asked. ‘We were sure we heard you speak with another.’

  ‘I spoke but to myself,’ said William absently.

  ‘Reckon the man’s mad,’ laughed another of the bandits.

  ‘Reckon we’ll have your sa
tchel and all that’s in it,’ said a third man, short and with a cast in his eye. This one’s voice and look was less polished than the leader’s. His words carried less amusement and greater menace to them too.

  ‘Manners, Luca,’ chided their leader, watching William carefully, curiously.

  ‘Damn your manners, Orlando,’ answered Luca, let’s be done with this and gone.’

  Orlando sighed and shook his head.

  ‘You see, friend? Hunger has made our company mutinous. We, who were already ill-tempered at the world’s injustice. But our mood improves with charity. If you would be so kind as to give us your satchel, traveller?’

  Without demur William reached up and unslung his satchel and held it out. Much good may it do these thieves. It was as empty of coin as his breast of joy.

  ‘Look at that ring,’ spoke up another of the robbers at the sight of gold on William’s outstretched hand.

  ‘That you may not have,’ said William.

  ‘Hah. Give me the damn ring,’ growled Luca, stepping forward and grabbing the satchel from William. He slung it over his shoulder and reached out to grasp William’s hand. William’s arm was held stiff as an iron poker. Luca’s own arm swung out and he struck William across the cheek.

  ‘Give it here, man,’ said Luca, ‘before we cut it off your corpse.’

  William let his arm grow limp and Luca pulled the hand to him and bent to pull the ring from his finger. William’s sudden tug caught him unawares and he lost his balance and tripped forward. William slipped behind the stumbling man and pulled him close, drawing his dagger and pressing it to Luca’s ribs.

  ‘The ring you shall not have,’ declared William. ‘I say it, I swear it. If saying and swearing be not believed then try your luck with my dagger’s point.’

  A cry went up from the other bandits at the sudden change of fortune. One raised his bow to fire but Orlando held up his hand. He was looking at William with an appraising eye.

  ‘That was a fast move, sir, but don’t be a fool,’ said Orlando. ‘There’s a dozen men about you will cut you down in a breath. Give us the ring, and then we will take our leave of you.’

  ‘You cannot take from me anything I would more willingly give, except my life. Except my life.’

  ‘Bold words and a rare man, to put so little value on long life,’ said Orlando.

  ‘I know not bold, and as for rare, I think my condition rare enough, to have loved not wisely but too well. For life, I value it as I value grief, which I would spare. This ring you shall not have while I breathe.’

  ‘Christ Jesu, the man’s distract, have a care, have a care,’ squealed Luca, feeling the sharp point of the dagger piercing his clothes and pricking his flesh.

  ‘He seemed to have wit enough when he took your back,’ muttered Orlando. He signalled to two of his men to circle round behind William and then turned to look William over.

  ‘This does not seem the moment to speak of love, friend.’

  ‘Why not now?’ answered William. ‘There always seems another time, and another, until you find that time has wasted you.’

  ‘What have you to grieve over, traveller?’

  ‘One such as you might search the whole world for and never find her equal.’

  ‘Jesus,’ growled a bandit with a pocked face. ‘Must we listen to this poetic prattle?’

  ‘Hush, Zago,’ admonished Orlando.

  ‘Aye, shut your mouth, Zago,’ hissed another bandit, a younger man who by his shared look was the brother of the bandit Luca, who squirmed with William’s blade at his back. Luca stood as still as he might, his body bent in a sinuous and strained curve, held as far from the press of William’s dagger as William’s arm about his neck would allow.

  Orlando held up a hand for quiet, his eyes watching his men circling behind William.

  ‘She did not requite your love? This is common parlance, man. We’ve all been in such distress. Myself a dozen times. Even Zago here, and look at his face. That’s no cause for murder. Let Luca go, give us the ring and we shall let you pass freely on, I swear it. To be unfortunate in love, come, sir, you know ‘tis common.’

  ‘Aye sir,’ answered William. ‘It is common.’

  ‘Well then, why seems it so particular with you?’ said Orlando.

  ‘“Seems” sir? Nay it is. I know not “seems”.’

  To Orlando’s shock, tears welled in William’s eyes. ‘She loved me well; oft requited me. We shared the story of our lives for a passing moment and then she died. I have never been so alone as to have once been in her company and now to lack it. This ring you shall not have while I live.’

  Orlando looked at William’s gaunt cheek and red-rimmed eyes. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Here’s a pretty pass. I’d not see Luca’s throat cut for all Zago’s urging. Nor does your story leave me all unmoved. Yet, I cannot be seen to be so lack-willed as to let a man defy me before my companions. And now I see my men are both before and behind you. What to do? What to do?’ Orlando’s voice turned hard. ‘A shame to die for a trinket.’

  William shrugged. ‘I will not die alone.’ He braced himself for the feel of arrows striking his back and it minded him of how Isabella in her anger had once struck at him with a blade, believing him to have betrayed her. On William’s hand the gold and cornelian signet ring that Isabella had given him, with the lance with the quill’s tip cut into its face, caught the noon sun and glittered. Orlando drew a sharp breath.

  ‘What is your name, traveller?’ he asked.

  ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Call it courtesy,’ said Orlando, moving to see the ring better.

  ‘Adam,’ answered William. ‘Or so you should call me, for like Adam I am an exile from paradise and grieve its loss.’

  ‘Truly name yourself,’ said Orlando.

  ‘Adam will serve,’ answered William, ignoring Orlando’s sharp tone.

  Zago rolled his eyes and spat upon the ground. ‘Are we to talk all morning? Kill him and be done,’ he demanded. ‘We’ve no need of an impatient fool like Luca.’

  ‘Be damned, you hatch, you boil, you ...’ Luca trailed off to a whisper, quite overwrought by the terror of his position. ‘Damn you, Zago.’

  ‘Jesus spare us. Kill the god-damned poet,’ said Zago and made to thrust his sword at William, who dug his blade into Luca’s side and sent up a howl from the man.

  ‘No!’ Orlando’s blade lashed out and knocked down Zago’s own. ‘No, impatient rascal!’ He pulled his eyes from William’s ring. ‘That is a ring that speaks of service. Shall we say then that there be some service in exchange for the ring’s keeping? What think you, Adam, to such a bargain?’

  William nodded. What did it matter to him? What did any of it matter any more?

  He’s truly valiant that can wisely suffer

  Verona

  The Duke’s palace offered many rooms and Sir Nicholas Hawkwood and his lieutenant, John Russell, had been offered ones that overlooked the road from Venice to Verona and the woods beyond. To these rooms Hemminges retired at the day’s end. He eased off his boots and sat heavily upon the bed. His feet ached. A smile creased his face. That young daughter of the Duke was a proud one. She had taunted him for his ugly Italian and his standing in the court but since that first day she had not challenged his skill. Hers was a practical bent, Hemminges mused. If he was to be set over her then at least let her learn from him. Such seemed her thinking and, since it would have been Hemminges’ own, he gave it the credit due to one who shared his disposition. She had pushed him so, teach her more, test her. For three days now he had done so. She sweated and moped but Aemilia would not rest. Then, when Hemminges feared for his own strength, she left him to tryst with Valentine.

  Hemminges’ smile departed. This Valentine he did not trust, still less admire. He could not find in the pale-faced figure, with his airs, his obscure or obvious sayings that he clearly thought the zenith of wit and good fooling, any hook on which Aemilia might hang her admirati
on. Hemminges shook his head. He need not reason at her love for Valentine overmuch. The young man doted on her and she, in turn, on him. That was enough for her that wanted for soft things in this hard Duke’s court.

  He eased off his other boot and thought of his conversation with Aemilia that morning. She had been set to race away from his lesson but he had caught her at the gate.

  ‘My lady, a little caution will go a long way.’

  She had shook her head as if to deny his meaning but then stopped and smiled at him. ‘Master Russell, you speak to me of caution when all I hear from my father are tales of the adventures you and Sir Nicholas have endured, the places seen, the foes overwhelmed.’

  ‘I would not trust all that men say and not one word that comes from Sir Nicholas’ mouth.’

  ‘Is’t dutiful to say so?’ said Aemilia with a shocked smile.

  ‘Maybe not, but true nonetheless.’

  ‘I think you are too modest a man, Master Russell, and too good a man too, to let falsehoods colour the commerce of your business at my father’s court. I dare, you dare, both for the thrill of what may be.’

  ‘It is not seemly for a woman—’

  ‘“Seemly”, there’s a word that’s used like a hobble to curb a woman’s will. It seems ‘tis seemly only that I do what others will of me.’

  Hemminges held up his hands at the flare of rage in her eyes.

  ‘If you are caught, Lady Aemilia, it will not be you alone that suffers.’

  Aemilia’s hand upon the gate paused in the turning of the handle. ‘All’s well that ends well,’ she said but did not let her eyes meet his.

  The handle turned and Hemminges called to her back that they would resume their lesson at noon. That afternoon neither had spoken again of their conversation but Hemminges had wondered at its meaning as he watched Aemilia dance.