The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  Now, in his room, having left Oldcastle in carouse with the Duke after dinner, Hemminges strode to the ewer and poured cold water over his hands into the basin and splashed his face clear of the sweat-seamed dust of the day and the fire’s soot of the evening. He wondered at himself that he had not told the Duke of his daughter’s conference with Valentine. Of course, it served him to stay silent lest the Duke know how little guard of her virtue he made in the face of her stern will. The Duke’s anger at him, at Oldcastle, at Aemilia and Valentine, that he feared to think on. For certain, he did not wish Aemilia to face her father’s wrath. Pray she is right, and that a successful ending mitigates all sins along the way.

  He roused the fire in the grate and threw another log upon it. The room was cold and Hemminges fell back on his bed and pulled the blanket over him and waited for the fire to bite, thinking of the journey to come and the need to return to the road. A long, hard journey before them. A soft bed, a fire, food at hand, these were not to be counted upon on the journey to come. Nor the company of clever women like Lady Aemilia.

  Hemminges woke to the sound of the handle of his door rattling and muttered imprecations against the door’s makers from without. He was from his bed in the instant and moving to his baldric. Then the door shuddered to the sound of a blow and clapped open to crack and bang again as it swung hard into the wall behind. A great silhouette loomed in the frame of the door, lit from behind by the cast of the moon.

  ‘Jesu, there’s a noise,’ whispered Oldcastle. ‘Still, can’t be helped. You’re awake, John?’

  ‘If there’s a man asleep after that row I salute him as the only greater sot living than you,’ answered Hemminges, thrusting his sword back in its scabbard and stamping his way back to his bed.

  ‘Why so angry, John? Why so angry?’

  ‘What o’clock is it?’

  ‘I think it’ – Oldcastle paused to suppress a belch – ‘eleven.’

  ‘It is past midnight, Nick,’ said Hemminges from a nest of blankets.

  ‘Then up, John, up,’ cried Oldcastle, hauling at his friend’s bedding. ‘For truly the wise man is said to rise early.’

  Oldcastle succeeded in dragging a blanket from Hemminges’ bed and, wrapping himself in it in the style of a Roman emperor, stalked to a seat by the window.

  ‘Have you wine?’

  ‘You have had more than enough.’

  ‘True,’ sighed Oldcastle. ‘True. By the sweet Lord, the Duke can drink. I may have met my match. Of course I acquit myself in the contest because I had to stay sober enough to speak of the great Sir Nicholas Hawkwood and his adventures. My, but that man has lived.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sir Nicholas Hawkwood, of course, the part I play. I have spoken to the Duke of deadly chances, of moving accidents by flood and field, of hair-breadth escapes in the deadly breach. The more I spoke, the more the Duke loved me for it.’

  Hemminges propped his back up against the wall behind the bed.

  ‘You realise that I am supposed to have been this Hawkwood’s bosom companion?’

  ‘I do, I do. Rest assured I kept you close in my adventures. The brave and loyal John Russell never strayed far from Sir Nicholas, no matter how close the battle came or how deadly the foe.’

  ‘I meant that if the Duke now asks me of these adventures, what answer shall I give him? I who was not there when you invented them?’

  Oldcastle made no reply. He scratched deep within his ear. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘This whole diversion is a lesson in lack of thought, Nick. If you weren’t so damn keen on comfort we might have slipped on quietly. God above, why are we still here? We must be away before these agents of the Pope are upon us.’ Hemminges put his head in his hands. ‘Yet you must play the lord. You must have wine, warmth and feathered beds and I am too weak a man to drive you on. I tell you, we shall have cold comfort of it if the Duke discover our deception and think a bed of burrs small burden to our rest when set beside hot pincers and the rack.’

  ‘Why speak to fright me, John?’ Oldcastle chided. ‘No danger of that. Why the Duke and I are closer than brothers of the same birthing and he has given you charge of his only true care, his daughter Aemilia.’

  ‘There lies trouble in its infancy.’

  ‘The girl cannot dance?’

  ‘Not so. Rather she can dance too well and is in a constant whirl of evasions. Thrice in two days have I caught her on her way to a tryst with that Valentine. She is bold, aye, bold.’

  ‘Oh ho. Young love.’

  ‘I never knew youth to want for love nor idiocy.’

  ‘Oh, when I speak of love, I do not speak of young Valentine and Aemilia but of young John Russell and Aemilia,’ said Oldcastle with a knowing touch to his nose.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Truly you are drunker than I thought you, Oldcastle.’

  ‘Of course, quite blind with drink. Yet I hear well enough, that tone of admiration in your voice.’

  ‘A child,’ said Hemminges.

  ‘A woman of twenty summers,’ answered Oldcastle, ‘and comely.’

  ‘Too tall.’

  ‘For you, yes, but not for beauty.’

  ‘A noblewoman, far beyond my reach,’ said Hemminges.

  ‘There’s confirmation of it,’ crowed Oldcastle, ‘for what man thinks of his marriage prospects with a woman that he does not desire?’

  ‘I admire her spirit,’ said Hemminges, ‘no more. For myself and my desires, I desire only to be free of this place before the foolishness now budding comes to fruit. That same spirit I admire will lead her into trouble ere long and we with her.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I am set to guard her, am I not? When she strays I will be blamed. We must go on to England, Nick.’

  ‘Would it were so simple, John.’

  Oldcastle bent forward and clutched at the hair fraying on his pate. ‘Alas, alas the day I was born so great an actor,’ he moaned.

  He looked up through his brows at Hemminges. ‘That we must go? You have my full agreement. But, woe, woe! The Duke is so much taken by my martial prowess, as I have given it over in my speech with him that I am a sword of many battles’ honing, and so much filled the part that he sees in me a second Charlemain. Well, to cut a long tale short, the Duke insists I take his yeomen to flush out the bandits that infest these parts.’

  Hemminges gave out a groan of his own. His fury with Oldcastle was nothing compared to the fury he felt at himself. Rue the day that ever I allowed Nicholas Oldcastle to lure me to another of his schemes. I should rather have dragged him by his ear past Verona and shown him a bed of stones and scorpions.

  ‘Refuse the commission,’ said Hemminges.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Oldcastle, ‘but how, without causing offence?’ He paused and danced his fingers across the table while pursing his lips. The fingers stopped and he tapped them and looked to Hemminges. ‘Also, he has offered me, Sir Nicholas Hawkwood I should say, quite a deal of gold for the work.’

  Hemminges groaned. ‘God above, Oldcastle. Now we hear your real reason for going along with this foolishness. What good is gold to a dead man? Oldcastle, you know nothing of war.’

  ‘Nonsense. Nothing to it. Good speech to rouse their spirits, I have plenty of those, then point your men at the enemy and loose ‘em.’

  ‘You’re a fool, Oldcastle.’ Hemminges rubbed his temples. ‘We must be gone before Aemilia’s fancies find her out, before the Pope’s men chase us down from Venice to Verona, and yet, here you have bound us in place.’

  ‘It is a tangled knot, no question of it.’ Oldcastle let forth a vast sigh. ‘Would that Will were here. He’d have a plan for us.’

  ‘Jesu, aye.’ Hemminges shook his head. ‘Scarce a week out of his company and already here we are wishing him with us again.’

  ‘Are you sure you have no wine?’ asked Oldcastle, casting his gaze about.

  Hemminges got up fr
om his bed and snatched the blanket from Oldcastle with one hand while the other, gripping painfully on the old man’s arm, guided him to his bed chamber and pushed him to his bed. He stamped back to his own and pulled the blanket over him.

  ‘We leave one trap in Venice only to place ourselves in another,’ Hemminges muttered to the wall. ‘Which will find us out first, the Pope, the Duke or Aemilia?’

  He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself

  I need more time, thought Aemilia. My father sets no date for this wedding but it cannot be long coming. How am I to persuade him from the match? How prove to him that Valentine is worthier than he gives him credit?

  She hurried through the palace to the courtyard near the chapel where for the last three days she had taken lessons with the English dancingmaster, Master Russell. The hour had not yet struck for that day’s lesson to begin but she thought that, coming early, she might be released from it sooner, and then in the minutes bought by this she and Valentine might meet and plan. At the corner, where the corridor opened out on to the courtyard, she pulled up short. As she hoped, Master Russell was already there. He was alone. He did not dance but instead practised with a sword. Aemilia pulled herself into the shadow and watched him lunging, twisting, moving the heavy blade in tight patterns, the sword moving either too fast for sight or stopping as if caught by an invisible wall. As with his dancing his movements showed a grace, a subtlety, that his bulk did not augur. Aemilia did not know what he did precisely, but she knew she watched a master at his work.

  He sweated with his efforts and, abruptly, at his practice’s end, threw down his sword and strode to the far end of the courtyard, pulled off his shirt and dipped his head in a rain barrel to chase the sweat from him. Aemilia felt a thrill pass through her at this unexpected sight. Master Russell was very different to Valentine, a thing of thews and sinew, strong and solid. His broad back and shoulders coursed with muscle, here and there the brown skin was puckered by a line of pink and white that spoke of an old scar. Aemilia suddenly felt her thoughts disloyal to Valentine. She stepped from her hiding place.

  ‘Master Russell, are you ready?’ she called, thinking to discomfort him. There was a part of her that thought in his discomfort there would be distraction from her own.

  The dancing-master turned at her call. Aemilia had a mocking smile upon her lips but neither that smile nor the sudden arrival of his pupil, alone and unchaperoned while he stood naked to the waist, showed itself in him by any blenching. He dried himself with his old shirt and strode to where a fresh one lay waiting and pulled it on.

  ‘You’re early,’ he said when he was dressed again. The fresh shirt flung over his still damp torso clung to his body. He pushed his wet hair back from his head.

  ‘Lady Aemilia,’ he said, calling her back from her reverie. ‘You’re early. To some purpose? Where is your maid?’

  Aemilia stilled her thoughts. ‘I’m eager for our lessons, Master Russell. Though I see now that you might more profitably teach me to fence than to dance.’

  ‘The one you will do often, the other I think never at all.’

  Aemilia bristled. ‘You think me too weak to hold a sword?’

  ‘I think there’s little profit in practising that which one will never do,’ answered Hemminges.

  The man presumed too much.

  ‘What do you know what I will do? You are a prophet as well as a dancer?’ demanded Aemilia.

  He walked across to where his sword lay. His foot slipped beneath the blade and with a casual flick he tossed it up into his hand. He walked back to Aemilia.

  ‘Take up the fourth position of the galliard as we have practised it,’ he said.

  Aemilia made to protest this attempt to divert her back to their dancing lesson but Hemminges simply imitated the pose in answer to her sour look. Reluctantly she set her feet and raised her arms out to the side. Hemminges reached out and grasped her forearm. Aemilia looked at him in astonishment: bar Valentine’s stolen moments none had touched her so intimately since she was a child. His hands were callused and his grip was strong.

  ‘Open,’ he said.

  It took her a moment to understand what he wanted and when she did, he put the sword hilt in her upturned hand. She saw his game at once. Well, she would show him. Her muscles tensed against the blade’s weight. He let go the sword and its point wobbled but she held it out, she steadied it. Hemminges stepped back. Aemilia returned his gaze. She would not fail. A minute passed and the tip of the blade that had fluttered an inch now bowed down and flicked up a foot or more with each beat of her heart. She ground her teeth and her arm burned with the effort. Hemminges walked behind her, she felt his hands on her shoulders.

  ‘Less with the arm’s strength, more with the back. Here.’ His hands ran down her back to her waist. ‘Nor can you hold the weight by tensing of the arm alone. Your body will quickly tire, the sinews tightening, the blood does not flow and the strength fails. Breathe, let the other arm balance you and feel your arm light.’

  He stepped aside again, oblivious of her flush of heat at his touch. The sword straightened a moment longer at his instruction but another minute passing, Aemilia could no longer hold it still. Hemminges nodded and Aemilia waited for the mocking comment that would follow. She cursed her own weakness. No comment came. Hemminges made an appraising look and walked over to the courtyard wall where a climbing plant was supported by a cane. He snatched the cane free and walked back to Aemilia.

  ‘Up, up,’ he gestured, catching her sword with the cane’s tip and raising it. Aemilia lifted it again. Hemminges came on guard.

  ‘Thrust,’ he commanded. Aemilia held the sword out toward him. Hemminges did not move as the sword’s point came at him, missing him by a foot to the left.

  ‘No, please, with intent, at the heart,’ he replied in answer to her feeble effort. Very well, she thought, on his head be it. She pulled her arm back and thrust straight at his chest.

  He seemed to move so very little, a shuffle to the side, but as he moved the cane whipped out and struck her blade with a horrid crack and a shock of pain ran up her wrist. The sword fell to the ground.

  ‘Up, up,’ he pointed to the sword. She bent and picked it up and held it out before her again; its weight seemed to have grown tenfold since she first held it but Hemminges made no acknowledgement of the sweat that beaded her brow.

  ‘You pull back your arm before the thrust. Your enemy witnesses this prologue, anticipates the thrust that follows and has moved from out the way of harm. Instead, the thrust comes so, direct...’ He demonstrated with the cane, one moment still, the next the cane at full extension and his whole body’s weight behind it. ‘Now you.’

  Aemilia thrust again, and again Hemminges no longer stood where her thrust had gone, though the movement seemed so small by which he made evasion that she could scarce believe it.

  ‘Better,’ he said. He made a series of poses. ‘This is the guard, here the first position, here the second position of the hand.’

  He made her move her hand across her body, the point of the sword shifting while her hand moved very little. Each time he took her arm and moved it Aemilia was conscious of his closeness, of the strength of the rough hands that held her. That he seemed so uncaring of her closeness was, at the same time, provoking. He turned her waist to angle her body and she felt his chest against her back. He stepped back, took up the cane again and stood before her.

  ‘Defend yourself,’ he said. His cane came forward and she moved her hand as she’d been shown, pushing his cane’s thrust aside.

  ‘Again,’ he said. ‘Smaller, smaller movements.’

  Aemilia began to enjoy herself. His cane thrust out and she batted it aside. ‘No, smaller,’ came his instruction. ‘Smaller, smaller.’ Still the cane thrust out and she moved the sword to push it aside. ‘List to me, lady, keep the movements small.’

  In frustration at his carping Aemilia banged the next thrust of his cane aside. A further thrust came and
she made to meet it but the cane flickered from its path and her sword not meeting the expected blow, her arm came full across her body, the cane flicked down across her hand and with a howl she dropped the sword. The cane thrust out and struck her true in the stomach, winding her, then it whirled about and caught her across the back of the legs, making her cry out again.

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘What good has your anger done you?’ answered Hemminges. His own countenance was calm.

  ‘You’ve hurt me.’ Her hand was hot with pain. The unmoved figure that stood before her provoked her by its very want of emotion.

  ‘I have. You think swordplay is about aught else? There is but one aim – I hurt you but am not hurt in my turn. Your anger is nothing to that purpose. Frustration that I correct you is nothing to that purpose. Your noble state, your woman’s weeds, nothing to that purpose. When you sought to learn, then I would teach. When you let frustration show, then I reminded you of that which you would learn – to wound another, to compass by your skill another’s injury or death.’

  ‘You’re a cruel man, Master Russell,’ said Aemilia in a small voice, her shock at his blows departing, leaving only the pain behind.

  ‘Is it cruel to give you what you sought? To take you at your word? You chided me for thinking you weak. You asked to learn the sword and I have shown you what it takes to learn it. Should I be so cruel as to leave you thinking it easy? A game?’

  ‘I did not think it a game.’

  ‘Your swordplay is a serious business?’ Hemminges said, and in his scornful tone Aemilia realised that he had taken her demand for teaching as a mockery of him. It made her angry that he could not see why she might wish to wield a sword.

  ‘Why not? Why might I not be serious in my intent?’ To her fury her eyes were pricked with tears of frustration. Would no one understand her as she wished to be understood?

  ‘You are a noble lady, not a soldier,’ answered Hemminges. His tone had softened at the misting of her eyes.