The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  The sound of shuffling feet made clear that it was not Hemminges alone that heard the offence in the priest’s words. The man’s confidence, his arrogance, was astounding. The Duke’s hand upon his chair’s arm had turned knuckle white. Thornhill noticed none of it, or noticing, did not deign to acknowledge it. Again he was looking about.

  ‘You have commissioned an English knight to rid you of the outlaws? I have not heard the name Hawkwood before. Where is he?’

  Oldcastle pulled himself deeper into the shadow of the pillar.

  ‘I know not,’ growled the Duke.

  ‘He came as one of three? From Venice? Going where?’

  ‘Sir Nicholas, and his lieutenant, Master Russell, have long been in Italy and I do not question them their comings and goings. They are not my prisoners that I may know their place of keeping, but my guests, and wander freely. Nor do I stand here to be questioned by you.’

  ‘A regrettable lack of curiosity,’ muttered the priest.

  ‘What did you say?’ said the Duke.

  ‘And may we share in your generous welcome, my lord?’ Thornhill asked.

  The Duke leaned forward in his chair.

  ‘Have a care, priest. These are not His Holiness’s lands. Caution that your mouth does not overstep the limit of my patience. You shall have lodging, as I honour the Church. Complete your business and be gone.’

  Thornhill bowed and, taking the Duke’s words for dismissal, turned and left with the Duke’s steward hurrying after to arrange the promised beds.

  ‘Christ,’ muttered Oldcastle to Hemminges. ‘This bodes ill. What does the priest want?’

  ‘You saw how his head came up at mention of Sir Nicholas? His asking if we came as one of three? It is past question these men are after us. It may be they do not yet have William. He must have fled Venice too.’

  ‘Thank God,’ whispered Oldcastle. ‘Then is Isabella recovered, for William would not have left her while she was still unwell.’

  Hemminges nodded. The urgency of their departure was upon them. The interest of this Thornhill, the way that the Pope’s agents pursued them, all spoke to the value and the danger of the intelligence they held. It must be taken to England and yet in this public pronouncement of Sir Nicholas’ commission against the bandits, they were shackled more tightly to that task. Again Hemminges wished that William were here and that they might have his crooked mind to call on to puzzle them out of this problem. Though had he been, sure, the priest and his men would have harkened to the three Englishmen for what they were. Better for all, and better for William, that they were separated.

  Of breaches, ambuscados, Spanish blades

  The Veneto

  A cold drizzle fell through the leaves, not hard but enough to cause the men to shiver. Orlando hushed them as they approached the road. He hid them behind a wall of trees from where they could see a way along it; north, the road bent away down into a valley, south, it went straight on into the woods. The men crouched to wait, the first thrill of impending action and haste to the chase replaced by the dullness of the vigil.

  William huddled with the others behind the trees. Looking up he saw their branches like bones, too thin and bare to conceal the unloving sky. Truly is the summer gone, he thought, and I do wonder if it will come again. If it does, it will not be such as I have held in my hands and marvelled at. I am a fool, no summer lasts. Its tenure passed, its heat declines and all is turned to greyness by nature’s course untrimmed.

  A crack of branches on the ground behind them broke off his melancholy thought and announced the arrival of another of their band who had scouted the merchant on the road and came to herald that merchant’s close arrival.

  Orlando called out in a carrying whisper, ‘Listen, gentlemen, as it was before, wait for my command and then fall on them as one. Brook no abuse, yet do not look to give violence. That is not needless mercy on our part but heedful sense: let those that will, surrender. Hush now, he’s upon us.’

  Round the bend in the road ahead rising from the valley, some quarter- mile distant, could be seen a merchant on his palfrey, behind him two others on ponies and a small chain of asses, laden with goods.

  ‘Luck at last,’ whispered Luca beside Will. ‘Luck at last.’

  Luca turned to his brother. ‘Now, remember, Tommasso, hold back. Let more experienced men take the lead. I’ll not have your first fight be your last.’

  Tommasso nodded but William saw that when his brother turned away again he rolled his eyes and shifted himself to charge. Young fools like to feel their strength, thought William. Old fools think they have it still.

  The former friar, Petro, took a large wooden cross from the folds of his filthy habit and kissed it and then turned to either side of him to mutter a blessing over the men, some few crossing themselves in answer.

  ‘Hold, lads, hold,’ hushed Orlando as the merchant drew closer. Zago wound the thong at the base of his cudgel tighter round his wrist, Luca kissed the hilt of his old sword with its knocked and pitted blade and muttered a prayer, Ludovico shifted his poniard from hand to hand. They could see now that the men behind the merchant were a guard of sorts, two men in simple leather jerkins, swords slung from the saddles of their ponies. They wore their pot-helms as protection against the rain, which gathered and then sheeted from the brims. Behind them came the asses, the one at the front ridden by a fat man in a filthy cloak, the others laden with tight-wrapped packages were pulled along by a rope from the first. The merchant’s train drew level with the copse behind which the little band had gathered for its ambuscade.

  ‘Now! Gentlemen, now!’ came Orlando’s cry from William’s side and the bandits thrust themselves from their hiding places to fall upon the merchant and his men.

  A cry went up from the merchant, his horse rearing at the sudden flock of men bursting from the trees like starlings. His guards reached to unhook their swords but the outlaws were crossing the fifty yards between the tree line and the horses too fast. Seeing their numbers and their gain of ground upon them, the guards turned and urgently wheeled their ponies back the way they came. The driver of the asses was whipping his little beast to the same course but it moved slowly, slowly. The triumphant cheer of the outlaws at the rout of the guards rose up against the sound of their fleeing ponies’ hooves.

  William watched as though at a play, one he did not care for. A flash of blue caught his eye and he turned to see a bird, frighted by the cries, break from its place in a tree nearby and soar for the sky. Luca shouted at him to quit his tarrying and join them and he walked over towards where Orlando now approached the merchant. The man had recovered the horse to his control and now turned it about within the circle of the bandits, his sword drawn and waving about him.

  ‘Come, sir, alight your horse, surrender. No harm shall come to you, as I am a gentleman.’

  ‘Gentleman? Hah! Thief, robber! You’ll not have me truss myself for your slaughter.’ The merchant’s voice was high with fear and his eyes darted from man to man. ‘Come closer while I keep my blade in my hand.’

  ‘Your insults are uncalled for,’ said Orlando. ‘I am a gentleman and my word given, I honour it. No harm shall come to you. Look, your men are fled, we have your wares already. Leave off your crowing, give up your horse and walk away.’

  Beyond Orlando three of the other outlaws were busy pulling the fat man from his seat on the ass to the ground. Two others struggled to calm the chain of asses that bore the merchant’s goods upon their backs.

  These two were the first to die.

  Riding back up from the valley came the two guards that had fled, but now in company with four others. With swords bared they bore down on the outlaws. The two holding the asses, being closest and tangled with their charges, saw the blades rise to fall on their crowns, then saw no more.

  Cries and shouts rose from the other outlaws, scattering to the four compass points.

  ‘Hold, damn you!’ Orlando shouted. ‘Hold! This merchant is our surety.’
r />   He tried to grab for the merchant’s reins but was forced back by the pointing and pricking of the man’s sword.

  ‘Hold! We are enough to drive them back...’ Orlando cried again but his voice trailed away.

  His cries of hold were words wasted in the chaos. It is one thing for men, in numbers greater than their foe and with the gift of surprise to offer, to charge down on a fat merchant and his few men. It is quite another to stand against men riding down upon you swords raised to slash your life out of your breast. The outlaws broke and ran for the trees. Another of them died as a sword took him in the back.

  William still stood in the clearing, watching. He felt a weight upon him holding him still but no fear. Even among the chaos of the battle his thoughts were not present but far away, in Venice.

  Ahead, the mounted men had stilled their ponies and turned them for a second pass. William saw them pointing with their swords at the bandits still milling by the asses. Then one rode for him. He watched his approach calmly. To live or to die; a moment of decision. All felt as one to him in that moment. In death he might be spared the heartache that now weighed so heavily upon him. He might have some peace, some relief from the thousand shocks that were the price of life, the burdens of duty, the contempt of prideful men, the fear of failure. A consummation devoutly to be wished, the peace of the grave. Aye, there was the rub. Who knew if death gave peace or no. Was it the end of heartache or its prolongation to eternity?

  A cry bored through these thoughts to the seat of action in his mind. A name was being called. His own? No, but one that meant something to him.

  ‘Run, Adam, run!’ cried Orlando and, sprinting past him, he caught William’s arm and hauled at it. William, not knowing why he did so, turned and followed hard after. They ran with the sound of hooves closing on them, the drumbeat of the executioner arriving. William ducked under a branch and stumbled, fell, rolled and picked himself up again. Orlando and he ducked and ran through the woods, the branches becoming tighter and more tangled as they went deeper and the sound of their pursuers faded.

  Your marriage comes by destiny

  Verona

  The Duke paced before the fire in his library. He had little time for priests and their meddling ways. Let each man’s state of grace be his own affair. Why must these priests be forever going beyond their offices? And why must they meddle in matters temporal? The Duke stopped, plucked up a poker and viciously stirred at the fire with it. Not enough that the Republic of St Peter should have those lands they had already but they must covet more; and where they exercised no temporal power they overstretched their spiritual command to the usurpation of the lawful ruler. This Thornhill was but the latest and the worst of a familiar breed, thought the Duke with punctuating stabs of the ashes in the grate. The greed of the Church needed no proving. If it had then the insulting offer that this Father Thornhill had brought from Rome would be all the testimony needed. That I gift my lands to them in exchange for some paltry indulgence from the Pope? A few Masses said in my honour when I am dead. He had given that suggestion short shrift and at least Thornhill, for all his other offences, had made no mention of it since. Oh but I have been unlucky, in a wife’s too early death, in the lack of a son, in a daughter too given to the exercise of her will and too little to the devotion to a father’s wishes that is her filial duty. Had I not so loved her mother, I might have married again and had an heir. Oh, would I had a son to leave my land to, then might I give Aemilia all that she wanted. He cast the poker down. Since I do not, married must she be and to the man best suited to the task, Claudio.

  ‘Sir Nicholas, my lord.’

  His steward interrupted his brooding to announce Oldcastle’s arrival.

  ‘You are well?’ the Duke asked on seeing Oldcastle’s wan face.

  Oldcastle’s constitution, unsettled by the Duke’s company and the hard drinking that accompanied it, had been further curdled by the priest’s arrival. Now summoned to the Duke’s presence and mindful of his promised commission, Oldcastle struggled to find his usual cheer. He managed a cough, a pursing of the lips and a wave of the hand, all of which he felt were the movements an old warrior like Sir Nicholas would make to signal both tremendous discomfort and a casual disregard for such pain. The Duke took it so.

  ‘Sit, sit.’ The Duke beckoned him to a chair beside the fire. ‘Wine!’

  The bellowed order caused Oldcastle to start in his chair and clutch at his heart but the Duke did not notice. A servant hurried forward with a jug of wine. The Duke eased himself into the chair opposite Oldcastle, reached forward and rummaged the fire with the poker so forcefully that Oldcastle feared the flurry of sparks thrown up would set his beard afire. At last, satisfied by the blaze, he leant back in his chair and drained his cup in a single swallow.

  ‘Priests, eh.’

  Oldcastle made a sound that could have meant almost anything. A most useful sound in his experience since to the audience it conveyed precisely that which they wished to hear. He had prevented many a tavern brawl by its use and, skilfully deployed, caused many an audience to nod in admiration. The Duke did so now.

  ‘Does your man Russell give report of the Lady Aemilia?’ the Duke asked.

  ‘That she has a most willing mind to learn and progresses well in her lessons,’ answered Oldcastle.

  ‘And of Valentine?’

  Oldcastle pretended ignorance of the man.

  ‘An ingrate and importunate son of a dead cousin of mine,’ explained the Duke, his eyes upon the fire to which he envisaged condemning Valentine. ‘I little liked his father, a drunk, a lecher, who gambled with that which his ancestors had built with care and effort and died a penniless wastrel. Now comes his son, who I, charitable and loving to my family, took in and who repays me with unlawful wooing of my daughter. I will have no such communion beneath my roof.’

  ‘Russell spoke of no such man, and by that I take the Lady Aemilia to have had no communion with him either. Least not while my man has been in her company. For the rest, well...’

  ‘Aye, there’s the trick of it, for my daughter is no milksop fool.’ A little smile of pride crept over the Duke’s face. ‘If she wants to meet with this Valentine then she will manage the business. Howsoever I forbid it, she will manage it.’

  The Duke poured himself another cup of wine and filled Oldcastle’s glass to the brim.

  ‘There has been too little respect for my estate. My daughter, brave in my love of her, defies my wishes for her marriage. And now is this priest returned.’

  ‘The priest?’ asked Oldcastle. He had spent many evenings, in many taverns, from London to Bristol, from Paris to Turin, hunting after drinks at another’s expense. He considered himself something of a master at the game. Two rules he had for any that would learn his art: first, no man desires to hear any story more than his own, ask him questions and he will answer them, and so his mouth dries and his thirst grows; second, not all are gifted story-tellers but when they falter, as falter they must, and begin to think of turning homeward and taking with them their coin and shared jug of wine, then repetition of their last words, now as a question, will drive them on to the chorus of ‘a fresh stoup of wine, Maria’.

  ‘This priest, among the worst of his kind.’ The Duke looked hastily up but saw in Oldcastle’s encouraging nod a man who shared his dislike of a meddlesome priest. ‘Father Thornhill, an Englishman, like yourself, though I think he has lived in Rome for many years. There is a new Pope in Rome, you know this? Little more than a year in possession of St Peter’s see, but such a difference a year makes. The signs were there in the name he took, Sixtus, a baleful name. It was the last Pope to have that name that forged in war the Papal States. He is still remembered in these parts, a hundred years after his passing.’

  The Duke reached out and again rummaged at the fire with angry strokes.

  ‘This new Sixtus has as covetous an eye. He sends out his minions to stir the land and we may not say aught against them for fear of incurring the w
rath of the Church. Well I will not be any man’s lapdog, not even the Holy Father in Rome.’

  The Duke swung his gaze up to Oldcastle’s.

  ‘If a man was uncivil to you in your service how would you treat him?’

  ‘With the lash,’ cried Oldcastle, who had the taste of the Duke’s mood now. The Duke met his cry with nodding of his head.

  ‘So, so. I also. This priest, lording in my lands, comes questioning. Questioning my own priests, my own men, my servants, my subjects. As if we were some damn heretic Swiss or I some spleeny Lutheran. When I ask him his purpose, what answer makes he? That he will answer to none save His Holiness. Shall I brook such words? Such uncivil tongue in one so far beneath my station? No, I shall not. I did not use the whip but he felt the lash of my tongue. Damn me if he did not glide from it, all untouched. Yet he did go and I was glad to see him do so. Now is he returned and again he is at his questioning and ungiving of his purpose.’

  The Duke again drained his glass but this time did not refill it. Instead he set it aside and turned to Oldcastle.

  ‘I did not ask you here to speak of wayward daughters, Sir Nicholas, but of wayward men. These robbers that must be driven from the woods nearby. What men would you need for such a task?’

  Oldcastle took a draught of his wine to cover the desperate churning of his brain. All his understanding of battle might be fitted in a thimble with room to spare. How many would seem enough for the task? A dozen? Too boastfully few? A hundred? Too cautious? The Duke looked at him with expectation. His mouth was dry despite the wine. He opened it to answer and was forestalled by a sharp knock at the door.

  ‘My lord, your cousin Valentine craves parley,’ announced his steward.

  Hah, comes to beard me to my face. Well now, a word for him I have,’ growled the Duke. ‘With your pardon, Sir Nicholas.’