The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  ‘Much cause for revenge.’

  ‘I think so,’ laughed Orlando without mirth, ‘for I am by a brother’s hand deprived of father, mother, lands, and life. Should such a brother live?’

  William hung the beaten shirt upon a bough to catch the sun. He squatted again by the water’s edge and hurled a stone of his own across the brook.

  ‘A year I have watched and waited in these woods,’ said Orlando. ‘I have no power to take my brother’s keep, nor has he been abroad where I might take my deep revenge. Now the Furies send you to me.’

  ‘Me?’ said William.

  ‘You think I spared your life for love of Luca’s?’ laughed Orlando. ‘I need a man that murders, for I have one that I would have murdered.’

  ‘I am no murderer, Orlando. You have mistook me for another.’

  ‘Your price I’ll pay when that which belongs to me and to my ancestors is once again within my hands.’

  ‘You are mistook in me,’ repeated William wearily. ‘It is not want of wherewithal that makes me refuse you.’

  ‘Then what use are you to me?’

  ‘What use to any man?’

  Orlando rose to his feet and walked to where his clothes were. He donned them and hung his baldric across his shoulder. William stayed squatting by the river’s bank. He did not look round at Orlando or think of the sword now hanging by the bandit’s side. Instead he gazed upon the waters and thought again of how the music of their passing over the rocks would sing laments to mark a death.

  ‘Think on it,’ said Orlando to his back. ‘It is not a murder that I ask but justice.’

  ‘I am not who you think I am. Orlando, I want—’ William paused. ‘I know not what I want. To go home, perhaps. I have no will to be the instrument of another’s vengeance against his brother.’

  ‘Claudio. That is my brother’s name. Count Claudio, I should call him now, for so he calls himself.’

  ‘Be patient, Orlando. I have found that the whirligig of time brings in his revenges without more need of human action.’

  ‘My active soul likes not this passive counsel.’

  ‘It’s all I have to give.’

  ‘So say you now.’

  William heard the footsteps retreating but still did not turn. It was another hour before he’d summoned up the life to dress again and make his way back to the camp. It was a smoked hive that he returned to, the bees drowsy active.

  ‘Luca reports three travellers on the road, unarmed, unhorsed and ripe for plucking,’ declared Orlando with vigour.

  ‘Three pilgrims most like, their satchels empty of all but bread I’ll warrant,’ grumbled Zago.

  ‘Stay then,’ said Orlando. ‘Prepare the victory feast.’

  ‘With what?’ demanded Zago. ‘Nettles? Roots?’

  ‘I’ll hunt,’ said William.

  Orlando and Zago looked at him.

  ‘I have hunted before now,’ said William.

  ‘Then, by all means, Orion, bring us the fruits of your experience,’ said Orlando to the chorus of a scornful snort from Zago.

  ‘You have a bow I can use?’ asked William.

  Zago gestured to the small stock of weapons that the camp held and William plucked up a bow and a fist of arrows and set off into the woods.

  In secret ambush on the forest side

  Valentine’s heavy gait was the addition of many things. In prime, he was exhausted. They had spent two nights in the woods and he would swear he had seen each hour of darkness toil slowly past while he lay desperate of sleep. No shift of body, no gathering of fronds and moss by a tightlipped Hemminges, no wrapping of his cloak about him could disguise the poking of rock and root into his tender flesh or stay the shrewd bite of the night air. He was as far from sleep as he was desirous of it and angrily denied his companions’ insistence that he had slept and marked the hours of sleep with snores that had prevented sleep in others.

  Next to this first he added the damp weight of his soaked garments. He was certain that it had not rained so much or so steadily since the days of Noah’s sailing. His velvet was a sodden mess that clung coldly to his body and stained his body with its dye.

  For the last, his boots, their soft leather so comfortable at court, had proved quite inadequate to the stony path. They passed on to his feet each pebble, knot and burr that went beneath. When, he moaned, when would this torture end? What byre, what shepherd’s hut, what cottage would grant them rest and shelter? Only the sight of Aemilia steeled him to the journey. It was for her sake he suffered now, he her Orpheus, descended to the underworld to rescue her from woe. He trod on a sharp stone and gave a cry of pain. Master Russell called to him for silence. Valentine cursed, but quietly, for this Russell was a fearsome figure, a true Cerberus. Valentine did not like him, not least because his presence prevented him from being truly alone with Aemilia. Each time he had mentioned the matter to Aemilia she had reminded him how little they two knew of such journeys and how much they needed one such as Master Russell. That she was right did not make him happy about it.

  Hemminges’ own discomfort was not corporeal but spiritual. The constant whine of Valentine’s voice bemoaning his misfortune was like the droning of a Lincolnshire bagpipe. Yet still Aemilia would not abandon him. Instead she bent, solicitous to his every complaint, to cheer him and to keep him moving. Hemminges watched and despaired of his first hope, that in the hardship of the woods, Aemilia would quickly falter and, seeing Valentine shorn of the false finery of the court, decide that contract to an older lord was to be preferred to a life spent boiling water in the woods for a pampered prince. No, Aemilia had proved herself of tougher mettle. A corner of his lip turned to smiling for he’d half hoped it might be so. There was pleasure in witnessing her strength, for all that it meant there would be no swift and easy return to the palace of her father.

  God’s will, Hemminges thought, it was mere days ago I walked these woods in the other direction. A new thought came to him then, one he was reluctant to acknowledge: if Aemilia be of such brazened mettle, then she’s no need for me and my protection. I have other duties to attend. I must return to Oldcastle and he and I must go to England. See her safe at some shelter, he thought, then about Hemminges! To England, to our duty, to the giving of these names.

  In contrast to Valentine’s stumble and Hemminges’ stride, Aemilia skipped. She held out her arms and turned about. The rain that had hammered down upon them for a day and night had left and the woods smelt of fresh ivy and moss and damp wood. Her eye caught sight of Valentine creeping unwillingly along, a black slug of velvet, his hair plastered to his face by the downpour. He mustered up a smile for her and her heart went out to him in his suffering. He was not a creature of the woods but of the court. One did not blame the fish for ungainly twisting on the land, the cat for thrashing in the water or the bird for graceless hopping in the mud. Each has its element. Still, she wished he could have shown himself a little more of the stoic in his contemplation of his suffering.

  Hemminges, she saw, strode behind alert and untroubled. The casual efficiency with which he had made camp these two nights past was proof of his soldier’s skill. Each evening, Aemilia had watched him close and questioned him on each deed, that she might learn the proper disciplines. To rely on others forever and anon was foolish. Who knew how long she and Valentine might be in exile? Valentine’s sentence had a dateless limit. Only her hope of her father’s love gave reason to believe that sentence would be commuted. She looked on Valentine again. The rain had tarnished his lustre, she had to admit, even as it had made Master Russell’s shine brighter.

  They managed an hour’s silent march before Valentine’s voice again rose with complaint. This time in call for food and drink to break their journey.

  ‘I grow faint with hunger,’ he declared.

  Aemilia signalled to Hemminges who poked about in his sack and pulled out a small leather bag of bread and cheese.

  ‘Faugh! Bread and cheese, again. Am I become a mouse?’
r />   ‘I didn’t pack your provisions,’ said Hemminges.

  ‘Bread and cheese are eaten by all the heroes of the stories,’ said Aemilia brightly. Both men looked at her.

  ‘In stories it may be so,’ said Hemminges, ‘but in my experience one is better served on a long journey by porridge and a rind of pork.’

  Valentine looked to Hemminges and pulled a face of disgust. ‘By God’s wounds then I am glad you did not pack.’ He broke off a piece of bread and of cheese and pushed them both in his mouth as they continued walking. Through stuffed lips he continued his complaints, now blessedly muffled. Aemilia looked across at Hemminges and the two shared a rolling of the eyes and a small grin. Even Valentine’s complaining could not quell her delight to be out and free.

  They walked on with Valentine’s complaints continuing. Their warbling note went on even through the sudden bark for hush from Hemminges. Aemilia turned to look at him, his head lifted like a dog to sniff the wind. Valentine canted on unheedful.

  ‘Good day, gentlemen,’ said a gracious voice.

  Three men emerged from the woods ahead, blades out. A crackle of stones shifting announced two more stepping on to the road behind. Valentine twisted back and forth to stare at these apparitions with his mouth agape, dripping food. Aemilia drew close towards him. By God, these were the outlaws, they were to be robbed.

  ‘There’s no need for alarm, gentles. We wish only to lighten your loads a little.’ The vaward of the men to her front, he of the gracious voice, was the one that spoke: a handsome man with a splendid black beard.

  ‘Stop him,’ cried a voice behind, harsher and angrier than the first. That cry was prompted by Hemminges, to Aemilia’s astonishment, dropping his pack and darting from the road into the woods.

  ‘Oh, coward!’ cried Valentine, who had turned as white as the cheese he ate. The blade of the thieves’ leader flicked between Aemilia and Valentine.

  ‘I hope to see no such foolish flight from you.’

  ‘None,’ swore Valentine. ‘On my life, tell us what you will and we shall do it, only spare us, spare us.’ His pitiful pleading he accompanied with wringing of his hands. The bandits’ leader smiled at the sight.

  ‘There’s sense, sir. Hand over your packs, your rings, your purses, and we depart.’

  Valentine had scarce heard the end of the speech before he had begun divestment of his wealth on to the ground before him.

  ‘You too, sir,’ said their leader to Aemilia.

  The first shock of their appearance had passed and now Aemilia studied the bandits. ‘You—’

  “‘Orlando”, please,’ the bandit leader said smilingly.

  ‘You don’t seem overly concerned that my friend has fled.’

  ‘Ah, lad, he’ll not get far. There are more than we five in these woods. He’ll run but for all his exercise, he’ll just die tired.’

  As if to affirm his words at that moment a great cry of hurt pierced the woods and Valentine swooned at its sound. Aemilia ran to his side and hauled him to a seat on the ground. She looked up at Orlando, sick with sudden truths.

  ‘We are to die, then?’

  Command into obedience: fear and niceness

  Verona

  ‘I am told that you command while the Duke is absent,’ said Thornhill.

  Oldcastle was a wretched man. Rank terror had given him a kind of feverish strength to deny the priest audience that first evening. A night of little sleep and dreams that came full of terrors had left him a hollow reed. A dawn that came without news of either Aemilia or Hemminges’ return had snapped him like one. Then, Dionisio, the servant assigned to Oldcastle’s care, had brought a message that Father Thornhill again demanded audience.

  My God, what shall I do? Oldcastle moaned inwardly. What does this fellow want? Would that Hemminges were here. No doubt he’s luxuriating in his adventure with that foolish, headstrong girl hanging off his every wise word. A jaunt, a winter’s folly in the woods, while I quake and quail.

  Pressed again to admit the priest, he’d strength only to demand that the hearing happen in the great hall of the palace, before witnesses.

  Now, confronted by Father Thornhill’s pale eyes, the few gathered servants and even the presence of the Duke’s captain of guards seemed a slender buckler to put between him and the priest’s steel.

  ‘I have the Duke’s confidence,’ answered Oldcastle and prayed that his voice did not betray him. He’d not dared to take the Duke’s seat but had chosen to stand upon the dais in order to have the height advantage. Thornhill had not paused his stride on entering the hall until he stood beside Oldcastle. The priest was shorter by an inch but there was no question of whose stature was the greater.

  ‘You are, sir knight, an Englishman?’ asked Thornhill speaking in that language.

  ‘And proudly so,’ said Oldcastle.

  ‘As am I,’ said Father Thornhill. ‘Though I no longer call it home and I have not had cause to speak our mother tongue in many years. You still submit to Rome I trust?’

  The waters in which Oldcastle was swimming suddenly teemed with dark, dangerous shapes.

  ‘Dare it be said otherwise,’ he huffed.

  ‘To the destruction of all false prophets including that Jezebel of England, Elizabeth?’ asked Father Thornhill.

  ‘Of course,’ said Oldcastle. ‘Why, am I not an exile of King Edward’s day?’

  Thornhill nodded. The boy king, proud Henry’s sickly child, had taken his father’s perjuring of Rome and turned it from a convenient trick to a seated purpose. Many English papists had fled the fervour of his rule. Still the boy was dead some thirty years or more.

  ‘You did not return when Queen Mary came to the throne?’

  ‘My ancestors have ever loved Italy and I found I did too,’ said Oldcastle whose memories of Edward’s reign were hazy and of his sister Mary’s uneasy. ‘Besides, by then I was engaged a soldier in Italian squabbles from which I’ve made my fortune. Why I could tell you of some royal fights that I have seen and fought and won and lost, too—’

  Thornhill cut across his answer. ‘Sir Nicholas, be so kind as to come with me.’

  ‘Why, I ...’ began Oldcastle’s reply but Father Thornhill had already begun to stride from the hall and Oldcastle found himself hurrying to catch the priest up. They passed into the corridors of the palace with Oldcastle suffering in his effort to match the tall priest’s stride. The two men, like a comet, trailed a tail of men, two of Father Thornhill’s men-at-arms and the Duke’s captain of guards and, last, a scurrying Dionisio.

  ‘Sir Nicholas,’ said Father Thornhill, not looking to the man he addressed. ‘Please explain why the Duke and his daughter are fled the palace.’

  Oldcastle turned sharply to look at Father Thornhill. How did the damned priest know about Aemilia’s departure? Distracted, Oldcastle caught the base of a statue with his hip as he passed and let out a little moan of pain.

  ‘“Fled”, Father Thornhill, tush, fie, not so,’ said Oldcastle, trying to recover his poise, and with a dismissive fanning of his hand that hid its shaking. The stream of noises from his mouth were coins to no purpose other than the purchase of time. ‘What is this talk of flight? The Duke is rode to view his lands, as is his right and duty with this talk of outlaws. As to the girl Aemilia, well, I doubt not your knowledge of the Gospels, Father, yet am I certain that for good reason you know not the whims of women and young women at that.’

  Thornhill steepled his fingers beneath his chin as he walked and bent them to gesture that Oldcastle was very welcome to educate him in the matter. Oldcastle’s wit, running as fast as it might after a night of sleepless worry and a goodly jug of sweet wine of canary, struggled to keep up with his imagination.

  ‘Why she too is rode to view the lands.’

  ‘To view the—’ Thornhill came to a sudden halt. His head retreated on his neck as if his shock at this report demanded that he be positioned to view the giver of it the better. ‘Alone? Without her father? Escort? Ma
ids to tend her?’

  ‘My man, John Russell, is with her,’ protested Oldcastle.

  Thornhill shook his head and moved off again. Their progress resumed, now proceeding from the corridors of the palace to the great courtyard.

  ‘As is her young cousin, Valentine? He that was sent into exile for unlicensed pursuit of her hand?’

  ‘No,’ said Oldcastle. ‘I mean, yes, he was exiled for overstepping the bounds of his position. But, no, no, to exile he went alone.’

  ‘Is’t so?’ nodded Father Thornhill.

  Despite his nod, it did not seem to Oldcastle that the priest was inclined to believe him. Oldcastle longed for the shelter of his room again and the warm embrace of the wine that waited there. He was no match for this priest whose knowledge of events, it seemed, far exceeded his own. Where in God’s name was Thornhill taking them? He struggled to regain control.

  ‘Father, I am delighted that you are so careful of the Duke and his daughter’s well-being. The care of young women was ever the Church’s concern, of course, of course. I hope you find assurance that all is well.’

  Oldcastle would have gone on to move the matter to dismissal but the priest shook his head.

  ‘I do not, I regret. I do not, Sir Nicholas.’

  They had reached the far corner of the courtyard where one of the towers on the curtain wall of the palace had its door. Father Thornhill stepped into the dark entrance. Inside was a small antechamber and a flight of stairs descending below the ground.

  ‘I find very little in this domain that gives me assurance and this flight of the Duke and his daughter at my arrival least of all. The Duke lacks control of his own daughter. How can he have control over his lands?’

  Oldcastle had no answer to this and it did not seem that Father Thornhill expected one. The priest turned away and for a brief, glorious moment Oldcastle thought the audience might be about to conclude but instead the priest gestured for Oldcastle to follow him down the stairs, the two papal soldiers a step behind.