The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  ‘So some from England serve His Holiness and others their Queen?’

  William could hear the probing smile in Orlando’s voice.

  ‘And some, God knows, serve none at all,’ answered William.

  The two men walked along in silence for a little while after that. At last Orlando spoke again.

  ‘Have you thought on what we spoke of at the river?’

  William did not answer.

  ‘I will have my revenge. I promise you that. I will find my allies where I can. Those that aid me to my revenge will be rewarded. Those that stand in my way...’

  His unvoiced threat did not touch William. Orlando was to him a toothless lion that growled and paced but, biting, harmed none. Still William said nothing. His silence was an unbearable provocation.

  ‘You think I cannot keep my promise of reward? You give your service only to princes and popes? How came you to this parlous state, then? In the service of a pope.’

  ‘I am not who you think I am, Orlando.’

  ‘Who then?’

  Now there was a question. A glover? A player? A poet? A lover? A seasoned traveller rich in secrets and surmises? A foolish boy far from home? What a piece of work is a man; to be so many things in one instant. One might reach out to feel for his form and find him no more than an insubstantial quintessence of dust. Was he the actions of the moment or the motives to them?

  From across an age of memory William heard Oldcastle’s voice chiding him for asking more questions than a babe of three and Isabella’s voice mocking him for wanting all things to be as a poet would have them, chiselled out in elegant lines, the same from every angle, immutable, timeless: ‘All things must change, Will, passing through nature to eternity. That is to be welcomed not feared, it is growth. We do not want a love that alters not but one that blossoms outward, enriches, deepens, evermore.’ There is no more of evermore for us, sweet Isabella, for you are dead and gone now, for you are dead and gone. He felt the vast and bitter emptiness open within him. It had taken the sight of Luca wailing for his brother’s loss to waken him to the truth of his own. Her death was not to be a thing of moments, come and gone again. It was a thing for all time, a pain he would carry with him ever and always.

  He’s a lamb indeed, that baas like a bear

  When they made it back to their new camp and the prisoners had been secured, Aemilia slipped away. She was grateful for the darkness that shrouded her. She knew if she were seen she would be questioned about the paleness in her face, her trembling hand. She needed to gather herself and her thoughts.

  She had the sickness of decision in her. Her stomach curdled at what she knew would come with the dawn. She must tell Valentine that she was no longer sure of her love. She’d seen too much of him in his extremity for love to go unquestioned. She’d learned since she left her father’s castle that there was more, wonderfully more, to mankind than the twin stars of old soldiers and young cousins.

  She kicked at a pile of dry leaves and watched them flutter down, dark shapes falling between the darker shadows of the trees. A red line lit the horizon, the promised dawn. She leant against a tree and let her back slide down to crouch at its bottom. Tommasso’s death was in her thoughts. His face staring up at her, its horrified surprise at the turn the day had taken, bloodily inked across it in death. He might have fled the woods and lived but that she wanted to prove herself to her father. Why must her dream of ambition come at the cost of others? What fairness, God, in that? She bent and threw a stick out into the lightening woods.

  A sudden shifting sound close by made her spring to her feet and reach for her dagger. The sound came again and she turned in the darkness toward it, in the direction she had thrown the stick. Dagger held before her she crept towards it. From the darkness emerged Luca. He was sat at the base of a tree. His hand was held up in apology.

  ‘I didn’t mean to fright you,’ he said. ‘I only meant to find some quiet. Away from ...’ He waved his hand back towards the outlaws’ camp from where the sounds of happiness could be heard. There was light enough to see his face, the tracks of tears white in the moonlight and here and there a russet smudge of blood, his brother’s.

  ‘I’m sorry, Luca, for your brother,’ Aemilia began but he waved away her consolation. Aemilia was about to move away, to give the man his private grief.

  ‘Stupid fool,’ snarled Luca, suddenly angry. ‘I’d told him time and again to stay back. He was ever headstrong.’ Luca’s fist suddenly rang out on the trunk of the tree. ‘Always wanting to prove himself, to show his worth to the others. All I wanted was for us to be free of mastery, free of want, to live quietly, bread—’ He broke off again, folded his face to rest on his arms and now sobbed into the folds of his sleeve. Aemilia heard his words with the shock of recognition. Was that not her own state? Did she not want to prove herself to others? To her father most of all?

  ‘He was all my family. I’ve no one left.’

  Aemilia moved beside him and bent to place her arm on his shoulders. She opened her mouth to speak but realised she had nothing to say, no comfort to give, she who was the author of the enterprise that had led to his misfortune. She stayed there a moment longer and then Luca wiped his eyes with his arm and muttered that he would recover. He just needed time. Aemilia took her cue and left him.

  She walked back through the woods towards the camp full of thoughts.

  Come hither, come hither, come hither:

  Here shall he see no enemy

  But winter and rough weather.

  The sudden burst of song nearby had her reaching for her dagger again. This time it was mad Adam that emerged from the darkness. He looked down at the blade, her knuckles white on the hilt.

  William smiled. ‘Such a topsy-turvy world I have lived in this year. And this the last of many reversals – a lamb, it seems, in wolfs clothing.’

  ‘You scared me.’

  ‘I am sorry for it.’ He looked sadly at her. ‘How do you fare? You have a brave look about you but, how deep are looks? You are proof of the danger of that reasoning. It’s a cruel thing to learn how vile a thing is a man.’

  ‘Get you gone,’ said Aemilia.

  ‘A command?’ answered Adam. ‘Oh my dear child, what do you command? And what use your dagger when you have not the strong arm of friends to shield you too?’

  ‘What means that remark?’ asked Aemilia.

  ‘It means you are a fool,’ said William in answer.

  ‘I didn’t ask for your insults but your meaning.’

  ‘Only a fool looks to a madman for meaning, so I name you again, fool.’

  ‘Get you gone, Adam. I am not in the mood for your games. Find another to taunt.’

  ‘Like Valentine you mean?’ William asked.

  ‘I want no more of you,’ said Aemilia with a sigh.

  ‘So you say, but it is not clear to me what you do want,’ said William. He looked at her with his head tilted as if trying to size up the subject for a painting. ‘You who are surrounded by good counsel, why spend your time with a fool? Why spend your time here in the woods, when you might live in comfort in your father’s palace?’

  Aemilia shuddered with sudden fear. This Adam knew her for the woman she was.

  ‘Are you truly mad, Adam?’

  ‘Truly, I no longer know, Madonna.’ His head stayed in that enquiring pose. ‘I do wonder if you do know yourself?’

  ‘I would be free, for that I would risk all, and here, in these woods, among this fellowship, I am free. That is not madness. It is purpose.’

  ‘None of us are free, Madonna. Ask Orlando if he is free, or John.’

  ‘I have never seen a man less beholden to the will of others than Master Russell. He is a man who weighs what’s right and acts on it.’

  ‘That judgement at least is no madness in you.’

  Aemilia looked hard at William, tilting her head in turn to study him. ‘Who is he to you and you to him?’

  William did not at first answer. He feared
he no longer knew.

  ‘A friend, Madonna. A friend I would not see harmed for all the world. You would risk all?’ He pointed behind her to where Luca sat. ‘There is one who risked all for what he wanted. Gambled, lost, so be it. Yet it was others died for it. Have a care, Madonna.’

  Then he bowed and moved off into the dark of the wood, again singing as he went.

  Aemilia was left with his strange words circling in her head. Her mood, already black from the evening’s blood and the night’s tears, was now compounded by a tumult of thoughts. Her heart beat unsteadily to the rhythm of their passing. It took her many minutes to still her breathing and the sun was full above the horizon when she set her feet again for the camp, resolution made. As Sebastian she’d thought she had a freedom she’d not had before, but it had proved a thought as false as her disguise. She would not be free till she did command, and she would be free.

  Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk

  The dawn revealed the outlaws’ camp to be a patchwork quilt of humours. Bound and huddled together in deep misery were the Duke’s soldiers, fearful of their fate, mindful of the Ancient’s death and at their core a bruised corporal who scarce drew breath but to utter curses upon the heads of all about him: Sir Nicholas, the night’s watch, the creeping bandits and himself, who had trusted others that did not deserve of trust. Bright by their dark misery were the revelling outlaws, their armour burnished by the soldiers’ defeat and now demanding greater tests. By the fire, Luca sat still weeping for his dead brother. Orlando, by the fire too, kept his own counsel, his mind full of plots and stratagems, the sound of Luca’s tears washing over him but not piercing his buckram suit.

  Huddling by a tree far from the fire, shivering and hungry, sat Oldcastle in conversation with Hemminges.

  Oldcastle looked over at Hemminges and his shaking head. ‘But we might sneak away this night.’

  ‘Nick, you may play the knight but you will never play a mouse. I might make it away but you would wake the dead with your heavy tread. Besides, what of Will? Do we leave him again? Even if we wished to do so, what of the names.’

  ‘These thrice-damned names, I would I’d never heard of them.’

  ‘So, but we have done and there’s an end on it. We know they’re hunted and we cannot leave even one of us behind that they may be caught. And what of Aemilia? We cannot leave her here among these rogues.’

  ‘So you say, but she is the least of the problems that beset us. She’s happier here than I have seen her at the court.’

  ‘It coarsens her.’

  ‘Now you speak to your desires, not hers.’

  Maybe so, thought Hemminges, as I have come to love her spirit, I would not see her take a bloody path that turned her boldness into callow disregard. Those were thoughts he did not care to dwell on more, the question of his love, the question of his desires. He spoke of other things to Oldcastle.

  ‘She is among dangerous men. I dare not leave her. Look there.’ He gestured with his eyes to where Jacopo watched them. ‘This Orlando plays the friend but he has some game greater than to be the beggar king of the woods. Will plays some part in it I think, though what I know not. We too have been taken into it, coin to spend on some matter. He will not let us slip away and if he did I think it would only be because he thinks to make a greater play of Aemilia. Her disguise cannot hold.’

  ‘I am amazed it’s held so long as it has,’ said Oldcastle with admiration for a novice player’s art.

  Hemminges snorted. ‘I am not sure it has. Orlando has his suspicions, though what it is that he suspects I do not know.’ He reached up and snapped a small branch off the tree they sat beside. The same frustration that filled his gesture stuffed out his voice when he spoke. ‘I am a blind man in a room of vipers. I do not know which way to turn, which way safety lies. I have not the mind for this work.’

  Oldcastle patted his shoulder. ‘Nor I. We are simple men, John, caught in crooked times.’

  ‘We’re damned,’ said Hemminges as he poked the damp earth with the stick.

  ‘William will see the path.’

  ‘William is part of the thicket, not the path through it.’

  Oldcastle moaned and put his head back in his hands. He lifted it again, eyes wide. ‘We tell them my true nature, then there will be no more foolish talk of ransom.’

  ‘Then they will sell you to the Pope for thirty pieces of silver and a great deal more.’

  Oldcastle’s chin fell back again to his chest. ‘Oh God, truly, we are damned.’

  ‘As I say.’

  A cry broke out from the soldiers. Oldcastle and Hemminges looked up and saw the corporal on his feet roaring for order and obedience from those around him. Before them stood the cause of the tremors that ran through them: Aemilia.

  ‘Oh Jesu,’ muttered Hemminges, setting off towards them, Oldcastle lumbering behind. His servant Dionisio followed.

  ‘What is the cause of the commotion, Sir Nicholas?’ asked the servant.

  ‘I very much fear,’ said Oldcastle, ‘that someone has been rash.’

  I am alone the villain of the earth

  Verona

  As Thornhill reached the door it swung sharply open and he was forced to step quickly aside to let a crying maidservant scurry past and run off down the corridor. A broad laugh came from within the room beyond. Pushing open the door he stepped in. Count Claudio was sat with one stockinged leg hooked over the arm of his chair; his riding boots, their tops curling limply, sat by the fire, steaming. At Thornhill’s entry he turned his head but did not otherwise move. Thornhill waited by the door.

  ‘What do you want?’ said the Count.

  ‘I am Father Thornhill.’

  ‘I have no need of a priest,’ replied the Count and turned his attention back to the platter of food that the maidservant had brought him.

  ‘All men need the service of the Church,’ replied Thornhill.

  The Count merely waved a drumstick for reply.

  Thornhill struggled to control his irritation. This Count Claudio was now his best and last hope amidst days of frustration and he must be handled gently. Arrigo’s scouts had returned that morning, shortly before the Count’s arrival with his entourage, to report that there was no sign of Sir Nicholas Hawkwood or the Duke’s men.

  ‘You told me that your man had seen Hawkwood head out upon the western road,’ he had raged at Arrigo when their failure was told to him.

  ‘They tracked him so in that direction a mile or more but then it seems Hawkwood and the Duke’s men turned back upon themselves and their trail is lost amidst the general markings,’ answered Arrigo. ‘Sure, Father, he anticipated pursuit and disguised his passage. He is as cunning as you feared him.’

  ‘And Ludovico?’ asked Thornhill more in hope than expectation. Arrigo shook his head. Thornhill had felt a clutching in his chest at that moment, a fear that he would fail as Costa had, that far from being the cause of England’s redemption he would be part of the missed chances that led to its eternal damnation. He had sat heavily in his chair until the clattering sound of the hooves of many horses had stirred him to his feet to hurry to the narrow window and look out on the courtyard below and see the arrival of Count Claudio and a dozen men. New hope had sprung in his breast. He had not waited. He had hurried to find where the Count was lodged.

  ‘Count Claudio,’ Thornhill said and walked to where the Count must see him. ‘You have spoken with the Duke?’

  The Count looked up from his meal but made no reply.

  ‘The Duke has told you all?’ asked Thornhill.

  ‘Come to your purpose.’

  ‘You have been shown your bride to be?’

  The Count’s chewing slowed.

  ‘I arrived earlier than expected. The Lady Aemilia is out, riding.’

  Thornhill smiled.

  ‘Cease your riddles, priest. You are of the Duke’s household?’

  Thornhill shook his head. ‘I serve none but the Pope.’

/>   ‘Ah’ – the Count pointed at him with the gnawed bone of the chicken – ‘you are the English priest. I have heard of you. You have made quite a reputation in these few months. Well, I’m no heretic, Thornhill.’

  ‘Yet there are heretics hereabouts.’

  ‘For that look to the Duke, these are his lands.’

  ‘I have. He defies me, refuses me audience, seeks to gull me. As he does you.’

  The Count put down his meal and waited. Thornhill pressed his suit.

  ‘I suspect much, my lord, touching on your purpose here. I suspect that the Lady Aemilia is not out riding but fled the palace at news of your arrival. I suspect that the Duke has sent out men to find her and has not succeeded. I suspect he has employed the service of an English spy for the task and that this spy betrays him.’

  The Count’s attention was now all on Thornhill, heavy-lidded eyes holding Thornhill’s own pale ones. He spoke carefully.

  ‘Those are grave suspicions. You’ve basis for them?’

  ‘I ask questions on His Holiness’s behalf. I ask them of many people. All answer, some for gold, some for duty, others require hotter persuasion.’ Thornhill paused. ‘I can also make questions cease. The questions that surround your stepfather’s untimely death, for example.’

  The Count stood and strode up to Thornhill. The priest was tall but the Count taller still. He loured over Thornhill and spoke with sullen menace.

  ‘What do you want, Thornhill?’

  ‘Your men, Count. The Duke will not be persuaded to listen to my counsel. I must find a traitor, an English heretic. It must be accomplished swiftly. He has disguised himself as one Sir Nicholas Hawkwood, a mercenary captain. This foolish Duke has been taken in by him and given him a troop of his men to command.’

  A knock came at the door and Rodrigo appeared. He took in the sight of Thornhill with a start and then recovered himself to give his message: the Duke sought Count Claudio’s company.