The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  ‘Tell him yourself, on the scaffold,’ answered the corporal. Jacopo, embarrassed by the indignity of Valentine’s pleading, urged the corporal’s horse on to the trot and the two men pulled away leaving Valentine alone again. He sat nearby to begin to ponder on his abandonment and on his treachery when he felt her hand light on his shoulder.

  ‘I am sorry, Valentine,’ she said. Her voice was full of gentle regard. ‘I was caught in the thrill of our adventure and neglected you who are the cause of it. Oh, Valentine, do you see how we have blossomed in this earth?’

  Her eyes were bright but Valentine looked on them with fear for it seemed to him the bright spark of madness. She looked from him to a happier future with only a robbery and a host of dead men between her and its possession.

  ‘This very day we shall seize from Count Claudio my dowry. How little we thought that this might be the promise of our exile!’

  Valentine’s fear turned to anger. ‘It was not to be an outlaw in the woods that we fled.’

  ‘What was it then?’ demanded Aemilia. Her smile had gone in an instant and the wolfish look upon her face returned. ‘What ambition have you, Valentine? What do you seek for us? Am I not the one that now claims the future for us? Our lives cannot all be poetry and love-making. We must seize what opportunity we can. Even mad Adam understands that: there is a tide in the affairs of men ... You have heard him say it, heard him set it to song, but have you understood it?’

  ‘I gave no credent ear to the madman, no. Are you sure you are not run mad that you do so? Oh, Aemilia, what is that you say? You were the one that counselled caution and now you throw that off as you throw off your disguise.’

  ‘I have thrown off bondage, Valentine. I will not put the collar round my neck again, not for you or any man.’

  ‘Aemilia, let us from this place. I have arrangements made—’ Valentine broke off as Orlando came up to them.

  ‘Aemilia, the men are ready to march and clamour for your wisdom and your words of courage.’

  Aemilia looked sadly at Valentine and pressed his arm. He quickly placed his hand over hers to hold her there.

  ‘Promise me that we will meet tomorrow,’ he whispered, ‘at dawn’s first light.’

  She pulled away but he held her tight till she made answer.

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning shall we meet.’

  He loosed her hand and she turned away to join Orlando and the other outlaws and her father’s men. Valentine watched her part, saw how she was in avid conversation with Orlando, saw how she placed her hand on the hilt of the sword she carried now, slung in a baldric and lewdly swaying with her hips. There was a siren’s call within these woods that lured her from the safety of his ship to stand at the rail and, heedless of the danger to herself or others, prepare to dive into the wild seas. He must bind her to the mast or see her perish. It was for her own good he acted. No, not so. It was for his own. For he feared that if he did not act now, he would lose her.

  The bloody spur cannot provoke him on

  Verona

  The horse was dead.

  The corporal of horse had not been born a harsh man yet he’d ridden his palfrey to its death. Twenty hard miles in half a day he’d travelled, ripping away his blindfold as soon as Jacopo’d left him, setting himself by the sun to head west and pushing his palfrey to the canter. He’d driven it on whenever he could, chafing when it broke into a walk and urging it back to the canter with harsh incision in its hide, and when that failed laying a switch across its back to see it surge forth, until at last, long after the sun had set, he’d reached the Duke’s palace. He fell from the horse’s back in the courtyard and the horse, lips flecked dry white, the muscles in its shoulders trembling like shaken water, eyes wild with exhaustion, saw its charge delivered, and its heart burst in the instant.

  The corporal was brought, half carried between two servants, to the Duke’s presence.

  ‘What is it, man?’ the Duke had roared at the pitiful sight before him. The corporal was black with mud, streaked with sweat and barely able to stand from his hours in the saddle. ‘Where are the rest of your troop?’

  Thornhill had full a dozen men amongst the Duke’s servants in paid employ. Even had he not, still would he have learned of the disaster that had befallen Sir Nicholas Hawkwood and his men almost at the instant of the corporal’s return from the great cry that cannoned out from the hall. The sound of the Duke’s rage carried to the farthest corners of the palace.

  Thornhill did not wait, but rising from his prayers went straight to the hall. Count Claudio arrived as he did and Thornhill followed so quickly behind the Count that Rodrigo had no chance to bar him entry.

  The wall behind Duke Leonardo’s throne bore testament to his rage, a great stain of wine blotting over the tapestry of chaste Dian at her bath. The throne itself thrust back, the Duke now paced behind the high table before it and perched upon a stool sat the corporal, head bowed.

  ‘Bloody, bawdy, remorseless villain,’ the Duke swore. ‘Eat my bread, drink my wine and stab me in the back.’

  ‘My lord has had ill tidings?’ asked Thornhill as he entered.

  ‘Ah, the solicitous priest. Who summoned you? Not I,’ answered the Duke. ‘But then you needed no summoning. Come in carrion black to feast upon the dead. How present you priests are at moments of unhappiness. Yes, yes, I have had ill tidings, priest, as thick as hail they come: the damned Hawkwood and all my men captured; my loyal Ancient dead; my daughter turned outlaw and’ – he turned to Count Claudio – ‘the Count Claudio’s convoy of my daughter’s dowry to be taken by these same outlaws. They have turned from horseflies into locusts. What has turned them so?’

  Count Claudio was striding toward the battered figure of the corporal. ‘What news is this? My convoy to be taken?’

  ‘Aye, my lord, that is their plan.’

  Count Claudio turned angry eyes upon the Duke. ‘We must ride out, Your Grace. At once.’

  The Duke nodded then slumped into his seat. ‘Yet how? All those men that I can spare are taken. And where do we ride? Where are they camped?’

  ‘We take mine,’ said Claudio.

  ‘A dozen men, too few,’ said the Duke.

  Claudio looked to Thornhill. The look they shared spoke to the agreements made in the conversations of the night.

  ‘You may have my men,’ said Thornhill. ‘With mine and those of Count Claudio you are enough.’

  The Duke looked warily on Thornhill. ‘What is the price of this aid?’

  ‘Only that I be allowed to question Sir Nicholas Hawkwood.’

  The Duke was about to answer when Thornhill cut across him: ‘Without interference, Your Grace. On my terms and in my time.’

  The Duke was too broken by the turn of events to deny him more. It was Count Claudio that answered.

  ‘Your men can ride ... ?’

  ‘Within the hour,’ answered Thornhill.

  ‘Let it be so,’ said the Count. ‘We ride to meet the convoy on the road and pray we are not too late.’

  ‘Your Grace,’ the corporal spoke up. ‘There is more.’ He reached into his boot and pulled out a small damp square of parchment. ‘This message have I for you.’

  ‘A message? Who from?’

  ‘Read, Your Grace.’

  The Duke strode round the table and snatched up the paper from his corporal’s hand and read. And having read, began to laugh and did not stop his laughter till he, Father Thornhill, Count Claudio and thirty men were in the saddle and riding hard for the woods.

  I know not if the day be ours or no

  The Veneto

  Men had died that night too.

  They died in the ambush on Count Claudio’s train. Under Hemminges’ command, who had been the victim of more than one ambush and laid twice as many more in his youth, the outlaws had set their trap with care, catching the convoy’s guard unwary as they crossed a bridge, half trapped on one side, half on the other. For all the care there was
in the preparation, it was a close-run thing. When the fighting was over the outlaws had wandered over the field to book the dead and then to bury them: five of their fellowship and one of the Duke’s men had fallen before the Count Claudio’s men had all been killed or driven off. Aemilia stood by the trench into which the bodies, friend and foe alike, had been put for burial and listened in silence as Petro spoke words over them even as the soil was foisted back on to their still bodies.

  Hemminges could not bear to watch any part of it. He stood apart, his back to the grave and revelling outlaws both. He’d put two of the bodies in that grave by his own hand when Aemilia, mad with her own conceits and seeing her small army hesitate at the moment of truth, had charged the column all alone and only Hemminges’ swift advance had saved her from the reality of battle. A third had died at Aemilia’s sword’s point in those same moments. The first man that she had killed. Hemminges had seen the thundercloud come over her eyes as understanding of her deed came to her, as he had seen it fall across the eyes of many a man before who suddenly knew his godlike power to snuff out life as easily as a candle’s flame. But then he’d seen the lightning yerk within the cloud, a battle-cry had come to her lips and she’d turned back to the fight.

  ‘What a day, what a night!’ Orlando was in great good humour. He came up behind Aemilia and clapped his hands upon her shoulders. ‘We must celebrate, a triumph, yes, celebration, with pomp, with revelry. Come, come.’

  He pulled her away and ushered her eagerly from the dead towards the carts. Hemminges could hear him speaking as they parted: ‘My dear, the splendour of these spoils is past compare. Why yours would have been a wedding so wondrous more men would speak of it than that our Lord attended at Cana.’

  Orlando ignored the sharp noise of reproof that came from Petro at this blasphemy. He was too busy showing Aemilia the carts with their barrels of wine, their haunches of meat, and their chests of cloth, furniture and in the last, a small chest that brimmed with opals, pearls and gold coins. Orlando presented it to Aemilia with a bow that, unfolding, became a caper.

  ‘Such a store of wedding cheer was here prepared and now is all of ours. And best of all, it will beggar Claudio. He gave thinking to repossess it all in the fullness of time and so gave generously. Ha ha! A fool and now a beggar!’

  The other outlaws had joined Orlando in his dancing and even Aemilia’s father’s men had been caught in the delight of victory. Hemminges watched, a taste like sour wine in his mouth, until he could watch no more and stamped his way back to the outlaws’ camp alone. It was an hour before Orlando brought order to himself and then to the others and the captured train could be moved off. Aemilia sat in state on the foremost cart, laurelled Victory on her chariot.

  That night Aemilia was giddy with drinking the captured sack, with the lingering wine of action and of death faced and overcome, with the growing sense of her own power. She was sat near to one of the several fires that dotted the bandits’ new camp. Her father’s soldiers and the bandits did not yet mingle, but there would be time for that, she thought. Till then she did not wish to be seen to favour either group and so sat apart. She pulled tighter around her shoulders the fur-lined cloak she had claimed from the plunder of Count Claudio’s train. She watched her comrades, dotted about their new camp, some now sleeping, some slumped in drunken stupor, some in knots of quiet conversation, some few on watch. I will forge them all to my command, she thought.

  Orlando walked towards her.

  ‘You are a wonder, Lady Aemilia.’

  She looked up at him in surprise. He nodded, as if till that moment he had still doubted the matter but in viewing her had found confirmation of his conjecture. He gestured to ask if he might sit and she smiled her willingness.

  ‘Aye, a wonder, a miracle.’ He leaned back against the fallen trunk of tree she sat on and stretched out his legs. His dark hair shone in the firelight and she wondered how he had found time amidst all the business to wash. She suppressed a desire to comb it with her fingers. I am drunker than I knew, she thought.

  Orlando was not looking at her but at the fire as he spoke. ‘You bravely put yourself in danger and at a moment when courage should fail you, you instead put courage into others.’

  Aemilia blushed. Orlando turned and looked up at her.

  ‘Where does this courage come from?’

  ‘I do not know and blush to hear myself praised when I have done so little.’

  ‘You do yourself disservice by refusing my praise. I think you little realise how brave you truly are. Did you not follow Valentine from comfort into hardship? Did you not defy your father’s will? All that speaks of courage.’

  He shifted further round and gestured at her hose and Aemilia was suddenly aware of how much a man’s clothing revealed of her. ‘Did you not stand disguised as a man among men? That too speaks of bravery. And in such poor disguise too.’

  ‘Good enough to fool you.’

  ‘At first. It could not last. You are too fair to make for a good man and you dance a woman’s part too well.’

  Again Aemilia blushed, recalling her eagerness that night and remembering her want of care. At her sudden sad look, Orlando knelt up and put his hand on her arm.

  ‘You should give credit to your own bravery, lady. Admire it as I admire it in you.’

  Aemilia said nothing. She did not trust her voice. Orlando’s look echoed her own passions. The moment’s reflection at her want of care had changed, exultation was in her, for she had triumphed had she not? Won o’er Master Russell to her command, won o’er her father’s men, won o’er the spoils of Count Claudio’s train, won o’er all that had been set against her. She cautioned herself against the magic of the night, the wine, the lingering drama in her blood from the actions of the day. Then, a moment, Orlando’s head bent to hers and she would not swear that thought played a part in her head tilting down to meet his. No thought at all played a role in the kiss that followed. His hand about her waist hauled her tight to him and hers came up to mingle in his hair and pull him closer still. She felt the muscles move beneath the linen of his shirt; the smoke of the fire and the scent of his fresh-cleaned hair were in the air. She pulled him tighter to her. This was her reward for all her daring and it was honey-sweet.

  She broke away, pushed him back as she moved, still saying nothing. After a moment he, silent too, sat beside her.

  ‘I swear your face is so familiar to me, yet I cannot place it,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps you have seen it in your dreams?’ asked Orlando.

  ‘Fool.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘More wine, Lady Aemilia?’

  ‘Gladly.’

  He went to fetch it and she watched him go. He is beautiful, she thought, but so is Valentine. He is brave, but so is John Russell. Am I grown such a wanton that I flit between thoughts of three men? She did not think herself wanton. She thought instead that this was how the butterfly must feel when it is no longer a grub. She had grown wings. She was no longer a child. She smiled at that thought.

  A smile stayed on her face the whole rest of that night.

  Act Five

  Woods in the Veneto, March 1586

  Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you

  William lay awake in the dawn’s light, his mind examining Valentine as if he were a statue that he held in his hands and turned and twisted to see from all angles: how Valentine longed to be significant to this world and how little he felt his own grace or power trapped here in the woods. What would such a man, such a servant of Mammon, give to be restored to gilded glory? What bargain might he make and have the power to make? As if these thoughts stirred that which they rested on William watched Valentine rise and creep across the camp and shake a rheumyeyed Aemilia. The sun was still between ground and tree tops and its slanted rays wrote harsh shadows on the forest floor. The rest of the camp slumbered on.

  Some men lay where, drunk, they had fallen, others had made it so far as their beds and now remaine
d curled in blankets tight as peascods. The campfires smoked their last; their haze spreading out over the outlaws in their vale seemed Circe’s spell that had stilled the camp to silence. The only watch save William’s was Jacopo’s and his was fitful; to see him nod over the fire was to wonder if he was awake or merely dreamed his sentry’s duty.

  Aemilia,’ whispered Valentine. He did not dare speak too loudly for fear of waking Orlando, who lay close nearby, too close for Valentine’s happiness.

  ‘Huh? Valentine. What o’clock is it?’

  Valentine ignored her sleepy questioning and, reaching down, pulled her to sitting. Half by wrestling and half by pleading, he got her to her feet. She rubbed her face with her hands and knuckled her eyes to clear them of sleep.

  ‘Enough, enough, I am awake, Valentine. What is it?’

  ‘Hurry. Come,’ he said, taking her by the hand and pulling her after. She was too tired to resist.

  William picked himself up from the tree against which he rested and followed.

  *

  ‘We are here and none too soon,’ Valentine announced an hour later, looking up at the sun.

  ‘A church?’ asked Aemilia.

  It stood, small and unremarkable, in the centre of a clearing in the wood. There were two or three small broken houses nearby: their exact number could not be counted for each had fallen into the other and bushes, vines and grasses grew across their broken-backed bodies. The church still had its roof though the windows were gone and the lead that held the glass was long stolen. The whole place had a sepulchral air.

  ‘Not just a church, Aemilia.’ Valentine walked over to it and stepped across the threshold, and beckoned her to join him. Coming and standing beside him she saw, still sleeping by the altar at the far end, Petro. ‘But a priest too.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Aemilia to the proud, smiling face of her lover.

  ‘He wants to get married,’ a voice spoke from behind them and Aemilia watched mad Adam walk from the trees into the little clearing and cross to the church. He looked fresh and rested and, as though to lend an emphasis to the contrast between his state and hers, as he walked he gave a little skip and jumped up and clicked his heels together. ‘And a fine day it is for it too.’