A Dancer in Darkness

by David Stacton

  He found her in the library. It was the room that most fascinated her. Now she was in control, she need no longer pretend to be austere. The convent would also contain musical instruments and a telescope and celestial sphere. The latter was already being cast in Milan. It was to be ornate. For it was quite true, she had turned from the world, but only to the stars.

  She received him rather grandly, despite the fact that her hands and habit were splattered with chalk dust. He was not impressed. He knew too much about her. For some reason her grandeurs had been more real when he had known less.

  “I want you to send for your brother,” he said.

  Sor Juana looked taken aback. He was in a hurry and had no time for courtesies. “I know he is here,” he said. “I wish to see him.”

  “I do not know where he is.”

  “He came here.”

  “I had him denied entrance.” She was slightly nervous now. Her eyes darted away from him. But she did not lose her poise. Nothing would ever make her lose that.

  It was a quality that more than any others he admired. He hated to take it away from her. He gave her one last chance. “Come,” he said. “I am sure you did. But do as I say, I cannot seek him out myself.”

  “What will you do with him?”

  The Cardinal was surprised. Again he noted that she had a stubborn mouth.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  He was annoyed with her. Loyalty was a plebeian trait he would not have expected of her. It was necessary for him to use pressure. He was sorry. Their relations would now be spoiled, and he would miss them.

  Though it made him sad to do so, he always made it a point to find out the truth about everyone. No one was so guileless that he had not some secret that might some day be of use. And the truth about Sor Juana now bulged to a file of documents. She was a usurer. She lent money at high interest, very skilfully and privately, but yet by now the sum must be quite large. Hence the splendour of this convent, no doubt.

  He glanced around the room. “These decorations are very costly,” he said.

  She must have been waiting for this for years. Instantly she knew. He could sense that. “So?”

  “Do you remember, years ago, that a man called Domenico Allasi came to you? You should have had him investigated with more care. He was in my employ. So were one or two others. Usury is, after all, an ecclesiastical crime. They might be forced to testify before an ecclesiastical court. Or they might not.”

  She did not stir. She scarcely breathed. “Have you known this long?”

  “For as long as you have made money by it. You have made a great deal.”

  “I kept none. It is all to be spent here.”

  “That makes no difference.” He paused. “Can you find him?”

  “Yes,” she said wearily. “I can find him.”

  Nothing stirred in her face, but he could tell she was bitter. Yet she cared nothing for the man, and even hated him. He shrugged. She puzzled him. He did not like to do these things.

  He waited restlessly at the palace. He knew Bosola had some strange attachment to Antonio, even though he had helped to betray him. He thought he could count on that, but he was not sure. And the matter must be finished with despatch. He paced up and down.

  Bosola was brought to him after dark, at eight.

  The Cardinal looked at him with frank curiosity, and was almost unable to recognize him. Something had shattered him. He was dressed like a waterfront rowdy. He had become Niccolò Ferrante again. There was justice in that. He was not Bosola any more. It was as though he had come to the end of a long road, only to find that it did not lead to his destination. He twitched.

  The Cardinal was pleased. “My brother has murdered Antonio di Bologna,” he said dryly, and as soon as he had watched the effects of that, knew he had chosen the right instrument, and an instrument, moreover, that would be easy to deal with afterwards. He repeated what he had said, patiently, as though dealing with a child. Something happened to Bosola’s eyes.

  “Shall I tell you where to find my brother?” prompted the Cardinal, and sighed with relief, eager to have the man gone. He did not like to be in his presence. He was no longer a man, but a thing.

  All the same, after Bosola had gone, he found he could not sleep. For some of the things we have to do will not let us sleep, no matter how reasonable we are.

  V

  Ferdinand had refused to lodge with his brother. He distrusted him too much. He could bear to see no one. Therefore he had commandeered a small, disused palace not far from the Cathedral and the tomb-house attached to it, but at the rear and difficult of access through narrow lanes which admitted no light. Here he lurked with his whole company. Ostensibly he had come to Amalfi to protect his interests and to watch the Cardinal. He did neither.

  The palace was a crumbling shell. Each year a little more of it settled into the earth. Scarcely a room in it had a level floor. The courtyard was too narrow. The rooms were tall, deserted, barren, and damp. They were littered with forgotten furniture. The kitchens’ flues would not draw. Here he and his company camped out. A few chambers had been aired and made habitable, but the corridors were littered with fallen fresco and refuse. The great hall had been converted into a stable. The stench was bad.

  What light there was came and went fitfully. Candles and torches only scorched the gloom. Beside Marcantonio, the bravos, and a few servants, there was no one in the building but a company of dwarfs in yellow suits. These had turned up from nowhere, the wreck of a travelling show, and Ferdinand had let them stay. He did not even realize they were the dwarfs in his service, whom he had dismissed half a year ago.

  The dwarfs scattered everywhere. They knew every cranny of the palace. Their thin, piping derisive, laughter echoed out of unexpected places, and late at night, in a dark hall, one’s torch would pick up the glitter of a pair of eyes, close to the floor, looking out at Marcantonio and the bravos like greedy mice.

  Marcantonio hated them. When he came upon them like that he cast his torch in their faces. They would giggle and scramble away. But they always came back. It was almost as though they were waiting. Some cripples develop a good temper. Some do not. These were malevolent.

  Marcantonio remembered who they were. He did not tell his master. These days it was impossible to tell his master anything. But he sensed why they had come, and despite himself, was afraid of them. They knew that. They watched him all the more. Like any other muscular man, he looked on deformities with loathing. They only jeered at him, and moved so quickly that he could not catch them.

  Yet the dwarfs had not come to Amalfi deliberately. It was only that Ferdinand had killed one of them. They had an instinct for his fall.

  Marcantonio wandered the corridors unhappily. He was a loyal dog, and these days his master would have none of him. All the same he sniffed him out. He could not help it. He was attached to him.

  Ferdinand had several lurking places. His habits were predictable. Like all men who are afraid of the dark, sometimes he liked to dive into it, with his eyes open, watching avidly. But now, at Amalfi, he was more restless than ever. Since their return from Arosa, Marcantonio had been doubly uneasy. It was as though his master had become his own victim.

  He went into the chapel. It was dedicated to St. Sebastian, that patron of plague victims, soldiers, and libertines. He held up his torch. Ferdinand was not there. Yet he was often in the chapel these days, and if he was not there, Marcantonio knew where he was. The bronze arrows had fallen from Sebastian’s sleek marble thighs and lay on the floor. There was a rustling. One of the dwarfs appeared, handed Marcantonio an arrow, and dodged away. Marcantonio struck at him, flung the arrow after him, and turned on his heel. The dwarfs followed him. He could not see them, but he knew they were there. He ran down the stairs and out of the building. The dwarfs teetered at the entrance, unwilling to follow. They would be waiting when he came back. They seemed agitated these days.

  It was
raining. Marcantonio dodged the puddles and came to the darkened tomb-house. He tugged at the door and pushed his way inside. A hole yawned in the floor. The crypt had been opened.

  He called aloud.

  There was no answer. Looking around him at the dim and sullen marble shapes, Marcantonio started clumsily down the stairs. The crypt was fetid and warm. His light scarcely penetrated the gloom.

  Ferdinand was cowering in the shadow of the Duchess’s lead coffin. He held out his hands. They were bloody. He had tried to scratch at one of the seals. And he was whimpering. There was no telling how long he had lurked there in the dark. Marcantonio propped his torch against a coffin and knelt down beside him. He was very tender. He tried to put his arm around Ferdinand. Ferdinand shrank away.

  “Come,” said Marcantonio softly, coaxing him as a mother would coax a child.

  Ferdinand merely stared. His jaw seemed unslung. He managed to speak, but what he said was unintelligible. Convulsively he turned to the coffin again and leaned his head against it, as though to cool his forehead of a fever.

  Marcantonio tried to draw him up. Then, growing impatient, and knowing his master was mad, he slapped him repeatedly across the face.

  No one had ever dared to touch Ferdinand before. He screamed, broke away, stumbled, and fled up the stairs. Marcantonio picked up the torch. Above him the bronze doors clanged. He did not like places like this. He did not follow his master. That would be useless. Instead he decided to put back the floor slab that covered the entrance to the crypt. It took him time.

  Ferdinand fled through the dark and sticky rain, as though working his way through spider-webs. The dwarfs saw him coming, glanced at each other, and drew back out of sight. Ferdinand entered the palace and ran for cover.

  The dwarfs followed him. They knew the darkness by heart. They chanted at him.

  Ferdinand whirled. “Who’s there?”

  “We are.”

  Ferdinand sobbed and ran on. The darkness was a vast world. But now it felt inhabited. Things stood about in it, waiting for him. He seemed to hear the rustle of a dress. He could hear silent scurrying. He turned a corridor. He must have light. He must know these were not real shapes in the darkness.

  “Marcantonio,” he called out. “Marcantonio!”

  Behind him there was only the giggle of the dwarfs, and the sound of the rain. The building echoed both.

  There was a glimmer of light. Ferdinand ran towards it. Marcantonio was at the end of the gallery, holding a candle. Ferdinand shouted and ran forward. Again he seemed to hear a rustling skirt.

  The figure became clearer. “Save me,” shouted Ferdinand.

  It was not Marcantonio. It was Bosola. His eyes glittered. He held a dagger in his hand. Ferdinand gasped and turned to run. Bosola followed him. The candle whipped out. It clattered to the marble floor.

  Ferdinand ran for the head of the stairs. The footsteps of the two men made a hellish racket. For a moment it seemed that Ferdinand might escape. Then the yellow dwarfs moved forward. They had been waiting for something like this. Together they tackled him, hanging about his legs, and brought him tumbling down. Ferdinand screamed. All over his body he felt the tugging of innumerable tiny hands. They gripped tenaciously. He could not shake them off. Wriggling away in the dark, he lost his bearings and fell headlong down the stairs.

  Bosola leaped after him. At the bottom Ferdinand lay helpless on his back. A light appeared. Bosola stabbed him repeatedly. It was as though he were killing himself. He struck with joy. The dwarfs stood in a semicircle, watching. It was they who had struck the light. They had never brought down anything so large before. It made them solemn. Ferdinand took a long time to die. Then the rustle of silk inside his brain abruptly stopped.

  Bosola panted heavily. He turned, saw the dwarfs, and fled for the archway. They did not follow him. They were silent, subdued, and satisfied. They had had their revenge. Now it was time for them to move on.

  Ferdinand’s screams had been too loud. Bosola knew he must get out quickly. He padded into the rain and ran smack into Marcantonio. He gasped. Marcantonio had only to look at him to know what had happened. Bosola swerved aside, but one of Marcantonio’s vast red hands caught at his throat.

  The Cardinal was a tidy man. He had thought of everything. A company of guards rounded the corner of the alley. They had been waiting, on orders, for just such a hue and cry. Their torches hissed and spluttered in the rain, which tinkled and spat against their cuirasses. They wrenched Bosola away from Marcantonio and took him prisoner. Then, still on the Cardinal’s orders, they marched him publicly through the streets.

  For the Cardinal was canny. He wanted no part in this crime. It must be identified as the act of a maniac. And the maniac must be done away with, tortured in the sight of all, and his mouth stopped for good. It was a necessary act of politics. Pity had nothing to do with it. The Amalfitani needed an outlet for their hatred. Let them have Bosola.

  The soldiers had their instructions. Parade him around the town, and let the world know he was a murderer.

  VI

  The Amalfitani watched from behind their shutters. You could not see them. You only saw the chinks of light between the louvres. And a light rain carries sound very well.

  By intention, the procession passed under the windows of the convent. Voices echoed down the well of the night. Rumour travels fast. Sor Juana watched the parade. Her brother stumbled along, his hands bound behind his back, in that ridiculous peasant costume of his. His head was bowed. He stared at the ground. That was what annoyed her most. No man should ever be bowed. He should always outstare the world.

  She looked down. She had never believed in evil before. Intellectual people never do. She believed in it now. It could have been the moment of her conversion, for good is always invisible. Only a glimpse of evil can convince us it is there. Then the glimpse slipped away from her. After all we live in the world. She would have helped him if she could, but she was too important now to help anyone. She did not dare. Instead she shrank back into the middle of the room.

  Bosola did not want to outstare the world. He was beyond that. He only wanted it over with. Death did not bother him. It was the thought of pain he could not face. A few people gathered in the streets. Anger took fire in them, as the Cardinal had intended. They pelted him with paving stones and filth. The soldiers did nothing to prevent them. For the crowd it was a holiday. Crowds are always so.

  Dully he plodded through the streets. He almost enjoyed it. He winced at the stones and filth, but he was not surprised. Some men run towards the natural goal of their lives, and some away from it. He had done the latter. It was a luxury now to meet it face to face. When they had done with him, they would let him die, and in that thought there was a sort of peace. It gave him the courage to have contempt for the crowd. For they had nothing against him. They were only expressing themselves. This ordure was what they were. It was what they loved. He had known it all along.

  Beside the reality of our nightmares, the world has no reality at all. It is no pain to be tortured there, for our true pain is mental. Thus the ancient kings of Armenia must have felt, after years of fear, when at last they were driven through the jeering crowds of Rome, to decorate a triumph.

  At last he found himself flung into a dungeon. There he mouldered in the dark until they came to take him out. He could have a priest if he wished, but he did not wish.

  Next day he was led out into the square. He blinked in the light, but felt torpid. He did not back away. Perhaps he had been drugged. The executioner was Marcantonio, who eyed him narrowly. The Cardinal had been afraid that he might speak out, and had given orders that if he did he was to be strangled. But Bosola had no intention of speaking out. He had nothing to say, least of all to Marcantonio.

  It did not hurt him much. He did not even cry out. The crowd was plainly disappointed. The first incision hurt, that was all. They wound his intestines on a spool. He looked on with apathetic interest. Few of us can watch ourse
lves die. Few of us are granted that much certainty. When they severed the other end of the bowel and tipped the wet, mucous windless into the bonfire, it was like a blessing. It was voluptuous.

  Then they killed him.

  Neither the Cardinal nor Sor Juana stirred out of doors that day. But that night Sor Juana completed her poem, The Dream, She knew now what owl. It was the only real poem she ever wrote. It was enough, with the convents she founded, to get her canonized. But it was not pious. She had seen through piety. That is why she wrote it. She would rather have been a man.

  VII

  At the end of the week the Cardinal presented the young Duke Raimondo to the people, and proposed the Regency. He stood on the cathedral steps, holding the little boy’s sweaty palm, and then lifted him up, so that he might see his subjects.

  The ovation was tremendous. The child was intelligent, and therefore frightened. The Cardinal whispered in his ear, to quiet him.

  This was the last Piccolomini, a pleasant, thoughtful, handsome, charming blond with tired eyes, and the crowd, which had hated the last Duke and helped to tear the Duchess down, thought he was wonderful. So much, thought the Cardinal, for crowds.

  He liked the boy. He was a docile child. And the boy liked the Cardinal, for now he did not have to study any more. He was allowed to play. Why cram his head with statecraft? His chances of ever practising it were slim enough.

  Which was a pity, for the Cardinal felt drawn to the lad. He was an orphan, the last of his line, and pretty. As he looked over the shouting, applauding crowd, it occurred to the Cardinal that he, also, was the last of his line. He had not thought of that before.

  He looked around him, blinking in the strong sunlight, and found it good. It would be night soon enough. Now it was time to enjoy the day. For the devil is a dancer in darkness. We must avoid him while we can. Cheated, we learn to cheat.