A Brood of Vipers srs-4

by Paul Doherty

  I saw the glint of silver as the medallion was passed between them.

  After that the cardinal left the banquet, bestowing benedictions and good wishes on all present – behaving in fact more like a family chaplain than an inveterate enemy of the entire Albrizzi clan. 'What do you make of that, Roger?' Benjamin whispered.

  'Just another viper,' I said crossly, 'and a very dangerous one.'

  'Who were his companions? They kept so much in the shadows I couldn't even make out their faces.'

  'One is his bodyguard,' Maria piped up from behind us. 'The other is Frater Seraphino. No, don't turn round! If the cardinal's dangerous so is Seraphino. He is Master of the Eight, the secret police. Oh, and before I leave, drink deeply Crosspatch – the Albrizzis have their own ways of detecting murderers.'

  I didn't know what she meant but, once the cardinal had departed, the atmosphere became more relaxed. Lady Beatrice came sauntering across the garden, hips swaying, clasping a cup to her ample bosom. She stood before us, moving suggestively. I could tell she was in her cups and was intent on taunting us. My master, however, refused to be drawn.

  'Good evening, my lady,' he began, keeping to the pleasantries, 'How long have you been married to Lord Enrico?' 'Oh, four years.' 'And you are happy?' Beatrice giggled. 'Can any man make any woman happy?' 'Did your father make you happy?' Benjamin asked softly.

  The girl's eyes hardened. 'God gave us our relatives, Master Daunbey. Thank God, we can choose our friends! Father was harsh. Of course I mourn his passing and pray for his soul, but death is a part of life.'

  I just gazed at this hard-hearted hussy, soft and spoilt as a lap dog. She noticed my gaze. 'What are you staring at, varlet?' I bowed slightly. 'My lady, I am not too sure.'

  It took the bitch a few seconds to perceive the insult. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. 'You forget yourself,' she hissed.

  I could see by the poise of her body that she intended to call on her menfolk for assistance.

  'My Lady,' I purred, 'I meant no insult. Certainly not here, in such a beautiful garden. I meant to come down here as soon as we arrived,' I continued, 'but I saw Master Giovanni busily digging so I decided it was best not to.'

  My master looked nonplussed but the sultry bitch understood my intent and caught her lower lip between her teeth. 'You are not as stupid as you look, Inglese!'

  'Never judge a book by its cover,' I replied cheerfully. 'My Lady,' I added, 'on the day your father died, you were looking at English fabrics?' 'Yes.'

  The minx had no choice but to reply. After all, blackmail in Florence is the same as in England. 'And you saw nothing untoward?' 'I have answered that question already.'

  'Who else knew your father would be shopping in Cheapside?' 'We've answered that already. Everybody did.'

  By then I didn't give a damn – in for a penny in for a pound is the old Shallot.

  'And where were you on board ship when Matteo was murdered?'

  'Murdered!' Her eyes widened. 'Who said he was murdered, Master Shallot? He slipped and fell overboard. I was sleeping between my mother and her maid.'

  'Did you resent your father giving you in marriage to the Lord Enrico?' 'No, men are all the same in the dark, Master Shallot.'

  She came a little closer. I must say she looked resplendent in the torchlight, which emphasized her glittering eyes and gave her skin a golden hue.

  'And, before you ask, you base-born, tail-wearing Inglese, I have used a fowling piece.' She tapped me gently on the arm. 'You should be careful. You are in Florence now, not the filthy midden you call London.'

  And, before I could think of a suitable insult in reply, she turned and flounced away.

  ‘I don't like her,' Benjamin said. 'She's a dangerous woman, empty-headed but cunning. She has the face and body of a beauty but her mind is as empty as a beggar's purse.' 'Master Daunbey!' Roderigo called us over.

  We walked across the garden to where he sat on a turf seat, with the Lady Bianca at his feet staring adoringly up at him. Now even then I was a hardened rogue, yet I had to punch myself at the cold-bloodedness of this family. Roderigo had lost a brother, she had lost a husband and their trollop of a daughter had lost her father. I have seen people weep more bitterly over a favourite dog. Oh, well, that's the way with power and wealth. It shrivels the soul and turns the emotions into silver pieces to be thriftily collected and miserly doled out. 'My Lord Cardinal seemed pleased to see you.'

  'We are the envoys of an English king,' Benjamin replied. 'Not to mention His Eminence the Cardinal.' 'How long do you intend to stay in Florence?'

  I felt like asking him to be more honest – what he was really asking was how long were we going to poke our noses into his affairs. Benjamin touched my elbow to keep silent.

  'Lord Roderigo,' my master replied. 'We have business here, people to see, messages to deliver.'

  Benjamin waited for Lord Roderigo to question him further, but the wily nobleman refused to be drawn.

  'We also must,' Benjamin added, 'discover the reason for your brother's murder and unmask the assassin.'

  'There's really no need of that,' Lady Bianca simpered, blinking furiously as if trying to control her tears. 'Lord Roderigo has already informed the Master of the Eight.'

  'Lady Bianca is correct,' Roderigo intervened smoothly. 'We appreciate your king and dear uncle's concern, yet these are delicate matters, best handled by the Florentine authorities.'

  'Your brother was also an accredited envoy to England. Our king's peace was violated. He, too, wants answers and justice done,' Benjamin replied.

  Roderigo shrugged delicately, as if there was no answer to that. 'Then there's the artist,' I said. 'King Henry would like to offer him an appointment at the English court.' 'Ah yes, signor Borelli.' 'You know him?' I asked. 'Of course, my brother and I collected the painting from him. He lives in a street just behind the Piazza del Signor. One of my servants will take you there in the morning.' Roderigo smirked. 'Provided you offer Borelli enough gold and tell him as little as possible about the climate or the food, he will jump at the chance. Florence has a surfeit of artists.' He got to his feet. 'As for the murder of my brother, we have other ways of uncovering the truth! Florentine ways!' He snapped his fingers and called across to Giovanni, who had been standing in the shadows of the doorway leading to the house. 'The Lord Cardinal has truly gone?' 'Yes, my lord.' 'Then tell Master Preneste we are ready.'

  Chapter 7

  Now, you have got to believe old Shallot. You know I am not a liar, I have danced with the devil on many a night under the silvery moon. I have met the Lord Lucifer in all his guises. I have watched the great witch burnings in Germany across the Rhine. I have been hunted through the wet woods of Saxony by warlocks. Whenever you are up in London, visit the Globe Theatre, watch Will Shakespeare's Macbeth, especially those three hags. I gave him the idea. I did the same for Kit Marlowe and his marvellous play Doctor Faustus. Perhaps Faustus is nearer the truth – there are a legion of cranks who claim that they can call Satan up from Hell but whether he comes or not is another matter. However, that night in the Villa Albrizzi I met a man who did have that power.

  Lord Roderigo's party drew quickly to an end. After making his cryptic remarks he wandered away, Lady Bianca leaning heavily on his arm.

  'What's Preneste got to do with it?' I muttered. 'I haven't seen him all evening.'

  A short while later I discovered the reason. Lord Roderigo dismissed the servants. He ordered the candles to be doused and gathered us together on the broad, green lawn at the centre of the garden. He stared around, studying each of our faces carefully. Giovanni began to douse the sconce torches fixed into the soil until only one, in the centre of the lawn, remained burning.

  'Lord Francesco is dead,' Lord Roderigo began. 'We welcome our English visitors. However, as I have informed them already, there are many paths to the truth.' He looked over his shoulder towards the house. 'Is Preneste…?' 'He is coming now, Master.'

  'I am here alrea
dy,' a voice declared beyond the pool of light thrown by the torch.

  Preneste walked forward. Gone were the sober robes of the clerk. Now Preneste was dressed in a white alb, with a red belt round his waist and on his head a helmet of garlands with extraordinarily lifelike artificial snakes. His feet were bare. He carried a chest, which he placed in the pool of light and opened. I craned over my master's shoulder. I knew enough about the black-magic lords to recognize its contents -philtres, magic letters, the eyes of cats, a bowl of froth from a mad dog, a dead man's bones wrapped in yellowing skin, a noose from a scaffold, daggers rusty with human blood, and plants and flowers gathered under a hunter's moon. 'What nonsense is this?' I murmured. Benjamin stepped back. 'Look at his face, Roger.'

  Preneste stood up. I noticed how smooth and white his face had become, the eyes enlarged. Drunk on poppy seed, I wondered, or on the juice of mushrooms which allows a man to see visions through the curtain of reality? No one objected to Preneste's transformation from chaplain to black magician. I remembered a saying that the Florentines' religion was like wax, 'very hot and easily moulded', and recalled Dante's acceptance of sorcery in the Inferno, where a special part of hell is reserved for the sorcerers, where their heads are twisted back so that they, who in life were always straining to see the future, could only look backwards. Dante had it right – black magic flourished in Florence – and the Albrizzis were involved in it.

  'Stand back!' Preneste ordered. 'Retire beyond the pool of light!'

  I was only too happy to. At the time Benjamin and I were quite relaxed – such practices were common even in London, where witches, with cupboards full of human skulls, bones, teeth and skin, were six a penny. I viewed what the Albrizzis were involved in as a masque or pantomime, put on to whet jaded appetites and entertain, even perhaps frighten, their visitors from England. We all withdrew to the edge of the lawn. I don't know where everyone was standing. All I can remember is that I was near Benjamin as Preneste began his ritual. He was holding a marble vase in his left hand and a sponge tied to a dead man's leg in his right. He lifted his face and began to chant, staring at the moon as if it was some beacon light for his prayer. He then knelt and kissed the earth, dipped the leg bone in what looked like a bowl of human blood and sketched a circle which encompassed both himself and the sconce torch fixed to a rod driven into the ground. He placed a skull in the centre of the circle, poured some of the blood over it and began to chant in a language neither I nor my master understood. At first I stood there bored. Suddenly, Preneste looked up, eyes staring. He clapped his hands. 'The Master comes!' he shouted. 'I wish he'd bloody well hurry up!' I muttered.

  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than a cold wind sprang up. The torchlight danced, lengthening Preneste's shadow, and the man himself seemed to grow like some swelling toad. In the woods beyond a dog howled, a long and curdling cry. Preneste's lips were moving soundlessly. Again the howl, and suddenly a dog or jackal sped across the torchlight. God knows where it came from! God knows what it really was! And only God knows where it went! To hell I hope! Lady Beatrice squealed, but now Preneste turned, staring into the darkness. He was holding in his hands a wax tablet and a sharp knife. I stared into the shadows and saw one deeper than the rest. The cold wind grew stronger. A terrible stench pervaded the garden, corrupting and rotten. The hair on the nape of my neck curled. I shivered and grasped my master's arm, tense and rigid. Suddenly there was a crack like a gun firing. Preneste staggered sideways, turned and stared at us, a look of surprise on his face. He crumpled to the grass, hitting the pole which held the torch and extinguishing the light. For a few seconds no one moved. A woman screamed, I don't know who. 'Bring torches! Bring torches!' Roderigo shouted.

  I heard tinder strike. Giovanni brought a light and lit the other torches in the garden. Roderigo was already bending over Preneste but one look at the man's waxen features, slack jaw and half-open eyes told all. The man was dead, killed by a metal ball which had struck him on the side of the temple. My master picked up the wax tablet, but all Preneste had had time to draw was one line.

  'Anybody's,' Benjamin said, 'it could have been anybody's name!'

  'If you really believe in that nonsense,' I answered, my courage now returning.

  Roderigo turned Preneste over on to his back. Lady Bianca had to be carried away, her gasps and splutters of near-hysteria being stilled by Alessandro, who took her to one of the garden seats and thrust a goblet of wine into her hands. Roderigo got to his feet and swore deeply. This was the first time I had seen him frightened – his face was slack and his hands trembled. He stared round at the rest of us. 'Whoever it is,' he hissed, 'intends to kill us all! Giovanni, take Preneste's body upstairs to his chamber. The rest of you, come with me!'

  We followed him into the house, past silent, frightened servants who, summoned from their quarters, now began to clear up the remains of the banquet. They whispered amongst themselves, staring at the body still sprawled on the grass. A small pool of blood ebbed out from that dreadful black hole in the side of the skull. Roderigo led us back into a room that in England we would have called the solar – a pleasant chamber with quilted window-seats, decorated walls and delicately carved furniture. Dominating the room was a long, polished, oval table with quilted stools ranged around it. We all took our seats. Servants lit candles and brought goblets of sweet wine infused with a cordial. I didn't touch mine. I'll be honest, old Shallot was terrified. Demon-worshippers, the black arts, a mysterious assassin who could fire a handgun and not be detected – it was all too much for me to cope with. Mind you, I wasn't alone – Roderigo had lost his arrogance and everyone there had been shocked by Preneste's death.

  'At first,' Roderigo said, 'I believed Francesco's murder was the work of a solitary assassin, perhaps the result of a blood feud because he had wronged some family, either in England or in Florence. Matteo's death could have been an accident. But this!' He banged the table with his fist. 'Who can carry an unwieldy weapon into a secure and well-guarded garden, fire it and then disappear? You, Inglese!' – he pointed angrily at Benjamin – 'your master sent you here to help. I demand that help now.' I felt like reminding him that only a few hours earlier he had been quite offhand about our assistance. But the mood of the Albrizzis had turned ugly.

  'How do we know,' Alessandro asked, 'that it is not the Inglese themselves who are the assassins?'

  'Don't be stupid!' I retorted. 'We had never even heard of Lord Francesco or any of you before all this happened!'

  'What Master Shallot is saying,' Benjamin tactfully intervened, 'is that when Lord Francesco was in Cheapside we were in Ipswich. But I agree with the Lord Roderigo. I do not wish to alarm you, but I believe you are being hunted by a skilful assassin intent on all your deaths. Now logic dictates that the deaths of both Francesco and Preneste are the work of a single assassin, who killed Francesco in London, who managed to enter this garden and shoot Preneste and who killed Matteo the steward in a similar way on board ship. Ergo,' Benjamin concluded softly, 'the assassin must be in this house. He or she must be one of us!'

  There were murmurs of protest, but nothing as vehement or vociferous as those that had been voiced in London. No longer was the honour of the family name paramount. Everyone glanced sideways at their neighbour as they accepted the truth of my master's assertion.

  Enrico spoke up, peering across at Benjamin. 'We must therefore establish where each of us was when Preneste was killed.'

  I stared down at little Maria perched like a child on her stool. She gazed solemnly back. My stomach churned. What if it was her, I thought? Small and lithe, she could move unnoticed amongst the crowds – but had she the strength to manage an arquebus? I looked at Giovanni, the professional soldier, who sat fingering his long hair; he stared passively down the table, ignoring the glances directed at him. Nevertheless, he sensed the unspoken accusation. He was a mercenary. What guarantee could he give that he had not been hired by some enemy to wage silent, bloody war against the Albri
zzis? He straightened on the stool, his quilted leather jacket creaking. He still played with a tendril of hair, which he was now braiding. He tapped the floor with his boot.

  'Anyone here,' he said softly, 'could purchase a handgun.' His voice rose. 'Everyone in this room is proficient in its use. Don't look so accusingly at me! Why should I turn my hand against my patron?' Nobody even looked at him, let alone answered.

  Benjamin got to his feet. 'Perhaps we should return to the garden? I know where I was standing. Where were all of you?'

  Enrico clapped his hands softly. 'Lady Bianca, I was standing behind you. Alessandro, you were a little forward to my right. You were scratching your neck, yes? So, where was everyone else?'

  Benjamin sat down again as confusion broke out, everyone telling their story but nothing tallying. Benjamin tapped the top of the table.

  'The truth is,' he said, 'that we were all so frightened by what Preneste was doing that none of us can clearly remember. But there is a further possibility to consider.' The hubbub of conversation finally died away.

  'Perhaps the assassin is not in this room,' Benjamin went on, nudging me gently under the table to tell me to keep silent. 'There were servants in London, servants on board ship and servants here in the house tonight. All I can advise is that each of us, until this murderer is unmasked, walks carefully.'

  The meeting broke up. Benjamin beckoned me to follow him back into the garden; behind us the babble of conversation died as the household retired to bed.

  'Did you mean what you said about the servants, Master?' I whispered.

  'Of course not!' Benjamin replied. 'The assassin was sitting at that table. What servant would dare commit three murders? Someone would notice something amiss. One death perhaps, but not three.'

  We walked further into the darkness. Benjamin turned and looked at me squarely.