The Silver Devil

by Teresa Denys

  "They are some of the dearer goods," he agreed ironically. "Tell her their names, good Uncle, and their fortunes and conditions. It may be that her judgment will exceed yours, and whom she chooses shall be my wife."

  I bent my head attentively over the portraits, one by one, while in my ears the archbishop's voice spoke of dowers, settlements, alliances, and heirs. I felt as though my whole body were filled with pain and if I moved or spoke it would spill and foul the room with its stench. One portrait was circled by a ring of gems, another set in a golden locket—women and girls, pretty and plain, each a desirable match for a duke in birth and fortune.

  "The lady Francina di Corso," the archbishop said as I picked up another portrait, "twice widowed, and a kinswoman of the Doge of Venice. She is the heiress to a third of the Farnese fortune."

  "It would be a great match, then," I said colorlessly. The painter had been at pains to soften his sitter's sharp face to his ideal of beauty, but for all his care and her rich clothes and jewels, the tight mouth and pale, hard eyes showed clearly. I placed the lady Francina di Corso at forty, at least.

  "True," Domenico cut me short impatiently, "if we can compass it. Let it be, we shall decide another day."

  In a daze of relief I heard him dismissing the councilors and their trooping out after the savage swish of the archbishop's train. I could think only that this was a reprieve, that for perhaps a day or two longer the duke would not choose his bride.

  The doors closed, and I realized that Domenico was studying me curiously. "Do you care no more than that?" he asked idly. "I thought this news might grieve you."

  "Why should it? I have never professed to love you."

  "Not with your tongue." He turned away abruptly. "Come, we will leave this talk of wives for a space—your . . . compan­ionship suffices me until I come to marry—you need not fear a rival till then."

  "And from that day your wife will suffice you?" I asked with a hint of bitter wonderment.

  He nodded meditatively. "I think perhaps she will."

  After a moment he spoke again, and the gravity was gone from his voice. "Look, I have other toys you may like better; they are not so old, but one of them may please you. Look and choose."

  I realized with a sort of hunger that he was offering me the gift of a jewel that had been his. If he had offered me an asp in a bracelet I would have taken it from him. I turned to the ebony box he pushed towards me, trying to quiet my fast-beating heart.

  My first thought was that he had more jewels than any woman; there were clasps and shoe buckles, earrings and chains, all tossed together in a haphazard muddle, and so rich that I drew back instinctively.

  "These are more of your family's jewels. I may not take them."

  "No, they are my own," he contradicted lazily. "Scruples are for fools—take whatever you wish for. All these are nothing; I have a greater gift in mind to give you."

  I assumed he was teasing me and did not answer, only turning over the trinkets one by one. Many of them were dingy, heavier made than he usually wore, and must have lain in the box for years unworn; there were a boy's ornaments on which the engraving had worn smooth, showing that he had worn them often: and on these my fingers lingered involuntarily. Then, caught in the lining in one corner of the box, I noticed the.ring.

  It was silver, wrought in the shape of two clasped hands holding a pearl; the metal had a blackish sheen, and the pearl's luster was dimmed. He must have cared for it once, I thought, to have kept it so long, and because he had let it grow grimed and dirty he would not mind if I asked for it now. He was turning over some papers as I made my choice, his head averted; and quickly, before he could gainsay me, I thrust the ring on my finger and held out my hand.

  "I should like this, Your Grace."

  He looked up with the beginning of a slight smile, then froze like an animal in a trap. When he spoke at last, his voice had no expression at all. "That is peddler's trumpery. I meant you to choose a worthier stone."

  "I like this. I am not one to brave comparison with emeralds and sapphires."

  "But pearls mean tears," he said in a queer voice. "Are you not superstitious? Some men call them bad luck."

  "Some men are frightened when a cat crosses their path or when a skew-eyed old woman frowns at them. I am less credulous." I looked up and saw his face. "You do not want to part with this. I will put it back and choose another."

  "No, take it. The thing has little enough value—I had not seen it for so many years, that is all. I did not know I had kept it. I was given it years ago, by my father's second wife. She died not long after."

  "The Duchess Isabella?" I could not understand the queer, dead look of him, the almost dreamy note in his voice. "She was killed, they told me."

  "Who told you?" he-demanded sharply.

  "Ippolito—he said she died in an accident."

  "It . . . was given out so." He spoke slowly, after a long hesitation. "In fact, no one knows for sure how she died. Just before, there was an attempt on my great-uncle's life by some Lutheran zealot who sought to wrench Cabria to his heretical faith by killing the head of our Holy Catholic Church. He failed in that but escaped the palace guard, and it was thought that he came again that night and had better success."

  The thought made me shiver. "But he cannot have been unseen—unheard—how could she die, and no one know of it?"

  "She had gone to pray in her chapel." His fair head was bent and his voice muffled; he was picking savagely at the carving of the table with the tip of his dagger. "It was a thing she did often—she would pray for hours, and no one heeded her absence. Perhaps she was praying for deliverance from my father," he added viciously.

  I looked again at the tarnished ring. "Poor lady," I whispered.

  "That pearl can well stand for the tears he had of her." The knife dug into the table almost vindictively. "She wept more than any woman I ever knew. The saying held true for her; she had ill luck enough with it."

  "But she died when she gave it away." I spoke almost without thinking and added quickly, "What became of the Lutheran?"

  "He was caught and executed for her death." His reply was abstracted as he stared at the notched blade of his dagger. "The Lutheran could bring no evidence that he had not come upon her while she was alone, stabbed her, and then fled. It might have been he as soon as another. He swore he had been drinking at a tavern, but a soldier saw him by the palace gates; he was hanged for it, anyway."

  "Did you love her?" I asked inconsequentially.

  He looked up quickly at that, and I saw that his eyes were dead, opaque black; there was no light in them at all. "I? No."

  "But she loved you." "Why do you say that?"

  "Because she gave you her ring. She must have loved you." No woman could choose but love him, I thought, but I would never say so to him.

  "It was a poor enough gift." The very tonelessness of his voice sounded somehow defensive. "I only wore it once."

  "Did it hurt you to see it after she died?"

  "I did not wish to think of her!" he snapped violently, almost petulantly. "I do not like the dead—they belong in tombs and on battlefields."

  As he spoke I saw the quill at his right hand, protruding from an inkwell set in a human skull. It made me feel cold all at once. "Was it so dreadful?" I said and bit my lip. I had not meant to ask the question, but it slipped out unbidden.

  He was silent for so long that I thought he did not mean to answer, then at last he began to speak in a strange, dreaming murmur.

  "She was lying on the floor when I went in, as though she had not moved all night. I thought she had fallen asleep and I called her, but she did not answer—and the floor—" he broke off, choking. "Whoever killed her had made good work."

  It was then that I understood his nightmare. It was his stepmother's body, sprawled on the chapel floor in its own blood, that haunted him. But why, I wondered; what was the guilt that would not let him forget finding her so, and why did he talk in his sleep of blasp
hemy?

  The ring gleamed on my hand as I put it out to him, and I wondered why I could not find it loathsome. But it seemed a sad keepsake rather than a ghoulish one; the dulled silver and the modest gray pearl carried no taint with them. He did not see me move, and my hand dropped back to my side. Then with an impatient movement he jammed his dagger back into its sheath and straightened.

  "Keep the ring if you have a mind, Felicia. Perhaps the sight of it on your hand will drown the other remembrances."

  "Thank you." It seemed pitifully little, but it was all I could say.

  "Nothing else?" His hand on my shoulder was still unsteady, and I couid feel a tremor in his fingers as they slid under the sleeve of my gown.

  "My humblest thanks, Your Grace?" My voice sounded breathless, and his hand tightened. He said with a glare that was not wholly a threat, "Felicia . . . ," then turned with startling swiftness as the door opened.

  "Your Grace!"

  "Brother." Domenico's eyes were narrow, his betraying, shaking hands clenched behind his back. "You are something untimely."

  "Your pardon, Brother—and madam"—Sandro glanced at me ruefully and bowed low—"but I have news to tell you. That message cost our uncle little labor—he has intercepted a like code before in notes from spies that we have taken, but this one is addressed. I think you will like to know whom della Quercia seeks as a master."

  Domenico held out his hand without a word, and Sandro put two papers into it.

  "There, the message and its translation. You would think these creatures would vary their codes sometimes!—and I have brought de'Falconieri, who will not believe that I have not concocted this myself. I said that the lady would confirm how she found it."

  I met Ippolito's anxious look and nodded. "Yes, my lord. Lord Piero dropped it in my chamber.''

  Domenico said silkily, "What was he doing there?" and I started.

  "He—he had come to escort me to my lesson, and we had a disagreement. Niccolosa was with me."

  He nodded after a moment, but his sensual mouth was tight as he looked back at the two papers. "Look, Ippolito."

  His secretary went to his side at once.

  "See what goes forward under our very noses—a creature of ours seeks to sell us to our enemies."

  Ippolito stared at the papers. "But, Your Grace, it is . . ."

  "It is foolery." The black eyes narrowed and went to me as though unconsciously. "But it shall not go unpunished, nonetheless."

  Ippolito seemed not to be able to believe his eyes. "Your Grace, this is some drunken foolishness. Lord Piero could not mean you any harm. Why, he has been your friend . . ."'

  "He writes soberly enough. See there, and there; that is intelligence an enemy would pay well for, if this slave had had the wit to choose one—as it is, he seeks to sell me to the Duke of Ferrenza, who styles himself my cousin; one who is linked to my family by marriage and is so far from enmity with me that he is forever soliciting me to visit him and see that palace of his! Did the dullard have no brain at all? I might have gotten it from the man he wrote to, as soon as by this accident."

  Ippoiito was silent for a moment; then he said in a troubled voice, "Your Grace, if this is so, the writing has done no harm. I am sure it was done in a fit of melancholy and not seriously intended."

  "Leave your excuses." Domenico tossed the papers to Sandro. "He meant mischief to us, and we will requite it so. You will be ready to arraign him when we require it of you."

  Ippolito stepped back, his face that of a man who has stepped on a green meadow and found himself in a quicksand. I could see his thoughts clearly—if a man as close to the duke as Piero had been was condemned so summarily, what hope was there for him if someone should denounce him?

  And what for me? I thought suddenly. Piero had been Domenico's companion—and I believed him. his lover—for more than a dozen years. I had not held him for as many days. My tenure was precarious, to say the least.

  "Set someone to watch the traitor," Domenico continued curtly, "but so that he does not see it; and bring me word of how he spends his time. Since he abuses his freedoms, I shall see that this lady has another guardian. Bernardo da Lucoli will serve—he has not sufficient mettle to be anything but virtuous."

  The vicious little sneer made Sandro laugh. "I wondered why he did not prosper!"

  "Such uprightness is tedious." Domenico's mouth twisted. "He will serve as a gallant to Felicia for a glance from her fair eyes and will ask for nothing more—not even a purse. The more fool he, for gallantry will never make his fortune."

  But when Bernardo da Lucoli came to my side at supper, I smiled, for it was the dark-haired boy who had helped me into the saddle on that first morning.

  He approached deferentially, bowed to the duke, and said hesitantly, "Madam, I have been bidden to offer you my service, and I do it with all my heart."

  I held out my hand to him. "I am grateful to you, sir, and glad to accept your offer."

  Domenico was watching us speculatively, and the awareness made me uneasy. I looked at the ingenuous-ness in the young courtier's eyes and the unpainted smoothness of his cheek, and said involuntarily, "You have not been at court long, messire?"

  He shook his head. "A few weeks only. I came from my home in the north to attend on Duke Carlo, and I am still learning the ways of the court, for much is altered since he died." He glanced, belatedly and apprehensively, at Domenico.

  I said, to smooth his discomfiture, "Then we shall have to help each other, messire, for I am a novice, too."

  He bowed gratefully and after a word or two more withdrew to his place.

  Domenico's fingers toyed idly with the knife beside his plate. "I did not know that your taste ran to milk and water."

  "Not all virtue is tedious, Your Grace."

  "Is it not? Should I seek for some, then, to make you smile at me?"

  The breath caught in my throat. "This is folly!"

  "Only wait a little. I am doing that to please you that will make them call me fool and madman, worse than my lord archbishop." His eyes glimmered. "Or I will tumble for you if

  you ask me."

  The insinuation of the last words made me deaf to the puzzle of the first. "I have no fondness for tumbling," I answered quickly.

  He raised his eyebrows and laughed, then turned to talk to Sandro, who was beside him. I sat for a moment, staring unseeingly before me, and started as the archbishop's voice addressed me.

  "So you know of my nephew's wedding plans, lady?"

  I turned sharply to face him, meeting his piercing scrutiny. "Yes, my lord." My lips felt dry. "But only that he means to be married. He has not spoken to me of any preference."

  "Has he not?" The deep, melodious voice was skeptical. "I thought he would have acquainted you with his thoughts."

  "No." I smiled tenderly, then forced my face to stillness. "Secrecy is the breath of life to him. He loves intrigue more dearly than any mistress."

  "You are shrewd—have you learned that in so short a time?"

  "His Grace is an expert teacher," I returned rather bitterly.

  The archbishop surveyed me thoughtfully. "And what will you do when he is married? Bow before his wife?"

  "No—I do not know what I shall do." A lump grew in my throat.

  He nodded. "It is as I thought. You do not have the look of one who has lived long in sin. Belike my nephew forced you and holds you against your will—if it is so, then I shall pray for your soul, for a woman cannot but be damned in this corruption he calls a court. A whore once made must after stay a whore."

  "I shall not be the duke's whore long," I said. "I know he will cast me off as soon as he is married, and after that . . . I must trust in God's mercy."

  "Do you think you will have leisure to repent when you are earning your bread on your back? I do not speak so to distress you, daughter," he continued smoothly as I flinched, "but to warn you of what must happen. If you wish to live and thrive afterwards, you must coin your beauty, sell
yourself by lottery. And God will not brook it."

  "Then I must be damned," I said with a sudden dreadful certainty, "for He will damn me, if I take my own life."

  "You could leave the court." The archbishop's tone was noncommittal.

  "I have nowhere to go. I have no family but my half-brother, and he cares nothing for me—I think he was glad to be rid of me, for he never tried to find me when the duke took me. And I have no friends, nor skill to earn my living."

  The archbishop drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the rim of his wine cup. "I might give you help."

  "How?" My bowed head jerked up incredulously.

  "I am patron of a convent in Genoa. You might go there and live among the nuns to atone for your sin in prayer—but I doubt you would take such a desperate remedy."

  I was silent for a long time. This chance was literally heaven­sent, for the archbishop was the voice of God in Cabria, and to reject his help would be close to blasphemy. But Genoa . . .

  I must have murmured the word, for Domenico's bright head turned. "What were you saying of Genoa?" he asked softly.

  "I was telling the lady of your good success there, nephew; how you took the citadel and laid it waste."

  The duke nodded, his beautiful face full of catlike satisfaction. "But since then I have conquered a sterner fortress." His eyes mocked me. "And now I enter it freely."

  I hardly heard what the archbishop replied. I felt faint with relief, as though Domenico's intervention had saved me from a choice I could not bear to make, and there was no chance to speak to the archbishop again for the rest of the meal. It was only when he rose to leave that he whispered compellingly, "Remember," and then he was gone in a rustle of silk.

  Piero came to my chamber just as I was going to the duke that night, but his manner had changed. Now his self-confidence had deserted him, and he seemed worried, biting his lip; he stayed and spoke to me a little of the duke's wedding plans, his eyes flickering around the room all the time, and then, not finding what he sought, he went away with his face a little more drawn under the paint. I felt a stab of pity for him and wished wholeheartedly that I could have kept his secret without endangering Domenico's life.