by Teresa Denys
The weather was hot, and the cavalcade moved at a crawling pace along the rocky roads. Every bone in my body ached from the jolting of the coach; and now the lie I had told Domenico had come true, and I was sick indeed—that I would not bear a bastard yet a while was little consolation.
For company I had only Niccolosa, and there was little talk between us; I tried at first to draw her out and make her talk to me, but she was sunk in some reverie of her own and returned me few answers. At night we stayed in towns and villages whose inhabitants seemed unsurprised by the sudden descent of the duke's retinue—Ippolito told me that they stayed in these same places when the court passed, each spring and autumn, between Diurno and Fidena. But at last, when I had begun to think the journey would never have an end, we arrived at the capital.
It could hardly have been more different from the place where I had been born. Fidena stood starkly on the plain between the mountains and the sea, its fortified walls visible for miles around. Diurno seemed to burst Upon the traveler around a turn of the road, its houses clustering thickly like rose-colored ants on a swelling hillside. On the crown of the hill the palace sprawled like the pale bloated queen of this glittering anthill; and yet it was beautiful.
As the procession rumbled into the city, inching up the curving road that wound between the steep terraces, people poured out of their homes to shout and cheer, and soon the clamor was deafening. I would have looked for Domenico, who was riding, to see how he liked it; but Niccolosa pulled me back from the carriage window and rebuked me for behaving like a hoyden. "You will see enough from the coronation procession, my lady. There is no need to go craning out of the window!"
I was about to reply when I remembered the last time I had craned out of a window. I nodded meekly and sat back until the coach finally came to a standstill.
My legs, stiff and cramped, threatened to give way under me as I climbed out; all around me strangers scurried hither and thither, each bent on his particular task. There were so many coaches that the ones entering had to wait for those before them to be taken away and all the horses stabled—nobles and servants were everywhere, al! eagerness to go inside the palace and claim their own apartments. Only I stood in the sunny courtyard beside Niccolosa, feeling utterly lost.
Ippolito bowed before .me, smiling reassuringly, and took my arm. "Madam, you are to come to the duke—that is, if I can find him for you in this hurly."
Relief flooded me, and I followed him through the crowd to find Domenico already dismounted, waiting with the quartet around him; it was their shrill chatter that guided us. I went to Domenico without another thought.
His gloved fingers gripped mine, and then he said, "Look, my great-uncle waits to greet us."
I hung back instinctively. "Your Grace, he will not like to see me in your company, after . . ."
"Let him dislike it! He will have heard of what has chanced, and this will be fine proof of his defeat."
He turned, drawing me with him towards the great staircase that led to the main doorway; broad, high-soaring, flanked by towering statues three times the height of a man. The titanic figures dwarfed the busy courtiers below—they even dwarfed the tail figure in scarlet robes who waited at the forefront of his followers on the first broad landing.
Above and below, all the noise was suddenly stilled as we climbed the steps, hand in hand. I would have hurried, but Domenico's fingers forced me to slowness. He climbed unhurriedly, as though he knew the world would wait for him. The scarlet figure stood unmoving, rigidly upright, as we stopped a few steps below him and Domenico knelt with ostentatious grace to kiss the old man's hand.
The very extravagance of the courtesy made it a taunt, and a muscle twitched in the archbishop's lined cheek as he gazed down at the bright head. Then he said, "Rise, my son," and drew the duke to his feet again. Their formal embrace was performed without a trace of affection, and both men's faces were impassive as they ceremoniously kissed each other on both cheeks. Then, to my astonishment, Domenico beckoned me forward.
I thought as I knelt before the archbishop that before so many watching eyes it would be like him to humiliate me as he had before. But then, incredibly, his skeletal hands raised me, and I felt myself enfolded in a torrent of whispering silk. The scents of rosewater and incense mingled in my nostrils; there was a bony cheek laid against mine, and the brush of cold lips. I stood passive, bewildered, unable to credit what was happening.
"Welcome." The archbishop turned to Domenico as he released me, his eyes as hard as flint. "I am glad to see Your Grace."
"Your lordship honors us."
"I speak with the voice of all Cabria." Now the old man's words were very clear, carrying to the listening crowd below. "We are amply recompensed for the duke your father's death— not only in this speedy crowning of your fair self, but in knowing that your marriage comes hard upon it. The Duke of Savoy's loss will no doubt be our gain." There was a fleeting dryness in his tone. "And with your noble bride beside you, Cabria will know many more prosperous days."
"Prettily said, Uncle." Domenico's smile was ironic, and below I saw a rippling in the crowd and caught the echo, Savoy.
"The preparations for Your Grace's coronation are well advanced now." The archbishop had dropped his public tone of utterance. "But I wish to consult with you again on the marriage question."
Domenico shrugged. "As you will, but you cannot alter me."
"Domenico . . ." The archbishop fought to control himself. "I saw your grandfather's crowning and ordered your father's"— his voice now was all sweet reason—"but I never knew them to grant the honors to their married duchesses that you would bestow on the Duke of Savoy's daughter."
"It is no more than the wench deserves. We cannot do less for our intended bride. Nor will we offer less."
The arrogance of that was unanswerable. The archbishop glanced swiftly at me as though to measure the pain the words had given me, and then shrugged in his turn. "Well, that is for tomorrow. Today I must extend you the city's loyal greetings and bid you welcome to your palace."
Domenico's eyes glinted with amusement. "Our thanks, my lord." As he moved after his uncle his fingers slipped from mine, and I hesitated, not knowing if I should follow; they were talking of state and I was forgotten. Then the rest of the court came streaming up the steps, and all around me was a sea of light and color, the very air buzzing with speculation.
"Savoy's daughter! Have you heard of her before?"
"I did not know he had one. The four sons, but a daughter . . ."
"My lords, she is a bastard." I recognized Piero's voice, full of delighted laughter. "It seems my lord's Grace has a fondness for the breed."
"A bastard! How do you know?"
"His Grace is not a hard man to unhusk, once you are as close to him as I. Why do you think my lord archbishop looks so sourly upon the match?"
"Oh, my lord archbishop!" There was a high-pitched titter. "He looks sourly upon everything, my dear."
A woman's voice said speculatively, "I wonder why he marries her—for her face or for her dowry?"
"Her dowry, what else?" came the sardonic response. "He can have pretty mistresses by the score, but only one wife to fill his treasury for him."
I wondered jealously whether the Duke of Savoy's daughter was tall or short, dark or fair, and if she would love Domenico as well as I did; and in that moment I understood why Maddalena had hated me so much. If the new Duchess of Cabria were an angel, I would not be able to bear the sight of her. Piero's mocking voice was loud in my ears; it seemed we two were engaged eternally in a game of King of the Castle, one up, the other down. Now that my brief sun was setting, he was climbing high once more, his treachery condoned or else forgotten.
Someone bowed to me, and I looked up, startled, into Ippolito's friendly face.
"Madam, will it please you to follow me?" His voice was gentle. "His Grace has sent me to take you to your apartments."
I said, "I did not know where I shoul
d go."
"I know, and the duke forgot it. The lord archbishop has him in talk about the coronation, but he bade me tell you he will see you at supper."
But at supper Domenico said little to me, only watching me with an odd calculation that made me wonder whether he was planning to discard me here; and even while he talked idly of the coronation ceremony to the Archbishop, he was subtly and scientifically wooing Piero back to his old place at his elbow.
I had not realized how much of the player there was in Domenico—how aware he was of his own attraction, how confident of his beauty. He courted Piero with the shameless-ness of a practiced harlot, luring him with glances and innuen-dos and soft, caressing words. I watched Piero's instinctive caution blossom into astonished delight before my eyes. Gradually he came closer and stayed longer until he was fast by Domenico's side, a rabbit magnetized by a swaying snake.
Seeing them together, touching hands and smiling as though at some secret, my mind filled with uneasy memories—Piero's claim to have had Domenico's love; the unexpected bond, part love and part hatred, which bound him inescapably to the duke and made Domenico so offhandedly cruel. It was something I could never share, so I never spoke of it to Domenico or answered Piero's oblique boasts. But what if it revived? Suppose Piero's treachery had bred a kind of remorse in Domenico and he took him up again?
But late at night, after he had possessed me and lay kissing my breasts, Domenico said thickly, "Does that knave Piero think he can give me a sweetness to rival this? I almost love him for his insolence."
I stiffened and tried to rise, but he pressed me back again.
"His insolence! Why, tonight you dallied with him as if you sought him for a bride!"
"The more fool he, if he will take it so—no, lie still, I have not done. I mean to pay my lord Piero for his treachery, and I must poultice the wound before I lance it."
I stared unseeingly at the shadows overhead. "What will you do?"
"Flatter him, and then kill him." He sounded almost disinterested and pulled away my protesting hand. "Prudery will not serve. . . . It is strange, but I never thought it would come to this. He has clung so long without biting."
"He loves you." I was astonished to hear myself say the words.
"A traitor's love," he retorted.
"I think that is why he betrayed you—when he could not bear it any longer, he took the first treachery that came to his mind."
"I said he was a fool, did I not? Naples, Rome, Romagna, Venice, Genoa, nearly all of Italy is ranged with the pope against me—and he tries to sell me to Ferrenza! To my friend, although God knows why, the one man who has never offered war to Cabria. It must have been madness."
"Then pardon it. The fit is over now, and he has learned his lesson, for he could not suffer much more than he has done since he knew his cipher was lost." But Domenico's body had stiffened, and I knew I was wasting my breath.
"He dies. Not for this only; there are other considerations—it is the reckoning of years and must be paid. I have seen him watch you under his eyelids; he wants the chance to do this. . . ."
He almost startled his name from my Hps, but I managed to bite it back.
"Would you let him?" His words came on a current of low, satisfied laughter. "Would you suffer a traitor's arms about you and give him the liberty I have? No, do not struggle. I am privileged; you must save your modesty for other men. I am not duke for nothing."
I called him despot and tyrant, but he had his way, and Piero seemed forgotten for a little. Then when we slept, Domenico's nightmare came again and woke him screaming and sobbing in the duke's painted chamber.
The palace at Diurno was beyond any building I had ever seen, making the Fidena palace seem bleak and comfortless. It was high and massive, towering over a colonnade of arches, with gilded columns supporting painted ceilings and tall arched windows open to the sun. Everywhere there was light, and I, used to the dark catacombs and howling drafts of the Palazzo della Raffaelle, could hardly believe in its luxury. The day following our arrival, Domenico was closeted with the archbishop and Ippolito—it was the state council over again—and I, in an effort to distract my thoughts, set out to explore.
To begin with, Niccolosa was my resigned escort, but when I met Sandro in my wanderings he promptly offered to show me his home.
"This is my home far more than Fidena," he said in answer to my unspoken question. "I was born dov/n below in the city, and I spent my boyhood here. It is my brother who is the man for Fidena—I swear he loves that bone-freezing palace there as much as he loves anything."
I managed not to wince at his words and smiled instead. I had thought that Sandro might quarrel with his brother over what he had done to Maddalena, but it had not been so. Sandro had sulked ferociously for four days and almost stripped the woods we passed through of their game; then one night, in one of the mountain towns, a merchant's pretty wife had caught his eye.
We had been dining as the merchant's guests, the duke and his nobles, I and a few ladies more. Domenico and his brother had drunk the merchant under the table with the ease of old experience, and after that Sandro had been free to pursue his flattered quarry. To her mind there had been no harm in flirting with so charming a man as the duke's half-brother, and the end was inevitable. For the first time I saw what use Domenico had for the quartet—they went into action as smoothly as a pack of hounds, trapping the woman when she would have fled, encircling her and holding her down for Sandro. I could do nothing, for Domenico was holding me and only laughed when I begged him to stop them. But the gift had seemed to propitiate Sandro, and now he moved through the court with a philosophical air and never referred to the fate of his lost mistress.
Now he bowed deeply, and his blue eyes twinkled at me. "I am at your service, lady, and Madonna Niccolosa here will vouch for my good intentions. And because she knows they far outstrip my virtue, I will not ask her to leave us alone together."
I laughed, and Niccolosa eyed him sourly.
"I would not do so for your asking, my lord. His Grace charged me to be vigilant over the lady."
"So." Sandro nodded like a duelist who acknowledges a point and extended his arm to me gallantly. "Then, lady, will you and your woman honor me with your company while I show you the treaures of the palace?"
I thanked him, swept a brief curtsy, and took his arm. Niccolosa followed at a distance, and we moved slowly along the sunlit gallery.
Though he swore he knew most about the wine cellars and the stables, Sandro proved an expert guide. He showed me the chamber where the full Cabrian council met and the great bronze table, empty now, a block of metal on the backs of four crouching leopards. He watched my astonishment with amusement on his face, then said, "Look up."
I did so and almost reeled. The curving ceiling was a chaos of form and color—satyrs and nymphs, gods and goddesses in luxurious abandon that seemed to deride the solemnity of the chamber. I gazed until the touch of Sandra's hand brought me down to earth again, and he pointed out a sculptured chair, its back meshed with the carved shapes of strange beasts.
"My brother's chair" was his only comment, and I touched it superstitiously as I passed.
After that I lost count of the wonders he showed me; the stairs that glittered like gold, like the track of the sun, the wrought metal and glowing wood and polished marble. Across one landing we went softly, for the duke and the archbishop were but a door's thickness away. Sandro kept well away from the rooms where the courtiers dawdled and gossiped, but when they began to drift through the rooms to stare, he set his teeth and said he would take me down to the palace courtyard.
"The view from the colonnade is a thing you should not miss," he observed. "I do not know many things so well worth seeing."
I went with him eagerly. By now Niccolosa was well behind; I did not think to measure Sandra's pace until I realized that we had lost her in the turns of passages and stairs, and the pressure of Sandra's arm on mine reminded me that we were alon
e. I tried to ignore it and quickened my steps, but now his were lagging.
"There is no hurry, lady—my brother will not be free from the archbishop's tongue for an hour at least."
I blushed uncontrollably. "I was not thinking of him."
Sandro pressed my arm again. "And there you have found the way to keep his interest. He was always a strange-composed fellow for women—they drop into his lap like manna out of heaven—and nothing cloys him so soon as a willing wench. While you can keep him guessing, you can hold him."
My throat went dry as I remembered the night before we started for Diurno. Perhaps that was why Domenico seemed more distant; perhaps he had set himself to shake my unwillingness and had lost interest now it was done. Sandro was watching me sidelong, shrewdly.
"You are a sort of miracle already, lady, do you know that? That you have held my brother for so long—he has not slipped once in this latest faith—is strange enough; but that you hold to him when you know he is to be married, that is enough to enroll you with the saints."
I thought of Bernardo, dead of his injuries on the rack the day I saw him. "I do not think so," I replied lightiy. "There is naught else I could do."
"Pooh, there are many others you could take! Domenico is not the only lord in the world. Sometimes I think he is a madman, for all his craft and guile. You would do better with a plainer man who did not rule you so harshly."
Willfully, I ignored the square brown hand which sought to close around mine. I said, "I cannot change faith as I change my gowns, my lord. I will wear out the one I have and then leave the court to find another habit."
He grimaced scornfully. "What, and be a nun! You should do as other women do and square out your life by the rule of what pays the richest in wealth and pleasure. You will have a small stock of either when my brother weds his Savoyard, or whatever wench he means to couple with."
"I know that; you need not tell me."
"Then why wait meekly to suffer an eclipse? It would be a wonder if you could not shift for yourself, with so brave a face and form."
