by Teresa Denys
I heard Amerighi's triumphant gasp as a knot broke, and in the same moment a scuffling sound came from near the doorway, the ring of metal, and a crash as something fell. I struggled to get up, scoring my hands on the crushed bespangled silk of the Madonna's robe, and it was my movement, not the sound, that caught Amerighi's attention. He raised serpent-bright eyes from his own working fingers, and I thought he said, "No!" His hand came out as though to press me back again, but then he checked, and I caught the startled, hawklike poise of his profile before I twisted away from him.
Something lay doubled on the black and white flags like the parody of a newborn baby—the body of one of the guards. The second man stood astride it, pike upraised, trying desperately to beat off his adversary. The sound of the last blow still reverberated as the man tensed to ward off another.
Domenico had moved so swiftly that I could barely follow the movement, catching up the fallen soldier's pike and swinging the shaft to catch the second a glancing blow on the head. As the man reeled back, another caught him, sending him crashing backwards to the ground. He had no time for more than a startled grunt before the pike head caught him full in the face, scattering his brains on the floor.
Amerighi's shadow moved between me and the doorway, and when it had passed, I saw Domenico standing on the steps, looking down at him. My breath caught in my throat.
His face was flushed and working, his black eyes slitted and dangerous and his lips curling slowly back from his teeth in an animal's snarl. I waited for the wrath choking him to find a voice.
"You shall not have her." His voice was harsh and breathless. "She is mine."
Amerighi shook his head. "Not now, my dear Cousin. I won her fairly, and I shall take her. Keep back!"
Domenico took a slow, prowling pace forward. "Do not touch her, for your life."
The chestnut head moved warily; Amerighi took a step backwards, and his hand met my arm and slid deliberately to my breast when I tried to twist away. The thin fingers were warm and dry.
"You yourself admitted that I had won."
Domenico did not seem to hear; he only watched the hand. Then his eyes lifted, a savage sneer on his beautiful face. "Do you expect the devil to keep his word?"
"Do you think I will give her up now?"
"Yes, by God!" With one impossibly fluid movement Domenico had thrown the clumsy pike aside and was across the room, his hand gripping the hilt of Amerighi's discarded rapier and shaking it free of the scabbard. As he turned, the blade glinted, and there was an odd smile on his face.
"We have fought on your terms—now we will fight on mine. Do you have another of these . . . crude instruments . . . in your precious palace, Uncle Niccolo?"
Amerighi's long face was gray, and the light dusting of freckles stood out against his skin like seared burns. "Yes, on the wall out there. Between this doorway and the one leading to the dining chamber."
The bright head inclined proudly. "I will fetch it. Do not think to call the rest of your guards—they are not as worthy of your victual as the men in your army."
Amerighi's hand quivered, and as it was withdrawn, I pulled myself up, trying to drag the robe around me again. The flags were icy under my feet as I lowered them to the floor, and then Domenico's voice called, "Now," and Amerighi's own sword spun in a silvery arc towards him. The bony hand caught it deftly, and at once the battle was joined.
There was no pretense of courtliness in this duel. Domenico was quivering with impatience as he threw the sword; the moment Amerighi grasped it, he seemed to surge forward like an animal on its prey, and Amerighi's first upward swing—like a spear at Domenico's breast—-met a downward blow in a deafening ring of blades.
The furious attack drove Amerighi back from the doorway, his free hand groping along the wall as he retreated from the steps that led out of his sister's shrine. His face was losing its expression of wariness, and now he looked calm and calculating, the fire in his eyes burned down to a steady gleam. Domenico's face was that of a devil as he forced his opponent back across the shining floor.
But he was tiring. His first blind rage was dying as Amerighi managed to parry the murderous strokes, and the frenzied look on his face altered to grim concentration. His blade slowed from its hissing arcs, as though he realized that he faced a swordsman against whose cunning fury would avail him nothing.
Now the sword blades rested together, lightly crossed and almost imperceptibly flickering. It was as though the two opponents were constantly testing each other, the tiniest move instantly countered as the two men stood, watching each other's faces. Their swords barely stirred. Watching them, I could feel my heart pounding so hard that it hurt me, and I thought: I shall die if he is killed.
Once Amerighi thrust, and the blades crossed higher, close to Domenico's cheekbone, so that I bit my lip in an effort not to cry out. But the white arm bore down the black, the swords steadied, and I was glad that I had held my peace. Amerighi's movements were quick and deft—there was no ungainliness now about his thin, tensed body—but Domenico moved with a supple strength almost insolent in its beauty, arm and rapier and slim body in a single lithe curve of destruction. It seemed somehow blasphemous that something so beautiful could be so deadly.
They were fighting in the gallery itself now, and Amerighi's retreat was taking him through the yawning archway which led to the staircase and down to the great hall: He sensed it, for his gaze was flickering around the gallery walls, assessing, measuring. Then, suddenly, he moved, pressing himself flat against the arch so that Domenico's momentum carried him on, exposing his back to his opponent.
It seemed impossible for Domenico to turn in time, but somehow the blade was there, parrying a downward slash; a gasp caught in my throat and was stifled. Amerighi attacked again, gripping the silken hanging as he fought, but now they had turned so that it was Domenico who retreated first on to the wide landing.
There was a flurry as Amerighi launched himself forward. The rapiers locked, and for a moment the two straining figures were breast to breast. Amerighi was staring up into Domenico's eyes almost hungrily. Then a shudder of something like revulsion ran through the locked bodies, and Domenico jerked away sharply. At once Amerighi's knee came flashing up in an ugly foul—Domenico stepped back, stumbled, and was driven back against the baluster behind him.
The breath was driven from his body in a sharp gasp as he slammed against the railing; then his sword flashed over his head in a dizzying arc and the duke's thin wrists were gripped and held.
Amerighi's weight was forcing Domenico back over the railing, the white figure bent impossibly under the black. The bright head shone above the well of space, the empty floor yawning twilit far below; yet there was no fear in Domenico's face, only a fierce corroding anger. Then, with a convulsive writhe like a cat turning to fall on its feet, he managed to twist partially free. The strength of his arms forced Amerighi back, and he straightened out of that tortuous position like a bow when the string is released. He hefted his sword a little as though it clung to his sweating fingers, and he was panting now. I stood in the doorway, forgotten, my hands clenched uselessly at the breast of my gown, fearing even to blink in case I should miss the fraction of a stroke. Though I was the object of the duel in name, I was no more than an excuse—the wounds which bred this fight would be healed by nothing less than this. It was not I they fought for, but Isabella.
At first I did not see the shadow on the stairs, for the combatants blocked my view, and I had to look again before I was sure; even when I recognized the discreet bearing and plump, polite moonface of Filippo Marcionni, I did not stop to wonder what he was doing there. It was only when I saw the gleam of something bright in his hand that I realized what he meant to do.
Amerighi had not seen him. There was still time. Then, as Marcionni raised the dagger, I screamed, "Domenico!"
For one eternal moment they all stood frozen, and Domenico's face wore a look of wild shock, as though one of the statues had s
poken. Then, before he could turn his head more than a little, Marcionni took a pace forward and his quick ears caught the footfall.
In a movement so dazzlingly swift that I could not at first see what he had done, he disengaged and stabbed behind him, not bothering to turn but simply driving the rapier backwards in one murderous blow. It was the weight on his blade, not the scream, which made him check. He jerked the sword free impatiently, bringing it up to counter Amerighi's stroke and, as he did so, bent to grip the dying valet's body by the belt. Then, without pause—almost without effort—he straightened, lifting the body with him, and tipped it over the banisters to fall to the floor below with a smack like a carcass on a butcher's slab. It was only as he turned to stare at Amerighi with fury blazing afresh in his face that I saw the scarlet stain spreading on his right shoulder. The valet's blade must have found a mark.
I clutched at the hangings in agony, my nails tearing the priceless stuff. But Domenico paid as much heed to the wound as he might have done to an insect's sting; it only served to infuriate him.
Fire-eyed, white-lipped, he drove at Amerighi with such ferocity that the older man retreated across the landing and down the stairs. Step by hard-fought step they went down, the clash of blades echoing vastly up and down the shallow, curving staircase. I left the wall against which I was pressing myself and darted to the banisters to look after them.
They had reached the floor, and Amerighi was flagging seriously now. His guileful but too-cautious fencing was no match for Domenico's half-insane recklessness and the speed and savagery that anger had lent his arm. Amerighi's face was ashen, and his mouth hung open as he strove for breath, the calm slipping from his strokes.
He was backing more swiftly, and now he was not calculating where his retreat was taking him. Domenico's whipping blade was driving him up against one of the great pillars supporting the carved ceiling: It sang in his ears, sapping his courage, trapping him against the column to be spitted like a chicken. I could see the thin black shape spread-eagled, free hand clutching the stone, the motion of the right arm growing wilder and wilder; and then Domenico's blade wrenched the sword from his hand, and the dark head turned to watch it as it fell.
Domenico's arm drew back to make an end, and I waited, my pulses racing as though I were fevered, for him to strike.
He stood still for what seemed like a century, and there was no sound in the whole, vast hall. One thrust would have ended Amerighi's life, yet Domenico did not move. He was staring fixedly at the duke; I could not read his half-averted face, but the tension in the line of his back made my scalp prickle. Then slowly, as though great weights were dragging at it, his sword arm fell to his side.
Without being aware of moving, I found myself running down the stairs towards him. I could not believe that he would show this mercy to an enemy—-something had happened that I could not see. . . .
He did not turn as I came up beside him. He was still gazing at Amerighi, and there was a curious look on his face; shock and nausea mingled with something like superstitious terror. Then I followed his fixed stare and saw why.
Amerighi's face was wiped clean of the frenzy of desperation; he stood calm and quiet, straightening his disheveled clothing with compulsive neatness, paying no attention to either of us. He might have been alone, his fingers at work on a torn cuff, his unfocused gaze turned inward upon someone or something no one else could see.
Domenico whispered, "Cousin?" harshly, and the blank eyes lifted to his face without a trace of recognition. Then, half-aimlessly, Amerighi took a few wandering steps forward, looking around him as though he did not know where he was.
Obeying an impulse I scarcely understood, I put out my hand to touch his arm as he came level with me. He stopped then, and his eyes went uncomprehendingly to my hand as it rested on his dark sleeve; and then he took it between his cold ones and examined it as intently as a child might do. Frightened, but oddly moved, I stood motionless.
He touched the ring on my finger and turned it curiously; then, slowly, on his blank face a radiant smile grew.
"You have it still." His voice was very gentle, and joy throbbed in it. "Dear Sister, I knew you would not give my ring away in truth. You lied when you wrote that you had given it to your paramour, did you not?"
"I said in a dry whisper, "Yes, Niccolo," and his hands tightened on mine. I could feel Domenico's eyes on me, but I could not bring myself to disillusion Amerighi; in his mind I was his sister, miraculously back from the dead, and it was impossible to shrink from such joyous tenderness. He might be mad, but I felt no fear—to him it was as though one of the events of this night had never been.
He looked from the pearl ring to my face with a child's anxiety.
"You are here to stay now, Isabella? The fat Cabrian will not come to fetch you back?"
I shook my head. "Duke Carlo is dead. He died more than two months ago."
"I remember." He nodded gravely. "I had a message from della Quercia—you were right not to trust him, sister; I bought him for less than nothing—and I thought you would come to me then, as soon as you were free. But I forgot," he corrected himseif, watching my face, "you were dead too, and you could not come. It was for that, was it not, and not because you loved the Cabrian's son too well to leave him?"
"Yes, it was for that."
"My dearest sister." He kissed my hand. "I knew you would keep your oath never to love another man as you loved me. And I have kept the oath I swore to you, so that now God will reward our constancy by suffering us to live together for the rest of our days."
"You delude yourself." Domenico's voice broke the spell. "God may suffer it, but I will not."
Amerighi looked up bewilderedly. "Why, who is this?"
"It . . ." I felt sick with a new fear as I stared into the dark eyes. "It is the man who brought me from Cabria."
"Why does he seek to command you?"
"Should I not?" The whisper was directed at me, and I felt the color flame in my cheeks.
"Sister?" Amerighi's insistent voice was almost beseeching. "Does Cabria grudge you to me even now, that he sends this fellow with you?"
"No . . ."
"Yes," a fraying voice interposed. "Cabria does grudge her.''
"I will stay with you, Niccolo." I turned my back on Domenico as I spoke, looking up into the pathetically strained face of the man who held my hand. Anger was burning in me that Domenico could, even now, be so childishly cruel, and in that moment I meant what I said. Amerighi's eyes lit up, and his hands gripped mine urgently.
"Truly, Isabella? You will swear it?"
I was about to make my promise to him when a noise at the far end of the hall made me turn to see an armed man blinking in the doorway. Others with lanterns stood behind him, peering warily around the hall. Domenico turned swiftly, but Amerighi's attention never wavered.
The leader, a short swarthy man, called out sharply, "My lord the Duke!"
There was no response, not a flicker to show that Amerighi had heard.
The silence was suddenly terrible, and Domenico's voice cut into it like a knife. "Who and what are you?"
The man turned, eyeing him suspiciously. "I am the captain of my lord duke's army. The palace guards sent for us when they heard the sounds of fighting—they are cowards, every one." Uncontrollable scorn tinged his voice. "What has been happening here?"
I saw Domenico tense, then his bright head lifted a little, arrogantly. "Your master and I have had a . . . friendly trial of our strength." He spoke levelly, watching the man. "I have need of the services of you and your men, and it was a wager between us to prove to him that I know a little of fighting."
The man nodded slowly, his gaze resting dispassionately on the scarlet patch on Domenico's shoulder. "And you will tell me that you won this fight, this . . . wager?"
"After a fashion," Domenico agreed negligently.
"And the dead man?"
"He tried to help his master. . . . He did not realize that we were fig
hting in jest. It was he who gave me this." He touched the wound with a casual fingertip. "In attacking me he slipped on the stairs and fell on his own dagger."
The man's eyebrows lifted ironically, and his breath hissed gently between his teeth. "And then?"
"What else? Your master, being a man of honor, resigned to me to redress his servant's foul—that is why I say I won after a fashion. Ask your duke if it is not so." There was a devilish gleam in the dark eyes.
The dark man glanced at Amerighi and said tonelessly, "You know it is useless to speak to him. He has fallen into one of his fits, and it may be weeks or months before we get any sense from him again."
"Is he often so?"
"More frequently of late—it was why he was brought here to dwell out of the capital, for his own good and the state's. He is harmless, but in these fits he is like a child." He tapped his forehead. "And we have to wait for them to pass, like spots across the sun. What began it?"
Domenico's smile was not pleasant. "The heat of combat; I would say so."
The man nodded again. "Yes. And what must I call my new master, when my old one cannot gainsay his orders?"
A long breath, like a sigh, escaped from Domenico. Then he said, "I am the Duke of Cabria. You and your men will be ready to ride with me tonight, across the mountains to Fidena; the Spanish army has possession of my city, and with your help I will win it back."
"The Spanish!" The man gave a wry smile. "Well, it will not be the first time I have fought my countrymen. What of the woman?" The question made me jump: I thought he had scarcely noticed my presence.
"The woman is not your concern. Go and warn your men, and take that carrion and that—your master—out of here."
Domenico turned his back dismissively, and the captain signed to his men to carry Marcionni's body away. He himself crossed the floor and put his hand on Amerighi's shoulder.
"My lord Duke, you must come with me. It is urgent."
