by Teresa Denys
Baldassare nodded. "I have orders to take you to Diurno if the worst should happen," he said. "You will be safe with the archbishop."
A gasp of hysteria was startled out of me. Safe with the archbishop! I would as soon trust myself to the Spanish army. I smiled at Baldassare, wondering why he should think it was my safety I feared for. But I knew that Domenico had made the only provision he could; if he were defeated, there would be no more allies, no other safe place to send me.
But now, after what seemed like an eternity, a rider had come to summon us to the city. I could hardly believe in the reality of what was happening. After such an agony of suspense, in which every distant sound seemed like the death cry of the man I loved, I felt as though this were my personal hell: to be doomed to wait forever, while the sun stood still in the sky, and my whole being, body and mind, was racked with continual dread. My heart was pounding as I rode, and I schooled myself to patience, trying not to communicate my tenseness to the mare.
Baldassare spurred level and touched my arm. "Do not fear, madam. You would not have been sent for if it were not a victory—the Spanish could not know that His Grace brought you with him."
"But the duke . . ." I bit my lip. "I do not care for victory or defeat, so long as the duke is safe. Are you sure there was no message from him, messire?"
He shook his head. "None, madam. Captain Valdares sent word only that it was safe for us to enter the city."
I nodded and was silent. I wanted to scream at him for the very calmness with which he sought to soothe me, but I knew that it masked an apprehension almost as great as my own.
Now there was no sign of activity on the city walls other than the triumphant flutter of the silver hawk above the gates. I looked up as we drew near them and saw the frowning walls stretching high above me, seeming to fill the fast-dimming blue of the sky. Oily smoke rolled lazily over the ground, and the earth beneath the horses' hooves was scorched and bare.
The great gates hung askew, splintered and twisted, and the stone archway showed new cracks. It was hard to tell what had been wrought in this day's fighting and what was the result of Gratiana's own siege. As I rode under the arch, I was struck by the unnatural silence within, and the sight that met my eyes as I emerged from the shadow made me rein in the mare involuntarily.
The houses clustered close by the gates had been gutted. What had been a huddle of prosperous solid, stone buildings now stood stark like broken teeth, roofs fallen in and doorways and windows gaping blindly; the very stones were cracked and darkened by fire. Tiles had been smashed, doors wrenched off their hinges, and everywhere there was the decaying aftermath of looting.
I took a deep breath and urged my horse on. The market was unrecognizable; a broad empty space now, littered with refuse, in which a few people were engaged in some sort of barter. I could feel the impact of their eyes as I passed, but their stares were bleak and incurious—they did not care who or what I was so long as I did them no further harm.
My eyes searched the shadows ceaselessly as the horses turned down the wide expanse of the Via Croce. I could see soldiers sheltering under eaves or in doorways, here and there a cluster of wounded, and, in the open space before the cathedral, a pile of heaped corpses from which I averted my gaze. It was the first time I had seen the aftermath of a battle, and what I remember to this day is the heavy silence, the sour sense of waste that hung over the streets like a pall, and the tireless clouds of flies.
"You, Marcello!"
A voice from the dimness of the cathedral steps made me start and stare about me, and as the mare halted, a figure emerged from the shadows at the base of one of the massive columns and peered up at me, narrowing his eyes against the early evening sky. I hesitated only a moment.
"Messire Giovanni! You are alive!"
The woolly head nodded. Santi was standing slightly bowed, supporting his huge bulk against the base of the column, muffled up in a heavy cloak despite the evening's heat. A great bruise distorted one cheek and his face and clothes were caked with grime; as he grinned at me, I could see the grit that had settled between his teeth.
"I do not die so easily, lady, though those Spaniards did their best to finish me off! They put up a good fight, too," he added judiciously.
I wrenched my thoughts back from my own overmastering dread to ask, "Did you have many losses?" and he made a wry face.
"Eight men, perhaps ten. The count is not finished yet. And I lost a valuable servant, too."
"Who . . ." My voice faltered.
In answer, he pushed back the folds of the cloak that swathed his left arm, and I caught my breath as I saw what they had hidden. Santi nodded, watching my face.
"It might have been worse, lady. If it had been my right hand, now! But I shall do well enough once the surgeon has done his work, and if the duke grants me a pension, I shall be well satisfied. I will be able to go back to my home on the marches and end my days in comfort with my wife and children."
I gazed down into the kindly eyes set in the brutal face with a quick rush of affection. "I will speak to the duke about you, messire. I owe you much more than that for your friendship."
"God will bless you, lady." He wound the cloak around the bloody stump of his arm again.
"Have you seen the duke?" I asked uncontrollably. "Is he safe?"
"I heard someone say he was at the palazzo," the big man responded. "Myself, I saw him not two hours since, when he was pushing the men forward to attack the troops in the east courtyard. He had a whole skin then," he added dryly.
I thanked him and set the mare to a trot, Baldassare following behind. Suddenly I could not bear the suspense any longer. I had to know, for good or ill, what had become of Domenico, to see him with my own eyes or else find his body. I forced the mare onwards with sudden impatience, my hands clammy with fear on the reins.
The palace courtyard was in turmoil. Crowds thronged the colonnades—people came and went, soldiers and commoners jostled one another, and a dozen languages clamored in a veritable Babel. Every citizen who had something to say, every captain with an errand, seemed to be crowded into that seething arena.
I stopped, appalled, on the edge of the crowd. Even if I could have forced my way through, there was no way I could find a single man in this bedlamite rout. Baldassare, however, dismounted and caught my horse's bridle, leading it through the throng to the foot of the palace steps.
"Here, madam," he called above the noise. "Here is Madonna Niccolosa sent to find you."
The old woman was standing like a rock amidst the waves of humanity, and at the sight of her grim face, I felt a lump grow in my throat. I slid untidily out of the saddle and ran up the steps to her, leaving Baldassare to cope with the mare.
"Niccolosa, are you safe? Has anyone harmed you? I thought I should never see you again!"
Bony arms closed around me briefly, and there were tears on the wrinkled cheek laid against mine. Seen so close, she looked a little older; the lines in her face were deeper, and there seemed to be a heavier sprinkling of gray in the severely dressed hair.
"I have been well enough, my lady. Those Spaniards treated us fairly once the city was yielded. Besides, the duchess knows me, and she made sure I came to no harm. But now she is to be sent away again in good earnest—the duke is having her conveyed home to Spain."
"The duke . . ." I gripped her arms urgently. "Have you seen the duke, Niccolosa?"
"Indeed I have." Her momentary emotion was gone, and her lips primmed themselves into their usual uncompromising line. "It is by his orders that I am here."
Quick joy engulfed me. "Then take me to him. Quickly!"
She shook her head firmly. "I am commanded to help you change your clothes before you go to him. And now that I see you, I know why he charged me so strictly to see it done!"
Color tinged my cheeks under her censorious look, and I said defensively: "I have been riding with His Grace's army. It was simpler for me to dress so. . . ."
"And to cut off all your hair?" she questioned sourly. "Well, there has been much mischief, I do not doubt. But hurry, my lady, there is no time to waste—the duke sent word you are to meet him by six of the clock, and by then you must be ready."
I followed her up the steps and into the palace, giddy with conflicting emotions. My fear for Domenico's safety was subsiding under Niccolosa's acid matter-of-factness, and old habits were asserting themselves again at the sound of familiar words.
"The duke sends for you."
"No time to waste."
"Hurry." "Hurry." "Hurry . . ."
Most of the faces I saw as we made our hasty way through the palace looked strange to me. Some were soldiers I had never seen before, whose very livery was strange; some were townsfolk helping with the business of scouring Fidena clean of the Spanish invaders: but throughout the catacomblike passages was a restlessness, a sense of disturbance, and men scurried frenziedly back and forth like ants whose nest has been broken open. Through the banqueting hall we went, into the duke's anteroom, up the grand staircase. . . .
I checked in my stride. "The Spanish have not been here," I said with a strange feeling of certainty.
Niccolosa glanced at me curiously, then shook her head. "No, my lady. The duchess made much of her grief for the death of Lord Alessandro and chose to sleep in his old apartments in the west tower. She said that to enter the duke's rooms would contaminate her." She hesitated. "Is it true, what we heard—that His Grace killed Lord Alessandro with his own hands?"
"Yes, but in a fair fight." Fair inasmuch as both of them fought foul, I thought. "Were you told that?"
The old woman seemed to relax slightly. "No . . . the tale was of cold-blooded murder. I am glad to know the truth of it."
I remembered the dusty road, the almost tangible stink of hate, and the sound of Sandro's breathing; I was glad in my turn that she would never know all the truth. Instead, I followed her down the silent corridor to the room I had left to look for Domenico, so many days ago.
It was strange, I thought absently, to be scolded by Niccolosa again. She would not allow questions that might delay her in her work; instead, she exclaimed over the calluses that the horse's reins had made on my hands, brought scissors to trim the ragged ends of my hair, and bathed me with a care that relaxed my aching muscles, insensibly easing the tension from my taut body.
I submitted to her ministrations with a grateful sigh and let her dress me and rebuke me as if I were a small child again and she my mother.
It was stranger still to be a woman again, I thought at last as I studied my reflection. The brief masquerade in Majano had faded like a dream and now seemed so long ago that I felt as though I had been "Marcello" forever. Now the gleaming black silk of the first gown Niccolosa had seized in her haste, the rustling petticoat webbed with gems, made my reflected image seem as strange to me as it was on that first night, the night I was taken from my prison for the pleasure of the man who had bought me. Niccolosa combed my hair smoothly and severely, pinning the ends high on the crown, and in the mirror I could see no sign of the dusty, shabby fugitive who had peered waveringly at me out of streams or dully from a gun's gleaming barrel, over the past weeks.
I met Niccolosa's eyes in the mirror, and she nodded her approval. "Your jewels are gone, my lady—the duchess demanded them the moment she entered the palace—but I do not doubt His Grace will have them of her again! You look very fair without them," she added in a bracing tone.
"No matter. I still have my ring."
I drew it from its hiding place and put it on my betrothal finger; if Niccolosa noticed the change, she made no comment. The bruises made by Domenico's fingers when he spoke of Isabella's death were almost faded; there was only a trace of discoloration across my knuckles now, I noticed vaguely.
I said, to divert my thoughts before fear could begin to grow again, "I did not know you came from Ferrenza, Niccolosa."
She paused for a moment, then replied briskly, "I was bom in the capital, and I served as lady-in-waiting to the duchess and her daughters. How did you find out where I came from, my lady?"
"By your voice," I answered. "You have not lost your accent even after all these years. I recognized it when I heard it in Majano."
The gnarled old hands were still, and she turned a pathetically eager face to me. "You—you went to Majano, you and the duke?"
"Yes—our soldiers come from the Duke of Ferrenza."
Briefly, omitting most of the details, I told her of the journey to Ferrenza and its outcome. She showed no interest in Domenico's motives for going there or what means he had used to get control of the army; she cared only for news of Niccolo Amerighi, of how he had looked and behaved, of what he had said.
"He was charming," I told her truthfully, "charming and kind. But he has grieved so much that sometimes, they say, he wants his wits."
I found I could not tell her of the babbling child who sometimes inhabited the man's body, and I wondered whether she would urge me further, but she only nodded.
"For my lady Isabella, I do not doubt. He always loved her more than any other living creature, and I feared for his reason when he found out she was to be sent to live so far away. He charged me on his blessing to care for her, and I did my best, but"—she shrugged—"Isabella was too sure that she had heard God's voice to be guided by me. When she found out that the voice was not God's but her own, it was too late."
"Duke Niccolo took me for her," I said involuntarily, and Niccolosa stared.
"But you are nothing like her to look at!"
I held out my hand and showed her the pearl ring. "It was because of this. He said he gave it to her, and she . . ." I faltered. "She gave it to our duke."
"Did she so?" Niccolosa took my hand and peered closely. "I know she used to wear such a one—she would not be parted from it—but I did not think that was the same. I thought it had been buried with her. It was Niccolo's gift, you say?"
"Yes."
"Then that was why she treasured it. I never knew sister and brother so fond of each other."
I let the subject go gladly when she started suddenly and said, "It is after six, my lady. We cannot stand talking here! You must go to the duke!"
My heart bounded; my breath caught in my throat, and I began to tremble uncontrollably. Anything that had happened in the past was trifling now against the fact that I was to see Domenico. He may be wounded, I thought; he may be scarred. How could I have stood so long talking of petty things when all that mattered was that I should see him, touch him. . . .
I answered, "Yes," and followed her out of the room.
As we reached the head of the grand staircase, I could hear the commotion below. I heard a harsh, rasping voice utter a shrill cry, then a stream of unintelligible words; then a woman ran out of the duke's anteroom into the hall below, bowed and ungainly, still shrieking abuse. Guards moved with her, mocking her, imitating her cries of distress with shrieks like a parrot's, and as she turned from one to another I glimpsed an eagle profile convulsed with hate.
Niccolosa put a soothing hand over my wrist. "The duchess Gratiana," she said quietly. "They are taking her back to Spain."
The black-clad guards closed in inexorably upon the old woman in gaudy purple and pushed her roughly towards the palace doors. A few fragments of vicious Spanish drifted back as the doors closed behind her and then she was gone. The whole scene had taken less than a minute, but I was left feeling sick.
The hand on my wrist tightened. "Hurry, my lady "
Hurry.
My last chance to change my mind. The last chance to turn my back on a glory of happiness that would always hold a drop of poison, for I knew that love would not turn the silver devil into an angel. He would remain what he was—subtle yet childish, unfeeling yet passionate, lost irretrievably to everything but his own desires. But he loved me—and I loved him, now and forever.
Niccolosa had gone on ahead, and I quickened my pace to catch up with her.
<
br /> "Where are we going?" I asked breathlessly.
"To the chapel. I was bidden to bring you there."
"The chapel!" I was too astonished even to begin to reason it out. "But why?"
"His Grace ordered it, my lady, and you know he is niggardly with his reasons."
I knew. I knew, too, that whatever Niccolosa might have guessed, she would keep to herself. I could only follow and strive for patience.
"Torches were blazing in the passage that led to the chapel, and in that moment I realized that that was one of the reasons the palace had seemed somehow strange—in most of the rooms the torches had been doused and men carried lamps to light the way. But here the familiar flames licked arrogantly, casting dancing shadows on the ribbed stone walls, and I was stabbed by the poignancy of homecoming.
Niccolosa turned the handle of the chapel door and stood back for me to enter. There were only four people in the pool of candlelight before the altar: Baldassare, the mercenary captain Valdares, Father Vincenzo—and Domenico.
My first thought was that he was Duke of Cabria again, barbered and trimmed, tall and shining and consciously beautiful in black cloth stitched with silver. He was standing erect, with no sign of any hurt upon him except for one ugly red seam across the knuckles of his sword hand, and there was an incandescent triumph in his black eyes. As I met his gaze, I ran to him and carried his wounded hand to my lips; he smiled and turned his fingers to cup my cheek.
"Well, Felicia?"
There was a note of teasing in his voice that did not match the sudden hunger between his lashes.
I said simply: "I was afraid for you."
He made a slight, negating gesture. "It was as I thought— they did not expect an attack. They had not even re victualed the city. We had only to reach Gratiana and order her to call off her Spanish dogs." His tone made light of the whole day's fighting, but I glimpsed a shadow of cynicism on Valdares's sallow face and wondered where the truth lay.
