"Where are you going, wench? The way to the street is through that gate yonder."
"I know." I tried to free myself from his grip. "I work in the kitchens here."
"Do you so? Why have I not seen you before, then? I come here often, and I would not forget a wench like you."
"I do not come down to wait upon the guests."
"They wait upon you above stairs, is that it?" The merchant's eyes gleamed. "To think that fat oaf Guardi never told me! Well, that is soon remedied. Hold out your hand."
I put my free hand behind my back, and he laughed.
"No need for this coyness! Ask your master if I am not liberal enough when a wench is kind. Hold out your hand, and then we can go into the stables yonder and do our business."
He was fumbling with his purse as he spoke, and I tried desperately to jerk away from him. The coins spilled, and he looked up with the smile gone from his face.
"What, are you too proud for me? I have dealt with your kind before, with your nun's faces and your harlot's tricks to raise your price. Come on." His smile now was a sort of grimace. "I shall not hurt you, and there will be a silver piece for you after."
He was trying to press the money into my palm as I struggled, panic-stricken. Then another hand, square and red, caught my shoulder and pulled me sharply around.
"What are you doing here after I forbade you?" Celia's face was flushed, her lips tight and her eyes glittering. "You impudent slut!"
"This girl," the merchant interposed, "was importuning me for money. I understood you kept a virtuous house, mistress."
Celia shot him a swift look, but if she saw the satisfaction behind the assumed outrage she did not heed it. "I cannot be hearkening after every wench in the place, messire. What did she say to you?"
The pouting lips primmed. "I cannot say what she offered me for my money. I was hurrying home to tell my wife the tidings when she ran after me and hung on my arm..."
"No!" Somehow I found my voice. "He is lying. It was he who caught me...."
"What is all this?" Antonio's voice broke in. "Felicia, what do you here? What has happened, wife?"
I tried to speak, but Celia said curtly, "Hold your tongue," and I listened to the merchant telling his tale again; by now it bore so little resemblance to the truth that I could not recognize myself in his words. Celia watched me all the time, the spite in her face intensifying with every word. When he had done, she said, "We shall see her punished, never fear."
"And well she deserves it." The merchant glanced at me. "It is such strumpets as these that bring a house into ill repute."
"We will teach her better behavior." Antonio looked black. "Go in, girl, and stay in your room until I come to you!"
Without a word I turned and ran across the yard, into the inn and up the stairs to the attic. From the window I could see the little group down below in the sunlight; Antonio and Celia still soothing Messire Luzzato, he settling his gown and preparing to depart. A few words more and then he strolled towards the gateway with a malicious backward glance at the other two.
I saw them discussing which of them was to go inside and attend to the guests; then they looked around, startled, as the messenger came hurrying out of the taproom to mount his horse again, with the throng at his heels. In a moment the yard was full of milling people, and it was only when I heard footsteps on the stairs that I turned quickly from the window.
They stood together just inside the door, their faces hard and unforgiving. Antonio was sweating with the heat, his shirt clinging to his fat back; his hands, the thumbs dug into the wide belt encircling his paunch, were twitching like the skin on a cow's back. Celia stood arms akimbo, her broad face frighteningly aflame with pure hate.
"I warned you, Antonio." There was a note of triumph in her voice. "I told you she would prove no better than a harlot. Perhaps now you will credit what I say."
"That man..."I was stammering, hardly able to form the words. "He was lying. I never asked him for money. He said what he did because I would not go with him."
"A pretty tale! Are we to take your word sooner than that of one of our most valued customers?"
"Yes, it is true!"
Celia's lips sneered. "Very likely—when a man with his money can find fifty fairer on any street corner! Was it your maiden modesty made you deny him or fear of being discovered?"
"I... I am frightened of being touched." I looked imploringly at Antonio. "You know I am telling the truth."
He hesitated, and Celia turned on me. "No matter if you are—you disobeyed me, you little slut, and that is enough to get you a beating. If you had not been where you had no business, that worm Luzzato would never have seen you. Besides, I don't doubt you would have gone with him if I had not come when I did."
Sickened, I said no, but she swept on.
"All these months we have fed you, housed you, clothed you even, and this is our thanks, you ungrateful little bitch! There are few enough new wedded couples who would give a home to a penniless, nameless slut like you, let alone treat you so kindly!"
"Why keep me, then?" Wisdom and my vows of patience alike forgotten, I turned to face her. For a moment her eyes were astonished, then they hardened. Her lips were tight.
"I know my Christian duty well enough." "But you do not want me here. Why..."
"Ask him." She jerked her head contemptuously at Antonio. "He was the one who would keep you."
"Be silent, woman!" Antonio roared. "It is not your business."
"Oh, is it not? Then let me tell you..."
"She can take her punishment for being disobedient! Naught else matters." Antonio's face was purple. "Here, I will teach her conduct!"
A blow from his hamlike hand sent me reeling back; I came up against the edge of the bed and stood, swaying, waiting for the next. But to my astonishment it did not come—there was only the slam of the door and the sound of Celia's voice raised in protest on the stairs.
Shakily, I sat down on the bed. I knew why Antonio felt bound to keep me and why he had believed my story rather than Messire Luzzato's — he knew that my fear of men was real and not feigned, and in the furtive glance he had given me I could read the memory that still troubled his conscience. He had never forgotten the night seven years after my mother died when my stepfather tried to force his way into my bed, and he had had to drag him off. He knew well enough how frightened I had been then and how for years afterwards I could never bear to sleep in the dark. For once, not even Celia's venom would make him punish me for a trespass he knew I would never commit.
For three days I stayed in my room, and no one came near me but Celia. She would not speak to me nor answer any of my questions, but I could see a gloating look in her eyes as though to see me shut up gave her pleasure. She brought me food every day—not much—and stuff for sewing, for not even when I was penned up in disgrace would she waste a pair of hands. In those days I spent the daylight hours interminably sewing, and the darkness with no occupation but my own thoughts, for now I was not allowed even a candle.
There was no news of the duke's army; at least no one spoke of it in my hearing, and I began to think that there must have been a second battle and all our soldiers slain on their way back to Fidena. But on the fourth day I heard the ostlers talking.
"Tomorrow, is it? He has not stirred himself to bring his army home."
"Why should he hurry when he has the victory? He has spoils enough and prisoners enough to hamper him, for all I hear."
The first lad grunted. "At least he will not stay in the field before the city when he comes. At his age he will be eager for his own bed."
"Aye, and his loving wife, too."
There was an explosion of laughter, hastily muffled.
"Did you hear he means to hale her after him in his triumph and make her give thanks with him for his victory over her kinsman?"
"Trust old Carlo. He'll tame that spiteful harridan yet."
Their laughter faded as they separated to their work, and I
stitched furiously as I pondered their words. To me the news was like the fresh chapter of a child's fairy tale; none of these great folk were any more real to me then than the knights and dragons my mother used to tell of, but their doings peopled my loneliness. A little while after, I heard Antonio below, talking of the triumphal procession which would pass our very door. He was a made man, he boasted; he could rent places at the windows overlooking the street and be rich in a day. I thought of the duchess Gratiana and wondered how she would brook this public rejoicing over her country's defeat; even whether she grieved for the men who had died because of the breach between her and her husband. But now, looking back, I know that she would never even have thought of anything so petty.
Duke Carlo made such leisurely way northwards that he arrived not the next day but the one after, and then he rode hastily through the city to reach the palazzo in secret. Rumor had it that he was ever a mountebank, a crowd pleaser, and did not mean to spoil the effect of his appearance in the great procession by being too much seen. By now I no longer gave Celia the satisfaction of asking when I might go free—I schooled myself to an enforced content, refusing to beg for my liberty, and lived on the scraps of news heard from my window to nourish my starving spirit.
It was from a friend of Celia's own, a woman who sold fruit in the market, that I learned of the Lord Alessandro's return to the city. He was untroubled by his father's caution and wound a circuitous path through the marketplace, basking in the applause of the citizens.
Celia had come out to the gateway, her expression truculent, but she stayed, interested in spite of herself by what the woman had to say.
"... no, not haughty at all, and with as pleasant a smile as you could wish to see! He made his horse step so carefully, you would think he feared to frighten the children—but they pressed about him, and one he lifted up and set him on the horse before him—I wonder he does not wed himself; he would make so good a father!"
"For all I hear," Celia said sourly, "he would not be contented with one woman."
"And why should he be? He is young yet, surely."
"Four-and-thirty or thereabouts," Celia supplied blightingly.
"Well, there is still plenty of time. No doubt he means to marry for love." The woman sighed. "He was kissing his hand to the maids in the marketplace—clapping the men on the shoulder—and some of the pretty wenches, he kissed their hands as though they had been duchesses! He would have kissed mine, too, but that there was a great tall fellow in front of me who would not stir out of the way, so he bowed to me instead."
"Court manners!" Celia snorted, but she sounded envious. "He meant nothing by it, I swear, but mischief to those young women."
"Now there you wrong him, Mistress Guardi, I dare be sworn you do. He meant no mischief; it was the overflow of his good heart."
Celia abandoned the point. "What does he look like, close?"
"Oh, handsome and cheerful—he favors the old duke's family. Short like Duke Carlo and dark as he was when he was young, but with a square sort of face like a box. And he has blue eyes, and they never came from the Raffaelle side."
"You sound half in love with him," Celia said scornfully.
"All Fidena is, Mistress Guardi. I give you my word! No one who saw him can talk of aught else, he was so merry and courteous."
Yet he can have had little cause to be merry, I thought. Fidena so resounded with Lord Alessandro's popular return that the people had forgotten the less than glorious part their idol had played in the battle, forgotten the soldiers who had followed him to their deaths, and had seen only the smile of victory on the Bastard's face. To them he was the flower of Cabria, the hope of his house, and the pride of Fidena; the duke's heir and his nobles rode in unregarded while the citizens were lost in admiration of the general who had cost the state so many lives. So eager were they to show their approval that they were up at dawn on the day of the duke's triumph to cheer for the lord Sandro.
The voices in the street woke me, and in the fast-growing light I rose and hurried into my old black dress. I was sure that today, of all days, Celia must relent. The city was keeping holiday, and even the port would lie idle today while the duke rode to the cathedral to give thanks to God for his victory over the Spanish. It was unthinkable that I should stay cribbed up in my bare, stuffy room while the sounds of rejoicing were beginning to echo against lath and plaster.
I wanted to pace the floor in my impatience, but it was too cramped; instead, I sat down to wait, with what patience I could muster, for the sound of Celia's tread upon the stairs. I thought I must be dreaming when I heard her voice below, in the yard. She cannot, I thought feverishly, she cannot have forgotten me.
Celia's best gown stood out vividly among the crowd down below in the sunlight, purple glinting with gold thread; and her voice sounded clearly above the hubbub. "... not enough brains to reserve one window in the whole house for your wife, you money-grubbing, fat-brained oaf! Well, now you can pay Barilli's boy what I promised him for saving us places on the steps of San Domenico, and see how you like that!"
Her denunciation was swallowed up in the surrounding noise as the two of them vanished into the crowd. Poor Antonio, I thought. He never thinks beyond his own immediate gain; and then I remembered, with a sickening feeling, what their departure meant to my hopes. I was not to go free. I must spend this day like every other, doing penance for a fault that was not mine—and fasting, I remembered wryly, until Celia returns and thinks of sending me something to eat.
I turned away from the window, measuring the time. The duke would come to the cathedral at noon and pass here a little before; it might be that Antonio and Celia would return then, but it was far more likely that they would wait, fearing to lose their dearly bought places in the crowd, until the procession had passed again on its way back to the palazzo. Whichever they did, the day for which I had harbored such hopes stretched emptily before me.
Then, suddenly, I laughed aloud, and the sound rang back oddly from the plaster walls.
I am as foolish as Antonio, I thought, moping because I cannot see the procession. Unless I want a silk-hung balcony and a gallant to fan me while I gaze, I cannot be better than where I am!
It had not occurred to me that I should be able to see the triumphs from my own window until this moment. Nor to Antonio, I guessed, or I should have been swiftly ousted. But now I had only to throw the shutters wide and perch on the narrow wooden sill and I would have a better view over the crowded Via Croce than any down below.
The bolts were stubborn, and my fingertips were white with effort as I pushed at them; then, with a sudden scrape, they slid back and I swung the shutters wide.
Sunlight flooded the stuffy little room, catching the dust motes so that they turned to floating specks of gold in its shafts; the heat of the burnished blue sky was reflected back from the peeling walls opposite, scorching me as I looked out with a new sense of freedom.
The crowds below were being thrust out of the roadway by mounted spearmen, driven back into gateways and under houses' eaves. The curses and threats of the horsemen mingled with the protests of the victims, and presently the roadway yawned white and empty while jostling masses of humanity pressed and sweated in the shadows on either side. The crowds edged forward a little as the horsemen passed, but no one was bold enough to step back into the road again.
I could see people clustered at every window the whole length of the Via Croce—women in bright silks like clusters of flowers, chattering men, and bored children. It was like a carnival, I thought, not like a sober ceremony of thanksgiving at all, and I smiled at the strangeness of it. The lengthy time of waiting was an enchantment to me; watching the street below, I forgot everything else, even my own empty belly.
At the end of the Via Croce, surmounting its long steep slope, I could see the Cathedral of San Domenico, its very stones seeming to tremble and swim in the heat. The bells were beginning a jubilant carillon, and the sound welled down the packed street and out ov
er the city—drowning the cry of the gulls and the clamor of the people in the din of the duke of Cabria's triumph.
The noise in the street was gradually growing louder. The soldiers moved up and down, their voices hoarse against the sound of the bells, like sheepdogs with an unruly pack, and still the merciless sun beat down on the dust-whitened roadway.
Something bright was moving through the marketplace at the foot of the hill, and a shout went up from those gathered there, spreading from mouth to mouth. The whole street was shouting, waving, and cheering in an ecstasy of satisfied impatience.
I craned dangerously over the sill as the head of the procession seemed to heave itself painfully around and start down the Via Croce: a glittering dropsical lizard, moving blindly to the music of drums and trumpets which fought with the clangor of the bells. I did not know then that the courtiers moved so slowly to let the commons see and gape; it looked as though each step must be the last as the line came inching up the long, straight road.
But slowly, ponderously, it was coming nearer. The gleams of brightness on the foremost rank showed as the sun on the armor of the palace guards. They marched on foot, ignoring the dust and heat; then came the common soldiers, their eyes searching the crowd for familiar faces, newly pressed some of them, enough to glory in the city's welcome.
Then, as the first rank of mounted courtiers drew level, I heard the note of the cheering change. It did not fall off—rather, it increased in volume—but there was a jeering note in it, a blend of wonder and scorn that scraped roughly from men's dusty throats. But for all the heed the nobles paid to the din, the echoing street might have been an empty field; they might have come from another world, of another kind, to those who had come to cheer them.
From above now the street was like a crowded hothouse, opulent reds and purples and curdled greens spilling from the horses' backs like panniers of overripe fruit. These creatures were fantastic, as brilliant and outrageous as the flowers that blossom on carrion; I seemed to catch the scent of putrefaction as they passed, for they all looked dead, faces and hair and hands as white as mold. Here and there someone's natural coloring escaped the fashionable leprosy—a woman's high-piled hair gleaming like a helmet of bronze, a man's soot-black curls—but all the rest looked like living corpses bedecked for a macabre dance of death, their lizard eyes blinking gummily in the sunshine. I watched them with a feeling of revulsion as they paraded past, fidgeting and exclaiming with impatience at the slowness of the cavalcade. Now, as the procession moved on down the street, horses and men were becoming entangled and the whole line was moving in fits and starts, I could hear the thin, drawling voices raised in complaint above the cheers. Then, with a jolt, the courtiers surged into motion and trotted forward as the obstruction ahead was cleared. Beyond them I could see a banner borne high above the rest: a silver hawk on black, with a ruby-studded miter set above it. The crowd was suddenly hushed, and I knew that the tall figure in scarlet who rode after must be Archbishop Francesco della Raffaelle, the duke's uncle.
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