"I had rather not try." I could not prevent the small secret smile that curved my lips. "I told you, I must not."
"Do you cry craven? You could walk as boldly in the court after the wedding and face out my brother's bride. It would pay you well"—he lowered his voice—"to grant me a few favors."
His arm slipped around my waist as I looked up at him; his square, strong face was smiling as he scanned mine, and there was a meaningful look in his eyes. His hand was kneading rhythmically in the small of my back, and then he pulled me close against him.
I freed myself with a sudden twist and boxed his ears. It did not occur to me that he might be serious, and sure enough he was laughing as he stepped back.
"That was a fine blow! Where did you learn it, lady—in a bedchamber or in some siege?"
The antagonism fled from me on a ripple of laughter. My affront was no more real than his pretended love, two moves in a childish game. "In the tavern," I retorted, "against the ostler when he used his tongue too freely."
"I am rebuked." He sighed heavily. "Well, it would have been sweet to horn my brother!"
I took his arm again as we started to walk and blinked as we emerged into the sunlight. "You are a rare philosopher."
The columns, cream and rose, soared up to pointed arches around three sides of the courtyard; between them the colonnade was checkered with gold and blue. When I had looked long enough, Sandro drew me to the brazen well heads in the center of the courtyard and turned me so that I faced the towering bulk of the palace.
"Look," he said sardonically. "I think the pope's legate long ago must have known who would steal his palace from him. See in those niches in the eastern corner."
I looked, and set high above the arches of the second tier of columns were two stone angels looking down. Faces calm, hair blowing, long hands firm on their staves; and folded about them, curving high over their heads and down to their feet, huge wings.
"There is even a statue of Cosimo della Raffaelle in the great gallery where the portraits are." Sandro was more interested in the angels' punning aptness than in their beauty. "The old pirate rescued the pope's legate from the Turks long before there were dukes in Cabria, and in gratitude the legate ordered the statue to stand there. My grandfather must have laughed when he seized the palace and found his ancestor already here to greet him."
"Then the family has not owned the palace long," I said, surprised.
"My brother is the third Duke of Cabria to hold it. My grandfather wrested Cabria from the pope and took the legate's palace at the same time. You must not think this is Raffaelle wealth! We were always a family of magpies, stealing bright things." He cocked his head and regarded me quizzically. "We have owned this barely fifty years."
I stared around me. It seemed impossible that such a place could be touched by war or subject to men's petty greeds. "Would you not rather live here always?" I asked involuntarily.
"The choice does not lie with me, lady." Sandro's tone was dry. "It is the dukes who order the disposing of the court, and those legitimate"—there was a sudden crack of bitterness at the word— "seem to favor that moldy warren in Fidena. It has been the family stronghold since the Caesars; I care less for it than they do."
I felt as though a pit I had not suspected yawned suddenly in front of me. I answered awkwardly, "That is because you feel that Diurno is your home."
"True." He grinned suddenly and pinched my cheek. "And what has been gained by war can be lost again as easily."
Before I could ask him what he meant, he was staring past me with his eyes screwed up against the sun and then called aloud, "Holla, Madonna Niccolosa! We thought you lost! Do not climb down all those steps. We will come up to you. We were returning even now." He patted my hand as it lay on his arm. "Come, lady, I will take you to see old Cosimo and the favor of a few of my ancestors—on my father's side."
When we reached her, Niccolosa was gazing at us in mingled concern and reproof. "I daresay you took care to lose me, my lord."
His eyes widened guilelessly. "Why should you think so? I need you when I tell your lady tales of my illustrious forebears. I swear you know more of them than any native Cabrian."
To my dazed eyes the picture gallery seemed the size of a cathedral, and I would have stood blinking in the midst of it for hours but that Sandro hauled me irresistibly towards a statue on a plinth halfway down the room.
"That is old Cosimo." He eyed the sculpture in a comradely fashion. "The legate's savior. Look, you can see the name cut in the stone."
I nodded obediently and turned when he bade me see the portraits of the della Raffaelles since they became mighty in Cabria. "A fine crew," he commented sarcastically.
Dukes, duchesses, brothers, sisters, cousins, were all shown in picture one after the other. I stared at them hungrily, seeking a resemblance in the dark faces and heavy bodies that was not there, and Sandro watched my perplexity knowingly.
"You will not find my brother in them, lady. He does not come of our father's stock—he is his mother turned male. I am a clearer pattern of our blood than he."
It was true, I thought, looking at the pictured faces. Nearly all the della Raffaelles were square and sturdy, with bold features that declined with age into coarseness. They had dark hair, too, like Sandro—the only thing which marked him out from the run of the family was his vivid blue eyes. I could see his father in him as I gazed at a picture of Duke Carlo in his twenties; they had the same compactness, the same bullheaded look, and—I realized with a sense of shock—the same hard, acquisitive eyes. In Duke Carlo it was clearer, emphasized by the greedy mouth and the look of petulance about him: but it was in Sandro's rugged and cheerful face nonetheless.
"That was painted when he was a young man." Sandro's voice, unconcerned and unheeding, interrupted my thoughts. "There is another of him when he was older—come and see."
Glad to forget what had crossed my mind, I hurried after him towards a group of portraits at the far end of the gallery—and halted, transfixed. Sandro followed the direction of my stare.
"That is the Duchess Vittoria, lady—my royal brother's mother, if it were not plain enough."
Looking indifferently out of the canvas was the likeness of a seated woman whose fair beauty shone against her sable velvet gown like the moon on a frosty night. It was uncanny. There was the haughty profile; the half-cruel, half-vulnerable mouth; the heavy-lidded eyes night-dark in a fair, flawless face; all blurred by some trick from a man's to a woman's. The shining silver-gilt hair was piled high and crowned with diamonds; the slender, prideful grace made the Cabria necklace, clasped about the white throat, a poor tribute to such perfection. The Duchess Vittoria had been beautiful beyond imagining and had bequeathed her beauty to her son. But she looked more like a statue than a living woman; there was a chilling indifference in the painted eyes quite different from the turbulent brilliance of Domenico's. I shivered and told myself that it was my fancy, or else a fault of the painter's.
"My father was unlucky in his first two wives," Sandro remarked. "Frosty-spirited both of them, and as proud as the devil. But the first at least was a fit piece to gaze upon. Look at the other."
I thought for a moment that the second portrait was a parody of the first. Another woman sat in the identical pose, wearing an identical gown, ablaze with the Cabria diamonds. But there was no cold flame of beauty in this second woman. She must have been years younger than the Duchess Vittoria, but she looked stiff and sour and desperately unhappy.
Without the cruel severity of the black and the cumbrous jewelry she would have looked like a schoolgirl, with a schoolgirl's miserable angularity. She was thin and haggard, with a long face and a long nose and downward-slanting eyes, bright hazel, that gazed out of the picture with something like defiance. Her soft brown hair might have suited her if it had been dressed to soften the harsh planes of her face, but it was dragged back and dressed high in hurtful imitation of the earlier portrait, emphasizing the defenselessness of h
er thin shoulders. Then I saw the pearl ring faithfully painted on one of the tightly clenched hands and knew who it was before Sandro said the name.
"That was the Duchess Isabella — my father's second wife. God help them both."
I stared wistfully, even a little jealously, at the face of the woman who haunted Domenico's sleep. Had he loved her in spite of what he said, that he should remember her so long?
Sandro continued casually, "We can thank her for your guardian, here—Madonna Niccolosa came with her to Diurno when she was married and has served my father and my brother ever since."
He did not give me time to answer but turned to direct my attention to the standing portrait of the man whose image I still recalled from the day of the procession. Duke Carlo grown old: a gross man whom the painter had had to flatter, cloaking him in splendid clothes like a shell of majesty. I was looking at it when hands touched my shoulders lightly, and I swayed.
Domenico's voice said softly, "What, are you communing with my ancestors?"
I forced my languorous eyes to open. "Yes, Your Grace. Your brother has borne with me all this while and showed me much of the palace I would not have dared explore alone."
"Tush," Domenico still spoke gently, but his hands slid down to my waist and gripped hard, "you need beg no man's pardon save mine. As for my brother, I had rather he should bear with you than you with him."
"That is your lady's thought too, brother." Sandro fingered his ear reminiscently. Domenico smiled, lifted my hand—the hand that wore Isabella's ring—and kissed it, lightly and possessively. The touch of his lips seemed to burn my palm.
To fill the tiny silence I said, "My lord, who is that lady?" and both brothers glanced up, then away again quickly.
Sandro said, "That is our gracious stepmother, lady. The Duchess Gratiana."
"Oh, she was..." I broke off.
"And is! She is not dead, the more the pity. Sometimes there are posts from Naples still, bringing me love letters from her."
I gazed up at the portrait now with unfeigned interest, wondering that he could speak so lightly. Domenico was saying, "I wondered whence you had so many messengers," but his hold had slackened, and I disengaged myself to go and stand before the picture.
The Duchess Gratiana was ugly, uglier by far than poor plain Isabella; yet there was something about her that attracted men, which the painter had understood and expressed in details of his sitter's pose and expression. She was leaning a little forward, as though to display her bosom; her lips, at once fleshy and slightly sunken, were painted a vivid scarlet; her nose was a great beak; and, remembering the drunken Beniamino's harsh description, I could imagine the smell that would linger in the folds of that rich dress.
She was dressed in cerise and gold—her olive-skinned hands covered with rings every color of the rainbow, the Cabria necklace about her throat—and with it a great ruby brooch, and gold combs in her thick, dark hair. The gown was cut far too low for so old a woman, and her shoulders and breasts were powdered, like her face, far whiter than those dark and wrinkled hands.
I turned to find both brothers watching me curiously and spoke with an effort. "The painter did not flatter her unduly."
"Oh, but he did." Sandro's eyes lifted maliciously to the painted woman's. "She was never so clean as that since she came from the womb, and he has made believe all her hair was her own; but he was a fair artist and could not hide all he saw." He turned his back on the picture and said in a different voice, "Well, Brother, have you and the old fox done your conference?"
Domenico shrugged. "He was trying once again to dissuade me from wedding Savoy's daughter. He still does not favor her, it seems."
"But you do."
The bright head nodded. "She has beauty enough to overcome her bastardy, and her dowry contents me. If Savoy had a legitimate daughter, I would yield to my uncle; but he has not, so I shall wed his pretty bastard."
Sandro was watching me calculatingly as I strove to keep my face impassive, and then after a moment he grinned and looked at Domenico.
"God's life, you go roundabout! Do you still mean to honor her in your coronation?"
Before Domenico could reply, I said quickly, "Your Grace, if your bride is to bear a part in the ceremony it is not fitting that I should be there. I ask your leave to be absent."
"I deny it." His expression was unreadable. "Savoy's daughter cannot come in time, and you are to stand proxy for her—to take the bride's part in the solemnities tomorrow." I stared at him, thinking that he had gone mad, that he could not know what he was saying, but his voice continued levelly. "The ceremony is ordered, the wench's gown bespoke, and the people are half-lunatic with expectation—they do not know you, and, if you are dressed finely enough and in royal state, they will take you for what you pretend to be."
Sandro chuckled. "You will show her to them as your bride, Brother?"
"She will serve the turn." Domenico gave him one swift, enigmatic look and then his gaze came back to me. "I will not. It is not fit."
"You have so much sense, at least!" The voice from the doorway made me jump, and I looked around to see the archbishop standing there, his gaunt face tight with rage. Then as he moved forward, his silks swept the marble floor with a hiss like an angry snake.
Chapter Six
For a moment there was silence in the long gallery, followed by the rustle of Niccolosa's skirts as she hurried to the door. I would have followed her, but Domenico's hand detained me.
"More arguments, Uncle?" His voice sounded bored.
"Would you prefer it if I stood aside and let you risk all your father and grandfather gained for the sake of a masquerade?" The archbishop's lips were tightly compressed. "I cannot prevent you from marrying this... Savoyard bastard of yours now that you have won the council to your will, but neither threats nor bribery can win them to this! It is enough that you have sacrificed an alliance with a daughter of the Sforzas or of the Medicis, but you are preparing to insult their very ambassadors by parading this woman before them as your betrothed wife!"
"I never knew an ambassador yet who was chosen for his brains," Sandro interpolated. "You might change a Turk for the Savoyard and none of them would notice. Be patient, my lord; it will be excellent foolery!"
"It is no subject for fooling. Cabria's safety hangs on it."
Sandro raised his eyebrows. "Come, my lord, there are proxy weddings enough—this is not even a betrothal. Why make such a business of it?"
"You know that no substitute in such a ceremony is ever kept secret from the witnesses. Do not insult my intelligence, Alessandro."
Sandro shrugged. "Well, my lord!"
"Domenico," the archbishop's voice changed, "go to your crowning tomorrow as if this marriage had not been thought of. The people will discount all the rumors of your bride—I can have it talked of in the streets that she has not come here after all. When she arrives in truth you can welcome her with pomp enough to show off the match you have chosen." There was contempt in his tone.
"I have told you it contents me well enough." The duke's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"I will not argue with you. You know my mind—I think you would have done better to choose elsewhere. But this playacting is playing with fire. It is more than a fair show to please the people and you know it." The archbishop checked as Domenico stirred restlessly, then continued. "We might mend this... choice of yours by reporting her wealth and beauty and hiding the fact that she has neither rank nor power. But what if Milan, Tuscany, Venice, and Genoa learn that you have shown them a false bride?"
Domenico did not answer; he was studying the play of light on the jewel that hung around his neck.
Sandro said dryly, "No one is like to tell them they are being hoodwinked."
"They are not blind—nor forgiving once they have been slighted. Cabria has enough enemies to spread a tale like this: Rome, the Spanish states, Romagna, and Naples. They would delight in turning our few allies against us. Venice plays a waiting ga
me in case we should threaten to join with the Turks and sail against them; Ferrenza holds to us by old marriage ties: but Urbino and Milan would never stomach such an affront. If they were to learn that their ambassadors had done reverence to a paramour of yours, they would join with our enemies and bring the whole state down in revenge."
Sandro opened his eyes wide. "I did not think you were so unworldly, my lord," he said blandly. "Paolo Orsini lived openly with his mistress before he married her, and it is common knowledge that for twelve years the de Poitiers woman was treated as Queen of France. Men are not so scrupulous." His eyes were smiling, but in them was the hard look I remembered seeing before.
"Neither the Orsini nor the Valois trod a knife's edge on the brink of damnation. I tell you we need every fingernail of advantage! When there have been Raffaelle dukes for five hundred years, then perhaps they may flout opinion. But now we must be cautious." The archbishop looked at Domenico, waiting indifferently for the debate to end. "Nephew, answer me this one question. What will you do when the time comes for your true bride to take her place?"
The beautiful mouth twisted.. "Marry her. Spare your breath, Uncle; the ambassadors will not question what they are told. They will see what they are bidden to see—Savoy's daughter."
I said unsteadily, "Your Grace, please listen to my lord archbishop. If there is such danger—"
"Enough." He flicked my cheek. "You may find it sweet to be a duchess, even if it is in jest. And remember, I know how to punish disobedience."
Suddenly, there in the flood of sunshine, I shivered. I heard Sandro's voice making some laughing comment, and as I turned away, Domenico's fingers caught my wrist, and I felt a spasm of shock go through him. I looked up to see him gazing straight past me, at the opposite wall, and reflected in his face was the image of the unhappy girl in unbecoming black. Half-unconsciously his fingers moved, tracing the shape of the silver ring on my finger; he was gripping my wrist until his knuckles showed white. Then suddenly, blessedly, the door opened, and Piero came trotting over the threshold.
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