Beyond the Raging Flames (The Hermeporta Book 2)

by Hogarth Brown

Hermes stared at Antonio with astonishment,

  ‘Tell me you don’t mean that?’ said Hermes, his expression clouding.

  ‘Look at all this’ said Antonio, avoiding Hermes' eyes, while gesturing at the furnishings and gifts, ‘we were rotting in jail while they lived here like the Medici.’ Hermes said nothing, his speech frozen while his stomach knotted, and just watched Antonio wrangle with what he saw in front of him. ‘I’ve never had anything like this’ added Antonio, his voice hard and brows knitted.

  ‘Is everything different between us now?’ Asked Hermes, dismissing Antonio’s rancour, and living out his own. Antonio continued to avoid his lover’s eyes, as he scratched at a flea bite on his arm. But he turned to him at last before he spoke.

  ‘Hermes, that was jail. We’re free now. Things are different.’ The youth’s eyes began to sting, and a sinew rose along his jaw.

  ‘You don’t mean that’ he stammered, ‘you’re just scared that's all, scared because things have changed here, scared because...’ Hermes searched Antonio's face.

  ‘I’m not scared of anything’

  ‘I think you are’ said Hermes, struggling to speak over the lump in his throat.

  ‘Afraid of what?’ Snapped Antonio. Hermes stared back at his lover, unfamiliar with the tone he heard, and chewed his lip as one of his eyes began to water. He could not bring himself to utter what he wanted to say.

  Grizelda entered the living room, with her nose in the air, holding a tray of side plates, bread, cold meats, butter and cheese. The pair looked at her from their ugly silence, and Hermes made haste to brush away the wetness from his eye. She pretended not to see the move as she took her wares to the table. She closed the door.

  ‘Well, that’s a familiar sight’ she announced to both men as they sat limp in their seats as if wan by their experiences.

  ‘How so?’ said Antonio, his voice humourless.

  ‘Not so long ago that’s where your mother and Illawara sat: like a pair of Queens’

  The maid began to slice the bread she had brought as if she had only wished the pair a good morning. They glared at her, neither quite able to form a response: each man interpreting in his mind what Grizelda meant by her comment. The silence amplified the sound of slicing bread, and the clink of plates. Antonio chose diplomacy instead of throwing a barb - he had bones to pick elsewhere.

  ‘Is that so? I can well imagine’ he said, chancing a look at Hermes whose brown skin, paled somewhat by confinement, had coloured to pink above his now prominent cheekbones. He glared at the maid with the look of a wild beast about to tear into its prey. The maid rubbed her hands free of crumbs: oblivious.

  ‘They sat just like the two of you now’ she continued, handing each of them a plate of food, ‘In charm and cunning they could have shamed the Borgias' she said - sprinkling grist onto Antonio’s resentment. She smiled. ‘Oh, how all the men would bow and scrape: one man after another offered his gifts like shepherds selling their mutton to the butchers’ she mewed, and gave a nonchalant waft at the expensive items that lay about the place.

  Both males straightened themselves up in their chairs, knowing by instinct that they did not fit the parts that Grizelda projected upon them. ‘I doubt the envoy of Rome has received as many presents…’ she sighed, pulling up a stool for herself at the table and making a start on her plate of food. Antonio had not heard her mention Rome much before - she had always been a devoted advocate of Padua. But Antonio could not help but sympathise with Grizelda, who had always been a loyal confidant - her comments a reminder of the unique position she held with him, and the secrets she kept.

  Hermes crunched into his cheese-topped bread, as a Hyena would upon a bone, and observed the silent messages that exchanged between the maid and Antonio: more profound truths that intertwined, in the dark, under Grizelda’s paper winged patter. Hermes listened as he tried to decode the unsaid words that excluded him from their open conversation.

  Antonio cast his eye around the room again as he munched his food,

  ‘I’d thought I’d stepped into a rich widow’s house when we first came back’ he said, wiping a hand across his mouth, ‘It took me a while to recognise this place… I guess mother has enjoyed the improvements…’ he added, letting his words linger.

  ‘Like a swan upon a lilied river’ said the maid with an arc of her arm. Antonio scoffed and shook his head as if Grizelda had solidified every negative impression that had formed in his mind. Hermes observed the pair act like actors stirring a pot, as they fed each other their lines.

  Hermes gritted his teeth and put his plate down next to his chair. He had to speak up.

  ‘It seems that without Illawara’s help we’d still be in jail. Now she's been taken away too. I’ve not heard either of you mention her once. She’s my friend, and we all OWE her a lot. She did everything for us. She doesn’t like fuss. I bet she disliked the whole situation.’

  ‘I doubt that’ huffed Grizelda, helping herself to another slice of bread and meat. Hermes shot up to stand and point at the maid.

  ‘You hated her, didn’t you? You must have been glad when they took her away’ he hissed.

  ‘Rubbish’ she said, scowling, ‘I didn’t get Antonio arrested, I’m not to blame for any of this.’ Hermes clenched his fists and saw himself tossing Grizelda into a poisonous snake pit. He shook all over as he ruminated how best to defend himself, but Antonio pulled him back down into his chair. Footsteps began to make their way up the hall from Bianca’s bedroom. Dondo walked in, looking dishevelled, he sensed an atmosphere but greeted everyone with a good morning.

  ‘Your mother will be joining us soon’ he said, after receiving the plate pushed to him by Grizelda. He took up another stool and sat next to her. Hermes observed a slight awkwardness between them. Dondo tried to make small talk to lift the sullen mood - without much success. He glanced at the door, waiting for Bianca to join them, but knowing that she would still be choreographing her appearance before wanting to be seen by the others.

  Dondo, having run out of niceties to say, asked Antonio and Hermes about their spell of confinement. The air electrified with the question. Bianca’s steps approached.

  ‘It was horrible’ declared Antonio at volume, waiting to answer Dondo’s question until his mother had opened the living room door. She paused for a fractional moment upon hearing her son’s words as she entered the room. A lifeless smile adorned her face - her makeup unable to conceal the passing years.

  Grizelda and Dondo observed that Bianca had decided to dress with modesty, wearing one of the less lavish of her new dresses, shunning the recent grandeur that she had grown accustomed to wearing.

  Antonio’s brows raised. ‘Good morning Mother, how fine you’ve become’ came his praise, that seemed weighed down with accusation. Bianca almost curtsied, out of shame, to her son that sat next to Hermes.

  ‘Good morning, my darling’ she said, approaching with her hand outstretched for her son to kiss. He obliged but did not stand. Hermes observed that the kiss Antonio offered his mother’s hand had even less affection than the stingy one he stole earlier. Mother and son locked eyes in silence. Hermes chewed his lip.

  ‘Please, have my seat’ he said, making way before Bianca could feign protest.

  He wondered if Antonio would have relished looking down upon his mother from their elevated position - if he had not offered to trade places - and decided he would.

  ‘Thank you’ said Bianca, with genuine heart, as he caught the flash of concern in her eyes as she settled herself down next to her son. Hermes sat at the table with the others.

  Bianca launched into niceties just as Dondo had done, but with even less success. Her lofty phrases fell all around her like game shot from the sky. Grizelda then offered her mistress a plate of food, but it may as well have been a plate of pebbles for Bianca struggled to swallow what she was offered: chewing like a cow on her cud upon the tough bread crusts the maid had left for her.

  Given her son’s recent suff
ering Bianca dared not complain, and instead searched the table for water, from where she sat, to quench her mouth, and soften the bark like bread that threatened to crack her teeth and bruise her gums. Sensing his mistress’s discomfort, the woman he loved for years, Dondo fetched back cups and water from the kitchen to relieve her. He placed the spare glasses and water jug on the table. Bianca accepted Dondo’s mercy, and the bread went down - she would stick to the meats and cheese.

  Antonio, with skill, barring his mother's attempts at escape, steered the conversation right back to his and Hermes’ confinement. Bianca wriggled where she sat, and began to think her bread softer than the looks her son gave her.

  ‘How you have both suffered’ she sighed, with motherly concern, as Antonio listed the horrors of prison. She was unable to shake the feeling of being dragged before a court for judging. Her mind flew for a moment to Illawara, who she imagined would soon have that genuine experience. She did her best to listen to her son. He had lost weight which made his eyes look bigger, and added fine lines to his face: jail had aged him.

  ‘It was terrible Mother; people lay in their own filth. The place stank to high heaven - enough to make an angel weep. Moans and cries would wake us at all times of the night. Cries of anguish and pain, others pleading for forgiveness, others railing at God and cursing their enemies. The priests were my only comfort in the place…’ said Antonio, trying to ignore the shift in Hermes body, at his statement, that suggested otherwise. ‘When the priests came you knew that someone had died, or were near death, which would spare some noise for a night - a chance to sleep.’

  ‘And don’t forget the rats…’ Hermes chimed in, unable to resist adding details to the harrowing picture that Antonio painted, as he remembered how the rodents would scuttle over his feet, or run under the arch of his back, with brazen fearlessness, as he sat dozing against the dungeon walls. Bianca covered her mouth, as Dondo and Grizelda did, and wiped away tears of guilt even though she had felt she had done her best given the circumstances.

  ‘Did they not move you to better cells?’ she asked, after a long and lurid description by Antonio of all his sufferings, ‘your father said that things had improved for you when we offered more money.’ Antonio hesitated.

  ‘They did’ said Hermes, wanting to spare Bianca some of the emotional mangles that Antonio cranked her through without mercy. Antonio shot him a glance as if Hermes had thrown off the yoke he had tossed around his mother’s neck.

  ‘Eventually, they moved us, Mother, but it was still hell. But I’m glad to know that you were not suffering here while you received your guests.’ She offered up her palms and shrugged.

  ‘My darling, please, we did all that we could. If I could have ended your suffering sooner I would have.’ Antonio seemed unconvinced and cast his eye around at the gifts again.

  ‘These things must have taken a while to accumulate, Mother.’ Bianca shook her head.

  ‘The gifts came quickly, my son’, she said before she took up Antonio’s hand, and encircled it with her own, ‘not a moment was spared in trying to secure your release. We gave all we could to your father who negotiated for us on your behalf.’

  Antonio yanked his hand away from his mother, which raised even Grizelda’s eyebrows. ‘So, I suppose these walls painted themselves then, and these chairs and trappings swam here from Venice while you campaigned for our release?’ Added Antonio with a bite of wickedness. She froze, and Dondo coloured before he spoke.

  ‘Your mother AND Illawara did all they could to win favours and gifts that were used for your benefit’ Antonio turned to Dondo.

  ‘Is that so? Apart from how you look this morning, I'd say that you’ve done well out of all this’ he said, and Dondo’s face stung with the rebuke. But Dondo composed himself before replying.

  ‘You know better than most, Antonio, that to win favour one has to LOOK the part - regardless of one's feelings. It’s the courtier’s trade is it not? As we improved things here the more generous our patrons became, and the quicker came your release - indeed it came EARLY.’ Dondo's words fell on deaf ears. Antonio crossed his arms before he answered.

  ‘It seems you were both very generous with all those that came here: treating strangers to Malmsey wine and toasting the very stones that confined me.’

  Bianca extorted, unable to ignore her son’s insolence any longer.

  ‘Darling, please, we did the BEST we could, with the means that we had. It was a trial, for the most part, no end of hassle. You know I’ve no money for bribes.' But Antonio scoffed and dismissed his mother with a waft of his hand. She frowned. 'What else do you think we should have done?' She added, 'sell ourselves on the Rialto? Would you want your Mother to do that?’

  ‘I’ve done worse to sustain you’ said Antonio.

  Dondo and Hermes' mouths dropped open into silence.

  Grizelda then nibbled on an abandoned crust, her eyes shifting between mother and son. The white lead makeup on Bianca’s face kept her expression cool, but her bust flushed crimson. It was as if Antonio had slapped his mother across the face. She scrunched her eyes as the corners of her mouth creased.

  ‘How like your FATHER you are’ said Bianca, ‘he said as much before he left me - with YOU in my arms.’ Antonio withered in his chair. Bianca had mother-bombed her child with the rebuke no son with a dodgy father could ever answer. The others pouted, not expecting such dirty linen washing in full view. Grizelda took the chance to clear the plates, and Dondo offered to help her: keen to escape the stifling atmosphere created between mother and son. Hermes had no excuse to leave and had to endure what would come to pass.

  Compelled by a wave of camaraderie, and a desire to change the subject, Bianca chose to speak about Illawara to further embarrass her son, and re-establish a sense of authority over her child - even though he had long outgrown her.

  ‘Illawara showed great courage, and spirit when the Inquisition came for her.' She announced, 'they could not cuff her, she did not yield' The mistress recalled the passive nature of her son's arrest that Giovanni had shared with her via letter, and wanted to contrast that with Illawara's. 'She fought her captors like a tigress, even though she had been let down by that rogue she called her father.’ Antonio shrank further into his chair, but Hermes' ears pricked up.

  So, he came for his case thought Hermes. Bianca pointed to a space behind the door. ‘The man stood there like a plank of wood as they dragged her off. The case he snatched from her seemed dearer to him than my Bible. He stood and babbled at her as if he didn’t know who she was. Yellow as a lemon' she said with the flick of her arm, 'I swear he had the pox: the lanky wretch.’

  ‘What did he say to her?’ asked Hermes, trying to glean what clues he could.

  ‘I’m not quite sure’ she said, ‘most times they spoke in English, so I missed a lot of it. But he looked very ill, and Illawara was telling him to use something before he snatched the case from her. But then they dragged her off, poor girl - but she was as brave as a Spartan all the way to the courthouse’ added Bianca, crossing herself, and dabbing at her eyes.

  Antonio's face curdled at the praise his mother heaped on Illawara. ‘I shouldn’t have let her make errors in front of that man’ she added, revelling in the drama of her story.

  ‘What man?’ Asked Hermes. Bianca then told of how an Inquisitor came posing as a suitor and all that had transpired.

  ‘She was right you know. She suspected him, he called himself a prince, but she saw through him’ she said, waving a finger, as Grizelda returned with Dondo. The maid’s blood chilled when she caught Bianca’s last statement: knowing that her mistress referred to Beppe. She fussed about the room as Dondo returned to the table. Hermes noted the reaction on the maid’s face when Bianca shared Illawara’s concerns with the room. Grizelda busied herself as if it were an average day, and Hermes paid attention to the forced calmness she imposed upon herself.

  Hermes also studied Antonio, who expressed no interest in what he and Bianca discusse
d. He scowled, arms folded into fists under his armpits, and just glared at the items that surrounded the room.

  ‘What was he like?’ asked Hermes. The mistress’ face contorted.

  ‘He’s a delicate man - nothing to him - came here once looking like a French flamingo. I suppressed my mirth but Illawara laughed, she couldn’t hold it in - it didn’t help her I suppose.’ Hermes could not help but give a rueful smile.

  ‘That’s just like Illawara’ he said, ‘she doesn’t hold back.’ He angled his eyes in Antonio’s direction, ‘you always know where you stand with her, and what she’s feeling.’ Antonio glanced back for a moment to Hermes but then continued his vigil over what lay about the place. Everyone else registered the youth’s comment and understood to whom it addressed.

  ‘We can’t always say how we feel’ chimed in Grizelda, ‘that can be dangerous.’ The Italians in the room exchanged glances with one another - all born with their motherland’s gift for intrigue. Hermes felt the consensus of the status quo settle among the natives, but he wanted to argue with them.

  ‘I think that it’s good that she speaks her mind’ he said. Grizelda laughed out loud with abandon. Bianca tilted her head; she had never seen her maid so forthright and liberated.

  ‘She did more than speaking her mind’ she chided. Hermes drew a blank expression. ‘When he questioned her, she threw a vase that smashed into his head, along with other things and a good amount of our mistress' China.' The maid gestured to Bianca's numerous figurines. 'The splinters also slashed his neck. His head was gashed open - She could have killed him’ she added with passion, struggling to keep the sudden floods of longing and compassion out of her voice. Hermes looked embarrassed.

  ‘She does have a bit of a temper’ he said. The maid snarled.

  ‘Bit of a temper you say? She’s possessed. I’ve never seen such fury in a woman’ the maid then pointed at Dondo, ‘she beat him within an inch of his life, ask my mistress, “mauled at him with the savagery of a wolf” she said. We should have sold her as a weapon of war for the Arsenale: she could destroy the Turks!’