by Terry Jones
‘I understand my Lord Bernabò is under arrest by his nephew. Is that correct?’ Even Donnina de’ Porri’s questions sounded like a command, and Tom found himself obeying instantly.
‘Yes. That is correct,’ said Tom.
‘Then it is my wish that I accompany him in his imprisonment. And I order you to come with me, Beatrice.’
‘But she’s only young and . . .’ began Squire John.
‘And I am half dead?’ asked the beautiful Lady Donnina.
‘No! Of course! I didn’t mean . . .’
Tom was amused to see that the Lady Donnina made his squire as confused as she made him.
‘My lady,’ said Sir Thomas English. ‘If you wish to accompany Lord Bernabò in his current plight, that is your decision and I shall honour it. May I be permitted to escort you to the appropriate authorities? I fear for your safety unless you accept my offer.’
More and more looters were pouring into the richly decorated hall below them. Most of the newcomers paused for a moment to gape at the hitherto unimagined richness of the decoration, and then – as if inflamed by the ostentation of such a private display of wealth – they set to work tearing off as much of it as they could to carry back to their own humble homes.
‘There!’ shouted one of the law-abiding citizens of Milan. ‘It’s the Lady Donnina de’ Porri!’ And all eyes suddenly turned upwards to where he was pointing. There was a surge forward and suddenly Tom was halfway down the stairs with his sword drawn.
‘The Lady Donnina is under my protection!’ he shouted. ‘Stand back and let us pass!’
The citizens fell back with a quite spectacular display of precision drill. There was always a satisfactory distinction, Tom observed to himself, between threatening armed soldiery and unarmed civilians.
So it was that Squire John rescued the Lady Beatrice from the mob and Sir Thomas English escorted the Lady Donnina de’ Porri to the presence of Gian Galeazzo.
‘As I have shared my lord’s bed,’ said Donnina de’ Porri, ‘so I shall share his imprisonment.’ And that was that.
Tom never could quite understand how such a man as Bernabò Visconti could generate such loyalty in those around him. Hadn’t he been a man of intemperate appetites and behaviour? Hadn’t he treated his fellow creatures as if they were unfeeling blocks of wood? Wasn’t he guilty of torturing and killing men on a whim? Hadn’t he ruled arbitrarily and through fear for all these years? And yet there were those who were still loyal to him. Loyal enough, in the Lady Donnina’s case, to endure his fate alongside him.
Yet though she insisted that the Lady Beatrice show a like dedication to her father, and join in her sacrifice, Gian Galeazzo would not allow it. The Lady Donnina was escorted down to the dungeons to join her dethroned lord and master alone.
Chapter 36
Milan 1385
The wedding was the talk of Milan, of course. How could it be anything else? For a start, the black mourning cloth that everyone had been ordered to hang out to mark the death of Regina della Scala had all been finally taken down and stored away. In its place garlands of flowers were hung across the streets and white and gold embroidered cloths were hung from windows. The fountain in the square of the Duomo ran with wine for the entire day, and musicians tramped round the houses blaring their trumpets and beating their drums and performing impossible cadenzas on their flutes.
And there were public feasts. Tables had been set up in many streets and the food was piled high upon them for all and sundry to join in. The new Lord of Milan wanted to ensure that the common people had no second thoughts about the sudden change of rule.
Then there was dancing outside the inns, with different bands competing at different street corners for the crowds who came to merry-make and get dizzy.
And of course there were rumours of the feasting that was going on – even now at this very moment – in the great Visconti Palace in the north of the city – the palace that had been empty for as long as Gian Galeazzo had not dared to enter Milan.
And now Gian Galeazzo was here to stay, life would be one long celebration – at least until the wedding was over. There were still guards at the entrances to the palace, of course, but even they had acquired a festive air, and had entwined garlands around their helmets and decorated their pikes with nosegays.
But inside those walls, so people said, a fabulous feast had been laid out. There was a swan, they said, complete with its signets, served up on a golden dish, and the swan had a golden crown around its neck. A wild boar had been led in – as if it were alive – and the cook had rushed in with his knife and cut it in two and inside were cooked meats and finely minced delicacies that the servants took up and distributed around the tables.
They said that even the sturgeon was served in a golden net – as if it had just been caught.
It was no wonder that the wedding was the talk of Milan. But perhaps the aspect of it that was most talked about by the good citizens was the fact that the bride’s father was absent. He was languishing in one of his own dungeons deep in the bowels of what had been his own palace in the south of the city.
Could he hear the merrymaking from down there? He must have been able to. He must have known that his own flesh and blood was being married without his being there. And many a law-abiding citizen shook their head in a gesture that lay somewhere between disapproval and high amusement. The new Lord of Milan must be doing it on purpose as a torture for his uncle, they said. That was the common opinion.
But even more, said others, the real torture for Bernabò Visconti must be that his daughter, the Lady Beatrice, was marrying a squire of low degree – a mere nobody without powerful connections in the courts of Europe. An Englishman who was neither a prince nor a duke, nor likely to inherit anything worth mentioning. It was exactly the sort of marriage that Bernabò Visconti himself would never have permitted as long as he could order a suitor to be put on the rack.
It was a love match. And the old Lord of Milan would have sooner had his daughter put to the stake than allowed her to make such an unprofitable alliance.
And many a head nodded wisely and said that it was all part of Gian Galeazzo’s plan to show that his rule would be as different from his uncle’s as is the hangman’s rope from a daisy chain. And other heads nodded in agreement and added that it was really designed to torment the fallen tyrant. That the nephew took delight in authorising this marriage because he knew the anguish it would cause his uncle, deep in his black cell, would be worse than any physical torture he could devise.
However, such considerations were not apparent to any of the wedding guests that thronged the courtyard of Gian Galeazzo’s palace, where the festivities and feasting had been set out under the sky of azure and over a carpet of rose petals that covered the entire magnificent enclosure.
‘So, Sir Thomas Englishman,’ said Gian Galeazzo, putting his arm around Tom’s shoulder as he spoke. ‘I said I would reward you for your services, and so I shall.’
‘But, my lord, I fear I performed no useful service for you whatsoever!’ replied Tom.
‘But indeed you did!’
‘I brought you no news of your uncle. No useful information. I found nothing out . . .’ Tom could have gone on listing the ways in which he had been a truly hopeless spy.
‘But I wanted nothing like that,’ whispered Gian Galeazzo, as if he were teasing Tom in some inscrutable way.
‘What?’ said Tom. ‘You asked me to find out about your uncle . . .’
‘My dear fellow,’ replied the new Lord of Milan in a low voice. ‘I have plenty of spies at my disposal. What on earth made you think I should I need an outsider like yourself?’
‘Then why did you send me back to Milan?’ asked Tom.
Gian Galeazzo gave him a rather old-fashioned look, and then whispered in his ear: ‘To help persuade my uncle to trust in my faint-heartedness and irresolution. I believe my Lady Caterina provided you with some tips on how to go about it?’
The look on Tom’s face mu
st have told exactly what he was thinking, for Gian Galeazzo dropped his bantering tone and sounded more sincere as he added:
‘I am sorry, Sir Thomas. I was not as straightforward in my commission to you as I would have liked to have been. But had you known my real intention, you might have found it more difficult to perform your part.’
Not for the first time, Tom felt himself as helpless in the coils of the Visconti serpent as the wretched man whom the Visconti viper was forever in the act of swallowing. But at least, he consoled himself, he would soon escape. There was nothing now to stop him setting off on the road that led out of Lombardy: not concern for his Squire John, not fear of Bernabò, or Regina della Scala or Donnina de’ Porri . . . nothing could hold him here any longer.
‘So,’ said Gian Galeazzo, raising his voice. ‘When would you like to start on acquiring new books for my library? It should be a pleasant enough task!’
The road out of Milan suddenly disappeared.
Tom stopped stock-still. There was nothing else the Lord of Milan could have said that would have made him even consider staying another week in the land of the Visconti, but to have the task of caring for all those books . . . to be able to go out and buy whatever he wished and build up a great library for the Lord of Milan . . . perhaps he would never be quite free of the coils of the Visconti serpent after all . . .
Some time later the bridegroom found himself cut off from his beloved by the press of ladies-in-waiting wishing to kiss the bride and tell her of their latest exploits. Squire John found himself sitting alone with his old master, Sir Thomas English, drinking a glass of sweet wine.
‘Sir Thomas,’ said Squire John. ‘You never did tell me what happened to you and Ann after you escaped from Peter de Bury and his men.’
‘Ah! That’s a story in itself,’ said Tom.
‘Indeed,’ said Squire John, settling himself in his seat.
‘But if you think I’m going to tell it to you here and now at your own wedding, you must be crazy! Why! There’s your bride looking for you already!’
Squire John leapt up and the next moment he had his arm around the Lady Beatrice’s waist as the minstrels struck up a galliard and the happy couple stepped out to start the dancing that would go on until dawn.
The End
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