by David Blixt
“Well, I deserve to, don’t I?”
♦ ◊ ♦
Lighting a taper, Pietro climbed the stairs heavily. His sister was right, he was exhausted. He hadn’t really slept in three days. Too much happening too fast, no time to think, only to react.
Just as had been planned.
But now all the pieces are on the board. If it’s an uneven game, at least we know the players. And Cesco is a prize worth playing for.
Reaching the sickroom, Pietro swung the door wide and entered. The windows were covered, blocking out even the light of the night sky, and his eyes strained to find the boy in the bed. He heard a low voice from within. Drugged into sleep, Cesco was mumbling, “He’s – no, my father – he’s not…”
Carrying his lit taper, Pietro sat down and brushed the hair from Cesco’s face. “Shh, Cesco. It’s all right. It’s all right.”
“He can’t hear you.”
Jumping out of his seat, Pietro turned so fast the taper guttered and almost went out. In the dim light he could see a figure lounging on the far side of the room. He didn’t need to see the face. Pietro remembered the voice all too well. “I didn’t have a chance earlier. Welcome back.”
Cangrande della Scala stepped into the light, his famous smile bright and open. “It should be raining, don’t you think? Portentous, with thunder and lightning and eavesdroppers galore.”
“It seems you took that role for yourself, my lord. What has he been saying?”
“He’s been singing alleluias for your triumphant return to Verona.” As Pietro made no reply, Cangrande’s smile grew. “What, nothing? You’ve waited all these years to speak your mind, now nary a word. I’m disappointed.”
“I don’t have my father’s way with words. My voice is lying here in the bed. The Greyhound will speak for me.” In the dim light it was hard to tell, but Pietro was gratified to think Cangrande stiffened at that. “Aren’t you supposed to be enjoying a homecoming feast?”
“I slipped away to fornicate. But the girl was drunk, and a whore to boot, so I came here to find fresher meat. How old is your sister now?”
It was a colossal insult, begging for a duel or an angry blow. Pietro controlled himself, barely. Years of living with Cesco had taught him the best counter to a verbal assault was to laugh. “You were subtler once. What exactly happened at Ponte Corbo?”
Pietro managed not to step back as the thirty-four year old master of Verona shot forward, barely restraining himself from the blow he had been goading Pietro into. Certain this, too, was a ruse, Pietro stared back, noting in the light of the taper how the great man had changed.
In size, Cangrande had both grown and diminished. His six foot two inch frame was more heavily muscled now, arms and chest thicker. Yet the swelling of the body had lessened the effect of the man. The old Cangrande had been stylishly lean, a true greyhound in form. Now he was more a bulky mastiff. Most tellingly, the face was heavier, burying those cornflower eyes in creased skin. Even the chestnut hair had been cropped short. Perhaps to hide some creeping silver?
Rage dissipating as swiftly as it had come, Cangrande nodded. “Quel changement… quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore! Everyone alters, and few for the better. What happened at Ponte Corbo, you ask? You must have heard the tales. I imitated you, my boy. I took an arrow to the leg and fainted dead away.”
Pietro looked up into those clear blue eyes. “I don’t recall ever running from a battle, my lord. Or leaving my army behind. What happened to those fourteen standards?”
“These stories do get around. But then, you hear everything, don’t you? I appreciated your information about the mines, by the way. I was able to come into a great deal of copper cheaply.”
“I do my duty, my lord.”
“As true as my horse, more rabid than my hounds.” Cangrande sat on a stool beside Cesco’s bed. Pietro shifted uncomfortably. “O don’t be an old woman! Sanguis meus. You of all people know how I honour an oath.”
“To the letter.”
Hearing Pietro’s bitterness, Cangrande laughed. The old wonderful laugh. Like a tidal pool, everything was sucking Pietro back to memories he feared.
“So you figured it out? Well done! Better late than never. Perhaps lack of sleep dulls your wits. You look even more tired than you did on the road.” The Scaliger grinned. “What, you don’t remember? The woman in the coach?” Pushing his chest out, folding his hands in his lap, he was suddenly the exact posture of the busty woman they had passed leaving Ravenna. “How did I look as a red-head? The bosoms, alas, were false, yet I could not refrain from fondling them. Awkward. Thank Heaven Passerino wasn’t there! But I had to keep an eye on you, Pietro. Your efforts are always so inept!” He waved a hand at the limp form in the bed. “I look at your handiwork and weep. But of course, it doesn’t matter. He cannot die. The stars say so.”
“He can feel pain. And fear. And hate.”
The brows lifted. “What is that, to me? Our mythic beast can join the human race for a while. The least he can do, don’t you think?”
Cesco muttered something unintelligible. Pietro knew what it was to hear conversations while in a fever, so he chose his words carefully. “The whole world, including him, knows that you are Il Veltro, and a great man. Perhaps someday you will try to live up to their expectations.”
“Watch your tongue, boy. I’ve given you a fair lead, but be warned, insolence doesn’t amuse me anymore.”
“Did it ever?” Trembling inwardly, Pietro stepped around the bed to sit on the far side. “If that’s true, I guess I have nothing more to say to you, my lord.”
“Perhaps I ought to keep you around here with him. Teach you both how to be men.”
“You won’t,” said Pietro simply.
“And why not?”
“Because you want him all to yourself.”
Cangrande nodded happily. “That I do. Well, not all to myself. My little Mastiff can have a nip at him now and then.”
“Is that why you threw Federigo to the wolves? To keep Mastino close and provoke a war between your heirs?”
“What good is a war if one side can’t be here to fight it? It took a decade, but you’re learning.”
“What have I learned?”
“To think like one of the family.” Reaching across the bed, Cangrande chucked Pietro under the chin.
Pietro recoiled. “Does that mean I’ll start poisoning children?”
“If you have any of your own, feel free. But let ours be.” Cangrande stretched. “Ah, a very enjoyable day. I do love a crowd. I should have been in the theatre.”
“Might have been better for us all,” agreed Pietro.
“Now now, don’t pout. You’ll see him from time to time. Oh, and it may edify you to learn that I had nothing at all to do with the poison. Nor is Mastino so subtle. I understand you have ruled out my darling wife. So look elsewhere.”
“I should just believe you?”
“Truly, I don’t much care what you believe. But ask yourself – would I have gone to all this trouble to get my hands on a weak and sickly child? What would be the point? When you find you have no answer to that question, answer this – what if it wasn’t any of us? What if someone was attempting to do to me what I was doing – bring the hidden to light? What, I wonder, did Dandolo really want here tonight?” With that, Cangrande gave a little bow and, humming a jaunty tune, exited.
Pietro sank back limply. He’s changed! He knows it, too. Good lord, could a single humiliation in the field do all that?
No, said the voice within, the one that sounded like his father. It was the war of his youth that made him the thing he is now.
Absently stroking Cesco’s mop of curls, Pietro prayed Antonia was correct, that he’d given the boy a solid foundation. Because from today forward, nothing would be easy ever again.
Nineteen
The whole of Verona clamoured for a celebration of this newfound Scaliger, Cangrande’s heir. They heard with sympathy of the young man’s sligh
t illness from so much exertion, and the doctors insistence that any public event be postponed until the boy was truly well again. All the more time to prepare!
Meanwhile, a carefree Cangrande went about the affairs of state – addressing crowds, paying his army, hearing court cases. Together with his best friend Passerino Bonaccolsi, the lord of Mantua, he told a harrowing tale of Paduan murder-plots, midnight escapes, disguises, all leading to his triumphant return. The fact that none of it was true made Passerino even more joyous. Cangrande went so far as to tell his fool, old Manuel the Jew, to compose an epic ballad commemorating his ‘resurrection.’
On a darker note, Cangrande was forced to imprison his cousin Federigo, who had foolishly not chosen flight. Into the cells with Federigo went his sons and close friends, their lands stripped and sold off to fill the public coffers. When asked for the whereabouts of Mastino and Alberto, Cangrande laughed and said he’d sent them to be grave-diggers for a fortnight, that they might recognize a dead man when they saw one. Whenever someone brought up the subject of his natural child, he smiled and asked, “Which one? There are so many…”
♦ ◊ ♦
Three days after Cangrande’s return, Cesco awoke completely lucid for the first time. He gulped down the water Antonia held out. “I suppose I must be alive,” he croaked. “Death couldn’t smell this bad.”
Antonia smiled. “As soon as the doctors say you can get out of bed, we’ll burn the bedding – it’s the only way, I think, to revive the room.”
“Only if you burn me with it,” he muttered weakly, setting the water aside and wrinkling up his nose.
“You’ve been burning up enough the last few days,” said Morsicato, rising from a chair where he’d been napping. He was disheveled, the twin forks of his beard jutting out at odd angles.
“You look worse than I feel.”
“You smell worse than I look.” The doctor leaned down to take the boy’s pulse. “Do you want food?”
“A bath,” said Cesco distinctly.
“You want a bath, you need food. Let’s see what you can keep down.”
“I’ll eat in the bath,” said the boy stubbornly. Sitting up, he didn’t fall over or look faint. Both adults knew that even if he did feel weak, pride would never let him show it.
“It will take time to heat the water,” said Antonia reasonably. “Until then, sit still and eat.”
“I’ll sit by the window, then. Fresh air.” Swinging his legs off the bed, he set them gingerly on the floor. Both Antonia and Morsicato moved to help, but he waved them off. “I don’t remember having this much trouble walking when I was delirious,” he said, rising and taking a few shuffling steps.
“Don’t push yourself,” advised Morsicato. “Youth may have saved your life, but you’re not invincible.” Cesco snorted and kept shuffling. “How much do you remember?”
“My name is Francesco, my favourite colour is sky blue, and when I sing little birds come to copulate in my hand. No, wait, that’s Detto.”
Morsicato groaned. “You were easier to talk to when you were raving.”
“Probably made more sense.” Cesco lit on a bench near a shuttered window. His clumsy fingers found the latch, letting in a wall of sunlight. He held his face up and sighed in pure joy. “Didn’t someone mention food?”
He ate, bathed, threw up, ate again, then lay in the shifting sunbeam for the rest of the day. When talked to, he spoke cheerfully from behind closed eyelids, replying to questions in anything but a helpful manner. Pietro, Antonia, Bailardino, and the two doctors all spent time quizzing him, all ending with the same expression of impotent frustration. Detto and Valentino were allowed to come in for a few minutes, but were packed off because Cesco was expending too much energy entertaining them with stories invented from his fever dreams.
The setting sun made the room no less warm – the summer air around Verona was rife with humidity. But the threat of another attempt on Cesco’s life was very real in everyone’s mind – save Cesco’s, it seemed – so the shutters were shut and the room lit with candles. In the morning Cesco had asked for books to do with Verona, and by the end of the day a crate had arrived from the fabled Franciscan monastery of San Bernardino.
Cracking the first volume, he was instantly engrossed, and remained so for over an hour. So deep was he in study that when the door opened, it took the boy several moments to look up.
“I’m still breathing,” he said testily. “And enjoying being alone for the first time today.”
“All things end, little dancer,” said the Moor, seating himself on the floor, his back to the wall.
Marking his place with a rush-straw, Cesco said, “Did you know that the Roman general Gaius Marius defeated the Cimbric hordes not far from here?”
“Yes.”
“Well nyah.” Cesco extended his tongue.
“You were in the sun all day?” asked Tharwat.
Cesco stretched like a happy animal. “The reviving sun. Like a plant, I soak up the rays and it gives me growth.”
“You don’t want to appear pale when you go out.”
Cesco shrugged. “I’m suddenly lacking both blood and weight. Can’t let people think the Greyhound’s heir is a daisy.”
“And you plan to go out…?”
“Tomorrow,” said Cesco.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Not tomorrow. Sunday a week.”
Cesco paused. “Because…”
“Ser Alaghieri’s friend, the noble Ser Antonio Capulletto, throws an annual feast for all the great families of Verona and the Feltro—”
“Save the Montecchi,” Cesco interjected.
“Save the Montecchi,” amended the Moor. “It is the feast for the Christian Saint Bonaventura.”
“Bonaventura isn’t officially sainted, and his day was last Monday. Same as the sainted Holy Roman Emperor Henri II.”
“Bonaventura was called a saint in his own time, and is celebrated as a saint in these parts, however uncanonical. As for his day, what you say is true. However, due to a minor civil war, his festivities were postponed.”
Cesco’s face blossomed in pleasure. “Did Ser Capulletto, perhaps, wish to reschedule?”
Tharwat nodded. “In honour of Cangrande’s miraculous return and your joyful arrival, he has, at great personal expense, set a new date for his feast. The Sunday after next.”
A short silence fell. Tharwat knew that Cesco would insist on venturing out sooner than he should, and Cesco knew he was being manipulated into at least a little rest. But he also saw what the Moor knew he would see – the possibilities inherent in making a grand entrance at the Capulletti gala. “Ten days. Will Mastino be there?”
“After a humiliating two weeks with the grave-diggers, yes.”
Having not heard that news, Cesco’s smile broadened. “A lovely contrapasso. And Donna Giovanna?”
“With her great-nephew in tow.”
“Then I must be fresh, mustn’t I?”
The Moor made no reply, and they sat for a time, Cesco gazing at the open book without turning the pages.
Suddenly Tharwat spoke. “You have an appointment with the Scaliger’s wife.”
“The woman who tried to have me killed so often in my youth.”
“The same. It was her price for promising to leave you alone in the future. That, and an oath that you will, in the course of your career, advance Paride above all others.”
“Hmm. We’ll see. As for the meeting, she could have had it without the promise. I want to know all my nemisises. Nemises? Nemisi?”
“Child, this is not a game.”
“No, it certainly isn’t,” agreed Cesco. “This is better. The stakes are mortal.”
“They are that.” Standing, the Moor crossed to the center of the room. “Sit up.”
Cesco recoiled. “I’ve been poked and prodded enough, old man!”
“This is a teaching hour. First, eat this.” He passed across a small wafer of something stick
y.
Cesco smelled it. “Sweet.” He broke off a corner and dabbed it on his tongue. “Euh! What is it?”
Tharwat al-Dhaamin sat on the floor across from Cesco and folded his legs. “Eat it, then do as I do.”
“Why?”
The Moor took up an erect posture and began to breathe rhythmically in and out. Overwhelmed by curiosity, Cesco swallowed the wafer and imitated the Moor’s stance. They sat like distorted mirrors, old and young, dark and light. Every few minutes Tharwat would add an instruction. “Breathe into your back. Ease your shoulders down. Breathe. Straighten your spine. Breathe.”
Slowly Cesco felt a swelling wellness within him, a sense of energetic ease and euphoria. Then, abruptly, the instruction was over. The Moor relaxed his stance, stood, and returned to sit by the door.
“What was that, if you don’t you mind my asking?” said Cesco.
“I have begun your instruction in a new field.”
“May I know what I’m learning, O my Chiron?”
“No.”
“Oh. All right. Then tell me why I’m learning it.”
“It might have helped you in this recent ordeal. If so, I was remiss in not instructing you before now.”
“You don’t think I’m too young?”
“I was a child much younger than you when I began.”
Cesco blinked. “You were a child?”
“This will give you tools to—”
“Wait wait, I’m busy being shocked. You were young once?” When the Moor did not reply, Cesco rolled onto his back to stare up at the ceiling’s beams. “You owe me a question.”
“So I do.”
“The trouble is, I don’t know what I should ask you. Nuncle Pietro was easy, but you’re an onion.”
The Moor said nothing.
“Should I ask about your past? I know nothing beyond the languages you speak and the things you’ve taught me – and those magnificent scars. I must have some of my own. Though perhaps not on my throat, I enjoy talking too much. I know you are called the Arûs, meaning the Bridegroom, which I can only hope is ironic. This is the first time I’ve ever heard you mention your youth.”
