Voice of the Falconer

by David Blixt

  Antonia appeared at the top of the stairs. “If you start addressing him formally, you’ll have to do the same for me, and I simply refuse to hear you call me Donna.”

  “But soon I’ll be calling you Suora,” replied Cesco brightly. “What if you become an abbess? Could I then call him uncle for real, as the brother to the Mother Superior?”

  Pietro’s head hurt enough already. “Uncle is fine. Nuncle, less so. Makes me feel a non-entity. Antonia, where are you going?”

  “With you,” she said significantly. Al-Dhaamin must have told her of the meeting with Cesco’s mother, just as he had obviously decided to leave the doctor in the dark. Pietro understood why. Cesco found it too easy to read the antics of that forked beard.

  Pietro could wish Antonia well away from the palace and Cangrande. But she wouldn’t willingly miss a chance to lay eyes on Cesco’s mother. “Very well. Come along.”

  Hurrying through the rain, the quartet passed the marble sarcophagi beside Santa Maria Antica and entered the rear palace gate. Across the busy yard and the old familiar stables, they achieved the inner stair, shaking their cloaks as they climbed.

  At the top they were met by Tullio d’Isola. “I am afraid Donna Katerina is engaged with her own children at the moment, but she has asked her lady to entertain you until her return.” The Grand Butler showed them into the front room of the guest suite and left.

  Donna Maria was waiting beside the window, watching the rain. So far, so good. Cesco didn’t know the Katerina’s retinue, so he wouldn’t suspect a switch.

  Seeing them enter, the short woman didn’t look twice at Tharwat or Antonia. She stood and curtsied to Pietro, then invited Cesco to sit with her. “Donna Katerina has asked that I pass the time of her absence with you.”

  Cesco rudely dropped his sodden cloak to the rushes. “Take my measure, you mean. My entire existence consists of one person or another trying to sound my depths. I shall save you the trouble. I am a pond so shallow even Narcissus would pass me by.”

  The lady was visibly startled. Pietro intervened. “Perhaps you can disguise your lack of personality – and decorum – by playing for us.”

  With a deliberate sigh, Cesco took up an idle lyre, wasted a few seconds tuning it, then launched into a section of a popular French ballad about the life of Charlemagne, regarding the redemption of Elegast the Thief.

  The story was famous, if absurd. Young Charlemagne was commanded by an angel to go out at night and try his hand at thieving. With the aid of the disgraced noble-turned-thief, the disguised Charlemagne roams the rooftops of his city learning how to steal in secret. Elegast, alone, discovers a traitorous Earl attempting to gain the help of Charlemagne’s wife in an assassination plot. Elegast runs to his companion for help, unaware that this is the lady’s husband. Charlemagne returns in time to hear his wife’s refusal.

  Cesco’s voice was high and clear as he sang the tale’s climax:

  The Earl angered at the thwarting of his deed.

  He hit the countess a nosebleed.

  Outside stood Charles, Prince Royal, listening to it all.

  ‘Soon this will end and he will fall!’

  Charles prince royal jumped in to make a stand

  With drawn sword ready in his hand.

  ‘Now you won’t ever again, sir,

  Hit the king’s daughter!

  ‘Nor will you be troubled any more

  By Royal Princes at your door.’

  And as his golden locks turned red,

  The Earl lost his head over the side of the bed.

  The song ended with Elegast, for his loyalty, being reinstated as a knight and Charlemagne on his knees thanking the angel that sent him out thieving in the night. Cesco let the last note linger, then placed a hand over the strings and set the lyre aside. “What next, Nuncle? Shall I dance? You could play while I caper.”

  “You could show some manners.” Pietro wanted Cesco at his best, but the boy wasn’t cooperating. A violent drinking song and boorish behavior was not how Pietro wanted Maria to remember her son.

  But the lady seemed to have grown accustomed. “I think he resists being ordered or controlled. Isn’t that so, young one?”

  Cesco sighed. “So instead of putting me up for display like him, you’d rather talk down to me as if I were a mewling brat on someone’s knee. Honestly!” He threw up his hands in despair.

  “How would you like to be treated, then?”

  Predictably, the boy feigned shock. “You mean I can choose?”

  “If you wish to be treated as an equal, then you’d best be doing the same for me. I’m not one for games.”

  At first Cesco looked angry, then chagrined. Finally a genuine smile played at the corners of his mouth. “An equal, then. If you’ll forgive me, lady,” he said, intrigued, “I can’t place your accent. I’m sure I’ve never heard anything like it, but somehow it sounds familiar.”

  “I come from an island far from here, mo chridh,” said the lady. “Home to a great and pious people. What’s this?” Her fingers touched on the silver disc hanging under his Adam’s apple.

  “An old coin,” said Cesco. “I’ve always had it. Ser Alaghieri says it belonged to my first dog. What was it you just called me?”

  Ignoring the question, she studied the image on the coin. “Who is this?”

  “Mercury. God of messengers, poets, and dying.”

  “A planet as well.”

  “Yes,” said Cesco. “Smallest of the seven planets, where dwell i buoni spiriti, che son stati attivi perche onore e fama li succeda. Yet it is the reason the rays of true love flow less easily to Heaven. A troubled sphere, to be sure.”

  “But a noble one.”

  “I suppose,” shrugged Cesco.

  “You must have been born under it, to have such a strong attraction.” Her tone was probing.

  “Grandfather Dante was. He thought it was the source of his genius. As for myself?” He shrugged and jerked a thumb at al-Dhaamin. “No one has ever seen fit to tell me my birthdate.”

  “Friday the Thirteenth,” said Pietro, referencing the unlucky day two decades before when all the Knights Templar were arrested by the French king’s puppet pope.

  Cesco smiled. “You see? They think it’s dangerous knowledge.”

  “All knowledge is dangerous,” answered Donna Maria. “It leads to more questions.”

  “Ha-hah! Too true. Lord knows they hate questions. Though the Arûs still owes me one.”

  Not understanding the reference, the lady continued in the former vein. “Mercurio. He suits you, my boy.”

  “True, I am light on my feet, even without the wings. But sadly all accounts have him tall, and I fear I shall never grow to great heights.”

  “The little Mercury, then. Mercutio.”

  Cesco cocked his head to one side, a slow smile spreading. “I like it. But I have too many names already, I’m afraid. Another will just confuse the matter. You still haven’t told me yours.”

  “Nor have you told me yours. I am a siabrae, you are an uirisg. They never share their names.”

  Cesco stared, then laughed. Turning to the Moor he said in Arabic, “It’s not often I’m shown up in another tongue.” Seeing the lady’s blank gaze, Cesco returned to Italian. “Now we’re even, having both proved our talent with words. Shall we—”

  But what Cesco was about to propose was never discovered. At that moment, Katerina entered, Detto and Valentino by her side. They waved to him, and Cesco stood to bow to Maria. “Alas, I am called to perform once more. Lady, it has been a pleasure. We will continue our discourse another time, I’m sure.”

  The interview was over. Too short by far, thought Pietro resentfully. Donna Maria, however, rose with a smile and a curtsey that somehow had a regal air to it. For all Katerina’s power upon entering a room, this woman matched it. A gentler presence, yet no less impressive. “Fare well, mo chridh.”

  As Cesco was dragged into the inner room, he cast a final look back at the
lady. She inclined her head to him, and he to her. Then he was gone to laugh and play with his friends.

  Pietro crossed to take Maria’s arm. “You didn’t even tell him your name.”

  “Maria is only one of my names. Just as Francesco is only one of his. He knows the name of my soul.” Her face brightened. “Thank you. Despite the restlessness he is – remarkably whole.”

  Pietro had nothing to say to that. Instead he made introductions. “Lady, this is my sister, the novice Beatrice.”

  “A pleasure,” said Maria with another regal nod. Antonia was uncharacteristically quiet as she curtsied.

  “And this is Tharwat al-Dhaamin, my friend and your son’s protector.”

  Tharwat bowed in the Italian fashion. “It is an honour, lady.”

  “He called you the Arûs,” said Maria.

  “An ironic name, meaning bridegroom. He uses it to taunt, because he does not know why I bear it.”

  “I see. Am I to understand you are an astrologer?”

  “I have some skill, my lady.”

  “You have made a chart for my son?”

  “Several. There is conflicting information regarding the night of his birth.”

  “Conflicting?”

  “There are reports of two separate shooting stars that night, crossing in the sky. Perhaps you can assist me…?”

  Donna Maria’s smile was apologetic. “I’m sorry. I was somewhat occupied at the time.”

  A deferential knocking at the door produced Tullio d’Isola. “Madonna, your carriage is prepared, your effects on board.”

  Pietro said, “She’ll be along in a moment.” Tullio nodded and shut the door as respectfully as he’d come. “So soon?”

  “I must go.” Yet she sent a longing look to where Cesco had disappeared.

  “Lady – if I ever need to find you…”

  “You cannot. Today was a gift not to be repeated. It is the old arrangement. If my son is to be the Capitano’s heir, I must relinquish all rights to him. He must never set eyes on me again.”

  “But the time may come – I mean, if there ever were need to reach you… I don’t even know your full name, where to look for you.”

  “That is as it should be.” Approaching him, Donna Maria kissed Pietro’s cheek, then departed. The Moor excused himself as well, leaving Pietro and Antonia alone.

  “A remarkable woman,” said Antonia. “I can see why Cangrande was attracted to her.”

  Unbidden, an image of Cesco’s two parents lovemaking flashed before Pietro’s inner eye. It seemed incongruous, even indecent. Yes, Cangrande had treated her with deference, but without a hint of intimacy. For the first time, Pietro wondered how the liaison had come about. One more question I’ll never have an answer to.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  Inside Katerina’s chamber, Cesco was seated at her knee. The lady had dismissed her other attendants, then sent Detto and Valentino on an errand. The two sat near a smoking brazier in silence, listening to the rain, eyes on each other.

  Cesco eyed her warily. “I remember you.”

  “Yes,” said Katerina. “La Donna, Detto’s mother.”

  “Before that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. When you visited us in Ravenna, before your illness, I was always uneasy. Now I know why. I was raised by you, in that palace in Vicenza.”

  “Did Ser Alaghieri tell you that?”

  “I had already begun remembering. I don’t think I liked you very much.”

  Katerina nodded, unconcerned. “That is probably true. But you can’t take your eyes off me now. Is that hatred as well?”

  “No,” admitted Cesco. He felt naked before her gaze, and his words were equally bald. “I badly want to impress you. It’s why I worked so hard to charm your maid just now. Your opinion matters to me. I don’t like it.”

  “Then why worry about it?”

  “Because…” He trailed off, not having an answer. She discomfited him in a way even the Scaliger did not. “You asked to see me, not the other way around. Do you want something?”

  “Only to see you, have this conversation. You realize that my brother faked his death to gull you out of hiding.”

  “I guessed as much. Since I wasn’t aware I needed to hide, I don’t feel any loss. But I’ve wondered why.”

  “To win a war with me. I had you in your earliest years. We fought, and since neither could win, we handed you to a neutral party. The arrangement was that when you turned fifteen, you would come here and be made his heir. Only he has accelerated that timeframe, thus inflicting a defeat upon me.”

  “So you came here to show him you are not defeated.”

  “Yes.”

  “Has it occurred to you that perhaps you deserve defeat?”

  “Yes. But I am willing to wager my life against his that my brother has never thought he deserved defeat.”

  “You argue that self-doubt is a virtue. It makes sense, as I feel tremendous self-doubt just being in your presence. You must have instilled it in me very young.”

  “You hide it well,” said Katerina. “As my brother hides his.”

  “You just told me that he doesn’t own any.”

  “No, I said he believes he deserves to win, no matter what. He is plagued by doubts, even moreso than I. He simply has no scruples.”

  “Are you trying to turn me against him?”

  “I wouldn’t presume. You are to be with him from now on. I only wished to impart this piece of wisdom to you – there are more sides to this die than just his. When you are ready to be rid of him, come to me. I will be waiting.”

  “Then I can only hope you have the patience of Penelope. I’m still trying to figure out the rules, but I’m fairly determined to win by fair means, not foul. Coming to you would be cheating.”

  “You are young,” said Katerina with an infuriating condescension.

  An old panic roiling his gut, Cesco tried to form a cutting exit line, but his wit was empty as a pricked bladder. Lacking his usual mot juste, he rose into a neat little bow and tried not to run for the door.

  Thirty-One

  While Cesco was ensconced with Katerina, Pietro received a summons to attend the Scaliger in the Domus Nova. Expecting something of the sort, Pietro took his leave of Antonia and, pulling his cloak up over his head, followed Tullio across the wet stones of the Piazza dei Signori. Knocking, they were admitted at once.

  Cangrande was seated in state upon the dais, papers spread on a table beside him. With him were two men. The first, predictably, was the Mantuan lord Passerino Bonaccolsi, the Scaliger’s fast friend. It was the second man whose presence was surprising: Federigo della Scala, removed from his cell.

  Federigo was not in good humour. “Cousin, you owe me more than—”

  Cangrande cut across him sharply. “You should have fled, cousin. Your staying has placed me in an impossible position. By law, I should have you executed. But until now you have always been a loyal and able defender of Verona.”

  “I still am!” protested Federigo, thumping his chest angrily.

  “You maneuvered children into my place without checking the facts of my supposed death. But your grab for power would not have been so transparent had you not tried to take control of my armies. Fortunately for us all, you bungled that so efficiently that I didn’t even have to put up a fight to get them back. For Heaven’s sake, they were willing to follow an eleven year-old rather than stay with you. Doesn’t that tell you how badly you managed affairs?”

  “I was following the instructions you left behind!” cried Federigo, suddenly commanding Pietro’s full attention. “You said to stop the army’s pay while a new system was laid out—”

  “That was when all was well! In a crisis, the last thing you do is stop a soldier’s pay! Nothing better ensures their quick defection!”

  “You were explicit, you said that nothing should stop me from—”

  “I didn’t foresee my premature demise!”

  Federigo threw up his
hands. “So you’re just going to kill me?”

  “Of course not. You’re going into voluntary exile. Passerino has generously volunteered to escort you to Mantua. Where you go from there is of no concern to me. I’ll make sure you have a pension to live on – secretly, of course.”

  Federigo began to plead. “Cousin—”

  “Do not mistake mercy for softness. I am repaying you a debt. If you return to Verona, I will have no choice but to have you killed. Passerino, he’s all yours. There’s an escort waiting outside. His belongings are waiting there, as are his sons. Go.” Pretending to just notice Pietro, Cangrande smiled broadly. “Ah! Ser Alaghieri! Welcome, welcome. Tullio, you may leave us. And stop fretting! You did well, considering the circumstances. When I’m in the mood to read, I shall just have to hop over to the monastery, that’s all. Or do you think I could borrow one of my books back from time to time?”

  “I am sure the brothers would return the collection,” said the Grand Butler, making way for Passerino and the sullen Federigo. “You have only to ask.”

  “And how much of a churl would that make me? No, resurrection should require sacrifice. And as you say, you saved them from the fire. For that you have posterity’s undying thanks, and mine. You may go.”

  Despite the rough tone, Tullio was smiling as he bowed. Collecting Pietro’s sodden cloak, he exited with a surprising spring in his step. Cangrande waved the guards to follow. Alone with Pietro in the high chamber, the Scaliger shook his head. “They gave away my books. Years of hunting up old manuscripts, collecting, though with little time to read them. But it seems young Mastino has no appreciation for the less physical delights of this world. So in one fell swoop they were donated to the Church, no friend of mine. Or yours!”

  Pietro had no immediate reply. He was staring at the papers Cangrande had been sorting through – the contents of his strong-box, the one that had vanished in the fire in Ravenna. The box itself was visible behind the dais, its metal scored with burn marks. Woodenly, Pietro said, “That is a shame, lord.”