The Prince's Doom

by David Blixt

  The best chart, the one they had hoped for, granted Cesco happiness at the cost of his brilliance. If he married for love, he would live long and achieve great things, but not rise as high as possible. Now, with that promising fate denied, Pietro clung to the idea of a hard but not awful middle path.

  “Fate has a way of thwarting the plans of men,” said Tharwat. “The stars have led him here. He will not love another.”

  The doctor had no use for stars. “This isn't birth, this is blood! A brilliant boy, born of a brilliant father, looking for a love as brilliant as himself. How natural that he thought he'd found it in his sister?”

  “It's not natural at all,” protested Pietro. “This isn't Egypt, they're not Ptolemies! Christ Jesus, it worse than sin, it's-”

  “I'm not saying it's good. I'm saying we can't think that the boy is condemned to a life of misery because of an unlucky choice in loves. Not for his first choice, at any rate,” added Morsicato sourly, stroking one fork of his beard.

  “Nor should we condemn him for this new marriage,” replied Tharwat softly. “No, listen, doctor. This may be the best thing for him. He is hurt. He will not, now, marry for love. So he is taking a wife that frees him from playing the part of a husband.”

  “What about the little girl?” insisted Morsicato. “What is Cesco thinking, dragging a child into the viper-pit of Verona?”

  “She will be treated as a princess. They will certainly not share a room until she is of age. Ten years. What changes will be wrought in them both in that time?”

  “Ask the stars,” grunted Morsicato.

  “I have, and shall continue to.”

  Pietro said, “He means to throw himself into the war with Treviso.”

  “The Capitano will let him. To a point,” added Tharwat.

  “Yes,” agreed Morsicato at once. “To a point. When the great hound feels himself being eclipsed, he'll send the pup back with his tail between his legs.”

  Pietro gripped his goblet tight, his wine undrunk. “I'm not sure. Cangrande seems genuinely grieved. I know he was hoping that Cesco would marry for love, and so prove once and for all that he is not the Greyhound. But there was something else. He looked – uncertain.”

  “Unusual, for the Capitano.” Though firmly tied to Verona's ruling family, the doctor had long since stopped being an admirer of Cangrande della Scala. Or for that matter, of his patron's wife, the Scaliger's sister. Both had conspired to ruin lives and wreck dreams. All for the sake of a prophecy.

  Remarkably, it was Tharwat who had the most sympathy for Cangrande. “The Scaliger has finally come to care for the boy. Having opened himself, he feels the boy's plight. He received a blight at the same age. From me.”

  Pietro knew what this meant. Tharwat had shown the fifteen-year-old Cangrande his star chart, revealing to the gifted boy that he was not, in fact, the fabled Greyhound, as he'd been led to believe. “You told him the truth.”

  “Truth often wounds more than a lie. Look to what the truth has cost Cesco.”

  “It can't have been delivered kindly, coming from that bastard Mastino,” observed Morsicato.

  “No,” said Pietro, who hated to imagine that scene. “But Cesco won't talk of it. At least, not to me.”

  “I doubt he'll mention it to anyone,” said Tharwat heavily. “Ever private, this will make him moreso.”

  “How did he seem today?” asked Morsicato.

  “Almost like himself,” answered Pietro. “Quick. Sarcastic. Amused. But – careless. As if nothing had weight. I've never seen him drink wine before.”

  “Better wine than that awful hashish.” Morsicato cast an accusing look at the Moor. But Tharwat did not choose to again debate his practice of giving the boy a careful mixture of hashish, poppy-seeds, and various other herbs.

  His bait not taken, the doctor asked, “How many people know?”

  “Only a few. Most think there was a mix-up in the names. For those who know everything, it's us three, the Scaliger, Bailardino and Detto – which means Katerina will know. Rienzi, of course. And Mastino.”

  “Bastard,” grunted Morsicato. “Do we know how Mastino discovered the truth?”

  “Fuchs. He'd been following Cesco for months. And, as we now know, he was also behind the disappearance of Cesco's mother.”

  Cesco's mother, the mysterious foreigner called Maria, she of the green eyes and lilting accent, had been in Pietro's presence only twice. Once, when she'd handed her infant over to Cangrande's care, and again three years ago, when she had been introduced to Cesco in the guise of a handmaiden. Then she had disappeared. Tharwat had tried to trace her, only to find blood stains and a mysterious jumble of letters carved into the wood where she'd been bound. Pietro and Tharwat had struggled for years to decypher the code, and failed. Whatever secrets she had tried to convey, they were beyond Cesco's protectors.

  But not now beyond his enemies. “If Mastino knows whatever secrets she was hiding, why not use them?”

  “He's done enough already,” said Tharwat. “No, he'll hold them close to hurt Cesco at some later date.”

  “I wish we knew how to defend him.”

  Morsicato pulled a wry face. “We could always ask Cangrande, or Katerina for help.”

  Tharwat was unamused. “It is up to us. Protect him, and smoke out the secrets, once and for ever.”

  There was little more to say. Feeling the weight of both the years and their hearts, they'd all retired for the night.

  In his darkened room, Pietro had moved from bed to table to window to chair, cursing Cangrande, cursing Fortune, cursing the stars in Heaven. Filled with impotent anger, Pietro was reminded of Cianfa Donati, lying on the floor of his father's Hell, giving God the fig. Amusingly, Cesco had once tweaked that man's namesake, preventing the living Cianfa Donati from absconding with Dante's bones.

  But it was the vivid image of the poetic Donati that lived in Pietro's mind. He'd never before been angry enough to lay the blame for earthly woes at the Lord's feet. Yet this was such a perverse circumstance, so utterly random. Of all the girls in the world, that Cesco should fall in love with Cangrande's secret daughter? The blame could go only to God, or to Satan. Yet Satan had no power in the world, save that allowed to him by God to test Mankind.

  Thus God had allowed this. For the first time since his miraculous readmittance to the faith, Pietro felt alienated from the Lord, something he had never experienced, not even when excommunicated. Denied the Church, denied the society of priests and friars and nuns, Pietro had still felt God's presence in his life.

  That presence was darker now, and Pietro was angry. This is my son. He has already been tested more than any boy should. Brilliant, clever, he can light up the world. Why, O Lord, do you task him so?

  As if in answer, Pietro remembered another son, tested by his father, tested beyond endurance. A son deserving of love and honour, but given ridicule and death.

  Cesco is hardly Christ-like, mused Pietro. Nor am I Abraham, willing to sacrifice my son for the Lord. Cesco may not be the son of my flesh, but he is the son of my heart. No, God – I will not give up my son. That's asking too much. I am not you, and Cesco is not the Savior.

  But Cesco did have a destiny. If he was indeed the Greyhound, he was to bring about 'a power unknown since before the Fall of Man.' These events were merely shaping him for it, just as a sword is hammered into shape and bathed in fire. What does it matter to the knight what the sword feels, so long as it cuts? The tool is required. It must be strong.

  Pietro had gone to bed that night impotently raging at the injustice of it all.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  STANDING NOW IN the brisk November air, Pietro watched the two couples wave to the assembled masses. They were unconsciously arranged in order of age. Standing on the left was Taddea, twenty-four years old, then Mastino, twenty, followed by Cesco, fourteen, and Maddelena, five. It was absurd. Worse, it made Cesco seem small, Mastino grand.

  This was not the first time Pietro had seen
the grooms with their brides. The formal betrothal of Mastino and Taddea on the steps of Padua's own Duomo had been followed by the blessing of Cesco and Maddelena, with the Paduan cleric pronouncing, “Benedictio annuli ante hostium templi.” Even then Pietro had found himself comparing the grown Mastino to the growing Cesco. Would Verona prefer a handsome young man to a wild youth barely starting to shave?

  Lost in his mind, Pietro nearly missed the signal to enter the great cathedral. The interior was brighter than most, thanks to the polished coloured marble, rose and white. Past the nave, the apse was enclosed by a semi-circular white marble arcade in the crossing between the transepts.

  To the right was the tomb of Pope Lucio III, who had died in Verona while overseeing preparations for the Third Crusade. Above his elaborate sarcophagus hung a twin to the object hanging in the archway between the Piazza della Erbe and the Piazza dei Signori – a long curved bone taken from an ancient monster. Legend said the city had risen up to vanquish the beast. Pietro wondered whose bone it really was. Some enormous creature, obviously. But there was no such thing as monsters. At least, not that kind.

  Everyone took their assigned places. Pietro's seat was beside a thin-faced soldier with just one eye, the other sewn shut. Across him was an equally Germanic looking fellow – Prince Rupert, the Emperor's nephew. Pietro had met the young man in Rome, but not this fearsome companion. About to introduce himself, Pietro was forestalled by a flourish of trumpets.

  With an eye towards theatricality, the wedding was not taking place within the curved arcade of the apse, but at the altar fifteen feet in front of it. The families sat on a raised platform inside the apse, neatly framed by the arch overlooked by two saints. It was like Greek theatre, performed in the round, which meant the families had their backs turned to the interior altar. Hardly the first time Cangrande had turned his back on God.

  That was unfair, of course. Choirs often performed facing outwards, towards the congregation. But the raised platform within the apse was specially made for this day to allow every member of the Scaligeri, Carrara, and Rossi to see and be seen in return.

  The women had already been here, awaiting the arrival of their triumphal men. On the right-hand side sat the whole Carrara clan, save those still in exile. Carrara's wife, Bartolomea Manfredo Scrovegni, sat in prominence, despite her famous family no longer being citizens. Beside her was his aunt Elisabetta, mother of Mastino's bride, surrounded by her other daughters, ranged alongside Carrara's sisters Cunizza and Rigoberna. These ladies awaited their husbands Tiso Camposapiero and Antonio da Lozzo, another of Nico's cousins who had refused to join him in changing colours.

  Also with them sat Montecchio's wife. Gianozza della Bella was cousin to the Carrara clan. Once it had been thought that her marriage to a famous Veronese family would help seal a peace. Instead it had launched a new if bloodless war within Verona's walls between her intended and her usurping groom. Pietro knew that Capulletto would spend the whole service looking at her, and that Mari would spend it scowling back.

  The left platform was reserved for the family of Cesco's bride. Madonna Rossi sat wedged between her two elder daughters Luisa and Sibilia. Either would have been far more age-appropriate, but both were already betrothed.

  With Rossi on the left and Carrara on the right, the Scaligeri were left to fill the center, perfectly framed by the arch. Waiting beside her husband's seat, Giovanna da Svevia was grave, doubtless wishing it was her great-nephew now walking up the aisle. She had long lobbied for Paride to supplant Cesco as her husband's heir. After all, the blood of Emperor Frederick II ran in her veins.

  Fortunately, Paride had inherited none of her vaulting ambition. There he was, smiling and bright, taking his seat between his aunt and Mastino's elder brother, the affable Alberto.

  Behind, in a rare circumstance, all three of Mastino's sisters were present: Verde, Caterina, and Albuina. Caterina was seventeen years old, Albuina sixteen, both ripe for political matches. No longer confined to the convent they had been raised in, they gazed at the crowd of knights, lords, and dignitaries, wondering which among them would win their uncle's favour and so their hands.

  Both hoped they would not end up like their sister Verde, whose political match to a handsome man had gone sour. Rizzardo da Camino was hidden somewhere among the lesser nobility, not given a place in the front. The Camino family were nobles of Treviso, and Cangrande had traded his niece for a foothold in that city. But within months of the wedding the city had thrown out Rizzardo's father, thus ending the hopes of a bloodless transfer of power.

  That reversal alone hadn't been enough to end Cangrande's liking of Rizzardo, of course. No, that had come four years ago when Rizzardo considered changing sides. His castle and lands seized by Cangrande, Rizzardo sheepishly returned to the fold. Since then, Verde's husband had not been allowed a place of prominence in Veronese society.

  Pietro watched Detto and his brother Valentino take their place upon the dais, along with their father, the genial and warlike Bailardino Nogarola. Cangrande's brother-in-law, foster-father, and best friend, Bail was remarkably energetic for a man now somewhere past fifty. His hair was still thick, if whitened. Catching Pietro's eye, Bail winked and threw a gesture of a cup to his lips. When does the drinking start? Pietro smothered a laugh.

  Striding up the aisle, Cangrande assumed his place at the center of the dais. On his right hand was his wife. On his sinister side, his sister.

  Katerina della Scala in Nogarola, mistress of Vicenza, Bail's wife, Detto's mother, and once Cesco's foster-mother. Long ago, Pietro had fallen in a kind of longing for this beautiful, older, married woman. Not that he'd acted upon his feelings. Bail was a friend, and Pietro's respect for everyone involved kept his emotions well within the prison of his ribs. His was the perfect Courtly Love, the love from afar, performing great deeds in her name without any hope of recompense.

  For fourteen years Pietro had engaged in no romance, no dalliance, no love-affair – not even when one was offered in the most explicit terms. He told himself he was honourable. But he feared his reluctance to engage in carnality was because he had so terribly misjudged this lady, his first love.

  He now knew Katerina for what she was – a murderess, a plotter, a schemer, a woman who cared no more for the people she manipulated than a chess player did for the pawns on the board. She'd employed Tharwat to make Cesco's star-charts. She'd raised her own brother to believe he was Il Veltro in a cruel test of her methods. She'd sent murderers to kill baby Cesco in the crib. This was a fact known only to Pietro and Cangrande. Her reasoning was cold-heartedly sound – if Cesco was indeed the Greyhound of prophecy, he would survive, and the fearful mother would entrust the child to Katerina's care. If he were not, best discover it by letting the child die.

  It had worked, the child had come into her hands. Cesco still bore the invisible scars of her mothering.

  Astonishingly, knowledge of all this had done nothing to alter Pietro's feelings for her, only made those feelings easier to resist. Often he wondered what was wrong within him, what part of him was broken, that he would place his romantic emotions into such an unworthy vessel.

  Even now, with the marks of a stroke still evident in the corner of her mouth and the gloved hands hiding the terrible burns on her left arm, Katerina della Scala's face was where Pietro's eyes went.

  She did not look back at him. Her eyes were fixed upon the altar where Mastino and Taddea knelt for their blessing. Taddea's face was heavy with make-up, and her hairline had been plucked to make her brow high and proud. She positively glowed, as well she might – she was marrying a handsome member of the most powerful family in Lombardy, perhaps all Italy.

  To their left, Cesco patted Maddelena's small hand as he turned her to face the Bishop. Where Mastino and Taddea exchanged elaborate oaths, Cesco and Maddelena's exchange was pure simplicity:

  “I give my self to you, in loyal matrimony,” said Cesco.

  “And I receive it,” Maddelena replied
, frowning in concentration to get it out right. Tears of fright lacing her lashes, her gaze kept straying to the many people watching her. She almost forgot to add, “I give my self to you.”

  Cesco smiled reassuringly. “And I receive it.” When she gave a quavering smile back, he whispered something private in her ear, forcing her to smother a giggle.

  They exchanged rings, and with more prayers and thanksgivings for peace and harmony, union and order, the trumpets outside blared to life once more, signaling the start of the revels.

  As the cheers broke out, drowning even the music, Pietro looked from face to face. Cesco's visage showed nothing but amused mirth. Cangrande displayed much the same, but there was a trace of resignation as well. Detto looked stricken. Pietro knew that somewhere behind him Morsicato and Antonia were gritting their teeth and restraining tears. Outside, Tharwat's ravaged face would be stone.

  Among all who knew of Cesco's ill-fated romance, Katerina alone showed no regret. Her face carried something far more radiant, far more suffusing. Her face bore triumph.

  Pietro recalled a moment, years ago, when he'd seen the same brilliant look on Cangrande's face. They had thought Cesco dead, and therefore the prophecy undone.

  Now it was the sister's turn to revel, not in the breaking of the prophecy, but in the assurance of it.

  Cesco had married. But not for love.

  He was the Greyhound.

  Three

  THE CEREMONY ENDED, and the elder nobility breathed a collective sigh of relief. The seal was set on peace. For them, the important part of the day was complete.

  But for the young men dressed in purple and gold, the day had hardly begun. They surged towards the exits, eager to transfer themselves to where their main event would occur – the Arena. Now that matrimony was achieved, it was time for the knighting.

  Rising from his place of honour, Pietro watched the exodus of prospective knights with a wistful smile. He'd worn similar garb once – doublet, hose, cape, and hat, all the same, right down to the small tassels on the cape that ended in metal rosebuds, though he preferred the silver of his day to the garish gold bedecking these lads. For years that suit had been his best attire, worn for elegant occasions. Though a trifle ostentatious, those garments marked one of the proudest days in Pietro's life.