The Prince's Doom

by David Blixt

  “I'll remember the description until the day I die.” Girolamo shifted. “In many ways, I died that day.”

  “Mmm.” Jacopo plucked an apple from a tree and bit into it. The Florentine was uninterested in Girolamo's self-pity. Girolamo did not like being judged by men who had grown up in privilege and ease. Exile? What hardship was in that, against food and clothing and fame and a remarkable lack of want. Besides, he had already been judged by higher powers.

  Chewing, Jacopo pointed to a symbol elegantly carved into the wall surrounding the house. “What's that?”

  “A caduceus,” answered the Moor in his low rumble. “Carried by the god Mercury, it granted him passage everywhere. It is a symbol of messengers. Since he could also descend to the underworld with it, some view it as a symbol of death.”

  Girolamo squinted at the carving with new interest. He had always taken it for a family crest, not some ancient symbol.

  Jacopo remained puzzled. “I thought it was a symbol of medicine.”

  “One snake is healing. The sign of Asclepius. Two is Mercury.”

  “That's funny, considering the coin.” Jacopo turned to the diviner. “What was the name of the family that lived here?”

  Girolamo shook his head. “I could never learn. City lawyers aren't impressed by a cripple, and the caretaker was never willing to unbar the gates.”

  They banged on the wooden gate to the yard, but without answer. The Moor looked grim, and Girolamo felt his frustration. Once, they both could have swarmed over the wall with ease. But no longer.

  “I can go to the city offices,” suggested the Florentine. “I imagine they'll be most helpful to the brother of the crafter of the Pax Verona.”

  The Moor nodded. “Do not use the Scaliger's name. It would be best if he remained unaware that we have discovered this place.”

  A statement that set Girolamo thinking.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  THEY ARRIVED BACK at the city long after nightfall, frozen, sore, and delighted. Several bottles of warming liquid were shared around, and they scuffled and brawled, cheerfully injuring each other with coarse jibes and heavy blows. Detto amused them all by relating the tale of the attempted theft of Dante's bones, and how Cesco had arranged to have the man behind the deed beaten until he cried, “I am a sore and sorry ass”. The phrase tickled them all, and it became a goal to make other men say it.

  Long after dark, Cesco returned Paride to the palace with a promise of more foolery on the morrow. He gave the frowning Giovanna a happy wave, then staggered back out of doors where Detto was waiting. “Well? Is he doomed?”

  “Judging by his aunt's basilisk stare, he may be,” admitted Cesco, chagrinned. “Damn. I like him! He is that nice. And perfectly innocent. Damn!”

  “You were hoping he was another Mastino.”

  “Yes. But he's as genial as Alberto without the saving grace of sinfulness. Paride is practically perfect.”

  “So you'll corrupt him.”

  “Have to! Otherwise he'll never survive in this grinding mill of existence.”

  “You might have given him one of the Moor's little chews, then.”

  Cesco checked, then blew out his lips. “I thought we just agreed that he doesn't need poisoning. But they do ease the pain, if briefly. Would you like one?”

  “No,” said Detto sourly. “I thought you'd sworn them off.”

  “Why, Signor Nosy, when there are so many other things to swear by.” Seeing Detto's expression, Cesco clucked his tongue. “Christ, if this is your victory face, I'd hate to see you if you'd lost. For mercy's sake, go to him.”

  “Who?”

  “The Great Cham. Who do you imagine I mean? Your noble father, of course! As chariot champion you should be a preening peacock, not a sulking slug. You clearly are not made to have a filial rift. Go mend it.”

  “Mind your own affairs.”

  “I am,” said Cesco tartly. “If I have to look at your unhappy visage every hour of the day, it'll put me off my food.”

  “I should have known your concern was for your own appetites!” snapped Detto. “Would you like to throw me out, too? You'd eat better. Unless it's those damn wafers that turn your stomach.”

  “They ease the pain of your silent bellyaching.”

  “Then I'll leave!”

  “Did I say that? No, cos, I'm simply saying that you won't be content until you have your father's approval again. So go get it. And visit your mother.”

  In a wrathful whisper Detto said, “Don't mention her.”

  “Very well.”

  Detto balled up a fist below Cesco's nose. “I mean it!”

  “And I agreed.”

  Detto looked ready to throw a blow. But for once Cesco showed no sign of encouraging a brawl.

  Waiting not far off, Benedick decided to interpose himself. “Where shall we dine? La Rosa Colta?”

  “Why not?” asked Cesco, eyes still on his cousin. “I like bathing in rosewater.”

  Turning sharply, Detto stalked away. Softly, Benedick asked, “What was that?”

  “The reaping of my own harvest. The paying of my own coin. The rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar's.”

  Benedick took a breath. “I don't pretend to know his mind, my lord. But clearly he's hurting, so he wants to hurt everything, and everyone. He wants revenge, but can't say against what.”

  Cesco's brow furrowed. “How well you know us, Ahenobarbus, after so short an acquaintance. Do your insights apply to someone other than Detto?”

  “Of course not,” said Benedick at once.

  They walked on in silence a few moments before Cesco said, “Detto doesn't know what to be angry at. I do.”

  “What, then? Your noble father? Padua? Life? God?”

  Cesco spread his hands in an encompassing gesture. “Them all together.”

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  “AND WHAT SHALL I tell your uncle, the emperor?” challenged Berthold von Neifen.

  “Tell him that I am perfectly well, despite several knocks to my head.”

  “Is it rough sport? Or an attack?”

  Rupert pulled a face of annoyance only used by the young. “If it's an attack, it is not on me. Ser Franz almost died today. He pushes himself to the utter limits of endurance, and we go with him. I don't think he cares if he lives or dies. It's inspiring.”

  “It's madness.”

  Rupert sighed in relief as a servant tugged his boots free. “A glorious madness. Who wants to live past twenty-seven? Watch it, lout! My ankle is sore.”

  “Forgive me, my lord prince,” said the servant.

  Like the accomplished jouster he was, Berthold remained on target. “Is there any point to this constant exercise of imbecility? Sports and trials of manhood are one thing, but I do not recall him creating such brawls and scenes in the imperial court.”

  “Then you're not recalling correctly. He damages the most serene calms, crafts the most delicious diversions. True, he is escalating. But that comes with age. He is a man now, or almost, and wishes to prove himself one.” Rupert waited for the door to close on the servant before removing something from his belt. “He eats these. I stole one when I was able. He says he has a taste for sweets, but it seems medicinal.”

  Grunting, Berthold took the wafer up. It was sticky to the touch. He took the smallest bite. “Sweet.”

  “It could be nothing,” conceded Rupert.

  “I'll send it to an alchemist. Meanwhile, are you any closer to your goal?”

  “I am part of his retinue. He is distressingly egalitarian in his choice of company – men of no name held in equal esteem as a prince of the blood. He claims he prizes excellence above all else. As if excellence were not inherited. But I have reconciled myself, and am part of his fellowship. His cousin remains his closest adherent, yet there seems to be some sort of rift. I am attempting to exploit it, but there are many with the same goal. That red-headed Paduan for one. His natural brothers for others. He is the coming power, and everyone wants his ear
and his favour.”

  “Those must be yours.”

  “I'll get them,” said Rupert confidently, laying back on his bed. He groaned. “If I don't die trying.”

  “Better he should die than you, my prince,” said Berthold, moving towards the door.

  “I was thinking much the same. Oh, Count? There is one thought I had. He is most eager for the war with Treviso.”

  “Such a war would only increase Verona's power.”

  “I know. So what if we were able to delay it?” His eyes closing, Rupert sighed. “Right in the face.”

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  THIBAULT CAPULLETTO SNUCK into his house, his face raw from the wind and sore from unaccustomed smiling. To his amazement he had been welcomed into the Heir's company, and joyfully taken part in the chariot races. He'd not won, which was troubling. But he'd certainly acquitted himself well, and had enjoyed the company of men doing deeds worthy of men. He was not the youngest – that honour went to Paride. But Thibault felt pride in holding his own against men twice his age, both in the field and afterwards, when they had called at a fancy cat-house (an education for Thibault, whose nurse had explained everything, and yet nothing).

  “You should be at home here, O King of Cats,” Cesco had mocked, playing on Thibault's name, shared with the cat from the fabled tales of Renard the Fox.

  But Thibault had not partaken in the alluring feminine flesh offered, preferring to play at dice with some of the others. His was not a reluctance to soil himself in vice. It was rather that he was in love, and in every youthful half-clad girl, he saw only his uncle's wife, his own former betrothed, his dear and lovely Tessa.

  Thibault had been engaged to Tessa since birth, but his uncle had broken the agreement to marry the girl himself. One of many usurping blows to the youthful blond hot-head, who should have inherited all his grandfather's estates and wealth. But his fat gouty grandfather had passed over his firstborn's heir, leaving all to Antony instead.

  Thibault could have endured the loss of the money. But coupled with the loss of Tessa, it made him hate his beefy, ruddy uncle with the passion of a burning star. In the whorehouse, seeing women fondled and fondling, he burned all the hotter as he imagined his uncle doing those things to sweet Tessa's body. As he imagined doing those things himself, and having them done to him in return…

  Whatever festering wound was salted in La Rosa Colta, the rest of the day had been a joy. He still balked at joining any group led by Cesco, a fellow he disliked almost as much as he admired. For Verona's Heir was able to do everything Thibault longed to do – rebel, flout authority, and become a famous blade.

  Yet, for the first time in his life, Thibault felt included. Part of something larger than himself. He meant to prove his worth. In six months, there would be no contest he could not win.

  At dawn the next day Thibault again planned to slip out from the house, for they had spoken of a wolf-baiting, followed by a race along the old Roman walls.

  He was just setting out through the tunnel leading to the street when his uncle emerged from his office. “How now! Where are you off to?”

  “Nowhere,” was Thibault's mulish reply.

  “Damn right, nowhere,” answered Antony, flushing to the roots of his sandy-blond hair. “Get back inside. You should be studying your Latin.”

  Thibault despised Latin. Stories of Caesar and Aeneas were fine, but most of his reading was biblical. The moment Antony had a male heir, Thibault would be sent to some monastery high in the German hills, far from home, with little hope of escape. The bastard knew him well enough to know he'd try to run the moment he was gone.

  But Thibault longed for war, for fame in battle, for honour and dignity and the way of the sword. There were some books he did not despise – his hidden stash of fechtbuchs from which he trained himself nightly. When he was meant to be scribbling his Latin, he was instead doing exercises to increase his strength. At thirteen, he was not yet strong enough to fight his uncle. But the day would come when he could make his own way in the world, and when it arrived, it would find him ready.

  “Well?” demanded Thibault's uncle. “Get back to your books, boy.”

  “No,” said Thibault. “I'm off to meet the Heir.”

  His uncle's jaw clenched. “The Devil you say!”

  “The Devil I don't,” retorted Thibault, enjoying the outrage he was eliciting. “Yesterday I nearly won the chariot races!”

  “What are you, a gladiator?” Antony swelled. “Do you have any idea how upset the Scaliger is by his son's antics? He's furious! That boy has injured the peace with the Paduans a dozen times in as many days! He's a prince, he can get up to what he likes. But no member of my household is going to be caught stirring up trouble. Get back inside!”

  “I won't!” said Thibault defiantly.

  He did not even see the blow that cuffed him to the ground. As he shook his head to clear it, his uncle gestured to a pair of men. “Take this idiot away and lock him in the tower. Bar the outer windows. Build him a fire, and give him his books. And if he burns them, burn him upon his own pyre.”

  As the men approached, hot tears coursed down Thibault's face. “Don't touch me. Don't touch me!”

  “If he makes any noise, gag him.” With that, Antony Capulletto stalked back into his office.

  Frog-marched into the main building, Thibault saw his little cousin Giulietta come running out the door, looking at the light snow that had just begun to fall. Laughing until she saw him, her face became pitying.

  It was shaming to him, being pitied by a three-year-old. “Get out of it!” he shouted at her as he was marched past, back within the doors, up to his dreaded books.

  Startled, Giulietta went running to her father to tell him what those men were doing to her cousin. “I know, dear,” said Antony, patting her on the head with a tender smile. “Your cousin is too headstrong for his own good. You know what he wanted to do? Go out and start fights. He's not thinking clearly, is all. He thinks that fights and duels and swords are all there is to life.”

  “He does like swords,” confided Giulietta. “He teaches me sometimes.”

  “Does he?” asked Antony, bemused. “Does he indeed? Well, I'm sure you're a better swordsman than he'll ever be. Now run along, poppet. Don't let him spoil your day.”

  Giulietta liked compliments, and as she toddled off to the main house, she decided that she would cheer her cousin up by asking him to play with her dolls. But when she approached, he was in serious conversation with her mother. Knowing better than to interrupt her mother at anything, Giulietta turned around to seek out her nurse instead. She did not see her mother countermand her husband's orders, nor did she witness Thibault slipping over the wall of the yard a few minutes later, where once he had struggled with a masqued lad who was now the Heir to mischief and glory.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  THE WOLF-BAITING STARTED without the presence of young Capulletto, but he was not missed amid the great danger of the taunting of the beast. He arrived just in time to see the beast get loose, badly mauling Fabio's arm before Yuri stepped in to haul it back while Cesco stabbed it in the neck.

  “And thus to Hell,” he muttered.

  When asked why he had ended their sport, he replied, “I needed the practice. Ah, here is the crafty kitten, come to collect the kill. He can bind Fabio's arm instead. Come, the rest of you, let us filch sweetmeats from the market before sweetening our own meats with piscine perfume! Wait – is that Paduan over there urinating? How dare he! Pissing on the very foundations of this great city! Shall we show him what we think of that? Allez!”

  Detto, Rupert, Benedick, Salvatore, Petruchio, Hortensio, Paride, Yuri, Fabio, Berto, Barto, and Thibault. Thus formed Cesco's army of ne'er-do-wells, the next generation of Veronese knighthood. Flowers of courtesy, souls of chivalry, and vessels of chastity, they threatened the peace, filled the air with their blasphemies, and ended each day in a brothel, a brawl, or a bottle.

  Even those who shook their heads
in disgust had to admire the sheer energy, the boldness, the daring of the Heir. Though they scurried out of sight at Cesco's approach and shook their fists if his shenanigans invaded their daily lives, a strange sort of pride kindled in the hearts of the Veronese. He might be a Hellion, but he was their Hellion.

  Eleven

  THE SEVENTH DAY of December found the public once again feasting at the Scaliger's expense. Beneath a gently falling snow, six hundred Veronese peasants were given a banquet of culinary delights they had never dreamed existed.

  Just arrived back in Verona, Bailardino stood looking down at the jubilant crowd from the palace balcony. “Good god, Francesco. How much is this costing you?”

  Cangrande waved, causing the chilly revelers to cheer. “Castelbarco is beginning to squeal. When he bleats, I'll know I'm in trouble. Or rather, Treviso is.”

  Bail grunted. “Can't wait. My last war.”

  “You're not serious.”

  “I certainly am!” declared the barrel-chested soldier. “I'm nearer sixty than fifty, Pup.”

  “Pup!” laughed Cangrande. “I haven't heard that in eleven years. San Bonifacio used to call me that. The usurping puppy.”

  “Well, you're hardly a puppy anymore. You'll be forty soon. Grizzled.”

  Cangrande wrinkled his nose. “I'm in my prime! The Romans of Caesar's day thought that a man's life peaked at forty-one.”

  “War is a young man's sport. And our young men need it,” added Bail darkly.

  “Things no better with Detto?”

  “We're not speaking. First time ever.”

  “He's at the right age to rebel. I was particularly troublesome at thirteen, as I recall.”

  “You've never not been troublesome. I remember saying you'd be better off with a jackass on your helm. But I thought – I don't know, I thought Detto and I would weather it better. I wonder, am I too old to be a father? I had more energy when we fostered you. Serves me right for—”

  “Being a randy old goat?” Cangrande grinned.

  Bail slapped at his brother-in-law's head. “That's your sister you're talking about.”