Silent Water

by P K Adams

  The queen’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Why is Baldazzi involved in this?”

  “Pan Zamborski’s body was discovered by Adam Latalski, who raised alarm and sent for a doctor—”

  “And Baldazzi was the first one they found?” Bona interrupted with a snort. “What help could he have been to a dead man if he has never helped a living one?”

  Konarski cleared his throat. Baldazzi was the queen’s personal physician.

  “He will never find out who did it,” she went on, waving a hand dismissively. “He can barely find a vein to bleed me when I have a headache.” I imagined her plump white arm, now encased in a sleeve of embroidered red velvet tied with lace ribbons at the wrist, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for the doctor. Bona despised physicians in the way that people who never needed them did. She would not keep Baldazzi about her, either, but he had been sent by her mother from Bari. “How did Zamborski die?” she demanded.

  “He was stabbed, Your Majesty.”

  There was an audible gasp from the women, although the queen did not even blink. “Where?”

  “In the service wing, in a passageway near the delivery doors—”

  “No, no, no.” The queen shook her head impatiently. “Where on his body?” She made a circular gesture that roughly outlined Konarski’s midsection.

  The secretary looked uncomfortable. His gaze swept the ladies and rested on me for just a moment too long, and I felt warmth rising to my cheeks. I hoped fervently that the others were still staring at him.

  “I hardly think it is a—” he started.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think, signore. I want you to tell me which part of his body was attacked.”

  He made a small apologetic bow. “He was stabbed in the back, Your Majesty.”

  “And . . .?”

  “That is all I know,” he said with enough firmness to be polite, but to also make it clear that he had no more information.

  The queen tossed her head. By the frown creasing her forehead, I knew that she was thinking intensely. One way or another, she would have all the answers she wanted. There was a long silence, then she asked, “Where is the body now?”

  “In the mortuary chapel under the cathedral.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “Your Majesty?”

  “You heard what I said. You will take me there and show me the body.”

  Konarski looked pained. “It is not a sight for Your Majesty’s eyes or for anyone else of the delicate sex.” His eyes wandered toward me again.

  “Nonsense.” Bona flicked her wrist impatiently. She looked around, and the girls dropped their heads to their embroidery in unison. “Caterina, you will come with me.” She gestured toward me. “And you—” She turned to a young page, scarcely more than a child, who sat on a cushion in a recess of one of the windows, picking at a thread of his brightly colored doublet. The boy grabbed his cap from the windowsill and jumped to his feet. “Go find Signor Latalski and tell him to meet us in the crypt in half an hour,” the queen ordered, and it was settled.

  Our cloaks and gloves were fetched, and tightly wrapped against the cold, we crossed the inner courtyard surrounded by a colonnaded arcade, splendid even in the fading light of a winter day.

  A guard carrying a halberd walked ahead of us and Secretaries Mantovano and Konarski behind. As we approached the gate to the forecourt—where Master Berrecci had recently added the Sforza coat of arms, two azure serpents and two imperial eagles, next to the double yellow cross of the House of Jagiellon—we passed the new brick structure that housed the royal kitchens. I had heard that it was built on the site of an old church. Now its windows blazed with an orange light from the ovens inside, and the appetizing smell of meat stewing in herbs wafted toward us on the frosty air. Given a choice, I would rather have gone inside for a cup of mulled wine. Instead, we were headed for the cathedral that loomed majestically over the forecourt, and where only a cold, stabbed corpse awaited us.

  When we stepped inside, Konarski beckoned to a passing deacon and bid him lead us down into the mortuary crypt. When the cleric recognized the queen among us, he executed a series of bows before opening an iron-bound door in one side of the nave. We walked carefully in single file down a winding flight of stairs, barely wide enough to accommodate my and the queen’s voluminous skirts. Then one of the cathedral bells struck four o’clock above our heads. The sound was muffled by the thick walls, but it was somehow more sinister for that.

  It had been cold outside, but below the floor of the cathedral, an even greater chill assailed us, seeping through our fur-lined cloaks even before we were halfway through the maze of passages dimly lit by flickering oil lamps. The crypt was a low-vaulted chamber supported by thick columns, and it must have been very old because some of the stone of their capitals was chipped, and the flags under our feet were worn smooth. It was lit by similar lamps as the passages, except for one area toward the back where there was more light from a torch set in a bracket.

  There, in a recess of the wall, a body covered by a white funeral shroud lay on a stone slab. As we came closer, I noticed that another man was there, hidden by one of the columns. It was Doctor Baldazzi. He was a short, pudgy man of nervous disposition who always seemed to be in motion, even when he was not moving. Something about him always waved or jerked or shook, whether an arm, a leg, or his head, covered with a cap from under which his perpetually unkempt hair escaped in all directions. When he realized that the queen was with us, Baldazzi gave a low swaying bow.

  Bona ignored him, gesturing to the guard to lift the shroud. He hesitated a moment, then did as she bade him. I held my breath. The body was naked to the waist; I had never seen anyone so pale, so white in my life. I vaguely remembered the fair-haired Zamborski as having had a ruddy complexion, but here he looked like a marble statue from one of the sarcophagi up in the cathedral. His lips, which had a slightly bluish tint to them, were barely darker than his skin.

  The queen gazed at Zamborski for a long while as I tried to keep my gaze fixed on the flagstones of the floor. Next to me, Secretary Mantovano stood motionless, a thin, dark-clad figure whose lips had twisted in disgust when the body had first been uncovered. Perhaps that was his way of masking his fear.

  When I raised my gaze, I met that of Konarski. I saw a tinge of concern and an unspoken question in his eyes. Are you all right? I gave a slight nod, wondering, incongruously, if the king’s secretary was also a member of the bibones et comedones as Zamborski had been.

  “Show me the stab wound,” the queen ordered Baldazzi.

  The doctor seemed disconcerted for a brief moment, then he gathered his wits and motioned to the guard to help him. Together, the two of them turned Zamborski on his side. And there it was, in the lower middle part of his back, a few inches below the shoulder blades—a single entry mark about half an inch in length.

  “Is that what killed him?” the queen asked.

  “Sì, Maestà. It punctured his lung. He would have bled inside and suffocated quickly. There are no other wounds or bruises anywhere else that would indicate a beating or strangulation.”

  “What weapon caused it?”

  “A dagger.”

  “Hmm.” It was clear that the queen had more questions but did not want to ask them of Baldazzi. Still, next to Konarski, he was the only one among us who was up-to-date on the investigation. “Who do you think would have done such a thing, dottore?” she asked finally.

  Baldazzi smiled unctuously, flattered to be asked his opinion. “Perhaps a jealous fiancé or a cuckolded husband?” He spread his hands in a jerky motion. “Signor Zamborski was known for seducing maids and matrons alike. A great many of them, they say.”

  “Basta.” The queen waved her hand, and Baldazzi took a step back, bowing as Mantovano sent him a withering look. The queen’s secretary was a stiff and officious type, with the long, habitually sour face of a man who had devoted everything, including his own family, to his career. He was always dressed
in black, with a single ruby ring and a plain silver chain of office as his only adornments. At least there could be no doubt about his aversion to the tipplers’ and devourers’ antics.

  A sound of footsteps rang out in the passage behind us, and we turned to find a wiry young man with a scholar’s cap set on his head of fine colorless hair. He wore a heavy cloak that made him look even thinner.

  “Ah, Signor Latalski,” the queen exclaimed, a warm note entering her voice. “We have been waiting for you.”

  Queen Bona was fond of Adam Latalski. A poet and a writer, he was one of the best-educated courtiers. Having studied law at the university in Padua, he could converse with Bona in our native tongue, which greatly endeared Latalski to her. That, and his friendship with Castiglione, whose Il Cortegiano he reputedly wanted to translate into Polish.

  He bowed with a flourish, but it was obvious that he was uncomfortable in the crypt. “Your Majesty.”

  “We have come to have a look at poor Zamborski. A dreadful business.” She gestured toward the corpse, but the poet’s blue eyes remained on the queen.

  “Indeed, madam. Very unfortunate.” The torchlight cast dancing shadows on his features, but I could have sworn that he had gone a little pale. But he was pale by nature, like most scholars unaccustomed to the sun and the outdoors.

  “They say you were the one who found him?”

  “Yes. In a ground-floor corridor not far from the delivery doors.”

  “And what were you doing there?” She raised an eyebrow. It was a good question.

  “I needed some air as I’d had a little too much wine at the Christmas banquet, but I went through the wrong door and ended up in the back passage instead of the courtyard,” the poet replied apologetically. Then he added, anticipating the next question, “I didn’t see anybody except for Kasper crumpled on the floor.” The familiar way in which he referred to Zamborski made me wonder if he, too, was a member of the society. He did not look the part, with his unimpressive physique and rather morose disposition, but appearances could be deceiving.

  Latalski then explained that Zamborski was already dead when he had found him, blood dried and crusted on his lips, beard, and shirt collar. I could not help but gaze back at that white face, imagining the scarlet flow that had marred it only yesterday.

  “And the dagger?” The queen wanted to know. “Who removed it from his back?”

  “It was not there when I arrived,” he said. “The killer must have taken it with him.” He puffed out his meager chest at being able to offer a little theory of his own.

  “Is the chancellor aware of that?” the queen asked Konarski sharply.

  Again, the king’s secretary looked uncomfortable, and I realized that he was probably under orders to keep the details of the inquiry secret. But denying any knowledge of an important fact like that would have been an obvious lie, and he could not lie to the queen so openly, with all of us as witnesses.

  “Yes. The chancellor believes that it was Zamborski’s own dagger.”

  A stunned silence fell on us. “And what makes him think that?”

  “Because it was missing from his belt.” He added that the chancellor had already interviewed Jan Dantyszek, Zamborski’s close friend, who had described the weapon. It had a finely wrought silver hilt studded with rubies—an expensive piece. “His purse was gone too.”

  Before anyone could react, Don Mantovano’s voice rang out, strangely high in the echoing chamber of the crypt. “Your Majesty, if I may—”

  The queen motioned for him to speak.

  “It is clear that the dagger was the motive,” he said authoritatively. “A servant or page must have coveted one, and not being able to afford so fine a weapon, killed Signor Zamborski, who most likely had also wandered into the passageway drunkenly”—he sent a contemptuous look toward Latalski, who scowled at him—“and was killed with it and for it. He would not be the first man to have met his end due to too much drink,” he concluded sanctimoniously.

  “Is that your opinion also, Signor Konarski? That it was a robbery?” There was a subtle note of flattery in the queen’s voice, enticing the junior secretary to prove his importance in the king’s household.

  But he did not take the bait. “The investigation has not been concluded yet,” he replied diplomatically, impressing me with his apparent lack of vanity, a rare trait at court. “We are keeping all options open.”

  On our way back, I wondered why the queen was so interested in a case that involved a relatively minor figure. The court in Kraków—like I imagine all courts since the beginning of time—reveled in drama, liked a good scandal, and appreciated a juicy piece of gossip. But Bona’s cultivation, the upbringing and education she had received in anticipation of her elevation to the ranks of royalty, rendered her above all of that. And yet, perhaps it was that fact—that she had been bred to reign but had to satisfy herself with the role of a mother and hostess—that made her bored, restless, and searching for something to occupy her mind. Even if it was a murder case.

  As if she had read my thoughts, the queen enlightened me on her motivations when I was undressing her for bed that night.

  “Zamborski’s death is very convenient for Chancellor Stempowski,” she said as I unhooked the bodice of her gown. She had dismissed the parlor maid Dorota, who normally helped me with the queen’s toilette, so that we were alone.

  “In what way, Your Majesty?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

  “His daughter fell madly in love with Zamborski, but he was a rascal and a drinker, and not very bright to boot, from what I heard. It is said that Stempowski didn’t want him for a son-in-law.” She exhaled with relief as I removed the bodice and brocade skirt so she stood in only a flowing chemise of embroidered Cambrai linen. “It would not surprise me if he had hastened the boy’s departure into the afterlife,” she added.

  It was a serious allegation, one only a queen could get away with. I needed to speak cautiously. “Are there no easier ways to ensure a daughter does not marry an undesirable man?” I asked, taking the rings off her fingers and putting them into an ebony case. “Like withholding the father’s consent?”

  The queen snorted. “She is his youngest child, and he would satisfy her every whim. Most likely he could not say no to that angel face,” she added sarcastically. “But after the thing had been decided, he realized that he could not have it. So he sent an assassin to dispatch Zamborski quickly while making it look like a robbery.”

  I reached for a bottle of the oil of olives mixed with almond essence to rub into her hands, wondering why the queen was so convinced that the crime had been ordered by Stempowski, why so eager for it to be true? It was no secret that she was not fond of the chancellor. The fact that he combined the highest crown office in the land with the position of the wojewoda of Kraków, despite a law to the contrary that had been passed in the year 1504, was a source of constant irritation to her. No doubt he was able to get away with it on the strength of the enormous trust the king had in him, and no doubt Bona was jealous of their friendship. All the same, it was hardly a good enough reason to accuse him of such a grievous sin. There had to be something else.

  “That kind of conspiracy would require a truly devious mind,” I reflected.

  “And he has one! He is a Habsburg partisan; you cannot trust him as far as you can spit.”

  Was that it? The chancellor’s advice to the king did indeed tend to favor Emperor Charles V. Although related to the Habsburg ruler, Bona was a proponent of a closer alliance with France, like all the Sforzas. But was that reason enough to be so suspicious of Stempowski? And, if her suspicions turned out to be correct, was it sufficient to cause his fall from grace? Zamborski was a minor courtier, after all, largely unknown outside the Wawel circles.

  She never asked me my opinion that night, but if she had, I would have told her that I found the jealousy and random robbery explanations to be unsatisfactory. My late husband—a kindly man, even if he was old and rather boring—had s
erved for some years as a judge in Bari. His work was the only thing about him that I, a girl of not yet twenty, found interesting. He knew that, and he often regaled me with details of the cases brought before him, which to me were more absorbing than gossip and dances. Many of those cases involved crimes of passion or opportunity, common enough on the streets of our city, where passersby could often see the corpses of the unfortunates lingering for hours, or even days, before being removed. I had seen them myself from the carriages in which I had accompanied the old duchess. Even without my husband’s stories, I had seen enough bruises, bloodied faces, and knife wounds, often multiple, inflicted in haste. Such things were messy.

  That had not been the case with Zamborski, from what I had seen in the crypt and from what Latalski had described. This murder seemed to have been committed with precision, as if the perpetrator had given it some thought beforehand. As if it had been planned. Perhaps the queen was right, after all.

  But there was something else that bothered me about it. Try as I might, I could not put my finger on what.

  Chapter 4

  December 27th, 1519

  I summoned Helena to my chamber the next morning. Her flush was gone and the pallor had returned to her skin, enhanced by the dark green color of her gown. There was a sluggishness in her step I had not seen before, for, despite her slim figure, Helena was strong and athletic. She had accompanied the queen on hunts in Niepołomice a few times, showing herself to be an excellent horsewoman capable of controlling even the liveliest of the mares in the royal stable. She was also a very good archer, as I had seen during a contest held among the courtiers before the bonfires had been lit on Midsummer Eve. She had been the only lady to enter it, and she had come second—right before Zamborski, in fact. She was her father’s only child, which likely explained why she had been trained in such manly skills.

  We stood in silence for some moments, and she gazed at me steadily with eyes as gray-green as our Italian sea on a sunny day. Helena was not a beauty, but her eyes, complemented by dark auburn hair surrounding a delicate oval face, gave her a striking appearance.