At the use of the word ‘we’, a slow smile dawned in Benno’s lamentable beard.
The Palazzo Bandini was a far more modern building than the Casa di Torre. This latter may have represented established wealth, but Bandini’s house was constructed to let the world know the family could afford the most fashionable architects. A classical portico framed the entrance from the street, with columns flanking muscular marble statues showing rather more strain in supporting the Bandini arms than was perhaps tactful. Inside, everything that could be gilded had been, and every ceiling had a pagan sky brimming with nymphs.
Benno was denied these revelations. He judged it politic to remain in the street outside, fearing to excite Bandini henchmen because of his previous affiliation, or to get thrown out on account of his filthy state. He prepared comfortably to spend the time watching any interesting female who passed.
His master was ushered past a complicated marble representation of Apollo and Daphne, past a very large relief panel of a goddess rewarding either Piety or Learning, through an over-pillared lobby into Ugo Bandini’s superb new library, filled with books for which he had paid a fortune and which were unlikely to be read, especially if his son died.
Since Sigismondo last saw him, before the Duke, Bandini had aged — even more than his enemy di Torre on his Cosima’s loss. Every lugubrious fold of his face had deepened as though tugged down by grief, and the eyes examining Sigismondo peered from swollen lids.
‘Did you tell the Duke I had asked you to come?’
‘I no longer work for his Grace, sir. There was no further need.’
A gleam came into the eyes bloodshot with weeping. ‘You’re at liberty to work for another? For me?’
The hum was neutral, enquiring. ‘What work would that be, sir?’
Ugo Bandini beckoned Sigismondo closer, with an oddly furtive little movement of the hand, until he stood within a foot of him, when he uttered in a hoarse whisper:
‘Find di Torre’s daughter and I will pay you more than the Duke could ever give you.’
If Sigismondo found this request ironic he gave no sign, but continued with his head politely inclined that Bandini was unpleasantly reminded of a priest hearing confession, and of the final one his son might be making in so short a time. About to take hold the man’s sleeve to emphasise the urgency of his task he found a reluctance to touch him. The attentive silence, however, forced more explanation than he had intended.
‘His Grace has sent to me. He believes now,’ and by now Bandini meant
now that he believes my son murdered the Duchess
, ‘that it was not di Torre but I who spirited away that wretched girl. He has enjoined upon me to produce her before the week be out.’ Again, both men knew what lay at the end of that week.
‘Where do you believe she is, sir?’
‘In that old fox’s country villa! That’s where you should look.’ Ugo Bandini brought his fist down on the polished crimson marble of his new library table, making some account scrolls skip. ‘He is trying to kill me and mine. I can in no way imagine how he has contrived it, but I am sure in my soul that he is the cause of my son’s doom. If he murdered her Grace to effect it, that is well within his nature. He would stop at nothing to cause me suffering.’ There were tears in the folds of the cheeks that would certainly have rejoiced di Torre.
‘Have I liberty to conduct the search as I wish?’
Bandini’s reluctance gave way to the pure urgency of his feelings: he clutched the man’s arm. ‘Yes, yes. And you shall have gold, anything you want, my best horse, my household at your command, only find the girl. Find her, and the Duke may have mercy.
My son must not die
.’ The tears ran among the furrows of his cheeks and one fell on Sigismondo’s hand.
A tap at the door interrupted them as a man in an indigo gown looked in.
‘A messenger, sir. Says it’s very important.’
Bandini frowned in irritated surprise, seemed inclined for a moment to wave the interruption away, then releasing Sigismondo’s arm he went to the door, where the man whispered in his ear, the sound like a trapped fly. Bandini’s frown darkened, he patted the air towards Sigismondo indicating that he was to wait, and hurried from the room after the secretary.
Sigismondo, thus left alone, strolled along the shelves, pausing from time to time to take out a book, examine the gilded binding with appreciation and, opening it, read a little. He was doing this almost half an hour later, when Bandini returned and stared at him in suspicious surprise. Sigismondo, with a hum of amusement, turned with the book in his hands.
‘I was consulting the
sortes Virgilianae
. The omens are excellent.’ He read: ‘
Nusquam abero, et tutum patrio te limine sistam
, which may construe, “Nowhere will I leave you and I will set you down safely on your paternal threshold.”’
Bandini’s mouth, whose lips had peeled apart when he saw a man, hardly more than a bravo, reading Latin, closed again without his having found anything satisfactory to come out of it.
His manner had curiously changed; he seemed as anxious as before for Sigismondo to leave, and stood there making unconscious twitching movements of the hands towards the door. All the personal urgency, however, had left him.
‘Anyone will tell you where to find the di Torre villa; perhaps you’d do well to say you came from the Duke.’
Sigismondo shook his head with decision. ‘His Grace would not care for that. If he were by chance to hear—’
‘Oh, quite, quite. You must do as you think best.’ Bandini picked up a silver bell made to resemble a pear, and shook it. The man in the indigo gown had been at the door, for he popped immediately into the room and held the door wide for Sigismondo to leave; he, however, paused as he came to Bandini and genially murmured, ‘Expenses, sir?’
Bandini looked fretful. His hands took on their own life, brushing the air towards the door. ‘It is arranged. My secretary will—’
‘And the horses?’
Bandini’s expression would have been a good response to a request for camels, but he waved his hands more spaciously still, and said, ‘He will see to it. Go with him.’
Sigismondo inclined his head and left the room, hearing Bandini release a gusty sigh before the door closed.
Benno looked the horse over with a professional eye, not impressed. ‘Nothing like the Duke’s lot.’
Sigismondo slapped the rump of the big bay he had chosen. ‘We were lucky to get these. If Bandini had come to the stables himself we’d have been awarded a pair of jades with the bots.’ He felt in the breast of his jerkin. ‘If you don’t like the horses, try the money.’
Benno grabbed the purse from the air and weighed it. Then he undid it and looked in. He raised wondering eyes.
‘Buy Biondello a bone, Benno. It won’t run to much more.’
The newly christened dog, which had come to circle Sigismondo in delighted wriggles, barked at his name as though he had learnt it already and perfectly grasped the reference to dinner. Benno, at a nod from his master, lost the purse somewhere in the unsavoury recesses of his woollen tunic and went on to tighten the girth on the bay, which was blowing itself out in a practised fashion. Benno was too inquisitive to observe the rule of no questions, and divined Sigismondo’s indulgent mood.
‘What’s the money for, then? Milking a gnat?’
‘Advance payment for finding the Lady Cosima.’
Benno let go the girth, and stared. ‘Hasn’t he got her, then? Or is it a blind? If it wasn’t bandits, who else would’ve taken her? The old villain — fancy asking you to look for her.’
The horse had inadvertently breathed out, and Benno got the girth tight.
‘He must think you won’t be able to find her. Wrong again, isn’t he? Why’s he want her found, anyway? Does he think my old master will rush up and slobber over him and say all is forgiven now my daughter is found, and I’d just like to say it was me set up your son, pity about the Duchess, so sorry your Grace.’ Benno scratched his beard, out of breath but triumphant in his conclusion.
Sigismondo acknowledged the speech with a wag of the head, and Benno, finished with the horses, picked up Biondello and cuddled him, crooning, ‘Going to see your lady, we are. You wait.’ He watched Sigismondo mount and the horse toss its head and sidle in trial of the controlling hand; then stuffing the dog once more into the bosom of his jerkin, he mounted too. ‘Where we off to, then? That money won’t take us far. Nor that horse, neither. It may be the only one up to your weight but it’s been ridden too far too lately.’
Sigismondo, moving forward, said, ‘The money speaks, Benno. Bandini doesn’t care if we find the lady or not.’
‘But didn’t you say that’s why he sent for you?’
‘And, to start with, it’s what he wanted above everything. Then he saw someone who changed his mind. Who came to the house while you waited?’
Benno considered, scratching his beard again and then Biondello’s protruding head, with much the same sound and very likely with the same effect on the active inhabitants of both.
‘Hardly a soul, bar a couple of nuns. All bundled up like they’d come a long way in nasty weather. Mounts in a bad way, muddy and tired. I got talking to the groom before someone called him in. Funny accent he had, and sure enough he comes from Castelnuova. Seemed to think we’re all murderers here, kept eyeing me like I’d get out a knife and stick it in his ribs just for kicks. Wouldn’t have been worth it for what he was wearing, I can tell you.’
‘Nuns. What convent did they belong to?’
‘I didn’t get around to asking.’
‘Always ask questions — of other people.’
Benno grinned. ‘They were Benedictines, I know that much. There’s a big Benedictine house over in Castelnuova. Why?’
Sigismondo for answer took his horse forward, and Benno followed, showering a beggar with dirt from a frozen puddle and ducking as a stone was thrown after him, with a curse on his journey. He stuck out his fingers against the evil eye without slackening pace and he prayed that wherever they were going he would see the Lady Cosima soon.
The villa of the Widow Costa was on a hill, like the hovel where Poggio was born, but all resemblance ended there. The sharp wind was here tempered by tall ilex hedges, shuttered windows and well-tiled roofs. A small avenue of poplars led from the road to the wrought-iron gates, which stood hospitably open and, as the travellers rode up, a man raking the gravel before the villa looked up and took off his cap. Guests were certainly no novelty here.
Benno, who had no idea where they were, or why, was glad to get down, stretch his legs and rub a bit of feeling into them. He let Biondello water the gravel, and allowed himself to be led by a fat girl to the servants’ hall for a meal. The man with the rake took both horses round the house to the stables, while a cheerful servingmaid, of about fourteen in an apron too big for her, asked Sigismondo whom she was to announce. Sigismondo put his finger to his lips, so she dimpled, and led him to the widow’s door, where she left him to his surprise.
‘Hubert!’
The woman in black who sat reading, a candle prodigally already alight in the winter dusk, rose with a delighted cry. The book skimmed along the inlaid table, she hurried forward, arms wide, skirts of heavy silk rustling like autumn leaves before the wind. Her face, like her body, was all curves, the almond-shaped dark eyes, the full mouth smiling as she came to Sigismondo’s embrace.
‘How long is it? Two winters, and here you are looking the same as ever. Would that time treated us women so.’ She turned to the other woman, who had also risen but was holding her rosary as though it might be in requisition to repel demons at any moment. Time had treated her less kindly than he had touched the widow; though they were much of an age, in her the curves had sagged and her features were distinguished, though not markedly improved, by a moustache.
‘Allow me to present Hubert, my dear. Your brother’s comrade-in-arms and my own true friend.’ She hung on Sigismondo’s arm, looking fondly up at him. ‘I hope you’ve come to stay for a long time.’
Benno had an abundant meal in the kitchen, and impressed the fat girl and even the cook with his appetite and an account, enhanced by mime, of the wedding feast at the Palace. He hoped his master was having as good a time. He was assured that the widow was a good mistress, and kind, and liked to see company; he hoped in the most disinterested way that his master would not be distracted from their quest by this kind and welcoming lady.
Biondello, making uncouth noises over a bone at his feet, was not troubled by any such fears. He was a dog who lived for the moment. Since leaving his native village he had passed his days in Paradise, and his fleas — such of them who had survived his bath — could hardly believe their luck.
The night was spent pleasantly by all, perhaps not least by the widow. Even her sister-in-law had been charmed at supper by Sigismondo, and was moved to add to the already long list of petitions she recited before bed, a special prayer for brave soldiers. Equally concerned for their welfare, the widow did not spend time at her prie-dieu.
Benno, even though he slept before the kitchen fire with Biondello, rather than with the fat girl as he had hoped, was perfectly satisfied. He had seen more interesting things in the past few days than ever before in his life, and he slept secure in his trust that Sigismondo could restore the Lady Cosima whatever hazards might stand in their way.
Benno’s fears that they might make a lengthy stay here were banished some time towards dawn when he was roused from sleep and given orders. He stumbled to his feet, muffled Biondello’s enthusiasm for action, and set about procuring food to pack. By the time he was in the stables, he could hear laughter upstairs in the house. The gardener-groom, sleepwalking, helped him lead out two of the Costa horses; Benno collected his bag with the dove in it, increasingly easy to find, was given some dried apricots to stuff into his mouth and his pockets and, clicking fingers for Biondello, crunched out across the gravel to lead the horses to the front. Before mounting, he kissed his medal of St Christopher, and pressed Biondello’s willing muzzle to it.