"Did
you love her?" I asked inconsequentially.
He
looked up quickly at that, and I saw that his eyes were dead, opaque black;
there was no light in them at all. "I? No."
"But
she loved you." "Why do you say that?"
"Because
she gave you her ring. She must have loved you." No woman could choose but
love him, I thought, but I would never say so to him.
"It
was a poor enough gift." The very tonelessness of his voice sounded
somehow defensive. "I only wore it once."
"Did
it hurt you to see it after she died?"
"I
did not wish to think of her!" he snapped violently, almost petulantly.
"I do not like the dead — they belong in tombs and on battlefields."
As
he spoke I saw the quill at his right hand, protruding from an inkwell set in a
human skull. It made me feel cold all at once. "Was it so dreadful?"
I said and bit my lip. I had not meant to ask the question, but it slipped out
unbidden.
He
was silent for so long that I thought he did not mean to answer, then at last
he began to speak in a strange, dreaming murmur.
"She
was lying on the floor when I went in, as though she had not moved all night. I
thought she had fallen asleep and I called her, but she did not answer—and the
floor—" he broke off, choking. "Whoever killed her had made good
work."
It
was then that I understood his nightmare. It was his stepmother's body,
sprawled on the chapel floor in its own blood, that haunted him. But why, I
wondered; what was the guilt that would not let him forget finding her so, and
why did he talk in his sleep of blasphemy?
The
ring gleamed on my hand as I put it out to him, and I wondered why I could not
find it loathsome. But it seemed a sad keepsake rather than a ghoulish one; the
dulled silver and the modest gray pearl carried no taint with them. He did not
see me move, and my hand dropped back to my side. Then with an impatient
movement he jammed his dagger back into its sheath and straightened.
"Keep
the ring if you have a mind, Felicia. Perhaps the sight of it on your hand will
drown the other remembrances."
"Thank
you." It seemed pitifully little, but it was all I could say.
"Nothing
else?" His hand on my shoulder was still unsteady, and I could feel a
tremor in his fingers as they slid under the sleeve of my gown.
"My
humblest thanks, Your Grace?" My voice sounded breathless, and his hand
tightened. He said with a glare that was not wholly a threat, "Felicia...
," then turned with startling swiftness as the door opened.
"Your
Grace!"
"Brother."
Domenico's eyes were narrow, his betraying, shaking hands clenched behind his
back. "You are something untimely."
"Your
pardon, Brother—and madam"—Sandro glanced at me ruefully and bowed
low—"but I have news to tell you. That message cost our uncle little
labor—he has intercepted a like code before in notes from spies that we have
taken, but this one is addressed. I think you will like to know whom della Quercia
seeks as a master."
Domenico
held out his hand without a word, and Sandro put two papers into it.
"There,
the message and its translation. You would think these creatures would vary
their codes sometimes! — and I have brought de'Falconieri, who will not believe
that I have not concocted this myself. I said that the lady would confirm how
she found it."
I
met Ippolito's anxious look and nodded. "Yes, my lord. Lord Piero dropped
it in my chamber."
Domenico
said silkily, "What was he doing there?" and I started.
"He—he
had come to escort me to my lesson, and we had a disagreement. Niccolosa was
with me."
He
nodded after a moment, but his sensual mouth was tight as he looked back at the
two papers. "Look, Ippolito."
His
secretary went to his side at once.
"See
what goes forward under our very noses—a creature of ours seeks to sell us to
our enemies."
Ippolito
stared at the papers. "But, Your Grace, it is..."
"It
is foolery." The black eyes narrowed and went to me as though
unconsciously. "But it shall not go unpunished, nonetheless."
Ippolito
seemed not to be able to believe his eyes. "Your Grace, this is some
drunken foolishness. Lord Piero could not mean you any harm. Why, he has been
your friend..."
"He
writes soberly enough. See there, and there; that is intelligence an enemy
would pay well for, if this slave had had the wit to choose one—as it is, he
seeks to sell me to the Duke of Ferrenza, who styles himself my cousin; one who
is linked to my family by marriage and is so far from enmity with me that he is
forever soliciting me to visit him and see that palace of his! Did the dullard
have no brain at all? I might have gotten it from the man he wrote to, as soon
as by this accident."
Ippoiito
was silent for a moment; then he said in a troubled voice, "Your Grace, if
this is so, the writing has done no harm. I am sure it was done in a fit of
melancholy and not seriously intended."
"Leave
your excuses." Domenico tossed the papers to Sandro. "He meant
mischief to us, and we will requite it so. You will be ready to arraign him
when we require it of you."
Ippolito
stepped back, his face that of a man who has stepped on a green meadow and
found himself in a quicksand. I could see his thoughts clearly—if a man as
close to the duke as Piero had been was condemned so summarily, what hope was
there for him if someone should denounce him?
And
what for me? I thought suddenly. Piero had been Domenico's companion—and I
believed him. his lover—for more than a dozen years. I had not held him for as
many days. My tenure was precarious, to say the least.
"Set
someone to watch the traitor," Domenico continued curtly, "but so
that he does not see it; and bring me word of how he spends his time. Since he
abuses his freedoms, I shall see that this lady has another guardian. Bernardo
da Lucoli will serve—he has not sufficient mettle to be anything but
virtuous."
The
vicious little sneer made Sandro laugh. "I wondered why he did not
prosper!"
"Such
uprightness is tedious." Domenico's mouth twisted. "He will serve as
a gallant to Felicia for a glance from her fair eyes and will ask for nothing
more—not even a purse. The more fool he, for gallantry will never make his
fortune."
But
when Bernardo da Lucoli came to my side at supper, I smiled, for it was the
dark-haired boy who had helped me into the saddle on that first morning.
He
approached deferentially, bowed to the duke, and said hesitantly, "Madam,
I have been bidden to offer you my service, and I do it with all my
heart."
I
held out my hand to him. "I am grateful to you, sir, and glad to accept
your offer."
Domenico
was watching us speculatively, and the awareness made me uneasy. I looked at
the ingenuousness in the young courtier's eyes and the unpainted smoothness of
his cheek, and said involuntarily, "You have not been at court long, messire?"
He
shook his head. "A few weeks only. I came from my home in the north to
attend on Duke Carlo, and I am still learning the ways of the court, for much
is altered since he died." He glanced, belatedly and apprehensively, at
Domenico.
I
said, to smooth his discomfiture, "Then we shall have to help each other,
messire, for I am a novice, too."
He
bowed gratefully and after a word or two more withdrew to his place.
Domenico's
fingers toyed idly with the knife beside his plate. "I did not know that
your taste ran to milk and water."
"Not
all virtue is tedious, Your Grace."
"Is
it not? Should I seek for some, then, to make you smile at me?"
The
breath caught in my throat. "This is folly!"
"Only
wait a little. I am doing that to please you that will make them call me fool
and madman, worse than my lord archbishop." His eyes glimmered. "Or I
will tumble for you if you ask me."
The
insinuation of the last words made me deaf to the puzzle of the first. "I
have no fondness for tumbling," I answered quickly.
He
raised his eyebrows and laughed, then turned to talk to Sandro, who was beside
him. I sat for a moment, staring unseeingly before me, and started as the
archbishop's voice addressed me.
"So
you know of my nephew's wedding plans, lady?"
I
turned sharply to face him, meeting his piercing scrutiny. "Yes, my
lord." My lips felt dry. "But only that he means to be married. He
has not spoken to me of any preference."
"Has
he not?" The deep, melodious voice was skeptical. "I thought he would
have acquainted you with his thoughts."
"No."
I smiled tenderly, then forced my face to stillness. "Secrecy is the
breath of life to him. He loves intrigue more dearly than any mistress."
"You
are shrewd—have you learned that in so short a time?"
"His
Grace is an expert teacher," I returned rather bitterly.
The
archbishop surveyed me thoughtfully. "And what will you do when he is
married? Bow before his wife?"
"No—I
do not know what I shall do." A lump grew in my throat.
He
nodded. "It is as I thought. You do not have the look of one who has lived
long in sin. Belike my nephew forced you and holds you against your will—if it
is so, then I shall pray for your soul, for a woman cannot but be damned in
this corruption he calls a court. A whore once made must after stay a whore."
"I
shall not be the duke's whore long," I said. "I know he will cast me
off as soon as he is married, and after that... I must trust in God's
mercy."
"Do
you think you will have leisure to repent when you are earning your bread on
your back? I do not speak so to distress you, daughter," he continued
smoothly as I flinched, "but to warn you of what must happen. If you wish
to live and thrive afterwards, you must coin your beauty, sell yourself by
lottery. And God will not brook it."
"Then
I must be damned," I said with a sudden dreadful certainty, "for He
will damn me, if I take my own life."
"You
could leave the court." The archbishop's tone was noncommittal.
"I
have nowhere to go. I have no family but my half-brother, and he cares nothing
for me—I think he was glad to be rid of me, for he never tried to find me when
the duke took me. And I have no friends, nor skill to earn my living."
The
archbishop drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the rim of his wine cup. "I
might give you help."
"How?"
My bowed head jerked up incredulously.
"I
am patron of a convent in Genoa. You might go there and live among the nuns to
atone for your sin in prayer—but I doubt you would take such a desperate
remedy."
I
was silent for a long time. This chance was literally heavensent, for the
archbishop was the voice of God in Cabria, and to reject his help would be
close to blasphemy. But Genoa...
I
must have murmured the word, for Domenico's bright head turned. "What were
you saying of Genoa?" he asked softly.
"I
was telling the lady of your good success there, nephew; how you took the
citadel and laid it waste."
The
duke nodded, his beautiful face full of catlike satisfaction. "But since
then I have conquered a sterner fortress." His eyes mocked me. "And
now I enter it freely."
I
hardly heard what the archbishop replied. I felt faint with relief, as though
Domenico's intervention had saved me from a choice I could not bear to make,
and there was no chance to speak to the archbishop again for the rest of the
meal. It was only when he rose to leave that he whispered compellingly,
"Remember," and then he was gone in a rustle of silk.
Piero
came to my chamber just as I was going to the duke that night, but his manner
had changed. Now his self-confidence had deserted him, and he seemed worried, biting
his lip; he stayed and spoke to me a little of the duke's wedding plans, his
eyes flickering around the room all the time, and then, not finding what he
sought, he went away with his face a little more drawn under the paint. I felt
a stab of pity for him and wished wholeheartedly that I could have kept his
secret without endangering Domenico's life.
The
palace was clamorous now with the names of conflicting contenders for the
duke's marriage bed. Every faction held a different opinion, and Domenico heard
them all with a faint, feline smile and would not say yea or nay to any of
them.
"His
Grace will do well to choose a rich wife," Guido Vassari said, with a
meaning glance under his eyelids at me. "He has near emptied the treasury
by this, and he will not listen to talk of moderation."
Andrea
Regnovi tittered. "Oh, but he has wealth enough yet to squander! I will
take my oath it is not gold that will lure him. A complaisant woman, now; one
who will close her eyes to his infidelities..."