When
I took my hands from my ears, the room was silent again. Domenico looked up as
I moved, and there was a grim look on his fair face.
"Do
not fear—I shall not touch you until this folly is concluded. You shall have
proof enough that I am not your brother."
I
said unsteadily, "You have sent her to a living death."
"A
sweetly considered one. Maddalena spent her nobility whoring—she and my mother,
Duchess Gratiana, between them consumed more flesh than the plagues of Egypt.
Now she can make redress by tending carrion and nursing lepers she did not
contaminate. She hated you," he said suddenly, sharply, "and you have
no cause to love her; why do you look like that?"
"It
is a dreadful thing! I think you take delight in suffering; you have such a
care to inflict it."
"It
is a just punishment."
"Like
Bernardo's?"
"I
punished his thought before it could grow to a deed," he said in an edged
voice. "I was more merciful than I could have been—he had his eyes still,
and his tongue, and nails on his toes and fingers."
I
could not reply to him. Instead I said after a moment, "What will you do
with him now?"
"That
is for you to say." He sounded disinterested, like a child discussing a
broken toy. "I will send surgeons to him if it will win your good opinion,
but it might be more merciful to dispatch him quickly—there have been things
done which will not mend."
I
shook my head. "I have done him enough harm. I will not take his life in
my hands."
His
eyes smoldered. "You did that when you smiled at him and hung on his
arm."
A
guard came hastily through the doorway. He was panting and checked when he saw
me, but his eyes went at once to Domenico.
"Your
Grace, we have taken the man you sent for. I came ahead to tell you—the others
are bringing him now. They are not far behind."
"It
is well." Domenico's head had jerked up sharply. "Bring him here as
soon as he arrives, and do it secretly. No one is to know he is here."
"As
Your Grace wills." The guard withdrew, and I heard his footsteps
clattering away on the flags.
I
said bitterly to Domenico, "Who is your latest victim?"
He
glanced at me swiftly, covertly, under his long lashes. "Wait and
see."
I
tried not to watch him as we waited: he was pacing the room impatiently, his
head turning at every noise like a leopard listening. Neither of us spoke. I
tried not to imagine what we were waiting for—who was to be the next sacrifice
to this tyranny—and my thoughts were driven back to Maddalena, to Bernardo, to
all the deaths the Duke of Cabria could mete out so uncaringly. Then he halted
in his tracks, and I heard the sound of approaching feet in the gallery
outside. One man's voice was arguing, another whining and pleading shrilly; and
the second voice was one I knew. My eyes flew to Domenico's face, but it was
still and unrevealing.
The
door opened again to reveal four men bunched on the threshold. The leader
beckoned the others, a prisoner and two soldiers. "Antonio Guardi, Your
Grace."
Antonio
was shaking all over, his fat body wobbling and his face drained gray with
fear. His protests were stilled on his lips as he stared around him like a boar
in a strange thicket; then as he caught sight of Domenico his eyes nearly
bulged out of his head.
"Excellency,
you! I did not know—these men said the duke sent for me, and I thought..."
"I
am Cabria." Domenico spoke curtly. "I sent for you because I require
intelligence regarding your sister."
Antonio
gasped. "My — my sister! Excellency... Your Grace..."
Watching
his working face, I wondered what he thought had become of me. It must have
seemed to him that the devil had spirited me away, and now the Duke of Cabria
himself called him up in the middle of the night to question him about me. No
wonder he was sweating. Then he noticed me suddenly, and I thought he might be
going to faint.
"Felicia!"
His voice gurgled in his throat. "I thought you were lost long
since!"
"No,
brother; I am the duke's guest." I spoke gently, to soothe his obvious
fear. "It was he who took me from your house the night I vanished, and I
have been here ever since."
"But
you—the duke—did you know he was the duke?"
"No,"
I said wryly, "not then."
"No
more than you," Domenico murmured unpleasantly.
"I
did not know where you had gone," Antonio said in a defensive tone.
"I could not fetch you back—are you angry with me?"
It
seemed wrong, somehow, that the bully I had feared was cringing in front of me,
looking at me as though he feared what I would say. I responded levelly,
"No, for however closely you had kept me, I think His Grace's men would
have defeated you. Now I am only glad there was no bloodshed"—I glanced up
into Domenico's hooded eyes—"the night I was taken."
The
duke gave a strange smile, and after a silent moment Antonio began to babble:
his shock when he found me gone, the inquiries he had made, the search he could
not pursue in the city because no one there knew that he had a sister. "In
the end," he concluded, stammering with eagerness, "I decided you had
run away as you threatened to do. Celia was near-crazed with grief, but we decided
there was naught we could do if you decided to leave our house."
I
had to repress an hysterical laugh; the thought of Celia near-crazed by my
disappearance was almost irresistible. They had not cared—why should they? And,
as I had known even in my first feverish desperation, they had been too glad to
be rid of me to care where I had gone.
"Sirrah,"
Domenico's voice interrupted, "rest assured that your sister is in the
safest hands in that she is close to us." His glance sent the betraying
blood surging up in my cheeks.
"Your
Grace, I know she could wish for no greater honor. I was not aware of Your
Grace's puissance the night you honored my humble house...."
"It
is no matter. We sent for you on an important matter." One swift look
dismissed the guards, and the three of us were left alone in the chamber.
Antonio, his arms free of their pinioning hold, bowed hastily and abjectly.
"However I can serve Your Grace..."
Domenico's
eyes were almost shut. He looked lazy, almost disinterested, and when he spoke
his words were measured and deliberate.
"You
swore when I saw you last that you had no knowledge of the facts of your
sister's birth. I let it rest then, because it was not important, but now the
case is altered, and it will make money for you if you speak. If not, Felicia will
tell you that I have many means of charming stubborn tongues to speech."
My
name on the duke's lips appeared to distract Antonio. He cast me a wild glance,
and then said, "I told you true, Your Grace. I know only a little."
"A
little is more than nothing." Domenico's eyelids lifted, and his black
eyes bored into Antonio's blue ones. "Speak it."
"What
do you wish to know?" Antonio watched him fascinatedly as he moved to
stand behind me. I was horribly aware of the fluid strength so close to me but
not touching, of the hand that hovered above my bare shoulder without
descending. I longed to lean back against his hard body, to draw down his
waiting hand, but I knew I must not; if Antonio could not disprove Maddalena's
story, the sin would be as great as ever.
"Tell
me her father's name." The duke's voice was suddenly, shockingly raw, and
the little color that Antonio had regained fled from his face again.
"Your
Grace, I do not know! I swear I do not! No one ever knew save my mother, and
she would never speak of such things to me. The man was one of the guests at my
father's inn. That is all we know. She refused to tell anyone who he was."
"Beware
of lying." Domenico's voice was absent, but it made me shiver. Antonio
stepped back a pace.
"Your
Grace, I swear it on my father's soul and mine! If we had ever known Felicia's
father, we might have had money for her keep from him."
There
was a long pause. Then Domenico said, "She says she was born here, in
Fidena."
"Yes,
Your Grace. In the house where we used to live before I married and bought the
Eagle."
"How
long ago? Twenty years? Twenty-one?"
Antonio
looked startled. "Why, no — she is not yet nineteen; she was born in the
winter of 1587."
"And
therefore begotten," Domenico counted swiftly, "in the spring of 1586
— what month was she born in?"
"In
January, Your Grace, on the feast of San Paolo."
I
was wondering, with absurd astonishment, why he had never bothered to tell me
that, when Domenico's hand gripped my shoulder in fierce possession and I
caught the crow of exultation in his voice.
"Our
thanks, sirrah; we need not trouble you further. You have resolved the question
in my mind and done your sister some service—take your payment." He
stooped to one of the rings he had discarded and tossed it to Antonio. My brother's
fat hands closed greedily around it, and he peered in awe at the diamond.
"Your
Grace, is there no more..."
"No
more, I tell you. Get you gone."
Antonio
bowed, his curious gaze fixed on the white fingers lightly caressing my
shoulder. "I would bid farewell to my sister, Your Grace."
The
fingers tightened, and I said breathlessly, "Farewell, Brother. Commend me
to Celia, and assure her you left me alive."
"Yes,"
Antonio nodded absently as he watched, "I will do so. And you must visit
us, Felicia, when your leisure serves you, and any of your friends will be
welcome for your sake."
Even
at this moment he was seeking grand customers, personages he could boast of
whose names would swell his trade. I smiled wryly and nodded, and did not
bother to tell him that no one had friends in the court of Fidena; only allies,
or enemies, or lovers.
Domenico
spoke to Antonio, but I could feel his eyes on me.
"That
will not be for some time, sirrah Antonio; tomorrow the court travels to the
capital, and your sister comes with us to attend our coronation. We will be
gone three weeks and more."
I
must have stiffened under his hand, but Antonio did not see it: he was staring
at Domenico with eyes the size of plates.
"That
is an honor for her indeed! When you return then, Felicia, visit our house, and
then you shall have good welcome— and tell us how you have passed these
weeks."
"You
must not task her too far," Domenico murmured mockingly.
"Brother,"
I found my tongue, "I will visit you when I may. Till then,
farewell."
"Farewell,
dear Sister." Domenico's ring flashed incongruously on Antonio's finger as
he held out his hand, and we shook hands like strangers. "I will look for
you on your return."
"My
men will see you conveyed back to your house." Domenico's patience began
to fray, and Antonio allowed himself to be chivvied peremptorily out. The echo
of his footsteps had died before I thought that I might never see him again.
"Felicia."
The duke spoke my name imperiously, and I looked up, between fear and hope, to
meet black eyes liquid with triumphant laughter.
"Now
let me hear no more of brother and sister." His voice had warmed and
thickened. "Unless my father was a sort of devil and could be in two
places at once, he did not sire you."
"How
do you know?" I hardly dared believe it.
"Because
in the spring of the year you were begotten, he was nowhere near Fidena—he was
fetching himself a bride from Serrato, a week's hard ride away. On his
honeymoon journey" — his lips twisted scornfully—"he went to Rome to
gather in the news and so that his bride might visit the pope, her godfather.
From Rome they traveled to Diurno and thence back across the mountains. He was
gone at least three months."
"Three
months..."
"That
and more." Domenico was watching my lips. "He left the capital for
Serrato early in March that year and did not come here until June. My brother
stayed for him in Diurno to greet him when he returned; I waited here in
Fidena. My father was a lecher." His eyelids drooped. "But no
wizard."
I
sat still, for fear my relief and joy should betray how much I loved him. He
waited a moment, and when he spoke again there was a note of impatience in his
voice.
"You
may ask anyone you please if it is not so, any man old enough to remember it.
Ippolito, Piero, my brother Sandro— any of them will confirm it. Now what have
you to say?"
He
was standing directly before me now, one foot on the edge of the bed, and by
turning my head a little I could have leaned my cheek on his thigh. I found
myself wondering anew at the grace of him, the thoroughbred elegance that
belied his great strength; at the fierce and arrogant beauty that stooped
between me and the torches. I could not speak, but with a sound of sheer
exasperation he pulled me into his arms, and as he bore me back, my arms locked
tightly around his neck.