When
I looked into the mirror I did not know myself. There was no vestige left of
Celia's drudge, hardly any trace of the girl who had pleaded to be set free on
that first night, but a ghost of fear lay in the gray eyes. But now it was the
fear of a different loss. With a bitter little smile I noticed the distinction
between bride and mistress; silvery lawn filled the breast of my gown and
framed my face in cobweb-fine ruffles.
Niccolosa
was watching me in the glass; then, as she had done once before, she patted my
hand.
"I
will fetch my lord Ippolito," she said and left me.
To
keep my thoughts at bay, I began to pace the room, learning to manage the
crushing weight of the silver robes. I found I had to draw the train after me
as a horse draws a cart, throwing my weight forward with the first step so that
my burden would run smoothly after me. I had just contrived a full turn without
tripping when I heard the door open at the other end of the room.
"If
you are ready, madam..." Ippolito arrived hastily, resplendent in dark
gray velvet, and his mouth dropped open in the middle of his cheerful greeting.
I
nodded and walked slowly towards him. To try to move quickly was a waste of
effort; I had to walk in long, smooth steps amid a susurration of silk and
silver. Ippolito stood watching me like a man in a trance, and then he
swallowed and closed his mouth.
"Well,
madam." His friendly smile overspread his face again. "For a minute I
thought I must salute some unknown royalty! I never saw a lady look
lovelier," he added soberly.
I
looked up at him in anxiety. "Will I serve the duke's turn for Savoy's
daughter?"
A
shadow—I thought it was pity—crossed his dark face. "She will be hard put
to it to excel you. But come." He spoke with sudden briskness. "You
are to ride in an open litter to the cathedral, and I am threatened with exile
or death—or both—if you are an instant behind your appointed time. So do not
think of anything that may make you heavy-hearted and slow your steps!"
Most
of the court was already mounted and waiting when Ippolito led me down the
Titans' staircase, between the two stone giants. As I stood at the head of it,
face after face was upturned to stare back at me, and I was aware of an
unnatural silence, spreading outwards from the foot of the steps like circles
in a pool. My hand must have tightened on Ippolito's, because he glanced at me
quickly and led me down to the waiting litter.
"Where
is the duke?" I could not suppress the question.
"In
his chamber still, cursing his men." Ippolito's eyes twinkled. "I had
rather manage fifty women, all impudent, all possessed of a fiend, than deal
with my lord's Grace when he would be point-device! The daintiest lady is a
sloven to him, and he will outswear the devil himself if things are not just as
he would have them. He means to go last in this rout so that the crowd will be
gaping for him when he comes."
I
smiled at the indulgent note in his voice and said, "Take care he does not
hear you," and he laughed.
"I
told him he was mountebanking it, and he smiled and said, like a full-fed
tomcat, 'I would have them know without asking which is the duke.' "
He
handed me into the litter, and as Niccolosa and the maids fussed around me,
arranging my train, I was aware again of the continuing silence. The courtiers'
eyes were watching my every movement as though for some portent, almost as
though they watched Domenico. Then, at some signal I could not see, the
stragglers began mounting and the riders moved up to take their places.
White-clad servants mounted the great black horses which bore the litter, and
pages in the same livery were raising a silk canopy over my head, dulling the
fierce beat of the sunshine. For an instant I felt as though I were choking on
the lie I had to act, but it was too late: The air was full of clattering
hooves and the swell of music as the procession moved off. I could not look
back to see whether Domenico was following, for until horses and riders found
their slow rhythm, the litter swung so that I was nearly flung out.
During
the progress through Diurno I was waiting for a denunciation that never came. I
was so certain that someone would see through my imposture that I could hardly
believe in the cheers and blessings shouted at me in the streets. By the time
the procession disgorged its load before the bronze paneled doors of San
Giovanni, I was giddy with the noise and the motion of the litter.
Niccolosa
had ridden before me, an incongruous figure on horseback, and she was at my
side to manage my cumbersome robes while I waited for someone to tell me what
was to happen next. It was as though I was caught up in a nightmare in which I
was the only one not to know some ritual; I dared not stir a step for fear of
making some fatal mistake.
Then,
with a clamor of trumpets, the doors swung wide, and people poured forward into
the torchlit cathedral.
The
interior was as bright as day, a dazzle of gold and colors, and the high
vaulted roof dwarfed men and women to scurrying insects as they fled to their
places. I stood and watched them with as much awe as did the people in the
streets outside—soon, I thought, they would remember I had no right to be there
and turn me out.
The
trumpets blared again; heads were turning to stare back along the central
aisle, and I shrank back instinctively. Then someone—I never saw who it
was—took my hand and urged me forward. I obeyed numbly, walking towards the
distant altar and halting where I was bidden, at the foot of the dais which
bore the Cabrian chair of state. It was only then that I realized I stood alone
and advanced before the whole congregation.
For
a moment I wanted to turn and run. But even as I gazed about me, the feverish
roll of drums began to echo around the walls. Looking back, I saw acolytes
swinging censers, a jeweled cross borne high; then the tall figure of the
archbishop, his face a rapt mask below his glittering miter. Ranks of clergy
followed him, and behind them, slow and stately, walked Ippolito, Piero,
Sandro, and all the officers of the court. Now the trumpets rang and redoubled,
harsh with pride, and I heard a long shivering sigh run through the court.
Turning, I looked up and saw Domenico.
He
alone of all the court—and I, in obedience to his order—had ignored his edict.
Beside the mourning splendor of his coronation robes, every other man seemed
somehow gaudy or squalid.
He
was wearing silver from head to foot, ablaze with white fire from a crust of diamonds.
They flashed blue white on his hands and in his ears and on the cope of the
great mantle which swept the ground before him, stiff with filigreed silver. He
should not have been able to walk for the weight of it, but he moved
unhesitatingly towards the altar, his uncovered head arrogantly high. His fair
face was incandescent with flaming pride, and a tiny, sneering smile hovered on
his mouth as though the homage he received was no more than his due. He did not
glance right or left as he walked, but my breath caught almost superstitiously
in my throat. He looked magnificently, insanely beautiful: Lucifer aspiring to
mount God's throne.
The
dark gaze swept unseeingly over my face as he passed and mounted the steps of
the dais. Then the archbishop moved forward, and in the sudden silence the
coronation ceremony began. Of it all, I have only recollection of the scarlet
figure moving around the silver one; the smell of incense and the scent of rose
petals strewn underfoot; and the moment when the archbishop lifted the ducal
crown and placed it on Domenico's bright head.
The
old man worked swiftly, but long before he had done, the packed congregation
was sweltering. I could hear Sandro breathing heavily, like a dog, and even
from where I stood, I could see the sweat shining on duke and prelate. But at
last, with a harshly proclaimed benediction, the archbishop drew back, and the
silver figure stood alone before the state chair; the whole assembly sank to
one knee with a brittle rustling like the clap of bats' wings. The archbishop
stepped forward again and knelt to take the oath of allegiance; then the
crowned head turned, and the black eyes met mine in a silent, inexorable
command.
Slowly,
hardly aware of what I was doing, I walked to the foot of the dais. A hand in
its embroidered glove was extended, and I kissed it, keeping my head bent for
fear of what I should see in his face. Then I felt myself raised; gloved
fingers lay lightly on my shoulders, drawing my head down, and the duke kissed
me on both cheeks and, lingeringly, on the mouth.
I
almost stumbled as I stepped back. It had not been a sudden yielding to an
impulse to shock; he had meant to do it, a deliberate act before the greatest
in Italy. Was it his rejection, performed with cruel ceremony, or only the
formal greeting to his supposed bride?
I
remembered nothing of the rest of the ceremony or the return through the
streets to the palace. My mind was too full of the arrogant demand of
Domenico's kiss. It was not until I found myself in the midst of the banquet,
surrounded on all sides by music and laughter and the noisy antics of dwarfs
and fools, that I awoke from the dream which held me.
The
ambassadors, at first stiff and formal, had unbent and grown visibly more
cordial as they saw the opulence of wealth spread before them. Domenico had
taken care that they should be served with the best of everything and attended
by the most attractive of the noblemen's wives, and by now they had lost their
air of reserve and were eating and drinking as heartily as any of the court.
Everywhere there was noise; song and shouted conversation filled the
swag-decked hall. Sandro and three of his cronies were entertaining the court
with a dance mocking the triumph of Death, black-clad and masked like skulls,
clashing their swords in feigned fight. Beside me I could hear Domenico
laughing, his still face convulsed with mirth and his cheeks flushed with wine.
It seemed impossible that last night he had sent seven people wantonly,
viciously, to their deaths.
He
glanced around suddenly, and I flinched. Around us the revelry continued
unabated; but in that instant there had been an odd, unfathomable expression in
his dark eyes which left me wordless. He moved again then, rising to his feet
abruptly.
"My
lords Ambassadors," his gaze swept them, "and my noble lords, we
cannot revel it further tonight. Use your pleasure in our absence — Cabria bids
you welcome." He turned to me, looking down at me without a change of
expression. "As for you, fair lady, we bid you good night. We must part
from you for a little."
I
rose and stood passively as he touched his lips to my brow and turned away. It
had come at last—this was his rejection—the end of my masquerade and end of my
bittersweet hold on his favor. And but for my folly in listening to the
archbishop...
I
checked the thought angrily. What did it matter? It was over, and there an end.
Domenico said sharply, "Attend us," and then he strode out of the
hall with his men at his back and his train spreading behind him like a
glittering sea. The doors closed behind him: He was gone, and there was
nothing.
In
dignity there was nothing I could do but call my women and go to my own
chamber. I could hear the hiss of speculation beginning to grow; then,
clenching my hands to stop their trembling, I left the hall without a backward
glance.
I
walked swiftly, forgetting the weight of the silver robes, and soon
outdistanced the waiting women—yesterday I would not have done so, but already
their diligence was slacker. I had gained the head of the stairs and turned
along the first gallery when an amused voice said, "Well, mistress, so the
phoenix dies in flames?"
I
turned sharply. Piero was standing in the shadow of a nearby doorway, and as I
halted, he stirred the bright folds of my skirt contemptuously with his toe.
"He
has provided you with a goodly pyre—I did not think he could hold to one woman
for so long, but I knew he must tire at last. That escape of yours pricked his
pride."
"You
knew I ran away?"
"Who
do you think told the duke of it? I heard the archbishop wooing you to it
yesterday, but I never thought you would be so foolish as to go at his bidding.
The old man only wanted you gone to smooth his own path, could you not see
that?"
I
ignored the jeering note in his voice. "I wonder you betrayed him! Would
you not rather have had me gone?"
He
shrugged lightly. "Oh, my hand was forced. That old crow Niccolosa came to
seek you when you were after your time, and I had no choice then but to tell
what I knew. Where were your wits, to rush to your own downfall so? If it were
not that to murder you would please the archbishop, I doubt you would be alive
now."
Sudden
tears constricted my throat, and I shook my head dumbly. I would have gone past
him, but he moved into my path.
"What
will you do now that he has cast you off—or should I say, who will be your
partner?"
"I
will not hear you." My voice shook, and he caught my arm.
"You
cannot choose. Till now you were backed by the Duke of Cabria, but your unaided
power is less, I think. You cannot still hope that he will change his mind—I
can testify that he will not."