"Your
Grace does not need to ask pardon of such a sullen lad!" Andrea struck in,
as though from a great distance. "He well deserved his punishment."
Domenico
said levelly, "Keep your tongue," and gave me a slight shake.
I
managed to say, "No, Your Grace," and his fingers tightened; then he
thrust me impatiently away and strode towards the door.
The
stableyard was almost empty as we saddled our horses, and they, too, were
impatient to be gone now that they were fed and rested. My mare fidgeted and
would not be harnessed up, and even when I had her saddled and bridled, I could
not mount. I was stranded with one foot in the stirrup, trying to pull myself
up while she minced in circles, keeping me just off balance. I was beginning to
lose patience when I felt myself gripped and thrown almost bodily into the
saddle. I was so astonished that I nearly slid off on the other side, and
righted myself to look wildly down into intent black eyes.
"Does
that quit us?" There was no trace of the expected laughter in his voice.
I
told myself that I was a fool. So many times I had had the same bitter lesson,
and always my resolve failed when he looked at me like that. I should have left
him long ago, and yet I could not tear myself away; even now, when his
magnetism held me like a rabbit charmed by a snake, I could not take counsel from
that blind blow and remember that he was incapable of love. I shivered and
looked away, more a helpless prisoner of my own heart than I had been in his
dungeon.
He
did not speak again, and when I looked back, his fair head was bent and he was
tightening the mare's girths. I gasped suddenly; over his head I could see the
count come hurrying out of the castle, his popping eyes fixed on Domenico's
back. Perhaps he had changed his mind, I thought with a sickened drop of my
heart, and had decided not to let us go after all.
"You
there, fellow! A word with you!"
Domenico
seemed to freeze. For a moment he stood as though petrified; then, as the count
reached him, he turned and looked down at the little man. He looked like a cat,
hackles risen, fur lifted, eyes narrowed to slits of light.
"My
lord." His voice was toneless.
"I
have a thing to tell you that I could not say before them all—it would not be
fitting." The count cast me a disgruntled look. "Nor do I wish to
speak before your — hm!—page. It is somewhat private."
Domenico
shot a glittering glance upwards. "Marcello is a secret to a fault, my
lord." His hand closed painfully on my foot. "He can be deaf and dumb
at need."
"Hm!
Well, so he had better be, for this is most secret. It concerns His Grace of
Ferrenza."
Domenico
said softly, "Proceed."
The
count looked at him strangely for a moment, but he was so big with his tidings
that they would not be contained. "It came into my mind that if you did
not know of the duke's retirement, you might not know of the reason for it, and
that if you knew that, you might rather go to the capital and present your
message to His Grace's cousin."
"I
am charged to visit the duke himself. Why should I not?"
"Only
that your coming might... disturb His Grace. He has grown very solitary and
strange."
"Perhaps
messages from Cabria will rouse him from his melancholy."
The
count looked dubious. "Perhaps, perhaps. But there is more than that to
the matter — men say he is grown a little mad," he finished in a rush.
"Which
of us is not?" The sudden bitterness chilled my spine.
The
count shut his mouth with a snap. "Now, this is no time for your heathen
philosophies, sirrah! I speak no more than I have heard, which is that the duke
is mad. Certainly he does not conduct himself like one in his right mind. He is
scarcely seen outside his palace, save when he goes to inspect that army of
his—it is said that is all he cares for, that and his collection of treasures,
and he has never given proof to the contrary."
"I
heard rumors of this in Cabria." Domenico spoke frowningly, his fingers
absently caressing my ankle. "But you said he still governs."
"In
name, in name! His is the signature and his the authority, but it is his cousin
who has all the trouble of government. For all the duke cares, Ferrenza could
rule itself, as long as he had his toys—his collection and his perfect
soldiers—to play with."
"Yet
none of this is madness."
"Very
like it, when a grown man behaves like a child. The state has awarded His Grace
a nursery at Majaro, with everything he wants — paintings and statues and I
know not what and his mercenaries to guard it all, while his cousin works in
the capital with all the pains of a dukedom and none of the glory! He may not
sign anything greater than an order for hay, it is said."
Domenico
said intently, "He keeps his army with him, you say."
"Hmm,
yes. It seems our good Ferrenzans do not suffice for the duke. The first thing
he did when he came to rule was to draw up plans for the ideal army, cosseted
it and packed it with mercenaries, and now he lets it stand idle—he made the
perfect tool without bothering whether he was to use it! And yet," he
added grudgingly, "they say its fame has gone throughout Italy."
Domenico
nodded. "Certainly the Duke of Cabria knows of it."
He
was relaxed now, toying with the stirrup leather as he listened, his face
unreadable. Outwardly all his attention was on the count, but his fingers had
slid from the tuckings of the saddle to my thigh, where it touched the leather,
and he stroked it softly. I fought my awareness, knowing that it was this army
he meant to get from the Duke of Ferrenza.
"How
long has your duke been in this seclusion?" The idle authority in the
question stung the count's cheeks to a deeper red.
"I
heard of it six months since—it is disgraceful. The boy should do his duty,
beget an heir on some docile wench and leave this unnatural solitude! I have no
patience with him. If it is not madness, it is self-will."
Domenico
nodded wisely. "As your lordship says."
The
count swelled. "I do not speak in ignorance, I may tell you! Judge for
yourself if this humor of his is not unnatural—not to see his own kinsmen when
they visit him, not to entertain man or woman save at his express invitation,
and still to be unwed at nine and thirty! A dozen years ago no man would have
dreamed this. The boy was never merry, to be sure, but he was always civil—none
of these hermitlike humors then. No monk either, but that is what he has
become."
The
impatient shifting of the other horses came loudly into the silence before
Domenico spoke, his voice casual, almost inhuman. "Poor Amerighi!"
I
thought the count would expire from an apoplexy, but before he could get out a
word, Domenico had moved from my side and mounted his horse in one, almost
liquid, impulse.
"My
thanks, my lord," he said lightly, "for your information," and
then he turned his mount and was gone, a couple of coins tinkling on the
cobbles behind him.
With
the count's safe-conduct our way was much easier, for now there was no need to
avoid the villages in our path. We reached Toli that night, and in the morning
early we were on our way to Camuzza; from there it was little more than half a
day's ride to Majano itself. It seemed that nothing could stand in our way—only
the nightmares which seemed now to pursue Domenico like avenging furies and
left the implacable revenger a crying child in my arms. I was grateful in a way
that I had no time to think of the other deaths—Ippolito's, Sandro's, those
nameless Spaniards'— and I could almost, with his head buried in my shoulder
and his nails clawing at me for comfort, forget that if he succeeded in his
battle, I must give him up.
I
think Baldassare must have recognized me, either at Mesicci or soon
afterwards—he never spoke of it, but there was a consideration in his manner
which contrasted sharply with the jesting of most of the others. To them I was
the Duke's "Ganymede," and I had heard the term applied too often to
the pretty boys and painted striplings at the Palazzo della Raffaelle not to
know what it meant.
When
we lay at Camuzza, worn out after a day's hard riding, Domenico ordered our
saddlebags to be brought into the inn; tomorrow, he said with irony, we must be
fit company for a duke. So, tired as we were, we cleaned ourselves and tried to
freshen our travel-stained clothing, although there was little enough we could
do.
Domenico
was cramming things back into his saddlebag when the crackle of parchment
arrested him, and he looked down with a queer little laugh.
"That
old dog's precious letter! I had forgot."
I
asked in a low voice, "Will you deliver it now?"
"Perhaps."
There was amusement in his face. "If I remember it tomorrow."
"Do
you believe what he told you about the Duke of Ferrenza?"
"I
think he believed it. As for me..." He made a slight dismissive gesture.
"I
know. It does not matter to you whether the duke is mad or sane so long as you
can get what you want from him."
He
looked at me sharply. "You are growing politic. Soon I shall have to
consider the things I say to you before I speak aloud."
"Soon
you will be married, and then I shall be gone." I felt a twinge of pride
at the steadiness in my voice.
"Not
until I have won back all that has been lost." There was an odd, hard look
about his mouth. "You are eager to have your precious freedom."
"Yes,
Your Grace," I answered calmly and saw his black eyes smoulder.
"Still
so stubborn?" Something twisted in his voice.
"Still?"
I dared not speak for the tears that filled my throat, and his lips tightened.
"Well,
I shall be patient for a little longer." The white fingers tore the
count's letter across and across. "And then we shall see.... After
tomorrow"—the fragments scattered— "when I have seen my friend
Amerighi, we shall resolve this once and for all."
It
was with a heavy heart that I set out the following morning. I had grown used
to the comradeship that had grown up among us on the road, to the freedom of
boy's clothes, even to the sense of fatalism that carried me on in the duke's
wake because I felt there was no other choice. But now Domenico's world was
beginning to exert its force again, a world of politics and statecraft in which
I might easily be swept aside and forgotten, and in which the choice of whether
to stay or go would no longer be my own.
He
would win back his dukedom with Ferrenza's army, I thought, watching his supple
back; and then it would be as if none of this had happened. By now his Savoyard
bride must have reached Diurno and the welcomes of the archbishop— Domenico
would marry her, and I would face a lifetime of not having, of learning to
resign myself to emptiness and forgetting that I was ever his mistress for a
few short weeks.
It
was a sour little consolation that I had never once confessed how much I loved
him. At least I had salvaged my pride from the wreck.
Majano
was a small city, far smaller than Diurno, built on a high ridge which thrust
two arms across the plain towards us. Its houses and palaces were clustered on
its slopes like limpets clinging to a rock; its streets were cobbled and
precipitous and looked fit for nothing but donkeys to traverse. After so long
in the open, the tall buildings seemed to crowd, and everywhere I saw the
blazon of a she-wolf, in marble, in bronze, in wood. Andrea tittered and said,
"One would think we were in Rome," but Baldassare hushed him.
"Ferrenza
has the ear of the pope and his province's loyalty is very strong, so have a
care what you say."
Andrea
was unrepentant. "In God's name, then, what are we doing here? As well to
put our heads into the lion's mouth as to parley with the pope's friend."
Baldassare
said nothing. He was watching Domenico uneasily. The duke had reined in beside
a passing citizen and was exchanging a word or two. Then with a nod of thanks
he turned his horse, and we followed him back through the streets, away from
the center of the city, until we came to a shallow ravine with a slender,
arched bridge facing it.
"Ferrenza's
winter palace," he said softly.
In
the afternoon sunshine it looked very fair, built like a small fortress on the
raised ground above the ravine, its walls gleaming pale gold, not the bleak
gray of Fidena or the opulent rose of Diurno, but a warm, gentle color, as
though centuries of sunlight had been absorbed by the stone. Trees clustered at
the foot of its tall towers and I could see others growing beyond the great
gate, within the courtyard.
"My
good Baldassare." Domenico was gazing at the palace with a frown between
his brows. "You shall be our envoy. We will not go skulking to Ferrenza
like beaten dogs — ride and tell him that Cabria is coming. We shall follow
behind."
We
waited for minute upon crawling minute after the sound of hoofbeats died away,
until Baldassare should have given the fitting warning of a royal duke's
approach. Domenico gave no sign of impatience; he sat still in the saddle, his
eyes fixed on the gate beyond the ravine with the attentiveness of a cat at a
mousehole. There was no reading the expression on his face, and looking at him,
no one dared speak. When at length he wrenched away his gaze, it was to give
the signal to move on, and at a slow and regal walk our tired horses crossed
the last bridge and entered the gates of the Palazzo Amerighi.