I
turned away from the window, measuring the time. The duke would come to the
cathedral at noon and pass here a little before; it might be that Antonio and
Celia would return then, but it was far more likely that they would wait,
fearing to lose their dearly bought places in the crowd, until the procession
had passed again on its way back to the palazzo. Whichever they did, the day
for which I had harbored such hopes stretched emptily before me.
Then,
suddenly, I laughed aloud, and the sound rang back oddly from the plaster
walls.
I
am as foolish as Antonio, I thought, moping because I cannot see the
procession. Unless I want a silk-hung balcony and a gallant to fan me while I
gaze, I cannot be better than where I am!
It
had not occurred to me that I should be able to see the triumphs from my own
window until this moment. Nor to Antonio, I guessed, or I should have been
swiftly ousted. But now I had only to throw the shutters wide and perch on the
narrow wooden sill and I would have a better view over the crowded Via Croce
than any down below.
The
bolts were stubborn, and my fingertips were white with effort as I pushed at
them; then, with a sudden scrape, they slid back and I swung the shutters wide.
Sunlight
flooded the stuffy little room, catching the dust motes so that they turned to
floating specks of gold in its shafts; the heat of the burnished blue sky was
reflected back from the peeling walls opposite, scorching me as I looked out
with a new sense of freedom.
The
crowds below were being thrust out of the roadway by mounted spearmen, driven
back into gateways and under houses' eaves. The curses and threats of the
horsemen mingled with the protests of the victims, and presently the roadway yawned
white and empty while jostling masses of humanity pressed and sweated in the
shadows on either side. The crowds edged forward a little as the horsemen
passed, but no one was bold enough to step back into the road again.
I
could see people clustered at every window the whole length of the Via
Croce—women in bright silks like clusters of flowers, chattering men, and bored
children. It was like a carnival, I thought, not like a sober ceremony of
thanksgiving at all, and I smiled at the strangeness of it. The lengthy time of
waiting was an enchantment to me; watching the street below, I forgot
everything else, even my own empty belly.
At
the end of the Via Croce, surmounting its long steep slope, I could see the
Cathedral of San Domenico, its very stones seeming to tremble and swim in the
heat. The bells were beginning a jubilant carillon, and the sound welled down
the packed street and out over the city—drowning the cry of the gulls and the
clamor of the people in the din of the duke of Cabria's triumph.
The
noise in the street was gradually growing louder. The soldiers moved up and
down, their voices hoarse against the sound of the bells, like sheepdogs with
an unruly pack, and still the merciless sun beat down on the dust-whitened
roadway.
Something
bright was moving through the marketplace at the foot of the hill, and a shout
went up from those gathered there, spreading from mouth to mouth. The whole
street was shouting, waving, and cheering in an ecstasy of satisfied
impatience.
I
craned dangerously over the sill as the head of the procession seemed to heave
itself painfully around and start down the Via Croce: a glittering dropsical
lizard, moving blindly to the music of drums and trumpets which fought with the
clangor of the bells. I did not know then that the courtiers moved so slowly to
let the commons see and gape; it looked as though each step must be the last as
the line came inching up the long, straight road.
But
slowly, ponderously, it was coming nearer. The gleams of brightness on the
foremost rank showed as the sun on the armor of the palace guards. They marched
on foot, ignoring the dust and heat; then came the common soldiers, their eyes
searching the crowd for familiar faces, newly pressed some of them, enough to
glory in the city's welcome.
Then,
as the first rank of mounted courtiers drew level, I heard the note of the
cheering change. It did not fall off—rather, it increased in volume—but there
was a jeering note in it, a blend of wonder and scorn that scraped roughly from
men's dusty throats. But for all the heed the nobles paid to the din, the
echoing street might have been an empty field; they might have come from
another world, of another kind, to those who had come to cheer them.
From
above now the street was like a crowded hothouse, opulent reds and purples and
curdled greens spilling from the horses' backs like panniers of overripe fruit.
These creatures were fantastic, as brilliant and outrageous as the flowers that
blossom on carrion; I seemed to catch the scent of putrefaction as they passed,
for they all looked dead, faces and hair and hands as white as mold. Here and
there someone's natural coloring escaped the fashionable leprosy—a woman's
high-piled hair gleaming like a helmet of bronze, a man's soot-black curls—but
all the rest looked like living corpses bedecked for a macabre dance of death,
their lizard eyes blinking gummily in the sunshine. I watched them with a
feeling of revulsion as they paraded past, fidgeting and exclaiming with
impatience at the slowness of the cavalcade. Now, as the procession moved on
down the street, horses and men were becoming entangled and the whole line was
moving in fits and starts, I could hear the thin, drawling voices raised in
complaint above the cheers. Then, with a jolt, the courtiers surged into motion
and trotted forward as the obstruction ahead was cleared. Beyond them I could
see a banner borne high above the rest: a silver hawk on black, with a
ruby-studded miter set above it. The crowd was suddenly hushed, and I knew that
the tall figure in scarlet who rode after must be Archbishop Francesco della
Raffaelle, the duke's uncle.
I
could remember my mother telling me the story, only half-understood, of how the
duke's father and the pope had quarreled and how the pope was only waiting for
the archbishop to die before the whole state was excommunicated for heresy. I
had not really believed her, but I had accepted it, because she seemed so
distressed, and the truth of it had not mattered when I was a child. But now,
looking down on the legendary archbishop, I could see etched in his gaunt face
the burden of all the souls that hung upon his life's thread.
He
sat his horse proudly, straight as a ramrod. He must have been past seventy
then, but so haughty was his bearing that I did not think of his age. There was
a martial glitter in his eyes beneath the tall miter, and the cadaverous face
betrayed no pleasure; there was more of the Raffaelle prince in this forbidding
man than the Shepherd of God. When he had passed, there was a sound among the
people, like a sigh, and suddenly their shouts rose again.
The
silver hawk impaled with the Spanish eagle meant nothing to me, but I guessed
that the woman in the litter behind must be the duchess Gratiana. All I saw of
her was a glimpse of a hooknosed profile, a skirt heavy with gems, and a dark,
clawlike hand waving now and then to the crowd. There was no way to tell how
she was digesting her disgrace.
More
soldiers, line upon line, followed the litter, and at last I saw the only arms
I knew—the silver hawk crowned for the Dukedom of Cabria and flanked by two
canting angels. Forgetting the sheer drop that yawned below me, I leaned out
eagerly, and all along the street other heads craned, too. The procession
eddied again, checked, and came to an untidy standstill.
The
duke and his followers had halted just short of our very door; if I leaned out
as far as I could, I would be able to see them.
With
a fast-beating heart I stretched from the window, feeling the sun on the back
of my head, and looked beyond the black and silver banners. A burst of loud
laughter startled me; a man in the street was pointing to the window of one of
the houses opposite, where a group of women clustered, dressed in their best.
The women were blushing and laughing and kissing their hands to him, and I
watched them with the sort of envy I would feel for a bunch of bright
butterflies. Then I looked down at the horseman who was bowing to them so
ponderously and saw the gleam of gold about his head.
But
for that I would never have known him, for he was old. Rumor said that Duke
Carlo was past his prime, but that he should look so—older than his uncle the
archbishop—was somehow shocking. The thickset body was decked in ornate silver
armor, mantled in scarlet and gold, and the fashion for that leper-pale
fairness had led the duke into unclean extravagance. Gold powder dusted his
white hair to give an illusion of youth; paint mantled his heavy cheeks to the
color of puff paste. Hard little eyes peered curiously upward while one podgy
hand held the horse in check and the other gestured to the man on his left.
The
rider edged his horse nearer the duke's and bent his head to listen, and then
he too looked up; fragments of sentences filled my head as though someone were
whispering in my ear.
"Short
like Duke Carlo... dark as he was... but with a square sort of face like a box.
And he has blue eyes...."
But
I was too far away to see the color of Alessandro della Raffaelle's eyes.
The
duke must have made some comment on the chattering women, because his bastard
son chuckled before he swerved away again, and I could see the sardonic
amusement in his face even from my high window.
My
hair had fallen forward and hung like a curtain over the sill so that I had to
push it back to see more clearly; it was only as I impatiently tossed it back
over my shoulder that I became conscious of the third rider, standing as still
as a statue in the white dust of the roadway.
He
sat on his horse unmoving, a somber black figure in startling contrast to the
vivid colors about him, the sun dazzling on his white gold hair. Unlike the
duke and his bastard, there was no laughter in his face, and his eyes were not
searching the house fronts for diversion—instead, he was staring intently
straight up at my window.
My
stomach convulsed and cramped in inexplicable panic. I wanted to make light of
it, to laugh as the other women had done, but I could not. The rider's eyes
were narrowed against the sun, and there was something about him that reminded
me of a cat in front of a mousehole.
With
a rumble and the clinking of harness, the procession moved forward again, and I
drew a long breath of relief as the tall rider spurred on alongside the duke.
My whole body was trembling; foolish girl, I told myself, there is nothing to
fear. I had done nothing but catch the eye of one of the duke's men, and most
likely he had not even seen me clearly—there was nothing in that to make me
sick and frightened. But I slid down from the window and bolted the shutters,
and when I heard the sounds of the procession returning, I shivered as though I
had escaped by a hairsbreadth from some threat.
It
was early evening when Celia came back. I heard her voice in the courtyard,
then her footsteps on the stairs, and then the door swung open, and she stood
on the threshold, her hair tousled and her face fiery red with drinking. She
glared down at me belligerently.
"Well,
you've played the fine lady long enough for one day. I come home to find the
servants have all gone off to stand and gape outside the palazzo in hope of getting
scraps from the duke's feast—that is what comes of trusting them. You'll have
to come downstairs and help — the world doesn't come to an end just because a
few great men are feeling pleased with themselves."
I
got up silently, and she stared at me.
"What
is the matter with you? Have your wits gone at last? You look like a mooncalf.
What have you been doing all day?"
"Nothing."
I almost whispered it. "There was nothing to do."
"Well,
there will be no more of that for the rest of the day! There are all the dishes
to clean and the tables to scrub—none of the other servants has done a stroke
of work while we were gone. You will have your hands full enough, my
girl."
I
winced from the phrase "other servants," but it only confirmed what I
had known already; I was nothing to Celia but a hired pair of hands that she
had to lodge but would never acknowledge. I wondered whether I could remind her
that I had had nothing to eat all day; then I thought, wiser not, perhaps I can
get something while I pass through the kitchen. Better half-choking on a
pilfered crust of bread than having the salt side of Celia's tongue for asking
more than she was prepared to give.
While
my hands were busy, my thoughts ran free, and I found them returning for the
hundredth time to that strange little tableau in the street—the three riders
isolated in the midst of the noise and the gaudy, stirring cavalcade, two of
them jesting together like a couple of topers and the third sitting astride his
horse like an image and staring up at me. I still could not rid myself of the
sense of dread that swept over me whenever I thought of that deliberate,
calculating gaze.
A
slap brought my thoughts back to the present, and I looked around wildly at
Celia. "Will you be content when you have worn a hole through my best
jug?" There was suspicion in her face. "What is the matter with
you?"