Amerighi
murmured, "Check," and Domenico frowned. His hand hovered briefly,
and he shifted a man, relaxing as he did so; the glossy brown head made a civil
inclination, and as Niccolo studied the board, his face was suddenly stamped
with the image of his sister's. There was the same birdlike, bony angularity,
the same down-drooping eyes and thin wide mouth, the same sallow skin and the
same unhappiness.
In
the man's face the marks were clearer; he was twice the age of the girl in the
portrait, and there were deep lines etched in his hollow cheeks and from
nostrils to chin: But the resemblance which had startled Domenico at their
first meeting was shockingly vivid.
The
hands, toying meditatively with a castle wrought in gold, were as bonily
elegant as his sister's—but where Isabella's had been clenched tightly before
her, his were relaxed, even graceful. He said again, "Check."
Domenico leaned forward, one elbow on the table, and stared down at the board.
Then, with another dismissive little shake of his head as though to dispel a
mist before his eyes, he moved a chess piece forward.
Amerighi's
next move was so swift that he must have foreseen the counter. Gold pounced
upon silver, and the bony fingers tightened on the captured chess piece,
triumph lighting his gaunt face.
"You
must betake yourself to your defenses, Cousin; you have lost your white
queen."
Something
in his voice made me start, and I remembered the name he had given me earlier.
Then I saw the chess piece he held in his hand; the figure of a woman, robed
and crowned. The white queen.
Amerighi's
fingertips rested lightly on the little image, gliding with an almost
lascivious delight over its cold smoothness. He was looking straight at
Domenico, and his mouth curved slowly, as if he were pleased with what he saw,
before he put the piece down amid the captured ranks. There were few pieces
left on the board now; the glittering movements were fascinating me, and I
could think of nothing else.
"Check,"
the beautiful voice said, "and... mate, my dear Cousin."
Domenico
said, "No," harshly, and Amerighi shrugged.
"Of
course, I do not expect you to concede easily when so much hangs upon the
outcome. I will stay your leisure: If you can free your king from this
predicament, I will play on."
There
was something terrible in his patience as he sat waiting, his gaze fixed on
Domenico's face. The seconds dragged into leaden minutes, and my nails dug
agonizingly into my palms.
At
last Amerighi broke the silence. Domenico had not moved. His bright head was
bent over the pieces, obsessively searching, searching for a way out. "You
will concede, Cousin, that I have won?"
The
sound that broke from Domenico was so quiet I was not sure I had heard it, half
a sigh, half a groan. Then a breath of a voice said, "Yes," and I
shivered as though the gallery had grown cold all at once.
Slowly,
as though he savored it, Amerighi rose to his feet. "I offer you my
condolences. You were weary, and much has happened to disquiet you. But I am
not so saintlike as to relinquish my prize for pity's sake—that would savor too
much of turning the other cheek."
Even
as my hands began to tremble, I wondered what kind of brother could think of
his sister so.
"Lady."
Amerighi had crossed the black and white floor and was bending to hand me out
of my chair. "I claim what I have won."
I
could not answer. The chestnut head turned, and Amerighi glanced back at
Domenico.
"Cousin,
the game, is done. Leave the pieces."
Domenico
swung around sharply in his chair, and his arm swept the board clear in one
vicious movement. The precious figures scattered on the flags, bouncing and
ringing, and Amerighi nodded slightly.
"So,
now you need not gaze on them any longer. What you shall see now will be far
more diverting."
The
dark eyes lifted. "I am not in the vein for pageants."
"What."
Amerighi's eyes were brilliant, "not the pageant of Venus? Come, I would
have seen you invested with the generalship of my army—I crave only so much
courtesy of you, that you will see me invested in my... rights to this
lady."
Domenico
drew a sharp breath, then shook his head decisively.
"No?
But you will watch, my dear cousin — I should be loath to have you dragged, and
my lady Felicia might love me less if I bade my men cut off your eyelids. Think
now," the deep voice sharpened, "think of all I might do to her
without the restraint of your presence."
Without
a glance behind him, he guided me, with incongruous courtesy, to the doorway
through which he had brought the silver casket, and only then did he turn and
look back. His eyes were feverishly bright.
"I
regret I must be so crude, but you will appreciate the necessity for my guards,
I know. I wish to make sure you lose nothing of this... spectacle. The guard,
here!"
Footsteps
came running up the stairs in answer to his shout. My fingers felt icy cold as
they rested in his, but I felt no fear for myself; this strange man did not
want me save as an item in his collection or a counter in his game of revenge.
There was more of the connoisseur than of the lecher in the dry touch of his
hand.
He
had dragged his gaze from Domenico and was looking down at me almost curiously.
His voice, gentle and reasonable, was a jarring contrast to the fanaticism in
his face.
"I
must do this, lady." He sounded like a child, anxious to explain himself.
"I do not want to injure you, but it is the will of God. I would have
killed him if you had not been here, but by sending you, God delivers me from
the sin of murder. Now he can live and suffer as I did, by losing the woman he
loves beyond his life."
I
said, "He does not love me, my lord. I only share his bed."
He
stared at me arrestedly for a moment, and then he glanced over my head and
smiled. "No, lady, do not bother to lie to me. It is too plain."
Before
I could try to convince him, the guards came clattering through the arch at the
end of the gallery, and all the gentleness drained from Amerighi's face.
"You
will stand guard at this doorway here. This man"—his voice stripped from
Domenico even the courtesy of his name—"is to stand before it and watch
what passes within; you will ensure that he does not close his eyes or turn
away. If he resists, kill him, but not before I have done. Take your stands and
bring me a light within here so that he misses nothing. Quickly!"
The
sudden impatience in his voice goaded the two guards into action. One of them
hurried to the wall and took down one of the lamps to take to the room behind
us, eyeing me amazedly as he passed; both men seemed bewildered by their
master's orders and stiffened warily as Domenico rose from his chair and came
slowly down the gallery towards us.
"My
compliments, Cousin," Amerighi said. "It would have ill become your
dignity to be dragged to us. This is dukelike indeed."
Domenico
gave a very faint shrug; his face was set. He was not looking at Amerighi as he
drew level but gazing at me, his black eyes holding mine with a queer
insistence. I had forgotten there was anyone else in the room when Amerighi
tugged gently at my hand. "By your leave, lady."
The
guards stamped to attention, and the tasseled pikes crossed behind me as I
followed Amerighi down the steps into the windowless chamber and looked
wonderingly about me.
It
was like a shrine: a shrine to the dead Isabella. Candles, their flames
darkened by the lamplight, burned in front of a laughing portrait; a single
glove lay there, a child's crucifix, a plain set of ivory chessmen ready to
play. A man might have dedicated such a room to the memory of his wife rather
than his sister. A couch stood in the center of the floor before the portrait,
and I shivered at the thought of the hours the duke must have spent sitting
there amid his hallowed relics, reading his sister's confession and dreaming of
revenge. And now that his revenge had come crowding in upon him, he meant to take
it where it had been conceived, here in his sister's room.
Amerighi
halted beside the couch. His thin hand, sallow and lightly freckled against the
ruffle that framed it, gripped my shoulder. My flesh crept, and I fought to
remember that lack of resistance, meek submission to his enemy's desires, was
the last and only way I could help Domenico. Over the duke's black-clad
shoulder, I could see him lounging in the doorway—by his pose he might have
been awaiting the start of some common entertainment, leaning idly against a
pillar, one hand reaching up to the crown of the archway as though he were
leaning in at a low window. The goggling soldiers with their crossed pikes
might not have existed. He was waiting for me to betray him, I thought
despairingly, waiting for me to shudder away from Amerighi's touch or recoil
from his unwanted kisses. Well, I would not: He had pledged me, and I would
keep his pledge.
Amerighi
murmured, "Now he will know what hell is like, a little," and drew me
unresisting into his arms.
His
kiss was calm at first, even passionless; then his arms tightened, and I felt
the trembling which shook his thin body. I was afraid suddenly—some thread of
self-control in him had snapped, and the detachment I had trusted to keep me
safe was lost in the clutch of half-frenzied, long fingers digging into my
flesh. I wanted to twist my mouth away from the rough, inexpert pressure, but I
knew I must not.
He
lifted his head and drew a long, unsteady breath. "I begin to think my
revenge will be doubly sweet."
As
he kissed me again, he was fumbling at my throat, and the blue cloak slid
rustling to the floor; my fingers were quivering with the effort not to strike
at him, not to fight him as once I had fought Domenico. Then the thin fingers
were cupping my face, caressing my neck and my shoulders—for an instant the
hazel-green eyes stared almost blindly into mine, and then Amerighi whispered
roughly, "So beautiful..." and his mouth came down on mine with a
sort of blind ferocity, punishing me until the muscles of my face were numb and
there was the taste of blood on my lips. I gasped then, in revulsion, but it
was so low in my throat that only Amerighi heard it. He said tauntingly, his
lips against my ear, "Did the Cabrian teach you no better tricks?"
and, catching my hand as it hung by my side, drew my arm about him.
A
shudder ran through me. I might force myself to keep the letter of Domenico's
wager, but I felt nothing but disgust for the gaunt body pressing against mine.
I could win, I knew, if I fought him; he was not half as strong as Domenico.
But I did not fight. I stood tamely, letting him loosen the golden girdle so
that the Madonna's robe fell open, seeing the vein throbbing in his temple as
he caught the shining folds and lifted them away. Almost tentatively, his hand
came out to touch my breast; it shrank for a second as though I had burned him
and then returned, squeezing and stroking urgently.
His
head bent, and I hardly noticed the touch of his mouth, for past him I could
see Domenico standing still in the doorway, relaxed and casual, one hand
lightly clenched as if in impatience at having to see this spectacle through to
the end.
Amerighi's
hand ran greedily down my body, pushing me back on to the couch; then, as he
parted my thighs, I wondered how I could bear to let him possess me without
crying out. Domenico was not ten paces away—if I called him...
But
even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I would not call, for the look on
his face had been too clear. Indifference hooded his eyes and stamped a sullen
curve to his mouth; indifference had been in every line of his body. He would
not stir even if I called; why should he risk his skin against Amerighi's
guards for something so trifling?
I
stared up at the vaulted ceiling above me, gazing at the beasts of heraldry,
grand or grotesque, which clustered about the bosses and clung to the ribs of
the vaulting. I knew I must not look at the black figure stooping over me,
tearing with sudden clumsy impatience at its clothes. I must not think of the
man in the doorway. Amerighi's breathing had quickened, and one thin knee was
upraised and resting possessively on the unyielding cushion between my legs. He
must look ridiculous, I thought hysterically, like a heron; too excited to
undress himself. Then the impulse to laughter died as ice-cold panic gripped
me.
I
heard Amerighi's triumphant gasp as a knot broke, and in the same moment a
scuffling sound came from near the doorway, the ring of metal, and a crash as
something fell. I struggled to get up, scoring my hands on the crushed
bespangled silk of the Madonna's robe, and it was my movement, not the sound,
that caught Amerighi's attention. He raised serpent-bright eyes from his own
working fingers, and I thought he said, "No!" His hand came out as
though to press me back again, but then he checked, and I caught the startled,
hawklike poise of his profile before I twisted away from him.
Something
lay doubled on the black and white flags like the parody of a newborn baby—the
body of one of the guards. The second man stood astride it, pike upraised,
trying desperately to beat off his adversary. The sound of the last blow still
reverberated as the man tensed to ward off another.