The
houses clustered close by the gates had been gutted. What had been a huddle of
prosperous solid, stone buildings now stood stark like broken teeth, roofs
fallen in and doorways and windows gaping blindly; the very stones were cracked
and darkened by fire. Tiles had been smashed, doors wrenched off their hinges,
and everywhere there was the decaying aftermath of looting.
I
took a deep breath and urged my horse on. The market was unrecognizable; a
broad empty space now, littered with refuse, in which a few people were engaged
in some sort of barter. I could feel the impact of their eyes as I passed, but
their stares were bleak and incurious—they did not care who or what I was so
long as I did them no further harm.
My
eyes searched the shadows ceaselessly as the horses turned down the wide
expanse of the Via Croce. I could see soldiers sheltering under eaves or in
doorways, here and there a cluster of wounded, and, in the open space before
the cathedral, a pile of heaped corpses from which I averted my gaze. It was the
first time I had seen the aftermath of a battle, and what I remember to this
day is the heavy silence, the sour sense of waste that hung over the streets
like a pall, and the tireless clouds of flies.
"You,
Marcello!"
A
voice from the dimness of the cathedral steps made me start and stare about me,
and as the mare halted, a figure emerged from the shadows at the base of one of
the massive columns and peered up at me, narrowing his eyes against the early
evening sky. I hesitated only a moment.
"Messire
Giovanni! You are alive!"
The
woolly head nodded. Santi was standing slightly bowed, supporting his huge bulk
against the base of the column, muffled up in a heavy cloak despite the
evening's heat. A great bruise distorted one cheek and his face and clothes were
caked with grime; as he grinned at me, I could see the grit that had settled
between his teeth.
"I
do not die so easily, lady, though those Spaniards did their best to finish me
off! They put up a good fight, too," he added judiciously.
I
wrenched my thoughts back from my own overmastering dread to ask, "Did you
have many losses?" and he made a wry face.
"Eight
men, perhaps ten. The count is not finished yet. And I lost a valuable servant,
too."
"Who..."
My voice faltered.
In
answer, he pushed back the folds of the cloak that swathed his left arm, and I
caught my breath as I saw what they had hidden. Santi nodded, watching my face.
"It
might have been worse, lady. If it had been my right hand, now! But I shall do
well enough once the surgeon has done his work, and if the duke grants me a
pension, I shall be well satisfied. I will be able to go back to my home on the
marches and end my days in comfort with my wife and children."
I
gazed down into the kindly eyes set in the brutal face with a quick rush of
affection. "I will speak to the duke about you, messire. I owe you much
more than that for your friendship."
"God
will bless you, lady." He wound the cloak around the bloody stump of his
arm again.
"Have
you seen the duke?" I asked uncontrollably. "Is he safe?"
"I
heard someone say he was at the palazzo," the big man responded.
"Myself, I saw him not two hours since, when he was pushing the men
forward to attack the troops in the east courtyard. He had a whole skin
then," he added dryly.
I
thanked him and set the mare to a trot, Baldassare following behind. Suddenly I
could not bear the suspense any longer. I had to know, for good or ill, what
had become of Domenico, to see him with my own eyes or else find his body. I
forced the mare onwards with sudden impatience, my hands clammy with fear on
the reins.
The
palace courtyard was in turmoil. Crowds thronged the colonnades—people came and
went, soldiers and commoners jostled one another, and a dozen languages
clamored in a veritable Babel. Every citizen who had something to say, every
captain with an errand, seemed to be crowded into that seething arena.
I
stopped, appalled, on the edge of the crowd. Even if I could have forced my way
through, there was no way I could find a single man in this bedlamite rout. Baldassare,
however, dismounted and caught my horse's bridle, leading it through the throng
to the foot of the palace steps.
"Here,
madam," he called above the noise. "Here is Madonna Niccolosa sent to
find you."
The
old woman was standing like a rock amidst the waves of humanity, and at the
sight of her grim face, I felt a lump grow in my throat. I slid untidily out of
the saddle and ran up the steps to her, leaving Baldassare to cope with the
mare.
"Niccolosa,
are you safe? Has anyone harmed you? I thought I should never see you
again!"
Bony
arms closed around me briefly, and there were tears on the wrinkled cheek laid
against mine. Seen so close, she looked a little older; the lines in her face
were deeper, and there seemed to be a heavier sprinkling of gray in the
severely dressed hair.
"I
have been well enough, my lady. Those Spaniards treated us fairly once the city
was yielded. Besides, the duchess knows me, and she made sure I came to no
harm. But now she is to be sent away again in good earnest—the duke is having
her conveyed home to Spain."
"The
duke..." I gripped her arms urgently. "Have you seen the duke,
Niccolosa?"
"Indeed
I have." Her momentary emotion was gone, and her lips primmed themselves
into their usual uncompromising line. "It is by his orders that I am
here."
Quick
joy engulfed me. "Then take me to him. Quickly!"
She
shook her head firmly. "I am commanded to help you change your clothes
before you go to him. And now that I see you, I know why he charged me so
strictly to see it done!"
Color
tinged my cheeks under her censorious look, and I said defensively: "I
have been riding with His Grace's army. It was simpler for me to dress
so...."
"And
to cut off all your hair?" she questioned sourly. "Well, there has
been much mischief, I do not doubt. But hurry, my lady, there is no time to
waste — the duke sent word you are to meet him by six of the clock, and by then
you must be ready."
I
followed her up the steps and into the palace, giddy with conflicting emotions.
My fear for Domenico's safety was subsiding under Niccolosa's acid
matter-of-factness, and old habits were asserting themselves again at the sound
of familiar words.
"The
duke sends for you."
"No
time to waste."
"Hurry."
"Hurry." "Hurry..."
Most
of the faces I saw as we made our hasty way through the palace looked strange
to me. Some were soldiers I had never seen before, whose very livery was
strange; some were townsfolk helping with the business of scouring Fidena clean
of the Spanish invaders: but throughout the catacomblike passages was a
restlessness, a sense of disturbance, and men scurried frenziedly back and
forth like ants whose nest has been broken open. Through the banqueting hall we
went, into the duke's anteroom, up the grand staircase....
I
checked in my stride. "The Spanish have not been here," I said with a
strange feeling of certainty.
Niccolosa
glanced at me curiously, then shook her head. "No, my lady. The duchess
made much of her grief for the death of Lord Alessandro and chose to sleep in
his old apartments in the west tower. She said that to enter the duke's rooms
would contaminate her." She hesitated. "Is it true, what we
heard—that His Grace killed Lord Alessandro with his own hands?"
"Yes,
but in a fair fight." Fair inasmuch as both of them fought foul, I thought.
"Were you told that?"
The
old woman seemed to relax slightly. "No... the tale was of cold-blooded
murder. I am glad to know the truth of it."
I
remembered the dusty road, the almost tangible stink of hate, and the sound of
Sandro's breathing; I was glad in my turn that she would never know all the
truth. Instead, I followed her down the silent corridor to the room I had left
to look for Domenico, so many days ago.
It
was strange, I thought absently, to be scolded by Niccolosa again. She would
not allow questions that might delay her in her work; instead, she exclaimed
over the calluses that the horse's reins had made on my hands, brought scissors
to trim the ragged ends of my hair, and bathed me with a care that relaxed my
aching muscles, insensibly easing the tension from my taut body.
I
submitted to her ministrations with a grateful sigh and let her dress me and
rebuke me as if I were a small child again and she my mother.
It
was stranger still to be a woman again, I thought at last as I studied my
reflection. The brief masquerade in Majano had faded like a dream and now
seemed so long ago that I felt as though I had been "Marcello"
forever. Now the gleaming black silk of the first gown Niccolosa had seized in
her haste, the rustling petticoat webbed with gems, made my reflected image
seem as strange to me as it was on that first night, the night I was taken from
my prison for the pleasure of the man who had bought me. Niccolosa combed my
hair smoothly and severely, pinning the ends high on the crown, and in the
mirror I could see no sign of the dusty, shabby fugitive who had peered
waveringly at me out of streams or dully from a gun's gleaming barrel, over the
past weeks.
I
met Niccolosa's eyes in the mirror, and she nodded her approval. "Your
jewels are gone, my lady—the duchess demanded them the moment she entered the
palace—but I do not doubt His Grace will have them of her again! You look very
fair without them," she added in a bracing tone.
"No
matter. I still have my ring."
I
drew it from its hiding place and put it on my betrothal finger; if Niccolosa
noticed the change, she made no comment. The bruises made by Domenico's fingers
when he spoke of Isabella's death were almost faded; there was only a trace of
discoloration across my knuckles now, I noticed vaguely.
I
said, to divert my thoughts before fear could begin to grow again, "I did
not know you came from Ferrenza, Niccolosa."
She
paused for a moment, then replied briskly, "I was bom in the capital, and
I served as lady-in-waiting to the duchess and her daughters. How did you find
out where I came from, my lady?"
"By
your voice," I answered. "You have not lost your accent even after
all these years. I recognized it when I heard it in Majano."
The
gnarled old hands were still, and she turned a pathetically eager face to me.
"You—you went to Majano, you and the duke?"
"Yes—our
soldiers come from the Duke of Ferrenza."
Briefly,
omitting most of the details, I told her of the journey to Ferrenza and its
outcome. She showed no interest in Domenico's motives for going there or what
means he had used to get control of the army; she cared only for news of
Niccolo Amerighi, of how he had looked and behaved, of what he had said.
"He
was charming," I told her truthfully, "charming and kind. But he has
grieved so much that sometimes, they say, he wants his wits."
I
found I could not tell her of the babbling child who sometimes inhabited the
man's body, and I wondered whether she would urge me further, but she only
nodded.
"For
my lady Isabella, I do not doubt. He always loved her more than any other
living creature, and I feared for his reason when he found out she was to be
sent to live so far away. He charged me on his blessing to care for her, and I
did my best, but"—she shrugged—"Isabella was too sure that she had
heard God's voice to be guided by me. When she found out that the voice was not
God's but her own, it was too late."
"Duke
Niccolo took me for her," I said involuntarily, and Niccolosa stared.
"But
you are nothing like her to look at!"
I
held out my hand and showed her the pearl ring. "It was because of this.
He said he gave it to her, and she..." I faltered. "She gave it to
our duke."
"Did
she so?" Niccolosa took my hand and peered closely. "I know she used
to wear such a one— she would not be parted from it—but I did not think that
was the same. I thought it had been buried with her. It was Niccolo's gift, you
say?"
"Yes."
"Then
that was why she treasured it. I never knew sister and brother so fond of each
other."
I
let the subject go gladly when she started suddenly and said, "It is after
six, my lady. We cannot stand talking here! You must go to the duke!"
My
heart bounded; my breath caught in my throat, and I began to tremble
uncontrollably. Anything that had happened in the past was trifling now against
the fact that I was to see Domenico. He may be wounded, I thought; he may be
scarred. How could I have stood so long talking of petty things when all that
mattered was that I should see him, touch him....
I
answered, "Yes," and followed her out of the room.
As
we reached the head of the grand staircase, I could hear the commotion below. I
heard a harsh, rasping voice utter a shrill cry, then a stream of
unintelligible words; then a woman ran out of the duke's anteroom into the hall
below, bowed and ungainly, still shrieking abuse. Guards moved with her,
mocking her, imitating her cries of distress with shrieks like a parrot's, and
as she turned from one to another I glimpsed an eagle profile convulsed with
hate.