The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

‘Vile, vile, a thousand times more vile than any that lived.’ Isabella Lisarro paced the room.

  Rain hammered at the windows of Tintoretto’s workshop where William, Hemminges and Oldcastle had gathered Isabella and her old friend, the painter, Tintoretto, in conference. December had brought with it true cold and foul news. To the players’ tale, the painter could add intelligence of his own.

  ‘They have ta’en him. Orsini is to be tried,’ said Tintoretto.

  ‘Tried? What trial needed?’ answered Isabella. ‘Vittoria was no friend of mine but to die like that and at the hand of one she should have looked to for succour. A murder most foul.’

  ‘When is murder not?’ murmured Oldcastle.

  ‘Truly spoken, foul even in the best it is, but this most foul. Foul and unnatural, by a cousin’s hand.’

  William reached to take her hand and give comfort but Isabella would not be stayed from her pacing.

  ‘There is worse news,’ said Hemminges.

  Isabella stopped and turned to look at him. Her face that had been hot with anger took on a paler cast of fear. What news could he bring her that was worse than that she had already received?

  Isabella despaired. When she had first heard that her old lover Prospero was returned to Venice she had set her will to thwart his vile intentions. She had discovered his target in Vittoria Accoramboni, a selfish, foolish, beautiful Roman noblewoman who was the object of the Pope’s vengeance, and Prospero, the instrument of that vengeance. She had sought to warn Vittoria, and when that warning went unheeded had set herself to be the woman’s shield. In the English Embassy she had found another of Prospero’s deadly purposes but also allies against his machinations.

  Now all that strife, that struggle, against Prospero’s plots, to thwart the Pope’s vengeance against his nephew’s killer, Vittoria Accoramboni, Duchess of Bracciano, the terrors she had faced, and the battles she, William, Oldcastle and Hemminges had been forced to fight, was all for nothing. They had thought themselves triumphant when Prospero’s servants, even as their blades had been drawn for the killing, had been turned aside to strike against themselves. They had rejoiced when Prospero was condemned to the Doge’s prison. Yet still it seemed that monster had struck out. Even from within his cell, he was deadly.

  ‘Well,’ said Isabella, out with it.’

  Hemminges wavered. Oldcastle, seeing his friend’s uncharacteristic cowardice, took up the tale.

  ‘The Pope has sent a legate to the Signoria. It seems that the Serene Republic finds it politic to ignore the Pope’s actions.’ Oldcastle took a swallow of wine against the sudden dryness in his mouth. He feared Isabella’s response to his next words. ‘Prospero is released.’

  She let out a cry of rage. Pain shot through her and she stumbled. William was by her side, holding her. She tried to wave him back.

  ‘Nothing, it’s nothing,’ she said.

  William ignored her protestation and guided her to the bench where Tintoretto sat. The old man put his arm about her. Hemminges approached and crouched before her.

  ‘I saw him leave the Doge’s Palace,’ said Hemminges quietly. ‘It is small recompense but in his limp and crabbed walk were signs full of austere punishments.’

  ‘Where does he stay?’ Isabella looked up. Her anger and frustration at the day’s news she could still feel as blades within her womb, true pain to add to that her mind felt.

  ‘He did not stay. He walked no more than a hundred paces on Venetian land. From the Doge’s Palace to the dock and there on ship, away.’

  Isabella groaned again.

  ‘Have you wine, Jacopo?’ William asked Tintoretto.

  The old man rose and moved to fetch a jug and cups. He returned swiftly and it was tribute to the horror written on Isabella’s face that Oldcastle let her be served first and refilled her cup before taking his own draught. The woman they had hoped to protect, killed, the manager of her murder, released and fled from their vengeance. Black day indeed.

  A little later, as William and Isabella made to leave that sad conference, Hemminges caught William’s arm while Isabella was embracing her old friend Tintoretto.

  ‘With this news we may not wait till spring, Will,’ he whispered.

  William had no strength for argument. He gripped Hemminges’ arm and nodded to him.

  ‘We will speak on it tomorrow,’ he answered.

  Hemminges nodded in his turn and left Will to return to Oldcastle and pluck from him the jug of wine. Oldcastle looked past Hemminges’ shoulder to stare into William’s eyes but neither man could hold the other’s gaze. There was in that look too many messages to add to the news already had. The morning would be time enough.

  Later, when they had walked from Tintoretto’s studio back to her house, William and Isabella sat together in silence as the dark drew in. William could see that the rage that had first consumed Isabella at the news of Prospero’s release had passed. It was one of the things in her that he admired, her temperate nature. She stormed, she roared, she cried out her pleasure and her pain but she returned to gentle laughter swiftly. Isabella was not one to dwell in the dark places. It was a contrast to his own melancholy that was apt to find something over which to sit in brood. Yet in her silence there was something new, as if word of Prospero’s good fortune had planted within her a bitter seed whose poison must be first transmuted before true pleasure could return.

  ‘We were living too richly, Will,’ said Isabella at last. ‘The gods do not care to be taunted by the sight of too much happiness in mortals.’

  ‘I think the gods care little for the desires of men, pleasure or pain,’ answered William.

  She turned and smiled at him. He took her hand, grateful for the smile. He was not fooled by it. He knew her too well to think it went deeper than her lips. She and he had had a golden summer but now they had seen that in the cup there was a spider steeped.

  ‘Your pain has passed?’ William asked.

  ‘It has,’ answered Isabella. ‘I think it was a pain of the mind brought on by hearing that Prospero was still living. I had not thought he would leave the Doge’s Palace alive, unless it was to pass on to hanging between the columns in the Piazette di San Marco.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said William. ‘Though by Hemminges’ report he has had a cruel time of it there.’

  ‘Cruel enough? Is there punishment enough for one such as him outside of hell?’

  ‘Ay, there’s the rub of it.’

  Isabella stood up.

  ‘Enough of this melancholic debate,’ she said. ‘Come to bed. The night is young and we may yet save some portion of it for true pleasure.’

  William rose smiling, for now he saw that Isabella’s own lips were bowed into a true smile, full, red and welcoming. For a little while longer at least they might forget the world and all the horror that moved within it.

  Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost

  Verona

  Aemilia lifted her skirts to make better pace as she hurried across the courtyard towards her father’s private rooms. She had let Valentine’s wooing distract her too long. Her maid met her coming the other way. She threw her arms in the air and gestured silently but most expressively at her charge, her state of disarray, her exposed legs and finally, after briefly clutching at her hair in distress, to the heavens.

  ‘Where have you been, Lady Aemilia?’ she demanded. ‘Oh God, it is not you alone that shall suffer for your lateness. Where have you been? The new priest sent from Rome, the Englishman, is already in with your father and has put him in a foul temper.’

  Aemilia swept on, picking up the maid in her wake and waving down her questions. At the door to her father’s closet she paused and took a breath. Her maid took the moment to smooth her mistress’s dress and to push her hair behind her ears. Aemilia batted her hands away, turned the handle and walked in.

  At once she tasted the poisoned mood; ill-will hung like a haze across the room. Her father’s steward, Rodrigo, stood at Duke Leonardo’s shoulder.
Rodrigo gave the Duke’s daughter a chiding look for her lateness as she sidled in and crossed to a seat by the wall, next to the fire. Her father did not acknowledge her arrival. He was intent on the man before him, the priest, Father Thornhill, the Englishman. As she entered Thornhill’s eyes turned to her and she shuddered to recognise the pale malice that had so frighted her in the chapel. She hid her shock as she bent to take her seat. So this was the priest that her father had railed against. Why did he wish her to see him now?

  ‘By what authority?’ her father demanded of Thornhill.

  Thornhill’s eyes turned back slowly from Aemilia. ‘By the authority of His Holiness.’

  Aemilia had seen her father angry often enough that it now passed almost beneath her notice. Duke Leonardo Barbaro sometimes seemed to his daughter to live in a state of perpetual fury at the world. Yet that rooted anger was of the kind that spoke of frustrations and inconveniences brooded upon. It was not fed by anything in the world so much as born of too much choler in the blood. The anger she witnessed in him now was of a different kind, cold, an anger that threatened to burn as a frosted metal does. Aemilia sat quietly and looked to the object of that anger, the priest, tall, thin and with a manner as cold as her father’s fury.

  ‘These are not’ - her father’s hand rapped on the table - ‘the Pope’s lands. They are mine.’

  ‘I thought they belonged to the Republic of Venice,’ queried the priest.

  ‘My lands, priest. Mine. That I owe fealty to the Republic of Venice only serves to remind you that I owe none to the Republic of St Peter.’

  Her father did not relish his obeisance to Venice. Yet the north of Italy was a patchwork of such loose fealties and Venice was a powerful protector still, though but a shadow of its former strength.

  ‘We all owe obedience to His Holiness,’ answered Thornhill, as if reminding a child of some simple courtesy forgotten. A snake, her father had named him when the priest had first presented himself to her father and demanded his aid in the search for heresy. Railed against him, truth be told. That had been a month past. A little month, and yet such a name this man had made for himself in those few days. A name to be used with children to fright them into bed. Now she saw him for herself and knew him for who he was, she too thought he had an adder’s look to him: the stillness with which he held himself, nothing moving save his pale eyes flickering about the Duke’s closet. She still felt the shame of her first encounter with the priest, when she had fled from him and his questions.

  ‘Since you came to Verona you have abused the hospitality that I gave to you and your men. You have taken men and tortured them, my subjects,’ said the Duke.

  For a moment it looked as if Thornhill would speak but instead he simply pursed his lips and said nothing, his eyes roaming back over the room, passing over Aemilia and lingering there an instant, to her discomfort. Nothing could have served to anger the Duke more, the lack of reply only emphasising how little the priest felt that he owed the Duke an explanation.

  ‘You do not deny it?’ said the Duke.

  ‘Deny what?’ answered Thornhill, his eyes turning back to the Duke, his calm voice a studied contrast to the one that interrogated him. ‘That I have searched for heresy in your lands and found it? That I discover here those that conspire against the rule of the Church? Spies? Traitors to Rome? I do not deny it. I proclaim it. Righteousness has slept, Duke Leonardo, and I have come to wake it. As His Holiness ordered me to do.’

  The Duke rose from his desk. Aemilia felt the menace of the room grow and she thrilled with both fear and pride to see her father’s power. A tall man, broad and dark, the Duke loomed over his desk. ‘Mine is the rule here, priest. You will release your prisoners into my control and I will deal with them as I deem just.’

  The priest simply shook his head.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ said the priest. ‘They are prisoners of the Church. Summoned here, my lord, I have come, and so have not yet finished with their questioning. When I have done it may be fit they be released to your control.’

  ‘It may be ...’

  The Duke’s mouth hung, opening and closing upon itself, as if the foul taste of the priest’s defiance could not be fathomed. Father Thornhill held his gaze.

  ‘You would not wish,’ said Thornhill into the silence, ‘for me to make an ill report of you to His Holiness. This is not a Pope for half measures. There are only those that stand with him, and enemies. He will not let an enemy sit upon the borders of the Republic of St Peter’s lands.’

  ‘You threaten?’ said Aemilia. She was astounded by how her father’s rising tide of anger had been stayed by this Thornhill’s lack of regard. She felt the insult herself. Her first fears born of the encounter in the chapel were now o’ershadowed by anger of her own.

  Father Thornhill turned to look on her. She was tall like her father but he taller still and his gaze fell down his sharp nose.

  ‘These are the councils of men, child. Quiet becomes a woman best.’

  ‘Not so,’ answered Aemilia proudly. ‘As I recall it, Caterina Sforza was listened to—’

  ‘Caterina Sforza,’ interrupted Thornhill, ‘was not a woman but a devil.’

  ‘You will not interrupt me again, priest,’ answered Aemilia, eyes blazing, or I will show you the same charity that the Lady of Forli showed her enemies.’

  ‘Enough,’ called her father. His voice was still rough but a small smile cut his face as he looked at his daughter. He turned back to Father Thornhill.

  ‘The Lady Aemilia speaks with the same pride as her father. You have abused your welcome and I do not bargain with you. I command. Give up your prisoners to my men and then depart.’

  ‘Command? Duke Leonardo,’ answered the priest, ‘you do not even command the obedience of your daughter who is free to roam your palace, her chastity unguarded, calling for some "Valentine" even in the sanctity of the chapel.’

  At Valentine’s name the Duke’s head swung to Aemilia, the red face becoming darker still, the small smile departed.

  ‘You should think again on the Holy Father’s offer, Your Grace.’ Father Thornhill rose. His eyes left Aemilia and he looked again on the Duke. ‘My prisoners shall be returned to you when I have finished with them. Your pride is nothing to me or to Rome. We seek dangerous men and we will find them. I remind you, Duke Leonardo, those that aid the Church are blessed. Those that stand in its way will have cause for regret, as others, more powerful than you, have found.’

  Thornhill did not wait on his release nor look again in Aemilia’s direction though she had risen too in anger at his scornful words; he turned and strode from the room.

  After the door had closed behind him her father sat back and poured himself a cup of wine. Aemilia strode to the table.

  ‘You let him depart?’

  ‘You were late. Why?’ her father answered once he had drunk deeply from the cup.

  ‘He insulted us and threatened us and you let him depart,’ insisted Aemilia. ‘Why, Father?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘Is he truly that powerful?’

  ‘Not him but his master. This Pope ...’ Her father refilled his cup and shook his head. ‘We have our pride, Aemilia. You did well to remind him of that. Yet my lands are not great nor my men many. This Pope commands armies, spies without number, assassins, and does not fear to use them. Most of all, he commands the obedience of the Church. It is a bold man that defies the Church. The more so since Gregory died and Sixtus rose. Some fixed thing has been stirred in this new Pope’s bosom and he will not be calmed. Where once we were left alone now there are agents of Rome at every turn.’

  ‘And this Thornhill is the worst of them,’ her father’s steward, Rodrigo, added.

  ‘True,’ her father nodded.

  ‘Such a beast of a man to wear a priest’s robes,’ Rodrigo tutted. ‘I scarce believe the stories of his—’

  Duke Leonardo cut his steward off with a wave of his hand.

 
; ‘Enough Rodrigo, such talk is not fit for Aemilia’s ears.’

  ‘I am not a child, Father ...’

  ‘I did not say you were, Aemilia. Still there are some matters best—’

  ‘If there is a danger to us,’ she broke in again, ‘to you, then I should know of it.’

  Her father chuckled and wagged his finger at her.

  ‘Ah, there is my little lioness, protective of her own. No, no, there is no danger to us. Thornhill seeks other Englishmen, but not ones loyal to Rome as he is, rather agents of their heretic queen. I told him when he first arrived that he was in the wrong place, eh, Rodrigo?’ the Duke added, looking to his steward for witness. ‘That he should ask in Padua at the university or in Venice itself, and I told him I would gladly give him horses to aid him in his immediate journey hence. But, no, he wouldn’t hie himself off. Others had been sent there, he said, his charge was Verona, and then he set himself to sorting of my subjects for signs of heresy.’ Duke Leonardo’s smile left him. ‘This Father Thornhill is ardent with zeal for his charge. Nor is there mercy in him for those that he considers to have strayed from the path. The men he has taken for questioning ...’

  Her father broke off again with a shake of his head and swirled wine in his mouth and swallowed to take away the taste of Father Thornhill’s foulness.

  ‘If he is cruel as you say, Father,’ Aemilia pressed, ‘the more important that we should show our strength before him now. We let this pass, he thinks us weak, he knows our limit and then he takes again and again. Does not Machiavel say that we must be lions to fight wolves?’

  Aemilia saw Rodrigo the steward nod at her counsel but her father shook his head.

  ‘It was to witness how far one might press the claims of one’s pride with such as this Father Thornhill that I wanted you here. He will release his prisoners to us, though what state he will leave them in I do not know. We dare not press for more.’

  Her father paused at this thought to drain his cup again. It was now Aemilia’s turn to shake her head. She paced before her father’s desk feeling her own anger growing. This Father Thornhill took her father’s subjects and tortured them and they did nothing? How could this stand? Why did her father do nothing about it?