The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  ‘With haste, mark you, with all haste. And have Sir Nicholas come to me. This business of the kites on the road must be seen to.’

  The reasons for Aemilia’s swift marriage mounted with a terrible urgency. There was much to put in train.

  The course of true love never did run smooth

  Aemilia had at last slipped her maid’s watchful eye and made her way to Valentine’s room unseen. She knocked, but no answer came save a sharp cry and then an echoing sob. She entered. Valentine stood by the narrow window, at his foot was a velvet bag, upon his bed were strewn clothes in heaps that Valentine picked up, pressed to his face and then flung back on the bed. He collapsed upon the bed and flung himself back upon the heap of clothes to rail at the ceiling.

  ‘All is lost,’ he moaned.

  Aemilia rushed to his side, grasped his hand and hauled him up to sitting.

  ‘All is begun,’ she said, reaching up to wipe a tear from his fair face and brush back his hair from his brow. She took a deep, shuddering breath for she felt the flutter of fear in her own breast. She let the breath escape; Valentine had dared all for her, she could not now do less than he. If the sentence was exile then it was a sentence she would share. Resolution made, she felt a thrill at it and at the thought of their life to come, in the woods, a simple hut, a stream at its foot, surrounded by fruit trees whose benison was their sustenance. It would be as Valentine had foreseen it in his poems.

  ‘We must make preparation,’ said Aemilia.

  ‘Preparation?’ said Valentine. ‘Preparation? What preparation shall we make for a life of poverty? Which of my clothes shall I wear in the ditch? Which eat?’

  ‘Come, Valentine,’ Aemilia answered. She was taken aback by the depth of his distress, which it seemed had quite unmanned him. Had he quite forgotten his own wise words to her in the palace gardens? Very well, she would be strong for both of them.

  ‘You and I are not frightened mice to scurry and hide at the least fright. We will find our way in this world by our own hands.’

  Valentine looked down at his hands – long, white fingers stained at the tips with ebon ink. He thought of the comforts of the Duke’s court. The ease of his repose here in his room, the scant demands upon his time, the pleasures of the poetry he might write, the food and drink at beck and call. Fat tears began to fall from his eyes and he flung himself back again upon the bed.

  ‘We are undone, Aemilia.’

  ‘Courage,’ answered Aemilia, wishing she could in some manner yet pass to Valentine a portion of her own resolve. ‘We shall live as innocents do, in the forest, from the bounty of the land and the kindness of strangers.’

  ‘Oh, Aemilia, the woods are filled with brutes. From where shall we take our food? How cook it? What shelter shall we have?’ said Valentine from within his burial mound of doublets.

  Aemilia looked down at her poet and felt a moment of distaste. She stifled it. Such a shock as Valentine had been given was not to be dismissed without sympathy. Was he not right to raise these worries? Was he not more practical than she, who knew herself much taken with romantic dreams of an exile’s bed in a byre of willow fronds and soft moss strewn? He saw more clearly. She had feared her father might be resolute, hard-hearted in his opposition to her marriage to Valentine. Yet she had hoped too, that he would see Valentine was suitable to be both her husband and the Duke of these lands. That he would see that such flaws as he might possess she was, herself, the cure to. Valentine had warned her it would not be so and, as his auguries foretold, so it had come to pass.

  She must think. What would Caterina Sforza do? Of course, Caterina Sforza had possessed many allies in her own battles. Yes, it was allies that she and Valentine needed now. Hope sprang in her breast.

  ‘My father loves you,’ said Aemilia and ignored the snort from Valentine, ‘and he loves me, of that I am certain. We need but absent ourselves a while and our absence shall be as a winter to his heart that our return shall be a summer. A month shall be a season’s sporting holidays for us but the sharp salt that admits our marriage to my father’s tastes.’

  ‘And for that month?’

  Aemilia leaned over and looked at his tear-stained face. She bent and kissed his pale lips. It was the first moment that the two had truly touched as lovers do. His hand reached up to clasp her and hold her to him. They embraced with the fierce passion of youth. All fears were banished then. Let there be hardships if there might also be this. Reluctantly the two broke apart.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Aemilia, her hands still stroking his face. ‘Come, make provision for our journey, Valentine, and do not forget to pack your courage. I shall return within the hour and then we depart. Be cheerful, love, all that happens here is that our honeymoon comes before our marriage.’

  She kissed him again and left to seek out the ally her mind had fixed upon.

  We shall advise this wronged maid

  They spoke in whispers.

  ‘Never,’ said Hemminges.

  ‘I beg you,’ said Aemilia. ‘I implore you. If my fortune goes as I hope I shall requite your kindness.’

  When the weather promised foul, as that morning it did, the dancing lessons had continued not in the walled garden but in the hall of the palace. It was at the threshold to the hall that Aemilia had pulled Hemminges aside and importuned him for aid: guide her and Valentine to a refuge within the woods a day beyond the palace and be richly rewarded for his help both now and in the future, when Valentine was Duke and she his lady.

  ‘For you and for your Valentine this is foolishness, but for me to aid you in it?’ said Hemminges, his eye darting to the hall beyond where Aemilia’s maid waited for the morning’s lesson. ‘No, not foolishness but a capital crime.’

  Aemilia got up from her knees and strode over to where Hemminges had retreated.

  ‘Not so, good Master Russell. Not so,’ Aemilia begged him listen. ‘This is the means by which my father will come to understand the truth of the matter.’

  ‘The truth?’

  ‘Aye, the truth.’ Aemilia was certain of it. ‘You need not scorn to call it so. He loves me and I in turn love Valentine. When he sees that I will have Valentine with his blessing or no, when he sees that to deny me Valentine is to lose me entire, then he will bend to the marriage as a reed bends to the river’s current. His love for me shall to love of Valentine translate.’

  Hemminges could not hold back a scornful laugh.

  ‘He will scour the face of the woods for you and when he finds you, he will hang all that are with you.’

  In Master Russell’s laugh, in the urgency of his words, Aemilia heard the proof of something till now she had not believed: this Englishman’s admiration went beyond that of teacher and student. She had been too innocent in her thoughts. Look how she’d been sure her father would understand her love for Valentine. Now, she thought, I see that innocence has shielded me from truths. I have dreamed only of the poetry of the woods and not considered my father’s anger when I defy him or the dangers that lie beyond these palace walls. Is this wanton of me? Do I use this Englishman’s desires to my own selfish ends? And am I now in search of reasons to stay, to shy from the hardships before me, to hide behind my father’s knee at the first scent of danger? No, I am resolved to be no coward. If this be youth in me then it is impetuous to a purpose and that purpose, love. All will bend to it.

  ‘Then he must not find me,’ she said finally.

  ‘And how will that be managed?’ demanded Hemminges.

  ‘I am determined, with your help or without it, to try the hazard of this course.’

  ‘Why should I not make straight to the Duke and unpack your whole course of action?’

  Aemilia stepped close to Hemminges and reached out to stop his retreat. Hemminges looked down at her hand on his arm. ‘I did not ask you only for your skill at arms, your knowledge of the camp and field, I beseech you, as you love me, Master Russell. You will not betray me.’

  My God, Hemminges thought, am I such
an open book that everyone may read my thoughts? As if in echo of that, Aemilia spoke as she took her hand from his arm.

  ‘You are an open, honest man. It is your way and the reason that I trust in you.’

  Hemminges looked at Aemilia. Her eyes that made a suit to him were as open and honest as she called him. This was not some flirt-gill abusing his goodwill, relying on his lustier nature to persuade him. She saw a truth that he denied himself. Give any answer that you might, man, he thought, but one cannot hide from one’s own stupidity.

  ‘You have the right of it, lady. I will not betray you. Nor, by the love I bear you, will I help you to so foolish a course.’

  Aemilia held his gaze for a moment and then turned on her heel and strode away. Hemminges watched her part and cursed every waking moment since he left England to this hour.

  ‘Hold,’ he called after her. Aemilia stopped and waited for him.

  ‘What is your plan?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you care?’ At the look Hemminges gave her in answer, Aemilia let out a breath of frustration. ‘To be gone within the hour with such provision as two, or three, may carry.’

  ‘What need of such haste?’

  ‘Valentine is under sentence of banishment. Its execution stays upon my father’s distraction only. We must be gone.’

  So, so, thought Hemminges, no wonder then that this should be brought to me so ill-prepared.

  ‘In what disguise will you travel?’ he asked.

  ‘Disguise?’

  ‘You think your father’s guards will see the Duke’s daughter stride from out her father’s hand without question? That your maids, seeing you in Valentine’s company, arm linked between his and mine, will hold off their shrieks of condemnation?’ Hemminges did not wait for Aemilia’s reply but turned to struggle for an answer of his own.

  Aemilia did not comment that Hemminges had put himself in the story of her escape. She looked to the ceiling in thought. ‘I must not be examined too closely. What then if I went in Valentine’s clothes?’

  ‘A man? You’d not pass for a man. You are too much the woman.’

  ‘Flatterer.’

  ‘Not a flatterer but a cynic,’ answered Hemminges.

  ‘Then see, your cynic’s brow need not bend so. I have a man’s height and it will not be thought that I should let myself wear men’s habit. I will wear my hair in cap, a cowl pulled about my head, my face daub with the stable’s grime. Let me be a Sebastian then, a fit companion and page for Valentine. My father’s guards will not look to stop Valentine, whose sentence is exile, and we shall be his servants.’

  ‘This is no party game of hoodman-blind we practise here, Aemilia. If we are caught ‘twill be the death of me and Valentine too.’

  ‘I know it, Master Russell,’ said Aemilia.

  Hemminges shook his head. What did this girl know of death, of the dreadful hammering of a heart in the casing of the chest as dangers gathered? What was this course he set himself upon by helping her now? She was resolute, that much he saw, and without his aid went to her certain destruction. But with his help? And what of Oldcastle?

  ‘What if the guards question you? Open your mouth and they will know you false in an instant.’

  ‘We will say that I am English and run mad and cannot speak Italian,’ said Aemilia.

  ‘Why English and mad?’ said Hemminges.

  ‘Being English I am not known to them. New come with Sir Nicholas, perhaps. Why being mad, to be English too is no addition, for they are all mad there, but ‘twill explain my failure to follow their speech as much as answer it.’

  Mad Englishmen is true enough, thought Hemminges as he hurried after Aemilia. His mind raced ahead to the woods and their survival there. What perils lay in wait should they pass the test of the guards’ observance? Perhaps in the cruel winter of realities Aemilia will see Valentine for the cracked vessel that he is and then might we two return to the Duke with no more lost than a night or two’s rough sleeping. This hasty business prevents more careful plan. Or, he realised with a curse, message to my friend. Twice already, the servant assigned to Oldcastle’s care while at the palace, Dionisio, had brought messages requiring Master Russell’s urgent attendance on Sir Nicholas Hawkwood. There is no helping it, I shall have to resolve this matter, thought Hemminges, and pass message to Oldcastle after. By God, and am I not mad after all? And I had no need of William to fix me in the madness either.

  Because that I am more than common tall

  Hemminges had not been wrong to think Aemilia too much woman. He groaned to think of the challenge to come. He groaned for another reason too. There was something so oddly lascivious in Aemilia’s new attire and what it revealed, that in the moment that Aemilia had re-entered, dressed as a man, Hemminges at first averted his eyes. But they drew back as if called.

  If Aemilia noticed his blush or where his eyes went and lingered she affected not to. His were not the only eyes that hung upon her woman’s shape, revealed from beneath a woman’s skirts. Valentine shook his head, torn between delight and belief in the certainty of discovery. It was only the promise that they would be alone in the woods and the thought of how he and Aemilia might linger in each other’s arms that pressed him on when his every will was to abandon this madness and throw himself upon the mercy of the Duke. Aemilia slung a small knapsack on the bed.

  ‘Such jewels as I might safely lay my hands upon,’ she said with pride.

  Hemminges wished there was cause for further delay but there was none. The three were dressed for travel. He carried their meagre provisions, such as Aemilia could take in haste from the kitchens, gathered in a leather bag that he had slung upon the yoke of his staff, his sword at his side. Valentine was dressed in what might pass in a play for travelling garb but so much of velvet had they to them that there could be no real use in them. In spite of Hemminges’ warnings, he would not be dissuaded from their wear. Aemilia had found a linen shirt of her father’s and added to them breeches, hose and boots. A loose doublet disguised her sex from the casual witness. Her hair was tucked beneath a cap. Hemminges tossed to her his old cloak, which fastened about her neck and threw further into shadow that which might betray her true person as well as, by its threadbare look, lend credence to her low status.

  ‘Come, come, let us to the postern gate and make our march,’ said Aemilia.

  Hemminges halted her and came to study her face.

  ‘It will pass?’ asked Aemilia.

  ‘Very like if nature had done all,’ said Hemminges, dragging her to the basin by Valentine’s bed. He filled the basin and pointed. Reluctantly, she dipped her hands into the cold water and scrubbed the paint from her face. It had seemed to her a very little thing she’d added and quite unlike her everyday adornment. When she had finished and her face was plain and red from the cold water and the scrubbing, Hemminges stepped to the fire’s grate and reached for ashes that he turned and smeared on Aemilia’s chin and cheeks. He stepped back and looked upon his work. A little less the lady and more the scullery-maid now, but a man? He shook his head.

  ‘We’re not playing here, lady,’ said Hemminges. ‘You think men wear painted rhetoric as women do? One look at you and we’d have been discovered.’

  He would have spoken on but Aemilia seeing him begin forestalled him. She felt her own courage for the adventure on foot catch at the threshold; any more delay and she was certain she’d stumble back and never escape.

  ‘We go,’ she said and ushered Valentine to the door. ‘To liberty now and not to banishment.’

  Hemminges sucked in his breath, suppressed both words and doubts, and followed.

  It was to their good fortune that news of Valentine’s sentence had quickly passed among the palace servants. They, too ashamed to look upon the poor, unfortunate exile, no sooner saw him passing than, as if the very look of him would pass on his leprous state, allowed their gaze to slide away. Thus too his companions passed as in a bubble of invisibility towards the gate.

  Aem
ilia’s heart quaked as they emerged into the courtyard of the palace to march towards the gate where stood two of her father’s guards. Oh God, let us be not discovered, she prayed. She felt her hand tremble and clamped it to her cloak to hide its betraying movement. She willed herself to a swagger. Let my woman’s fears lie hidden, she thought.

  ‘Hold there,’ called the guard at their approach. ‘What’s he that travels here?’

  ‘Valentine,’ said Valentine in a voice that carried nothing of Mars in it.

  ‘Whither away?’ asked the guard and, to the astonishment of all, he was answered by a sob bursting from Valentine’s breast and a most unmanly cry.

  ‘I know not.’

  The guards did not try to hide their contempt but turned their gaze from Valentine to spare him further shame by being witness to his unmanning. Aemilia felt panic rising in her. Then Master Russell stepped forward to answer them, moving as he did so, between the guards and Aemilia.

  ‘I have the Duke’s commission to convey the lord Valentine and his servant from the Duke’s lands and there deposit him. I pray you, sirs, delay me not in completion of that commission,’ he nodded to the sobbing Valentine, ‘lest we be drowned afore it’s done.’

  ‘Ay man, it’s a piteous commission.’

  ‘Truer words you never spoke, sir.’ As Master Russell spoke, his hand was urging Aemilia forward and through the gate. He spoke to the nearest guard in confiding tones, ‘God’s will I shall be rid of it within two nights but we must hurry if we’re to reach our first rest before nightfall.’

  Valentine stumbled on with Aemilia at his side and Master Russell, following, raised his cap to the guards as they nodded the three of them through. One by one they bent to pass through the Judas gate and out on to the open road beyond.

  ‘Hold there, ho!’ the guard cried from behind them.

  Aemilia stiffened and turned at the sound of their discovery. The guard had bent his head and peered through the gate. He called Master Russell back, waving a silken scarf in his hand.