The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  ‘Enough of this,’ said the Duke, still glowering at his daughter. He walked towards her, pulling off his gauntlets, quite unnoticing of Hemminges and Orlando and their blades. ‘Put down the sword and come here.’

  Once again Aemilia shook her head in defiance of her father. He turned and threw his gauntlets at the wall.

  ‘Ungrateful whelp,’ said the Duke. ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child. You shame me with your disobedience.’ His voice fell quieter but was no less strident in its tone. ‘Have you wanted for anything that I should find you so ungrateful now? Have I not given you all?’

  ‘All. All save your respect for my own will.’ Aemilia’s voice matched her father’s for intensity. ‘God’s blood, Father, why have you schooled me? Let me wander freely in your library? Joined me to your councils? Spoken of your most inmost thoughts to me? Only then to treat me like a ewe that is to be tupped?’

  ‘This,’ said the Duke, purple with rage, gesturing at the cowering Valentine, ‘this is the ram that you would defy me for.’

  ‘I defy you for no man at all, Father. I defy you for myself.’

  Valentine, realising that he was spoken of, got to his feet and tried to present himself more nobly than the wretched figure crumpled on the floor. Neither Aemilia nor the Duke so much as glanced at him and, seeing this, he scuttled backwards till he bumped against the wall beside William.

  At the back of the church a new face entered. A stiffening of shock ran through the outlaws as their companion Ludovico walked down the nave and came to Father Thornhill. He whispered in the priest’s ear and the priest nodded, his eyes running across Hemminges, William and, after a moment’s searching, Oldcastle, peeping above the cracked altar. The priest stepped forward.

  ‘This business is overdone. Let them all be bound and taken for trial.’

  ‘What trial needed?’ said Count Claudio. ‘My brother’s crime is all attested. Let sentence be carried out now. As for these others, are they not outlaws? Let them be executed with him.’

  ‘No, the Englishmen I need alive,’ said Thornhill. The priest stared at Hemminges, seeking to make the heat of his gaze sear the soul of the heretic before him. At last, Thornhill thought, I will earn a small piece of salvation for England. ‘They must be questioned.’

  ‘Rash, Count Claudio, rash,’ rumbled the Duke. ‘A trial they shall have, for justice must be done.’ He looked across at the outlaws gathered by the altar. ‘I swear it shall be so. Put up your swords and make an explanation. No harm shall come to you save that which your actions have deserved.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Jacopo, stepping forward. William watched him as he inched forward, his hands wringing, looking up to the Duke from a head bent in penitence. How hope corrupts our judgement, thought William. Jacopo reached out to pluck at Petro the priest’s sleeve as he passed, to draw him on to his path. Petro resisted but then allowed himself to be pulled along. Luca cast a forlorn glance towards Orlando and then stepped with the others from the chancel to the nave.

  ‘Get back, you fools,’ said Orlando. ‘There is no justice offered here, only death delayed.’ He turned to snarl at his brother, ‘And a lost chance for company on the journey to hell.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ said the Duke. ‘I have said that you shall have justice and that you shall.’ Luca looked again towards Ludovico, whose unexplained entry had unnerved him utterly. His presence promised that there were currents that he understood not that moved and threatened to drag him down. He, Jacopo and Petro shuffled along to where some of the Duke’s men stood and, reaching them, they were taken and swiftly bound. Orlando, Hemminges and the rest made no move to join them.

  The Duke, exasperate, addressed them: ‘Come, you others. There is no flight from here. No salvation in delay. Come, Daughter. What speech must be had between us let us have in private.’

  ‘Spare these men,’ said Aemilia, ‘and I will come.’

  The Duke turned at her promise. ‘I offer them justice. What more would you have?’

  ‘I ask for mercy.’

  ‘Justice they shall have, as I am true to my office and my state, and no more.’

  ‘Mercy must temper justice. No ceremony that to great ones belongs, not a duke’s robes nor a king’s crown nor a marshal’s truncheon, becomes them with half so good a grace as mercy does. Oh, Father, show me here your greatness.’

  The Duke was about to speak when Thornhill stepped forward and whispered in his ear. The Duke’s face let loose a sneer at the priest’s words but when he spoke again it was to ask his daughter: ‘What recompense for such display?’

  Aemilia summoned up her courage, for she had seen that this was the bargain that must come if she were not to see her friends, her brothers, killed. Oh, but I was free. I was free and shall be again, by this hand, I shall. ‘I will marry the Count Claudio.’

  ‘Freely?’ asked the Duke.

  ‘As willingly as you have given mercy,’ answered his daughter.

  ‘So be it. They shall have mercy.’

  ‘And I a husband,’ said Aemilia in a voice so quiet only Orlando and Hemminges, standing by her, heard. She put up her sword and made to step forward. Hemminges caught her arm and halted her. He put his head behind hers and spoke as quietly as he might.

  ‘Your father is not alone,’ he whispered. ‘Whatever promise your father makes can be unmade by those that stand beside him. By God, Aemilia, I’ll not see you sacrifice yourself for nothing. At my word, charge left and make for the small door, I’ll make what delay—’

  Hemminges’ words were cut across by a cry.

  ‘Your Grace.’

  It was Valentine. He took a hesitant step forward, looked back towards William who nodded at him, and then stiffened, drawing himself up. ‘Your Grace, the Lady Aemilia cannot marry the Count Claudio.’

  ‘I would be silent, were I you, Valentine,’ said the Duke in a voice tightly ribbed and bounded to keep its anger from overflowing. ‘It is for the sake of Aemilia’s marriage that you have won some mercy of me.’

  Valentine coughed and his own voice was a strangled squeak but still he spoke. Aemilia may no longer love him but he would prove that he had been worthy of her love. He would prove to all gathered here that he was more than a bedraggled poet, to be set up for mockery and cast aside. He would show his worth. ‘Duke Leonardo, the Lady Aemilia cannot marry Count Claudio.’

  ‘The bow is bent and drawn, boy,’ the Duke warned. ‘Make from the shaft.’

  Valentine stuttered a moment at the sight of the Duke’s anger but gathered himself and pressed on: ‘She cannot marry another. She is already married to me. The priest there can vouch for it. We were married this morning. I am your son.’

  ‘Is it so, Aemilia?’ demanded her father, his black-rimmed eyes choleric red with anger.

  Aemilia was looking as wide-eyed at Valentine as her father was at her. She shook her head.

  ‘Aemilia, come,’ said Valentine, a desperate smile upon his face. ‘You know ‘tis so. As your father knows it was to that purpose that we fled his palace. These men’ – he pointed to Orlando and the others – ‘may have been outlaws to your rule but they have given succour to your daughter and to’ – he hesitated only a moment – ‘your son. I cry your mercy now for them and for two lovers who would be lawful joined only.’

  Aemilia was still shaking her head at Valentine. What did he think he was at? Valentine was gesturing to her to speak, to support his claim. He knew it false. Their eyes met and she suddenly saw into him. Did he think this would save them? Oh fool, fool. Or, God above, did he think to spare her marriage to Count Claudio? To blunt her father’s purpose by drawing his wrath to him? Oh, if so, it was a sudden show of bravery that well became him but, foolish, oh whatsoever his intent, she could not match it.

  ‘Is this so, Aemilia?’ demanded her father again.

  Aemilia shook her head.

  ‘Please, Aemilia, do not deny me,’ said Valentine. The paleness of his f
ace was marked by blooming bright spots of red terror. He saw his gambit fail. He turned in desperation to the Duke.

  ‘It is so, I swear, my lord. It is done, my lord, and what God has brought together no man may put asunder. I know I am not your choice of son but I swear that I shall prove worthy. It was for that reason that I sent the note to call you here, to this church, a gesture of my goodwill, of my obedience.’

  ‘A second treachery,’ said Count Claudio. ‘First he betrays you, my lord, for your daughter. Then he betrays the daughter for you, my lord. His only constancy is treachery.’

  The Duke no longer looked at his daughter. He stared at Valentine as if his eyes would send nails to pin the lad to the wall, his fingers ground against each other in their fists. He began to advance down the nave towards Valentine, speaking as he walked.

  ‘You liar. You ingrate wretch. You wolf’s whelp. You cur. You suborn my daughter. You lure her from my care to your own misrule. You sully her good name.’

  Valentine sought to back away but the Duke’s advance was swift. His foot caught on the step of the chancel and he fell back. The Duke grasped him at the collar of his grimy doublet and dragged him up. Aemilia tried to reach her father and stop him but Hemminges held her fast. No one else moved. Valentine was babbling apologies. The Duke turned and hurled him down the nave. He struck the ground and rolled, cracking his head against a broken pew. The Duke advanced on him again, grabbed him by his long hair and dragged him down the aisle, his feet scrabbling for purchase, his voice howling like a pig being taken for slaughter. The Duke reached the men who guarded Luca, Jacopo and Petro and snatched a rope from their arms.

  ‘Father, no, I beg of you,’ Aemilia cried out. ‘I cry you mercy. You promised it.’

  The Duke was past listening. The barrel had been broached and the rages and frustrations of the last days were spilling out. The rest of the church watched in horrified silence, save Claudio who smiled at it and Thornhill whose eyes never left the Englishmen. The Duke wrapped the rope round Valentine’s neck three times and tied it off. He looked up, threw the end over a beam and pulled the remainder to him.

  He coiled it in his hands, speaking as the loops gathered in his thick fingers: ‘You have betrayed my rule. You have broken oaths of fealty, bonds of family, commandments, laws. Mine is the justice of my lands.’

  ‘His fault was in loving me,’ cried Aemilia, struggling against Hemminges’ restraining arm. ‘Spare him, spare him!’

  ‘Be silent!’ the Duke’s shouts rose against his daughter’s cries. ‘Silent. Silent while I command! Mine is the justice of these lands.’

  Through the ecstasy of fear and anger that rang the walls of the church the Duke never took his eyes from Valentine, coughing and choking and clawing at the rope tight about his neck.

  ‘His sentence is pronounced,’ said the Duke and spat on the mewling figure at his feet. He threw the coiled rope to his men and gestured. ‘Haul him up.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation as his men fathomed out his order. It was a moment too long for the fury boiling in the Duke’s breast.

  ‘Hang him up!’ he bellowed.

  Valentine was hauled up, to his knees, to his feet, to the tips of his toes scrabbling for the floor even as his hands scrabbled at the rope. He made no noise save to choke and caw but the church was filled with the sound of Aemilia’s screams, cries, pleas, which lasted till Valentine’s feet kicked out their last, and then faded to soft sobs.

  Done sacrifice of expiation

  The sight of that poor boy, his lolling head covered by his long hair, only his blue lips visible, struck all. A long silence followed the last of Aemilia’s sobs that was broken by a shout from Orlando:

  ‘This is your justice?’

  He did not wait for answer but hurled himself forward. Three crossbows fired. Two missed, their quarrels slashing past him as he darted forward, to spend themselves in the stones at the rear of the chancel. The third took him in his lifted arm and its force spun him about. His brother stepped forward and his own sword smashed the outlaw’s from his nerveless fingers.

  ‘Hold, hold,’ Thornhill was crying as his men closed around Hemminges, ‘they must be questioned.’

  Hemminges’ eyes were darting from foe to foe but there were too many. Two men slipped round his side and took the cowering Oldcastle, another put a sword’s point to the unresisting throat of William who did not even look at his attacker. His eyes were all for the swinging body and its pendulum creak. Seeing William and Oldcastle threatened, Hemminges cast his sword down and knelt instead to comfort the weeping Aemilia. He had but a moment to do so before rough hands snatched him away. The three Englishmen were herded together and bound.

  The Duke strode to his daughter and hauled her to her feet.

  ‘How now, Daughter? Will you be civil and obedient?’

  It was not certain that Aemilia heard him. She glanced at Valentine’s body. ‘Oh wretched, rash, intruding fool.’

  ‘Fool, aye. Come not between the dragon and his wrath.’

  ‘The dragon?’ Aemilia looked her father in the eye. ‘I name you monster. Monster! What a brave deed. To murder a vain child for your daughter’s crime.’

  A daughter’s crime? You praise yourself too much. Sure this boy has led you astray. His baleful influence removed, you will return to sense.’

  ‘Even in this,’ shouted Aemilia. ‘Even in this you will not give me credit, but hand it to a man.’

  ‘What needs this childish rebellion?’ The Duke staggered and clutched at his side. He sat heavily down on a pew and reached out a clawing hand to his daughter. ‘Have you not been treated well, given clothes and jewels and maids to tend you? Were your silken dresses so poor that you should wear this wanton’s outfit? Why repay me with such base coin as peevish insults and revolt?’

  ‘It was not a child’s revolt, old man. I am not a dog to be told to sit or heel at your command. Still less a whore, to sell myself for clothes or jewels or maids. I will have my own will. It was you that taught me so.’ The passion in her voice died away to be replaced again by tears. ‘It was you that taught me so.’

  Her father looked at her, heard her use these foul words, miscast his cares for her as baubles put before a bawd, and disgust crept over his face.

  ‘A widow or a maid, she is free to marry now,’ he said. He looked to Claudio who was standing over the wounded body of his brother, the malignant grin now a great smile. ‘What do you say, Count Claudio? Will you still take her to wife?’

  ‘Gladly, my lord,’ Claudio said, thinking of her father’s lands. ‘We shall see if she prove more obedient to a husband than a father.’

  ‘Come then, away,’ the Duke said, turning his back on his daughter. William watched Aemilia’s face turn pale with shock at this gesture more than any of her father’s angry words. Oh, Aemilia, thought William, there is no rashness like that which comes when love to anger turns. Nor any actions that we more regret than those that follow. The mind cannot bear that change but must forge an understanding of it and comes to think the love was always false and we but deceived then. Too late, too late now for him to return whence he came.

  ‘There is much still ado before the nuptial hour,’ commanded the Duke Leonardo. ‘To horse. We must ride out and make a rescue of my captured men.’

  ‘You go on, my lord, with the Count Claudio. I shall stay here with these Englishmen,’ said Father Thornhill. ‘I will escort them to your palace in the morning.’

  ‘No, Father. That will not do. I have promised these men justice and they shall have it. Besides, your men are needed.’

  Thornhill did not deign to look over at the Duke as he answered. ‘I care not,’ he said. ‘My only concern is with these Englishmen. The rest is your affair. What was that?’

  This last was to William.

  ‘I said, you are making a great mistake, Father,’ William replied.

  ‘We shall see,’ said Thornhill. His attention was taken from William as the Duk
e clapped him on the shoulder and hauled him round. The Duke’s hot blood, briefly let from him by Valentine’s execution, was stoked again by his daughter’s ingratitude and had returned to the boil.

  ‘I command here, priest. Those men of yours are needed for the hunt. My men still lie at these outlaws’ mercy and I must rescue them.’

  Thornhill tried to throw off the Duke’s hand but found the old man’s grip on his shoulder too strong.

  ‘Unhand me, Your Grace, or it will go ill for you. I am His Holiness’s envoy and his affairs are my first duty.’

  The Duke grew redder still. ‘You threaten me? And with the Pope, is it? The Pope? Damn the Pope. He does not rule here. I do.’

  Thornhill turned motionless as the statues that still stood in their niches, high in the church’s walls.

  ‘Unhand me now, Duke Leonardo. I work to a greater purpose than your—’

  ‘Greater purpose?’ the Duke interrupted. ‘Your purpose is to give me your men to put an end to these bandits.’

  Thornhill took a long, deep breath. ‘A greater purpose, to save the souls of a whole island.’

  ‘Faugh!’ spat the Duke. ‘You speak of souls and I of men’s lives. I will rescue my men, now.’

  ‘A whole island,’ repeated Father Thornhill. ‘What are your few men against tens of thousands? What are your brutish, earthly concerns against the mission of the Church? You lack a fear of God, Duke. You wallow in damned luxury. You eat and drink and rut and think only of your lechery and not of your soul.’

  The Duke took a step back and backhanded the priest across the face. ‘How dare you speak to me so? Stay here then, and pray if you will, but your men come with me.’ He turned and pointed to the priest’s soldiers. ‘To horse. Count Claudio, your men too.’

  Behind him Thornhill was clutching at his cheek. The Duke’s rings had raked blood from his face and lip and painted streaks of red across his white robe. Red glinted in his eyes too as he turned to Arrigo: ‘Kill him.’

  Arrigo did not hesitate. In an instant his blade came out and slipped past the Duke’s armour and into his back.