A Dancer in Darkness

by David Stacton

  At this point in the dance Rosina was supposed to twirl rapidly, banging a tambourine against her folded wrist. Instead she fainted.

  There was a sudden silence. Only the musicians scraped on. Ferdinand stopped, looked down at her, shrugged his shoulders, and threw a handful of coins at the players.

  Among the recent gifts to the court had been a procession of dwarfs. The little men were dressed in saffron, the Sanducci livery. The Spanish, being a people well swathed in their own pride, enjoyed imitations of themselves. The dwarfs, being Spanish, decided to oblige.

  They swept out across the courtyard, imitating the commedia players. Then one who had loitered behind scuttled haughtily forward, his little voice squeaking imperiously, and began to posture in imitation of Ferdinand.

  Bosola had never seen the little men before. He watched avidly. So did Ferdinand. Rosina lay where she was.

  None of the dwarfs was taller than three feet eight. This gave their movements the bound jerkiness of children. The tambourines rattled and shook in the air. There was no other sound. The crowd seemed to be watching the approach of something inevitable. Ferdinand stood and glowered.

  Suddenly the dwarf impersonating Rosina screamed and fell down. Another dwarf rattled a tambourine, as though for attention. The dwarf parodying Ferdinand kicked the fallen one. Another roll on the tambourine. The dwarf mimicking Ferdinand reached into his jacket and gravely threw a handful of straw to the company. Then he took off his cap and bowed, bursting into a peal of silvery giggles. His eyes were scornful and his face old.

  It was more than Ferdinand could stand. He leaped forward, picked up the dwarf, and hurled him against the courtyard wall. Then he fled from the court.

  Involuntarily Bosola looked up and saw lurking behind one of the windows a figure he recognized as the Cardinal. Nothing ever stirred in that watchful face. The Cardinal withdrew.

  The other dwarfs had gathered round their companion, who still lay by the wall. His spine was broken. They picked him up sorrowfully and carried him away.

  III

  The Cardinal had not recognized Bosola, but he had recognized something, and he hated anyone he could not instantly place, for he set great store by his memory. It had served him well.

  His Eminence was a bland man, but certain things about him were peculiar. The most noticeable of these was his leg. No matter how he might parade as a Prince of the Church, there always emerged from his heavy scented robes that telltale leg. It was a supple leg; a pleasure-loving leg, a knowledgeable leg, and a leg that carried him lightly over any opposition he wished to crush.

  For woebetide those who get in the way of a man whose ambitions have been thwarted, and the Cardinal had wanted to be a ruling Prince. That being impossible, he had become a Prince of the Church instead. Within the cage of his unwanted eminence, the Cardinal’s ambition flung itself about like a wild animal, and when he slept at night, and had bad dreams, the noise that animal made was truly terrible.

  In his mind he docketed everyone as useful, dangerous, or meaningless, and the man he had seen in the courtyard was all of those. The question was: Who was he?

  He shrugged the problem off for the moment. He had other matters to attend to, and those soon. The first of these was his sister and his sister’s lands, which meant, ultimately, his sister’s son.

  The only illusion he had about his sister is that he had no illusions about her at all. His sister, he knew from the spies he had carefully placed about her, had no lover. Therefore that shrivelled up little man lying dead in the cathedral had produced a legitimate heir. In some ways it could be an advantage to have a boy so far from his majority.

  And Amalfi, though a poor enough place, was still a place worth having.

  He paced up and down his study, irritably kicking aside the skirts of his robes. He had risen to power on the backs of servants he had been too wise to crush, yet one or two had escaped him. That was why the lazzarone in the courtyard had disturbed him. He had the feeling the man was someone who had slipped through his net.

  He stopped at a tabouret on which a chess-board had been set up, and reached with a spidery hand towards the pieces, his amethyst ring upsetting a knight. He righted it thoughtfully, regretting that there was no piece on the board called the dupe. Yet the object of the game was to make all the pieces equally the dupe. That was an important thing to remember.

  As he moved about the room, mirrors seemed to wait for him. The Cardinal was a handsome man, with bones so prominent and flesh so tight, that firelight always seemed to be flickering over his features. He was patrician. He had the grey, thoughtful eyes of a bust by Donatello. Yet, like those busts, his eyes were of no colour. It was only his character that made them seem grey.

  He paused at the window. The dwarfs had been the Cardinal’s gift to Ferdinand. Ferdinand could not refrain from bullying anything smaller than himself, and dwarfs are vengeful creatures. There could be use in that quality. He took a bell from a table and gave it an impatient shake. The door opened and his secretary came in.

  “Send my chaplain down to the courtyard. Say that I sent him. One of the dwarfs is dying.” He hesitated for a moment and then went on. “There is a man here, dressed as a lazzarone. I want to know who he is.”

  The secretary turned and sauntered out, his buttocks wriggling beneath his short jacket. The Cardinal waited until he had left. Then, gathering his robes about him, he swept out through the ante-chambers and towards his sister’s apartments.

  When he returned he was carrying a small bundle. The palace had a side door, very private in the street wall, and there his carriage was waiting.

  THREE

  I

  By ten at night, the convent of San Severo was silent, except for the light in Sor Juana’s cell. She was uneasy. Her rooms were too removed from the rest of the building, so that it was difficult for her to know what was going on. Intrigue was centred in the kitchens and the porter’s lodge. She could not very well go down there herself.

  In truth a convent was little better than a prison. It had the same pleasures, the same excitements, and the same alarms. But even the most coddled prisoner is still a prisoner. No matter how fine his condition, he still has the same limitation. He cannot move freely in the world.

  She was fearful of Bosola, and the sirocco had begun. And the sirocco is not merely an evil wind. It is a branch of pathology, an ailment as seasonal but as severe as cholera or the plague.

  Sor Juana had retired to her rooms as soon as she could. The wind made everything stir with invisible tension. Suddenly a pane of glass might shatter, or a bowl of flowers fall to the floor. Otherwise the wind rattled nothing. What it did was to make people itch, as though something were crawling all over them.

  She could not concentrate. As the church bell began to toll, and as the moon slid about in a welter of slippery clouds, she got up and went into the corridor. She did not know what she expected to see there, but to see anyone at all was a shock. Someone was mounting the stairs.

  It was the Cardinal. He had finished his business and was ready to enjoy himself. He always relaxed with Sor Juana, for he knew she was impotent to do him any harm. He reached the landing and came down towards her rooms in a swirl of important robes. He had never visited her so late before.

  She led him into her rooms.

  He tucked his little feet on a footstool and wondered just how much of her had remained naïve enough to be cheated. She had a lovely, unreal face, but her eyes had a crackle that belied her appearance. He could never be sure.

  In the security of these rooms she was a gifted woman of letters, and he a Prince of the Church. It was necessary that they exchange a few professional compliments on both sides. He looked at her new verses.

  “Admirable, admirable,” he said. Perhaps he meant it. She waited, and he passed on easily to convent affairs. He suggested she must find the life a trifle confining. In former days women of her ability had founded convents, not lived in them.

 
; And the need for convents was certainly great. One at Amalfi or Sorello, for instance, would do immense good.

  Sor Juana was puzzled, but at the mention of Amalfi she listened more earnestly. She said she doubted she was a suitable instrument for such work, and waited for him to go on.

  He did not go on. He merely smiled and said these things were not done in a day. He glanced around her cell and rose to leave, extending his hand, so she might kiss his ring, and watching the top of her bowed head with pleasure. He found her restful.

  “I have brought you a foundling,” he said. “His name is Raimondo, and there is no need to say that I brought him. He is heir to considerable estates. You might see that he is well taken care of, from time to time.”

  He glanced at her benignly, but if she had guessed who the boy was, she gave no sign. But then she would not. He gave a grunt of satisfaction and left the room.

  Rather thoughtfully Sor Juana went to bed. It was the chance she had been waiting for, but what was the prize?

  II

  The palace retired much later than the convent, and indeed part of it could not be said to retire at all. The Cardinal returned unobserved, and stood for a while in the gallery above the great hall, looking down. He saw no signs of the lazzarone in yellow, but Ferdinand was at his usual amusements, and very drunk.

  Half an hour later he slipped into the corridor, motioned back the guard, and moved towards the Duchess’s rooms. As he reached the turn of the corridor, he saw Cariola come out of the room he had entered earlier, with a blank look on her face, and hurry down towards the Duchess’s chamber. He smiled quietly to himself and slipped into the room she had left.

  The room was high and shadowy, and did not get much light. There were a few rugs, and a thick candle burned in a high sconce. He had not long to wait.

  Cariola entered first. She looked as though she had been shocked by something else, that bothered her far more than this did. She was carrying a lamp. The Duchess followed immediately behind her.

  The Cardinal looked at his sister with surprise and some pleasure. She had changed for the night into a soft, clinging robe, and her feet were bare. She was, after all, only a girl. She had small, enticing feet.

  The two women bent over the massive cradle that stood near the sconce. No doubt the servant girl they had had to watch it had fled as soon as he had dealt with her. As the Duchess bent over, the robe flowed smoothly around her buttocks, and the satin skin beneath twinkled and glittered in the light. He thought her charming.

  The two women whispered angrily. He was the more interested in Cariola. Something had happened to her, and he must find out what. He stepped forward, his silks rustling slightly.

  “Good evening, sister,” he said.

  The two women straightened up. The Duchess instinctively drew closer to Cariola, and then, as though recollecting that she was afraid of nothing, stood alone.

  “What do you know of this?” she demanded.

  The Cardinal shrugged. “Send the woman away.” In the cradle the blankets and sheets were turned back as he had left them.

  The Duchess stepped off the rugs on to the cold floor and then back again. Her toes were agile and pink.

  Reluctantly Cariola moved towards the door, still carrying the lamp. They both watched the door close behind her.

  Imperceptibly the Duchess relaxed. He admired her. She was a woman sufficiently proud never to ask for mercy. Nor would she need it, if she were clever.

  “What have you done with him?” she asked at last. She spoke of the child as though it were a bundle, and he wondered if she had hated Piccolomini enough to hate the child, too, or if she was feigning indifference for his benefit.

  He folded his hands and looked at her. He saw now that she could never be managed. She would have to be trapped. And that was a pity.

  “In some measure Ferdinand and I are your guardians,” he said softly.

  “What?” She began to pace the rug from one end to the other.

  “Well, we have made ourselves so, and there is no one to stop us.” He leaned forward. “You should be grateful to me. If Ferdinand had the boy, he would dash it against the wall, as quickly as he did that dwarf downstairs.”

  The Duchess stopped her pacing. “Is he dead?” she asked simply.

  “No, he is not dead.”

  “Then where is he?”

  He paused. “I am the lesser of two evils. You may just as well make the best of me.” He stood up. “Come, the child means nothing to you, except as a child. He means nothing to me, except as an heir.” He came swaying towards his sister, with his arms outstretched, as though to bless her.

  “What do you mean to do?”

  “Nothing. Except to keep him from Ferdinand. Alive, he will one day rule. Dead, he could not do that. And Ferdinand loves property. So do I.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “Alive, one heir is quite enough. Let us leave it at that.”

  She gazed at him, and then fled from the room. The Cardinal did not follow, but stood there for quite some time, the only sound the hiss of the candle in its sconce, as it beat before a tricky gust of wind from the sea.

  He felt sorry for her. He had only acted out of necessity.

  III

  By the next day she had regained her composure, whereas he had spent a sleepless night. He marvelled, looking at her, at the several abilities of women.

  They had carried Piccolomini to the family tombhouse, which was attached to the cathedral, but could be entered only from the outside, through narrow lanes.

  The tombhouse made the Cardinal thoughtful. He kept the Duchess and Ferdinand well in view. The lazzarone was nowhere in sight, and the secretary had yet to report. He did not like that.

  To all intents and purposes the Piccolomini was the last of his line, which had not lasted long. Eighty years before they had started much as the Sanducci did now. They had built their tombhouse in Castel del Mare, as though not trusting their ability to hold Amalfi. It was a circular building stemmed to the church like an oak-gall, with a small garden of herbal knots and a cypress or two in good repair.

  Inside, baroque monuments reared up to the ceiling, which had an oval hole to admit light. There were ten niches but only five Piccolomini, including the latest one. The late Duke had taken himself seriously, and seen to his monument while he was still living. The sculptures were in place, and pulleys and weights propped the lid of the sarcophagus ajar. His Highness’s marble graces and engraved accomplishments would be in place by the end of the week. It only remained now to lower his coffin into its container, and the job was done.

  Why the Duchess should have wished to see this ceremony was beyond him. She stood now under the rays of light which fell from the open dome, with Cariola beside her. The coffin swayed up in the air and then slowly settled down towards the immense marble sarcophagus. Workmen eased it into place. There was a hush in the building, a workman cut the weight rope, and the marble lid came down with a bang. Dust settled around the monument. Before the echoes had finally died, the little party turned and left the tombhouse, the verger locking the bronze doors with an enormous key.

  Then the small procession wound its way back to the cathedral, mounted horses, and went towards the palace. From there the Duchess would return to Amalfi; he and Ferdinand to Rome. The Cardinal rode well to the rear, watching his brother speak to her.

  It was necessary for him to hear what Ferdinand was saying. His brother had always nourished an ugly passion for his sister. Now Piccolomini was dead, the Cardinal proposed to allow that passion to grow.

  A burden seemed to have lifted from the Duchess. But she should not have worn that dress of silver and grey, which if he remembered she had had before marriage. Mourning would have become her, and not to wear it was an act of defiance. She rode slowly, but with a briskness she had not shown in some time, and while she listened to Ferdinand, she smiled.

  Ferdinand’s manner was more that of a lover than of a brother.
Even when she was a child the Duchess had been his favourite. But then, Ferdinand might only be posturing again. One could never be sure.

  The party reached the palace. The crowds applauded, but then they would applaud anything. Perhaps they wished to express sympathy. The Cardinal bowed and blessed them amiably, while he spurred his horse gently on, his heels concealed by his robes. As he entered the courtyard he caught a glimpse of the yellow-booted lazzarone, over in the corner with Ferdinand’s soldiers. He frowned, dismounted, and went up to his rooms, to his secretary.

  “What did you find out?”

  “His name is Niccolò Ferrante. He had an introduction to the steward.”

  “From whom?”

  “A nun at San Severo.”

  “And what else?”

  “I think he wants a position here.”

  “No doubt,” said the Cardinal. He was not satisfied, and he made his voice deliberately dry.

  The secretary wanted very much to please. “There is one other thing. The Duchess’s waiting woman knows him. She did not speak to him, but she knew him.”

  “So,” said the Cardinal. He wondered what nun at San Severo, but of course this lout would not know that. He went to the window and stared down into the court.

  Bosola was swaggering uneasily on the edge of a dice game. He looked up, and the sun caught his face. With a start, the Cardinal withdrew from the window.

  “So he calls himself Niccolò Ferrante,” he said.

  “Yes, your Eminence.”

  “Enrol him in my guard, but keep him away from me,” said the Cardinal. Then he went back to the window, and leaned out thoughtfully, his hands on the stone sill.

  He remembered the man now. He was pleased. A prince is successful only when he knows when to do evil, said Machiavelli, and for this purpose the best tools to his purpose are desperate and dangerous men. No doubt ten years in the galleys had made Bosola desperate indeed. The Cardinal had gathered another piece to move about his board.