A Dancer in Darkness

by David Stacton

  “You rule here by our whim,” he told her. “Have you ever seen a mob storm a castle, drag out their ruler, string him up in the streets, and beat his body with their fists until someone sets fire to it? I have. They may come at any time, and who knows what sets them off?”

  He looked down at her angrily and contemptuously, with that strained masculine giggle he reserved for his own cleverness when it had pushed him too far. “You have no place to hide, and I know where to find you. You will not trick me again, and you will not rule here long.”

  He forced his horse into the surf. Ciampino had looked puzzled at this exchange. Now he gave the Duchess one of his innocent smiles and made haste to follow his master. Cariola came up to the Duchess. The two women stood there, watching. The horses got in up to their bellies, and shied at the weak waves. They could hear Ferdinand laughing as he urged them on. The sound came over the water like the tolling of a bell.

  The horses were hoisted up on to the boat, riders and all. The Duchess turned to face the town. In the bright sunlight it sparkled like a prison. Only the church rose over it, and even that was hauled half down from heaven by the heavy tiled roofs that closed it in.

  She could not know that Ferdinand had been lying. She thought that now the Cardinal knew.

  VI

  First she had to protect Antonio.

  She realized that as soon as she returned to the palace and had time to look over her meaningless little court. They were not much. All these little lords and gentlemen were loyal only to their own perquisites. Chivalry and honour had shrunk, for them, to the dimensions of a law-suit. To them she was not a woman. She was merely a source of favour. She would give them nothing more. They knew that. Dukes and duchesses meant much to them. The people who were dukes and duchesses over them meant nothing to them at all.

  They were venal and uneasy. They were less loyal than her servants, for servants work for a fixed wage, but courtiers could only be bribed. They had no fixed price. And it was clear in their eyes and their deference, that just as mice know when it is raining, so they expected a change of reigns. Their unctuousness was so obviously a matter of filling in time, that it disgusted her. She would have none of them.

  For these reasons she never thought of giving Antonio up, for he was the first real thing she had ever known. She had quite a different plan, one that came to her mind so easily that it must have been there all along. She did not stop to think about it. She merely grasped at it with relief, and sent Cariola off to fetch Antonio.

  Cariola did not want to go. The Duchess had had enough of opposition. She flared up angrily.

  “What does it matter?” she snapped. “You will do as I say.”

  It was seldom she ordered Cariola to do anything. She had not meant to be so harsh. Cariola went. When she returned with Antonio, the Duchess could not help seeing how pale and hurt she looked. She had never seen quite that look on Cariola’s face, and she did not like it. A little doubt flickered in her mind.

  “You may go,” she said. Cariola went reluctantly.

  “What has happened?” he demanded.

  She shook her head. “Nothing has happened. But there are some things we must do at once.”

  He glanced warningly towards the door.

  “Cariola is all right,” she said.

  “Is she?” His voice was unexpectedly hard.

  “I must trust someone.”

  “She is too frightened to be dependable. She listens to you, spies on you, and says nothing. Why should a loyal woman do that?”

  The Duchess was impatient. She had not forgotten the look on Cariola’s face. “All servants do that.” It was the wrong word to have Cariola overhear. In her own mind Cariola was no servant.

  “Suppose they tortured her,” he urged. “She would not be very loyal then.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” said the Duchess slowly. She had unconsciously been edging away from the door. Now she led the way out into the loggia and the hot, stifling night. There she spoke urgently to Antonio.

  “The Cardinal knows,” she whispered, and hated herself for feeling the need to whisper. She told him what Ferdinand had said and done about Amici. “You must flee. I will say that as my steward you cheated me. I shall discredit you utterly. They will believe me. They believe everybody cheats. I shall say you have mismanaged my accounts. I shall be utterly disillusioned.” She smiled at him sadly. She could see that he did not like the idea. “What else can we do? Any stratagem is better than none.”

  “Very well,” he said slowly. “But I cannot leave you alone here.”

  “I shall not be alone long. There is safety in publicity. I plan a pilgrimage to Loreto, I shall go with a large company, very slowly and ostentatiously. I will think of some excuse, some pretext to please the Amalfitani. No one will dare to molest me, not even the Cardinal. You will go to Ancona. It is close to Loreto. I will manage to slip away. Then we will take ship from Ancona.”

  “And then?”

  “Who knows then? But we will be out of their clutches.” She smiled at him again. “The important thing is to escape. We could join your gipsies, perhaps.”

  He shook his head. It exasperated her. “Why not?” she demanded. “It is a poor plan, perhaps, but what else can we do?”

  It was true. He could not think of anything else. But he would not consent to it until she granted him permission to join her in disguise, as she neared Loreto. She would need someone to protect her, he argued. And she had not the heart to deny him.

  “We are slipping away like fugitives,” he said.

  She looked around the shadowy loggia, and shivered. “We are fugitives,” she told him sadly.

  They returned to her room. She went to summon Cariola. There was no answer. They opened the door to her chamber. Cariola was gone. They stood in the empty room, looking at each other soberly.

  At four she sent him away, into the yellow dawn. He rode out of Amalfi on a horse well laden with saddlebags, for what each of them thought would be the last time, and headed for the hills. The tracks up there were known to him and unknown to others. It was gipsy and banditti country. No one would follow him. It was the safest way across the peninsula, for him.

  VII

  Cariola had overheard everything. She had run away to hide. She had served the Duchess loyally, only to discover that loyalty counted for nothing. She was merely a servant. She had been supplanted and cast out. She wept for shame. She also wept for terror. The idea of torture was unendurable. Yet if she was cast out, where could she go? She said nothing.

  Neither did the Duchess. There was so much for her to do.

  That afternoon she summoned her court nobles to appear in the great hall. She delayed in going to meet them. Despite herself, she had a conscience. She hated what she was about to do. She had no will to denounce anyone, let alone Antonio.

  Her emotional turmoil actually contributed to her plans, for it gave conviction to something that otherwise would have had none. It made the court believe that hers was the real anger of a woman who had been deceived, and not the guile of a woman bent upon deceiving. Only Bosola took the matter differently, but then it was his business to take all matters differently.

  He stood in the throng, almost unnoticed, until he saw Cariola watching him, with a crestfallen expression that seemed friendlier than her manner had been for some time. He could do nothing about that, but he took note of it. He wondered what was coming next.

  The Duchess slowly passed down the room and mounted the dais at the end of it. She was solemnly dressed, and mounted the dais as though it had been an executioner’s block. When she turned to face them, Bosola was startled by her appearance. It was impressive. In some way she had aged. A real grief gave her presence dignity.

  The court was uneasy. Ferdinand’s presence had disrupted them, and they knew that there were disturbances in the town. They did not care about her. But should the mobs riot, it would be their property that would be damaged. It was to their interest to s
lick those troubled waters down, and that would cost money. They did not like that.

  The Duchess cleared her throat. Her voice was unexpectedly firm. She began to speak.

  Bosola listened with disbelief. It could be a clever trick: still, somehow he could not help but believe that it was true. Yet when he thought of Antonio, he knew that it was not true. A man who is born honest can change his own nature as little as a hunchback, a dwarf, or a cripple. It is a stigma he must bear for life.

  A ripple ran through her audience. It was caused by self-justified delight. That impressed Bosola. When Antonio was in favour, the minor courtiers had circled round him like dogs wary for scraps. They had scarcely known how to gain his favour. But they knew very well how to denounce him.

  The Duchess had something more to say. The tone of her voice had changed. She announced that it was a shame that this had happened on the eve of her projected pilgrimage to Loreto. At this Bosola pricked up his ears. So did the courtiers, though for different reasons. They were delighted at an excuse to leave Amalfi, until the mob was quiet again. And a pilgrimage might even serve to quiet the mob. They were a pious people. They admired it when the quality followed their example. A few more bones in the reliquaries of the cathedral made them feel that Amalfi was still an important place.

  Bosola thought her shrewd. Moving at a leisurely pace and in public across the face of Italy, surrounded by such of her court as went with her, she would be invulnerable. But he was not taken in. He sensed that her whole purpose was to deceive. What her plans might be he could not guess. But he was sure that this sudden act of piety was the part of some plan.

  Then she appointed him steward in Antonio’s place. Despite himself he was gratified. He was wary, for he thought it was part of this new cleverness he had not expected from her, but he was enormously pleased. He was also enormously busy. He had not much time to spy. On the other hand she seemed entirely open about her prepararions for the cavalcade, and these went forward rapidly. She even seemed eager for his advice.

  He was puzzled. He had not thought her guileful. He need not have been so puzzled. For though she could act with vigour, guile was beyond her. She had looked around for someone she could trust publicly, and caught sight of him. She was revolted by her court, and he was the only outsider there.

  Cariola was miserable. The hammering and scurrying back and forth necessitated by the departure for Loreto drove her to distraction. She saw herself cast aside. It seemed to her that the Duchess was no longer at ease with her. She did not understand her mistress’s moods and tempers. She thought that Antonio had gotten rid of her. Inside she raged against him. She could not help herself. She began to believe that Bosola was right. Little people were crushed underfoot by these highnesses, who had no kindness in them. She had always resented Antonio. Now it seemed to her that the Duchess had been taken away from her. She had to talk to someone.

  When she came to Bosola, she thought that it was only to complain. But the strain on her had been too great. She let him take her. It relieved both of them. And when people are together in bed, they talk. They seem to believe that things said in the darkness of a shared bed will never be repeated and are outside the moral system which controls our days. She told Bosola that Antonio was the Duchess’s lover.

  Even then that might not have turned him against her, but a quick vengefulness in her tone took him by surprise. He pretended that he had not known, but inside he instantly despised her. For she had waited until the hue and cry was up against Antonio. She would always go over to the winning side. To save her own pride, let alone her neck, she would betray anyone. He said nothing to her. But something inside him that she had once almost thawed turned hard again at once.

  She herself was flustered. She was ashamed. But also she was secretly glad. Inside her something rejoiced in having given Antonio away. Those phrases she had overheard now hurt her less. But it was this secret gladness Bosola heard in her voice, and he would never feel the same way about her again, as a result. Disappointment in her turned him savage.

  Of this betrayal the Duchess of course knew nothing. The night before her departure she summoned Bosola to her, and gave him a casket containing such jewels as she could not publicly take with her. These she bade him conceal in his saddlebags and luggage. She was rather grand about it. She said she trusted him. He was to accompany the caravan as far as Naples, then slip away to Rome, sell them, and convey the money to a merchant at Ancona.

  There was nothing to do but accept. Bosola was appalled. He bowed low and withdrew. Through her folly, he had been caught up into her web, and he did not know what to do. The jewels were useless to him. Alone, he could not dispose of them. Nor could he sell them in Rome. The Cardinal would hear of it at once. But if he did not sell them in Rome and proceed to Ancona, his position would be found out by the Duchess and Antonio, and then everything would collapse. Nor did he underestimate Antonio. The revenge of an honest man is even more determined than that of a scoundrel, once he is aroused, and he knew of Antonio’s acquaintance among brigands and gipsies. A knife in the back can come from anywhere. He broke out into a sweat, and wrote to the Cardinal at once.

  VIII

  Bosola need not have been so worried.

  When he learned what Ferdinand had been up to, the Cardinal was extremely angry, but then he smiled. Like doctors, who can keep six patients in six rooms, and treat them all without fumbling their prognosis, the Cardinal was most efficient when he had most plots in hand. Occasionally he overlooked something, and a patient died, but not often. He knew better than to compete with chance, but he believed in being there to snatch away its benefits for himself. Therefore he had merely to fit Ferdinand’s fooleries into his own plans. The adjustment required was not great.

  Bosola presented quite a different problem. He was too much of a gentleman to be a reliable villain. The Duchess seemed to trust him. He might therefore change sides. He wrote him at once, telling him what to do with the jewels, but also he wrote to Sor Juana. She had had her lesson, if he was not mistaken. That should be enough to keep her loyal, since she was ambitious for her convent, and she should be able to find out if her brother had any secret schemes. That done, he proceeded to Ferdinand, and considered his day profitably spent. Soon Amalfi would be his. It never occurred to him to wonder why he wanted it. It was merely a course of action he had embarked upon, that unwound now whether he was there to take advantage of it or not. He bore no malice towards his sister, and was a little sorry that her folly should have made her course so short. But after all, he would not be there to see what happened, and he had much to do.

  At Amalfi the caravan was ready to set forth. The show it made was in every way a splendid one. The Duchess had made it purposely so, and her nobles always welcomed display.

  The company was given the episcopal blessing from the steps of the Cathedral, after a solemn Mass, whose incense still clogged the interior. The sonorous organ peeled out into the square through the open bronze doors of the entrance. The crowds were respectful, and respectfully fell back, as the company took its way down to the shore.

  Sackbut and trumpet wafted them off and cleared their way. The court poet dependably produced an ode. It was almost as though they were setting forth on a little crusade. In the harbour the ships lay waiting. They would go by sea to Naples, and then set forth across country towards Loreto.

  As they pulled out from the harbour, and the sails caught the wind, the Duchess, with Cariola, stood on deck and watched the shore recede. Now Amalfi was less a town than the ghostly shell of one. It was as though she had never been there. It was meaningless.

  She felt a lump in her throat. Now she was a Duchess without lands, without estates, without an army or a populace. She had not even a home. She was in flight, but must pretend to be leisurely. She was not going to Loreto: she was going to Antonio. She knew she must hold to that thought, and never think of the future at all. But she could not help but think of it. Who would give them sanct
uary? Where could they possibly seek refuge? Peasants might run away, and remain hid. But rumour had made her famous. Where could they go?

  As the ships stood out to sea, the promontory of Ravello came into view. She said nothing. She did not even stir. But she watched it. As they drew away from the shore, Ravello turned black against the morning sky, as though it had been sacked and burned. She had been happy there.

  EIGHT

  I

  Knowledge of this pilgrimage had preceded them. They were received in Naples with respect. The Duchess had chosen her pretext well. If one was upon a pious errand, and could not go to Rome, one went to Loreto. Like a journey to Mecca, a journey there was sacrosanct. Merely setting out for Loreto made one untouchable and therefore safe, providing one went with a large and public company.

  The baroque taste for showy marvels made the shrine popular. Nor was the Duchess less devout for taking the matter lightly. We can believe and disbelieve in the same miracle at the same time with equal fervour. After all, if we prove a miracle false, then it only becomes the more miraculous, and the story of Loreto was well known. It was, after all, the house of the Virgin Mary, spirited from Palestine by a tempest.

  But first there was Naples to be dealt with.

  Perhaps because she had been born there, the Duchess was not afraid of Naples. As soon as the ships drew in to the mole, she felt more secure than she had ever felt at Amalfi. It was as though she had escaped from a prison. Farther down the coast was Castel del Mare, her husband’s abandoned fief. But in Naples she felt self-assured. The day was halcyon, and in that light all colours sparkled. If only Antonio had been there, she would have been content, but even without him, her spirits rose.

  For on a clear day, and there almost all days are clear, the Bay of Naples makes the heart soar. The heat haze seems to tremble with an invisible music. That dangerous magician, Virgil, has his medieval spell cast out like a fishing net, to drag the world in.