by Teresa Denys
I could remember my mother telling me the story, only half-understood, of how the duke's father and the pope had quarreled and how the pope was only waiting for the archbishop to die before the whole state was excommunicated for heresy. I had not really believed her, but I had accepted it, because she seemed so distressed, and the truth of it had not mattered when I was a child. But now, looking down on the legendary archbishop, I could see etched in his gaunt face the burden of all the souls that hung upon his life's thread.
He sat his horse proudly, straight as a ramrod. He must have been past seventy then, but so haughty was his bearing that I did not think of his age. There was a martial glitter in his eyes beneath the tall miter, and the cadaverous face betrayed no pleasure; there was more of the Raffaelle prince in this forbidding man than the Shepherd of God. When he had passed, there was a sound among the people, like a sigh, and suddenly their shouts rose again.
The silver hawk impaled with the Spanish eagle meant nothing to me, but I guessed that the woman in the litter behind must be the duchess Gratiana. All I saw of her was a glimpse of a hook-nosed profile, a skirt heavy with gems, and a dark, clawlike hand waving now and then to the crowd. There was no way to tell how she was digesting her disgrace.
More soldiers, line upon line, followed the litter, and at last I saw the only arms I knew—the silver hawk crowned for the Dukedom of Cabria and flanked by two canting angels. Forgetting the sheer drop that yawned below me, I leaned out eagerly, and all along the street other heads craned, too. The procession eddied again, checked, and came to an untidy standstill.
The duke and his followers had halted just short of our very door; if I leaned out as far as I could, I would be able to see them.
With a fast-beating heart I stretched from the window, feeling the sun on the back of my head, and looked beyond the black and silver banners. A burst of loud laughter startled me; a man in the street was pointing to the window of one of the houses opposite, where a group of women clustered, dressed in their best. The women were blushing and laughing and kissing their hands to him, and I watched them with the sort of envy I would feel for a bunch of bright butterflies. Then I looked down at the horseman who was bowing to them so ponderously and saw the gleam of gold about his head.
But for that I would never have known him, for he was old. Rumor said that Duke Carlo was past his prime, but that he should look so—older than his uncle the archbishop—was somehow shocking. The thickset body was decked in ornate silver armor, mantled in scarlet and gold, and the fashion for that leper-pale fairness had led the duke into unclean extravagance. Gold powder dusted his white hair to give an illusion of youth; paint mantled his heavy cheeks to the color of puff paste. Hard little eyes peered curiously upward while one podgy hand held the horse in check and the other gestured to the man on his left.
The rider edged his horse nearer the duke's and bent his head to listen, and then he too looked up; fragments of sentences filled my head as though someone were whispering in my ear.
"Short like Duke Carlo . . . dark as he was . . . but with a square sort of face like a box. And he has blue eyes. . . ."
But I was too far away to see the color of Alessandro della Raffaelle's eyes.
The duke must have made some comment on the chattering women, because his bastard son chuckled before he swerved away again, and I could see the sardonic amusement in his face even from my high window.
My hair had fallen forward and hung like a curtain over the sill so that I had to push it back to see more clearly; it was only as I impatiently tossed it back over my shoulder that I became conscious of the third rider, standing as still as a statue in the white dust of the roadway.
He sat on his horse unmoving, a somber black figure in startling contrast to the vivid colors about him, the sun dazzling on his white gold hair. Unlike the duke and his bastard, there was no laughter in his face, and his eyes were not searching the housefronts for diversion—instead, he was staring intently straight up at my window.
My stomach convulsed and cramped in inexplicable panic. I wanted to make light of it, to laugh as the other women had done, but I could not. The rider's eyes were narrowed against the sun, and there was something about him that reminded me of a cat in front of a mousehole.
With a rumble and the clinking of harness, the procession moved forward again, and I drew a long breath of relief as the tall rider spurred on alongside the duke. My whole body was trembling; foolish girl, I told myself, there is nothing to fear. I had done nothing but catch the eye of one of the duke's men, and most likely he had not even seen me clearly—there was nothing in that to make me sick and frightened. But I slid down from the window and bolted the shutters, and when I heard the sounds of the procession returning, I shivered as though I had escaped by a hairsbreadth from some threat.
It was early evening when Celia came back. I heard her voice in the courtyard, then her footsteps on the stairs, and then the door swung open, and she stood on the threshold, her hair tousled and her face fiery red with drinking. She glared down at me belligerently.
"Well, you've played the fine lady long enough for one day. I come home to find the servants have all gone off to stand and gape outside the palazzo in hope of getting scraps from the duke's feast—that is what comes of trusting them. You'll have to come downstairs and help—the world doesn't come to an end just because a few great men are feeling pleased with themselves."
I got up silently, and she stared at me.
"What is the matter with you? Have your wits gone at last? You look like a mooncalf. What have you been doing all day?''
"Nothing." I almost whispered it. "There was nothing to do."
"Well, there will be no more of that for the rest of the day! There are all the dishes to clean and the tables to scrub—none of the other servants has done a stroke of work while we were gone. You will have your hands full enough, my girl."
I winced from the phrase "other servants," but it only confirmed what I had known already; I was nothing to Celia but a hired pair of hands that she had to lodge but would never acknowledge. I wondered whether I could remind her that I had had nothing to eat all day; then I thought, wiser not, perhaps I can get something while I pass through the kitchen. Better half-choking on a pilfered crust of bread than having the salt side of Celia's tongue for asking more than she was prepared to give.
While my hands were busy, my thoughts ran free, and I found them returning for the hundredth time to that strange little tableau in the street—the three riders isolated in the midst of the noise and the gaudy, stirring cavalcade, two of them jesting together like a couple of topers and the third sitting astride his horse like an image and staring up at me. I still could not rid myself of the sense of dread that swept over me whenever I thought of that deliberate, calculating gaze.
A slap brought my thoughts back to the present, and I looked around wildly at Celia. "Will you be content when you have worn a hole through my best jug?" There was suspicion in her face. "What is the matter with you?"
I mumbled something and bent my head over the pots. I could not explain; even if it had not meant telling her of how I had sat in the sun and seen the procession in spite of her, I could not have said why the memory of something so trivial should prey on my thoughts. I felt like a criminal waiting to be arrested; every footfall set my heart pounding with a guilty fear.
Antonio came in presently, grumbling at the wickedness of the strayed servants and the folly of dukes who took bread out of honest men's mouths. "If he had to make his living by feeding the beggars in this stinking city, he would not give bread away so lightly. How can I make any profit when half the population is out sniffing after the garbage from his supper?"
"Perhaps they will all come here later," I ventured.
He snorted. "Yes, stuffed too full for aught we can sell them—they will all be surfeiting on veal and roast partridge and turn up their noses at the food in this house! We will be lucky if we have a dozen customers in
the rest of the night!"
He strode off, fuming, and Celia followed him. I could hear her voice in the distance, berating him for letting the servants slip away; he should have stayed here, she said, instead of coming with her to stand like a stock, when the man near her had proved to know more about the notables than he! He would have been more use staying at home, and now perhaps he would take her counsel another time!
Antonio's rumbling reply was lost in a sound from the gateway. I tensed instinctively, my hands dangling unmoving in the greasy water as I listened, and I found myself holding my breath. Late visitors, I told myself. Merchants, probably, come from a distance to see the duke's triumph and now looking for somewhere to stay out of the reach of their careful wives. Well, they would have a lean night of it, for the courtesans were where the pickings were, waiting outside the gates of the Palazzo della Raffaelle.
The soft clop of hooves and the jingle of harness passed under the gateway and into the yard. Swiftly, I darted across the kitchen and peered out; riders, some half-dozen of them. I could see them distinctly in the light of the lamp—the horses were too good for tradesmen, and yet the clothes were too plain for ordinary citizens. One of them dismounted and walked towards the door of the taproom, and as I listened to the voices of the others, a chill of fear began to take possession of me. They were wearing dark cloaks and broad hats that hid their faces, and their whispers sounded furtive, like a conspiracy.
"In this place?" came softly. " 'Slight!"
"It is a fool's errand." Another voice, less muted, sounded full of indignation. "We have asked everywhere, doffed caps to the goodsirs for streets around, and still the answer is the same—none such in the house."
One of the others murmured something, and I caught the words, "a mistake." A light laugh trilled in answer.
"Do you dare think that, dear fellow? Obey orders, and keep such thoughts locked between your teeth!"
"He is very sure," said another voice.
"He is always sure. When the search proves fruitless he will say he never really believed what he spoke."
I gripped the windowsill tightly, the rough wood hurting my wet hands. My mind was suddenly full of remembered stories of the tyranny of the duke's guards, of the men and women who had vanished simply because they caught the attention of the royal guards. They said that the Raffaelle soldiers would first take a prisoner and then invent a crime. . . .
The riders were shifting, letting their horses take them towards the doorway. They were silent now, their grumbling stilled by a caution from the man who had spoken first. Then I saw Antonio's bulky outline filling the lighted doorway and heard the clatter of riders' feet on the cobbles as they dismounted. The noise sounded like a knell.
I did not stop to reason—like a trapped animal, my one thought was to escape. It did not cross my mind that the cloaked riders could be anyone but soldiers sent after me. I was giddy and light-headed through lack of food, but I did not realize that then.
Panic took me to the door of the kitchen before I realized I could not reach the stairs without crossing the long passage that ran the length of the house, the passage in which Antonio was standing now, receiving his belated guests. I would have to go through the taproom, across the yard, and in at the side door to reach the back stairs. My palms were wet with fright as I struggled to think clearly. I did not know how long the men would take to tell their errand; there was no time to be lost.
I caught the sound of cultured voices raised in talk as I went back towards the other door, and I hesitated for seconds that stretched into eternities. It was hard to judge where the sound was coming from, but I prayed that Antonio had gone with them into the dining parlor. I would have to trust that I could slip through the taproom unnoticed and escape to the safety of my room.
I hesitated again with my hand on the latch of the taproom door, casting an uneasy glance over my shoulder, but all was quiet. Then, hands clenched hard in the folds of my skirt, I pushed open the door and sped blindly across the room to the welcoming darkness beyond.
A voice, soft and almost teasing, stopped me in my tracks. "Little crow!"
I spun around, staring incredulously at what had seemed to be an empty room; then a shadow moved beside the hearth, and I saw the man standing there.
He had been stripping the gauntlets from his hands and now stood as though he had frozen at the sound of the opening door. My first thought was that he was supernaturally tall: I could not see his face, for his broad hat cast a shadow that hid his expression. Then as he moved, the light caught him, and I saw his sensual mouth curve slowly in a smile of pure satisfaction.
I clutched savagely at the coarse black stuff of my skirt, shaking as I stared back at him. If I had been afraid before, it was as nothing to the terror of seeing this tall stranger leaning lazily against the fireplace in Antonio's taproom.
"I thought no one was here." My voice was a craven whisper.
"What was your haste?" He straightened in one supple movement. "You look as though all the legions in hell were at your back. Why were you running away?"
I shook my head and spoke through dry lips. "I must go back to my room. I ought not to have tried—if Antonio finds out—"
"Antonio is the fat landlord? Your husband or your lover?"
"My kinsman." I dared not say brother. "I lodge here with him and his wife, but he has forbidden me to trouble his guests."
"A fair trouble." The man's eyes flickered over me in such a way that I blushed uncontrollably, and a mocking note entered his voice. "Yet the noise of guests brings you creeping out to spy on them. Are you commonly disobedient?"
My voice seemed to die in my throat, for I had seen a silver-fair gleam of beard fringing the firm jaw; this was the man I had seen riding alongside the duke, and I had run straight into his hands.
He was idly stripping the black gloves from his hands as he watched me, waiting for my answer. Once I had seen a caged leopard stand just so, idly, and purr so, deep in its throat; and it had had the throat out of a man before anyone saw it spring.
He must have sensed my fear, for the laziness drained from him and his eyes narrowed. "You are trembling," he said softly.
My lips parted, but no sound came; I was praying as I had never prayed before for the power of flight. His presence seemed to drain all the strength from me as I stood pressed back against the door, held by his relentless gaze like a bird before a snake. Then as he moved forward, I wrenched myself away from the door and backed away from him. If only I could reach the door that led into the yard . . .
My outstretched hand touched a chairback and I retreated behind the chair, putting what little barrier I could between us, and he smiled then as though he were really amused. I was retreating before him with agonizing slowness as he rounded the room towards me; I could not—dared not—take my eyes from his, and I found my way by instinct and the blind groping of my fingers.
It was when they touched the edge of the table that I knew I had misjudged. I was being driven back against it like an animal at bay, my fingers moving frantically along it for some way of escape. But it stayed there, heavy and solid, biting into the backs of my thighs and cutting off my escape. I turned away now, trying to avoid that relentless stare. I felt suffocated, over-whelmed in his shadow, and unable to frame a word of protest.
When I felt his fingertips against my cheek, I flinched as I would have done from a brand. But he turned my face up to him as casually as he might have turned a rose to smell it, and unwarily I looked straight up into his eyes.
I wondered if I was dreaming. They were black; so dark that they were unfathomable, and impossibly, horrifyingly dark in that fair face. I thought of Lucifer as I looked at him, of a demon's eyes in the face of a fallen angel. Then, as I watched, a strange light began to grow in them—the darkness was swallowed up in a brilliance that made them blaze silver. I caught my breath, and the room, the house, the whole city, was suddenly breathless with waiting.
Chapter Tw
o
The crash of the passage door flung back on its hinges was like a noise from another world. I hardly heard Antonio's bellow of outrage; all I was aware of was the light touch of the stranger's fingers against my cheek.
"Santa Maria!" The oath escaped Antonio before he could check it, and he made haste to repair his credit with a low bow. "Your pardon, excellency. Your noble companions are wondering where you are."
"Are they so officious?" The dark eyes never left my face. "Go and tell them, then."
"They sent me to bring you to them, excellency."
The stranger swore softly. "God's death, will they set watches on me even here? Say I will come soon."
Antonio bowed again. "Yes, excellency. But first I shall . . ."
"Carry my message, sirrah." It was only a whisper, but it sent Antonio out of the room without a word.
I was shivering as the door closed, and my voice sounded unsteady. "He is angry—I must go. Please . . ."
"What is it you fear?" The even voice was faintly curious, the eyes narrowed and searching. My gaze fell before his, but his fingers caught my chin and forced my face up as he studied it silently. "It must be the devil at least. What is your name?"
The click of the latch saved me and Antonio's voice.
"Your companions say they attend your pleasure, excellency."