by Teresa Denys
"Domenico, I beg you, listen. You swore to me . . ."
He seemed to be deaf to her low-toned beseeching, only the deepening lines of bored petulance about his mouth showing that he heard her. Then, as her tears threatened to choke her, he said indifferently, "Brother Sandro, quiet this whore."
The Bastard surged past me, pulling Maddalena away and into his arms, his mouth covering hers avidly, his hand at the laces of her gown. She gave a cry, but no man moved to help her; on every face was the same cold curiosity. Only the duke ignored them, fastidiously smoothing his sleeve where Maddalena had caught his arm and paying them no more heed than he would a couple of puppies tussling around his feet. He did not even look up when Sandro dragged Maddalena through the throng towards the shadowed doorway.
By now torches were beginning to gutter here and there, casting such pools of shadow that I did not notice the approach of the soberly clad Ippolito. He seemed to appear from nowhere, bowing at Domenico's side.
"I have brought the duchess's jewels, Your Grace."
"My good Ippolito!" It was a purr. "Give them to me."
Around us the talk fell silent as he lifted the casket's lid and drew out its contents. Diamonds hung from his fingers in a cascade of white fire as he rose to his feet, and I sat unmoving, spellbound by the blaze in the black eyes watching me above the blaze of the jewels.
"Here, lady. We give you these to signify the love and honor we intend towards you."
The cold metal felt like fetters as it touched my skin, and I shivered under the brush of his fingers. The court's applause had a startled sound.
"Your Grace," I whispered as he sat down, "I cannot wear them."
"Why not?" The question was idle, but it made my blood run cold.
"I . . ." I found inspiration in the blue white stone which lay between my breasts. "I cannot bear the weight."
Poire, devilish delight lit the black eyes. "Custom will make it easy. You will learn to bear a greater weight than that."
One or two heard him and laughed, but I was surprised to see on Ippolito's face a fleeting look of pity. Fighting down my dread, I stiffened proudly, and as I did so, the Duke's eyes smoldered suddenly.
"These public revels are for those who want no better. Come, you and I will seek sweeter ones alone."
Before I could protest, he had risen, his grip crushing the print of his rings into the flesh of my wrist. He waited an instant for silence and then spoke with an arrogant turn of his head to the sea of expectant faces.
"We would not have our absence cut short the feast, my lords—we commend you to your pleasures. For our own part, we have business to dispatch which has been too long undone. And so, good night."
A titter arose that he did not bother to check, and the court was on its feet and bowing. He looked at the stooping backs with sheer infantile glee before his nod freed them; then he was leading me back towards the doors through which he had come, with torchbearers before and a line of nobles in our wake. The doors closed behind us on a burst of clamor in which, mercifully, I could distinguish no words.
The antechamber was bitterly cold after the heat of the banqueting hail. Drafts swept through it, striking gouts of flame from the torches, and I shivered as the chill struck me. The duke's hand tightened on mine; involuntarily I looked up at him and saw his eyes blazing behind the slight smile which masked his beautiful face.
My hand jerked, trying to pull away, but I could not get free; he only held me, watching me struggle against his imprisoning hold without a change in his expression. Behind me I could hear the dry rustle of brocades as the courtiers closed in, and I felt the heat of a torch at my back. Other hands gripped me, forcing me forward, and I cried out.
"Not here, Piero." Domenico's eyes held mine, but he spoke past me. "Let the women have her, and then bring her to my chamber. Do it quickly."
There was a cheated murmur from the ring of men around me, and Piero's hands fell away. I thought I glimpsed his face, startled and angry, his eyes hard with calculation; then I was being hurried away, across the antechamber and up the stairs to the tapestried room, where Niccolosa was waiting.
She worked quickly and expertly, as though this were a task she had performed many times before, taking off the heavy silks and the great weight of diamonds and dressing me instead in a bedgown of white velvet, brushing my hair so that it hung smooth and shining past my waist, like the black veils of the Sisters of Charity in the Via Croce. I wanted to laugh at such a ludicrous resemblance.
Niccolosa said, "You are ready?" and I nodded, wondering how many others she had made ready for the Duke of Cabria's bed. She started to the door to call Piero but stopped halfway and came back. Some emotion was struggling for expression in her bony face as she stood there, almost awkwardly; then she patted my hand in quick, embarrassed comfort and turned again to call.
Piero appeared in the doorway so quickly that I knew he had been kicking his heels in the gallery outside. His eyes ran over me with an appraisal that was a studied insult, but he only gestured in silence for me to follow him.
The floor was icy under my bare feet. It was all I would allow myself to think of. I hardly noticed the guards closing in behind, cutting off my retreat—it all seemed unreal, like a nightmare, the tramp of their feet echoing in my ears. Doors swung open ahead of us, and I caught a glimpse of softer candlelight.
Piero stood aside, sweeping a mocking bow. "You are at the duke's chamber, mistress."
The taunt was so blatant that my strained nerves snapped, and I slapped his face, hardly knowing what I did. "I may be worsted," I said furiously, nursing my stinging fingers, "but I need not endure your insults!"
He stepped back, his shrill laugh bubbling as he touched the red mark on his cheek, but his eyes were wide, considering. "So you've claws?" He sounded intrigued. "Wait until the duke is tired—we will see then how much you can endure."
I swept haughtily past him, only to turn in sudden shameful panic as he started to close the doors on me. He must have understood the movement, because he laughed then in real amusement.
"Here, lady, you will lead a duchess's life—-for tonight, at least. I wish you good night and good rest."
The doors closed in my face. I stood still, staring at them as though they would dissolve under my eyes, as though the whole palace would dissolve and I would wake in my bed over the Eagle's gateway.
I was still standing there when I realized I was no longer alone. There was no sound, but my skin began to prickle, and when I turned, the duke was there, a silver silhouette against the black bed-curtains, stripped of clothes, of jewels, and of paint. Only a swathe of cloth of silver was draped about him, twisted about his hips and over one shoulder, and his skin looked unnaturally white in the candlelight.
"Felicia." It was a purr like a cat's in the silence of the room.
I fought to keep my voice even. "Your Grace."
"Domenico. You will forget court duty shortly." He took a slow, prowling pace towards me, lazily letting the silver cloth slide to the floor. In the light of the candles his flesh gleamed like alabaster, but this statue was warm and living, as graceful as a leopard and as treacherous as murder. His hips swung once, like a cat launching itself on a bird, and then he moved forward.
There was no time to evade him, no time to resist. Almost before I saw him move, he had caught me and lifted me, and then there was softness under me and his weight on top of me as I fell sprawling across the great bed. I tried to rise, but his mouth came down on mine in the first kiss I had ever known and forced my head back against the pillowing velvets.
Instinctively, like an animal, I fought back, scratching and biting. This was less lovemaking than deliberate cruelty, all that grace and strength employed in the inflicting of pain. . . . It was like being mauled by a giant cat for sport, not for food. Light glinted on the bright hair as the duke's head bent again to mine; there was no tenderness in his shadowed face, only a harsh, blazing excitement that made me catch my brea
th.
"Your Grace . . ." It was a broken whisper.
"That is not my name." His voice was low and breathless, full of teasing.
I gasped, "Please . . ." and could not go on.
"Please?" He laughed so that he shook me with it. "Do you mean, please take me quickly? Please, this? Or this?"
The velvet robe tore under his fingers and I felt his hands slide over my breasts, probing and caressing as I tried to arch away from their remorselessly sensual possession. The touch of his hands seemed to burn my skin.
My breath was coming in gasps like sobs as I struggled, braced in every nerve to resist the demand that tore at my thighs; then he gripped the scruff of my neck and held me, fingers spread across the back of my head, with my lips hard against his. His kiss was urgent, like an invasion; then, as his mouth traced the hollow of my neck with quick, fierce kisses, his weight came full upon me.
I realized that until that instant he had merely been playing with me. There was no escaping his insistence. He stilled my desperate thrashing with almost insolent ease, forcing me against him, shocking me to breathtaking awareness of every muscle in his hard, smooth body. Blindly, I made one last effort to free myself, but his hands were plundering my body too ruthlessly.
If I had not been resisting so hard, it might have been easier to bear. As it was, he took me by brute force; I felt his greedy touch exploring every inch of me, and the next moment I cried out, uncontrollably and in agony. It was intolerable, outrageous; it was like being ripped apart; and as his passion smashed over me like a tidal wave, I lay imprisoned in his arms and wept.
Chapter Three
I do not know how long it was before I realized he had left me. A white hand touched my cheek, and I opened my eyes and saw the blood thick under his fingernails.
"Felicia." There was no inquiry in his voice; only a command I obeyed instinctively, looking up at him through a mist of tears. "You fight like ten devils, sweet, but I can have soldiers in my bed for that. Come now, gently."
But when he bent his head there was no gentleness in the touch of his lips but expert sensuality, vicious appetite. He knew how to gain a response and did so with a merciless science which left me gasping. When his head lifted, his eyes were blazing black lightning, but he smiled and touched my lips again, very lightly, with his own.
"Is it so hard to love me, Felicia?"
In that instant I knew how easy it could be. This happens to every one of his women, I thought wildly—and his men, too—he bewitches all of them. I tensed myself against him. "This is not love."
"I will let the name go for the deed." His voice was frighteningly soft.
"Let me go!" My voice almost broke.
His head moved slightly in negation. "I will listen when you beg me to stay with you."
My answer was smothered against his mouth. Every movement was pain, pain that he had inflicted; the coverlet underneath me was slimy with blood, and between my thighs was burning agony. Yet when he touched me again, I could not fight him, and my hands came up and stroked his moonlight hair. He still hurt me, but his lovemaking was full of an infinitely more subtle, sensuous brutality, and his hands coaxed and clung, erasing the horror. Little sounds of anguish came from my throat as he held me, exploring my body unhurriedly with eyes and lips and delicately seeking fingertips; then when his body slid smoothly to cover mine, the warm silken weight of him became my whole world.
I lay on my back at last, staring up at the pale shadows moving in the mirror above the bed, long past weeping.
"I told you that your heart would soften a little."
He bent over me, shaken with laughter, and I gazed up at him in bitter wonder. "Now that you have shamed me, must you mock me, too?"
"Where is the shame?" His lips touched my throat. "You will have nothing but honor for this night's work. When I have done, you will wonder why your fears ever made you unkind."
"I can never go home." I spoke unthinkingly to my reflection. "My brother would not have me in the house."
"Do not think of seeking his charity yet," he said sharply. "You will go when I bid you, and not till then." I turned my head away tiredly, and his voice changed. "What, stubborn still?"
I knew the mockery in his eyes was malice, sardonic satisfaction in my body's betrayal of my protestations, but it made no difference. My defiance was slackening into lassitude through sheer physical exhaustion, yet he would not let me rest—long after I was half-dead with tiredness, his desire kept me waking, so I wondered if by very will he could cheat sleep.
When he fell asleep at last, I had lost all count of the hours. The candles had burned out long ago, and I lay listening to his quiet breathing and watching a sliver of moonlight that had crept through the hangings; minute by minute it moved, creeping across the pillow to touch his sleeping face, and I stared down at him with an intentness I did not understand.
His head was pillowed on my hair, trapping me even in sleep; the haughty patrician mask was still there, but the long dark lashes fanned his cheeks like a child's, and the sensual mouth had relaxed in a queerly vulnerable curve. He looked almost like a boy, but there was nothing adolescent in the sprawled beauty of his naked body. Then, as I watched, a crease of tension marred his smooth brow. His head moved restlessly, and he began to shift and murmur in the grip of some nightmare. Sweat started out on his forehead and little animal sounds began to come from his throat; then he began to talk, and I realized he was talking to his dream.
"You will say I did not mean it." The urgent whisper was a travesty of his old autocratic command. "You must tell them you consented—it was your blasphemy as much as mine. Is this your merciful God, who lets you burn in hell? Or is it the devil who sends you to me so often?"
There was a breathless silence. His body arched and his head moved in panic-stricken denial, back and forth, back and forth on the black, silken pillow.
"You lie. . . . You are damned for what you did after. I only meant to silence you, to stop your eternal preaching. You said you loved me—why haunt me, then? It was a boy's trick, I tell you. . . . I did not mean you to be dead. . . . Let me alone. . . . Tell them. . . . For God's love, close your eyes!"
It was the scream of an animal, and the sheet ripped under his clawing fingers as he shuddered into wakefulness. His eyes stared up into the darkness, wide and blank with terror—then slowly their glare faded, and his hand groped across the bed as though to assure himself that this and not his dream was the reality.
"Felicia . . ."
He spoke without looking at me. I remember feeling astonished that he should still remember my name.
"Yes, I am here."
His hand caught mine convulsively, dragging me close to him. In that moment I felt no fear; I had no thought for myself as he clung to me, his bright head buried in my breast.
"The same dream." It was the voice of a frightened child. "Always the same—the chapel and her body, and the stink of blood. She lies there staring at me, blaming me—I swear I did not mean it. It is her fault, but she will not leave me alone. She says her God will have His vengeance on me, too. But He cannot touch me. Now I am duke I can buy absolution for a thousand such sins, and then the dreams will leave coming."
He was shivering, and I drew the bedcovers around his shoulders and listened. He talked of blood he could not escape, a lake which spread towards him and would drown him if it reached him; and I cradled him, wondering what he had done that such a dream should haunt him. Whose was the blood, and who was the woman who had said she loved him; it was better not to ask.
I waited until I thought he was asleep and then cautiously tried to free myself to relight one of the candles. But as soon as I moved, his grip tightened again, feverishly.
"I was going to bring you a light," I said gently. "It will fright the dreams away."
He shook his head violently. "No, you must stay with me. . . . While you hold me I cannot see her eyes. I will make you the richest woman in the state if you do
not leave me. . . ."
In a spasm of pity I took him and rocked him, soothing him with a string of soft inanities until the bated breath went out of him, and his body lay in a curve of unfolding grace like a falcon relaxed into captivity.
There was a silence; then I felt the brush of wet lashes against my skin as he opened his eyes. His head lifted a little, and he said in a harsh whisper, "You will talk of this. You will say I am brainsick and turn this folly to court gossip."
I said no, but he did not seem to hear me. His arms closed around me, his strength hurting my back, his cheek against my hair.
"I do not want to have you killed, Felicia. Swear you will not speak."
"I have said I will not. . . ."
"Swear it! Come." There was a note in his voice that shocked me. "Swear for my humor's sake."
I said unsteadily, "I will not, in faith."
He drew a long breath. "Precious wench!" His cheek rubbed my temple in a gesture that was close to tenderness, and then my gasp died under his lips, and the comfort he sought was not a child's comfort.
I woke slowly to darkness and a warm, imprisoning weight. For one drowsy moment I lay unremembering; then I stirred to stretch my limbs against what hampered them and let out a soft, sharp cry. Every muscle seemed to be on fire, and my flesh felt as though it had been scraped raw. Between my thighs pain was raging like a bonfire and I shrank, outraged, from the touch of arms that closed around me.
"You must rouse, my sweet." Domenico's voice in my ear was low and teasing. "My knaves will be in upon us shortly, and I would not have them see this sight."
His fingers ran the length of my back, idle and possessive, and as his hold slackened, I pulled myself away and sat up, biting my lips when the motion triggered little flames of pain. He was watching my every movement with terrifying attention, and then suddenly he laughed.
"Do not regret your chastity—it is sweeter to lose it than to keep it."
"I could not choose." Suddenly I felt cold: cold and very calm. "Am I free to go now?"