by S. D. Sykes
Mother looked up despondently. “Where have you been, Oswald?” she said plaintively. “What an uproar I’ve suffered in your absence.”
She tried to stand up, but I raised my hand. “Stay there, Mother.” I quickly walked to the balcony and looked down at the water gate, where the two soldiers from the doge’s palace were still waiting for me.
“There were men here, looking for you,” she said.
I drew back from the window and closed the shutters. “I know. I saw them.”
“What have you been doing? They were very insistent that they needed to speak to you. They’ve even left a couple of guards on the door.” She frowned. “I’m surprised you didn’t pass them as you came in, Oswald. They have very distinctive uniforms.”
I skipped over this question. “What did they want?” I asked.
She gave a scowl. “To speak to you, of course. They just kept repeating your name, over and over.”
“What did you say to them?”
“I told them to leave, because they were invading the bedchamber of an English lady, and I would not tolerate such disrespect.” She wiped the foam of ale away. “I might have suffered a convulsion, had their leader not ordered me this mug of beer and spoken to me with some decorum.” She smiled. “He was a gentleman at least. Not like those other brutes who pushed in at the door. His cloak was trimmed in the finest fur, Oswald. The very finest.”
“I don’t care about his fur collar.”
She ignored me. “And his shoes were made of the softest red leather I’ve ever seen.” Then she frowned. “Though I must say that his complexion was a little oily for my tastes.”
“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” I said, feeling panic rising.
“Signor Ballio only wanted to know why we had left the Bearpark household.”
“He told you his name?”
“Of course he did. In fact, he was the most charming man and invited me to visit him at any time in the doge’s palace.”
“And what reason did you give for our departure?”
“I said that John Bearpark keeps a dirty house and that we were unsettled by the rancid food from his kitchen. That’s why we left his filthy establishment.”
“Did he believe you?”
Mother gave me the oddest look. “Of course he did, Oswald. Because it’s the truth.” Then she frowned. “Though I must say that I don’t know why the doge’s palace would be quite so interested in our movements.” She raised her eyebrows and looked into space. “Perhaps they have plans to invite us to a feast? Now that we are rid of Bearpark’s low company, we have come to the attention of the doge.” She gave a short and haughty huff. “No wonder that man was never invited to join their Golden Book. Who would have—”
“Mother, please. Did you say anything about our plans to leave Venice?”
She placed her hands back in her lap and spoke with calm consideration. “No. Of course I didn’t,” she said. “Though I can’t see why it should be such a secret.”
I hesitated, but it was time that she knew the truth—or at least the palatable version of it. “I’m in a dispute with certain people in this city,” I said. “And I would rather that our departure went unnoticed.”
She scanned my face for more information. “What people?” she asked. “What dispute?”
“I’ll tell you more once we’ve got away from here. But they are dangerous, Mother, so it’s important that nobody knows our plan.”
She studied me again, discovering nothing more at this second pass. “Very well then,” she said at length. “But it won’t be easy to depart from this inn without somebody remarking upon it.”
“That’s why we will leave in the night,” I said, “wearing our oldest and plainest clothes.”
“Are we to go in disguise then?” Her face lit up. “How exciting. We will be like the empress Matilda, fleeing from Oxford Castle in a white gown, so that she might not be seen against the frozen river.”
“A simple gray cloak will suffice, Mother. We just want to look like ordinary travellers.”
“And when will we leave?”
“Tomorrow night. In the meantime, you must buy those items I told you about before, while I stay hidden in this room. If anybody calls for me, then you must say that I’ve gone out and refused to disclose my destination.”
“I can’t see why you wouldn’t tell me where you were going,” she said. “That’s not a very believable story.”
I felt my chest tightening. “Just say that you think I’ve gone out to gamble somewhere. That’s why I was being so secretive.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Gambling? That doesn’t sound like you, Oswald.”
“Just say it, Mother.”
We might have continued our discussion, when there was a knock at the door. I panicked, thinking that Ballio and his men had returned—though the knock was timidly made and was hardly that of a soldier’s. “By the breath of Christ,” said Mother. “Who is this now? Anyone would think I was offering to hear confession in this room.”
The knock came again and was a little more insistent at this strike.
Mother got slowly to her feet. “Get under the bed, Oswald, and I’ll get rid of them.” Now she shouted loudly. “Don’t come in. I’m not dressed.” Then she ambled to the door as I followed her instructions and rolled beneath the bedstead. Watching her feet from my hiding place on the shiny, ferrous-red of the terrazzo, I could see that she opened the door only the smallest crack. “Yes. What do you want?” she said.
I heard a voice from the other side of the door, and when Mother finally allowed this visitor entry to the room, I knew the feet immediately. The shoes were pointed and clean—immune to the filth of the streets—and the hose was knitted from the finest wool, which did not sag at the knees or ankles. It could be no other person than Giovanni. As I edged forward from my position beneath the bedstead to look at his face, I could see that he was unusually disheveled. His hair was no longer curled, and he looked as if he had just risen from bed. “I’m sorry to bother you, my lady,” he stuttered, now bowing his head. “I didn’t wish to alarm you.”
Mother tilted her nose into the air, making the most of this apology. “Well you did. Thumping on the door like Janus. What’s the matter with you?”
He bowed again. “Please. I need to speak to Oswald urgently.”
“He’s not here. He’s gone out gambling.”
Giovanni seemed uncomfortable. “Gambling? But I must speak to him personally, my lady.” He poked a finger nervously into his ear. “There’s been a malamity at Ca’ Bearpark.”
“Malamity? What are you talking about?”
“It is a tragic happening.”
Mother strode back toward the door. “We have no interest in Ca’ Bearpark, nor its malamities.” She put her hand to the door handle. “Now please, go.”
Giovanni hesitated. “Please could you ask Lord Somershill to return to Ca’ Bearpark. As soon as he is able.”
“Why, in God’s name, would he do that?” said Mother, now opening the door. “Your master was very insulting to us.”
Giovanni’s voice became desperate. “Please, my lady. It’s Monna Filomena.”
“What about her?”
“My master has locked her into a bedchamber and sent me to fetch the guards from the palace.”
Mother coughed. “And why would that be?”
“My master believes she murdered Enrico. He wants to see her hang in the Piazzetta.”
I crawled out from beneath the bed, causing Giovanni to shriek. “Oswald. You frightened me. Why were you hiding?”
“That doesn’t matter. What are you saying about Filomena?”
Giovanni wiped the sweat from his brow. “My master swears she is guilty of the murder.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
The sweat now beaded upon Giovanni’s top lip, like a raindrop on a pane of glass. “I know. But my master says that her brother, Adolpho, was the murderer. That it was a plan be
tween the two of them to kill his only male heir and keep his money.”
None of this made sense. “But Adolpho was also murdered. Does Bearpark think his wife also killed her own brother?”
“He says that Monna Filomena was frightened that her brother would talk, so she paid somebody to kill him.”
This story was preposterous. “What with? She never has any money!”
“My master has become wild with a madness, Oswald,” said Giovanni. “I cannot reason with him. He swears his wife is guilty, and nothing will change his mind.”
He looked at me with red eyes. He was in earnest, and yet this sudden devotion to Filomena came as a surprise, for I had never seen him show anything but animosity toward the woman. “Does Bearpark know that you’ve come here?” I said.
“No, no. He doesn’t.” Giovanni wrung his hands through his hair, creating greasy lines through his uncombed locks. “He thinks that I’ve gone to the palace. To inform the guards of Monna Filomena’s guilt.” He started to shake. “My master has lost his mind, Oswald, and you’re the only person who can stop this. Please. I beg you. Tell him to release his wife. Tell him she’s innocent!”
I reached for my cloak, when Mother pulled me to one side. “What are you doing, Oswald?”
“I must speak to Bearpark, Mother. It won’t take long.”
Mother pulled tighter. “But what about these dangerous people who are looking for you?” she whispered. “I thought you intended to remain hidden in this room.”
“I’ll stay out of sight.”
Still she would not release her grasp. “But what if the girl is guilty?”
“She’s not.”
“You’re so sure, are you?” She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Her husband is very old. I can’t imagine that she married Bearpark for any other reason than the size of his fortune and the promise of his quick death.” I tried to pull away, but she held on to me. “Listen to me, Oswald. If Enrico Bearpark had lived, then he would have inherited Bearpark’s fortune, wouldn’t he?” She looked over her shoulder to make sure that Giovanni wasn’t listening. “Now that Enrico is dead, Monna Filomena will have it all.”
“Filomena didn’t kill Enrico. And she didn’t kill her own brother.”
Mother still refused to release me. In fact, she pushed me farther into the corner. “But it’s not such an outlandish accusation, is it?” she said. “And it was her brother who you chased away from the water gate, wasn’t it?” She fixed me with one of her glares. “That’s what you wrote in your pamphlet.”
“You’re not supposed to read my notes. They’re private.”
She shook her head as if her snooping into my personal things were a mere triviality. “I think you’re being naïve, Oswald. You assume Monna Filomena is innocent, just because she has a pleasing face and a pair of bouncing breasts.”
“And you assume she’s guilty because you’re jealous of her.”
She reddened. “What nonsense! I am a very fair-minded woman. Above such childish spite.” She folded her arms and fixed me with a stern glare. “But I can’t see that Bearpark would accuse his own wife without good reason. He might be a foolish old toad, but he must have some evidence against her.”
“Then he can tell me when I visit him,” I said, tying the cords of my cloak.
She gave a disgruntled shake of her head. “So, you mean to go then?” she said. “You will put your own safety at risk?” She rolled her eyes. “No. You will put our safety at risk. For the sake of this girl?”
“I can’t leave Venice without trying to save her, Mother. You must understand that.”
She sighed, before regarding me with a look of resignation. “You’re in love with the foolish creature, aren’t you?”
I stood back. “No. Of course I’m not.”
“There’s no harm in it, Oswald.” She smiled. “In fact I’m pleased that somebody has stirred your loins at long last. You’ve been miserable for too long.”
“I’m not in love with Filomena,” I said. “You’re totally wrong about that.”
“We’ll see.”
I turned back to find that Giovanni was standing a good deal closer than I had expected. At first I thought he must have heard our conversation, but then I changed my mind—for his expression was hard to read. I saw only the slightest flicker of emotion behind his dark eyes, and, at the time I could not decipher its meaning.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It wasn’t long after our marriage that Mary told me she was expecting a child. This news should not have come as a surprise, since we had become enthusiastic lovers, after the fumblings and embarrassment of our wedding night. I was pleased to hear the news of the child, though not perhaps as pleased as Mary had hoped. For the truth was this: I knew the dangers of childbirth. Which man didn’t? By conceiving a new life, we had put her own life at risk.
But Mary was excited at the news, and, over time, I became accustomed to, even excited by, the idea myself. Mary was young and strong. She would withstand labor and give birth to our child without any problems. Sometimes, however, when I held Mary in my arms and stroked her full belly, I could not help but dwell upon Becky’s curse. How foolish I was to give any credence to such nonsense. I found it hard enough to believe in God, let alone curses, and yet her words did trouble me. More than I cared to admit.
Mary went into labor in the early hours of a Sunday morning. At first the pains were far apart in their frequency. The midwife was called, Mary was locked in the ladies’ bedchamber, and I was locked out. I waited outside, but on the odd occasion that I was able to look inside the room, I could see nothing but the glow of a candle. The windows had been covered with thick tapestries, and the floor covered with rugs and furs. It seemed as if the chamber were a womb itself. Warm, dark, and red.
There was scurrying activity to begin with, but then the energy went out of Mary’s labor, and it was replaced by long periods of silence. Mother urged me to go hunting or to inspect the progress of the wheat harvest in the demesne fields. I couldn’t leave the house, however, I wanted to be with Mary—but every time I tried to enter the room, a dam of sturdy-looking women blocked my progress. Each had their sleeves rolled up. Each was sweating, since the heat in the room was intense and suffocating. They told me to leave immediately, in tones they would never normally use to their lord.
I began to sense that something was wrong on the second day of labor, though none of the women attending the birth would speak to me willingly. There were complications apparently. What complications were these? I demanded to know. Still, nobody would tell me. I was beginning to feel as important as the lowest kitchen scullion in this whole affair. Even though I had sired the child who was about to be born, and even though it was my own wife confined inside the wretched furnace-like room. In the end, I grabbed one of the younger women as she scurried through the door in search of fresh linen. Cornered by her lord, she had no choice but to tell me what was happening.
The child was in the breech position. Where the head should have been pressing against the neck of the womb, it was the child’s bottom or its legs, she was not sure which. The women had tried to move the child back into the correct position, but it refused to budge. Inside the chamber I now heard Mary’s calls. She sounded vigorous and affronted, and cursed me and her unborn baby to the high heavens. More than once, Mother rapped upon the door and told her that Somershill was inhabited by Christians who did not want to listen to such uncouth barbarity.
And so the labor dragged on into a third day. Mary’s cries of indignation were gone, and in their place came only a soft groaning. I waited outside, still denied entry. But when I was told she was too tired to push, and that she ran a high fever, I forced my way into the dark and cloistered room and rushed to my wife’s side.
She was laid in bed, in a loose chemise, with her long hair hanging stickily about her head. I lifted water to her lips, and then I held her poor and limp hand in my own and tried to whisper encouragement and soothing
overtures of my love. But I’m not sure she even knew who I was. The vigor of life had left her, and she seemed dazed and disoriented. When she spoke, it was of the old days, when she had been a young girl. Of her pet cat and the great eagle that she had once nursed back to health. At that moment I felt both guilty and hateful. Our child was killing her, like a creeper vine strangling a precious tree. I wanted so much to bury my head in her breast and cry—but what purpose would such a display of hopelessness achieve?
I insisted upon examining Mary myself—much to the horror and violent protestation of the midwife. By this point I could no longer tolerate the woman’s insubordination and constant warnings that this room was not a place for men. I had studied under a monastery infirmarer, so I knew enough about anatomy—so I sent her from the room and then lifted Mary’s chemise tentatively, before pushing her damp and lifeless legs apart. Looking at the opening to Mary’s vagina, it seemed clear enough that the midwife’s diagnosis was correct. There was nothing to see. The child was pressing only lightly upon the neck of the womb, and was not helping itself to be born. In fact, I doubted that the creature was still alive. There had been no discernible movement from beneath Mary’s belly for many hours.
I was considering whether to push my hand into the birth canal and attempt to pull the child from the womb somehow, when Mary grabbed my hand. “Oswald. Is that you?” She was lucid, though her voice was weak and thin.
I kissed her face. “Yes, Mary. It’s me.”
“I’m going to die soon,” she told me. It was her matter-of-fact voice, and I shouldn’t have argued.
“No. Mary,” I said, trying to stifle my shock at this announcement, “that’s not true.”
“Yes it is,” she said, managing to conjure up some typical crossness from somewhere within her. “Don’t quarrel with me.” Then she whispered, “I have something to ask of you. A promise you must make.”
“Of course, Mary. I promise to do anything you ask.”