He looked startled. "What is it?"
"It was something the lord Ippolito said, and then he told me he dared not speak of it. We were talking of the archbishop, and he said that once he died, the pope would excommunicate us all. What did he mean?"
There was an intent look on the young priest's face. "You have heard of this before?"
"All my life. My mother spoke of it when I was a child, but she died before I was old enough to understand what she meant, and so I have never understood it."
"It was a thing every Cabrian was told by proclamation many years ago, when the edict was passed. Do the commons not teach the story to their children?"
"I know as much as I have told you."
"It must be proclaimed again." The Jesuit spoke with unexpected force. "I will speak to the duke; the people forget what is not before their eyes. This is not a tale to tell in haste, but the time we have must serve." He hesitated a moment, choosing his words. "You know that the whole state of Cabria was once ruled by the pope?"
I nodded. "It is why he is always seeking to invade us, to win it back."
"You know that much truth, at least. Listen, daughter. Fifty years ago the Papal States stretched from Rome to the sea. The lands were so vast that the popes allowed servants to rule in their name, and one such ruled here, in Cabria. The pope then was content that it should be so, but when he died and his successor was elected, it was found that the legate had been lining his own purse by coining money from the Papal Mint at Fidena and pledging the pope's credit to the richest of the local nobles, Duke Riccardo della Raffaelle. He was Duke Domenico's grandfather." I nodded mutely.
"The legate was executed by the new pope and a successor appointed, but by then the Papacy was so deeply in debt to the Raffaelles that when Pope Pius came to repay them, he had to reduce his household servants to do so. Then when the legate's successor died, Duke Riccardo demanded the election of his younger brother, who was a bishop, to take his place. Pius refused."
"What did the duke do then?"
"What one would expect of a Raffaelle." The priest gave a slight smile. "He rebelled and took power by force, proclaimed his brother and himself joint rulers, and seized the mint for his own use. The pope was then old and dying and could not stop him, and his successor—another Pius— had troubles enough abroad and was willing to elect a della Raffaelle to the archbishopric in return for peace and the cancellation of the debt. By the time he learned that Duke Riccardo was ruling Cabria and would not accept papal authority, it was too late."
"But what has this to do with..."
"Wait, and I will tell you. The story is not much longer. Pope Pius threatened Riccardo and all his subjects with excommunication if they did not return to Rome; but the duke's answer was that if he did that, he must excommunicate the archbishop, whom he himself had elected. So the pope did nothing. After ten years Duke Riccardo died and his son Carlo succeeded him; now Duke Domenico holds the state in defiance of Rome. The popes after Pius have been too busy—or perhaps too compassionate—to excommunicate a dukedom of so many souls."
"Why did they not?" I asked blankly.
"I have told you. They would have to excommunicate Rome's own archbishop."
"Then our archbishop—the duke's uncle—"
"His great-uncle, daughter," the priest corrected calmly, "is Duke Riccardo's brother, Francesco della Raffaelle. The pope is waiting for him to die, as he and his predecessors have waited for forty years."
I moved to cross myself, superstitiously. "He must be so old!"
"Not so very old. He was not twenty when he was made bishop—money is a great power in the Holy Church. But you see" — Father Vincenzo straightened his shoulders — "why such pains are taken to preserve his life. The pope's mercy hangs upon it indeed and grows more precarious day by day."
"I see." At last I fully understood the haunted look on the archbishop's face, the harshness that sat on him like the stamp of physical pain.
"... The common people must be told over again. It is eight and thirty years since Cabria was proclaimed independent, and those who heard the true facts then have forgotten them. At court the archbishop himself makes us a memento mori, but we should have known that the people would forget. Perhaps they would hate him less if they knew the truth."
I stared at him blindly, only half hearing the words. "If the archbishop and the duke were to ask the pope's mercy, could they not be saved even now?"
"Perhaps. But for a della Raffaelle to give up such power willingly!—"
I said no more, but my heart ached for Domenico, growing to manhood under the shadow of damnation and daring fate with such arrogance.
"They are a proud family, and all Cabria must pay for their pride." There was a tired look on the priest's face. "Come, daughter, or you will be sought for. I will be here three days hence, at the same hour, if you have need of me."
I thanked him and took a hasty leave, but part of my brain said: and I? Will I be here three days hence?
"You are lacked, my lady." Niccolosa's voice greeted me as I entered the tapestried chamber. "His Grace has ordered the court dressmaker to attend on you, and mercers and all manner of others to supply your wants. He is coming himself to see you choose your gowns."
An extraordinary feeling of suffocation swept me. I said, "I have enough already."
"You are to be furnished with more—His Grace has ordered it." To Niccolosa there was no more to say.
"Has he asked for me?" In spite of myself, my voice sounded anxious.
"Not yet, but he sent word you were to be ready by three o'clock. You are come just in time." Even as she spoke, I heard footsteps in the corridor outside, and the sound of voices. "His Grace! Quickly, my lady..."
Niccolosa twitched my disordered skirts into place as the door opened, and I turned, bracing myself instinctively. Servants entered with rolls of cloth, and others with mysterious bags and bundles, then a tall man with a flared demicape about his shoulders, and finally the duke, with the inevitable herd of courtiers at his heels.
I realized with a sinking heart that the duke's generosity and my thanks were to serve as their after-noon's entertainment; the smile on Piero's lips told me that he at least was relishing the prospect of my humiliation. But Domenico had stopped on the threshold and was speaking over his shoulder, lazily.
"Leave us.... We do not require a conclave for this business. We can judge these goods the better in private."
There was the sound of a stifled protest, then a flurry as the courtiers bowed and withdrew, and I stood listening to their busy footsteps fading away outside. I told myself that my trembling was due to fear of how my absence had been discovered.
"Your Grace, I am no judge of what I should wear, and I do not need..."
"We will judge for you. Never fear. You have only to show yourself to us in these stuffs." His gesture encompassed the bolts of treasure strewn about the room. "And we will be your arbiter. Taccone, show your merchandise to this lady."
The dressmaker bowed and with glistening eyes moved around the room, unrolling bales that spilled in torrents; black velvet, silver bullion, shimmering silk; stiff brocades embroidered with silver thread and encrusted with pearls; jetty silk rimmed with diamonds and cloth of pure silver. He threw back muslin covers to reveal gowns ready-made, bodices clasped with silver, collars of lace, petticoats of whispering taffeta. For a moment I blinked and was dazzled, struck dumb, and then Domenico said, "Sirrah, do your work—and do it well; you were best."
While the dressmaker and his servants scurried around me, Domenico lounged at his ease, watching and now and then giving a sharp direction; but for the rest of the time he talked to me, idle gossip of things that did not matter. I found myself telling him of my life in the city as though it were long past, a story that had happened to someone else, and I could even mention my stepfather's name lightly.
"Did you never try to find out the man who sired you?" he questioned negligently.
I shook m
y head, causing the dressmaker to give a cluck of reproach.
"How could I? He cannot even have known he fathered me, and it must have been twenty years ago or more."
His eyes narrowed. "Do you not know how old you are?"
"Not exactly. I think I must be twenty or so, but no one counted very carefully after my mother died."
Domenico nodded thoughtfully, and I thought he said, "That will do"; then he stood up. It had grown dark outside the slitted window, and his eyes were gleaming strangely. "Enough, Taccone— those I approved I shall take."
The dressmaker bowed low. "Yes, Your Grace—the Genoese silk, the Spanish velvet, the two brocades." He was numbering them on his fingers. "The cloth of silver, and..."
"Spare us your arithmetic, sirrah. Make them up as I directed and leave those other gowns here."
"As Your Grace wills—and the one the lady is wearing now?"
"You should ask her. Felicia, do you like it?"
"No, Your Grace," I answered awkwardly. "It is—far too fine—for me."
"The truth." It was like the faint purr of a leopard, and the laughter in it stung me. Gloved fingers gripped my shoulders and swung me around so that I faced the long glass behind me. I could see his fair reflection towering over me, my own pale face and apprehensive eyes, my body stiff in the elaborate gown. "What do you dislike?"
I stared at the spreading farthingale, the double sleeves, the tightly fitting bodice, and the gauze-draped neckline with its high, wired collar framing my face. His fingers tightened a little, impatiently. "Well? It is Taccone's latest fashion."
"In the city only the whores wear gowns like this." I had not meant to blurt it out so, brief and unvarnished, but now I had to go on. "I had rather wear what I have worn till now than dress so lewdly."
"Nevertheless, you must do our pleasure in this." His arms came around me, pulling me back against him, and I met his eyes in the glass. "Our mistress is not to be bound by yeomen's rules of niceness."
I made a small, desperate sound as his hand slid possessively over my breast; then he gripped the veiling gauze and tore.
"I am duke of this province, too," he said thickly, "and I do not sue to see my own domains."
I tensed under his caressing fingers, but it was no use. What little modesty the gown had had was gone, and my breasts were almost bare to Domenico's touch. At last, when I was trembling and pliant against him, he smiled very slightly and drew away. "That will do, Taccone. Make them all in this fashion."
The dressmaker bowed delightedly, only the faintest of leers on his thin face. The servants stood rigid and wooden; I thought bitterly that they must be used to such scenes. I stood immobile while Domenico chose gloves for me, scarves, ribbons, brooches, and chains, decking me like a doll. When he had done, he looked down at me with a mocking smile in his eyes.
"Will you not thank me?"
I said stonily, "Your Grace has done what pleases you."
"Ungrateful, Felicia." His fingertip flicked the side of my neck, and I winced, as though it had burned me. "I thought it would please you. All women are greedy for fine clothes."
"I am not all women," I rejoined, and he nodded slowly.
"I am beginning to learn that. But the time has not been wasted," he added deliberately, "for now you look nearly as fair as when you are naked."
The blood stormed to my face and ebbed again as he stooped to press his lips to my throat. He was amusing himself with his latest toy, I thought: and when it ceased to amuse him...
"Come," he said softly, "the day wears. We will go in to supper, and then tonight I shall teach you how to render thanks graciously."
He had taught me much in four nights. I had learned to await his coming with excitement as well as dread; I had learned the treachery of my own flesh and was shocked by the frailty of my virtue. He had taught me that pain could be a part of pleasure and that pleasure could be a kind of pain. Now I had new fears; not of him but of myself and of the drugging rule my body could exert over my mind. At night the strangeness of the court and the vigilance kept over my own fears were melted in the growing familiarity of his body against mine, the warm scent of him and soft moans and whispers that were a whole new language. I tried to shut my ears to it, to hood my senses, but inevitably my new knowledge betrayed me so that I was lost to hungers I had not known I possessed.
And when I lay quiet, listening to the voices of contrition and self-loathing inside my head, his nightmares always came to tear him; so I held him, cradling his head to my breast like a baby's, deaf and blind to anything but his torment.
That night he talked in his sleep again, the excitement that had burned in him blazing through his dreams. I wondered that the court did not come, but most likely they dared not.
"I did not mean — I will not — oh God, the blood! — Get back from me and let me rest!"
His outflung hand caught my hair, and at the touch he screamed, a long high shriek of pure terror, flinging himself back in a violent recoil that dragged me with him. He was breathing hard and fast, and his opened eyes looked sightless. "Felicia, I dreamed..."
I looked down at him, my throat choking with compassion. "I know."
"She cannot stop me. None of them can stop me. Tomorrow..."
The next day, I knew, was the one fixed for the council. "What will you do tomorrow?"
For a moment he was silent, the silver flare of panic slowly fading from his eyes. Then he muttered, "No matter," and pulled my head down to his.
Chapter Four
I woke the next morning to find the duke already stirring. He stooped over me to kiss me good morning, drawing the covers up as he did so and tucking them under my chin.
"I must attend the council today, Felicia. Stay abed for a little, and I will have Piero send your women to you."
He was dressed, I saw, in the severest Spanish fashion, making him look older, more awe-inspiring, and even more princely. A great ruff brushed his firm jaw; his supple prowl had become a conscious elegance, as though he had put on majesty as a whore puts on paint, as a mask and as a weapon. I tried to sit up, blinking the sleep from my eyes.
"What am I to do?" It sounded stupid, childish.
"What you will." The black eyes turned from me to the door as Ippolito entered. "Yes, I am ready."
"The council attends your pleasure, Your Grace."
Domenico nodded and moved towards the door; then as he reached it, he looked back, a sardonic quirk to his lips. "I will send you to Father Vincenzo," he said maliciously. "He will fill your time when I am absent."
He did. He filled my time far longer than Domenico could have anticipated; that state council lasted for four stormy days.
Rumors ran through the court like wildfire, but no one there could even say for sure what the councilors were debating— Ippolito, as the duke's secretary, knew, but the lesser fry were excluded from the chamber. The quartet of sycophants who normally clustered about Domenico every moment of his public life hung about the gallery outside, ready to be at his elbow when he emerged and to marvel at or condole over they knew not what.
Father Vincenzo made no reference to what was happening around us. The duke had told him, he said, that he might teach me to read and write, and for those four days he taught me as rigorously as if we had enjoyed the same monkish seclusion in which he had learned his letters. It was bewildering to leave his lessons, in which I became a child again, and nothing was more important than the curl of a G or the difference that a single letter could make to the sound of a word, and go to the brawling suppers after the talk had broken off, where keeping my footing amid the chafing tempers and spiteful formality of the della Raffaelles was ten times as hard as tracing my signature.
The first evening Domenico stormed out of the chamber and into the banqueting hall white with fury, the quartet at his heels like a gaggle of distressed geese. There was no mistaking the compressed lips and dilated nostrils; someone or something had thwarted him. More dreadful than anything was hi
s silence—he did not speak, and the whole court took their seats in a hush of trepidation. On my right the archbishop sat stiffly, obstinacy and an indefinable complacency radiating from him; I knew that he had taken a stand in the council from which nothing could move him. and Domenico's violence was washing over him as a tide beats over a breakwater. The other councilors— staid older men, here a soldier and there a cleric, chosen to give the name of legality to the reigning family's absolute rule—took their cue from them and devoted their wholehearted attention to their food.
The meal dragged on in an ominous hush until I thought I could bear it no longer. No one had the courage to break the silence. Then, suddenly, Sandro began to talk. It was only a lewd rigmarole he had heard in the city streets, but he embroidered it in the telling, and the sound of his voice severed the unnatural quiet like a lifeline. The duke did not respond, but neither did he turn on his brother, and little by little the rest began to whisper together until the noise filled the great void of the hall.
I blessed its very raucousness as a return to normality. It was hard to recognize the Domenico of yesterday in the white and thwarted autocrat beside me, and I had to drag my thoughts from him to frame an answer when I realized that Sandra's last remark had been addressed to me.
"My lady Maddalena may have been slack in your service, lady." His blue eyes twinkled at me. "If so, you must blame me for it. You shall have her back tomorrow, I promise, but I have been employing her constantly till now."
"I did not know she was supposed to serve me." I spoke in genuine surprise. "Are you sure you are not mistaken, my lord? She seems too fine to be anyone's servant."
His eyebrows shot up, and he laughed. "You must not be deceived by that jade's haughty looks, my lady. She is no more fine than a waiting gentlewoman who learns her manners from the whore she serves."
I colored and said, "But I am sure she is better born than I."
"Small doubt of that," Domenico interjected savagely. "If you ask her, she can tell her father's name. You should consort with my brother, lady." His stormy dark eyes held a malevolent glitter. "You have much in common. He can teach you to make a revenue out of your bastardy."
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