I stiffened as though he had struck me, but he had turned away, demanding more wine from a nearby servant in a voice that made the man stumble and nearly drop the flagon. I looked at Sandro, expecting to see him incensed or ashamed, or both; instead, he was making a comically rueful face, and as he met my gaze he winked.
"It takes wit to do it well," he observed blandly. "But for our father's lustihood I would have been the son of a horsecoper—as it is, I have had my living from the state since I was three years old. I thank its bounty. You must bethink you, lady—concoct a proof that says you are the daughter of a king, and your true father cannot betray you."
I saw the archbishop's eyes flicker in something like consternation, then the duke's hand closed over mine so hard that I nearly cried out.
"Your speculations do not fit the time, Brother." He still spoke curtly, but his black mood had changed from anger to abstraction. "We will ponder the question at a fitter time, when perhaps we can lighten her ignorance of her true father."
Disbelievingly, I tried to remind him that not even the Duke of Cabria would be able to find my father after so many years; but the pressure of his fingers silenced me, and I suffered Sandro to pick up the thread of his earlier discourse.
On the second and third days, food was carried into the council chamber so that the debate could continue uninterrupted. For all that time I never saw the duke save at night, when he came to my bed, and he never spoke of what had chanced. When I asked questions, he called me presumptuous, silencing me with his mouth and making love to me so unmercifully that I had no thought for anything beyond his pitiless, exquisite carnality. He wore me out at last, and when I fell asleep, no wiser than I had been before, no nightmare of his came to wake me.
By day I felt curiously lonely despite the occupation of my studies. As Sandro had promised, Maddalena returned to my service, oppressing me with her incessant, inward spite. All she did was done grudgingly, with an air of fierce contempt that made me half-afraid of her, and the pity and sympathy I felt for her were alike unwanted; she treated me with such disdain that I hardly dared speak to her. I could not even ask her not to attend me; if Domenico should hear, he would construe it as a complaint and do more than I meant. I could only submit to her untender ministrations and hope that the tangle would resolve itself at last.
Niccolosa would not allow me to study all day long, and I walked with her twice a day, learning my way about the palace. It was like a grim stone warren, with its galleries and drafty passages and time-hollowed stone stairs, but she knew every inch of the way, and I supposed she had known it all her life. The courtiers we met affected not to see me, and one or two spurned me as they would have done if I had never been taken up by the duke. It was a sour little reminder that I owed even their civility to Domenico's reflected power.
I missed his protection sorely, not only against the court's contempt but against Piero's increasing insolence, for without the check of his lord's presence, Piero became the bane of my life. I was never free of him. He would stroll in upon me while I was dressing or making ready to retire for the night; he would be waiting in doorways or in corridors when I went walking and would elbow Niccolosa from my side to take my arm—the privilege, he said, of the duke's chosen envoy. If Father Vincenzo sent a servant to his study for a book or fresh parchment for our lessons, Piero would enter with it in his hand. I began to start at shadows, fearing that he would step bowing from their screen to pour his interminable insinuations and reproaches into my ears.
For he upbraided me now as roundly as the strictest confessor. I began to wonder whether I had imagined the smooth-tongued bawd who had begged my virginity for the duke, for now he constantly condemned me for surrendering it. It was as though he was fascinated by the thing he loathed, because his talk was a stream of indecent speculation mingled with disgusted invective. Something had made his tongue as bitter as jealousy.
At first I thought that his exclusion from the council had made him waspish enough to want to bait me; but there was true rancor at the core of his railing against Domenico, and his threats of what he would do with me when the duke wearied of me were more than idle.
It was on the morning of the fourth day that my unease at last ignited into anger. I had told myself that my own fears might be shaping the man's innocent proceedings to something greater; but that day he came to my chamber early, unannounced and uninvited, and I knew that he had purposely chosen his time.
I was standing in my petticoat, waiting for Niccolosa to pull the gown over my head, when I saw over her shoulder that he had come into the room. He was standing just inside the door, thoughtfully stroking his beard. His eyes were fixed on me, and for a moment I could have sworn that he licked his lips.
"Well, my lord" — I shook my hair forward quickly, knowing that it would hide my bare breasts as surely as a cloak— "was that what you came for?"
"Why, my good mistress!" He stepped forward with an artificial laugh. "If I wish to see Diana Outraged, there is a tapestry in the west tower that shows her with Actaeon—it is something worm-eaten but well enough to gaze upon. Why should I seek for better?"
"You know that best yourself, unless it is court manners to come in on a woman uninvited."
"You are too nice in your talk of manners." He came nearer. "But foul enough, I swear, in your deeds at night, my lady Hypocrisy."
Niccolosa stepped back as he approached, but I stood my ground. "How dare you call me hypocrite? You have no cause!"
"To deny a sight to one man that you give another freely! Is that honest?"
"Honest enough to the duke. You have no claim on me."
"Not yet," he agreed, watching me shrewdly.
"Nor ever, if I can prevent it."
"If you can! I am glad you have no great estimate of your power, because you are like to lose it shortly."
I crossed my arms before me, my fingers digging into my own flesh. "What do you mean?"
"Only that one of the council was in his cups last night and told me what His Grace is debating in council." Piero smiled lightly. "It seems he thinks of choosing himself a wife." I was silent for so long that he spoke again, impatiently. "Where is your power now?"
"I had none to lose," I said in a whisper. "Who is it he means to marry?"
"That is what they are debating—the duke says one woman, the archbishop another, and the Bastard ferments their quarreling because he would not have his brother marry at all! But it is sure that he will marry, and soon too, so you had better lesson yourself to speak to me softer."
I had to shake myself out of some sort of dream. "Please go, my lord. I am cold."
"I thought this news would make you sing a humbler note!" His fingers, shapeless and as smooth as a lady's, gripped my wrists and pulled them down. "Once the duke's thoughts are full of his bride, he will have no time for you—I know well enough he does not return to a dish he has picked over — but we need not wait on his consent like a troth-plighted couple. Give me some earnest now."
I knew he meant to kiss me and twisted to avoid him, beating at him as well as I could with my pinioned hands. He kept his hold on my wrists, however, and said with his high bubbling laugh, "You cannot strike me this time."
I was struggling so hard that his kiss missed my mouth and fastened hotly on my shoulder, and the next moment Niccolosa's bony hands gripped me and pulled me away from him. I looked up to see her confronting him, stiff with outrage.
"The duke has not forsaken my young lady yet, Lord Piero." Her harsh accent was suddenly more emphatic. "Nor is he likely to from all I can see. You had better leave her in peace from this day on, or I would not give a groat for your life."
He retreated before her, eyeing her as a ram does a sheepdog. "How long have you been so hot in defense of the Duke of Cabria's whores?" he demanded viciously. "Or have we converted you at last from your creed of chastity—as my tongue converted her?"
"I know how willingly she went to Cabria's bed." I thought dazedly t
hat I had never heard Niccolosa speak so unsteadily. "I saw her face when you took her to him, and I can tell true fear from feigned as well as I could twenty years ago." She bit her lip as though she had said too much and then continued brokenly, "But that is dead and buried. All the past is dead, and now I bear no one any ill will, my young lady least of all. Leave her in peace, my lord, or I shall see to it that you regret this morning's work."
For a long moment Piero looked at her, visibly weighing his courage with his discretion. Then he turned on his heel and went without another word.
I had not meant to weep, but Niccolosa's unyielding embrace was inexpressibly comforting. Her unexpected championship did not make her any gentler; she spoke to me tartly until I grew quieter and had regained control of myself, and then she helped me to put on my gown. It was as she turned away to fold my discarded nightrobe that I saw the tiny roll of paper lying on the floor near my foot and bent quickly to pick it up.
Piero must have dropped it by accident; he could not have meant it for me, I thought wryly, for he knew my skill at letters well enough. Out of curiosity I unrolled it and then stared at it in perplexity. I had not hoped to make out what it said, but here there were no letters, only patterns of wavy lines like an ostler's tally. It must be some mountebank's spell, I decided, or a wise woman's philter that Piero was keeping.
Niccolosa said gruffly, "Father Vincenzo will wonder what has become of you, my lady," and I crumpled the paper covertly into my hand, thinking that I could give it back when I saw Piero again.
I was hurrying towards Father Vincenzo's room when someone came rushing out of one of the antechambers and cannoned into me. I jumped, expecting it to be Piero — the palace corridors were dim on the brightest day—but it was Sandro, his square face set and determination in his blue eyes.
"You will be late for the council," I said as he checked, exasperation on his face. "Go on—it does not matter."
At that he halted, his unwontedly grim air melting into a comradely grin. "Let them wait," he declared, scrabbling about after my strewn books and papers. "I will not let you think me a boor for forty brothers."
In moments he had gathered them up and thrust them into my arms, and I laughed shakily and thanked him. He was turning to go when he stopped again and picked up something from the floor.
"Here is some privy conveyance of yours. You had best not let my brother—"
He broke off, staring with knitted brows at what was in his hand, and I saw he held Piero's paper. "Where did you get this?" he demanded roughly.
"It is something of my lord Piero's. I think he dropped it while he was speaking to me, and I was keeping it to give it back."
"Do you know what it is?"
I shook my head. "I thought it was a charm."
"If it is, it is a wicked one. This is a cipher, lady." He flicked the paper with a disdainful thumbnail. "I think my lord Piero has been selling his allegiance where he should not; this does not come from any of the factions about the court."
"From Spain, perhaps?" I thought of the banished duchess and her Spanish kin, but Sandro, his attention still on the paper, said, "No, not from Spain," as though the idea were nonsense.
"Where, then?"
"I do not know, but I mean to find out." He looked up and seemed to see me again at last. "With your leave, I will take this to my great-uncle. No man knows more of codes like this than he—he has traded in such matters for too many years to be unable to interpret this. When I know what it says, we may think again. It may be nothing," he added reassuringly, "a love note from della Quercia's latest boy, or only some tongue that I cannot read. If so, you can be sure I will give it back to him and say I found it by chance."
"And if not?"
"If not, he is intriguing against my brother." Sandra's eyes rested calculatingly on my expression, and he let out a quiet whistle. "Do you care so much? Well, fortunate Domenico! He does not know that yet. I can give you back this riddle." He held it out in the palm of his hand, "and yours will be the blame for what it breeds; or I can take it to my lord archbishop, and he and I will see it safely unraveled. One way it will be my brother's bane, the other della Quercia's. What shall I do?"
I looked at the apparently harmless thing and hesitated, sickened. Then I said, "Keep it," and turned my head away.
He drew a quick breath of relief. "Thanks, fair lady. This will be a passport to the council's forgiveness when I arrive so late. Otherwise they would jam me on a spit and roast me."
He was off and running, clutching the poisonous scrap of paper, before I could answer. My brain felt giddy; my fingers trembled as I clutched the pile of books and papers, and I went on towards Father Vincenzo's room, not daring to contemplate the consequences of what I had done.
Father Vincenzo was helping me to write my name, and I stared in awe as the pen held in our two hands shaped the letters on the parchment.
"That is 'Felicia.' " The priest smiled kindly. "What is your surname?"
My fingers slackened on the pen. "I have no right to one—I only know my mother's, and my brother said I must not call myself by it after she died."
"Your brother is not here to chide you now. What was your mother's name?"
I said, "Guardi," and he nodded, his hand tightening over mine.
"There. It is written. Soon you will be able to write your name as well as any clerk and set it down instead of making a mark."
"You speak as though I were a child." I smiled at him. "But I am only childish in not knowing my letters."
"That is all that concerns me." There was an odd note in his voice. "To me you are only my pupil—all the rest I had rather forget."
The memory that sometimes made speech difficult between us came back to me then, and I looked up almost with relief as the door opened. It was the quartet, in full force and full cry.
It had taken me days even to distinguish them one from another, but now I was beginning to know them. Guido Vassari, the little gnomelike man who had fetched me to the banquet on that first night; Baldassare Lucello, tall and thin; Riccardo D'Esti, thickset and with a rictus smile seemingly painted on his lips; and Andrea Regnovi, who looked like a woman in a man's clothes: all so encrusted in artificiality that the natural men were lost within the glittering shells.
"Lady, the council is ended."
"His Grace sends for you."
"He awaits you in the council chamber."
"And we are to escort you to him now."
They all spoke at once, filling the quiet room with their shrill voices, and I glanced at Father Vincenzo. But he, after a long look at my face, was quietly putting away the pens and ink, and I wondered if my sudden inexplicable joy at the summons was visible in my expression.
Feeling rather like a sparrow caught in a flock of rowdy starlings, I let myself be drawn after the quartet down the great staircase to the door of the council chamber. They halted then, their busy tongues stilled, and I could hear voices within before Guido, his sharp face a careful blank, stepped forward and knocked. The talk broke off, and someone gave a sharp summons. Guido inserted himself nimbly around the door jamb.
"We have brought the lady, Your Grace."
Hands thrust me forward, and I found myself in the doorway, looking down the length of a huge table made of shining jasper, straight into Domenico's eyes. He held his hand out to me without speaking; and it was then, as I went to him like a falcon flying to his fist, that I realized I loved him.
I knew then, looking up at him, that I had been deceiving myself, calling this feeling by any name but love. Lust for the beautiful animal who had seduced me, fear of the vicious tyrant, compassion for the haunted man who cried like a lost child in my arms—they were only part of what I felt for him. Fate had lured me into the ultimate folly, and now I was trapped in total love.
The black eyes glimmered down at me. "We have been turning over some trinkets, Felicia, and cannot decide which we ought to purchase. Look and tell me what you think is the fairest."
I looked down at the tabletop. Strewn across it were a dozen or so trinkets, fragments of bright color reflected in the shining surface like dragonflies on the water. They were pictures, so gorgeously painted and cunningly framed that I blinked at them, hardly knowing what they were at first. I felt the councilors' eyes on me as I picked up one carved like an ivory flower and saw inside it a painting of a plump, golden-haired girl with a child's pouting lips belied by her full breasts. I knew then what the pictures were.
I said, "I cannot choose without knowing what you seek, Your Grace. Is it the lady's beauty or the artist's cleverness that I am to judge?"
"Oh, the subject." It was the archbishop who answered me. "Pay no heed to the painting!"
I thanked him unemotionally and looked at the picture again. Someone coughed and said that that was Lydia Renaldi, the daughter of the Duke of Parma, and I forced myself to raise my eyes to Domenico's.
"Why does she send you her picture, Your Grace?"
"Parma himself sent it six months since." He was watching me as a cat watches a mouse. "And my father deferred the question; but now I am in the market for a wife."
Whether he meant to or no, Piero had done me a favor by telling me this news this morning, for now I could hear it unflinching. "Is that what you have been debating?"
"For four mortal days." His eyes never left my face, "I never had a stomach for it before—that nightly drudge is a breeding ground for hate—but I think with some policy, and a tolerable wench, I might be brought to endure the marriage yoke. All my uncle's sermons"—he glanced fleetingly at the archbishop—"have borne fruit—the dukedom needs an heir, he tells me, and has urged it ever since Gratiana refused to curb her pleasures for the sake of bearing a child. Do you favor any of these?"
I stared at the pictures through a mist of tears, willing myself to handle them carefully when I longed to smash them to fragments. "Are all these rivals in your market?"
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