by Rice, Anne
And they had taken the children. Yes, that they had done. I confirmed it before I left, for it was slow to dawn on me with all my concerns, but they had. There was not a corpse of a child on the place, only those boys of my age had been killed, but anything younger had been stolen away.
For what! For what horrors! I was beside myself.
I might have stood in the tower window, with clenched fist, consumed with anger and the vow for vendetta, if a welcome sight hadn’t distracted me. Down in the closest valley, I saw three of my horses wandering about, aimlessly, as though wanting to be called home.
At least I should have one of my finest to ride, but I had to get moving. With a horse I might just reach a town by nightfall. I didn’t know the land to the north. It was mountain country, but I had heard of a fair-sized town not too far away. I had to get there, for refuge, to think and to consult with a priest who had a brain in his head and knew demons.
My last task was ignominious and revolting to me, but I did it. I gathered up all the wealth I could carry.
This meant that I retired first to my own room, as if this were an ordinary day, dressed myself in my best dark hunter’s green silk and velvet, put on my high boots and took up my gloves, and then taking the leather bags which I could affix to my horse’s saddle, I went down into the crypt and took from my parents and my aunts and uncles their very most treasured rings, necklaces and brooches, the buckles of gold and silver which had come from the Holy Land. God help me.
Then I filled my purse with all the gold ducats and florins I could find in my father’s coffers, as if I were a thief, a very thief of the dead it seemed to me, and hefting these heavy leather bags, I went to get my mount, saddle him and bridle him and start off, a man of rank, with his weaponry, and his mink-edged cape, and a Florentine cap of green velvet, off into the forest.
4
IN WHICH I COME UPON FURTHER MYSTERIES, SUFFER SEDUCTION AND CONDEMN MY SOUL TO BITTER VALOR
Now, I was too full of rancor to be thinking straight, as I’ve already described, and surely you will understand this. But it wasn’t smart of me to go riding through the woods of Tuscany dressed so richly, and by myself, because any woods in Italy was bound to have its bandits.
On the other hand, playing the poor scholar wouldn’t have been the best choice either, it seemed to me.
I can’t claim to have made a real decision. The desire for vengeance upon the demons that had destroyed us was the only central passion I could abide.
So there I was, riding steadily by mid-afternoon, trying to keep to the valley roads as I lost sight of our towers, trying not to cry anymore like a child, but being drawn off into the mountainous land over and over again.
My head was swimming. And the landscape gave me little time to think.
Nothing could have been more forlorn.
I came within sight of two huge ruined castles very soon after my departure, copings and ramparts lost in the greedy forest, which made me mindful that these had been the holdings of old Lords who had been fool enough to resist the power of Milan or Florence. It was enough to make me doubt my sanity, enough to make me think that we had not been annihilated by demons but that common enemies had made the assault.
It was utterly grim to see their broken battlements looming against the otherwise cheerful and brilliant sky, and to come upon the overgrown fragments of villages with their tumbledown hovels and forgotten crossroads shrines in which stone Virgins or saints had sunk into spiderwebs and shadows.
When I did spy a high distant well-fortified town, I knew well it was Milanese and had no intention of going up there. I was lost!
As for the bandits, I only ran into one little ragged band, which I took on immediately with a deluge of chatter.
If anything, the little pack of idiots gave me some distraction. My blood ran as fast as my tongue:
“I’m riding in advance of a hundred men,” I declared. “We search for a band of outlaws claiming to be fighting for Sforza when they’re nothing but rapists and thieves; you seen any of them? I have a florin for each of you if you can tell me anything. We mean to cut them down on sight. I’m tired. I’m sick of this.”
I tossed them some coins.
They were off immediately.
But not before they let slip in talk of the country round that the nearest Florentine town was Santa Maddalana, which was two hours up ahead, and that it would close its gates at night, and nobody could talk his way into it.
I pretended to know all about that and to be on the way to a famous monastery that I knew lay farther north, which I couldn’t possibly have reached, and then threw more money over my shoulder as I raced off, hollering out that they ought to ride on to meet the band coming behind who would pay them for their service.
I know they were debating all the time whether to kill me and take everything I had or not. It was a matter of stares and bluffs and fast talking and standing one’s ground, and they were just utter ruffians, and somehow I got out of it.
I rode off as quickly as I could, left the main road and cut towards the slopes from which I could see in the far distance the vague outline of Santa Maddalana. A big town. I could see four massive towers all gathered near the obvious front gates, and several distinct church steeples.
I had hoped for something before this Santa Maddalana, something small, less fortified. But I couldn’t remember names or was too lost now to go looking further.
The afternoon sunshine was brilliant but now at a slant. I had to make for Santa Maddalana.
When I reached the mountain proper on which this town was built, I went up sharply on the small paths used by the shepherds.
The light was fading fast. The forest was too thick to be safe so near a walled town. I cursed them that they didn’t keep the mountain cleared, but then I had the safety of cover.
There were moments amid the deepening darkness when it seemed virtually impossible to reach the summit; the stars now lighted a glowing sapphirine sky, but that only made the venerable town in all its majesty seem ever more unattainable.
Finally the heedless night did plunge down amongst the thick trunks of the trees, and I was picking my way, counting on the instincts of my horse more than my own failing vision. The pale half-moon seemed in love with the clouds. The sky itself was nothing but bits and pieces thanks to the canopy of foliage above me.
I found myself praying to my father, as if he were safely with my guardian angels about me, and I think I believed in him and his presence more surely than I had ever believed in angels, saying, “Please, Father, help me get there. Help me get to safety, lest those demons render my vengeance impossible.”
I gripped my sword hard. I reminded myself of the daggers I wore in my boots, in my sleeve, in my jacket and in my belt. I strained to see by the light of the sky, and had to trust my horse to pick his way through the thick tree trunks.
At moments I stopped very still. I heard no unusual sound. Who else would be fool enough to be out in the night of this forest? At some point very near the end of the journey, I found the main road, the forest thinned and then gave way to smooth fields and meadows, and I took the twists and turns at a gallop.
At last the town rose right up in front of us, as it happens when you reach the gates by a final turn, you seem to have been thrown up on the ground at the foot of a magic fortress—and I took a deep breath of thanks, no matter that the giant gates were firmly shut as if a hostile army were camped beneath it.
This had to be my haven.
Of course the Watch, a sleepy soldier hollering down from above, wanted to know who I was.
Once again the effort of making up something good distracted me from wayward, near uncontrollable, images of the fiend Ursula and her severed arm, and the decapitated bodies of my brother and sister fallen on the chapel floor in mid-gesture.
I cried out, in a humble tone but with pretentious vocabulary, that I was a scholar in the employ of Cosimo de’ Medici come on a search for books in Santa Ma
ddalana, in particular old prayer books pertaining to the saints and appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary in this district.
What nonsense.
I had come, I declared, to visit the churches and schools and whatever old teachers the town might shelter, and to take back what I could purchase with good gold Florentine coin to my master in Florence.
“Yes, but your name, your name!” the soldier insisted as he opened the small lower gate only a crack, his lantern held high to inspect me.
I knew I made a good picture on my horse.
“De’ Bardi,” I declared. “Antonio De’ Bardi, kinsman of Cosimo,” I said with fierce nerve, naming the family of Cosimo’s wife because it was the only name that came into my head. “Look, kindly man, take this payment for me, have a good supper with your wife as my guests, here, I know it’s late, I’m so tired!”
The gate was opened. I had to dismount to lead my horse with lowered head through it and into the echoing stone piazza right inside.
“What in the name of God,” asked the Watchman, “were you doing in these woods after dark alone? Do you know the dangers? And so young? What is the Bardi these days that they let their secretaries go riding all over unescorted?” He pocketed the money. “Look at you, a mere child! Somebody could murder you for your buttons. What’s the matter with you?”
This was an immense piazza, and I could see more than one street leading off. Good luck. But what if the demons were here too? I had no clue as to where such things might roost or hide! But I went on talking.
“It’s all my fault. I got lost. Tell on me and you’ll get me in trouble,” I said. “Show me to the Albergo. I’m so tired. Here, take this, no, you must.” I gave him more money. “I got lost. I didn’t listen. I’m about to faint. I need wine and supper and a bed. Here, good man, no, no, no, take more, I insist. The Bardi would not have it otherwise.”
He ran out of pockets for the money, but managed somehow to stuff it in his shirt and then led me by torchlight to the Inn, banging on the door, and a sweet-faced old woman came down, grateful for the coins I thrust into her hand at once, to show me to a room.
“High up and looking out over the valley,” I said, “if you please, and some supper, it can be stone cold, I don’t care.”
“You’re not going to find any books in this town,” said the Watchman, standing about as I beat it up the stairs after the woman. “All the young people go off; it’s a peaceable place, just happy little shopkeepers. Young men today run off to universities. But this is a beautiful place to live, simply beautiful.”
“How many churches do you have?” I asked the old woman when we’d reached the room. I told her that I must keep the lighted candle for the night.
“Two Dominican, one Carmelite,” said the Watchman, slouching in the little door, “and the beautiful old Franciscan church, which is where I go. Nothing bad ever happens here.”
The old woman shook her head and told him to be quiet. She set the candle down and gestured that it could stay.
The Watchman went on chattering as I sat on the bed, staring at nothing, until she’d brought a plate of cold mutton and bread, and a pitcher of wine.
“Our schools are strict,” the man went on.
Again the old woman told him to hush up.
“Nobody dares to make trouble in this place,” he said, and then both of them were gone.
I fell on my plate like an animal. All I wanted was strength. In my grief I couldn’t even think of pleasure. I looked out on a tiny bit of high star-sprinkled sky for a little while, praying desperately to every saint and angel whose name I knew for help, and then I locked up the window tight.
I bolted the door.
And making sure that the candle was well sheltered in the corner, and plenty big enough to last until dawn, I fell into the lumpy little bed, too exhausted to remove boots or sword or daggers or anything else. I thought I’d fall into a deep sleep, but I lay rigid, full of hatred, and hurt, and swollen broken soul, staring into the dark, my mouth full of death as if I’d eaten it.
I could hear distantly the sounds of my horse being tended to downstairs, and some lonely steps on the deserted stone street. I was safe, at least that much was so.
Finally sleep came. It came totally and completely and sweetly; the net of nerves which had held me suspended and maddened simply dissolved, and I sank down into a dreamless darkness.
I was conscious of that sweet point where nothing for the moment matters except to sleep, to replenish and to fear yet no dreams, and then nothing.
A noise brought me around. I was immediately awake. The candle had gone out. I had my hand on my sword before my eyes opened. I lay on the narrow bed, back to the wall, facing the room and in a seemingly sourceless light. I could just make out the bolted door, but I couldn’t see the window above me unless I turned my head to look up, and I knew, positively knew, that this window, heavily barred, had been broken open. The little light which fell on the wall came from the sky outside. It was a fragile, weak light, slipping down against the wall of the town and giving my little chamber the attitude of a prison cell.
I felt the cool fresh air come down around my neck and felt it on my cheek. I clutched the sword tight, listening, waiting. There were small creaking sounds. The bed had moved ever so slightly, as if from a pressure.
I couldn’t focus my eyes. Darkness suddenly obscured everything, and out of this darkness there rose a shape before me, a figure bending over me, a woman looking right into my face as her hair fell down on me.
It was Ursula.
Her face was not an inch from mine. Her hand, very cool and smooth, closed over my own, on the hilt of my sword, with a deadly force, and she let her eyelashes stroke my cheek and then kissed my forehead.
I was enveloped in sweetness, no matter how hot my rebellion. A sordid flood of sensation penetrated to my very entrails.
“Strega!” I cursed her.
“I didn’t kill them, Vittorio.” Her voice was imploring but with dignity and a curious sonorous strength, though it was only a small voice, very young in tone and feminine in timbre.
“You were taking them,” I said to her. I tried in a violent spasm to free myself. But her hand held me powerfully fast, and when I tried to free my left arm from under me, she caught my wrist and held me there too, and then she kissed me.
There came that magnificent perfume from her which I had breathed in before, and the stroking of her hair on my face and neck sent shameless chills through me.
I tried to turn my head, and she let her lips touch my cheek gently, almost respectfully.
I felt the length of her body against me, the definite swell of her breasts beneath costly fabric, and the smooth length of her thigh beside me in the bed, and her tongue touched my lips. She licked at my lips.
I was immobilized by the chills that went through me, humiliating me and kindling the passion inside me.
“Get away, strega,” I whispered.
Filled with rage, I couldn’t stop the slow smolder that had caught hold in my loins; I couldn’t stop the rapturous sensations that were passing over my shoulders and down my back, and even through my legs.
Her eyes glowed above me, the flicker of her lids more a sensation than a spectacle I could see with my own eyes, and again her lips closed over mine, sucking at my mouth, teasing it, and then she drew back and pressed her cheek against me.
Her skin, which had looked so like porcelain, felt softer than a down feather against me, ah, all of her seemed a soft doll, made of luscious and magical materials far more yielding than flesh and blood yet utterly on fire with both, for a heat came out of her in a rhythmic throb, emanating right from the coolness of her fingers stroking my wrists as they held them, and then the heat of her tongue shot into my lips, against my will, with a wet, delicious and vehement force against which I could do nothing.
There formed in my crazed mind some realization that she had used my own hot desire to render me helpless, that carnal madness
had made of me a body constructed about metal wires that could not help but conduct the fire she poured into my mouth.
She drew her tongue back and sucked with her lips again. My entire face was tingling. All my limbs were struggling both against her and to touch her, yes, embrace her yet fight her.
She lay against the very evidence of my desire. I couldn’t have hidden it. I hated her.
“Why? What for!” I said, tearing my mouth loose. Her hair descended on both sides as she lifted her head. I could scarcely breathe for the unearthly pleasure.
“Get off me,” I said, “and go back into Hell. What is this mercy to me! Why do this to me?”
“I don’t know,” she answered in her clever, tremulous voice. “Maybe it’s only that I don’t want you to die,” she said, breathing against my chest. Her words were rapid, like her heated pulse. “Maybe more,” she said, “I want you to go away, go south to Florence, go away and forget all that’s happened, as if it were nightmares or witches’ spells, as if none of it took place; leave this town, go, you must.”
“Stop your foul lies,” I said before I could stop myself. “You think I’ll do that? You murdered my family, you, you and yours, whatever you are!”
Her head dipped, her hair ensnaring me. I fought vainly to get loose. It was out of the question. I couldn’t budge her grip.
All was blackness, and indescribable softness. I felt a sudden tiny pain in my throat, no more than the prick of pins, and my mind was suddenly flooded with the most tranquil happiness.
It seemed I’d stumbled into a blowing meadow of flowers, quite far away from this place and from all woes, and she lay with me, fallen against silently crushed stems and uncomplaining irises, Ursula, with her undone ashen hair, and she smiled with the most engaging and demanding eyes, fervent, perhaps even brilliant, as if ours were a sudden and total infatuation of mind as well as body. On my chest she climbed, and though she rode me, looking down at me with exquisite smiling lips, she parted her legs gently for me to enter her.