I breathed out slowly. ‘Was that my father’s design in sending me here?’
She raised a dark brow. ‘I do not know. Was it?’
It all made sense. If I were packed off to find a prince or a count of the south, my father would not have been seen to give the crucial balance of power away at home. I smiled grimly. ‘Come, Aunt. I am not my cousin, a child to be gulled into a union. I can see a church by daylight.’
‘The prospect is not pleasing to you? To have a well-born man profess his love for you?’
I thought of the Moor with a shiver. Before this summer I had noted my father’s reluctance to dispose of my hand with relief, and I could not admit, even to myself, that I might feel differently now. ‘I would rather hear a dog bark at a crow,’ I lied.
My aunt narrowed her blue-grey gaze at me against the climbing sun, and I felt, again, my mother regard me from her eyes. ‘Well, Niece, for all that, I think that I will see you, before I die, fitted with a husband.’
‘I dare swear it,’ I agreed, ‘at a hot Christmastide.’
My aunt laughed and made a gesture of resignation. ‘Get to your lessons, wretch,’ she said, slapping my behind with her prayer book as I jumped to my feet. ‘And remember what I said.’
But as I ducked into the cool stairwell once more and out of the sun’s burning eye, I thought perhaps I had been too glib.
Perhaps in Sicily, Christmas was hot; and I had just sworn to marry.
Act I scene iii
Hero’s chamber in Leonato’s house
Beatrice: I mounted the stairs again to Hero’s chamber, more soberly now, to find Hero sitting in the window seat, her small frame hunched in the arched casement, looking down on to the sea road, waiting. She jumped up as I entered and ran to embrace me fiercely. ‘Where have you been? I want to know what happened to the lady and the count. Did she ever get the ring from him?’
I waved away her question with a flap of my hand and drew her back to the window seat, instantly forgetting my promise to my aunt. ‘Oh, my pretty little coz,’ I burst out, ‘I have such a tale to tell you today!’
She clasped my hands eagerly, and I admired, as I always did, her small bones (I was a carthorse to her destrier), her tanned skin (I was day to her night) and her eyes as black and bright as olives (mine were as blue as birds’ eggs). Even our hair differed, for hers was black and shiny and fell in a smooth veil to her waist and mine was blond and curly and stopped about my shoulders. Furthermore, I was three years older than she. And yet, for all that, we were friends. I twined her fingers with mine and she asked the question I knew she would ask. ‘How does it begin?’
‘Well …’ Then I remembered what my aunt had said. ‘That is to say, it does not begin.’
I got up from the window seat, and went to the writing desk. A polished square on its surface shamed me when I picked the dusty Latin book up; it had not been handled for a fortnight. I took a breath, and spoke my duty. ‘Not today, Hero. For my aunt told me to instruct you in strictly educational matters. Now construe.’ I opened the book and coughed a little at the dust. ‘Hic ibat Simois, hic est Sigeia tellus …’ I droned on like a bee in a casement, boring myself.
Hero folded her arms sulkily and sing-songed back to me. ‘Here-ran-the-Simois-here-is-the-Sigeian-land-here-stood-the-lofty-palace-of-old-Priam. Beatrice, please! No more dead histories of dead lands. A story of our own dear Italy, and of our times, I beg you.’
I relented and shut the book. ‘Very well, a tale, but a worthy one, of morality and religion.’ I racked my brain, for in truth I didn’t know any. I dozed through mass, and did not study scripture. So I told a legend that my sea captain had told me on the way through the straits. ‘I can tell you a moral tale closer to home. In biblical times Our Lady herself sent the citizens of Messina a letter, written in Hebrew, rolled and tied with a lock of her hair. Mary praised their faith and assured them of her perpetual protection. Ah, here is some Latin for you; she ended the letter Vos et Ipsam civitatem benedicimus, that is …’
‘I bless you and your city,’ interrupted Hero. ‘I know this. The letter is kept in the cathedral, and we celebrate the day it came every year. I did not mean pious parables, Beatrice. I want to hear a love story.’
I sighed. ‘I was brought here to instruct you, for soon you may be lying between the sheets of a marriage contract with some young gallant.’
‘Then teach me of love!’ my cousin begged. ‘That can be my education. Beatrice, I need to know.’
I looked at her, her dark eyes enormous with pleading. I sat down on the window seat again.
‘Very well.’ I lowered my voice, in case my aunt overheard us, and told the tale of the Moor and the lady in the dunes.
I told how they had lain entangled in the still cool shadows of the seagrass, kissing hungrily. ‘And then he pushed her into the dunes, and moved atop her …’
‘No more!’ Hero jumped up from the window seat. ‘Tell me no more. Love, yes, but no farther. My lady mother, Friar Francis, they would not approve.’
‘Friar Francis!’ I scoffed. ‘He likes my tales as much as the next man, despite his holy habit.’ It was true; Leonato’s rotund little friar had become a good friend over the last month I had been in Messina. Partly because we shared a secret – I had more than once seen him playing Scopa with the sailors at the docks, the colourful playing cards weighted with pebbles against the wind, resting on an upturned bark. I had seen him there because I played there too, in the early morning when the catch had come in, and I had bought my horn of ink. The friar and I had an unspoken agreement, as our eyes met over the seven of swords or the five of cups, that neither of us would tell my uncle.
I said nothing of this to Hero now; but I need not have troubled myself, for my cousin had ceased to listen. Her eyes were on the sea road and her forefinger pointed. ‘Beatrice!’
A distant glittering dragon curved along the sea road, the sun catching on hulme and blade. The dragon was tiny at the moment, but grew and neared as we watched. ‘Your father’s guests for the Feast of the Assumption,’ I said with a catch in my voice. ‘Your mother told me of their coming just now.’
Hero jumped up. ‘Then we must ready ourselves.’ She fingered her simple surcoat. ‘My father will want us to change.’
I got up too, more slowly. ‘Heigh-ho. Time for our finery.’
‘And you must wash your hands,’ urged Hero, ‘they are all over ink.’
I smiled as I turned her round to unlace her. ‘It is not the first time I have seen black cover white today.’
‘What do you mean?’ Hero asked.
‘The lovers. The man is black, the lady white.’
‘He is a Moor? The man on the beach is a Moor?’ She tried to turn, but I pushed her back by the shoulders.
‘Stay still, I am not half done. Yes, he is a Moor. What of it?’
‘Well. It is only that … All infidels were cleansed from the island. I thought all Moors had been driven from Sicily.’
‘Not this one.’
‘Was he like other men?’ she asked curiously.
‘Not at all. In form and in all other ways, he was vastly superior. Now do me.’
I turned, but not before I could enjoy my little cousin’s expression. ‘Beatrice!’
‘Yes?’ I was all innocence.
‘Moors are … savages. Surely the lady is in danger.’ Hero’s little fingers pulled fiercely at my lacings.
‘Do not repeat the follies of your parrot-teacher elders.’ I tried to express what I had seen on the beach, the couple’s intimacy, their partnership. ‘There is love in the case, and nobility, and respect.’
The fingers stopped. ‘They are married?’
‘They are.’
‘I did not know that white and black could wed.’
‘So now you do. I can tell your aunt, with good conscience, that I have contributed to your education. Now hurry; call Orsola to you and Margherita for me, for no one plaits my hair as well as she.’<
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We dressed quickly, in our favourite colours – coral for Hero, blue for me – all the time with our eyes on the sea road. Orsola, Hero’s old wet nurse, was a talker, and answered our questions before they were asked. ‘Their leader is a prince of Aragon, Don Pedro. Owns a big bite of Spain, and has the ear of the Spanish king hisself. All gold from crown to spurs, and a handsome fellow too. With him are some nobles of the north, who joined his train at Venice, come to stay a full month in his court.’
Margherita, Orsola’s daughter, was Hero’s milk-sister, and despite the difference in their class they were as close as you could expect two girls of an age to be when one has suckled from the left dug and the other from the right. Margherita’s little fingers had the trick of my hair, and she plaited and twisted my locks, forever yanking my head around as if my braids were reins, for I could not help my head turning to the window and the colourful cavalcade that came. I could hear the trumpets sweet in my blood, and the hoofbeats in my chest, and, my toilet done, I joined my cousin at the window.
The Spanish were a fine sight. All scarlet, and gold breastplates, and prancing Arab destriers of inky black. They laughed and jingled up the hill, white teethed, brown skinned and carefree. I could not, just yet, make out a single face from the melee. I wondered, giddily, whether my husband was in the company, whether, somewhere among that cacophony, I was hearing his hoofbeats, his laughter, the chinks of his fortune in his purse.
Suddenly moved to make a good show of ourselves, I rummaged into my coffer for my best combs – moonstones set in silver – fixed them in my hair, and picked out a collar of gold filigree for Hero. She lifted the dark waterfall of her hair and I was still fiddling with the fastening as we clattered down the stone stairs to the courtyard. Margherita had to help me for suddenly my inky hands were all of a shake.
Act I scene iv
A courtyard in Leonato’s house
Beatrice: In the courtyard there was a press of people with my uncle at the centre of them all, as if he were the earth in the middle of a coloured cosmos.
I could hear his rich, sonorous voice, and knew he would be making one of his wordy speeches, for there was nothing my uncle loved so much as his own voice.
I rolled my eyes and Hero and I made our way towards the crowd, me pushing Hero in front of me as rank demanded. Soon we stood behind my uncle and aunt, in the shadow of his outflung arms, as he gesticulated and flourished like a player. Satisfied that all eyes were on my uncle, I was free to look about me.
My uncle’s court and the Spanish court had now divided into two opposing ranks like belligerents, with their respective generals out front to give the parlay.
The man my uncle addressed was not, out of his saddle, particularly tall or broad but he was dressed magnificently in the scarlet of his pennant. This must be the prince of Aragon, Don Pedro. His sleeves were slashed to show black satin, and the material had the same oily sheen as his short black hair cut close as a cap, and his neatly trimmed beard. He smiled to show white teeth, and to his credit, kept the smile wide for the entire length of my uncle’s windy welcome. Although, at the end of the elegy, I did see the corners of his mouth begin to twitch with fatigue.
In a heavy accent, the prince said something gallant and brief in reply, hoping that he and his court would be no trouble to my uncle in the coming month.
My uncle denied any such thought with a shake of his head, and the beard that he cultivated – just beginning, to his delight, to be shot with august silver – shook in agreement. ‘When you come to my house, Prince, happiness rides in your company; but when you leave us, sorrow will occupy your room, for all contentment decamps with you.’
As he spoke again, I saw a figure behind the prince whom I had not noted before shift restlessly into view, fidgeting.
The young man was not in uniform, but would have stood out from the liveried company anyway, for he was the tallest gentleman in that courtyard. Southerners and Spanish seem to be pygmy peoples and of the entire company only my aunt or I could look the stranger in the eye. He had the blond hair of the north, the colour of winter wheat. It had a wave to it, and he wore it long enough to curl about his collar, not cropped like the Spaniards’. His brows were darker than his hair but his eyes were green, and although he did not wear a beard, his cheeks had not seen a razor for some days and an untidy stubble darkened his jaw. His attire was beyond reproof, though – he wore the tight-sleeved, knee-length jacket fashionable in Venice at this time, in a bottle-green silk, and his breeches and boots both were black deer-leather.
I was so busy studying him it was some moments before I realised that he was not alone. He had his hand resting affectionately on the shoulder of a youth beside him; not his brother, from the difference in colouring. These two, alone of the company, had left off the scarlet and half-armour of the Spanish. The youth looked about Hero’s age, had a poll of curly black hair and wore the purple velvet of the Tournabuoni-Medici family, which told me at once that he was both a Florentine and a nobleman of some consequence. As my uncle droned on I saw the man give the boy a squeeze of his velvet shoulder. The boy looked up and saw, as I did, the man allow his eyes to flutter and close as if my uncle’s droning was lulling him into a sleep. Then he stumbled half a step forward and his eyes flew wide, as if he’d woken with a start. The little play was enacted with great economy of movement, so only his audience of one would appreciate it, and he would not be caught in a breach of manners. But it was done with kindness as well as discretion, and I warmed to the fellow for making the younger man feel less nervous. The youth smiled, and the northerner smiled too. And, as though my own small movement had caught his eyes, he looked straight at me. I saw now his eyes were as light as my own, and very direct. They meant home to me, and I forgot to look away. Then one of them closed, quite distinctly, in a wink. I dropped my gaze, pursing my lips to hide my smile, and shifted behind my uncle so that I was completely hidden, my pulses beating in my ears.
Finally, when both Don Pedro and my uncle had finished their elaborate ritual, the introductions began; and my aunt, Hero and I were presented. The prince kissed my aunt Innogen and Hero’s hands, and I knew I was next. I shamefacedly presented my inky fingers, hoping he would not notice. But the prince kept his gaze on my face as his lips kissed the air above my hand, raking me with his black eyes in a way that made me uncomfortable.
The Florentine youth, name of Count Claudio Casadei, shook my hand with a grasp as limp and clammy as a wet mackerel; but I smiled warmly at him, trying to ease his nerves.
Then, last of all, the tall young man was presented as Signor Benedick Minola of Padua. A northerner; I knew it. Padua was half a day’s ride from my father’s house and homesickness hit me like a blow.
He shook Hero’s hand, and then took mine. His grasp was firm and dry, and he spotted my filthy hand straight away, making a little pantomime of looking at my fingers and me and raising one dark brow with questioning amusement. Then, very deliberately, he turned my hand over, to where my palm was clean and white like the Moor’s. He planted a kiss on the very centre of my palm, not a kiss for the air like the prince’s, but a warm, firm salute. He held the inky hand he had kissed in his for an instant, then let go.
The whole incident had taken no more than a couple of heartbeats, and I am sure that in the flurry of greetings and meetings no one else had noted the episode. But by sleight of hand he had left something in my palm where the kiss had been, and as Don Pedro led the company into the house I opened my hand and looked. It was a single Scopa card, the settebello, the seven of coins, the most valuable card in the pack. The card which, once played, won the game; and so was known as ‘the beautiful seven’. I turned the card over, but there was nothing writ there, only the pattern and mark of the stationers.
I looked back at the design on the front – seven circles, rendered in red, blue and yellow, with a flower design on each face. The settebello. What did it mean?
For the first time that day I forgot th
e Moor. I looked after Signor Benedick of Padua and he looked back at me with a green gaze.
His lip had a slight stain of ink upon it, like a little bruise.
Act I scene v
The Great Hall in Leonato’s house
Benedick: I had no stomach for my dinner, but I did want to see Beatrice Della Scala again.
It was fully a week until the Feast of the Assumption, with its attendant processions, feasts and rituals; but our host Leonato, Governor of Messina, had decided that the time should not go idly by us. He had organised a programme of entertainment so full that not a single day was to be left free of his amusements. Feasts, masques and tournaments were to be laid on for our pleasure, all of which sounded to me more like labour than leisure. But our host, frantic to prove his hospitality could equal that of the greatest courts of the world, would not be denied; and tonight he had promised us a dinner such as we had never tasted.
I filed into Leonato’s great hall behind the primped and perfumed Spanish and found my place near the salt. The room was a good size, with dirty dogs under the table and hoodwinked hawks in the rafters. The tables were groaning with pyramids of figs, almonds, apples, plums and pomegranates, and decorated with vines twined with poppies. The long boards were ranged as three sides of a square, with musicians sitting where the fourth should be, infecting the air with their cacophony. I spied the lady Beatrice’s golden head almost at once. She was standing at the head of the central table, which was set upon a dais, with her aunt and uncle and cousin, awaiting the entrance of the prince.
Don Pedro walked to the central place of the high table, where an ornate carved chair anticipated him and a fat cushion waited for his arse. Once he had seated himself, the company settled themselves in their places. The prince was flanked by Leonato’s wife and her daughter, with the governor himself on the other side of his wife, near enough to the prince’s ear to tire the hearer with his book of words.
Beatrice and Benedick Page 2