Beatrice and Benedick

by Marina Fiorato

  There was a terrible silence, broken only by the dwarf Magdalena, who grubbed about on the floor for her strawberries, her silks whispering on the pavings, the bowl spinning and clattering to a stop. The king, breathing heavily, took his seat again, and the dwarf settled herself at his feet, eating the dirty strawberries she’d recovered with the same relish as before.

  ‘Don Pedro of Aragon,’ called the king into the silence, satisfied that no one would have the temerity to speak first. ‘What of your summer in Sicily?’

  I swallowed. In truth I never wished to think of Sicily again, let alone set foot on that poisonous island. I wondered whether the lady Beatrice had wed her poet yet. The notion of her as a wedded dame hurt so much that I pushed the thought away and I exerted myself to mark Don Pedro’s answer. War thoughts must drive all memories of Beatrice from my mind. I was in the service of a prince, who was in the service of a king, and I had pledged my allegiance. I owed him that.

  ‘How many ships?’ asked the king.

  Don Pedro stood, and the lowering light struck his medal of St James. He looked, in his livery, like the very flower of Spanish nobility ‘Two hundred, Señor,’ he said, to an audible gasp of admiration from the collective, ‘from the Governor of Messina, the viceroy in Palermo and Duke Egeon of Syracuse.’ He went on to itemise the men and guns in the muster and I listened proudly to his strong, articulate tones, suddenly sure I had been right to follow his banner. ‘May I also present my young friend Count Claudio Casadei, who has assured us an additional fleet from the Grand Duke of Tuscany.’

  Claudio stood now, blushing, prominent among the crows in his Florentine purple. He looked as anxious as a man giving his neck verse. ‘It is so, Sacred Catholic Majesty,’ he concurred, his voice breaking slightly with nerves. ‘I mean, S-Señor.’ He stammered to a standstill.

  Don Pedro came to his rescue. ‘Claudio’s worthy uncle has the honour to offer you three score of puissant ships from the city of Florence, well appointed with cannon, culverin and other great pieces of brass ordnance. The flagship the Florencia, which I will have the honour to command, is a marvel of modern shipping,’ he added smoothly. I admired the prince greatly at that moment, and pondered the difference between those bred to nobility and those ennobled by trade. Claudio was a count, yet he was from merchant stock, a banking family. But Don Pedro seemed to have nobility bred into the very sinew of him; hundreds of years of the purest breeding.

  ‘We thank you most graciously,’ said the king. ‘There, Medina Sidonia, do you care to adjust your judgement?’

  The man he addressed stood, his ruff working at his scrawny neck as he swallowed nervously. ‘I am sorry, Señor, but even with these most valuable additions my answer has to be no.’

  There was another gasp in the room, this time in wonder at a fellow who would defy a king. ‘In order for your Great Enterprise to be successful,’ Medina Sidonia went on, ‘the numbers have to be so much in our favour as to make us invincible. I am sensible of the contribution of our Prince of Aragon and Count Claudio, but even these fleets assembled, although they are a remarkable demonstration of Spanish power, are not sufficient to guarantee success.’

  The king glowered and bit at his fingers as his councillors began to argue amongst themselves. He spoke suddenly, and they were silent at once. ‘What if …’ he mused aloud, ‘we do not directly attack England. We have above seventeen thousand veteran troops in the Netherlands, under the command of the Duke of Parma. They are already recruited and trained and equipped. If our armada can reach the coast of Flanders, it can escort the veterans across the channel. If our two forces can but meet,’ he brought his two hands together and clasped them as if in prayer, ‘we will be invincible.’

  The councillors exchanged glances. The brave one, Medina Sidonia, spoke up. ‘And what then, Señor?’

  ‘Then the redoubtable Parma will strike up though Kent and take London, with Elizabeth and her ministers in it. You take the apple and the worm comes too.’ He paused for the sycophantic laughter. ‘Then her enemies in the north and west and Ireland will rise against her. Our agents are already at work in those regions.’

  I admired the king for the first time since I had seen him in the theatre. He might no longer have the outward show of majesty, but his intelligence was formidable, and such a scheme had every chance of success. I caught Don Pedro’s eye across the room. He smiled and nodded very slightly. You see? he seemed to say. I did see.

  Medina Sidonia spoke again. ‘We will have to employ extremely precise navigation, Señor,’ he said, ‘and to that end, I have brought someone to meet you.’ He looked into the collective, over our heads, and beckoned. ‘This is Martín Cortés de Albacar, one of our foremost astronomers.’

  A man in long dark robes and the square felt hat of a scholar stumbled forward hurriedly, bearing a book that was almost as big as he. The astronomer knelt before the king and proffered the enormous tome. Its shadow completely enshrouded the dwarf and she began to complain until the king smartly slapped her face. He perused the pages. ‘What is this?’

  ‘The Arte de Navigar, Señor, a book of my own making; astronomical charts to guide your ships.’

  I craned around the beruffed nobleman in front of me in an attempt to see the charts – I could vaguely make out the fine black lines, the gilded constellations, the spidery annotations. The thing was a work of art.

  ‘Señor, these are representations of the stars in the northern hemisphere.’ The astronomer pointed. ‘Here you can see the principal stars that will be visible after the spring equinox in the Mare Brittanicus. With the correct instruments, your ships will find the coast of Flanders and then the coast of England with ease.’

  ‘But what is its purpose?’

  The astronomer, confused, began to bluster. ‘Such navigation frees you from the coasts. Large ships such as Your Majesty has at his disposal can run into trouble in the shallows – there is a risk of grounding. But with astronomical navigation, there is no necessity to hug the coasts and follow terrestrial maps.’

  ‘Let me see.’ The king raised the book to his face as if to study the charts more closely. Then, with utter calm, he tore a page out of the book. It seemed that no one in the room breathed. The king tore the next page, and the next. The dwarf giggled and clapped, catching the beautiful charts as they fell and balling them up between her tiny fists. The astronomer stood, mouth agape, as he saw his life’s work crumpled before his eyes.

  When the king was done, and just the spine and cover of the book remained, Philip spoke pleasantly to the devastated scientist. ‘I thank you for your pains,’ he said courteously. ‘But, you see, I already have a navigator.’ He pointed skywards. ‘God.’

  He kicked the dwarf with his finely shod foot; and, taking her cue, she knelt. The astronomer, bemused and devastated, knelt too. Then every knight and prince in the place fell to his knees, with a great scraping and clattering of chair legs upon the floor.

  ‘I have had a divine revelation that I am charged to regain England for the Faith,’ proclaimed the king in ringing tones, ‘and I am so convinced that God the Saviour must embrace it as his own cause, that he alone will lead the way.’ He looked down at his kneeling councillors. ‘Get on, then, and do your part. I must away to mass.’ He stepped over the sea charts that he had let fall on the floor. ‘Oh, Magdalena,’ he said to his dwarf, with an admonitory shake of the head, as if it were she who had rent the book. He took her hand and the odd pair walked from the room.

  I felt a sudden misgiving as I got to my feet. I had been from one edge of the map to the other on shipboard, and navigation by the stars was now becoming commonplace. What good was a commendable plan without the science to achieve it?

  With the king gone I thought I could now go too, and discreetly let myself out through one of the crystal-paned doors leading to the garden. It was entirely dark outside, so, whatever they said, the sun had set upon Spain.

  I gulped the cool air and tipped back my head to the j
ewelled sky, counting the useless stars that a king had rejected. I wandered the pleached alleys, shaking the hours of talk from my head and the abacus of numbers from my ears. I took long breaths as though I had spent the day underwater. I headed determinedly away from the palace, of a mind to get myself lost. I walked well beyond the manicured gardens and sought out unlit alleys, plunged into thickets of blackthorn, and unworked meadows.

  But soon the melancholy magic of my own company began to work upon me. I waxed dolorous and became weighed down with pessimistic thoughts. My growing impression that none of the Spanish crows – save one – knew what they were talking about hardened about me like the amber of my afternoon metaphor. Philip was walking into the dark as much as I.

  I was truly lost when I all but tripped over a figure who seemed to be crouching on the grass, his forehead pressed into the ground. ‘Hoy!’ I exclaimed in shocked surprise, and dragged the fellow to his feet. It was little wonder I had not noted him, for not only was he clad in dark robes that fell to his feet, but only his teeth and the balls of his eyes could be seen. His hair clung in crisp black curls to his head. He was a Moor.

  I remembered the king’s exhortation to secrecy, and as I held the struggling boy I was certain I had caught a spy. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I work for the king.’

  ‘Very likely. What are you about? Tell me quick and plain, before I take you to the guards.’ I spoke in Italian, he in Castilian, but he seemed to understand me well enough.

  He shrugged. ‘Take me if you like, señor, for the guards know me well.’

  I was still not convinced. ‘What is your business?’ I felt foolish asking the question, for he could not be more than fifteen years old. ‘I told you, señor, I work for the king.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. You are a Moor. The king would never employ your kind.’

  ‘He does when we know things that his own people do not.’

  This seemed to me an extremely suspicious statement. I began to walk the boy towards the house, with the happy thought that the capture of a Moorish spy would be an auspicious beginning to my service for the king. The boy came along quite willingly, and my resolve faltered a little – could he be telling the truth? ‘What things do you know?’

  ‘How to find water,’ the boy replied calmly.

  ‘Water?’

  ‘For the gardens. His Majesty has plans to build a watercourse, and a lake, and more fountains. But we have to find sources.’

  I turned him about by the shoulders. He had no divining rods, no instruments.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Faruq Sikkandar.’

  ‘Well, Faruq Sikkandar, supposing you speak the truth. How do you find the water?’

  He shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘I just know where it is. I hear it.’

  ‘You hear the torrents and streams below ground?’

  ‘No. Not that. I sense where it is. I feel it. It is a gift. My father Faruq had it too.’

  I looked about the vast and ghostly gardens, as silver-green as an olive leaf in the moonlight. There was another Moor here? My skin began to prickle. ‘Where is your father?’

  ‘He’s gone.’ The shoulders drooped.

  ‘Dead?’ I asked gently.

  ‘As good as. He was taken for the armada.’

  This, I knew, was indeed a death sentence – as a sea-slave this boy’s father had less chance of returning from the enterprise than any of us. It was kinder to speak of the water. ‘How long will it take you to find the sources that the king needs?’

  He slid his eyes to me in a sidewards glance. ‘As long as possible without trying his patience. For when my work is done …’

  I understood. He had to be of use to the king for as long as possible; for after that, he would be sent to the ships too. I no longer thought him a spy. We walked on in a strangely companionable silence. At the postern a guard shouted from his post. ‘Still here, Faruq?’

  ‘The water speaks louder at night, señor.’

  I had the assurance I needed. Feeling foolish, I let go of the boy’s shoulder and patted his robe straight where my grip had crushed it. But I felt curiously reluctant to take my leave of him. ‘When I met you, you were praying, weren’t you?’

  I could not see his expression, but darkness is the parent of truth. ‘Yes.’

  We stopped walking and faced each other. We had come to the parting of our ways. ‘Buona fortuna,’ I said.

  ‘As-salam alaykum,’ he replied. And his teeth flashed briefly in the moonlight as he turned away.

  I watched the water-diviner go. We were both in the employ of the capricious king, and our lives were as straw to him. I turned back to the palace, guided by the light of the stars. Perhaps everything would be well; perhaps Medina Sidonia, the one Spaniard who seemed to speak more sense than folly, had something of this Moorish boy’s gift – perhaps he could divine a way forward without knowing it for sure. And yet, foreboding sat upon my chest like a cold stone.

  My only comfort, if comfort it was, was that the Lady Beatrice was safe in the peaceful backwater that was Sicily.

  Act IV scene ii

  A courtyard in Leonato’s house, Messina

  Beatrice: I woke in the middle of the night without knowing why.

  I turned over in my bed, groaning gently. This was the first night since Benedick had ridden away that I had fallen asleep as soon as my head had sunk into the pillow. For four weeks now I’d twisted and tossed, and not fallen to sleep until grey dawn and cockcrow. In the daytime I had stuck to my resolution, to live and speak freely, and to scorn the company of men. But every night my treacherous mind had recalled every word and gesture of my month’s acquaintance with Benedick. As if at a play I had watched, again and again in my mind’s eye, every jocular exchange, every time we’d laughed, our declaration of love on the beach. I could still feel the imprint of his kiss on my lips, the weight of him on my body, pressing me into the dunes. But next on the playbill, I had to watch another drama – a tragic sequel to the comedy. His final, bitter repudiation of me. The sight of him riding down the coast road. In my dreams he turned his head. In reality, I knew he had not.

  I had no one to confide in. My pride and my new resolution of independence would not allow me to admit how much I suffered; and Hero, my one remaining companion, was preoccupied with her own heartbreak at the loss of Claudio. There was another I might have confided in, but Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza had never returned. Whatever Benedick had maintained he must have fled the island with his father.

  So I suffered alone, and tonight I had thought the spell broken. I had thought that at last I could close my eyes without seeing Benedick’s face burned into the back of my lids, like the imprimatur of a letterpress. So it was particularly galling to be woken.

  I hunched beneath the coverlet, inviting sleep again. But a sudden, unidentifiable sound made me sit bolt upright, with the absolute certainty that there was someone in the courtyard.

  I padded to the window, my feet chilling on the floor slabs, taking the coverlet with me like a cloak. I peered from the window into the courtyard. There, in the middle of the mosaic, was a figure holding a flaming torch. At first I found his form familiar. My foolish heart thumped, telling me it was Benedick, returned to claim me. But the next heartbeat told me it was not.

  The torch threw a warm circle around its bearer, animating the mosaics in the ring favoured by the light. The sight would have been beautiful, but fire held no comfort for me now. Flames did not speak of hearth and home any more, but of the fire that had taken Guglielma Crollalanza. I could not see the torch-bearer’s face, but he stood very still and he seemed to be looking directly up at me. Suddenly I was soaked in a cold sweat. He did not move, and nor did I; only his flame wavered, a horrid reminder of the torches that once lit the faggots of faith.

  As I watched the torch described an arc in the night, and touched another brand. A second flame flared to life, illuminating a second bearer, and that
torch touched a third. Soon a circle of men stood in the courtyard, and all the dolphins and mermaids and sea monsters beneath their feet were lit blue, as if the brandsmen walked on water, with the great head of Medusa in the centre of all. In fact, Medusa’s face was the only one in the company I could see, and her eyes, made up of tiny jetty tiles, seemed to hold a warning.

  Without moving my feet, nor taking my eyes from the men below, I bent my knees, reached down and shook Hero awake where she lay in her bed below the window. I did not want to alarm her, but I knew we must go. As she sat, grumbling, my aunt burst into the room.

  ‘Come!’ she urged in a fierce whisper. ‘There are intruders in the court. Come at once!’

  She gathered Hero up, blankets and all, as if she was still a child. My heart racing, I followed. I knew we could not quit the house, for the torchmen held the courtyard, from which radiated all the doors and gates to the outside world. ‘The rose tower,’ commanded my aunt, and I followed her to the little winding stair of the pink crenellated tower.

  I remembered as I climbed my father’s words about the Della Scala family name. Stairs are power. Stairs are wealth; they elevate us from the poor. Stairs keep us separate. Now I thought: Stairs are safety. Those lords of San Gimignano who built a hundred spindly towers had somewhere to hide from marauders. Our own castle in Villafranca had the redstone stair for the same reason. I am Beatrice of the Stairs, I thought. If I can climb to the rose tower, I will be safe.

  With extraordinary strength my aunt carried Hero like a babe up the hundred stairs. The girl’s dark silken hair was so long it swept the stone steps before me. We climbed high to the little bell chamber, which was bare except for an animal skin on the floorboards and a bronze bell hanging above. There was a single arched window open to the air and the wind whistled through the opening, turning the tower to a stone flute. The eerie sound did nothing to calm our spirits.