‘It is good that she cares for her mistress’s safety,’ said William.
‘As I for hers. She has been with me many years. Her and her boy, Angelo, are all the family I can say I have.’
They sat in the salon of her house. Two candles cast small circles of light but it was the moon that lit the room. She sat across from him.
‘You’re cold?’ William rose to offer her his cloak.
As he reached for it he realised it had been lost in their flight. Isabella held up a hand.
‘Not cold,’ she said. ‘Tremors. The effect of the day.’
She took a long drink from her glass, ‘I knew . . .’
When she did not say more William gently asked, ‘Knew what, lady?’
Isabella leaned back in her chair.
‘I knew when I set myself against him that there would be dangers. I knew –’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘I do not think I understood, not until I saw those dangers this afternoon, how they would fright me.’
‘Tiepolo?’
‘No,’ Isabella said. ‘Francesco Tiepolo is a vicious child. An arrogant fool. He would never have thought to take such action without being set onto it.’
She drained her glass.
‘Behind his actions is the Count of Genoa, Giovanni Prospero.’
She rose to fetch more wine.
‘Before, when you said that there was a hurt that lay behind my words. Do you remember?’ she asked.
‘I do,’ William said. He spoke softly, not wishing to frighten away her explanation by loud noises.
‘The Count of Genoa is known to you, I think,’ she continued.
‘He is,’ William replied.
‘To me also. Giovanni Prospero came to Venice many years ago, when I was barely more than a girl. He had . . . has . . . charms.’ Her head lifted. ‘We were lovers. I was so foolish. So foolish. So many things I took for accomplishments, for passion, for desire, that I see now were the deceptions of a selfish man.’
She laughed but there was no joy in it.
‘I see now there is a hole within him. A hole into which a world of love could be poured and not be filled. We were betrothed. I had such hope that in loving him I had found a kind of freedom. That, together –’ Again she broke off. William did not wish to hear more. He could imagine.
‘When the time came he left me without a word.’ She shook her head as a tremor ran through her. ‘Even now. Even now, to think of it.’
‘Isabella . . .’ William half rose.
She spoke on without noting it. ‘He left me with only two remembrances. This ring,’ she fingered the thick gold ring with its symbol of a lance tipped with a pen’s nib. ‘This ring he left me with and he left me with child.’
She turned to look at William. In the darkness of the room he could not see her eyes in the shadow of her brow.
‘It miscarried. And I was glad.’
‘He is a monster,’ said William.
‘No.’ The harshness of her reply cut across his words. ‘No. He is worse. A monster we know. By his form, his horns, his hooves, his claws. Prospero is a man. The more deadly, dangerous and deceiving for it. I could tell you such stories, things I have learned of him since. I was not the only innocent he destroyed, not the only one to whom he made promises of eternal love and then left to survive by selling their chastity. We, we were the fortunate ones. I have watched for signs of his passing. The children torn from the arms of their parents, murdered at his command. The blameless made to carry charges that should be laid at his door. All the while he smiles and smiles and no stain of blame falls on him.’
She shook her head. ‘When I knew the true extent of his evil I vowed that if ever I might spare another what I had endured –’
Isabella stopped. She shrugged away a memory before continuing. ‘It has taken me many years to understand him. You know, when he first left me I was broken by it. I thought myself another Dido, abandoned, willing to cast myself on the fires. Then when I healed from that first hurt I thought of him only as you just did. I wrote about him in poems. I thought, let my words stab him, as he has me.’
She laughed. ‘That seems to me a naive sentiment now. He never cared for poetry. Though he indulged my writing.’
She twisted the ring on her hand.
William thought back to the journey to Venice in Prospero’s company and his dismissive comments about poets. He thought Isabella was right. The Count of Genoa did not seem a man to be troubled by verse. William looked at Isabella’s hand twisting the ring and wondered that she kept it, what purpose it held for her to be reminded of Prospero.
Isabella came over and refilled William’s glass. She reached and touched his hand with hers.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For saving me, us.’ She shivered again in memory of the chase.
‘Tell me, truly. How did you know where to lead us?’ she asked.
William explained his walks about the city. The things he had learned from them. From this they turned to talk of Venice, of poetry and of art. She showed him the study of her by Tintoretto. William admired it and her in it.
‘If there were any doubt of your power this painting dispels it,’ he said. ‘The wonder is not that kings lay down before you. The wonder is only that you did not receive half their kingdom in reward.’
His praise did not produce the result he sought. She grew sad. She sat. William still standing, tried to understand where her mood had come from. She looked at the painting and he at her. At last she spoke.
‘ “Reward”, say rather “commerce”. My flesh has been cut to be sold, piece by piece. Worse, I am my own butcher.’
Isabella looked up at William. ‘To be a courtesan, what greater slavery could there be? To eat with another’s mouth, to sleep with another’s eyes, to move at the whim of another. Always smiling, always attentive, always loving to another’s will. What place for me in this?’
She held her face in her hands.
‘Yes, I have spoken with princes and kings, worn robes of gold and pearls and been painted by masters of their art.’
She looked up at him again. ‘At what price?’
William looked at her. He wanted to speak words of comfort to her sadness. He had none.
‘Beauty’s a thing will not endure. When it is spent, what will it have bought me?’ Isabella said.
‘Memories? Is there not the memory of happier times?’ William asked. ‘To be wanted is to be valued. To be valued is to be worthy.’ His words sounded foolish, hollow to his own ears.
‘A prize? The object of a hero’s quest?’ she asked. ‘Waiting for some Jason to come and then abandon me? Some Theseus to use what I have and then discard me?’
William heard uncomfortable echoes of his own small understanding in her words and he was ashamed.
Isabella shook her head. ‘Of all antiquity I know my role. I am Dido but I see Dido for what she is. Not a queen, but the patron saint of whores.’
Isabella shook herself. It was not her nature to dwell on miseries. ‘This is the unsettled nerves of the day speaking. A great many things owe their creation to love,’ she said. ‘If some of the worst actions have also been borne of it, that doesn’t mean we should lose courage. The fault is not love’s but love’s misuse.’
She looked up at William. He was gazing down at her with such tender care. The thought sealed itself in her mind that she would not let Prospero take hope from her with the rest.
‘We should strive, then, to add to the mustering of the good?’ William ventured.
‘We should,’ she said.
Isabella rose. She held out her hand and looked to the door. William felt amazed at what she offered him. Save to take her hand in his, he did not move.
‘No,’ he said.
He looked into her eyes. He saw she was as astonished at his refusal as he at her offer.
‘You will think I have not listened,’ William said. ‘Or hearing, have not understood. I would not exchange the pas
sing pleasure of moments for an understanding that will inform my whole lifetime.’
He held her hand tight.
‘Only this I beg you, do not ask me twice.’ He drew a great breath. ‘I have only will enough for one no.’
‘Alas, and it seems by this I shall have no Will at all,’ she answered.
He laughed. She took his other hand and drew him close.
‘This simple no moves me more than any fair words, poet,’ she whispered.
She took her hands from his. Reaching down she twisted from her finger the gold ring with its dark stone. ‘Take this. A token of what has passed between us.’
‘I thought this ring had meaning,’ said William.
‘It did,’ she answered. ‘It’s time to give it a new one.’
Subtle as the fox for prey
It was late when William left Isabella’s house. It was later still that he returned to the House of the White Lion. To tell Oldcastle that he could not go, not now. It was, therefore, already too late when William discovered that Oldcastle was not there.
He had at first been glad to find Oldcastle gone. It delayed the moment when he must argue for a stay. As the hours passed his relief turned to worry. Despite the late hour he sought out Salarino, who seemed as nervous as he at Oldcastle’s continued absence.
‘I could not be certain, my lord, not certain, no, no, but I believe the noble ambassador went to an audience with the Duchess of Bracciano,’ Salarino said.
William was incredulous. ‘Without me?’
‘The Duchess is most generous,’ Salarino nodded. ‘Perhaps the noble ambassador went in hope of procuring advancement for England’s merchants? A messenger from the Duke and Duchess came when you were out, offering to meet that morning. To seize the moment is everything, no?’
William nodded at the echo of his own sentiments from before that first meeting with Isabella Lisarro in the Chiesa di San Rocco. Thought of her set him smiling. Perhaps Oldcastle had stayed late and accepted an offer of a bed at the palazzo rather than brave a gondola at night. Very well then. He would wait till morning.
When morning came and went and still there was no sign of Oldcastle William began to worry again. He set off for the Ca’ Bracciano.
The servant at the door looked surprised to see him arrive. He was made to wait thirty fretful minutes before he was escorted into the presence of Vittoria Accoramboni.
She was astonishing in a dress of lace and cloth of gold, more edifice than clothing. She seemed to have grown some foot or so since last William saw her. He judged by that and her stillness that she stood on the chopines, the heightened shoes the women in Venice favoured.
William bowed.
‘The golden-tongued emissary of England,’ Vittoria said.
Her voice came out thinly, as if she sought to pare a fish with it. William was conscious of its unwelcome tone and of the lowering presence of his escorts behind him. He could not understand it.
‘Your Grace, forgive this uninvited intrusion,’ he said.
‘Forgive?’ She gave a short laugh.
William could not fathom her mood. What had seemed before flirtation he now realised was simply her willingness to hold another’s eye. Her gaze stayed on him now with cold regard.
William pressed on. ‘I was given to understand that my master, the Ambassador, Sir Henry, met with you yesterday. Since which time I have had no news of him.’
The silence that greeted his implicit question added to his unease.
‘Do you know his whereabouts?’ he asked.
Still Vittoria Accoramboni did not answer. She simply gestured past him to one of the men that stood behind, who bowed and left the room. A silence followed.
The sound of a great weight being dragged across the floor beyond the door broke it. William turned to see two of the Ca’ Bracciano’s beautiful servants enter. Hung between them was the battered, bloody figure of Oldcastle. William lurched forward to help his friend. He stopped, his arms caught in a grip of iron.
‘Assassin,’ Vittoria cried. Her voice was now the high-pitched screech of a hawk.
Oldcastle fell to the floor in front of William. He heard with relief the great man’s moan. Confirmation that Oldcastle was, despite his bloody, bruised and senseless figure, not yet dead.
‘What means this, lady?’ William pleaded. ‘This is most ungentle treatment of one who never did you harm.’
‘No,’ Vittoria said.
She advanced on him in tottering steps.
‘Nor never will do either,’ she promised. ‘You are revealed, master assassin, master traitor. You think I have not been watching for the hand of your employer. You think I do not know the Cardinal –’
She broke off to spit on the floor.
‘Hah! Cardinal,’ she said. ‘Say rather Pope now. You think I do not know the Pope would seek to avenge his hateful nephew? You think I was not watching?’
Vittoria leaned in as she questioned and, doing so, stumbled on her stilt-like shoes. She reared back to recover.
William was lost. He understood that Vittoria spoke of her murdered first husband’s uncle, the Cardinal Montalto, now Pope Sixtus. This much of the story he knew from the common rumour of the city. What the Pope was to William or why it should have resulted in the harm done to Oldcastle was a mystery black as pitch.
‘You are mistaken. Lady, I beg you . . .’ he pleaded.
‘Liar!’ Vittoria shouted. ‘My own men have witnessed you at your butcher’s work. They have seen the bloody business you wrought with Iseppo da Nicosia. You are more beast than man.’
‘Iseppo da Nicosia is dead?’
‘You dare feign ignorance?’
She raised a hand. William felt the hands that held him tense against the shock of her expected blow. Instead a knock came at the door.
‘What is it?’ Vittoria called. The Duchess’s eyes stayed on her prey.
A trembling servant put his head past the door. ‘The Count’s man, Borachio, is below with two others and says he has urgent news for Your Grace.’
‘Bring them up,’ Vittoria ordered.
She pointed a finger at William. ‘Now you will see,’ she said. ‘Here comes witness to your villainy.’
Smile and smile and murder while I smile
‘Cowardly, foolish, three-inch villains,’ spat Prospero.
He had greeted the news that his trap had caught two birds, that the steward Fallow had been there when Francesco Tiepolo had set on Isabella Lisarro and would fall with her, with great pleasure. Borachio had even received a little physic for the poison in him.
The greatness of that pleasure had been matched only by the depth of Prospero’s fury when morning brought news of their escape. In vain Borachio had protested that their deliverance was no fault of his. He was just the bearer of the news.
Prospero’s displeasure at this first report of the morning was as nothing compared to that which came with the later news that the English steward attended on the Ca’ Bracciano.
‘We’re undone. We’ll be revealed,’ Borachio said.
‘Quiet,’ Prospero ordered. ‘He’ll not be believed.’
‘What certainty is there in that? What danger to us if he is?’ Borachio flickered between anger and fear. Fear that his master’s over-cunning plan had put him in danger. Anger that his master had not struck when he, Borachio, had first urged it. Prospero swung his gaze at him.
‘You’re right, Borachio,’ he said.
The vicious little man had never been so frightened in his life as to hear that devil Prospero, for the first time, agree with him.
‘Go swiftly,’ the Count said. ‘Take your men, Salanio, Silvio, I forget their names . . .’
‘Salerio and Solanio,’ Borachio whispered.
‘I care not. Go to the palazzo now. Gain audience with the Duchess. She will be there with the English. Seize the moment. Strike her down. Strike them down. Say they slew her and you them in her defence.’
‘Madness,
’ Borachio protested. ‘She’ll be guarded and they will be tied. Who’ll believe it?’
Prospero leaned in. His eyebrow stood quizzical. ‘You’ll be a hero, Borachio. Who would believe it of you? Well, we shall find out, won’t we? As for her guards, kill them first. There must be no witnesses.’
‘I’ll not do it. This is no stratagem but suicide.’
‘You will, Borachio.’ The Count spoke with such certainty that Borachio cowered to hear it.
Prospero held up the little glass vial and waved it.
‘Every morning a little poison, Borachio. Every evening a little antidote. Remember? It is now past noon. I suggest you return before the evening falls.’
There was no more to be said. To stay now was a certain death. Borachio knew that much.
When Borachio left Prospero turned to his desk. He drew a sheet of paper forth. In a few short sentences he spelled out his revenge. He sealed the note and rang a bell to call for a messenger. While he waited for the boy to come he wafted the letter in front of him while the wax dried.
When he had told Borachio that he should leave no witnesses it had struck Prospero that there was one whose witness he would welcome. One who, should she see how easily he brought about the Duchess’s death, would feel her own helplessness in that instant. That this knowledge would be a crueller blow than any that might befall her after, pleased him. Events had not turned out as he had planned. Yet they might still be moulded to his advantage.
Yes, if the messenger boy hurried and the woman did too, then she might see how little difference she had made to his plans.
Prospero smiled.
So mightily betrayed!
Borachio and his two companions were admitted to the chamber. Seeing Prospero’s servant, William understood the source of his betrayal but not the reason. His first thought was that it could not be his love for Isabella; that news was too fresh.
‘Whatever this man says he lies,’ William railed against the hands that held him. ‘This man’s master is your true enemy.’
‘Silence,’ demanded Vittoria Accoramboni.
The Spy of Venice Page 32