Leporello on the Lam

by William Stafford

  The bastard.

  The torture had begun!

  I began with meeting Donna Flavia and how hard I had worked to make her home habitable. He listened to this with a blank expression. His eyes glazed over at one point. I mentioned how I had first seen the man whose name I would later learn was Martello at the local smithy. Cardinal Ignatius sat up. His cheeks coloured to match his clothes.

  ”Do not distract me with extraneous characters. Do not try to implicate those who are not present to defend themselves!”

  ”You’re kidding!” I gasped. “How am I to defend myself if I cannot speak about other people?”

  ”That’s where you are mistaken! You are not here to defend yourself at all. You are to confess, that is all.”

  ”I confess I don’t understand, that’s all I will confess. The crimes you list are all fabricated nonsense. Misunderstandings at worst.”

  ”The Inquisition is infallible. It does Our Lord’s work.” He tried to pin me with his eyes. “Begin again. Tell the truth and I might think about letting you have a drop of water.”

  I was a little parched, I have to admit. I began again.

  ***

  ”Tell me again how you escaped the inn!”

  ”We’ve gone over this again and again. I borrowed a cart.”

  ”You stole a cart! And the horse that came with it!”

  ”Well, I wasn’t going to pull the bloody thing myself, was I? I borrowed the horse along with the cart. Which I borrowed.”

  ”Taking without the owner’s express permission is not borrowing. It is stealing. Thou shalt not steal.”

  ”The owner was dead!”

  ”You murdered the owner!”

  ”The owner was already dead.”

  ”So, if you borrowed the cart and you borrowed the horse from the owner who was already dead...”

  ”Yes!”

  ”...then how exactly did you plan to return the cart and the horse if the owner was dead?”

  ”Uh...”

  Ignatius sat back. He had the self-satisfied smirk of someone who had just scored a point. My mind was reeling. But the man was tireless. He barked at me to start again and so I did. My legs had absorbed the coldness of the tiles beneath them and no longer felt part of me. My throat and mouth were dry, my voice a hoarse whisper, but I began my story again.

  Beyond the windows the sky darkened. The moon peered in to watch the proceedings. It hung around for a few hours then buggered off. The sun took over the moon’s shift. I had talked the whole night through and still Cardinal Ignatius remained implacable. I had not said what he wanted to hear. I had not confessed to the charges as declared.

  Eventually I could barely squeak another syllable. Ignatius beckoned the powdered minion over – it may well have been a different one. The first could have gone off duty and some point and been replaced. I wouldn’t have noticed. The minion approached me as one might an unfamiliar dog. He showed me the ewer of water. I held my hands out, cupped together.

  Ahh, the restorative power of water! I gloried in its refreshing touch on my face and in my mouth. I held my hands out for more. The minion looked to the cardinal who gave an almost imperceptible nod. I received a second helping and guzzled it down. The minion went away. It broke my heart to see him take the ewer with him.

  I prepared myself to begin my account again but Ignatius was on his feet. He took a few steps towards me.

  ”That will be all,” he said, sounding a little bored. Perhaps he had tired of this pointless repetition.

  ”I can go?”

  ”Back to your cell, yes. There will be a trial, don’t wonder about that. You will be found guilty.”

  ”And then you’ll execute me?”

  Ignatius showed me his tiny teeth. The question had amused him. “Oh, no! Oh dear me, no. The Inquisition does not execute people. That’s a popular misconception. We do not have that power.” A look of wistful sadness crossed his face. “I’m in the business of saving souls not taking lives. It is the civil authorities who will execute you, my dear fellow. “

  He strode away, his red gown swirling in his wake. The doors were wide open before he got there. He swept from the room. A few seconds later, my escort appeared. He pulled me to my feet and bundled me back along the corridors to my dank and lonely cell.

  ***

  Days passed. Weeks. A month or so. I tried not to think about what lay ahead. I tried not to go over the circumstances that had led me to this predicament. I kept Angelina from my thoughts as much as I could. If I could forget her, there was less danger of me letting her name slip out at the trial.

  For company, I had Don Giovanni.

  My master returned, usually in the hours before the tin platter was due to arrive, when I was at my hungriest and weakest.

  ”Look at you!” he would laugh. “Your beard is coming along quite nicely. And your hair is growing. Do you know, from behind, I could quite fancy you!”

  ”A simple hello would suffice. You don’t have to make the same joke every time.”

  ”It amuses me. Now, tell me, what’s new?”

  This was his second favourite joke. He filled my head with his laughter, his hateful laughter. Then he would laugh all the more when he sensed I was sulking.

  Honestly, where’s the justice? If I was to have an imaginary companion, why did it have to be him? Why couldn’t he leave me in peace?

  ”Things are looking pretty bleak for you,” he said. I could picture him seated beside me. Somehow the damp and the dirt didn’t sully his fine clothes. “You might find yourself where I am before long.”

  ”Oh, goody.”

  ”It might not come to trial, of course. You might just be forgotten. Left here to rot. But don’t worry, old chum. I’ll stay with you until the end.”

  ”Thank you, master, for that comfort.”

  ”You’ve grown even more sarcastic, Leporello. I did not think such a thing were possible.”

  I discovered a sure-fire way to get rid of him, when I’d had enough of his mockery and teasing. I would ask him to tell me what it was like where he was. In my mind’s eye, his face clouded and his smile faded. He would look askance and then fade away. I used this technique sparingly. To tell the truth, I was glad of the company. No rat had ventured into the cell since the untimely decease of the previous one.

  At least in my madness, I was not alone.

  ***

  I did not have to wait long for my trial. Very early the next morning, the gaoler and a mate of his came to carry me from the cell. I was taken outdoors – I gulped in as much of this heaven-sent fresh air as I could – and, in the middle of a courtyard, I was drenched with bucketfuls of water, clothes and all. The sensation was a welcome one at first but when the onslaught of water stopped coming, I was tied between two posts. I wrongly surmised the trial had been dispensed with and we had skipped directly to my execution. It turned out I was hung out to dry, which must be some kind of metaphor for my treatment on the whole.

  The morning sun climbed higher and its effects on me grew stronger. My eyelids tried to push my eyeballs as far back into their sockets as they could. The warm stroke of sunlight on my face became a scorching blast. That swine Ignatius may deny use of torture but I could beg to differ.

  After a couple of hours of this, my arms were completely numb. The gaoler unbound them and they remained outstretched. Given my bedraggled appearance, I could have found a new position as a scarecrow. I’d be good at that. I’d be out standing in my field... No? I suppose I had better concentrate on the trial, although at that moment in time, I was finding it hard to focus on anything. The morning wash served two purposes, then: to render the accused less malodorous in the courtroom and to disorient him so he could not make a good account of himself.

  The gaoler and his mate
used my stretched-out arms like a milkmaid’s yoke and transported me back indoors like drinking buddies carrying their inebriated friend home to bed. I was shoved into a small anteroom and instructed to sit tight.

  No sooner had their key turned in the lock but my master was there, perched on the edge of the room’s only furniture, a three-legged stool.

  ”Big day for you, my man,” he grinned. “Go out there and make me proud.”

  ”Piss off,” I suggested. His eyebrows rose and his grin broadened.

  ”I must say, your deference levels have lowered considerably since you started to work for that Donna Whojimmyflop!”

  ”Flavia.”

  ”Flavia... Do you remember, did I ever...?”

  ”No.”

  ”Should I...?”

  ”Do you remember when I told you to piss off?”

  ”Leporello! I appreciate you are under no small amount of stress at this present time so I will permit you a certain amount of leeway, but do not turn on your only friend.”

  I emitted a bitter laugh and turned my face away but there he was, leaning against the wall.

  ”I will assist you. I like to give something back.”

  ”Please, don’t. I’m in enough trouble.”

  ”I can get you out of this. Is that not what you want?”

  ”You’re not real!” I reminded him, my voice louder.

  ”I bloody well am,” grumbled the gaoler who had let himself in. “Come on, bugger-lugs. Lot of people here to see you.”

  He grabbed my elbow - I could bend my arms again by this point – and yanked me from the room. I glanced back over my shoulder. My master wiggled his fingers at me as a goodbye and disappeared.

  ***

  I soon found myself back in the ornate room of the day before. Today rows and rows of wooden chairs had been placed on the black and white floor and these were all occupied by a wide variety of people. It reminded me of Father Lorenzo’s church; those who could afford the finer clothes were at the front, their seats provided with cushions, while to the rear, people who actually toiled for a living spilled over – there was no standing room left. Among this eager throng, I espied a couple of nuns. Their white habits and wimples made me think at first that a brace of angels had come to rescue me (stranger things have happened, let’s face it!) but then I considered that, beneath all the robes and behind all the vows, nuns are people too and must be starved of entertainment.

  Gasps and jeers greeted me as I was brought in. There was an air of expectation and of anticipated amusement. I was the star attraction in this particular puppet show.

  It was not wholly barbaric. I was afforded a chair on a dais – all the better for the crowd to see me and to throw things at me. Someone, keen to get his arm in, launched a tomato in my direction. It struck the gaoler on his shoulder, eliciting a colourful and no doubt blasphemous remark from him. He’d find himself in my position next if he wasn’t careful.

  The three thrones were occupied by Cardinal Ignatius, in the centre of course, and two smaller and fatter cardinals. When Ignatius stood up, the trio looked like a cock and two balls. Ignatius was dressed in a more sombre crimson, the other two, like a pair of bruised bollocks, were in purple. Ignatius commanded silence and attention with the slightest gesture. Everyone shut up at once, eager to get the show under way.

  The gaoler pulled me to my feet and I scanned the assembly for a familiar face but found none. Not even my master, it seemed. And I felt it then, the long, slow stab of loneliness running through me, body and soul. I hadn’t a friend in the world.

  Ignatius launched into a lengthy preamble, some verbiage that was half-prayer and half-announcement of forthcoming attractions. I wasn’t really paying attention. I desperately needed to pass water – I must have absorbed some of the deluge that had washed me. And I was nervous, I freely admit it, although not the most nervous I have ever been. Let me tell you, when you have faced a ghostly dinner guest and seen your master’s floor open up and swallow him, the work of men seems of no more import than the buzzing of an annoying fly. Oh, I was fully aware, these people wanted me dead and it seemed a dead cert. I would have put money on it, had I any – except of course I wouldn’t be around to collect my winnings. If I was still around, I would lose the bet... Hmm.

  Focus, Leporello! When he says “soul-tainted wretch” and “treacherous swine” he is most probably referring to you. (This was my own inner voice that dispensed this advice. My master was still silent and absent, and I didn’t know whether I was relieved or disappointed)

  The mood in the room had changed, dampened by the cardinal’s overlong introduction. Eyes were unfocussed and glassy. People looked at their own feet. They picked pieces of fluff from their clothing. Their shoulders heaved as Ignatius launched into yet another paragraph. This was how the Inquisition earned its reputation for cruel and unusual torture, I realised. Cheer up, folks! I wanted to call out. It’s not your life that’s at stake.

  At stake? Is that where I would finish up? Like a latter-day Joan of Arc. Or would I be torn apart by horses? Or flayed? Beheaded? Hanged? Drowned? Or, most likely, talked to death by Cardinal Ignatius?

  Movement on the chequer board floor caught my eye. There was my master, lying face up – face up some noblewoman’s skirts, that is. He popped his head out and waved me a cheery hello before resuming his inspection. I closed my eyes and shook my head in an attempt to rid myself of this apparition. Everyone else in the room took this as a response to a question that had been addressed to me while I had been distracted by my master. So mighty was the gasp from the spectators, all the air in the room was almost sucked out.

  ”So,” Ignatius was pointing a bony finger at me, although his head was facing the crowd. I wondered how much the ring on that finger would fetch on the open market. “You do not admit the charges that have been laid against you?”

  ”Um...” was the best I could manage.

  ”Do you or do you not admit your crimes?”

  ”Um...no?”

  ”Which is it? No you do, or no you do not?”

  ”What was the question?”

  ”Do you admit your crimes?”

  ”No.”

  ”So you didn’t steal a cart?”

  ”Um... I was a passenger on a cart.”

  ”You didn’t abduct the Contessa Dorabella?”

  ”I’ve never heard of her.”

  ”But you abducted her?”

  ”Oh, her! She was already dead when I got on the cart.”

  More gasps and general reactions. Cardinal Ignatius pursed his lips, like a smug spider that has ensnared a juicy insect in its impressively intricate web.

  ”Was she indeed?” His face was chewing its own smile. He was loving this. “I call a witness.” He raised his voice so it rattled the rafters. “Call the Contessa, Donna Dorabella of Cadiz.”

  Officials all around the room took up the cry like a series of echoes until the one at the back, who must have heard in the first place, nodded gravely and went out. Heads turned to watch as he returned seconds later, ushering in a female figure in black, her face concealed by a veil and a large, wide-brimmed hat. She strode along the central aisle between the public seats. Heads and eyes followed her progress. Elbows nudged ribs. Voices murmured behind hands. I had no clue who it was and I felt confident she would not know me either and this whole silly business could be brought to a swift conclusion and I could be set free and –

  Something about her voice as she was sworn in on Our Lord’s Book stalled my thoughts. She was invited to sit down and asked if she recognised the accused. Slowly, she lifted her veil and looked directly at me. Her gaze very nearly floored me.

  It was Angelina.

  ”You are the Contessa, Donna Dorabella?”

  ”I am,” she said, without taking her eye
s from me. Her voice confirmed she was who I thought she was but what was this now? She wasn’t who I thought she had been? My brain was spinning in my head.

  ”And the accused you see before you, you can confirm his identity?”

  ”That is Leporello, yes.”

  ”And is that the same Leporello who stole your cart, while you and the body of your deceased duenna were on board?”

  ”Yes.” She was still looking right at me. Her face was inscrutable, like she was wearing a mask of ice. What was she saying? I had abducted her? And the dead woman – her duenna? – so... Angelina was the mistress and the dead woman the servant? What? WHAT?

  ”Tell us how you came to be travelling alone with the dead body of this woman, your duenna?”

  Angelina – or whoever the hell she was – cleared her throat. Around that throat, that lovely throat, an emerald lozenge set in gold, hung from a chain. A flunkey materialised to offer her a drink of water. She took a sip. The necklace stirred as she swallowed. Everyone was holding their breath. She began.

  ”I was travelling on family business, visiting relatives on the coast, but during the long journey home, my poor duenna suddenly died in her sleep. I thought it prudent to travel in the guise of my own servant, making me less of a target for thieves and assailants. I see now that precaution was in error.”

  ”It was indeed.” The cardinal sent her a sympathetic smile before despatching a hateful sneer in my direction. “This unscrupulous blackguard had respect for neither your station nor your femininity.”

  This caused a lot of tut-tutting and head-shaking all around the room.

  ”Hang about!” I protested. “I wasn’t even aware of her station. She was in disguise, remember.”

  Ignatius turned his eyes on me. They flashed in triumph. “So, you admit you were there!”