The King's Diamond

by Will Whitaker

  I heard their captain’s voice from inside. ‘No! This house is mine. Go and find your own. Meet me back at the church later.’

  Grumbling, the men obeyed. I watched them troop back up the lane towards the Via Giulia. The Spanish captain was alone. I crept out from behind the beams. From inside the shop came the sound of blows: he could not hear me approaching. I was at the doorway; I looked in. The Spaniard, a tall man in a green velvet doublet and a broad hat with three red feathers, was bending over the lock of Benvenuto’s chest. At his side rested a harquebus. He swung a hammer: that same hammer with which Cellini had beaten out the gold to make the Ship. It was too slender a tool for the job; but he succeeded in bending the hasp, hooked the hammer behind it, and prised the lock apart with a wrenching twist. His back was to me. As he lifted the lid of the chest I stole inside the room.

  ‘Aah!’ First he lifted out sheets of thin-beaten gold, and a bag of coins. He chuckled, and then came the laugh of triumph: the laugh of a man who has found the treasure of a lifetime. He had found my emerald pendant, and the opal cross. ‘So very imprudent to hide here,’ he murmured, lifting them and turning them in the light. ‘But I will keep you safe.’ Both of these he slipped into a pouch at his side. Then he found my diamond. He lifted it slowly and turned it in his fingers, murmuring to himself: ‘You are so shy. Why will you not shine for me?’ There was cruelty in it; it was the soft voice of a man about to commit a rape. I paced round behind him. If I could catch him now, while my stones held him in their power. Slowly, slowly I began to draw out my sword. He turned the stone again, and suddenly he must have caught that ray of light.

  ‘Ho!’ He stood dazzled, immobile, unspeaking. My sword cleared its scabbard with the faintest rasp of steel. The Spaniard swung round, the stone in his left fist while with his right he snatched up the harquebus. He fired. The report deafened me, and the room filled with smoke. But a harquebus is a heavy weapon to lift one-handed. The shot buried itself in the floor, sending up splinters of earthenware tile. I sprang forward with a downward cut of my blade. The Spaniard jumped back and drew his sword. He parried well. I was tired, hungry, utterly drained; and perhaps he was too. But we fought like demons. The age-old temptation of man was upon us: gold, treasure, the beautiful precious things that grow underground. My diamond gave us both power. I deployed the punta, the downward strokes and the sideways flying strokes and the upwards wheel. He kept on the defence, sensing that I would soon tire. And indeed my arm was like lead. That rope across the Tiber had cost me much. The Spaniard lifted his left hand and let me see the diamond. He smiled. ‘Yours?’

  I nodded grimly. He closed his fist again.

  ‘No longer. Now it belongs to Don Adriano de Córdoba.’

  He sprang at me. His blows came fast, his wrist deft, swinging the blade now this way, now that. I was an instant behind with my replies, and he caught me on my sleeve, ripping through the cloth. He smiled. He could see his triumph coming. His eyes flicked for an instant to his left hand. He was thinking of that wonderful moment when the light glances down, down, alongside the snaking white flaw, and the eye takes in all the stone’s beauties at once. He was wondering, maybe, how easy it would be to catch that moment again. My blade flowed from a parry into a thrust. We were chest to chest. I gazed into his eyes that were wide with amazement. Only the hilt of my sword was showing, the rest buried in his flesh. Slowly he fell against the coffer as my sword slid out again in a rush of blood, and he landed face-down on the floor. Blood began to spread round the body in a pool. I stooped down and prised the diamond from his fingers.

  I ran to the door. There was no one in sight. Shots continued to ring out, and the louder cannonfire of the Castle. I crossed back to the body and retrieved my other treasures, the emerald pendant and opal cross, as well as the soldier’s purse with a few silver coins. Then I sat down at Benvenuto’s workbench, exhausted. There was the Perseus, the sketches, the model for Cardinal Cibo’s candlestick, the furnace in the corner. Things so familiar, witnesses now to murder.

  I took the diamond in my fingers. It was mine again. But I had to convince myself it had not suffered, and could still speak to me as it used to; like a tender virgin snatched in time from the hands of her ravisher. I turned the stone and let the light pierce down, down, rebounding, whispering, echoing, breaking into blue, green, vermilion, stroking the white flank of the flaw, then twining back up again and out. I shivered. I turned it again, and let the white mist spread over its surface, smooth, rippling, seductive. A dizzy weakness passed over me. The sounds from outside, the shots and screams, came dimly as if from a vast distance. How fortunate I was to be alone here at last; at last to have time to turn the stone, slowly and with loving care. Every time I lost that gleam I felt a stab of grief and loss, but then I turned it and caught once more that darting plunge of colours into its depths; just as when Hannah’s moods altered in an instant, the warmth so much more beguiling because it burst suddenly from the cold.

  But the light in the diamond was changing. It was growing deeper, more sombre, the reds and the blues gathering strength at the expense of the yellows and greens. The change fascinated me. It was a long time before its cause penetrated my brain. Night was coming. I had had no idea I had sat so very long. When I moved my arm it had no strength. Very soon it would be too late to leave. I would die like this, of all the stone’s owners the most fortunate; the only one to have seen so deeply into its heart. I ought to fight this, rouse myself. But the thought of that death did not trouble me. My temples throbbed.

  From outside came a scream, close by, and the sound of running feet. I jerked suddenly upright. I was alert now, and afraid. The soldiers would come back. They would miss their captain; they would find me. I hurried to hide the diamond in the casket round my neck. I lurched to my feet, swayed and went down on my knees, and then crawled across the floor to the chest. I took out the rest of my jewels, and dug deeper too. A purse of coin; the sheets of gold leaf; a pouch of mixed precious stones. These I took, meaning to return them to Benvenuto. I froze. The quick footsteps came nearer. Outside the shattered door a woman ran by with three soldiers pursuing her. Once more it was quiet. I returned to the Spaniard’s body and stripped off the cloak, a short soldier’s cape, black with russet trim. My own cloak with its silver edging I left behind. I threw aside my cap too, having removed the gold medal of the Virgin, and put on the Spaniard’s broad, feathered hat instead. I gathered up the harquebus, powder flasks and shot. Then I looked out of the door. My head was beating. It was dusk. Cannon thundered at intervals from the Castle. A red light suffused the sky.

  I ran out, round the corner and back up to the Via Giulia. Bodies lay on the stones, caked in dust and mud: nobles, women still clutching children. From the church of Saint Catherine of Siena, down the street, came the most horrible screams mixed with men’s shouts and gunfire. Blood smeared the church’s steps. In the street below lay a great gilded statue of Saint Catherine. The saint lay face-downwards; bloody hand-prints covered her back where the soldiers had dragged her out. Round her were chalices, pattens, jewelled reliquaries and candlesticks, crosses, vases of silver, gold reliefs of the Passion of Christ.

  I gazed too long; a German came at me with his sword and I darted back, drawing mine. But he only wished to defend his hoard, shouted something and turned back. I saw him sit down on a small chest and begin pulling at a wizened, severed finger: a holy relic mounted in gold. Earlier that day the faithful had come to kiss it and pray over it. Now the German teased the dead flesh from its gold with his dagger, and threw it on the ground.

  I walked on, in a dream. From every house there came the sound of shouts, breaking doors, shots. A cry from above made me jump back. A shape fell in front of me, and landed hard on the stones. It was a girl in nothing but her shift: dead. Blood poured from her head. I choked and ran on. Ahead the firing was more intense. Here was the palazzo of Cardinal Piccolomini of Siena: staunch friend of the Empire. But that meant nothing now. He had refuse
d to pay a ransom, and the Germans had surrounded his house and were exchanging gunfire with those inside. By the English church I saw the statues and the crosses carried away on men’s shoulders, bodies on the steps where I had first caught sight of John in Rome. Two dead monks, lying in their own gore; a young nun, caught by three Spaniards and raped in the street before the convent of Saint Brigida. I did not know where I was going, or why; scarcely even who I was. On the Campo dei Fiori the shop doors and windows were shattered, the soldiers handing out fruit and flasks of wine. For these were hungry men, and it was a hard question which they had the greatest greed for, gold, or women, or bread. I took a loaf, and bolted down a few mouthfuls, then doubled over and was sick in a gutter that stank of blood.

  I do not know how, but I was walking again; past the Papal Chancellery, from whose windows flew storms of papers and books. I saw men and women led off bound, prisoners, with the fear of death stamped on every face. I was turning on to the Via Monserrato, drawn along the old, familiar route. I passed a house that still held out, where the soldiers had piled up sticks and furniture outside, already alight, to burn the place down. I turned into the quiet old square with the yellow stuccoed palace; the palace so impregnable; guarded, thanks to Alessandro’s care, by an army fifty strong. I looked up at the walls. Bullets had smashed into Polidoro’s frescos. A body hung from a window; two more lay in the street. The door stood open.

  I went inside. There was the hall I had entered that day with Cellini, drawn by that name, Hannah Cage. There were the stairs where I had bowed to Stephen and said ‘Richard Dansey. Merchant, of London.’ Dead men lay there now. That was Alessandro’s chamberlain, with a sword cut from his shoulder to his chest. Those two were Cellini’s friends, their guns at their sides. The steps were slippery with blood. I climbed them, shaking, holding on to the marble balustrade for support. At the top of the stairs, where the balcony swept round, another body lay, face-down, a bloody gash across the back of his head. He had been running away, and a soldier had slashed him from behind. I turned him over with my foot, and then I cried out. It was the Cages’ chamberlain, Fenton. I stared into his white face, the familiar beard, the heavy eyebrows, the open mouth, as if it could ever utter again, ‘Sir, the cloth is spread.’

  In horror I pushed open the door into the sala. One of the tapestries had been torn down, the credenza smashed. Chairs and stools lay scattered, and there were bodies everywhere. Close to the door was one of the Cages’ minstrels, the man who had had the quickest fingers on the recorder; there beyond him was the music-master who bent over Mrs Susan as she played the lute, and tactfully corrected her fingering. The door to the saletta was open. Lying across it, her skirts pulled up round her waist and her throat slit, was one of the gentlewomen who had sported with us on the night of the moccoli. They were all here.

  I went on. I was only waiting to find Hannah. Through the saletta where we had played cards, along the loggia, up the stairs to the more private apartments where I had never been. Up here were bedchambers, and bodies, more bodies. Each door I opened trembling. The waiting maids, the valets; faces so familiar, so taken as a matter of course, lying dead. I pushed open another door, to another bedchamber. Perhaps this was where she had slept. Perhaps, if I had not run after my diamond to Florence, this was where I might have slept too. There was an inner closet opening off it. I opened the door and stepped through.

  A heavy blow knocked me to the ground. I lay there, striving to lift myself, my head clogged with dizziness and pain. My limbs no longer had any strength. I heard a voice over me:

  ‘Kill him.’

  21

  I would have been dead already, if it had not been for the Spaniard’s thick felt hat. As it was, the blood was running down into my face. I groaned and managed to lift myself on my hands. The voice came again:

  ‘Kill him!’

  It was useless to try to rise. Long before I could reach my sword, a blade would slide into my back. A second voice hissed, ‘You kill him.’

  ‘No, you!’

  There was something strange about these voices. My right hand gave way, and I rolled on to my back. My eyes were a blur. But I could not be wrong: they had been speaking in English. Both the speakers let out shrieks; and then all at once my vision cleared, and I saw standing over me Susan and Hannah Cage, the one holding a roasting spit, the other a flatiron. Hannah dropped the iron and was down on the floor, cradling my head.

  ‘My poor, poor, poor Mr Richard.’

  Susan stepped over me into the bedchamber. ‘Someone could have followed him. Can’t you stop dandling him and take him up?’

  I tried to rise, and with both girls helping at last I managed. I fell at once into Hannah’s arms. I would not let her go; I had found her, that was all I knew. I kissed her hair, her lips, her eyes. She stood motionless, and let me.

  ‘That’s enough!’ hissed Susan. ‘Quickly!’

  Hannah disengaged herself. The room we were in had been a dressing room, and a place for admiring little ornaments and works of art. Now it had been ransacked. Broken glass scattered the floor. Hannah led me to a ladder reaching up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Somehow I climbed it, and the ladder was pulled up after us. We were in near darkness up here. A warren of storerooms, servants’ chambers and passages wound above the two wings of the palazzo, they explained to me, reached by a number of ladders and narrow stairs.

  ‘That ladder is the only way down from here,’ whispered Hannah. ‘We were on our way to look for food.’

  ‘Until Hannah nearly murdered you,’ added Susan.

  ‘You would have done it if you’d dared,’ countered Hannah.

  ‘Quiet!’ answered Susan. ‘We’re getting near. Another shock will kill her.’

  They were leading me, bent double, down a dim passage. At the end of it opened out a room that was little more than a big cupboard, cramped under the eaves. Inside it, something moved.

  Susan crept forward. ‘Mother. We have found Mr Richard.’

  As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw that the figure hunched against the end wall was Mrs Grace. Her black hair was streaked down over her face. She held out to me a shaking hand.

  ‘Mr Richard! It is very good of you to come. You are welcome. Girls! Find Mr Richard some of those sweetmeats. The almond ones are the finest. I cannot think what has become of our servants.’

  Hannah and Susan exchanged looks. I sat clumsily down against the sloping wall. My head was still bleeding. Hannah tore off a strip of her gown and set about bandaging the wound. Susan moved in the darkness and came back with a shallow silver dish. ‘She’s right. The almond ones are the nicest. But I would give anything for a loaf of bread.’

  At that I smiled, and pulled from my doublet the loaf. Susan fell on it, and divided it at once in four. Eating, and with Hannah’s body warm against my side, I felt my strength and my courage return. Grace heaved a satisfied sigh. ‘When Mr Stephen gets back, everything will be arranged.’

  Hannah anxiously caught my eye, and I looked at her in question. And so I heard the story of their flight, told by Hannah and Susan in turn. They had set off through the Gate of Saint Paul yesterday afternoon, to cover the fifteen miles to Ostia. Even though no one, officially, was allowed out of Rome, the number of people who had begged or bribed permission to go was surprising. Stretches of the road were flooded, and what with the fleeing countryfolk with their carts, progress was slow. When night fell they were still out in the desolation of the marshes. That was when Stephen had ridden on ahead to scout the road. While he was gone, a party of horsemen had swept down on them, shooting off their harquebuses and veering away, before returning to shoot once more. They might have been Imperials who had somehow crossed the Tiber, or members of the powerful Colonna clan, enemies of the Pope, or simply brigands. The packhorses bolted; some of the servants driving the carts panicked and drove off into the marsh. The whole line of carts that was jamming the road somehow reversed itself and surged back towards the city. Grace and h
er family were jostled along with them. Bales and boxes dropped from their carts; by the time they got back to the locked city gates they had a good deal less than when they had started. By now it was perhaps two or three in the morning. Hannah and Susan wanted to make another dash along the road to Ostia, but Grace would not hear of it. Stephen was bound to come back for them. She had always known this hasty flight from Rome was a mistake. They spent a cold, unsleeping night outside the gates, waiting. But Stephen never came. Mist crept up from the pools that lined the road. With dawn, in that thick fog that had so aided the Imperials’ attack, Grace ordered them all back to the palazzo: doubtless Stephen was there waiting for them; or would be back soon and make other plans. Stephen would arrange everything.

  But Cellini and Alessandro were gone, and the battle was already loud from over the river. They had nothing to fear, Grace protested. After all, England was neutral in this war; it was nothing to do with them. As the sounds of fighting drew nearer, Cellini’s men began to desert them. When the Spaniards and Germans swept at last up from the bridges, there were scarcely ten armed men to stand against them. Room by room Grace and her daughters retreated. It was Susan who found the trapdoor; Hannah who snatched up the sweetmeats that had stood on the table by her bed. They had had the greatest trouble with their mother. The firing, the killing of their servants, glimpsed through the windows of the loggia: none of this could Grace truly believe. She wanted to go down to them, declare who she was, explain to the Imperials their mistake. It was only the promise of Stephen’s return that had induced her to climb the ladder. There they had crouched, hour after hour, while the killing and looting went on. The soldiers had made a thorough search. They had heard them, shouting to one another and throwing down furniture in disgust; but most of the plunder, of course, was in those boxes hastily unloaded from the carts and stacked in the entrance hall, which the first soldiers had speedily hurried away; the rolls of tapestry, the silver, Mr Stephen’s books, the recorders and lutes. At last it had fallen silent. Only at nightfall had the two girls judged it worth the risk of descending in the hope of finding food.