A Dancer in Darkness (20 page)

Ferdinand grunted. “Would you like to know why?”

“Not particularly.”

“A man called Amici was found murdered in his shop this morning.”

“What has this to do with me?”

“They think you had it done.” He shrugged. “You didn’t, did you?”

“What is this game?”

“He was tortured first. He was very popular here. At any rate, he is popular now he is dead.”

“And why did I murder him, if I did?”

“He was the Cardinal’s spy. Naturally they believe that there are certain things you would rather not have found out. At any rate they believe it now.”

“You saw to that?”

“I saw to that,” said Ferdinand. They came out of the back alley, and on to the quay that faced the sea. There was no wharf. The company would have to ride through the surf to the boat. Ferdinand nudged his horse towards the water. At the surf he turned.

“You rule here by our whim,” he told her. “Have you ever seen a mob storm a castle, drag out their ruler, string him up in the streets, and beat his body with their fists until someone sets fire to it? I have. They may come at any time, and who knows what sets them off?”

He looked down at her angrily and contemptuously, with that strained masculine giggle he reserved for his own
cleverness 
when it had pushed him too far. “You have no place to hide, and I know where to find you. You will not trick me again, and you will not rule here long.”

He forced his horse into the surf. Ciampino had looked puzzled at this exchange. Now he gave the Duchess one of his innocent smiles and made haste to follow his master. Cariola came up to the Duchess. The two women stood there,
watching
. The horses got in up to their bellies, and shied at the weak waves. They could hear Ferdinand laughing as he urged them on. The sound came over the water like the tolling of a bell.

The horses were hoisted up on to the boat, riders and all. The Duchess turned to face the town. In the bright sunlight it sparkled like a prison. Only the church rose over it, and even that was hauled half down from heaven by the heavy tiled roofs that closed it in.

She could not know that Ferdinand had been lying. She thought that now the Cardinal knew.

First she had to protect Antonio.

She realized that as soon as she returned to the palace and had time to look over her meaningless little court. They were not much. All these little lords and gentlemen were loyal only to their own perquisites. Chivalry and honour had shrunk, for them, to the dimensions of a law-suit. To them she was not a woman. She was merely a source of favour. She would give them nothing more. They knew that. Dukes and duchesses meant much to them. The people who were dukes and duchesses over them meant nothing to them at all.

They were venal and uneasy. They were less loyal than her servants, for servants work for a fixed wage, but courtiers could only be bribed. They had no fixed price. And it was clear in their eyes and their deference, that just as mice know when it is raining, so they expected a change of reigns. Their
unctuousness
was so obviously a matter of filling in time, that it
disgusted
her. She would have none of them.

For these reasons she never thought of giving Antonio up, for he was the first real thing she had ever known. She had
quite a different plan, one that came to her mind so easily that it must have been there all along. She did not stop to think about it. She merely grasped at it with relief, and sent Cariola off to fetch Antonio.

Cariola did not want to go. The Duchess had had enough of opposition. She flared up angrily.

“What does it matter?” she snapped. “You will do as I say.”

It was seldom she ordered Cariola to do anything. She had not meant to be so harsh. Cariola went. When she returned with Antonio, the Duchess could not help seeing how pale and hurt she looked. She had never seen quite that look on Cariola’s face, and she did not like it. A little doubt flickered in her mind.

“You may go,” she said. Cariola went reluctantly.

“What has happened?” he demanded.

She shook her head. “Nothing has happened. But there are some things we must do at once.”

He glanced warningly towards the door.

“Cariola is all right,” she said.

“Is she?” His voice was unexpectedly hard.

“I must trust someone.”

“She is too frightened to be dependable. She listens to you, spies on you, and says nothing. Why should a loyal woman do that?”

The Duchess was impatient. She had not forgotten the look on Cariola’s face. “All servants do that.” It was the wrong word to have Cariola overhear. In her own mind Cariola was no servant.

“Suppose they tortured her,” he urged. “She would not be very loyal then.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said the Duchess slowly. She had unconsciously been edging away from the door. Now she led the way out into the loggia and the hot, stifling night. There she spoke urgently to Antonio.

“The Cardinal knows,” she whispered, and hated herself for feeling the need to whisper. She told him what Ferdinand had said and done about Amici. “You must flee. I will say that as my steward you cheated me. I shall discredit you utterly. They
will believe me. They believe everybody cheats. I shall say you have mismanaged my accounts. I shall be utterly disillusioned.” She smiled at him sadly. She could see that he did not like the idea. “What else can we do? Any stratagem is better than none.”

“Very well,” he said slowly. “But I cannot leave you alone here.”

“I shall not be alone long. There is safety in publicity. I plan a pilgrimage to Loreto, I shall go with a large company, very slowly and ostentatiously. I will think of some excuse, some pretext to please the Amalfitani. No one will dare to molest me, not even the Cardinal. You will go to Ancona. It is close to Loreto. I will manage to slip away. Then we will take ship from Ancona.”

“And then?”

“Who knows then? But we will be out of their clutches.” She smiled at him again. “The important thing is to escape. We could join your gipsies, perhaps.”

He shook his head. It exasperated her. “Why not?” she demanded. “It is a poor plan, perhaps, but what else can we do?”

It was true. He could not think of anything else. But he would not consent to it until she granted him permission to join her in disguise, as she neared Loreto. She would need someone to protect her, he argued. And she had not the heart to deny him.

“We are slipping away like fugitives,” he said.

She looked around the shadowy loggia, and shivered. “We are fugitives,” she told him sadly.

They returned to her room. She went to summon Cariola. There was no answer. They opened the door to her chamber. Cariola was gone. They stood in the empty room, looking at each other soberly.

At four she sent him away, into the yellow dawn. He rode out of Amalfi on a horse well laden with saddlebags, for what each of them thought would be the last time, and headed for the hills. The tracks up there were known to him and unknown to others. It was gipsy and
banditti
country. No one would follow him. It was the safest way across the peninsula, for him.

Cariola had overheard everything. She had run away to hide. She had served the Duchess loyally, only to discover that loyalty counted for nothing. She was merely a servant. She had been supplanted and cast out. She wept for shame. She also wept for terror. The idea of torture was unendurable. Yet if she was cast out, where could she go? She said nothing.

Neither did the Duchess. There was so much for her to do.

That afternoon she summoned her court nobles to appear in the great hall. She delayed in going to meet them. Despite herself, she had a conscience. She hated what she was about to do. She had no will to denounce anyone, let alone Antonio.

Her emotional turmoil actually contributed to her plans, for it gave conviction to something that otherwise would have had none. It made the court believe that hers was the real anger of a woman who had been deceived, and not the guile of a woman bent upon deceiving. Only Bosola took the matter differently, but then it was his business to take all matters differently.

He stood in the throng, almost unnoticed, until he saw Cariola watching him, with a crestfallen expression that seemed friendlier than her manner had been for some time. He could do nothing about that, but he took note of it. He
wondered
what was coming next.

The Duchess slowly passed down the room and mounted the dais at the end of it. She was solemnly dressed, and mounted the dais as though it had been an executioner’s block. When she turned to face them, Bosola was startled by her
appearance
. It was impressive. In some way she had aged. A real grief gave her presence dignity.

The court was uneasy. Ferdinand’s presence had disrupted them, and they knew that there were disturbances in the town. They did not care about her. But should the mobs riot, it would be their property that would be damaged. It was to their interest to slick those troubled waters down, and that would cost money. They did not like that.

The Duchess cleared her throat. Her voice was unexpectedly firm. She began to speak.

Bosola listened with disbelief. It could be a clever trick: still, somehow he could not help but believe that it was true. Yet when he thought of Antonio, he knew that it was not true. A man who is born honest can change his own nature as little as a hunchback, a dwarf, or a cripple. It is a stigma he must bear for life.

A ripple ran through her audience. It was caused by
self-justified
delight. That impressed Bosola. When Antonio was in favour, the minor courtiers had circled round him like dogs wary for scraps. They had scarcely known how to gain his favour. But they knew very well how to denounce him.

The Duchess had something more to say. The tone of her voice had changed. She announced that it was a shame that this had happened on the eve of her projected pilgrimage to Loreto. At this Bosola pricked up his ears. So did the courtiers, though for different reasons. They were delighted at an excuse to leave Amalfi, until the mob was quiet again. And a
pilgrimage
might even serve to quiet the mob. They were a pious people. They admired it when the quality followed their example. A few more bones in the reliquaries of the cathedral made them feel that Amalfi was still an important place.

Bosola thought her shrewd. Moving at a leisurely pace and in public across the face of Italy, surrounded by such of her court as went with her, she would be invulnerable. But he was not taken in. He sensed that her whole purpose was to deceive. What her plans might be he could not guess. But he was sure that this sudden act of piety was the part of some plan.

Then she appointed him steward in Antonio’s place. Despite himself he was gratified. He was wary, for he thought it was part of this new cleverness he had not expected from her, but he was enormously pleased. He was also enormously busy. He had not much time to spy. On the other hand she seemed entirely open about her prepararions for the cavalcade, and these went forward rapidly. She even seemed eager for his advice.

He was puzzled. He had not thought her guileful. He need not have been so puzzled. For though she could act with vigour, guile was beyond her. She had looked around for someone she could trust publicly, and caught sight of him.
She was revolted by her court, and he was the only outsider there.

Cariola was miserable. The hammering and scurrying back and forth necessitated by the departure for Loreto drove her to distraction. She saw herself cast aside. It seemed to her that the Duchess was no longer at ease with her. She did not
understand
her mistress’s moods and tempers. She thought that Antonio had gotten rid of her. Inside she raged against him. She could not help herself. She began to believe that Bosola was right. Little people were crushed underfoot by these
highnesses
, who had no kindness in them. She had always resented Antonio. Now it seemed to her that the Duchess had been taken away from her. She had to talk to someone.

When she came to Bosola, she thought that it was only to complain. But the strain on her had been too great. She let him take her. It relieved both of them. And when people are together in bed, they talk. They seem to believe that things said in the darkness of a shared bed will never be repeated and are outside the moral system which controls our days. She told Bosola that Antonio was the Duchess’s lover.

Even then that might not have turned him against her, but a quick vengefulness in her tone took him by surprise. He
pretended
that he had not known, but inside he instantly despised her. For she had waited until the hue and cry was up against Antonio. She would always go over to the winning side. To save her own pride, let alone her neck, she would betray
anyone
. He said nothing to her. But something inside him that she had once almost thawed turned hard again at once.

She herself was flustered. She was ashamed. But also she was secretly glad. Inside her something rejoiced in having given Antonio away. Those phrases she had overheard now hurt her less. But it was this secret gladness Bosola heard in her voice, and he would never feel the same way about her again, as a result. Disappointment in her turned him savage.

Of this betrayal the Duchess of course knew nothing. The night before her departure she summoned Bosola to her, and gave him a casket containing such jewels as she could not publicly take with her. These she bade him conceal in his saddlebags and luggage. She was rather grand about it. She said she trusted him. He was to accompany the caravan as far
as Naples, then slip away to Rome, sell them, and convey the money to a merchant at Ancona.

There was nothing to do but accept. Bosola was appalled. He bowed low and withdrew. Through her folly, he had been caught up into her web, and he did not know what to do. The jewels were useless to him. Alone, he could not dispose of them. Nor could he sell them in Rome. The Cardinal would hear of it at once. But if he did not sell them in Rome and proceed to Ancona, his position would be found out by the Duchess and Antonio, and then everything would collapse. Nor did he underestimate Antonio. The revenge of an honest man is even more determined than that of a scoundrel, once he is aroused, and he knew of Antonio’s acquaintance among brigands and gipsies. A knife in the back can come from
anywhere
. He broke out into a sweat, and wrote to the Cardinal at once.