Death of a Duchess (11 page)

‘Now you will answer my questions. Tell me the truth, and I shall know if it is the truth; and you will be spared the torture.’

It was not a complete surprise that Poggio did not know where to begin when the end was so clearly in sight: a gallows. To confess to stealing the Duchess’s ring was to ask for death, which would be likely to arrive in a quite complicated way. Poggio drank his ale and was silent.

The pig found something in a corner and ate it, loudly.

‘Did you see her Grace, dead?’

It was a brutal question asked brutally. It startled Poggio into a reply.

‘I didn’t know she was dead, at first. Thought she was asleep.’ He was aggrieved. The Duchess had imposed on him, had put him in a difficult position.

‘How did you come to be there?’

‘In her room?’

‘In the Palace at all. The Duke had forbidden you. How did you get in?’

Poggio could not resist a smile. It made his eyes crease and his nose turn up even more. He had a face made for telling jokes.

‘There were plenty of us about. The big folk never know one from another. I know all the ways in and out of the Palace... There’s a little room just off the Duchess’s—’

‘By the bed head, with a jib door.’

Poggio nodded. ‘I waited there to see if I could talk to her Grace, alone. To ask her to speak to the Duke for me. She had a kind heart.’ He crossed himself; the kind heart beat no more. ‘I thought I’d have to wait until the feast ended, but I’d hardly dozed off when I heard her voice coming nearer. That’s a bit of luck, I thought.’ Poggio’s voice had almost a cajoling note, the note of innocence hard done by. ‘Thought it all the more when I heard her sending the maids off. No Lady Cecilia either, which is a lady I’d avoid if I could. So I was coming out of my corner, and ready to slip through the jib door and go down on my knees, not a trick I find easy, when I heard her Grace talking again.’

‘You heard what she said?’

‘It was nothing but a mumble, from either of them. Like you’d use to a lover. Lover it was, too, on account of the noise they were making not that long after. Gave that bed a beating.’ His eyes disappeared in their creases, but either memory, or the gravity of his listener, made him serious. ‘Oh, you can believe I kept quiet — that was a tight corner to be in. I couldn’t hope for any favours from her if she found I’d been watching.’

‘Watching?’ The word was a pounce and Poggio nearly dropped the cup.

‘Listening! I meant
listening
! I couldn’t see anything, I tell you. I had the door a little open, yes, but it opens away from the bed, as your honour will have seen.’

Sigismondo bent his head a little in agreement. ‘And then?’

‘He must have left. I couldn’t hear anything after they’d finished. The fireworks were going off. She’ll be lying there resting, I thought, and doesn’t she need to after that bout of Venus. Lying there with a smile on her face, shouldn’t wonder, and drowsy. Just the mood to grant a favour to poor Poggio. So I pushed the door a bit and peeked round the arras to see could I get out without her seeing where I’d been, and then I saw...’ He stopped, and looked into the cup as if wondering where the ale had gone. His mother was quick to fill it. In the pause, Benno could be heard walking the horses round before the hut. ‘And then you saw?’

‘I saw her hand. It was over the edge of the bed and it didn’t move and I thought, she’s asleep. I didn’t dare waste more time, her maids might come back, anyone might — so I crept out, then I made a bit of noise so she’d wake up.’

‘And she didn’t?’

Poggio looked round at his mother who had come close, listening clearly for the first time to this tale, her sacking apron bunched in her hands.

‘She was as dead as Noah’s wife, wasn’t she?’ Poggio went treble with stress. ‘Lying there like that. I didn’t need to touch her to know she was dead.’

‘But you did.’

‘Did what?’ Poggio put down the cup.

‘Touch her. When you took the ring.’

‘Well,’ Poggio flung his arms wide, exasperated, ‘what could I do? She’d have done me a favour if I’d asked her. She’d got me sent away in the first place. She owed me.’

‘To the tune of two thousand ducats?’

Poggio’s mother drew in breath among her teeth with a hiss, caught her son a hard backhand on the ear, picked up the cup and gave herself some of her own ale.

‘It was worth more,’ Poggio said indignantly, holding his ear. ‘That mean old tradesman—’

‘You used the wrong story on the goldsmith. Once he thought your
mistress
needed the money and had no place at Court, he knew he could name his own price.’

Poggio, still rubbing his ear, scowled. Then he demanded, ‘Who was the Judas? Who put you onto me?’

Sigismondo rose towering above him, sword still in hand. Even Poggio’s mother shrank back a little, treading on a hen.

‘I am asking the questions, Poggio. Where is the money?’

The sword shone, even in that poor light, and Poggio began a rapid excavation of his clothes, rummaging in his jerkin and untying cords, watched intently by his mother, and unwound a long linen strip full of knots. He deposited this on the ground at Sigismondo’s feet with a series of little thuds as the knotted-in coins fell. One of the hens came to peck hopefully at the pile. When he had done, and held his shirt up to demonstrate, Sigismondo uttered the one word, ‘And?’

Poggio hesitated, Sigismondo whipped the sword to his throat and he backed, turned and ran to the wall, leapt from one projection to another until he reached his hiding place, and with rear and legs still outside, scuffled till he could drop down with a small leather bag.

‘The last. I swear it.’

‘Save your oaths for the Duke. You return now to Rocca with me.’

Poggio flung out his arms again. ‘I’ve told you everything. I’ve given you all the money, everything! Count it!’

Poggio’s mother enveloped him again, tearful, and howled, ‘Don’t take him to his death! He’s told you everything! You have the money!’

Sigismondo made a small dismissive movement with the sword, and hummed a derogatory arpeggio. ‘If he had — but as it is...’ In that hum, at least one of the two listeners heard the well-oiled levers of the rack. Poggio’s mother released her son and, seizing the broom from the wall, started to belabour him vigorously. Poggio ducked, the blow caught a hen that flapped up aiming for the rafters. Poggio darted from her, trying to avoid the blows. The pig ran, hens exploded into the air, smoke bellied from the fire, Poggio’s mother pursued him wielding the broom, screaming, ‘Tell him, tell, you fool!’

Sigismondo stood by the door and waited.

Poggio fell over the pig and his mother caught him.

As the outrage of hens and pig subsided and she could be heard, she said, ‘Will you let him go if he tells you all the truth?’

‘First, I will hear it. Then, I have the Duke’s authority to do what I think fit.’

Poggio, his head clamped in the crook of his mother’s arm, was choking. Sigismondo hoisted him from her grip and set him down. The hens in the rafters shifted and peered down, commenting nervously. The sword’s tip just touched Poggio’s throat, keeping him rigid.

‘What did you see when you pushed the door open and looked out into the Duchess’s room?’

‘I told you: the Duchess’s hand.’

‘Before that.’

The sword made a tiny movement and Poggio gasped, his head jerking up. A drop of blood appeared on his neck.

He said hoarsely, ‘The Lady Violante.’

‘In the Duchess’s room.’

‘Yes.’

‘What was she doing?’

‘Standing there. Looking at the Duchess.’

‘How?’

Sigismondo withdrew the sword a few inches and Poggio clasped both hands on his chest. ‘Like this.’

‘She was holding something?’

‘I thought she was. I couldn’t see it. It shone, but it could have been her dress. She had gold on her dress.’

‘How long do you think she had been there?’

‘I don’t know. I’d heard the man go, but I hadn’t heard
her
. She was at the end of the bed. You saw the room? You know the curtains were closed on the bed except this side? She stepped towards the bed and I ducked back. There was a sound — oh I don’t know, I think she sighed. Perhaps she was praying?’ Poggio looked up, taken with this idea. ‘She’d be praying, wouldn’t she? Then there were more fireworks going off in the court, and when I dared to look again, she’d gone.’

‘Were they friends, she and the Duchess?’

‘The Duchess wasn’t kind to her. She would find fault with her clothes and her manners. Said she was too extravagant and too free — but the Lady Violante, you know, she never quarrelled with her. The Lady was brought up by the Duchess Maria, God rest her, like her own child, and this Duchess knew the Duke loved the Lady Violante and of course they wouldn’t quarrel. Of course not. I suppose the Duchess wouldn’t be much older than she is. The Lady’s got a good heart. She spoke up for me when the Duke sent me away.’ He rubbed the itch out of the scratch on his neck and examined the smear of blood on his finger, which he wiped off on his hose. ‘She’s a lovely lady.’

Sigismondo had taken off his cloak and jerkin, without comment on this, and was engaged in wrapping round his body the long rope of linen pockets that had been piled on the ground before him. Poggio and his mother watched yearningly as he put away their golden future, but the sword was at all times near his hand. Jerkin and cloak went on again and he surveyed the pair, not unkindly. Poggio’s mother clasped her hands.

‘You’ll not take him? He’s told you everything. You have the money...’

‘The money is for the goldsmith. Poggio is free to stay.’

They screeched, Poggio did a brief fantastic dance and his mother tried to seize Sigismondo’s hand to kiss it; but he was too quick for her, turning towards the door with a swirl of the cloak that nearly put the fire out and, filling the room with smoke, made his exit like that of a genie.

Outdoors, it was winter dusk and beginning to snow with more decision. Benno was tired of beating off attempts by children to raid the saddlebags, one of the most successful being a boy who leapt from a roof onto the larger horse, making it rear, however, and causing him to slide off. The saddlebags were too firmly fixed, and Benno’s cudgel effective, so the children had no luck. He was cold, and glad to see his master, whose arrival dispersed the children instantly.

‘Thought you was killing someone in there, all that noise,’ he said cheerfully as they mounted. They rode off through the dusk followed by many disappointed eyes. As Benno followed, a faint hum was borne back to him on the wind, along with a stinging flurry of snow.

Inside Benno’s clothes against his chest, replete with sausage, slumbered the small one-eared dog.

They had not seen the last of Poggio. As their horses picked their way in the twilight, and Benno reflected that riding down a steep hillside, whether in snow or not, was an occupation no man could enjoy, a sudden shrill whistle made both Sigismondo and Benno turn. At the crest of the hillside, silhouetted against the darkening sky, skipping and shrieking, was Poggio. When he saw their faces turn towards him, he pointed ahead, where the path wound among the rocks of an old landslide, and drew a hand across his throat. Benno was wondering what this meant, and had almost called to his master to know, when he saw Sigismondo draw his sword.

Poggio saw it too, and vanished from the skyline. Benno, pulling his cudgel from the strap, took breath, with a mouthful of invasive snow, and tried to feel valiant. Sigismondo had not quickened his pace but rode casually forward.

The attack came with a savage silence. Among the big shapes of the rocks, in the swirls of snow, Benno had to control his scared horse and hit backwards at the man who had landed like an incubus behind him and tried to pluck him out of the saddle. Benno had been made a groom because he had an instinct for horses, and he could ride; he pulled his mount in a tight circle and hit at the clawing attacker behind. From where Sigismondo was, Benno heard a scream, and the big horse backed into his. Sparks flew from the stones. A curtain of snow blew across, it was thick on his eyelids. Benno’s horse slipped, and went down on its haunches, then with a trampling slither recovered itself. His attacker was gone. Benno was soothing his horse, watching all round for danger, trying to see what Sigismondo did, and trying to keep hold of his cudgel that slipped in his cold hand. The little dog trembled against his chest, and wet him warmly. Sigismondo, shadowy giant through the snow, appeared and vanished, the sword descending. Benno’s horse stumbled on something and an aggrieved voice yelled, ‘Watch out then!’ Benno leant and made out the dwarf, cramming himself away, while on the ground sprawled a human shape. There was blood on the snow.

‘Benno!’

He pulled his horse round. Sigismondo was freeing his feet from the stirrups and holding the reins towards Benno, who tucked his cudgel under his arm and automatically took them. He saw Sigismondo stand on the saddle and leap to the summit of a boulder.

‘Take care of that one.’ Benno saw his master point, and made out another figure on the ground. Poggio, in a sheepskin garment that made him resemble a filthy snowball, scuttered towards it as Sigismondo was gone into the veils of snow.

They had not long to wait. Poggio, standing up by the second man whose chest now lay open to the bone, called up, ‘You were lucky with your man — you hit his knife arm first thing.’

Benno was imagining what it must be like to have a knife go into you when Sigismondo appeared down the track, looming between the rocks. He bent to see Benno’s attacker and moved on to the other man. A sound, a wordless prolonged sound of annoyance, came; then, ‘I said
take care of him
, not
cut his throat
.’

Poggio said, protesting, ‘It’s the same thing!’ and Sigismondo, coming upright and taking the reins once more, replied, ‘
Oh
no. A man with his throat cut can’t tell me who sent him.’

‘Weren’t they robbers?’ Benno enquired.

Sigismondo swung to the saddle. ‘Men in good clothes with well-made boots and at least one purse full of money... Had the others money?’