Death of a Duchess (25 page)

‘They will not have been the only spies. There’s no time now to explain all that needs to be made clear, and you must trust me and, for once, each other. Your children are both safe for this moment, but their lives, and yours, depend on the events of this coming day.’

He had moved to the windows and peered through a crack in the shutters as if to estimate how close that day might be to its dawn. Now he turned and spoke almost casually to di Torre. ‘And your instructions, my lord, were?’

‘To open the gates. That is,’ Cosima heard a constriction of the throat, an effort at dignity in this admission of being a traitor, ‘as a Chief Councillor of the Duke’s, to send messages with my seal, that no alarm was to be raised, nor any effort made to prevent, when armed troops arrived and entered; that they were the Duke Ippolyto’s men, come to help our Duke to put down riots.’

‘Riots?’ Bandini asked.

‘Riots would be provided,’ Sigismondo answered drily. Cosima, once more seated on the tapestry bench along the bedfoot, saw her father’s face and was sorry for him for the first time. After all, it was for her sake he had been ready to do this, even if she were not a person but merely his daughter.

He now raised his head and said to Bandini, ‘What did you have to do?’

Bandini made a giving gesture with both hands, his tone almost conciliatory. ‘Money. Troops, mercenaries, must be paid. If you were to let in the men Francisco has hired, I was to be their paymaster,’ and he put a hand on Leandro’s shoulder, ‘if the boy were not to die.’

‘Instead of which,’ Sigismondo’s voice held a note of ironic cheerfulness, ‘Duke Ludovico was to die. Now, if we are to prevent that, you must do as I say.’

‘First, first,’ Jacopo clicked his fingers towards Angelo, ‘look after your mistress. Put her to bed. What an hour for her to be up.’

Angelo curtsied and came to give Cosima attendance. At this point Leandro sprang from his chair and hurried forward. Sigismondo, humming in strong deprecation, drew him sharply away.

‘Angela, the Lady Donati will certainly be waiting. See your mistress to her room.’

Di Torre and Ugo Bandini were left, on either side of the great hearth where the brazier stood. Sigismondo fed it with wood and it gave out a grateful warmth in this hour before dawn.

Bandini took his son’s face between his hands and kissed him on the brow. ‘You should rest, child. You are exhausted... and your hands are still bloodied.’

‘All is ready.’ Sigismondo opened the door and Benno came in at once, laden with a vast swathed jug of steaming water. He set it down on the hearthstone and fetched a big earthenware basin glazed with a pattern of dolphins. He filled it with a splash that made the brazier hiss like a cross cat, and stood back. The light caught his face and di Torre started.

‘What the devil is that rogue doing here?’

Sigismondo had observed that the sight of Benno seemed to arouse in people the desire to kick him or at least shout at him. Di Torre, affronted at the vision now gawping amiably at him, reached out and shook him hard. ‘Answer me!’

Sigismondo said, ‘He is one who risked his life bring your daughter back to you.’

‘He?’ Di Torre stepped back. ‘
He
?’ One might have thought that he would on the whole rather not have had her back on such insanitary terms.

Sigismondo picked up the great cloak that lay on the bed, and brought it to Ugo Bandini, whose son was already peeling off his shirt and preparing to wash, kneeling on the hearth.

‘Sir, before light discovers you, you must be home. Whatever you do, show no joy for what you have seen here. Continue to mourn, and do exactly what you will be told to do. My man, who brought you here, will come with word.’

Bandini bent once more to kiss his son’s face, wet though it was, and then folded himself in the cloak.

‘You too, my Lord di Torre. You must return home.’

‘But my daughter? Am I not to remain to escort my daughter?’

‘You mistake, my lord.’ Sigismondo was benign. ‘You came to see that she is safe. She can’t return with you yet. There is still at least one in your house who might betray that she is there. Our enemy will not have relied only on the slave girl. They will be watching you. This was why you were brought here in such secrecy and by a long route. I’m told that you complained of it, but you do not know how much you have to fear. Ever since we took the lady from Duke Francisco’s power they will have looked for her to be brought back to you. Your part in this is to do just as you were engaged to do by him.’

‘
By Duke Francisco
?’ Di Torre’s face was that of acute alarm, and he resisted Sigismondo’s guidance towards the door.

‘Do just as he bade you. Trust me.’

‘My daughter...’

‘Is in her bed, in the room of the good lady who has taken such excellent care of her since her rescue.’ Sigismondo was as convincing with a disingenuous statement as with the truth.

They reached the outer door. There was some grunting as Bandini, even assisted by Sigismondo’s arm, made work of getting from the high sill down to the street. A gruff young man in a hooded cloak, quite unrecognisable as the maidservant, was there to guide them both home, but he lounged at the wall and did not help. Bandini might have laughed as di Torre was helped down — his old enemy clinging to the doorjamb like a frantic old badger in his furs. Sigismondo closed the door softly, barred and bolted it, and returned upstairs.

Leandro lay on the bed. He had pushed back the covers but not pulled them over him. Sigismondo tucked them round him while Benno dealt with the basin and water jug. Leandro roused a little. He had a thousand questions to ask, not least about Cosima, but the only one that was in the forefront of his mind and that he could, so to speak, lay hands on was, ‘What
is
my father to do tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow? It is today.’ Sigismondo drew the bed curtain. ‘He too must do just what the Duke Francisco ordered.’

‘You
want
my father to commit treason?’

Sigismondo smiled. Leandro’s tired mind attempted to wonder whose side Sigismondo was really on; but he slept.

Leandro woke, with the brisk resilience of youth, because of shouting in the street in the still early morning. He had a moment of disoriented wonder at the size of the place, the painted ceiling, the tester, and his own ease. As a crescendo of shouting ended in a metallic clash, he rolled from bed, taking the padded quilt and swathing himself as he went, and peered through the shutters. Disappointingly, he saw only people running away, but in his mind was Sigismondo’s
riots will be provided
.

It was not unlike prison in two respects: it was cold and he was hungry. He hurried to dress, found that the brazier was extinct but that there was a covered dish by the bed holding the chicken and bread he had been unable to eat the night before.

A third thing, he thought as he ate. I am still a prisoner. Whose?

He stopped eating of a sudden. Comfortable in his nest of quilt and pillows, he began to think about the day. His father and di Torre had to carry out the tasks Duke Francisco had laid on them. Whose agent
was
Sigismondo, after all?

It was inconceivable — surely — that he himself was destined to carry out what had been laid down for him this day? That his rescue was a cruel farce to ensure his father’s obedience? And that incredible girl, could she really be Cosima di Torre? The old villain had not shown much affection for her. Was he acting a part?

Leandro lost his appetite again. He wrapped himself closer and brooded.

Jacopo di Torre, too, refused his early sop and wine. He stayed in his bed. For the household it revived memories of the day when news came from the master’s country villa that two of the men employed there had inexplicably turned up, with their throats cut, in the cart of dung sent from the house the morning the Lady Cosima had been abducted. It seemed no mystery to the master, however, and was naturally greeted with less emotion than he showed when the Lady Cosima’s hair arrived. Then he had sat, bawling, holding the ribbon-trimmed plaits with their little gold clasps — everybody recognised those clasps — cursing the Bandini, tearing his own hair. Now the steward reported he was brooding over them again, hunched up in his bed. He had not neglected all business but had written letters with his own hand and his Councillor’s seal and sent them off.

Ugo Bandini had already left the city. He had the Duke’s permission to do so, for the Duke’s own implacable fury against the man had been softened by his brother’s pleading. Paolo had prevailed on him to believe in Ugo’s innocence of conspiracy with his son, and not to force him to remain in the city during his son’s execution. He was to take refuge in the country villa of a friend, and his pass allowed him out before dawn, riding with a laden pack-horse and a giant bodyguard.

The Lady Donati was waited on immediately after her morning devotions by the anxious steward, his wife and niece. The women were white as their caps. They apologised profusely. The niece wept. They could not — could not stay. It was the old master’s chamber. They had been sweeping out the big dining room below for the lady... but they had heard... footsteps! They came at once to see if the guests were all present or if it could be one of them in the master’s chamber — and here they all were! Yet there had been — they had both heard it, and called the steward — he had heard it — they could not stay in the house — footsteps, soft, to and fro, in the room of the dead.

‘Piero’s sleeping it off late this morning,’ his mate said. ‘He’d better rouse up by the time the priest comes to young Bandini.’

‘Is it true Bandini had a whore in there last night?’

‘There’s a lad!’

‘Horny young devil. Be the last time, though.’

‘Never. Piero wouldn’t stand for that.’

‘With the Bandini’s deep purse?’

‘Did someone ought to take the lad’s food along?’

‘Piero don’t like it. Let the young murderer go to his death fasting, anyway. Would you believe he was sleeping when I looked through the door? And what’s the odds what he puts in his guts when they’re going to be on view anyway?’

No one could speak to the Duke Ludovico that morning. He was in a savage temper. Even his brother steered clear of him. Only the Lady Violante, who carrying her baby half-brother for an airing on loggia, received a civil word when the Duke paused to look at his motherless heir. The attendant lad drew well back. They knew that pallor and that falcon stare.

On the wide sills of a palazzo’s barred windows, a woman had set up her wares, woven rush pokes and wicker baskets. Two of Duke Ippolyto’s men paused, watched by those standing about.

‘God in heaven. What are these messy objects?’

‘The people round here use them for hats, of course, hadn’t you noticed?’

As they went off laughing, one of the Palace dwarves reached up, tweaked at a basket and said in their very accent, ‘At home, of course, we use them for tableware. The gravy has to be ate off the cloth, course...’

A roar of laughter followed the pair down street, but they advisedly took no notice. This was not the time for brawls with the citizenry. The dwarf wearing the basket as a hat, went on chatting to amused little crowd.

Flags draped in black were climbing the poles round the great square. The palazzi hung out black-ribboned banners in due response. Stones and dirt were flung at the shut Palazzo Bandini, and a balladmonger sang ‘Leandro’s Lament’, a maudlin confession, across the street.

And so repulsed

By righteous chastity

In vicious lust

And cruel enmity

I struck, O had my hand

In palsy first been numb!

And purple purple streams

Now from her side did come...

Here some officer of the Duke’s, from either impatience or an informed taste, moved him on.

The morning advanced. The Lady Donati’s chaplain performed an exorcism on the haunted chamber, to the great comfort of the steward’s family. They all refused to assist, whether from fear of possession or terror of seeing the spirit they could not say.

The messages with di Torre’s Council seal were received at the gates. Bandini and his escort came up with Il Lupo and his advancing mercenaries on the heathland not far from Duke Ludovico’s border. The Cardinal Pontano presented the condolences of the Holy Father to Duke Ludovico; he had noticed, but did not mention, that blood was again being scrubbed from the Palace doors and threshold. He offered his own condolences to the Duke Ippolyto, and assured him that all resentment at his family’s bereavement must be assuaged by the very adequate reparation about to be made by the young Bandini.

He was not aware that the priest who had come to confess the young Bandini was being kept waiting because Piero, and Piero’s keys, could not be found, and although Piero knew where other keys were kept, nobody else did. While the priest, calling through the judas in the cell door, attempted to rouse the sleeper, messengers were flying in search of the seneschal, the Duke’s steward, the Duke’s secretary, and anyone else who might be held to know where the keys were.

‘Old Piero must’ve been on a hell of a toot,’ said the second jailer.

Leandro, recovering from the hysteria occasioned by Sigismondo’s operations with sonorous Latin as he paced the room, sat in the chimney corner by the replenished brazier and, as the door shut, was locked and powerfully splashed with water, he listened to the last of the exorcism and spooned the soup which Sigismondo had also brought; and he realised as he ate his way through the vegetables and bread with which the soup was furnished that the morning was advancing. It made him pause. Sigismondo had come in finger to sculptured lip, and had smiled benevolently, but his head had still that disturbing resemblance to an executioner’s. Leandro felt that, in conjunction with the approaching noon, it quite put him off food. He contemplated the bowl, and saw that the soup was almost gone, and wondered that he had so little sensibility. Cheerful sounds of cleaning came from the floor below, and from the street, shouting, chases, the crack and thud of thrown stones, a scream or two, more shouting, a rush of horses, orders being given; and behind all of it, the dull murmur of a crowd.