Death of a Duchess (7 page)

‘Why, here.’ He turned his gaze on Sigismondo with deep curiosity. ‘What has happened, then? Does the Duke wish to punish him?’ The curtain was wrenched aside, and the boy seen surrendering his ivy-leaf belt stood there, panting, still in his leopard skin. He paused on seeing Sigismondo but he was too full of his news not to spill it.

‘The Duchess! The Duchess is dead! Murdered!’

Niccolo sprang to his feet. ‘The Duchess? Who did it? The poor lady! Dear God! Who would do such a thing? A terrible —
Who’ll pay me
?’

Sigismondo had risen more slowly and, as Niccolo about to launch himself into the crowd outside, took him by the arm so that he whirled round with force of his own impetus.

‘The Wild Man’s costume.’

A dozen hands reached for Niccolo. Half-dressed, patchily painted grotesques were clamouring, and he was rocked by dwarves round his legs pulling different ways at his jerkin.

Some informed him that the Duchess was dead, the rest cried out for their pay. ‘Wait, wait, only be patient—’

‘Money—’

‘—promised—’

‘—the Duchess—’

‘—how we eat?’

‘—all the way from Venice—’

A hush spread from the far side of the room. Attendants in slate blue and ochre had come in, Paolo’s men, and after them the Lord Paolo himself. Niccolo pushed forward to bow, apologising for the dishevelment and disorder, offering his condolences — a perfunctory murmur from the troupe — and asking what they were to do. Sigismondo leant on the wall, arms folded, to wait.

The Lord Paolo was wan and grave, but spoke with his accustomed gentleness. He was sorry they had been left in ignorance of events, but he had been speaking to the noble guests. Was there some trouble about money that he had heard just now? He would pay the Duchess’s debt to them of course, himself. Let them be easy. There would be food and lodging in his quarters and his steward would give them their money.

‘You were to have been lodged here? But the Duke will not wish you to be here. I would not have him reminded, you understand. Pack everything up. My men will help you.’

‘Is it known who killed the poor lady?’ someone asked.

Lord Paolo shook his head. ‘I fear it is the son of Ugo Bandini.’

Instant shouts and vituperation arose among the dwarves; di Torre and Bandini had their factions even here. The Lord Paolo reminded them of the Duke’s decree about disturbances of the peace, and the voices died to a rumble. His men were seizing the hampers. The troupe pulled off the remains of the costumes in a hurry and searched for their clothes. Cupid, asleep on a pile of them, was roused, had his hose pulled on, was shaken, kissed and carried away. Niccolo cried, ‘Wait, wait; I must make sure of the costumes. Wait, wait,’ and tried to halt the men. A dwarf under the scarlet plumed hat ran by and he turned to catch him.

Sigismondo’s right hand was holding his chin, a forefinger over his mouth. His left hand nursed his elbow. In the hubbub he was still. The gold shank of the ring glowed in the torchlight.

The Lord Paolo beckoned. Sigismondo detached himself from the wall and came through the excited throng.

‘We see the outcome of this morning’s sad affair.’

Sigismondo bowed.

‘There will be no need now for further search on your part. Bandini will have to yield up the Lady Cosima — but I fear that will not save his son. The Duke’s mercy must be tempered with strength.’

Sigismondo bowed again.

‘Though I have always counselled mercy,’ said the Lord Paolo, as he turned away. The crowd made room for him to go.

‘Sir. Sir.’

A tiny child, smaller than the Cupid and with a head of curls not unlike the gilded wig, but wearing a page’s tabard, tugged at Sigismondo’s tunic and looked up at him with huge brown eyes.

‘Sir. My lady wants you.’

Sigismondo crouched to child level. ‘My lady?’

‘Follow me.’ The infant, having secured Sigismondo’s attention, assumed his obedience and set off, weaving smartly among the legs of the crowd in the entrance hall, through guests remaining to churn over the unbelievable news and the rumour that Ugo Bandini, hearing of his son’s dreadful deed, had taken refuge with the Cardinal Pontano in fear of the Duke. In the Great Hall, servants, clearing tables and filling their mouths, were busy with the same subject. Sigismondo followed, as deft in avoiding shoulders as the page in avoiding legs. Anyone who saw him coming, however, instinctively made way; he was used to this and, in battle, appreciative.

The Castello Rocca might have been constructed by giant rabbits; there were passages of every kind, rough stone or painted plaster, narrow or wide, some apparently leading nowhere but saved from frustration by a curtain and an eel-like twist by the tiny page, who had picked up a flambeau once they were beyond the standing lights — a rabbit of experience. Sigismondo followed in perfect trust, a man who knew when to commit himself to the unknown, and who knew himself less at danger than many in so doing.

The apartments of Agnolo di Villani, Master of the Duke’s Horse and, since earlier in the day, husband and presumably also master of the Lady Cecilia, were reached at last. The infant page opened the door, drew aside the last curtain and announced, ‘The Lord Sigismondo’.

Sigismondo, suddenly and flatteringly ennobled, bowed low. He had seen the Lady Cecilia at the banquet when she was in an hour of exaltation, the fair bride in whose honour it was all taking place. One might expect conventional signs of grief, such as an effort at tears, gracefully disordered hair. What he saw was swollen eyelids, and a composure that spoke of discipline. The gold net still held the golden hair, she had not changed the gown of yellow velvet, but the Lady Cecilia of that time was not the one he saw now.

‘You are in the Duke’s confidence, I believe.’

Sigismondo held out his hand, the sardonyx with the arms of Rocca now uppermost again. She nodded and clapped her hands. Another page, with more muscle at his command than the infant, appeared with a folding stool upholstered in red velvet, which he set up for the guest with a flourish. At a gesture from the lady, Sigismondo sat and was offered a goblet of wine by the page, who withdrew the moment Sigismondo’s hand took the silver-gilt stem.

‘You saw her Grace?’ Her eyes showed the memory of that figure.

‘Yes, my lady. The Duke sent for me at that time.’

‘He sent for me, too.’ She looked down at her hands, long and white, laced in her lap. ‘He knew she would have wished it. We’d always been friends, as children we played together in her father’s house. I came with her to Rocca when she married. I married a man of Rocca so that I might stay near her. It was right that I should do the last things for her.’ She unlaced her hands, took her cup from the carved chest at her side, and drank. A log burning on the big hearth collapsed in a shower of sparks and she started and set down the cup with a rattle.

‘Do you know who killed her?’ She turned once again towards Sigismondo, the gold net grating softly on her jewelled collar. ‘Was it not Bandini? Why is he not dead?’

Sigismondo shook his head, a slight, slow movement. ‘His Grace wishes me to make sure that justice is done. There are no certainties at this moment.’

‘Leandro Bandini is in prison.’

An equally slight shrug. ‘Leandro Bandini is unconscious. When he can speak, we’ll learn more.’

‘But he was found, his Grace tells me, at the foot of the bed. He had been struck on the brow, and a candlestick was lying beneath her Grace’s hand. Who else could have done it?’ She stared at the fire now, not glancing at the man who sat before her. ‘A man had lain with her before she died.’

Sigismondo hummed in assent. His silence was interrogative. She began to speak and stopped. The fire, consuming the log greedily, gave a hot glow to her face. ‘The Duke was with her when you came there.’

Her statement, which he did not deny, was left in the silence between them, its implication too dangerous to be put into words: if the last man to lie with the Duchess were the Duke, might he not be her murderer? If the last man to lie with the Duchess were not the Duke, if he had found her as they had seen her, might he not have killed an adulterous wife?

Sigismondo’s question was delicate, a great cat tapping a mouse with its paw to see if it would run.

‘Do you know of any who loved the Duchess?’ There was no harm in being loved, only in loving.

‘Many loved the Duchess.’

The mouse would not run.

‘Men can be reckless. Did Leandro Bandini show his love?’

‘That one.’ She turned her long neck scornfully, with the net’s sibilant little sound. ‘He paid court to all. Handsome, rich, he believed the world lay at his feet.’

Now he had been thrown on the straw of a dungeon somewhere below them.

‘If he paid court to one more than another, it was to the Lady Violante. He made eyes at her, wrote her poems, rode by her side when he could. But it is fashionable to court her, and men also will do such things to draw eyes away from their true love.’ Especially, she did not say, if the true love were a married woman, the wife of their Duke.

A draught strengthened, flattening a candle flame. Wax spilled down the candle, over the dish of the holder and onto the dark oak beneath. ‘The knife—’ her voice was choked, reluctant — ‘It was a wound made by a knife... Is it known whose knife it was?’

Sigismondo shook his head once more. ‘A knife such as anyone might carry.’

‘Not the knife of a rich young man.’

He acknowledged her sharpness with the lift of an eyebrow. Unspoken, again, that a knife not likely to be carried by a rich young man would be less likely to be carried by the Duke. The idea of sudden murder in a fit of rage receded; yet, as the lady had said, men were given to ruses. The Duke, had he intended to kill the Duchess, would be most likely to bring an anonymous weapon.

As they sat, contemplating the fire without speaking, an angry voice sounded outside, demanding. A mouse like squeak protested in reply. The door was opened, the curtain dragged aside, and Agnolo di Villani stood there in a nightgown of purple-black velvet, his face indicating unmistakeably that his wedding night completely failed his expectations. He glared at Sigismondo, who had risen and bowed, and at his wife.

‘You did not send to say you had returned. Who is this man?’ His interest in Sigismondo’s name seemed less acute than his interest in the colour of his entrails. The Lady Cecilia, however, was perfect in charming brute suspicions, an art she might have learned with her first two husbands; she stood up, hurried to him and twined her fingers in the velvet of his bulky sleeves. She arched her long neck to rub her face along his chest like a cat that caresses itself on another. For this moment she was a different woman.

‘My lord. It is the Duke’s man. He has authority to enquire into the matter of the Duchess.’

Di Villani looked over his wife’s head at the Duke’s man, his dislike complicated by the need to show compliance. He spoke in a growl, a bear waiting for a long-delayed dinner.

‘What is to be known? The Bandini boy’s taken.’

‘The Duke has instructed me to find out all that can be found concerning the deed.’

‘Why employ you? There are his own men here.’ Of whom I am not the least, he might have said.

‘For the same reason that he first employed me to enquire into the disappearance of the Lady Cosima: that I belong, and am known to belong, to neither faction, sir.’

‘The Lady Cecilia is tired. It is late.’ It would have been later had the feast continued as planned, before the bridal pair were bedded, but the happy exhaustion brought on by an excess of merrymaking is very different from that caused by laying out the murdered body of your closest friend. Sigismondo bowed and made to withdraw. Agnolo di Villani acknowledged the bow with an uncouth jerk of the head, and turned quickly towards the tall curtained bed in the room’s shadows.

The tiny page stood at his post outside, apparently unwearied and ready to escort Sigismondo back through the palace warren. He had scarcely picked up the flambeau when the Lady Cecilia appeared, lifting the curtain and glancing back over her shoulder. She came so close to Sigismondo that he could smell the musky scent she wore, heavy with civet as well as jasmine, and she whispered, ‘Her ring.’

‘Her ring?’

‘Her ring, her Grace’s ring that never leaves her finger. It was missing.’

There could be no doubt whatever that the truly happy people in the duchy that night were the beggars. Outside the gate they feasted on handfuls of venison pie, hatfuls of jellies; faces dripped pepper-and-vinegar sauce. Children gorged on gingerbread, tench, spiced veal. They tasted strange unknown mixtures of saffron, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger. A vast upturned pie had been eaten in seconds, its pork and eggs, almonds and dates stuffed into ecstatic mouths, the pastry cleaned from the stones. Over and over, the name of the Lord Paolo was spoken in blessing; the men who had brought the feast out to them had not said who had thought of them out in the cold, but that livery was well known.

In the Palace, Sigismondo and the small page exchanged bows and the page accepted a coin given for his services with the flambeau. Sigismondo strode on towards the tiny room allotted him. Knots of servants still whispered in corners, drawing out their tasks to give time to gossip. They watched as he passed, and more than one crossed himself as if seeing an ill omen.

Benno had somehow obtained a small box brazier and a bundle of wood. The room glowed with comfort and Sigismondo paused inside the curtain to smile. Benno had wound himself into the cloak as well, and now struggled to rise, but Sigismondo, pausing only to feed the brazier and to push the bedding further from its sparks, folded himself down on the pallet beside him.

‘That’s a good find.’

‘No one wanted it. It was where the players were to eat.’

‘Have you eaten?’ There was a smell of roasting meat, and Benno’s nod and look of satisfaction were not surprising. Grease shone on his beard.

‘There was a lot of food going.’