Duchess of Milan (37 page)

Beatrice thought for a moment, her pounding heart seeming to hammer her still-at-sea legs back to earth. Of course Eesh would never write her husband--and then to deliver it in this circuitous fashion? But at least she was certain of one thing. “No, Vincenzo, this is not a French plot. Even the French are not so clumsy as to have tipped their hand in so obvious a fashion.”

“Nor are they subtle enough to send us this brooch in the hope that we will discount their hand in the matter,” Calmeta added with a wry smile.

“Whoever it is, I’m certain that this person is bent on making trouble for his own gain.” Beatrice felt secure in her intuition that somehow this little intrigue boded a large trouble. If anyone but Eesh had been mentioned, she would have insisted on ignoring it entirely. She recalled the tactics she’d used to beat her ladies at
scartino;
a good player knew when to discard bad cards. . . . But was it possible that Eesh
was
behind this, that in some complex fashion she was engineering a reconciliation?

“Your Highness, I am willing to go to San Marco tomorrow, if only to satisfy your curiosity.”

“No, Vincenzo.” She took the note and pin and examined them. “I don’t like this. This could be dangerous for you.”

“Your Highness, I hardly think that I would be at risk in San Marco, save of losing my purse to a thief or surrendering both my purse and my virtue to a courtesan. I only regret that this mission could not be more dangerous, so that I could more energetically prove my devotion to Your Highness.”

She realized that Vincenzo said this with all sincerity. Perhaps, she thought with a little thrill, he was even falling in love with her--in a chaste, knightly fashion. She didn’t want him to go to San Marco, but if she forbade him she would extinguish the joy in his soft gray eyes. “I think it is very dangerous, Vincenzo, but I trust that you are also dedicated to sparing me the pain I would suffer should anything happen to you. You will be very careful.”

The five vast Byzantine domes of the basilica of San Marco echoed with three levels of sound. Foremost was the sonorous chanting of the priests singing Matins from the massive gold-and-alabaster architecture of the high altar. A charming polyphony was added by the delicate trilling of the courtesans as they paraded throughout the nave. Their shoulder-length blond curls, gleaming cleavage, and concentric layers of pearl and gold necklaces were an appropriate addition to the extravagant fittings of the church; with its seven-century accumulation of glittering mosaics, swirling marble panels, gilt-and-enamel altarpieces, and Byzantine chandeliers and icons, San Marco looked like an enormous jewel box.

The third sound was a low resonant buzz provided by furtive conversations in a dozen different Italian dialects and foreign tongues. As much as San Marco was a bazaar of flesh, it was also an exchange for one of Venice’s other leading commodities: secrets. Diplomats, agents, exiles, and assassins from all over Europe congregated here to barter information, lies, and lives.

Two men, disguised like most of their colleagues in the anonymity of Venetian-style black velvet capes and shoulder-length hair, had set up shop in the left arm of the huge Greek-cross basilica; this transept was virtually a cathedral unto itself, with its own soaring dome and richly decorated barrel-vaulted aisle chapels. A soft morning light filtered down from the windows ringing the dome, and one of the men inclined his head forward slightly, careful that his long hair draped and concealed the four livid parallel scars across his left cheek.

“Have you considered what you will do if no one comes?” asked the man with the scarred face.

“Giovann, you must understand that you are no longer hiding in a village in Apulia,” answered his companion. “If I have learned nothing else here, it is that in Venice there is always another buyer.”

“We shouldn’t even be selling it. If someone comes we will make certain that they represent the Duchess of Bari and then be done with it. This letter has been purchased with blood and can only be sold in that coin,” Giovann said bitterly.

“We have no assurance that Il Moro or the Signory will do anything with this letter, except perhaps to burn it,” the second man whispered urgently. “But if we can interest Il Moro and the Signory in bidding against one another,
we
will at least profit enough to get to France and contribute to Prince Antonello’s efforts.”

“How do you intend to approach the Signory?” Giovann asked.

“I have already initiated a conversation with their representative,” the second man whispered. “I suggested the nature of our merchandise, and we arranged to talk again after he had consulted with the Signory. Which will allow us to establish what Il Moro is willing to pay before we have to negotiate with the Signory. Now look for the red mantle.”

A half hour passed. Giovann nudged his companion. “That priest there in the black cassock, near the icon of the Madonna. He isn’t here to beg alms or attend Mass. He’s been doing nothing but watch us.”

A throng of maybe thirty people virtually obscured the jewel-framed Byzantine icon, the centerpiece of a small marble altar. The second man searched the crowd intently. He shook his head. “I don’t see a priest.”

“He’s gone,” Giovann said. “He saw us looking at him. I believe he is here to administer the Signory’s sacraments. We were foolish to think that the Signory would pay for something they can so easily steal. We should leave now, immediately.” His whisper was sibilant with alarm.

“There’s someone with a red mantle near the--” The second man broke off, and his eyes popped wide with terror and pain. The priest stood behind him, one hand clutching his arm, the other fist shoved against his back. He gasped, “Go, Giovann ...” Then nightmare quick, his eyes rolled and blood trickled down his chin and his body slumped in the priest’s arms.

Giovann caught only the vaguest glimpse of the priest’s acquiline Venetian features before he turned and started through the crowd. He fumbled inside his cape for his knife. He looked back and saw the priest knock down a courtesan, who fell with a shouted curse. Suddenly it occurred to him that it wasn’t enough simply to escape; unless he killed the Signory’s murderous hireling, within minutes his description would be circulating among Venice’s notoriously efficient security force.

His mistake was stopping for the priest instead of slowing and allowing himself to be caught. After a moment he realized that and wheeled in alarm. The only indication that the priest had ever been there was the courtesan, who had gotten back on her feet. She plucked haughtily at the puffs of white silk chemise showing through the slitted foresleeves of her gown, muttering something about priests who sodomized little boys.

“Your Highness, you understand that you will address the six presiding officers of the Signory in the Sala del Collegio, not the entire body of the Signory in their Senate chamber.” Count Girolamo da Tuttavilla, head of the Milanese embassy, lowered his heavy eyebrows. He wasn’t quite sure that Beatrice was listening to his brief. “These men are elected from among the three hundred members of the Signory, who are in turn elected from the twelve hundred noblemen who share by birthright membership in the Maggior Consiglio. So when you address these six gentlemen, you will be addressing all Venice.”

Beatrice nodded; she could excuse Count Tuttavilla for assuming she was distracted. She glanced at the crumbling marble fireplace in front of her, still bearing the scorch marks of the fire that ten years previously had ravaged the Doge’s Palace, the seat of Venice’s government. The exterior of the palace had been sumptuously reconstructed, but the penurious Signory had decided to hold off on refurbishing the interior. The walls had been hastily replastered and hung with draperies, while the serious business of repainting the murals and gilding the ceilings had been postponed indefinitely. The antechamber in which Beatrice and the Milanese envoys waited was small as well as plain, an anteroom one might find in the home of an average Milanese merchant. In her imagination, Beatrice had rehearsed an impassioned oration to hundreds of gallant gentlemen in a vast, splendid hall. Now she anticipated sitting cheek to jowl with a half-dozen functionaries in quarters that would most likely be no larger and certainly less splendid than one of her own closets.

“Your Highness should not take as an affront the duration of the delay,” Tuttavilla added. “The more urgent and vital one’s mission, the longer the Signory requires one to wait. If you had come to inquire about the price of an arm-span of cheap linen in the Merceria, they would have seen you a half hour ago.”

The door to the outer hall opened slightly. Tuttavilla went to see who wanted in. He looked back at Beatrice. “Your secretary wishes to be admitted, Your Highness.”

Beatrice had been so anxious about Calmeta’s clandestine errand that she had ordered him to report to the Doge’s Palace as soon as he returned from the adjacent basilica of San Marco. She hurried to the door and motioned Calmeta back outside, into the brightly sunlit room that served as a waiting area for the chambers of the Senate and the Council of Ten, the Venetian security apparatus.

Calmeta shook his head. “I wore the red mantle and the brooch, feeling quite unsuitably attired, and stood by the icon throughout most of Matins. No one approached me. It was a disappointingly salutary enterprise, Your Highness. Not even a courtesan threatened to handle me roughly. However, there was a disturbance of sorts just as I arrived. A man fainted and a lady took offense at a priest who had somehow interfered with her trade.” Calmeta smiled winsomely and shrugged. “I suspect that I have fallen victim to a prank that you were wise enough to advise me to avoid.”

Tuttavilla appeared at the door and signaled to Beatrice. She thanked Calmeta for his valor regardless and hurried back into the fire-scarred antechamber. A page swung open the door to the Sala del Collegio. Tuttavilla nodded his encouragement, and Beatrice went on in.

The Sala del Collegio was longer than its antechamber and more brightly lit, but just as narrow and hastily decorated. The walls had been hung all around with crimson velvet drapes, and the floor was a fire-darkened and cracked marble
opus sectile.
A varnished oak dais at the far end of the room elevated a single wooden bench. Seven men sat on the bench side by side, separated from each other by flat armrests upholstered in purple satin. Along the wall to the right, two secretaries sat at an enclosed wooden writing lectern.

Beatrice had little time for orientation before she reached the shallow steps leading to the dais. She was almost close enough to shake the hands of the gentlemen, who stood politely but did not bow. She could arrive at only a general impression of the faces of the six members of the Signory, partly because she didn’t dare study them individually, but also because the centuries of political and social exclusivity enjoyed by the Venetian nobility had bred men who looked--and thought--very much alike. This collective face was tautly powerful, shadowed with a smoothly shaven but heavy beard, and lined with creases as sharp as knife cuts. Tightly drawn lips, a sharp, prominent nose, and unyielding blue eyes completed a portrait of toughness, practicality, and indifference.

The only welcoming human presence was the aged Doge, who remained seated at the center of the bench, his watery eyes winking beneath drooping lids. His voluminous cape of silver-and-gold-embroidered white damask was a stark contrast to the other men’s long, loose-sleeved robes of costly but plain-looking scarlet velour. The Doge’s matching damask cap had a hornlike protuberance at the rear, and this combined with his flowing white hair and beard gave him the aspect of a kindly sorcerer captured in some distant land by a group of ruthless adventurers. Suddenly Beatrice realized that the Spartan decor conveyed exactly what the Signory desired--that the visitor was negotiating with men whose only concern was the utterly efficient exercise of raw, expedient power.

The Doge motioned for Beatrice to take the seat to his right, which now made it impossible for her to look directly at any of the men, with the exception of the two secretaries; it occurred to her that this arrangement also suited the style of men who valued secrecy and discretion far more than diplomatic effusion. Fine; she could learn more by listening to them than by staring at their resolute, immobile faces.

The Doge welcomed her floridly, as if he was permitted (or perhaps condemned to) all the courtesies the Signory so obviously disdained. Beatrice overcame an initial moment of panic and then responded with the rhetorical skills that had been drilled into her almost as soon as she could talk. Fear had attended every one of her childhood Latin recitals--the first had been when she was four years old--and so she had learned not simply to speak well in front of an audience of her elders but to speak well with her heart pounding a distracting rhythm and her throat fighting every breath.

The pleasantries done with, Beatrice produced Belgioioso’s dispatch. She was forced to sit in excruciating silence while each man read the document. But as the sheet of parchment passed from hand to hand she could feel the atmosphere charging around her, almost as if the coffered ceiling were steadily lowering and compressing the air.

When the parchment had reached the end of the bench, a voice to her left asked, “I see that the French King intends to ask your husband for assistance in his Italian adventure. How does your husband intend to reply to this request?”

Beatrice noted both smug authority and slyness in her unseen questioner’s grating nasal voice. He intended to test her, perhaps lure her into some inadvertent confession of her husband’s duplicity. Suddenly she was eager to match words with this anonymous adversary. “My husband has done all within his power to oppose any French adventure in Italy. He sees no reason to alter that policy now that crossing the mountains has become a fixed objective of the French King.”

“Indeed. One might suggest that this would in truth be an appropriate time for your husband to alter his policy,” the nasal voice offered with a brisk annoyance that gave Beatrice a pang of fear. “The French will now tempt your husband with both promises and threats to abandon his Italian allies and enable the French enterprise.”