Beatrice and Benedick (30 page)

But I was wrong.

Amid the swinging booms and whipping ropes I saw him, upon the bulwark of the stern, doused with sea spray and chopping at something with his father's sword. I thought he'd taken leave of his senses, and was tilting at phantoms. But as I dropped my rope and ran to him I saw that he was hacking at the anchor rope, a twisted cord as thick as a man's arm. He was halfway through it.

‘Prince!' I screamed over the protesting caulking. ‘This is madness! Without the anchor we are at the mercy of the wind.'

He looked at me for a moment with the visage of a soul in Hell – I could see that in that moment he did not even know me. I knew then with a certainty like a stone in my stomach that Don Pedro was a coward.

Then Claudio was at my elbow. ‘What's amiss?' he yelled.

‘He's cutting the anchor!' I shouted back. ‘Get the captain!'

Don Pedro's sword had cut almost through the rope now, the fibres snapping and fraying as they gave way. I tried to stop the prince's slashes but nearly lost my arm. ‘Help me,' I shouted to some nearby sailors, but no one dared gainsay a prince.

The captain heaved into sight. ‘Sire!' he shouted. ‘If we lose the anchor we are dead men!' But it was too late. Don Pedro brought down his sword one last time like an executioner; the rope split, spun, sliced through, and the ship leapt forward.

The dreadful fiery crosses receded; but we were now at the mercy of the sea.

Beatrice:
There was no one there to meet the carriage when I arrived at Villafranca di Verona.

The driver halted the horses at the Mastio tower, by the great red arch of the city gate. The sun was at its height, so it must be noon, the appointed time for my arrival; but there was no one in my father's livery to be seen. I had expected to see Ventimiglia, my father's major-domo, or one of the keep-stewards at the very least.

I leaned forward and tapped the driver on his hunched shoulder. ‘Could you help me carry my box to the castello?' I pointed under the arch to where the castle stood, with toothsome crenellated towers and shredded banners streaming into the noonday sky. The vast red fort dominated the countryside; the little town, which had sprung up in the shadow of the talus like a clump of mushrooms, was no more than an afterthought. The castle was so big I'd had my eyes on it for above an hour upon the road. Like all Della Scala edifices it had red brick above with a stripe of white marble below. The Castello Scaligero was the landmark of the region. It was also my home.

The driver considered my request, then muttered something through his snaggle teeth. It sounded like ‘Why should I?'

I sat a little straighter. ‘Because I am Beatrice Della Scala.'

He sounded like a Florentine. His accent was a peasant version of Claudio's. That explained it. Only a foreigner would not
know my father, whose long reach extended all through the Veneto.

‘What's that to me? You got coin, I carry box. No coin, no box.'

The truth was, I didn't have coin. I'd expected Ventimiglia to meet the carriage with a purse, for my aunt had sent a harbinger.

I sighed. ‘I am a Scaligeri.' I gave the colloquial name for my family, in case such a yokel did not know the more formal form of Della Scala.

‘So?'

‘Well, let's see,' I said patiently. I pointed to the stone tower looming above us. ‘You see that little ladder on the architrave? That is my family's blazon. That castle is the Castello Scaligero. I am Beatrice Scaligeri. My family
own
this town.'

The simpleton shrugged, and tipped my strongbox off the carriage. It landed on the pavings with a crash. I followed it down precipitately, for the carriage took off with a lurch as the yokel touched the horses with his whip. Cursing like a man, I picked myself up and humped the box on to my back. Luckily, it contained very little; a reliquary of St James, a playing card and a single gown.

I knew that I had a chamber full of silk dresses at home in the castello so I'd left my Sicily wardrobe where it hung. The sole gown I had brought with me was the one I'd worn at the wedding at Syracuse. I called it my starlight dress; the one with the graduating skirts of differing blues and the constellation of diamonds on the bodice. I told myself I had brought it with me because my aunt had it made for me, but I knew in truth I had brought that one because Benedick had told me that I looked well in it. And nestling under the folds of the gown was the single
Scopa
card, the
settebello.
I did not know why I had brought it; I should have left it with the rest of Benedick's trick deck on his chamber floor, or cast it into the sea as I sailed to
Naples. But through accident or sentiment, I had brought it; and there it lay, next to St James's fingerbone, cradled in blue silk.

Still, the box itself was heavy; strong oak with brass bounds. I huffed and puffed at the weight as I trudged under the gate that bore my arms.

Villafranca looked just the same, and I remembered running up this very street as a child, with my brother Tebaldo chasing me with a wooden sword. I had another memory too, of me chasing him back the other way, once my swordplay had begun to match his own. We had never liked each other, my brother and I, and we fought like cat and cur every day. We even dubbed each other with certain names; I called him Prince of Cats and he called me Queen of Curs, and we would battle for supremacy for all the hours we were not in the schoolroom. I wondered whether we would be amiable now we were grown.

My footsteps were heavy, and not just because of the weight of the box. The truth was I had no great wish to be home. I loved Villafranca well enough, the little town with the great castle. It was far enough from Verona for my father to remain above the squabbles of Montecchi and Capuletti – the two great families of the town – but near enough to mediate. Yet my brother disliked me, and my father thought of nothing but his beloved heir, and his own importance in the role of Prince Escalus. I should not, really, have been surprised that my father had not sent a servant to meet the coach. He had never even noted me, let alone loved me. I was that rare thing; a daughter who could not even be of use as a marriage prize.

I wondered now whether he and Tebaldo had shaped my character, for I was raised in the great red-stone tower of a castle full of men. My mother died as soon as I began to grow and question. Just as I became a woman she ceased to be one, taking a fever and dying in the space of a single summer, the same summer I started to bleed.

I'd not known what to do, or how to stem the flow. There
was nobody to ask. I'd wandered about the castle, crying for my mother, the blood running unchecked down my legs for four days. My father, displaying no great concern, dispassionately called a physician, telling him, in my hearing, that he thought I might be dying too. After the male physician had, rather distastefully, explained to me about my women's courses, and outlined the nature of the problem to the Prince Escalus, my father had gone back to ignoring me.

From then on I had become harder, and more outspoken. I would not be weak again. And now I had to readjust, after a summer in the company of women. Hero had been the nearest thing to a sister I had ever known; in my aunt I had seen my mother again, and in Guglielma Crollalanza I had found – and lost – a role model. And yet, even with these female paragons about me, I'd still sought male company this summer; perhaps I had sought out Benedick because I missed Tebaldo's sparring. Would the company of my brother, now, in any way fill the void left by Benedick's defection?

I was across the bridge now, and in the heart of the town. There, on my left, was the little church of the Disciplina where I had been christened and confirmed. And on the right, the Serraglio walls with their defensive towers overlooking the river.

Now in the main thoroughfare, I knew I would find someone to help me with my box – I had not changed so much in a brace of months that the Villafranchese would not know me – they were my father's people born and bred. I shook my riding hood from my hair so they would see the Della Scala curls, the same barley-blond as my father's. The blazon painted on the lid of my strongbox bore the same arms that I'd shown the driver, the same arms as the flag that now flew from the red-stone tower of the castle – the ladder of the Scaligeri.
Stairs elevate us from the poor. Stairs keep us separate. Stairs keep us safe.

But something was wrong.

Instead of feeling the safety and security of home, I felt danger, prickling under the curls at my nape.

There was no one in the street, not a soul.

Every house was shuttered, every door closed, as if a storm was coming. Yet the day was bright and sparkling, and in my childhood I had known every door to be open, and every citizen to call a greeting. In one alleyway I saw a little moppet with curls like my own – I called to her, but a hand shot out from a dark door and pulled her within.

I carried on to the castle, and my skin cooled with foreboding as I entered the long shadow of the clock tower. The familiar blue and gold clock watched me like a warning eye – for here, too, something was amiss. There were no guards at the postern; only the dark cypress trees stood sentinel at the curtain wall. The great gate was wide open like a gaping mouth.

My heart started to beat fast and painfully – I was reminded of the night intruders at Leonato's palace, and thought for one dreadful, foolish moment that the Sicilian brigands had followed me here. Then my foot hit something with a clang. I looked down. It was a bloody rapier.

I set down the lockbox and knelt to examine the weapon. It was a fine blade, the haft finely chased and set with rubies, the handle wrapped with supple dog leather. But the blade was carmined to halfway with bright blood.

Suddenly I was back in the castle courtyard of my childhood, watching Tebaldo's morning swordplay lesson. ‘Halfway,' said Signor Archangeli, my father's master-at-arms. ‘If you have occasion to kill, pass the blade through your opponent's body to halfway, then claim it back. Any further, and if the fellow falls, he'll take your sword with him.'

I picked up the blade from the ground and weighed it in my hand. I touched the edge; the blood was still liquid, not tacky. Someone had been run through with this sword, and recently. I looked to the pavings again and saw a ruby had dropped from
its setting in the skirmish; and a little farther along, another. The truth thumped in my ears. Not rubies; blood.

There was a trail of red up the drawbridge and into the castle. I unfastened my cloak from my shoulders and let it drop over the box, and left both outside the barbican. But I took the sword with me.

In the shadow of the gatehouse I was suddenly cold. But ahead in the sunlit courtyard I could see why the town was empty. All the citizens were here. There were scores of them, but curiously silent, all jostling to see something in the middle of the circle. I was in the north now, so the citizens were as tall as I, and I couldn't see anything. But a fellow turned and noted me. ‘Let her through,' he said, ‘she's the sister.'

She's the sister.
It seemed a singular way to describe me. I did not know what the fellow meant by it, but walked forth anyway. The crowd parted respectfully and I walked as if in a dream, still clutching the sword.

There, in the centre of the courtyard, was the great fountain, and lying on the basin of it, my brother was sleeping. My father, the blond giant, stood over him, waiting for him to wake. Tebaldo was always a slug-a-bed, so I went right up to him and shook him, as I had so often as a child. His midriff fell open like a shirt and I could see ruby snakes clustered within his chest. The water of the fountain ran red.

‘The future is over,' said my father. ‘Tebaldo is dead.'

Benedick:
It was bitterly cold.

We forged onwards through the grey seas, whipped by the wind and harried daily by English gunships. We could not fire back, for our guns were at the bottom of the sound. There was no stopping nor turning in our onward rush for we had no anchor. Bartoli and Da Sousa did what they could with the ship's wheel and the sails, but we were like a leaf in the current. The wind had whipped the sea up into angry grey mountains, and sometimes we were so low in the cleft of a pewter valley that we could not see the sky. Our wondrous ship the
Florencia,
the vessel that had ruled the waves from Lisbon to Calais, had no sway in the English Channel. We were bound in a nutshell, caught in a mill race.

My hours on deck were spent clinging to ropes or skating on planks as slippery as glass. My short hours in the cabin were spent rolling around in my cot, sleepless, like a pea on a drum.

Each day I would go down into the hold to see my loyal horse Babieca. He was held in place, like all the destriers, by four crossed ropes. His flanks were glassy with sweat and his eyes rolled to show the whites. Ordure ran down his back legs, matting the velvet skin. The smell of manure was terrible. I stroked him and sang to him, and in comforting him found comfort myself.

For all was confusion on board. The camaraderie that had characterised the first part of our voyage had entirely
disappeared. We were cold and afraid. Santiago was no longer our battle cry – but the word ‘Parma' was now passed around like a prayer. The Duke of Parma was coming with the veterans from the Low Countries. Thousands of men. Countless fleets. I heard a rosary of numbers again, as I had in El Escorial, and the amen of
Parma, Parma.
We did not trust in saints any more; but an earthly saviour, Parma, would come. Parma would save us.

Don Pedro kept to his cabin. The prince would accept food from a deckhand thrice a day, but would speak to no one. Having dealt the voyage its death blow with his father's sword, he retreated completely.