Beatrice and Benedick (45 page)

His eyes were so serious that I felt I must jest. ‘Prince, I fear you have been on a boat so long that you think all creatures must go aboard two by two. My cousin marries your friend, and now we must all take our partners for Hymen's dance? No, my lord, I thank you.'

Now it was the prince's turn to study his hands, and I saw there the yellow and red enamelled blazon of Aragon on his seal ring, a ring which, had my answer been different, would now have adorned my own hand. ‘Could you give me a reason?'

I could not. I was silent, my mind racing. ‘Then I will supply the objection,' he said, his lips twisted in a bitter smile. ‘You love Benedick.' My instinct was to lie, to jest, to make denial. But I felt I owed him the truth. ‘Yes.' The relief was enormous.

He saw it. ‘You feel unburdened?'

I nodded. ‘You are the first soul to know of it.' Then I remembered. ‘Except … there was one … last summer.'

He nodded. ‘The poet. Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza.' He spoke the name as if it was verse.

‘How did you …?' Then I recalled. The horseman on the beach. It had been the prince. I fell silent, suddenly toad cold. ‘You said you had something to ask and something to tell.' My voice sounded curiously high and flat. ‘What is it?'

He took in a deep breath. ‘It pertains to that very man,' he said. ‘Last summer, I led Benedick to believe that you were enamoured of that poet. I brought him to see where you two embraced upon the beach. I knew you consoled him for the loss of his mother. Benedick did not.
That
is why he rejected you.'

I stared, unseeing, at the dragonflies.
Benedick
had been there. He had seen us. Now I understood his strange behaviour at the farewell feast, his bitter and public repudiation of me in the coloured courtyard before he rode away. I needed space and quiet to order my thoughts, but I was not to be granted it, for Don Pedro spoke again.

‘And the
Scopa
cards in his room – the trick deck – they were mine, left there so you should find them. The card he gave you was no cheat's hand. It was true.'

The bee's song hummed in my ears with my blood. ‘Why did you do this?' My voice was no more than a whisper.

‘I wanted him to come with me, to fulfil his obligations to his knight's vow, and to blessed Saint James.'

‘But what of his vow to
me
?' The foolish words spilled out before I could prevent them.

‘What vow?'

Now it was my turn to be silent. There had been no vow. There was no pre-contract, no ink set down to bind us. Benedick had broken no indenture. Only the vow made between lip and lip, that night upon the dunes; between body upon body, signed by stars and sealed in sand. I could not speak of this, so instead I asked the prince the question that burned into my mind. ‘Why did you not tell me this first? Before you offered me marriage?'

He looked at me directly. ‘Would you have considered me then?'

I did not have to reply. My answer was in the fall of my gaze from his. ‘And if I had accepted your proposal? Would you have ever told me of these other things?' I looked at him again, and this time his eyes dropped first, and I knew. I would have been the Princess of Aragon, but I would have gone to my grave thinking Benedick untrue.

I gazed upon the calm Roman pools, my mind in turmoil. I did not know what to think. Whether to be gleeful and thankful that Benedick and I had been gulled, or to be angry that we had been parted with such a fool's trick. Whether to censure Don Pedro for his ignoble actions of a year ago, or commend him for his belated honesty. Whether to grieve for the year Benedick and I had lost, or to rejoice in the time ahead.

But before I could speak, a fast rider skidded to the gates, reining his horse in a cloud of dust. As the messenger attempted to argue his way past the guards, Don Pedro stood and hurried to the postern. ‘What is your business?' he called to the rider.

‘A message for the master of the house, my lord.'

I stood and followed the prince, full of foreboding. ‘I am the
Prince of Aragon,' said Don Pedro. ‘You may give the message to me.'

The messenger looked the prince up and down, and made his choice. ‘Very well, Highness.' He knelt and held out a scroll. ‘The Archbishop of Monreale was murdered last night in his bed, sire. Poisoned.'

Now that there was no bar to our union I would have sought out Benedick at once, but the goddess Fate – with cruel irony and little sympathy for a fellow female – decided that he would be absent for the rest of the day.

He had accompanied the prince and the count to Monreale, to discover the particulars of the untimely death of Claudio's uncle. Don John, the prince's brother, was most solicitous in their absence, assisting Leonato with the matters of the morrow. It did not seem to occur to my uncle to postpone the nuptials – in fact he seemed, if anything, more anxious to speed the business; and Don John was the man to help him. No detail was too trivial for the don; he even wished to know where everyone in the wedding party would be sleeping, and asked me which was Hero's window, as he desired to arrange for musicians to serenade her. I was surprised that he was such a good steward, for I had heard that he had been such a poor custodian of Don Pedro's estates that his mismanagement had placed the bad blood between them that his birth had not.

I am sorry to say that the archbishop's passing troubled we ladies not at all, and did not cast the slightest shadow upon the forthcoming wedding. If I gave the prelate a thought it was to reflect grimly that a debt had been paid for the life of Guglielma Crollalanza. Even Hero, who was a true devout, merely remarked mildly that she hoped Claudio would not mourn so grievously for his kinsman's passing as to temper his nuptial joy.

In the afternoon I helped Hero and Margherita with the final touches to Hero's wedding gown, but could barely sit still. I was hot and cold all at once, and alternately rushed to the window to gulp at the breeze, and shivered on my sewing stool. I had no patience for their womanly chatter about the Duchess of Milan's latest gown, or which rebato would be better with the wedding dress. When I caught my reflection behind Hero's in the looking glass I could see my cheeks were hectic, my lips rosy and full and my eyes burning blue. It was little wonder that my companions began to fear for my health.

‘Are you sick, Beatrice?' asked Hero.

Had she been alone, I might have told her all; of how everything had been explained and all could now end well between Benedick and me. But I did not wholly trust Margherita, who could be a sly little thing; so I agreed that I suffered most grievously. ‘I am exceeding ill,' I announced. ‘I think it is a head-cold.' I held my cousin's eyes with my own, to prevent her turning to the beautiful day outside. I had once told her that I never suffered from head-colds as I was raised in a draughty castle, so would be hard put to explain why I had caught such a malady in the burning sun. I spent the rest of the afternoon counterfeiting to sneeze, and pretending I could not smell the exquisite perfume of the wedding gloves Claudio had sent for Hero. I hugged to myself the knowledge that I might soon receive a pair of gloves of my own.

‘Perhaps you are in need of a tonic,' said Margherita innocently. ‘I have heard it said that
Carduus benedictus
is a powerful remedy.'

I quelled her with a look, but she spoke no more than the truth; Benedick was my cure. As the afternoon wore on I began to worry that he would not return – that the archbishop's assassin would dispatch him too, that his horse would tread in a divot on the road and throw him, that brigands would rob and stab him on the road. That brief afternoon held more agony for me than the year Benedick had spent on board ship.

The menfolk were not back by dinner, so after we had supped there was nothing for it but to go to bed. As maid of honour I was to share a bed with Hero, as was the tradition on the wedding eve. I did not expect to sleep, for it was too hot to even tolerate a coverlet, even without thoughts of Benedick to keep my heart racing. But I must have slept, for I dreamed of rain – blessed heavy drops falling on my face and body. I woke to the warm night, Hero sleeping peacefully beside me. Then a little pebble landed on the pavings and skittered along the floor; another landed on the coverlet.

I went to the window and out on to the balcony. A figure resolved out of the darkness below and for a moment I felt a jag of fear – in just such a manner I had once seen an intruder with a torch, on the night the Spanish ostlers were dismembered. But in an instant my fear was replaced with relief. It was Benedick down there; even his silhouette was familiar to me. ‘Lady Beatrice,' he called softly. ‘The stars are out. Come down.'

I leaned over the balustrade. ‘I cannot,' I whispered, my voice keen with disappointment. ‘Margherita sleeps at the door.'

He pounded fist into palm, frustrated.

‘I have waited a year,' he said, ‘but now I cannot wait for another dawn.'

‘Stay,' I said. I tiptoed back into Hero's room, and crept to the door. I had hoodwinked Margherita once, the night that I had stolen from the house to see the Tarantella. I slipped back the bolt and lifted the latch silently; as the door creaked open I could see Margherita's mat beyond, but no Margherita. Where had the little cate gone?

It mattered not; her defection made my flight easy. In an instant I was down in the courtyard beside Benedick. He held out his hand; I took it.

We flitted through the gardens on silent feet – I trod the very paths and alleys I had trodden that day, as happy now as I had been pensive then. Benedick led me to the Roman baths, to the
exact spot where I had been with Don Pedro that morning. ‘Look,' said Benedick. And there I saw the wonder.

The limpid green pool of that morning had been transformed into a starfield. It was a map of treasure, a sparkling Turkey carpet of stars which had been captured and brought to earth, reflected perfectly in the rectangular bath. Night had been distilled into a looking glass. Benedick had laid these jewels down before me, like the conquistadors who went to the Americas and dazzled the poor natives with their bounty. He had sailed many miles to come all the way here to this island, to me. I was his haven, and he had brought me treasure.

But he returned to me that which was my own; for there, in the middle of the constellations, was Cassiopeia's chair, and my star beneath. I could have sworn that I could have stepped out and walked upon the carpet, as if I was walking in the sky, could seat myself in that silver chair and converse with Cassiopeia and the rest of the deities of the heavens.

We sat on the stone basin, just where I'd sat with the prince; but we faced the other way, into the pool and not the garden. For Benedick had once again altered everything; he had changed one sky for another and tipped the universe. The stone was still warm from the day and we dangled our feet above the water, careful not to touch that sacred surface. For the smallest ripple would create a celestial maelstrom, and now the stars were aligned I was afraid to disturb them.

Benedick made as if to speak but I put my finger to his lips. I had to tell all, to wipe the schoolroom slate and begin again.

‘Don Pedro told me how he tricked you, a year past.'

‘Don Pedro did?' I had astonished him. ‘He told you all?'

‘Of how he brought you to the beach, and concealed the cheat's deck of
Scopa
cards in your room.'

He was silent for so long I thought him angry with his friend, and tried to mitigate the prince's crime. ‘The sequel makes amends for the original offence. He is an honest man and a
brave one too – it took great courage for him to tell me what he did.'

He smiled tightly. I thought him jealous then. How much more jealous would he be if he knew what I had left out? That the prince had offered me marriage first?

‘Enough of other men and their good qualities,' said Benedick, the laughter back in his voice. He squeezed my hand, for he'd never let it go. ‘For which of my fine attributes did you first fall in love with me?'

I smiled at him. ‘Who said that I loved you?'

He looked at me in a way that made me shiver. ‘Your eyes say it, for they are brighter than any of these brave stars.'

I'd admitted to a prince here that day that I loved Benedick; I could not counterfeit to the man himself. ‘I will not deny you.'

‘So come. Which of my good qualities caught at your heart?'

‘Nothing which other men would name so.'

He feigned distress. ‘Then, for which of my
bad
parts did you first fall in love with me?'

I looked at him, mock-earnest. ‘That is easier to answer. Your foolishness, your garrulousness, your vanity, your gullibility, your facile nature.' I paused for breath. ‘And for which of my good parts did you first fall in love with me?'

‘I cannot think of any qualities that you possess.'