He talked. And he also listened, though she knew the dullness of
her daily routine provided slim fodder for interest. Their
conversation and his attentiveness were all too stimulating.
This morning while he and Dominique shared Francesco’s two-day old bread, Jacques discussed the brothers’ recent trip to Vicomte
de Fragonard’s; without mentioning the indecent miniatures, he
accentuated his generous gift to the child, the “rewarding time with his brother,” and the Vicomte’s eccentric manner.
For Dominique, these stories pointed up her separateness, her loneliness.
Too, she was disturbed by her interest in —her attraction to—her husband’s brother. So that she might not grow further distraught, she determined that her best course was to rediscover Francesco’s charm. And after seven years with a man who seemed more married to his art than to her, she knew she must, without delay, have an answer for her deepest desire of all.
After Jacques left for the afternoon, Dominique knelt beside her window, anxious to speak with her god. Fingering the ivory cross hanging from her neck, she attempted to hold back her tears.
“My master, Jesus, I come in humility to ask … not been to
confession,
and … feel weak. Show me the path … goodness … sweet Jesus, You
keep us pure, create us anew. Encompass my heart in … grant an answer for my confusion. In my master’s name, Jesus the Christ. Amen.” In
the fading rays of daylight Dominique genuflected, kissed the
crucifix, tucked it back into her dress, and wiped her eyes.
She knew what she must do: ask Jacques to find another lodging, to leave.
But it was Francesco who arrived home first.
“You’re back from the Vicomte de Fragonard’s early?”
Dominique called from the door of her room. “I’d hoped you would be.”
“Tonight I paint at home, not in a cellar,” Francesco grumbled, coming up the stairs.
“And we’ll have privacy. Jacques and Petrine may not return until late so—”
“For once.”
“But I enjoy their company.” Guilt colored her voice. She
stumbled
on her next words. “May I join you, husband—to see your
progress?”
Francesco said nothing while continuing up the stairs.
Dominique soon entered the loft, where spiraling shadows—
spawned by crude chandeliers—revealed a myriad of creatures on
canvas. The walls of the loft seemed a gargantuan speckled
honeycomb of sketches, half-finished colorings, blank canvases, and paintings.
With help from the substantial slice of moon streaming through the overhead window, Dominique crossed the long room, pondering the various portraits, animal depictions, and scenes of war that her husband had painted over the years. She sucked in a breath of air
tinged with turpentine and dared a look at several paintings Francesco had slashed; although she found his actions disconcerting,
what upset her further was his insistence that his defaced works remain on the loft walls. To Dominique, it was a reminder of his sullen frustration.
She set her tray of bread, cheese, and wine on a small table, then took a seat on her favorite stool while her husband finished lighting the chandeliers.
When Francesco walked by, Dominique tugged playfully at his finger, but he drew back his hand. He climbed the ladder that was
set against his large canvas, closed one eye, and began to paint,
adding silver highlights to the sabers of a troop of soldiers attacked on all fronts by a fierce enemy.
Several minutes passed while he worked.
“I should take a saber to that brother of mine,” Francesco
grumbled, eyeing Dominique. “Am I unwise to say so, my wife?
“Such an imposing canvas,” was all that Dominique said.
Francesco stubbed the palette with his brush, shook his head, then descended the ladder.
“My brother is a singular character whose extravagances make many steadfast allies—like his bishop friend—and many avenging enemies.”
Dominique supposed her husband was correct about Jacques. He had many enemies—and no one to protect him.
Francesco gobbled a hunk of cheese, then lumbered back to his
work. He crouched by the corner of the large canvas, running a
finger across a tree he’d sketched months ago, before climbing the ladder.
“Did I tell you when my brother was twenty, he was so
enamored
of a girl that he decided to bake locks of her hair in a sweet
confection—a not uncommon practice where we grew up—and present it to her?” Francesco rattled on, now splotching vermilion on his field of battle. “The whole love affair foundered, died. By sheer chance, our mother was in town, and she comforted him in his utter misery—while during those few days, a different calamity had befallen me
that put me in worse agony than he. But Zanetta ignored me. As
always.”
Dominique caught her husband’s dismay. “I don’t ignore you, Francesco. I want us—”
“Don’t,” he barked. He speared his paint palette with his brush as if he were impaling a bug.
Dominique stiffened and remained silent for several moments before speaking. “What do you want from
me
? I don’t understand.”
She clamped herself to her stool, a sharp agitation within her driving her to leave the room. This agitation stemmed a secret, a truth that she knew dwelled in her, but one she couldn’t seem to dredge from her depths. Although long ago Dominique had decided
she’d not confide each and every one of her confidences to
Francesco, she’d always felt an unspoken permission to do so, if and when she cared to shed another layer of guard. She knew Francesco, in his bearish manner, accepted her even if her secrets were her own.
But this unidentified unease she felt seemed more a secret from herself than from Francesco.
Free this secret
.
Pry it loose. Open it, Jesus, to my heart
.
She pinched at her crucifix while Francesco, balancing on his ladder at chandelier height, smeared a dark indigo on his canvas. No emotion was perceptible now on his face, nothing that might betray what he was thinking or feeling. He was finished talking. Dominique
had learned this. She’d become skilled at reading his minute
gestures, in gauging his utterances and moods. She sometimes understood his eyes, but not when they were in the throes of despair.
Francesco stared at his canvas, rubbing his forehead as if he wanted to erase his flesh. He climbed down the ladder.
Dominique knew.
He grows dispirited. His black humor encases him
.
She weighed whether to address him.
Francesco set aside his palette and stood alone
,
brown hair
shrouding his brow.
Our strength is friendship
,
Dominique soothed herself.
But a
strange instability disturbed her with this thought.
“Friendship, our strength,” she said aloud, as if an invocation. The inflexible wooden stool pressing against her gave her pause.
“Friendship,” she reiterated, now beginning to question her statement.
Suddenly new words, as if furnished by another voice, arrived on Dominique’s lips, and although she wanted to deny them, subdue them, reject them, they pushed coldly and quietly out through her mouth.
“Friendship’s our deadly weakness. It cannot be the only way I love you. No longer is … meager friendship … enough. I resent that I
don’t have a husband.” Instantly, she knew this was the plain,
earnest truth whose declaration she’d hidden for such a long, long time. And she knew the truth was hurtful.
Stunned, Dominique stared at Francesco before continuing. “I need my husband. And I want children.”
His dark, unwelcoming eyes confirmed his understanding of
what Dominique had just said. Slowly, his lips crooked into a glum, impassable grimace.
Grasping her crucifix, Dominique shoved aside her stool and moved closer to Francesco. She touched his hand. The pain in his eyes was crushing. Nothing would comfort him.
She turned and walked away.
***
It was just before midnight when Jacques barged into the loft, shouting gaily. “Petrine and I scoured the downstairs. And here you are, Francesco. Let’s have a fight. It’s been—I don’t know how many years.” Jacques crossed the wide loft, followed by Petrine, clutching a mahogany case and small cloth bag.
Francesco leaned on his haunches, back against the wall, hands on cheeks, gazing at his canvas. The ladder lay next to him.
Stopping several paces from his brother, Jacques glanced up at a battle painting. “Of all the splendid art in this huge room, I like this one best. And I see you’re almost finished.”
“I’m just in the humor to duel,” said Francesco.
Jacques spoke to Petrine. “My brother has the bold countenance of an eagle, don’t you think?”
“While you, Brother, are a fine line away from ugliness,”
Francesco replied.
“Perhaps so,” Jacques said sincerely. “Yet it seems my bright eyes persuade women that I’m handsome. Shall we fight?”
Francesco smiled wryly, stood suddenly, and stripped off his shirt. Jacques did likewise.
“Perform your duties, valet.”
Sweeping his hair from his eyes, Petrine bowed to his master and presented the long rectangular case cradled in his arms.
Francesco clapped Jacques’ bare shoulder and pointed to the numbers carved on the mahogany lid.
“Seventeen forty. Mother gave us these swords fifteen years
ago.”
“On
my
fifteenth birthday,” Jacques said. “They’re
mine
.”
“When I plant this sword in your chest, you’ll have my weapon
and
yours—full custody of
both
.”
Jacques wagged his head.
“What a gift these were. Born common, and yet to possess our own swords! Do you remember how excited we became? We knew it cost Zanetta dearly, and we kissed her hands for hours.”
Petrine stood midway between the two shirtless men while he unfastened the latches on the mahogany case and opened it.
“Your choice, sir?”
Francesco studied the two weapons, walking his fingers across both hilts before selecting one.
“This lancet suits me well,” he said as he withdrew the elegant sword.
The valet submitted the case to Jacques, who removed the
remaining weapon.
The smallsword was wicked perfection: its triangular shape gave the sword lightness and durability; its edges tapered to a deadly, needle-like point.
It was said triangular blades produced wounds that were particularly difficult to stitch back together. Most smallswords were not made to have a cutting edge. These two were.
Petrine laid the case on the table next to him, then after digging in his bag, offered leather gloves to each brother.
“No blood, please,” the valet smirked. “After our long day in Paris, I’m in no condition for more work.”
Jacques glared. In the splaying light and shadows, he examined his “sharp,” pinched a bit of crab’s-eye tobacco and snuffed it, then slid his right hand into a thick leather glove. He and Francesco took a dozen steps and stood opposite one another, both standing just outside the range of each other’s deadly steel.
“When we were boys,” Jacques said, “well, I recall that we
fought less and less after you began to dabble with paint and palette and I began to dabble with maids and maidenheads.”
Francesco’s sword blade hissed through the damp air.
Jacques rolled his eyes.
“Testing my arm.”
“As I was saying,” Jacques continued, “my passions are different from yours, but you mustn’t think I’m a slave to them.
Animum rege,
qui, nisi paret, imperat
, says Horace. ‘Unless the heart obeys, it
commands.’ I never let my passions command. I keep my defenses strong at all times. I allow passion its place, of course, but I remain composed. And that’s how I shall best you.” Jacques pointed his weapon at Francesco as an affront.
Francesco, squaring his body with Jacques, leveled an
intimidating stare. “Tonight I will merely wound you.”
The two men remained rock still. From the high walls, wild eyes of painted horses glared at them, dazed and dying soldiers wailed silently, and from his canvas domicile, the stern visage of some long-forgotten saint appeared to comment on the follies of men and swordplay.
The brothers raised their swords and executed an elaborate
salute. Both took a
tierce en garde
, then began circling and
countercircling, each attempting to maneuver within striking range.
“O elder one,” Francesco declared, “I would paint your limpid eyes—”
“What did you say?”
“I said I would paint your liquid eyes …”
A flash of anger crossed Jacques’ face. “Beat, attack,” he shouted as he swept aside Francesco’s steel with his blade and made a thrusting assault to the shoulder.
“Parry, riposte.” Francesco blocked the attack, then thrust at Jacques, who narrowly evaded the point.
Petrine slid tighter against the wall where he’d placed the sword case.
“It’s not the sight of blood; it’s just so impossible to scrub it off a floor,” he yelled at the adversaries. He then spoke to himself. “If my master is killed, I’ll be forced to seek another paycheck.”
Francesco, caught off guard, executed a counterparry and
dodged another harrowing flurry of steel before regaining his fencing stance. He advanced, thrusting at Jacques’ torso. Jacques gave ground.
For an instant, both stood stock-still, swords apart. Sweat
clouded their eyes. Each duelist wiped his brow before edging forward and back in a deft dance. Francesco initiated a number of spirals—
doublés
—with his blade, forcing Jacques to do likewise.