"I
did not know she was supposed to serve me." I spoke in genuine surprise.
"Are you sure you are not mistaken, my lord? She seems too fine to be
anyone's servant."
His
eyebrows shot up, and he laughed. "You must not be deceived by that jade's
haughty looks, my lady. She is no more fine than a waiting gentlewoman who
learns her manners from the whore she serves."
I
colored and said, "But I am sure she is better born than I."
"Small
doubt of that," Domenico interjected savagely. "If you ask her, she
can tell her father's name. You should consort with my brother, lady." His
stormy dark eyes held a malevolent glitter. "You have much in common. He
can teach you to make a revenue out of your bastardy."
I
stiffened as though he had struck me, but he had turned away, demanding more
wine from a nearby servant in a voice that made the man stumble and nearly drop
the flagon. I looked at Sandro, expecting to see him incensed or ashamed, or
both; instead, he was making a comically rueful face, and as he met my gaze he
winked.
"It
takes wit to do it well," he observed blandly. "But for our father's
lustihood I would have been the son of a horsecoper—as it is, I have had my
living from the state since I was three years old. I thank its bounty. You must
bethink you, lady—concoct a proof that says you are the daughter of a king, and
your true father cannot betray you."
I
saw the archbishop's eyes flicker in something like consternation, then the
duke's hand closed over mine so hard that I nearly cried out.
"Your
speculations do not fit the time, Brother." He still spoke curtly, but his
black mood had changed from anger to abstraction. "We will ponder the
question at a fitter time, when perhaps we can lighten her ignorance of her
true father."
Disbelievingly,
I tried to remind him that not even the Duke of Cabria would be able to find my
father after so many years; but the pressure of his fingers silenced me, and I
suffered Sandro to pick up the thread of his earlier discourse.
On
the second and third days, food was carried into the council chamber so that
the debate could continue uninterrupted. For all that time I never saw the duke
save at night, when he came to my bed, and he never spoke of what had chanced.
When I asked questions, he called me presumptuous, silencing me with his mouth
and making love to me so unmercifully that I had no thought for anything beyond
his pitiless, exquisite carnality. He wore me out at last, and when I fell
asleep, no wiser than I had been before, no nightmare of his came to wake me.
By
day I felt curiously lonely despite the occupation of my studies. As Sandro had
promised, Maddalena returned to my service, oppressing me with her incessant,
inward spite. All she did was done grudgingly, with an air of fierce contempt
that made me half-afraid of her, and the pity and sympathy I felt for her were
alike unwanted; she treated me with such disdain that I hardly dared speak to
her. I could not even ask her not to attend me; if Domenico should hear, he
would construe it as a complaint and do more than I meant. I could only submit
to her untender ministrations and hope that the tangle would resolve itself at
last.
Niccolosa
would not allow me to study all day long, and I walked with her twice a day,
learning my way about the palace. It was like a grim stone warren, with its
galleries and drafty passages and time-hollowed stone stairs, but she knew
every inch of the way, and I supposed she had known it all her life. The
courtiers we met affected not to see me, and one or two spurned me as they
would have done if I had never been taken up by the duke. It was a sour little
reminder that I owed even their civility to Domenico's reflected power.
I
missed his protection sorely, not only against the court's contempt but against
Piero's increasing insolence, for without the check of his lord's presence,
Piero became the bane of my life. I was never free of him. He would stroll in
upon me while I was dressing or making ready to retire for the night; he would
be waiting in doorways or in corridors when I went walking and would elbow
Niccolosa from my side to take my arm—the privilege, he said, of the duke's
chosen envoy. If Father Vincenzo sent a servant to his study for a book or
fresh parchment for our lessons, Piero would enter with it in his hand. I began
to start at shadows, fearing that he would step bowing from their screen to
pour his interminable insinuations and reproaches into my ears.
For
he upbraided me now as roundly as the strictest confessor. I began to wonder
whether I had imagined the smooth-tongued bawd who had begged my virginity for
the duke, for now he constantly condemned me for surrendering it. It was as
though he was fascinated by the thing he loathed, because his talk was a stream
of indecent speculation mingled with disgusted invective. Something had made
his tongue as bitter as jealousy.
At
first I thought that his exclusion from the council had made him waspish enough
to want to bait me; but there was true rancor at the core of his railing
against Domenico, and his threats of what he would do with me when the duke
wearied of me were more than idle.
It
was on the morning of the fourth day that my unease at last ignited into anger.
I had told myself that my own fears might be shaping the man's innocent
proceedings to something greater; but that day he came to my chamber early,
unannounced and uninvited, and I knew that he had purposely chosen his time.
I
was standing in my petticoat, waiting for Niccolosa to pull the gown over my
head, when I saw over her shoulder that he had come into the room. He was
standing just inside the door, thoughtfully stroking his beard. His eyes were
fixed on me, and for a moment I could have sworn that he licked his lips.
"Well,
my lord" — I shook my hair forward quickly, knowing that it would hide my
bare breasts as surely as a cloak— "was that what you came for?"
"Why,
my good mistress!" He stepped forward with an artificial laugh. "If I
wish to see Diana Outraged, there is a tapestry in the west tower that shows
her with Actaeon—it is something worm-eaten but well enough to gaze upon. Why
should I seek for better?"
"You
know that best yourself, unless it is court manners to come in on a woman
uninvited."
"You
are too nice in your talk of manners." He came nearer. "But foul
enough, I swear, in your deeds at night, my lady Hypocrisy."
Niccolosa
stepped back as he approached, but I stood my ground. "How dare you call
me hypocrite? You have no cause!"
"To
deny a sight to one man that you give another freely! Is that honest?"
"Honest
enough to the duke. You have no claim on me."
"Not
yet," he agreed, watching me shrewdly.
"Nor
ever, if I can prevent it."
"
If
you can! I am glad you have no great estimate of your power, because you
are like to lose it shortly."
I
crossed my arms before me, my fingers digging into my own flesh. "What do
you mean?"
"Only
that one of the council was in his cups last night and told me what His Grace
is debating in council." Piero smiled lightly. "It seems he thinks of
choosing himself a wife." I was silent for so long that he spoke again,
impatiently. "Where is your power now?"
"I
had none to lose," I said in a whisper. "Who is it he means to
marry?"
"That
is what they are debating—the duke says one woman, the archbishop another, and
the Bastard ferments their quarreling because he would not have his brother
marry at all! But it is sure that he will marry, and soon too, so you had
better lesson yourself to speak to me softer."
I
had to shake myself out of some sort of dream. "Please go, my lord. I am
cold."
"I
thought this news would make you sing a humbler note!" His fingers,
shapeless and as smooth as a lady's, gripped my wrists and pulled them down.
"Once the duke's thoughts are full of his bride, he will have no time for
you—I know well enough he does not return to a dish he has picked over — but we
need not wait on his consent like a troth-plighted couple. Give me some earnest
now."
I
knew he meant to kiss me and twisted to avoid him, beating at him as well as I
could with my pinioned hands. He kept his hold on my wrists, however, and said
with his high bubbling laugh, "You cannot strike me this time."
I
was struggling so hard that his kiss missed my mouth and fastened hotly on my
shoulder, and the next moment Niccolosa's bony hands gripped me and pulled me
away from him. I looked up to see her confronting him, stiff with outrage.
"The
duke has not forsaken my young lady yet, Lord Piero." Her harsh accent was
suddenly more emphatic. "Nor is he likely to from all I can see. You had
better leave her in peace from this day on, or I would not give a groat for
your life."
He
retreated before her, eyeing her as a ram does a sheepdog. "How long have
you been so hot in defense of the Duke of Cabria's whores?" he demanded
viciously. "Or have we converted you at last from your creed of
chastity—as my tongue converted her?"
"I
know how willingly she went to Cabria's bed." I thought dazedly that I had
never heard Niccolosa speak so unsteadily. "I saw her face when you took
her to him, and I can tell true fear from feigned as well as I could twenty
years ago." She bit her lip as though she had said too much and then
continued brokenly, "But that is dead and buried. All the past is dead,
and now I bear no one any ill will, my young lady least of all. Leave her in
peace, my lord, or I shall see to it that you regret this morning's work."
For
a long moment Piero looked at her, visibly weighing his courage with his
discretion. Then he turned on his heel and went without another word.
I
had not meant to weep, but Niccolosa's unyielding embrace was inexpressibly
comforting. Her unexpected championship did not make her any gentler; she spoke
to me tartly until I grew quieter and had regained control of myself, and then
she helped me to put on my gown. It was as she turned away to fold my discarded
nightrobe that I saw the tiny roll of paper lying on the floor near my foot and
bent quickly to pick it up.
Piero
must have dropped it by accident; he could not have meant it for me, I thought
wryly, for he knew my skill at letters well enough. Out of curiosity I unrolled
it and then stared at it in perplexity. I had not hoped to make out what it
said, but here there were no letters, only patterns of wavy lines like an
ostler's tally. It must be some mountebank's spell, I decided, or a wise
woman's philter that Piero was keeping.
Niccolosa
said gruffly, "Father Vincenzo will wonder what has become of you, my
lady," and I crumpled the paper covertly into my hand, thinking that I
could give it back when I saw Piero again.
I
was hurrying towards Father Vincenzo's room when someone came rushing out of
one of the antechambers and cannoned into me. I jumped, expecting it to be
Piero — the palace corridors were dim on the brightest day—but it was Sandro,
his square face set and determination in his blue eyes.
"You
will be late for the council," I said as he checked, exasperation on his
face. "Go on—it does not matter."
At
that he halted, his unwontedly grim air melting into a comradely grin.
"Let them wait," he declared, scrabbling about after my strewn books
and papers. "I will not let you think me a boor for forty brothers."
In
moments he had gathered them up and thrust them into my arms, and I laughed
shakily and thanked him. He was turning to go when he stopped again and picked
up something from the floor.
"Here
is some privy conveyance of yours. You had best not let my brother—"
He
broke off, staring with knitted brows at what was in his hand, and I saw he
held Piero's paper. "Where did you get this?" he demanded roughly.
"It
is something of my lord Piero's. I think he dropped it while he was speaking to
me, and I was keeping it to give it back."
"Do
you know what it is?"
I
shook my head. "I thought it was a charm."
"If
it is, it is a wicked one. This is a cipher, lady." He flicked the paper
with a disdainful thumbnail. "I think my lord Piero has been selling his
allegiance where he should not; this does not come from any of the factions
about the court."
"From
Spain, perhaps?" I thought of the banished duchess and her Spanish kin,
but Sandro, his attention still on the paper, said, "No, not from
Spain," as though the idea were nonsense.
"Where,
then?"
"I
do not know, but I mean to find out." He looked up and seemed to see me
again at last. "With your leave, I will take this to my great-uncle. No
man knows more of codes like this than he—he has traded in such matters for too
many years to be unable to interpret this. When I know what it says, we may
think again. It may be nothing," he added reassuringly, "a love note
from della Quercia's latest boy, or only some tongue that I cannot read. If so,
you can be sure I will give it back to him and say I found it by chance."
"And
if not?"