"What,
are you too proud for me? I have dealt with your kind before, with your nun's
faces and your harlot's tricks to raise your price. Come on." His smile
now was a sort of grimace. "I shall not hurt you, and there will be a
silver piece for you after."
He
was trying to press the money into my palm as I struggled, panic-stricken. Then
another hand, square and red, caught my shoulder and pulled me sharply around.
"What
are you doing here after I forbade you?" Celia's face was flushed, her
lips tight and her eyes glittering. "You impudent slut!"
"This
girl," the merchant interposed, "was importuning me for money. I
understood you kept a virtuous house, mistress."
Celia
shot him a swift look, but if she saw the satisfaction behind the assumed
outrage she did not heed it. "I cannot be hearkening after every wench in
the place, messire. What did she say to you?"
The
pouting lips primmed. "I cannot say what she offered me for my money. I
was hurrying home to tell my wife the tidings when she ran after me and hung on
my arm..."
"No!"
Somehow I found my voice. "He is lying. It was he who caught me...."
"What
is all this?" Antonio's voice broke in. "Felicia, what do you here?
What has happened, wife?"
I
tried to speak, but Celia said curtly, "Hold your tongue," and I
listened to the merchant telling his tale again; by now it bore so little
resemblance to the truth that I could not recognize myself in his words. Celia
watched me all the time, the spite in her face intensifying with every word.
When he had done, she said, "We shall see her punished, never fear."
"And
well she deserves it." The merchant glanced at me. "It is such
strumpets as these that bring a house into ill repute."
"We
will teach her better behavior." Antonio looked black. "Go in, girl,
and stay in your room until I come to you!"
Without
a word I turned and ran across the yard, into the inn and up the stairs to the
attic. From the window I could see the little group down below in the sunlight;
Antonio and Celia still soothing Messire Luzzato, he settling his gown and
preparing to depart. A few words more and then he strolled towards the gateway
with a malicious backward glance at the other two.
I
saw them discussing which of them was to go inside and attend to the guests;
then they looked around, startled, as the messenger came hurrying out of the
taproom to mount his horse again, with the throng at his heels. In a moment the
yard was full of milling people, and it was only when I heard footsteps on the
stairs that I turned quickly from the window.
They
stood together just inside the door, their faces hard and unforgiving. Antonio
was sweating with the heat, his shirt clinging to his fat back; his hands, the
thumbs dug into the wide belt encircling his paunch, were twitching like the
skin on a cow's back. Celia stood arms akimbo, her broad face frighteningly
aflame with pure hate.
"I
warned you, Antonio." There was a note of triumph in her voice. "I
told you she would prove no better than a harlot. Perhaps now you will credit
what I say."
"That
man..."I was stammering, hardly able to form the words. "He was
lying. I never asked him for money. He said what he did because I would not go with
him."
"A
pretty tale! Are we to take your word sooner than that of one of our most
valued customers?"
"Yes,
it is true!"
Celia's
lips sneered. "Very likely—when a man with his money can find fifty fairer
on any street corner! Was it your maiden modesty made you deny him or fear of
being discovered?"
"I...
I am frightened of being touched." I looked imploringly at Antonio.
"You know I am telling the truth."
He
hesitated, and Celia turned on me. "No matter if you are—you disobeyed me,
you little slut, and that is enough to get you a beating. If you had not been
where you had no business, that worm Luzzato would never have seen you.
Besides, I don't doubt you would have gone with him if I had not come when I
did."
Sickened,
I said no, but she swept on.
"All
these months we have fed you, housed you, clothed you even, and this is our
thanks, you ungrateful little bitch! There are few enough new wedded couples
who would give a home to a penniless, nameless slut like you, let alone treat
you so kindly!"
"Why
keep me, then?" Wisdom and my vows of patience alike forgotten, I turned
to face her. For a moment her eyes were astonished, then they hardened. Her
lips were tight.
"I
know my Christian duty well enough." "But you do not want me here.
Why..."
"Ask
him." She jerked her head contemptuously at Antonio. "He was the one
who would keep you."
"Be
silent, woman!" Antonio roared. "It is not your business."
"Oh,
is it not? Then let me tell you..."
"She
can take her punishment for being disobedient! Naught else matters."
Antonio's face was purple. "Here, I will teach her conduct!"
A
blow from his hamlike hand sent me reeling back; I came up against the edge of
the bed and stood, swaying, waiting for the next. But to my astonishment it did
not come—there was only the slam of the door and the sound of Celia's voice
raised in protest on the stairs.
Shakily,
I sat down on the bed. I knew why Antonio felt bound to keep me and why he had
believed my story rather than Messire Luzzato's — he knew that my fear of men
was real and not feigned, and in the furtive glance he had given me I could
read the memory that still troubled his conscience. He had never forgotten the
night seven years after my mother died when my stepfather tried to force his
way into my bed, and he had had to drag him off. He knew well enough how
frightened I had been then and how for years afterwards I could never bear to
sleep in the dark. For once, not even Celia's venom would make him punish me
for a trespass he knew I would never commit.
For
three days I stayed in my room, and no one came near me but Celia. She would
not speak to me nor answer any of my questions, but I could see a gloating look
in her eyes as though to see me shut up gave her pleasure. She brought me food
every day—not much—and stuff for sewing, for not even when I was penned up in
disgrace would she waste a pair of hands. In those days I spent the daylight
hours interminably sewing, and the darkness with no occupation but my own
thoughts, for now I was not allowed even a candle.
There
was no news of the duke's army; at least no one spoke of it in my hearing, and
I began to think that there must have been a second battle and all our soldiers
slain on their way back to Fidena. But on the fourth day I heard the ostlers
talking.
"Tomorrow,
is it? He has not stirred himself to bring his army home."
"Why
should he hurry when he has the victory? He has spoils enough and prisoners
enough to hamper him, for all I hear."
The
first lad grunted. "At least he will not stay in the field before the city
when he comes. At his age he will be eager for his own bed."
"Aye,
and his loving wife, too."
There
was an explosion of laughter, hastily muffled.
"Did
you hear he means to hale her after him in his triumph and make her give thanks
with him for his victory over her kinsman?"
"Trust
old Carlo. He'll tame that spiteful harridan yet."
Their
laughter faded as they separated to their work, and I stitched furiously as I
pondered their words. To me the news was like the fresh chapter of a child's
fairy tale; none of these great folk were any more real to me then than the
knights and dragons my mother used to tell of, but their doings peopled my
loneliness. A little while after, I heard Antonio below, talking of the
triumphal procession which would pass our very door. He was a made man, he
boasted; he could rent places at the windows overlooking the street and be rich
in a day. I thought of the duchess Gratiana and wondered how she would brook
this public rejoicing over her country's defeat; even whether she grieved for
the men who had died because of the breach between her and her husband. But
now, looking back, I know that she would never even have thought of anything so
petty.
Duke
Carlo made such leisurely way northwards that he arrived not the next day but
the one after, and then he rode hastily through the city to reach the palazzo
in secret. Rumor had it that he was ever a mountebank, a crowd pleaser, and did
not mean to spoil the effect of his appearance in the great procession by being
too much seen. By now I no longer gave Celia the satisfaction of asking when I
might go free—I schooled myself to an enforced content, refusing to beg for my
liberty, and lived on the scraps of news heard from my window to nourish my
starving spirit.
It
was from a friend of Celia's own, a woman who sold fruit in the market, that I
learned of the Lord Alessandro's return to the city. He was untroubled by his
father's caution and wound a circuitous path through the marketplace, basking
in the applause of the citizens.
Celia
had come out to the gateway, her expression truculent, but she stayed,
interested in spite of herself by what the woman had to say.
"...
no, not haughty at all, and with as pleasant a smile as you could wish to see!
He made his horse step so carefully, you would think he feared to frighten the
children—but they pressed about him, and one he lifted up and set him on the
horse before him—I wonder he does not wed himself; he would make so good a
father!"
"For
all I hear," Celia said sourly, "he would not be contented with one
woman."
"And
why should he be? He is young yet, surely."
"Four-and-thirty
or thereabouts," Celia supplied blightingly.
"Well,
there is still plenty of time. No doubt he means to marry for love." The
woman sighed. "He was kissing his hand to the maids in the
marketplace—clapping the men on the shoulder—and some of the pretty wenches, he
kissed their hands as though they had been duchesses! He would have kissed
mine, too, but that there was a great tall fellow in front of me who would not
stir out of the way, so he bowed to me instead."
"Court
manners!" Celia snorted, but she sounded envious. "He meant nothing
by it, I swear, but mischief to those young women."
"Now
there you wrong him, Mistress Guardi, I dare be sworn you do. He meant no
mischief; it was the overflow of his good heart."
Celia
abandoned the point. "What does he look like, close?"
"Oh,
handsome and cheerful—he favors the old duke's family. Short like Duke Carlo
and dark as he was when he was young, but with a square sort of face like a box.
And he has blue eyes, and they never came from the Raffaelle side."
"You
sound half in love with him," Celia said scornfully.
"All
Fidena is, Mistress Guardi. I give you my word! No one who saw him can talk of
aught else, he was so merry and courteous."
Yet
he can have had little cause to be merry, I thought. Fidena so resounded with
Lord Alessandro's popular return that the people had forgotten the less than
glorious part their idol had played in the battle, forgotten the soldiers who
had followed him to their deaths, and had seen only the smile of victory on the
Bastard's face. To them he was the flower of Cabria, the hope of his house, and
the pride of Fidena; the duke's heir and his nobles rode in unregarded while
the citizens were lost in admiration of the general who had cost the state so
many lives. So eager were they to show their approval that they were up at dawn
on the day of the duke's triumph to cheer for the lord Sandro.
The
voices in the street woke me, and in the fast-growing light I rose and hurried
into my old black dress. I was sure that today, of all days, Celia must relent.
The city was keeping holiday, and even the port would lie idle today while the
duke rode to the cathedral to give thanks to God for his victory over the
Spanish. It was unthinkable that I should stay cribbed up in my bare, stuffy
room while the sounds of rejoicing were beginning to echo against lath and
plaster.
I
wanted to pace the floor in my impatience, but it was too cramped; instead, I
sat down to wait, with what patience I could muster, for the sound of Celia's
tread upon the stairs. I thought I must be dreaming when I heard her voice
below, in the yard. She cannot, I thought feverishly, she cannot have forgotten
me.
Celia's
best gown stood out vividly among the crowd down below in the sunlight, purple
glinting with gold thread; and her voice sounded clearly above the hubbub.
"... not enough brains to reserve one window in the whole house for your
wife, you money-grubbing, fat-brained oaf! Well, now you can pay Barilli's boy
what I promised him for saving us places on the steps of San Domenico, and see
how you like that!"
Her
denunciation was swallowed up in the surrounding noise as the two of them
vanished into the crowd. Poor Antonio, I thought. He never thinks beyond his
own immediate gain; and then I remembered, with a sickening feeling, what their
departure meant to my hopes. I was not to go free. I must spend this day like
every other, doing penance for a fault that was not mine—and fasting, I
remembered wryly, until Celia returns and thinks of sending me something to
eat.