Fortune's Fool, page 56
part #3 of Star-Cross'd Series
“Hoping,” corrected Cesco. “I was hoping to be already spoken for.”
Cangrande waved the parchment. “We shall see.” He returned to reading, a pensive expression across his face. “The matter is to be decided in Venice, three days from now. Why so soon?”
“Best strike while the iron is hot, before word of the agreement slips out.” No one wondered why, if Alaghieri was the true architect of this agreement, it was the heir who was answering.
Cangrande sat and considered while the assembly watched him, hoping. At last he said, “I see one problem.”
“What’s that, my lord?”
Cangrande gestured at his nephew. “Mastino. He led his own troops along with Niccolo’s exiles. Marsilio may ignore that, but not the people. Mastino della Scala led Veronese soldiers against Padua, in defiance of the truce. A marriage isn’t enough. What do we do about Mastino?”
Cesco smiled sweetly in Mastino’s direction. “I don’t suppose we could execute him?” he asked lightly, then hurried on. “No, probably not. Don’t want to leave his bride hanging. How about disowning him?”
Stepping forward, Mastino’s hand dropped to the knife at his belt. Cangrande snapped his fingers repeatedly. “Down, my mastiff, down! The pup is just teasing. He knows what is acceptable and what isn’t. He’s just waiting to tell us his real idea.”
“Which is what?” scowled Mastino.
Cesco shrugged. “It’s easy, really. It wasn’t Mastino in the armour.”
“What?!” demanded Mastino.
Cesco put a hand to his heart, feigning shock. “It’s a scandal, isn’t it? Last summer someone stole your helmet and impersonated you. This kind of thing has happened before, you know – I hear uncle Pietro there once wore the armour of the Count of San Bonifacio. This time it was done to sow discord between our fair cities and break our fragile truce. Probably some agent of the Emperor, looking to make our beloved Capitano lose face in this region.”
“No one will believe that!” said Mastino.
“Certainly not,” agreed Cesco. “But it’s enough for a wink and a nod. Especially if we throw someone else to the dogs.”
“So to speak,” said Cangrande.
“So to speak,” said Cesco.
“Whom did you have in mind?” But Cangrande was quick. His eyes had already found the man in question.
“Why, il signor Fuchs, of course. Who has access to both Mastino’s men and gear? Why, il signor Fuchs, of course. Who would Mastino’s men follow even to death? Why, il signor Fuchs, of course. Who is German, not Italian, and therefore more likely to be in the thrall of a German emperor? Why, il signor Fuchs, of course. As he’s not a native Veronese, exiling him won’t cost you a florin here at home. We’ll have to come up with a good story – probably he was bribed by the Emperor’s men, and Mastino, finding the money and some incriminating papers among his effects, turned him in at once. I think that will be enough for the Paduans. If not, we can always have him dragged to Padua in chains. Nothing like a public execution for a boost in popularity, even if everyone knows the charges are trumped up.”
Throughout the whole speech Cesco had not turned, and nothing in his voice conveyed either satisfaction or contempt. Rather he spoke dispassionately, as if Fuchs’ exile and ruin was a matter of no moment.
Listening to all this in growing horror, Fuchs felt the eyes of every man present turn upon him, and was suddenly aware how few friends he had made here over the last four years. “You cannot—!”
“Don’t tell me what I can do,” said Cangrande coldly. “To end this war in Verona’s favour, I would do all that he describes and a great deal more.” Cangrande rose, pulling himself up to his full height. “An edict will be published at the end of the day tomorrow declaring Niklas Fuchs guilty of treason for usurping Mastino’s authority and breaking the truce with Padua. That gives you twenty-four hours to disappear. If ever you are found in Veronese lands, you will be killed on sight.” Just that fast, Fuchs became an outlaw and public enemy.
Stunned though he was, Fuchs wasn’t about to go without a fight. He turned to Mastino. “My lord?” Mastino just shook his head. Fuchs scowled, fair brows together in thought. He turned back to Cangrande. “What if the troops say it was not me?”
It was Mastino who answered, crossing to lay a hand on his shoulder. “My friend, do that and I’ll have to kill you myself.”
No one had ever said Mastino was slow. He had grasped the situation, and the escape being offered him. But his eagerness to abandon a friend would not soon be forgotten by the watching crowd.
“Besides,” said Cesco brightly as he turned to face Fuchs at last, “who would come forward just to put his own neck on the chopping block? And Niccolo’s exiles won’t be allowed to testify who it was under the helmet – they’ll be fled or dead. No, all in all, I think you will find every hand against you. Nothing personal, Niklas,” he added. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong friends.”
“Best start running now,” said Mariotto Montecchio, a grimly satisfied smile on his face. He was not alone.
“Mention this to anyone,” added Antony Capulletto, “and you’ll find no bolt-hole safe.”
The sight of those two implacable enemies united in this cause drove home the hopelessness of his situation. Fuchs stood a second or two longer, a bewildered look on his face. Then he fled the hall, leaving the doors open behind him.
Cangrande ordered them shut once more, then slowly looked each man present in the face. “My lord Capulletto is quite correct. What we learned here today must, by its very nature, remain a secret for some weeks more. The Paduans will revolt if they learn their leader has been negotiating with us, and drag the war on for a dozen more years out of pique. I, for one, am tired of this war. I think you are too. Therefore I ask each of you to hold this information closer than you hold your wives, your lovers, even your dogs.” Chuckles, but every head was nodding. “Good then. Tullio, please start packing my finest weeds. I’m off to Venice at dawn tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I say we celebrate this turn of events by giving a welcome feast to our trusted friend Ser Pietro, whom I declare a full Consul of Verona and promote to member of the Anziani! To the Great Hall! Mastino, lead the way!”
Pietro accepted the congratulations of the Veronese nobility with mixed feelings – it was Antonia’s idea and Cesco’s execution. He had only negotiated the details. But he had to play the part they’d written him. He was embraced by Mari and Antony, by Nico and Petruchio. Bailardino actually had tears in his eyes, sallow-faced Ervari was jumping up and down, and Castelbarco was sitting as if struck by a stunning hammer. Pietro suddenly realized what this really meant to them all. Twenty years of war, over. Success. Victory. Slowly his smile grew to match theirs.
The mass of men went to a happier meal than any they could recall. Before Cesco could join them, however, Cangrande had grabbed him by the collars. “Where are you going?”
“To the Great Hall?” said Cesco innocently.
“To the stables,” corrected the Scaliger. “What has this celebration to do with you? By your own confession you were just shirking your duties. Your first chore is to rake out my private stables and rub down every horse in it. But I’ll save a hunk of meat for you.”
“Keep the meat. How does this deed stack up?”
Cangrande stared into the middle distance, a wry half-grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “It stacks up very nicely indeed. When the ink is dry on this agreement, you have my permission to marry where you choose.”
Bowing, Cesco skipped off to the stables with a heart full of joy. Cangrande watched him go, his famous smile turning inwards. For his sister was correct. Based on the star-charts, if the boy wed for love, he was not the Greyhound.
Which meant there was yet room for another to snatch that title. And with the conquering of Padua, Cangrande was one step closer to fulfilling his own destiny of ruling all the Feltro. His heart almost as full as his heir’s, he went off to join the others at the feast.
♦ ◊ ♦
Fuchs heard the reveling while he packed. Another man might have wept for rage and frustration, but his eyes were clear and his hands were steady as he closed the last loop on his saddlebags. His jousting gear he would have to send for. Mastino would do him the courtesy of sending it. He’d said as much when, after the meeting, he’d slipped out of the feast and come for a brief chat.
“This is not banishment forever. In a year, perhaps sooner, when Padua is firmly in Cangrande’s power, I’ll arrange for your recall.”
“You will try.” Fuchs was not hopeful. He’d long since taken the measure of Cangrande’s steel, and of Mastino’s friendship.
“I’ll try,” agreed Mastino. “That little shit. Thinks he’s so clever! Well, at least you’ve given me the tool I need to end his little love affair.”
Fuchs had paused in his packing. “He has to be alive for you to use it.”
Mastino came off the wall he was leaning against. “No. No, Fuchs. We can hurt him, break him, make him wish he’d never been born. But you cannot kill him.”
“I can kill anyone I choose,” answered Fuchs carefully.
Hearing the threat, Mastino grew equally cold. “Not if you wish to return to Verona. There is a curse upon us, my grandfather’s curse. Any of us who sheds the blood of a relative is damned. That extends not just to shedding the blood ourselves, but people doing it for us.”
Fuchs returned to stuffing his spare tunics in his saddlebags. “I won’t be doing it for you.”
“No matter, I’ll take no chances.” Mastino grabbed Fuchs by the arm and turned him so they were face to face. “I want your word, Fuchs – you’ll not kill him.”
“Or what?”
“Or no money, no armour, nothing. You leave Verona with the clothes on your back. Try making a name for yourself in the lists without armour. But if you obey me, I’ll open an account in – Paris? Madrid? Wherever they like tourneys. You can spend the next year or two becoming famous, at my expense.”
“I want revenge.”
“And you’ll have it. But he has to live to feel it. Your word, Fuchs.”
Reluctantly, Fuchs nodded. “My word.”
“And the girl. Leave it to me to find the very moment for it, the perfect spy of the time. But let me tell him. Promise me.”
Fuchs nodded a second time, even more reluctant this time.
“Or the other matter. We agreed, he must never know that, above all.”
A third nod. That one, at least, was easy. Neither one wanted to share that secret.
Mastino stared hard, as if his gaze could discern the strength of Fuchs’ word. Then with a nod he clapped his friend on the shoulder and departed, without even an apology.
Full of rage, Fuchs put on his best riding cloak, hefted his saddle-bags, and went down to the stables of the old palace. In his ears rang the joys and clamours of the Veronese nobles celebrating the end of the war. That he was the sacrifice required mattered not a whit to them.
These fauler unecht nobles, thought Fuchs, who had counted on Mastino to ennoble him. Think the rest of us are dirt. I will show them.
This thought was still in his mind when he heard a cheerful voice from inside the stable. “Ah, just in time. I’ve saddled your horse for you,” said Cesco.
Fuchs stopped in his tracks, tempted beyond words to draw his sword and flay the skin from this little bastard.
Cesco could read his thoughts. Stepping away from Fuchs’ horse, he rubbed his belly, drawing attention to the sword hilt just inches from his fingers. “Please, do. I’m not as small as once I was, and I was trained by the best – including you. I’m quite eager to try my hand at a real duel.”
“Another time, giftzwerg, another place.” Fuchs brushed past him and began checking the cinches of his saddle. It would be just like the bastard to fray a cord so it would snap while he was on the road.
Cesco leaned against a stone pillar. “O, I am patient beyond words. But I’m glad for this meeting. I so wanted you to know why. I could have disgraced anyone. Why you?”
Fuchs shrugged. “You need no motive for your little schemes.”
“Perhaps not. But once in Ravenna, long ago, I interrupted a rather ugly seduction. Ever since that night, I have had a real distaste for rapists.”
Fuchs straightened, a smile playing on the edge of his lips as he shifted his saddlebags into place. “You knew?”
“Suspected. You just confirmed it. That night I could only guess by size and speed. But you never take your shirt off in public, at least when I’m around. Is it because I scarred you? I hope the spikes hurt.”
“Not half so much as I hurt her.”
Cesco’s body jolted off the pillar. Fuchs readied himself to draw. But with a violent shake the bastard stepped back, out of the enclosure. “You’re quite right. Not here, and not now. But soon. Go where you like. There is no place you are safe from me. You hurt the closest thing I have to a mother. In return, I will destroy you inch by inch.”
Fuchs turned away from his horse, that same smile playing about his mouth. “You have no idea how badly I’ve hurt you. You and your mother, both. But you will. Just you wait. You’ve ruined me. But I’ll ruin you, too.”
Cesco seemed utterly unconcerned. “Then we have that in common. We are the destroyers of hopes and the wreckers of dreams. But I am here and you are not. Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” Stepping aside, Cesco made a sweep with his arm. “In other words, friend Fuchs – run. Run for your life.”
Forty-One
With Ser Alaghieri in Verona, the lovers could not use his house to meet – or at least, not the inside. They sat upon his roof instead, gazing at the stars as they held hands. After a time, Cesco turned to her. “You do want to marry me, don’t you?”
Lia gasped, choked, and laughed all at once. Cesco grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
She struck him with the back of her hand. “Was that supposed to be a proposal?”
Cesco shrugged. “I just wanted to be sure. I asked Cangrande, but I don’t remember actually asking you. It seemed an established fact.”
“Better late than never, I suppose. If marriage is, in fact, a necessary evil, must we follow ritual pro forma? Shall we read the banns this night? You could shout it from the rooftops.”
“I could ask your father first. What do you think he’d say?”
“I think we’d best act first, tell after.”
“A widow instead of a fallen woman. Wisely, wisely.”
She grabbed a handful of soot from the chimney behind her and smeared it across his face. “Now who’s fallen?”
Begrimed, Cesco leaned in for a kiss. “Purge me with hysop, and I shall be clean, O God.”
“Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow,” she said, returning the act in kind.
“Create in me a clean heart…”
“He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully…” They were both giggling as their faces grew sootier.
“What God hath cleansed,” he said, falling over and placing his head in her lap, “that call not thou common.”
“O! Common, am I?” She cut off Cesco’s protest with a raised hand. “In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.”
“Eckhart! Nice. Silence gives the proper grace to women. ”
“Sophocles? Or Socrates?”
“The former.”
“I’m wishing this wine were the latter’s,” said Lia. She kissed his eyelids. “Let there be a sacred silence.”
“Do you, my Muse’s priestess, sing for girls and boys songs not heard before?”
Lia stroked his hair. “I haven’t heard this song before.”
“Nor I.”
“It is late. I’ll be missed. Though we could do this all night.”
“Yes, we could. Do you speak Arabic?”
“No. Will you teach me?”
He reached up to run one knuckle softly along her cheek. “Tomorrow.”
“And tomorrow?”
“And tomorrow. Inshallah.” She looked curiously down at him. “God willing.”
“God willing,” she said, smiling.
♦ ◊ ♦
Amazingly, the coming meeting between Cangrande della Scala and Marsilio de Carrara remained a secret. Cangrande made as if he were returning to Vicenza, taking a large retinue. Tellingly, he left Nico da Lozzo, a Paduan, in charge of Verona – the exile turncloak would be persona non grata at this particular meeting.
They set out upon Monday morning. It was the twenty-ninth day of August, and the air was thick and hot. Riding at the front with the Scaliger were the men he had chosen to travel to Venice. Bailardino and Castelbarco were the elders, representing the interests of Vicenza and Verona. Petruchio was married to a Paduan, so he was needed. And Montecchio’s wife was cousin to Carrara, so he would be allowed to come, whereas Capulletto would definitely not. He’d supplied arms to Padua in secret, which was embarrassing to Cangrande, and he hated Carrara with a passion, which was moreso. Antony was not pleased to be left when Mariotto was to attend, but there was nothing he could say. He’d remain with the troops on the road to Treviso, watching for incursions.
Mastino had to come, as he was to marry Carrara’s cousin. Castelbarco had asked his son to come along, grooming him to take the family place in Verona’s affairs, and Petruchio had invited both his boys. Paride was there, acting as the Capitano’s squire. And Cesco and Detto were allowed to ride along, Detto to squire Petruchio and Cesco because he’d earned it.
As the supposed architect of the peace, Pietro would have a place of honour in the assembly. But he spent the first leg of the journey riding beside Cesco. “You’ll be knighted for this. Even if I get the credit, you’ll get a knighthood.”
Cesco rode easily, his whole body languidly happy. “I was hoping for something even better.” But as to what he had in mind, he remained mum.
