A Brightness Long Ago, page 24
* * *
Jelena saw Folco d’Acorsi first. He was as she remembered. Not a man you forgot.
“Be welcome,” he said, “and thank you.”
He did not smile. Neither did Jelena. She was not fearful, but she was disturbed, shaken by what was happening, and a cold night ride. This was too unexpected. Yes, you could be summoned at any hour as a healer, but this was . . . different.
He added, “I am pleased to see you. And grateful. I had thought you might decide to leave Mylasia. Was it because of us? That night?”
“Not really,” Jelena said with a shrug. “I don’t seem to have left you, in any case.”
“I hate when capable people leave me,” he said. A brief smile. But he was showing strain, Jelena thought. She looked towards the ceiling for the presence of death in this room, or a ghost. She didn’t see either—yet.
She was cold from the ride. She saw a man on the bed. There appeared to be, as she’d been advised, two arrows. He was lying on one side, which was good. But a mercenary leader would know to do that. It wasn’t a difficult idea, ensure the arrows weren’t pressing on anything. There was blood, of course.
The man who’d come for her, offering a good-sized purse and a promise of more (a wealthy man injured; archers, he’d said), had not offered any further details. Certainly not that Folco d’Acorsi would be waiting. He’d been under great stress when he found her. Agitation and fear, vivid even in the dark.
He’d brought a horse for her. Jelena could ride but not well, and it was night. She wouldn’t go as fast as he wanted to. She’d had to pack her kit. There were implements she needed, given what he’d said. He carried them for her on his horse, then up the stairs when they reached the inn that was their destination. It was not yet morning, there was still a handful of people in the downstairs front room, the fires were lit.
At the doorway to the bedchamber Folco stepped back. She walked in—and saw Adria Ripoli.
Jelena drew a breath. The capricious wheel, she thought, was spinning tonight.
She said, calmly, “My lady. Your leg is recovered?”
“It is. I remain deeply appreciative,” said the other woman. She’d been sitting on a cot, now she stood. Jelena had almost forgotten how tall she was. “As you see, we need you again. And again at night.”
“I am not a surgeon,” Jelena said.
“I imagine you are more skilled than most of those.” It was Folco. “Also, he hit his head on the floor when he fell. There’s a wound there, too.”
She nodded. Walked towards the bed. These two, the memories of last autumn, could be addressed later—if she chose. Right now, she had a task, and she could very much use whatever payment they ended up offering. It would be generous. She knew that much. The man on the bed was extremely well dressed. Damask silk for his doublet, red, and not from blood. The fabric and the colour spoke of money.
She was in a new place this spring, looking to settle in a city, not a hamlet in the countryside. Testing that life. A large fee to start would help. You needed to think of such things if you were a woman alone, relying on yourself.
She said to Folco d’Acorsi, “I don’t intend this to become a habit, but I will do what I can. Arrange for more light, please, very hot water, and as much clean linen as you can.”
“We have the linens,” Folco said. He nodded towards a neat pile on a chest under the window.
Adria Ripoli went out. They heard her call downstairs for the water and lamps. She came back in. Behind her, quite quickly, came a man and a woman, each carrying two lamps. They left these and went out, as if they wished to pretend never to have been there. Folco placed the lamps near the bed.
“Close the shutter and come hold him down for me,” Jelena said. She removed her cloak and set it aside. “The arrows have to come out.” She pushed her hair back and gestured for Folco’s man, still by the door, to bring her bag with the implements.
“Wait,” she said. “Should I know who he is?”
“Perhaps better if you don’t,” Folco said.
“I’ll become fearful and unsteady?”
He looked at her. Smiled again, that wry smile. He was an ugly man, but there was so much life in that face, Jelena thought—for a man whose life was so much about killing.
“This is Antenami Sardi,” he said. “Piero’s younger son. You might understand why we are anxious to have him live.”
And with that, Jelena suddenly did feel unsteady.
She tried to cover it. “So many important people I seem to be meeting. Where,” she asked, “is Teobaldo Monticola tonight?”
His smile again. “So many clever young people I seem to be meeting. He is in Bischio, as it happens. I hope he doesn’t join us.”
“I can imagine,” Jelena said. She wondered who had loosed these arrows. If Folco was here, and so concerned . . .
She took a large pair of tailor’s scissors from her bag and began cutting away the clothing of the man on the bed. When his doublet was free from both arrows (one in the shoulder, right through, one in the ribs on the other side), she took out an instrument she’d had made, following instructions in a very old book she’d found in a library in Varena, and set about dealing with the second arrow, which would be more difficult, because it had not gone right through. She used a knife to expand the entrance wound, which would—always—be painful. She wasn’t a surgeon, but she’d done this before.
Antenami Sardi stirred, and cried out, a low-pitched moan. The two men held him down. They’d have done this before, too. Soldiers.
“Most thoughtful thing I’ve ever heard this one say,” muttered Folco d’Acorsi.
Jelena was startled, almost laughed. Not good, given what she was in the midst of doing, sliding a metal probe into an arrow wound.
“You aren’t helping,” she said.
“Forgive me,” he said, but he didn’t sound contrite. She didn’t look to see if he was smiling again. He would not suffer if the man on the bed died. Or . . . perhaps he would. Perhaps that was why they were here?
“I may not forgive you,” she said. She felt what she was probing for in the wound. Drawing a steadying breath, she pulled the arrow out in one smooth motion, the gouging flanges of the arrowhead sheathed in the cup of the long, thin device she’d had made after reading about it and seeing a drawing. It had been a book based on an even older text by a physician in Esperaña centuries ago.
There were things you could learn from the past. Mistakes to avoid, paths to pursue. That applied to your own life, too, she thought. She wondered if she’d have come here, summoned in the night, if she’d known these two were waiting.
Then she admitted something to herself: of course she would have. Fortune’s wheel might spin, but you could also choose to spin it, see how it turned, where it took you, and she was still young, and this was the life she wanted.
* * *
The world was blurred. It wobbled, and there was a great deal of pain. He had no idea where he was. When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see. He was aware of light, which was causing some of the pain. There was a scent in the room, something herbal? He seemed to be lying down. His left arm hurt terribly, and his side. He couldn’t understand why this was so. He couldn’t make his eyes work properly.
He was unhappy. He moaned.
A voice, a truly gentle voice was beside him right away. The voice said, “You are in an inn near Bischio, signore. You were wounded by arrows. The wounds have been treated. Can you hear me?”
He wanted to keep hearing her. It was a woman’s voice, and so soothing, so kind.
“Have I died?” he managed. He didn’t think so, but . . .
“Not yet,” she said. He heard amusement, but that also seemed gentle, he thought, not a hard thing at his expense.
He was still trying to make his eyes work so he could see her. Then he realized there was a thin wet cloth over them.
“Eyes,” he said.
“I’ll close the shutters first,” she said softly. “You will be sensitive to light.” She was being so good to him, Antenami Sardi thought. He suddenly felt like crying. He heard the wooden floor, then shutters creaking. His hearing seemed to be all right. He heard her footsteps coming back. She took the cloth from his forehead and eyes.
He could see. It was not bright in the room, but he looked up and saw a woman of surpassing grace and beauty standing above him, smiling.
“Welcome back, Signore Sardi,” she said.
“Will you marry me?” Antenami replied.
She laughed, but gently, so gently.
* * *
• • •
HE STAYED THERE three weeks to recover. She stayed with him. The woman rider was gone, and so was Folco d’Acorsi. It appeared that Folco had come here after Antenami was attacked, and had arranged for this healer to be brought to him.
Folco had provided her with a considerable sum to remain, and left three men to escort Antenami home when he was ready to ride. Fillaro was being tended to in the stable of the inn. Money was always a factor in such things.
He had only the vaguest memory of what had happened. He’d been outside the door of the woman rider. He remembered a tall, unpleasant man. He was the one who’d had Antenami wounded by arrows, if such a thing could even be imagined! He could have died! He had no idea who the man had been—the archers had worn livery, but he didn’t remember it clearly. He recalled a high, imperious voice.
His brother Versano sent a man to ask about this. The identity mattered. The man also asked the innkeeper, but it seemed the would-be assassins had been cloaked downstairs, no one knew who they were. They’d come in and gone out quickly, then away on horseback. North, was the thought, but no one appeared certain.
Folco had reported arriving too late to see them. He had sent for a healer (wonderful healer!) and she had saved Antenami’s life.
It was possible—it might even be useful—that the assassins had been from Bischio, a bold (foolish) thrust at Firenta in the person of a member of its most powerful family, Antenami was told. They might declare it to be the case, regardless of truth. He wasn’t sure what to think of such matters normally, and especially now. His head hurt in the first days, but that eased.
No one knew who the woman rider had been, either. His brother’s man spoke of trying to find her in Daughters of Jad retreats between Bischio and Firenta. Antenami was alert enough by then to say there was no point, she’d had nothing to do with what had happened. It was, in his view, likely that a rival for her company had taken exception to Antenami being at the door first. That sort of thing happened.
He knew what his brother would say about his behaviour, but he had brought two guards with him to this inn. He hadn’t been reckless. They had since been dismissed, he was told. They were fortunate not to have been executed for remaining downstairs, uselessly, then going back (uselessly) to the larger party. He didn’t like his brother dismissing his own men, but he supposed it was proper. He had almost died!
His brother’s man left. The healer stayed.
He was in love with the healer. He told her so, frequently. She told him it happened all the time, men or women feeling affection for their physician or healer, that he needed to put his mind to getting well.
He told her he was getting well, and he didn’t care if it happened all the time, it had never happened to him. He asked her, every day, if she would marry him. He made sure she knew who he was, his family.
She knew, she refused. Partly because of who he was, she said. It could not happen, would never be accepted. He knew it, she said, surely he knew it. She was so gentle.
He knew that she was right, but he didn’t want to know it.
One night, towards the end of his time there, when he had clearly recovered, she came into his bed from the small cot where she slept, and made love to him, riding above him, gently (then a little less so). Afterwards, she began teaching him some things he’d never known about the act of love with a woman one had not paid for. He liked learning these things. He liked when she began to reveal that she, too, was deriving pleasure from what they did.
He wanted to do this every day, many times. She’d smile and tell him his healing needed to take precedence. He told her she was healing him this way.
One morning he woke and she was gone. She left a note. She told him that his shoulder might ache for a time, possibly even always, but he was unlikely to be impeded in the things he liked to do, such as riding or hunting. She asked him, as an act of courtesy and grace, to leave her to her life and the memory of their time together. She called it an interlude, and wished him good fortune.
Antenami Sardi, in the greatest exercise of self-restraint in his life to that point, accepted this. He did not pursue her to her city nearby, though he knew where it was. He went home as spring was turning towards summer, riding Fillaro north between hills and vineyards, among bright-green leaves, flowers, birdsong, seeing fortresses and towns perched above the road. One of the small cities along the way was hers. He kept riding. She had asked him to.
It would not be excessive to say he was a changed man from that time. Even his brother acknowledged it, eventually. His father did so even sooner. So, too, did some of the women who had been his preferred bed-companions at home. He enjoyed these things being said. His shoulder did hurt at times, more as time went by, especially when the winter rains arrived each year, but few men were permitted lives free of pain or loss.
When spring came the next year, his father intended to have Firenta go to war against Bischio, their forces led by Folco Cino d’Acorsi. Pain and loss were likely to attend.
* * *
It was reckless to walk back alone in the moonlight with no sword and a substantial purse hanging about my neck. My winnings were hidden inside my tunic, but if anyone did decide to rob me they’d give wild thanks to the god for what they found.
I could have booked a horse at the inn but it didn’t occur to me until I was some distance south already. I needed time to think, in any case. Looking back, that night road feels like another interval, my life lying before it, and after.
I was not in anything resembling a tranquil state of mind, but I had a decision to make. I think that when we’re young we often have the sense that what we do when faced with a choice will define our lives forever. This can be untrue, sometimes amusingly so, but not always.
Events since then have proven my feeling that night to be true, I think, even if we concede that no man can know what would have happened had he turned north or east instead of south at some place where roads divide.
* * *
• • •
TWO OF MONTICOLA’S soldiers were guarding the door when I returned to the house. I knew there’d be others around the back. It was as much a show of force as any actual concern about threats. People feared this man, and he was here to possibly take a contract with Bischio. He might be their champion next year, if Firenta came with an army. That army would be Folco’s, of course.
It occurred to me, distracted and tired as I was, to wonder if that was why Monticola might take this on. Their long feud playing out on a stage offered by wealthier cities, paid for by them? Batiara is still like that. Matters of high policy and power, but with personal hatreds (or loves) added to or opposing them. And who knew which one took the lead in that dark dance?
I didn’t. I still don’t. The guards nodded at me, one made a crude joke and gesture. It was obvious where they thought I’d been; most of their fellows were at brothels that night, spending money before heading home to Remigio. Those on guard had drawn the short lots or rolled bad dice to be posted here, sober, on a wild night.
I was feeling fear as I walked in. I thought about my parents, Seressa, the life I thought I’d been born to. And here I was, entangled with Monticola and Acorsi. Folco had asked me to spy for him. Adria had been looking at both of us when he did. I was a tailor’s son, having been given the lucky gift of an education. But what did that mean? What could it be caused to mean?
Not the hour to weigh all that. I really was tired, it had been a day of days, and I’d walked a considerable distance, as well. Had the race been only this morning? I thought I would go up to bed and deal with my life when I woke.
What we think we’ll do is often not what we end up doing. It isn’t always in our own control, our life.
Monticola di Remigio was in the front sitting room to the left of the stairs. The door was open. He was in a high-backed, cushioned chair of the newer sort and he was looking at me, a cup of wine at his elbow, booted feet outstretched, crossed at the ankles. It was as if he’d been waiting for me, though I knew that couldn’t be so. Ginevra della Valle was standing near him in a deep blue robe with pale green sleeves. No jewellery at home at night.
“Danino! Here you are at last!” he cried enthusiastically, using the boy-name. It was immediately obvious he was not sober. I thought I saw a warning in Ginevra’s eyes. I had no idea what to do with that.
“My lord,” I said, stopping in the doorway, bowing to both of them.
“Where were you?” he asked. It could have been a mild, inconsequential question.
I managed a smile. “Abroad in the city. I am reluctant to say more with the lady—”
“She’s no innocent,” he said. “Was it a pleasing whore?”
“Teobaldo,” she said. “I may not be innocent, but I have my preferences as to that sort of talk.”
“Indeed?” he said with a short laugh. “Share them with our friend?”
“No,” she said. “I think not. I believe I will retire. You should, as well. Come with me?”
“Not yet,” said Monticola. He was looking at me, not her. “We leave in the morning, I have finished my business here. Our young Danino has yet to tell me whether he will accept my offer of a post. So, our young Danino, will you? Will you tutor my sons? This lady’s sons? I believe it may even be her preference.”
