A Brightness Long Ago, page 3
No one had ever promised her easy paths in life. Certainly her father had not. He wasn’t that sort of man. Wealth was hers, as the daughter of a duke, but nothing easy. Not for a woman, especially.
She crossed back to the dead man. She bent down, gasping with the effort, and took up the knife again. She used it to cut a piece of his robe free and she packed her wound with it. She took the belt from the robe of the man she’d killed, pulling it out from under him. She tied it around the packed wound. Her need was to try not to drip blood as she went. She almost screamed again, doing all this. Then she remembered, and did scream, softly, for them to hear her outside.
She looked around, trying to think if she’d forgotten anything. The wound, for the moment, wasn’t bleeding through the cloth. It would soon, she thought.
She limped, breathing hard, to the half-open inner door and went through. Third room, they had told her: a panel on the left-hand wall, far side of a fireplace. A latch in the mouth of a lion carved in the wood there.
It would be weak to collapse, she told herself, dragging her body forward. It would also be death. She kept herself moving, leaning on tables or with a hand on the walls, grasping at the posts of a bed in the second room. She was weeping with the pain now. She wiped at her eyes.
She got there, the third room. She found the lion and pressed the latch that opened a panel. There was a staircase within. She had been promised there would be, hadn’t she?
It was utterly black inside. Adria turned, swearing, and made her way across this room to claim a lamp from a table. She put the bloodied knife in the belt of her robe. Only then did she realize her buttons were still undone. She did them up. It could be amusing, a desire for modesty at the edge of death, but she remembered the ruined nakedness of Uberto, behind her, and she wasn’t amused.
She went back to the open panel and through it, stooping, crying out softly as she bent. She pushed the panel closed behind her. There would probably be blood on the floor and carpets on the way, she knew. There was nothing more she could do about that. She’d need to hope—pray?—that no one noticed it, at least not tonight. That they’d be too dismayed and afraid, would have rushed to the open window, seen the rope, raced down to the square, shouting for guards.
After a few steps, however, Adria realized that was not going to matter. She had two levels to descend on these narrow, slippery, stone stairs, holding a lamp, and she wasn’t going to be able to do it.
* * *
It wasn’t an encounter I was likely to have forgotten.
A little over a year before, Folco Cino, famed among the military leaders of Batiara and, since his father’s death some years past, the lord of Acorsi, had come on a visit to the ruling Ricciardiano family in Avegna, and stopped by, on the morning of his second day, to greet Guarino, our teacher. Folco was possibly the most celebrated graduate of our school.
Everyone called him by that name, familiar as it might be for the ruler of a city. Guarino had told some of us it was deliberate. “He makes himself seem kind that way. He can be, but don’t be fooled,” he’d said.
We were unlikely to be, he was one of the most feared mercenary commanders of the day. Preferring his given name was unlikely to erase that from anyone’s awareness, I thought.
He had brought two people with him that day. One of them was the tall woman I would later see being led into a room where Uberto of Mylasia awaited her.
I would recognize her in Mylasia because I was one of those in the garden of the school the day Folco came to us a year before, along with half a dozen of the older students and two of our youngest ones, twins. The young brothers sang a song of greeting as our famous guest entered, their voices sweet in the late-summer morning light.
Guarino nodded brisk approval when they were done. Folco d’Acorsi, grinning, said, “I remember singing that song!”
He gave each of the boys a coin, then stepped forward to embrace our teacher fiercely, almost lifting him off the ground. We were startled. Shocked, in fact. Guarino, released, straightened his grey robe, and said, “Dignity is to be treasured, perhaps above all else.”
Folco laughed. I could see, from where we stood, the notorious hollow socket of his right eye. He refused to wear an eye patch. Everyone knew about that wound. There were conflicting stories of how it had happened. One was that it had been caused by Teobaldo Monticola, which might explain some things.
Folco said, “Quoting Azzopardi, Teacher? You don’t even agree with Azzopardi! What about ‘None deserves your love so much as he who teaches you wisdom’?”
“That’s him as well, yes,” said Guarino with equanimity. “A better thought, I agree. I am pleased you have not forgotten. But love can be shown in many ways.” He did smile, I remember. His wispy hair was chaotic in the wind.
“It can,” agreed the lord of Acorsi. “Will you dine with us, Teacher, after we hunt? Erizzio has said I should invite you.”
I had thought he would be a bigger man, his fame as a soldier was so great. Folco Cino’s hair was a light brown under a soft red cap, some grey in it. He had a fiercely beaked nose and a scar on the same cheek as the missing eye. He was strongly built, muscular. You wouldn’t want to wrestle him, I thought.
“I will do so with pleasure,” Guarino said. “Convey my thanks to the count. But before you go, I have brought some of our pupils this morning to show their skills, if it is agreeable.”
“It would be entirely agreeable, if time permitted. But I am riding out with Erizzio and Evardo, with matters to discuss before we hunt, pertaining to Rhodias and Firenta and developments there.”
“Indeed,” our teacher said. “The Sardis grow powerful.”
“They do,” said Folco d’Acorsi. “Piero wishes to hire me again. My army.”
“Of course he does,” said Guarino.
The lord of Acorsi favoured us with a glance. “I have no doubt you are exemplary, all of you. Your teacher would not have brought you this morning otherwise. Accept my regrets and my good wishes. Carry on, always honour him, he is the best of us. Come, Coppo, Adria, they’ll be waiting for us.” He bowed to Guarino, turned, and strode out of our small garden, a man of violence and culture and power, one eye bright, one empty and dark. The tall young woman and the man followed him, dressed for riding.
We know he is the best, I wanted to say, but knew better than to speak. So, I never did ride a horse that morning for Folco d’Acorsi, to show him what I could do. It is even possible certain things might have unfolded differently if I had. The thought has occurred to me. I’ve never shared it.
I did see the woman that morning, however. Tall, auburn-haired, thin. And I heard her name and saw her looking about the garden, bored. We talked about her after. How could we not talk about her, young men seeing Adria, the youngest daughter of Duke Arimanno Ripoli of Macera, niece of Caterina Ripoli d’Acorsi, and so of Folco, by marriage? She’d walked with him into our garden and walked out with him.
But that was not the name I heard her give Morani, in Mylasia, when she was brought up the palace stairway as a girl from a nearby farm, summoned for the count’s pleasure.
I stood in shadow on the back stair and I did nothing. I watched Morani search her and take her to the door and knock and usher her through when the count said to do so.
Which is why I still feel, to this day, Morani’s soul, his death, marked to my account with the god.
When I am summoned, when my life ends and I’m to be judged, I will plead that Uberto’s death that night, the innocent lives saved and avenged, be offered in the balance. I didn’t kill Uberto, of course, just as I didn’t kill Morani, but I knew, watching the woman go in, that she was there for Folco, and to kill.
Not for justice, but for power, the savage game of it, the dance of pride and enmity in our time. I had been a pupil of Guarino’s, hadn’t I? I knew the geography of this corner of the world. I knew where Teobaldo Monticola’s city of Remigio was. And Folco’s Acorsi, where that was. With Mylasia lying between them here.
And I decided, watching, clutching the wine flask Morani had sent me to bring, that why didn’t matter to me if the Beast died that night. I had been in that palace long enough, I had seen what he was, and I was young, justice meant something to me.
It never occurred to me the woman might fail. Which is astonishing, as I look back.
I waited a few moments then came into the antechamber. It was more an open landing than anything else. There was a long, low chest against the wall of the room where the count and the woman were. Morani was sitting on that. I brought him the flask and a cup. He unstoppered the wine and drank, not bothering with the cup, then passed it back to me.
I shook my head. He raised his eyebrows. I usually did drink with him on those nights. With a shrug, he took another drink. I remained standing, which was normal for me. I was frightened, I remember, and knew I must not show it. We listened for sounds while pretending we weren’t doing that. We could hear voices, but not the words spoken, unless they were loud.
Morani said, softly (because we could also be heard within), “No wine?”
I shrugged in turn, and lied to him. “I had too much last night.”
“The young should be able to do that,” he said, trying for a smile.
I managed a wry face. In truth, I’d felt, from the moment I saw the woman, that I might need my wits about me.
“Have you any poetry about gardens, Guidanio?” Morani said. “Gardens in springtime?” He almost always used my full name. I was Danio, usually, and sometimes another form of my name I didn’t much like, from childhood.
“I think I do,” I said. We heard the count’s voice through the wall, from the side of the room nearer to us, away from the bed and the table where he kept the things he played with.
Morani drank again.
I said, perhaps foolishly, “Is this worth it? For either of us?”
He looked at me. “Our souls, you mean?”
“Yes.” Though that wasn’t precisely what I’d meant.
“No, it isn’t,” he said. “I am going to write letters for you this winter, Guidanio. Find you a better post.”
“You know I am honoured to serve you, signore. You know—”
“It isn’t serving me!” he said. He sighed. “I’m getting old, and so many depend on me. And I try, by staying, to . . . make things better?” He looked up at me, his expression almost pleading. “I have seen famine, Guidanio. Sieges, cities sacked and burned. Terrible things, I’ve seen. Mylasia is safe from these right now, the people here are safe, because he is—”
The count’s voice, sharply. Then the woman screamed.
It seemed to come from directly behind Morani. I flinched. He half stood, then sank back down onto the chest. We looked at each other. He is quiet tonight, he had said to her.
“My lord . . . why?” we heard her cry.
“A garden,” Morani said quickly. “A poem about a garden, Guidanio. Or anything. About anything! Sunlight.”
The count’s voice: low, smooth as olive oil, warm as wine mulled in winter. Nothing more from the girl. I was supposed to say a poem. I reached for the flask, after all, and took a drink. They served good wine in Mylasia under Count Uberto in those days. My heart was pounding, I remember.
“It is difficult to think of one,” I said.
Morani’s eyes on mine. He said, “The difficult is what we rise to!”
I lowered my gaze. Guarino had said the same thing. In the school. Which had a garden. And existed to teach men and women to be graceful and capable in the world. And perhaps kind, if they could manage it, especially if they held power. Most of those in the school came from power and would go back to it.
I said:
There is a place I remember on summer nights,
Though it is lost to me and all men now.
Fountains splashing between orange trees,
And the scent of jasmine drifting at night.
I was—
We heard a struggle on the other side of the wall, then something different, muffled.
Morani turned his head, listening.
What I did next didn’t change anything, because Uberto was already dead. I know that now. He had already kissed the girl brought to him—or sent after him. But I didn’t know it then, and I did intervene to keep Morani di Rosso where he was, after we both heard what sounded like someone falling.
I said, “Do you know the verse, signore? It is a translation from the Asharite tongue, from the west, long ago, when they ruled in Esperaña, before the infidels fell to the swords of holy Jad.”
“Why would you offer a poem by an unbeliever?” He turned back to me.
“Guarino says there can be wisdom and beauty in unexpected places. We owe much of our knowledge of the Ancients to the Asharites, translated.”
“I know that,” he said. He took another drink. He was looking at me. “I also know they wish to destroy Sarantium right now. The golden city . . .” He trailed off.
“You asked for a garden,” I said.
We heard the girl’s voice again. Too quiet to make out her words. But then: “My lord, please!”
And it is a terrible thing to tell, but Morani leaned back, reassured there was nothing amiss. Because a woman had just sounded terrified in the room behind him, and we had heard that before.
I know, I know . . . I have said he was a good man. You will accept my saying that, or refuse to believe it to be so. We will all face judgment at the end.
I continued with the poem. I didn’t know the poet’s name, names are often lost as time runs. Mine will be, I have done little to be remembered. Uberto might be recalled—as a foul monster or as the lord who kept Mylasia safe for twenty years. Perhaps both?
I believe Folco d’Acorsi and Teobaldo Monticola di Remigio will both be remembered for a long time. I could be wrong. We can always be wrong about time. I also have no idea what will be said of them when centuries have passed and the stories are false or distorted, when perhaps even the palaces they built or expanded lie in ruins, and no one knows how beautiful a man or woman was, except, perhaps, because of a portrait made.
Maybe it is the art that will outlive us all. Although I know at least one portrait by the great Mercati that, though brilliant as a work of art, looks nothing at all like the person, because I did know the subject of that fresco.
On the other hand, as to artists outliving us all, I had been reciting a verse I loved just then, and I had no idea who had written it.
A quieter scream. Not so much pain this time as distress. Still from the wrong side of the room, towards the tapestries.
“Should I call to him?” Morani asked.
He never asked me a question like that. He always did, on instructions, call out to the count through the door at intervals. Uberto knew he was hated. He was careful.
“Isn’t it too soon?” I asked, as though indifferent.
Jad forgive me for that, too. I knew something might be happening in there that was not as it was supposed to be.
“Too soon,” he agreed.
I finished the verse from the west. I offered another poem, a newer one, a favourite of Morani’s, by Matteo Mercati, in fact, widely judged to be not only the best sculptor and painter of our day but also an accomplished poet, and forgiven, because of these things, for his many sins. He died not long ago. I met him once.
I have also thought, often, through the years, about why some people are forgiven and some are not. I kept Morani sitting there, drinking the good wine, for an interval. Not a long time; he was clearly unsettled. Suddenly, he stood up.
“I am going to call,” he said.
He walked to the door. My heart began pounding.
“My lord!” Morani said loudly. “Is it well with you?”
This is what he had been ordered to do through nights like this, until the girl or boy was sent back out to us. Or until men were summoned to remove a dead child. Uberto would have gone through to his inner rooms by the time they arrived. He didn’t linger to watch Morani supervise that task.
When Morani called through the door, the count of Mylasia would reply, “It is well, steward,” and Morani would nod his head shortly, though there was only me to see him, and return to his seat on the chest.
That night there was no answering voice.
Morani repeated his call. Silence came heavily through the door. I shivered.
One more call, then Morani took a steadying breath and opened the door. I saw that his hand was shaking. He went in. I followed him.
“Dearest Jad, who loves his children,” said Morani di Rosso.
I still remember his voice, saying those words. I think he knew in that moment that he, too, was dead.
* * *
Courage and will weren’t always enough, it seemed. That was a hard thing, Adria thought.
It was proving difficult to remain alert, even conscious, through the pain. It was numbingly cold in the damp stone stairwell. She heard rats, possibly other things. She had a lamp, she could see the slippery steps, but her left leg would not act the way she needed it to. She couldn’t step down properly. She’d managed to sit and was bumping her way down, the wounded leg outstretched, because she couldn’t bend it without crying out, and she didn’t know who might be on the other side to hear.
Not that it mattered, if she couldn’t get to the ground level and the small door—hidden by bushes, they’d told her—that would open into an autumn night outside the city walls, to Coppo and the others, and horses, and escape.
She was on a landing now, trying to summon strength. This would be the second floor of the palace. If she looked she’d likely find a door here, too. She needed to rest, knew it was dangerous, but . . . she needed to rest, if only for a little.
