Sung in Shadow, page 25
Electra stopped. Clearly, like a handful of coins striking the floor, she said,
“Remove the cloak.”
A servant at her elbow said, “Madama, he’s sorely hacked. Best not to look at him before someone has seen to it.”
A few then began to report to her the sequence of events, as they knew them. Gulio Chenti, it appeared, had rushed into the house not long before. His information, imparted to the houseguards at the door—that Leopardo was embattled—brought slight response. Gulio was integral but inconsequent to the Tower, and the Cat’s reputation well known, both as a brawler and as a swordsman. Lazy in Lord Chenti’s absence, the guard had no mind to stir and to be trounced by the antic nephew for their pains. Gulio had run then in search of other cousins, but they had gone hunting in a pack, no one was there to help him. He himself had no wish to return to the square. He had seen enough and hysterically foretold the rest, and so he ran lastly to his chamber and sat there, eating quantities of sweetmeats from a dish, and nervously sniveling.
The guard at the garden door, though he did not admit it, had been asleep under a pomegranate tree. He was perhaps thirty feet from Leopardo when he was cut down, though separated by bushes, and a wall, and all the hills of unconsciousness. What ultimately roused the man was a vague argument that seemed in progress in the alley under the wall. He made no sense of it, but coming alert, he had diligently resumed his proper post. A set of hooves rode off while he was doing this, and not long after, another set. He was well aware of the tolling bell and the shouting from the Basilica by then, and had duly crossed himself. But it was curiosity that at last impelled him to open the door and peer out. So he saw the broken doll in the alley, crimson clothing, crimson wounds, a pool of blood mingling in the pool of pale orange hair. The guard began to shout. When others came, they found also the sword, under its rank red of whippy long-bladed steel, with a ship, oared and sailed, incised both in hilt and blade.
“Remove the cloak,” Electra said again.
After a moment, cautiously, someone obeyed.
There was another noise in the hall, swiftly smothered. They looked to see what Electra would do. That she and her nephew had disliked each other was well known, nor was Leopardo in scarcely any instance liked, only feared, and in some cases worshipped, as a god who required bloody sacrifice. Save now he was his own. And Lady Chenti, whose veins were plainly filled by water cool enough for eels to swim in, what would she do? For hate him if she had, the boy was still her closest natural kin, the nearest she had gotten to the possession of a son.
Electra moved forward. She neither caught her breath nor exclaimed. She gave no evidence of being on the verge of tears or swooning. Like adamant she stared down at him, and some were certain they beheld her abhorrence of him now, naked as swords in her gaze, as if she might kill him all over again.
His eyes were open but ungleaming, dull as fish scales drying in the sun. His lips were parted also, but only a little way, and from the left corner of his lips one black thread of blood had issued. His throat was hideous, the sliced and withering membrane and debris of sinews and discoloring flesh weltered in blood. Blood bearded his doublet, overwhelming the other, slighter wound he had taken in the side. The wound in his back was concealed. All this she looked at, all this she comprehended. She saw, too, the blood in his hair, and his amber skin, disclosed by blood and torn brocade. She saw the expression of his face which, though gradually sinking in the general sluggishness of death, yet retained for now its elements of terror, violence and ghastly mockery. While on his right cheekbone she saw the tiny healing scratch where her ring had cut him, one further wound.
What would she do? They did not know. They did not know she would surprise them.
Electra Chenti, whose flesh was ice and whose ichors were water, threw herself to her knees. Her thin fingers ripped and tore the flimsy fabric of her costly gown, so in a shattered tinsel of dragonflies she leaned above him, tearing now at her hair, her cheeks. Her mouth was a square rictus, like that of an antique tragic mask, the kind sometimes set into walls to pour fountains. Electra’s distorted mouth poured loud hoarse cries that burst against the walls of gold and wood and pictures and weapons, and were cast away into the rafters overhead where once the frightened doves of Venus had perched. Amid the streamers of her falling hair, she wordlessly, ceaselessly railed. She was watched with horror, yet some noticed that while her mouth screamed, the rest of her face stayed cold, stayed to hate him, cursing him with its rational stone eyes as she rocked, a madwoman, above his body. It was doubtful if any of them, her husband’s retainers, his guards, her own abject retinue, could divine the particular agony that was the root of her display. For this was not the outcry of love, but of one at last, and utterly, and forever, cheated.
* * *
• • •
A few minutes after her confinement in the room of pink-painted trees, a cordial had been brought to Iuletta’s door. Cornelia, greatly bothered for her young bride, her kitten, properly deflowered but now with all the day to linger and fret, had had prepared a drink—honey, cloves, wine, the pulped sweetness of peaches—in the heart of which lay one dark dose of poppy juice. While Cornelia faced Electra’s barbed tongue strangely with a bombastic silence, a comically and pathetically cringing ebullience firmly stoppered like effervescence in a bottle, Iuletta had taken the cordial and drunk it for its pleasant taste. Then, straying to her slender maiden’s bed no longer suitable for flesh or spirit, she lay down there. A while she stared at the canopy with its flowers and cats. She played with one of the little jeweled books, a poem of Phoebus Apollo’s hapless son, Phaethon. The representation of Phaethon had somewhat evoked Romulan for her, for blue-eyed and black hair, in ornate and only mildly Grechian garments of sky-blue, he whipped the golden horses of the sun toward the west, heedless as all the exotic creatures of the Zodiac rushed in alarm from his path, and the world, catching alight, smoked under him.
So she, Romulan’s world, had flamed. Nor had she, in the bawdy tradition of the bride, slept on her marriage night. Between the several meetings of their desire, tumbled and consumed in the joy of her lover, while he slipped soundlessly asleep in her arms, she, in another lonelier ecstasy of finding and possession clasped and caressed him, wept for her love of him, could not slumber, would not waste a second of the precious night when, awake, she might know him with her. So, the drugged drink, in a short space, dislodged her awareness. She fell asleep with Phaethon and the galloping steeds, they with their feet of fire, he with feet of clay, under her hand. The coming of horror and clamor into the Tower did not rouse her, not even the howling of her mother in the banquet hall. All this, Iuletta was spared.
But in the end it was her very savior, Cornelia, coming heavily as wet washing, soaked in tears to her door, who ended the pace of sleep and mind.
The nurse had little subtlety, for in her sphere it could avail nothing. Her husband was long dead, her living daughter a whore, and herself a servant in an opulent House that allowed her rights mostly out of inertia. These things were facts; they were not subtle. And all the delights of Cornelia’s life, simple, often brutal things, old couplings, more recent fumblings, current filthy jests, good food, red wine, a soft mattress to bed on (even if now alone), in these she took a grateful happiness, knowing all she liked was a sin, and begging pardon for it dutifully at frequent intervals, her only provision against the toils of Purgatory and the coals of Hell. Even though, in her heart’s soul, she doubtless believed she would not be forgiven. For so life was, and so death would most probably be, another fact, harsh and definite. And maybe, in Hell’s very jaw, between roastings Cornelia, who would wrest her pleasures where she might, would tell jokes and admire the legs of the male victims, to her eternal, damnable, admirable credit.
One other happiness she had, however, which could not be a sin: her domineering love of Iulet. The love was quite selfish, for through it Cornelia gained her only taste of temporal power, and through it too Cornelia lived again her youth. These things the nurse had not fathomed, nor needed to. She loved, and she provided love. There had been no sin, till now. Now when she had allowed, with ready connivance, the innocent girl to bind herself to a murderer.
Cornelia, having shut the door of the bedchamber, came to Iuletta and called her, and next laid on heavy ungentle hands, not meaning to be rough, and full of compassion. So Iuletta woke startled, her heart already racing, and met the raining eyes and the mouth loose with grief, and herself screamed: “Nurse! What has happened? Oh my love, my love—is he dead?”
“You mean your husband, young Montargo. He’s not dead,” said Cornelia. “Better he were, better he had died before ever you saw him.”
“He lives?” Iuletta’s eyes were full of flames, not tears. “Why then weep? Why then speak such abominable things?”
“He is damned. He’s cursed. He’ll die for what he’s done, and well-deserved.”
Iuletta gave a shriek thinner than the note of a reed. Her hands rose as if to rip and rend, and Cornelia lumbered away. Covering her face and its wetness with a square of pink linen; she moaned.
“How dare you wallow there like a great stranded whale?” Iuletta cried, pitiless in terror. “Tell me what he has done.”
And so, through moans and linen, Cornelia told. The story was only one of many that were circling, ridiculous, insane, and therefore carrying in its wake such intimations of chaos that all Iuletta’s life seemed to perish within her.
“Your Romulan quarreled with his friend, that fair honest lovely young man, Flavian Estemba, and drawing his sword, your Romulan ran him through. And all that fine body wasted. And then, not content, Montargo picks up the quarrel with your cousin, with our Leopardo, the jewel of the Chenti Tower. And how he does it I know not, the Leopard being the Prince of Swords, but your husband kills him. Kills! Hacks him in bits! I saw the remains. God save us all, horrible to see. So much blood. I never would have known a man had so much blood in him to spill. Leopardo, that noble excellent creature, the hope of this House. All dead, all bloody. And this your husband did. You wedded a lunatic. You bedded a fiend. And I am to blame.”
Iuletta sat like a statue, her blue marble eyes quite blind, and she said, “Is he taken?”
“No. He ran, as a dog will run. The Duke’s men search him up and down. He will have flown from Verensa.”
Iulet whispered something. The nurse heard her. It was a prayer of thanks.
“For shame,” said Cornelia. But she came back to her charge and said, “It’s a tragedy. But a few hours his wife—to bring you this sorrow. He must be—is—mad.”
A pale blue lightning ran through Iuletta’s eyes. She saw, but only her future.
“He cannot claim me now,” she cried out suddenly. “What will become of me?”
“Poor rose, poor baby,” cried Cornelia in turn, and reached to comfort her. But the person on the bed, grey-white as ash, in mood between a panic-stricken child and a demon, pushed the paddling hands aside.
“Go away,” said Iuletta. “Leave me, go.”
“You fear I’ll betray you?” Cornelia said. “I’ll catch those maids of yours and see they keep their mouths shut, too. You must say nothing of what has been done. You must forget this marriage, which has ruined us.”
“There were other witnesses,” Iuletta said, but absently. Her mind was not on betrayal or its implication. Her mind was nowhere, dashed through space like a falling stone.
“God aid us! A Montargo witness, the blue fool with the yellow nag. And the boy Benevolo, who is also an Estemba. And the Duca’s very brother—Ah! Maria protect harmless women led into the garden of briers by the deeds of men.”
“He will send word to me,” Iuletta said. Her voice was far away, it too fell through space.
“Who? The wretch of a murderer? He will be well-gone and you’ll get no word. Men are our masters, child. They break us where they cannot bend. Dear Jesus—your father—”
“He will send word to me,” repeated Iulet. “He will not abandon me.”
“Even if he would, how might he? If the Duke’s men take him, he’s dead.”
Iuletta left the bed. The jeweled book, unheeded, dropped to the ground. Iuletta walked to the window of colored glass. Blood and roses, the sunlight came in through the panes, touching her face with a color it did not have.
“And you’ve lain with him, may be with child,” said Cornelia. She broke into orisons, and then abruptly ceased. Seizing facts by their throats she, who had learned to make the best of very little and sometimes of nothing at all, announced, “But we’re safe. You are to marry Belmorio. That will cover all.”
At the window, Iuletta caught her breath. Falling, she had now struck the earth. The blow of reality dazed her. Automatically she said, “Let me alone. I must be alone.”
Cornelia held her side, out of breath with events as if with running.
“You’ll do nothing unwise to yourself?”
Not comprehending, the black hair was shaken with the sculptured head. Like the child she was, fallen hard as she had, she was as yet too stunned to lament.
“Your mother’s gone mad with sorrow,” said Cornelia. “A wonder you did not hear her shrieks. Horrible to listen to.” In the center of this evil, something of its drama now began to support Cornelia. “And the poor young man, so thick with blood.”
“Go!” Iuletta shouted, all her fingers, one still ill-advisedly clad in its marriage ring, spread on the window. “Let me alone for the love and pity of Christ.”
Cornelia, her eyes flooding once again, suffering rejection, assured at last of her loss, crept like a huge pink mouse from the chamber.
Through the corridor and into the lobby Cornelia crept, and in the lobby, by the stair that led to the eastern courtyard with its old copper cats and fountains, Cornelia herself became a fountain. Her grief, unbuoyed by drama after all, brought her presently to sit on a carved bench. Here, holding the remnant of her kerchief, pink string like seaweed, before her, she cried in earnest, her sadness stretching them beyond today’s despair into her dark yesterday, into her cold tomorrow. She wept for all of them, and for herself, and scarcely knew it.
And here, in this way, her page Pieto found her. Not that he had been looking for her, the fat monster he served and mocked at, and who boxed his ears, and about whom he concocted rude rhymes. Rather, threatened by the nightmare whirlpool the Chenti Tower had suddenly become at the tolling of the bell, Pieto had been seeking refuge.
Happening on my Donna Pudding then, Pieto halted, and stared. He had never thought of it but, however reviled, she was one of the mainstays of his world. To see the mainstay crack and totter filled him with fear and doubt.
Clutching her seaweed, drowned in her sea of salt water, Cornelia became aware of an insistent tugging at her sleeve. Looking up at last, she saw the child at her side, his own face now coursed by frantic tears, and his voice saying over and over, “Donna Cornelia, please stop crying, please stop, please, please—” and in another moment he had dived into her arms like a minnow, and clung to her. And, “There now, hush now,” Cornelia said, through her unending tears. And so they clung together and wept as one.
* * *
• • •
The Duca, who had begun in a fury, had ended in silence. The small but well-appointed chamber in the Chitadella, with its murals of the wise and foolish virgins, its fine window-glass and its scarlet velvet chairs with knuckles and knees of gold and the linked sigil Rings worked in gold on their backs, had unfortunately overlooked many scenes of familial discord. This, less vitriolic than others, was also less easily dispatched. The fundamental stumbling block had been that the Duke, who did not grieve, vociferously acted grief, the cause of the act his genuine rage at the death of close kindred to the Ducal House. Chesarius’ grief, on the other hand, was unevidenced yet profound.
Having listened to a tirade against both the Chenti and the Montargo Towers, and the unqualified verdict of Romulan Montargo as the murderer of Flavian Estemba, Chesarius had finally found room to broach his own views, and next the formula of his previous evening’s business. His brother, a black-browed barrel of a man, capable equally of cunning and of precipitation, listened in his turn. The Duke was some fifteen years the elder. But, at his most considered and cerebral, Chesarius was the more mature.
“So, you are in this midden up to your brows?” snapped the Duke at length. “A secret wedding. By pagan Jupiter. What possessed you?”
“I was asked to act witness by Mercurio. Who, as you stress, my lord, is near kin to us both. Was near kin. It might have ended well enough, if ‘Pardo Chenti had not been abroad.”
“That Hellspawn. Always the master of misrule. He came, home here with half Padova in cry behind him.”
“No doubt, sir. But you will see, I think, that Romulan Montargo is unlikely to step sweet from his marriage night to kill without reason the girl’s very cousin on the streets of the Higher Town. Nor to run a blade through Mercurio, who was his friend in this, as in everything else. Those two held no feud between them.”
“You credit the boy’s story, then?”
“Benevolo D’Estemba? Yes.”
“But he has the Montargo blood, has he not? He’d lie for Romulan’s sake.”
“Not if Romulan had harmed Mercurio, he’d not. Flavian was his god. No, it’s a vile tale, and vile enough to match the whims of Leopardo Chenti, to thrust a man, unarmed, on the sword of his friend.”
“The other has a different song.”
“Gulio? He ran away.”
“To fetch help, at Leopardo’s request, Romulan being incensed and crazy.”
“Oh, my lord brother,” said Chesarius, “do you visualize Leopardo squealing for help in a duel?”
