Sung in Shadow, page 32
“Well, Mother,” Susina said at last, once more downing her cup, “you do surprise me. You do set me whirling. Cast forth.”
“Like emptyings,” said Cornelia. Her heart thudded; her arm ached and tingled where she had received the blow that had still come to her heart.
“Why?” not unreasonably said Susina.
(Two girls about early in Hellish cochineal and angelic blue caught the Maestra’s warning eye, and withdrew into the house again.)
Cornelia took breath, but only sighed.
It was Iuletta Chenti who spoke.
“I was secretly wedded to one of the Montargo Tower. I should have married Troian Belmorio. My father would force me to it still and I will not be forced.”
Susina loosened her eyes, which had seemed for an instant about to pop.
“And your husband?”
“Romulan Montargo. Under sentence of death, he has fled for his life.”
“Hah!” exclaimed Susina, and compressed her lips. Some gossip reached her, though clear news of the debacle at the Basilica earlier that day had not, as yet—certain persons having been exercised to mask it. Of the deaths of Leopardo Chenti, Valentius Montargo and Flavian Estemba she was well-informed. In her way, she had grieved for the last of these. Physical glamour she admired, and an open purse likewise. Mercurio, on his rare visitations, had been generous and, if she dared to admit it, for she did not often indulge sentiment, a delightful patron of the wares of the house, sophisticated, gentle. His death had incensed her, briefly, for she did not often either indulge her rage. Men fought and died all the time. Montargo Primo she had not known. Of Leopardo she had been greatly unenamored. At no stage had Susina credited the rumor Romulan had slain Flavian Estamba. She, like a number of others, sussed where to allocate blame.
“Your husband then,” said Susina, with some care, “will send for you?”
“My husband, I think, has no wish for me.”
Susina considered. She remembered Romulan, the straight limbs and teeth, the woman’s eyes of him, the man’s arrogance. The sheer male beauty, so similar to, as she came to dwell on it, this feminine beauty before her now.
“Maybe you’re mistaken, lady,” Susina observed. “But until you know, what do you plan?”
“Not to impose upon you,” Iuletta said. She came to her feet and walked to Susina, so the Maestra felt obliged to get up again in her turn. “I have no jewels which are not Chenti’s, save this ring. This is mine. He—my husband—gave it me. Let me give it to you. It’s gold. It will pay for my keep a little while, and then I shall have found some transport from the town.”
“Where will you go?” Susina asked, struck by this senseless courage and this silly, awe-inspiring independence. Neither had been noticeable upon the other visit. Such did men bring women to by their loss, great weakness or great self-reliance.
“To the only place which will consent to house me. Some sisterhood. I shall become Christ’s bride. A suora.”
Before she could restrain herself, Susina laughed.
“You, lady?” she said. “I fear you’re made for the world.”
“So are we all,” Iuletta said, “but I think the world is too cruel for me.”
She held out the wedding ring and Susina withdrew a step.
“I’d get ill-luck, taking that from you, little wife.”
“I have nothing else.”
“Then keep it. You’re my mother’s child, more than I ever was. You had her milk, not I. I will not call you ‘sister,’ in case you spit on me. But you can lodge here awhile gratis, as she will, the old puss.”
On her bench, Cornelia was partaking of her third cup, and more cheerful for it. It was a fact, she knew Iulet far better than she knew this puce and vermilion plum of hers. Susina had made her own way. Judging by the courtyard and the house and the wine, a primrose path indeed. And if Hellfire was at the end of it, then so it was for many others.
“She’s happy enough,” Susina said. “What I’ll do with her, Jesus and his saints alone know. I must beware. She could no doubt run the place better than I.” Iuletta dropped her eyes, and Susina concluded she offended her. “Excuse my chatter, my donna. I mean you no harm.”
But Iuletta softly said,
“It was here I saw him first.”
Arrested, Susina poised, her eyes flying to the stair, the balustrade, the windows of the mezzanine floor above.
“So you did. He wounded by some scoundrel’s sword—and you wounded by the blind child’s arrow.”
One thing was certain. Iuletta Chenti, even had she wished it, entreated it, and even might it have been safely done, would never make a whore. With one she loved she would be fire and flower and flood. But with any other, worthless, cold and useless. The Belmorio had missed a sad disappointment there. Besides, this beauty was too much. It was to be worshipped, not tumbled, or if tumbled, only by its equal. Brother and sister, Romulan and Iulet. Some hereditary trick, of course, from the cross-breeding of the aristocratic towers. Somewhere in their ancestors’ past, the blood line must have been one.
Poor Mercurio, caught between such grinding stones. Belmorio, too. Even Leopardo now she could almost pity. For there was some traffic of destiny here, an astrologer or witch would see it in a second.
“I think, little donna,” said Susina, “you should not despair quite yet.” And in her practical way Susina was pleased, saddled with the mother, too, though she seemed to be. Romulan was now Montargo’s heir, and one day might get his pardon—and be grateful to those who aided his loveling.
But then Iuletta looked at her again with adult eyes, chill and sure.
“Thank you for your kindness. But he will not return. That is death to him. Nor send me word—that would be death, too. Besides, I think he is happy to be free of me. He was not my bird to keep in a cage. I want nothing of this world anymore. I shall be a nun.”
And she placed the ring quietly in Susina’s open hand, and went silently back to her seat.
Then Susina perceived in her, not grace, but death, and crossed herself, unseen, over her half-bared breasts.
* * *
• • •
The sunset was soft. Milk mingled with the blue. The trees, the towers, held the sun to the horizon. Then began to let it go.
Electra Chenti, in the etiolated shadows, walked from the capella and waited, the Basilica before her, her attendants at her back. Her lord had sent her on his business here: “Go pray,” he had said. “And slip this purse to the priests.” She had done his command, of course, without fuss. Cold enough to burn, she was yet his dutiful wife.
He, for his part, had told her of Iuletta’s flight. Plainly, he had not expected his child to act in such a manner. Going to the chamber of painted trees an hour after their confrontation, he had reckoned to find the girl amid the broken furnishings, screeching in a deluge of tears—I will do anything, only do not send me away. Instead, away she was. And the debris left on the floor, and her garments in their chests, and her gems, just as he had instructed. Flummoxed, he explained to himself how things were. He saw he should not have been quite so harsh. She had taken him at his word and deemed his forgiveness a goal impossible, whatever she promised. Well, let her tremble, then. Doubtless the fat jabberd had found them some lodging in the mercantile quarter. Tomorrow he would send one to seek them. The girl would be yet the more willing to accede after a night of poor food and fleas. (He had not read the eyes of his wife, which judged the outcome of his deeds and knew him a fool, and displayed their knowledge. He did not desire to realize he had earned defiance, and so caused the vast dislocation he had, or that in doing it he had also disturbed Electra’s voiceless, sinuous plans.)
Electra. Her wifely duty done, she had halted, staring through her veil and between the columns. Her eyes had found one of the subsidiary caves where, behind their gilded palisades, stood the tombs of the mighty Houses who had held to Verensa the longest.
“Who is that?” she presently inquired.
A girl dipped her head.
“I do not know, madama. He is unseemly.”
“The name of the tomb? Is it Estemba?”
“Yes, madama.”
“Go ahead of me,” Electra said. And when they had done so, she walked slowly, her raven’s gown sweeping the dusts and the dried petals after it along the floor, toward the tomb, its lifeless mourning Eros above it, its living mourning Eros below.
Electra’s mind did not move necessarily with logic. It moved with instinctual aptness, like the gathering and darting of a serpent. She had always had, too, where the world and custom permitted it, a serpent’s near-perfect timing.
She stood perhaps half a minute beside the rail, and then she said, “You are lamenting with a great noise. Is it for Flavian Estemba? Beating your head on the marble, I assure you, will not appease him. You need another’s blood for that.”
Hearing her voice, registering that it was directed at him, the young man—whose tower had suitably clad him from birth in mourning black—fell silent, but did not turn.
“Oh, yes,” she said then. “I understand your grief. I, too, have lost one dear to me. And at the same hands.”
The figure clinging to the tomb stiffened. Inaudibly, the two words came, but they could only be the words they were, the name:
“Romulan Montargo.”
“Yes,” Electra said. “That traitor villain. My nephew he has slain. He has disgraced my daughter.”
Saffiro Vespelli moved about and laid his shoulders against the tomb of the Estembas. White Eros and black. The shadows were kind and hid his face.
“Their feud was old, was dead,” he said to her, or through her. “Montargo, Estemba. And then he turned on him. As a dog will. Turned on him and slew him. And Mercurio had nothing to defend himself but the bronze sword I gave him as a gift, a jest—God forgive me. My fault, mine.” He covered his face with one hand. The other would not let go of the tomb. Bowed in this way, slim and black-haired, he looked like Romulan. “I will kill myself. I’ll damn myself. I’ll be damned with him.”
“While the murderer lives,” said Electra, weightless as a silk glove falling at his feet.
Initially he made no move, and then, he picked it up, that glove.
“Do you ask me for vengeance?” he said, and for the first he looked at her and saw her through the gauze veil. “Lady Chenti—” he said. And startled for a moment beyond himself, “Your daughter—I know her married to Montargo—”
That he too had been one of the witnesses did not concern Electra. “My daughter has confessed her liaison and my lord has thrown her from the house. He has been poorly advised in this. Her nurse, a coarse sloven, has taken her to shelter, I would suppose at her own daughter’s warren in the Bhorgabba. I entreat,” said Electra stilly, “that you tell no one this disgraceful thing.”
He peered at her from the abyss of his misery, uncertain.
“You would have it secret—Then why tell me?”
“To help you to justice.”
“Justice does not live. A Montargo killed it.”
“Then kill the Montargo.”
“What?” he said.
“Avenge,” she said, “my loss, and yours.”
Scenting her deviousness, but beyond dealing with it, or resisting, he said, “Tell me where to find the murderer and I’ll see to it. Do you know?”
“Not yet.”
“Then you play with me.”
“I have offered you the game.”
“Where is it?”
“In this: Discover my daughter and you discover the Montargo.”
Saffiro made a wild dismissive gesture.
“Romulan Montargo ran from the town.”
“Do you believe,” she said, “he’ll not come back? He is alive. He thinks himself clever. No one can take him. He is hot for her. He’ll come back, or send one to fetch her. You have only to watch her to see it. Then you may take him, or follow her and reach him and do as you wish, less mercifully than the strangler’s noose.”
“By the Christ,” Saffiro said. “Can it be so simple?”
“Yes.”
“Where,” he said. He faltered, and leaned on the tomb again as if to draw strength from it. “Where is your daughter?”
“You must find the sty; I cannot track the Bhorga. The old woman’s whelp is named Susina, and her palace of entertainment, so I understand, somewhat talked of.”
“I’ll find it then, and watch. And when he comes, or if she goes to him, I’ll be ready—Your daughter will mourn, too, madama.”
“My daughter is nothing. Only the sweet in the trap.”
He did not seem ready to leave the tomb, nor she to go away. They were strangers to each other, now inexorably bound.
“I must have,” she said at length, still in that unemphatic pallid voice, “some token from you that you will do this thing.”
“Trust me.”
“No,” she said. “Come to the High Altar and swear.” In his whiteness, he whitened.
“How can I swear to commit sin on the Name of God?”
“Swear only that you spoke the truth and will abide by it Swear by Sana Vera, or I shall doubt you.”
He flared suddenly.
“Is your doubt to trouble me?”
She smiled. They were strangers, but she knew him, or enough of him.
“I’m not afraid of Godless things. For this I would work a curse on you. My nephew thought me a sorceress. Come. Swear. Swear at least to find him and tell me of it. I will kill him myself, the butcher of your friend. I will do it.”
He remembered stories he had not fully listened to in his frenzy. How this woman had walked barefoot to the Chitadella to beg Romulan’s death. How she had ululated like a beast over the bloody corpse of mad Leopardo.
Saffiro wished she had not come on him. He wished the hedge of his brothers had been about him. But he was alone in his wretchedness, had been so since Marivero, and now he must manage a death. . . . Her face was contemptuous and maleficent, and he began to fear her, and all those past events which had driven him to this place and which her lusterless veiled eyes seemed to decipher.
And again he saw the child running into the Vespelli Tower, shouting: “Estemba Uno is dead!” One of Saffiro’s brothers, he recalled, had applauded the tidings. While the sky fell in the courtyard.
She would not go away. He must swear her oath or she would not leave him by the tomb. He must.
He came abruptly from the gate in the railing—which he had bribed the priest to unlock for him. He went by her. He found himself running, and remembered running downhill toward the darkened inn, the wine, the jokes, and the awful bed that did not matter. A guide in darkness. Glad, afraid. Alone.
He raced to the altar and slashed down his fist on it.
What was God? To kill Romulan, should that not be the only answer, the classical ideal perpetuated to its essential climax? To kill Judas, surely that had been blessed.
“I swear it,” he whispered. And he felt there was no God, as Mercurio, somewhere in the night, had maybe suggested, and maybe in his sleep. “I swear!” he shouted, and the Basilica boomed with his voice. Saffiro lifted his head in the dizzy horrible glory of it and heard only his shout, like the clamor of a bell.
When he looked down again, shuddering, the woman had gone away.
TWENTY
The lodging in Manta Sebastia looked out to one side on a square with a church in it, on the other to a small yard with a well and a pomegranate tree. The church, pilasters, grills, and greenish windows, was sinking backward now into the darkness. In the yard a bird sang, giving the tree a voice. Five minutes before, a boy had been let in to see to the candles, and was now let out. When he had gone, Doro said,
“I went also to the school again. Neither had any letter gone there. They looked for you still and were sorry to be told you would not be coming. But from your father, not a word.”
“Then again, he had arranged my lodging here, and would have sent any messenger here.”
“And then again, where is that devil I paid your gold to?”
“Carousing well on it, somewhere.”
“Sir, bid me go myself.”
“Or I—”
“I,” said Doro, “am only a servant of the House. Who’ll challenge me? For you—there’s been no word, either, of the Duke’s pardon. It might well be a death sentence. That could explain his lordship’s silence.”
“My father,” Romulan said, and broke off.
He watched the church dissolving as if under the sea, and thought of Valentius, disturbed, flushing even at the memory with self-consciousness. His stern ungiving bloody father—who had held him, who had promised him Iuletta’s safety. Who, perhaps more than everything, had been prepared at last to take Romulan even in sin and dishonor as his son. And then—to be ill and get no word. To recover and get no word. To ride here to the town in the hopes of word being here ahead of him—and get no word. To ponder then if the plague which had fastened on him had fastened also—perfidious irony—on his father, contaminating him in that parental embrace so long omitted. Then Doro’s “No, sir. Your father had the fever, too, when he was a boy. And got free of the sickness more swiftly than you.” (By which you saw your servant knew more of your father than you yourself.) It was Romulan’s remorse and grief that had made his recovery sluggish. This Doro hinted, trying to chivvy the young man from the inevitable depression that followed on the illness. It was, in fact, the worry that began over the absence of any whisper from Verensa that finally thrust Romulan back to health. With Doro he began to walk about Manta Sebastia, concern and nerves needing some outlet. A couple of times, growing faint in the street and leaning on Doro or a wall, the cooing of nearby women over his handsomeness and deathlike pallor had him grinding his teeth and briskly striding on, his head whirling and his pulse gone mad. It offended Romulan to be ill. Eventually, his unwelcome drove the demon away. And then there was only the worry left to plague him.
