Sung in Shadow, page 6
“And here comes my daughter,” said Lord Chenti.
It was to be a show of informality, this formal first meeting between proposed bride and groom. Belmorio had already taken good care to see her—at church, alighting from a litter, and so on. That the girl had seen him was due to the contrivance of her nurse. But that also was not quite unheard of. Initially, both had been elated by what they saw.
Now, however, Belmorio turned, became petrified, gazed as if at first sight of a Madonna wafted from a canvas. In a well-trained, eloquent voice he proclaimed:
“The sun returns! Iuletta is the sun, rising in the east at sunset, to bring me day in night.”
There was some chuckling and applause at this prepared (“impromptu”) poetry, and Iuletta slowly and radiantly blushed.
Lord Chenti, a hearty devotee of martial arts, still big in chest and thigh, high-colored, quick-tempered, currently playful as a rhinosaur, slapped his young nephew on the shoulder.
“ ‘Pardo. Lead my timid daughter forward.”
Leopardo, whose sculptured nose had been thrust almost into his wine at the blow, straightened, bowed brusquely, and went to offer Iuletta his arm. She placed her hand neatly over the brocade sleeve, but scarcely touching it. Beyond a cursory glance, the cousins did not look at one another. Their dissimilar beauties and gender did not endear either to the other. A lesser branch of Chenti had married the first to produce Iuletta. Leopardo, stranded on the maternal side, father dead, and having to take his Aunt Electra’s spouse as substitute father, disliked Iulet also for that. She was a part of Chenti Primo, who incensed him merely by being alive. That she was also a part of Electra, who he so rampantly coveted, seldom occurred to him.
With great courtesy and a slight sneer, Leopardo conveyed Iuletta to within range of the prospective bridegroom. Belmorio, too, he despised. His eagerness to hate had brought Leopardo a certain reputation among swordsmen, and four cruel scars on his smooth body.
Chenti Primo was jovial.
“You act the brother nicely,” he said to Leopardo. He clasped Troian Belmorio’s hand the harder. “And you, the lover. Excellently done.” The big man grabbed for Iuletta’s hand. The girl’s head was properly bowed now. Lord Chenti approved of modesty in a woman. (Modesty but not chilliness. God knew, he had been saddled with sufficient of that at home.) “Come, look up, maiden.”
Iulet dutifully raised her head.
Troian’s face, so close, so attractive, instantly fascinated her, and the delight with which it gazed on her—that fascinated, too.
“Well,” (Lord Chenti) “do you like what you see?”
The kindred and retainers standing about reacted with approbation to this forthright stance.
“If she will consent to have me,” said Belmorio, “I will be her slave.”
“Oh, be no woman’s slave,” said Chenti. “Be her king, and rule her.”
“I protest, sir. I’d be the shoe on her foot, the glove on her hand. One of those little pearls in her hair. That would content me.”
“And what does my daughter say?”
Iulet, surrounded by a forest of men, young or older, slimly muscular or thickset, but all masculine, all arrogant as lions, turned her head involuntarily, seeking her aloof mother. Electra Chenti, poised by the fountain, stared back at her.
“Well, she looks to you, Wife, for guidance.” Chenti was disposed to be lenient. “What do you say?” (What indeed, you iceblood fish-souled bitch?)
Electra Chenti smiled. Her eyes did not.
“I say I was well-wed by fifteen. And why should my daughter balk at it.”
Iuletta tilted her head and took in all of Troian Belmorio.
If not one, then another. Or why not more than one? Cornelia had murmured, now and then. . . . And this one smiled at her, his white teeth enchanting her, his expression of joy in her, the hint of his arousal—both bodily and acquisitive—making her own heart gallop. Here he was. Chenti was putting her hand into the firm hand that was not related to her, not kin, but which was male.
Iulet sighed faintly. Captivated by everything, Troian watched the sigh. Impetuously, unrehearsed, he leaned to her ear and muttered into the shell of it, “Lady, your beauty makes my head spin, like strong wine.”
Chenti, overhearing, guffawed again.
“Well, Iulet. Do I say I betroth you to this gallant or do I not?”
(One could picture his alteration if, in public, she had protested.)
“Yes, sir,” said Iulet. She smiled at Belmorio, shyly, surely, glorying in her power over a man which, in that innocent moment, seemed limitless. It was not that she had forgotten Romulan Montargo, rather that by the implication of this conquest, she dreamed of the effect she might have on him. The true implications, being young and bound by others to her youngness, she did not see at all.
“Then since she’ll have you, sir, I grant you this: you shall kiss her, chastely, on the lips.”
So, with Chenti’s blessing, they kissed, the betrothed pair, and were clapped by onlookers, as the sun, reaching the horizon’s brink, hesitated. And then fell.
* * *
• • •
The storm did not break that night, although the wind, become many winds, made sallies upon the town. They swirled about the great proud towers as if to whittle them, rushed into alleys and amid garden trees, until the fourth bell of morning. When the blue light began to hollow the sky, the winds sank. They made pretense they were unmalicious, feeble. They scattered from Verensa to gamble with the sheep on the hills.
At seven in the morning, the sun once more glazing everything with films of color and, already, dust, the last vestige of a wind, which had lain sleeping across the threshold of the Basilica Library doors, started up and ran away, throwing in his ecstatic face, as it went, the fierce red hair of Troian Belmorio.
In the Library’s vestibule, a few old priests, one with clanking keys at his belt, looked mildly or not at all. An Estemba servant, wrapped in a brass-hued mantle, lay full length and softly snoring on a marble bench. One tall leaf of the doors to the antiquarium gave at a touch. Troian, whose inclination was not for study, walked into the long, wide chamber, and regarded disapprovingly its ancient armors on pegs, its tapestries of the fall of that very city for which he had been named, its multitude of books, most of them padlocked shut. Before the long windows, sprawled lean and couthly, grey-gold head on hand, intent, Flavian Estemba was reading from a tome the breadth of his own shoulders.
“Good day, Estemba Uno.”
Flavian Estemba lifted the head from the hand.
“Sir,” he answered.
He was nondescriptly clad, unlike Troian, who flaunted Belmorio’s color and had left five sigiled Belmorio men on the street, which might be an invitation to others to open hostilities. Partly allied and partly kin, Belmorio and Estemba were not greatly enamored of each other. One did not rise, the other did not go forward.
“I never took you for a scholar,” said Troian, eventually.
“You’re up early to take me for anything.”
“And you’ve not been to bed at all, I hear, but lurked in the cobwebs of this place. I thought the Bhorgabba was more of your night haunt. Beds, not books.”
“Oh, this way and that, I spend my nights between covers.”
Belmorio grinned. He was in a wonderful humor, and let the joke touch him.
“Still quick, cousin.”
“Not dead, at any rate.”
“Nor am I. You may have been told.”
“That you were dead?”
“Stars! That I’m to be married.”
“I heard some chat blowing about. Strali, is it? They have a daughter, I believe.”
“Strali’s daughters are geese. This one’s a Chenti.”
“Not a goose, and rich.”
“Rich in more than cash. She’s beautiful. Lord Jesus, she’s more beautiful than a sunlit rose.”
“Save it for the girl.”
“Trust me.” Troian made a particular gesture.
Estemba nodded dutifully.
“Poor lady, she will be harmed.”
They laughed, now prepared to be polite. What came next was no surprise.
“Tonight my father crosses into the Chenti Tower. It’s the betrothal feast, food, song, dance and display. Chenti likes the idea of a relative in Belmorio. He courts me as I court the daughter. My father sent to yours to go calling with us, for the appearance of it. But Estemba Primo says he will stay at home. A poor show, Mercurio.”
“He’s old, my father,” Mercurio said. He looked down at the book, tapping the iron clasps of it. “Too old and too weary to provide your ballast. You hardly require everyone of the Ring sigil Houses to go in with you. Who does the Duke send?”
“No one.”
“But be sure Chenti still knows your links with the Rocca Tower.”
“Oh hang all that. We want a demonstration of unity. You’ll come, will you not, Mercurio?”
“Oh, God.”
“It’ll be a good night. Better than the sordid Bhorga. Than a library.”
“It will be tedious. You besotted with your wench. Chenti drunk on high connections. The mother simpering. The maid preening. Heaven defend me.”
“And if you will go, you’ll take Montargo with you. That looks fair for us, too. Their shipping interests vie with Chenti’s own.”
“Montargo does not love Estemba.”
“One does.”
“You mean Romulan. Romulan’s in bad grace with his father and is sent off to school with some priest.”
“Get him in good grace then. Chenti and Montargo have no recent quarrel. If Valentius dislikes you, he cannot dislike the Duke. Or Belmorio, surely. And Valentius may relish the social policy of this.”
“The plan grows more dull with every word you utter. Even the girl, I suspect, is a goose despite your vows. A plain goose.”
“Plain goose, eh?” Troian raised himself in his skin. He strode over to Mercurio after all and dangled the lover’s portrait before his nose. “Here she is. And this not one hundredth part as stunning as reality.”
Mercurio, set to brush the medallion aside, checked.
“So this is she?”
“And not one hundredth—”
“Part as stunning. Yes and yes. But in this kind of mold, this black hair, blue eyes? How old is your betrothed?”
“Fifteen.”
“Too young. You’ll split the minx.”
“Never call her a minx to me,” Troian said angrily.
“Why,” Mercurio said, coming to his feet lazily, and staring into Belmorio’s eyes with his own, which seemed on occasion to englamorize. “Why, the last time I saw her. . . .”
“Be wary, Estemba.”
Mercurio smiled. He slapped Troian’s shoulder, lightly.
“Was in a dream of the seraphim.”
Troian relaxed.
“Then you’ll add to our number tonight.”
“Why not? For my darling kin, the Belmorios.”
Troian frowned, put the frown away, and embraced him.
Mercurio bore the embrace with saintly patience. He was intrigued, inspired. His devilish qualities, not always limited to masks, were awake and stirring.
“Let go of me,” he eventually suggested. “Or I’ll think I’m mistaken for your loveling. What’s her name?”
“Iuletta.”
“Iuletta Gattapuletta,” Mercurio mused, and slammed shut the book with a thud as of coffin lids flung off. “Yes. I’ll visit the House of the Cat with you.”
Having recognized, even from the inadequate unveiled likeness of the painting, the notable damsel he had met on Susina’s brothel balcony, little or nothing would have kept him away.
* * *
• • •
In the snowdrift of her bed, Iuletta Chenti lay on her back and out-stared the crimson canopy above her. She was crying, though she was not unhappy. Her desperation had found a means of focus, an age-old knack: black magic. Its irreligious nature she had not contemplated, and Cornelia had not mentioned unholiness. To Cornelia, prayer and the confessional solved all. Life went on, only returning to God to wash its linen, at fairly frequent, hasty intervals.
After the Belmorio deputation had departed, Iuletta in her nightgown, Cornelia in self-importance, they had burned powders over a dish, spoken certain rhymes, and sewn up a sachet of herbs. Cornelia had bemoaned the lack of hair or nail-clipping, even of blood. A notion that she had been close enough to the delicious boy to get all three—biting a piece out of him, perhaps (God overlook her wickedness), made her effervesce with merriment. Iuletta, flushed by her success as Troian’s intended bride, crouched to the witch-work. She lay down at last in her room of pink trees, fruits, birds, the sachet under her pillows, reciting the charm Cornelia had taught her.
The charm had apparently begun to work. In the night, Iuletta had dreamed Romulan came to her. He leaped the wall of the orchard, or flew up over it on angel’s wings. Beyond his arrival at her lattice, however, mere imagination would not take her.
Of Belmorio also she frequently also thought. He was a comfort to her, proof of her worth. Every time he had pressed her fingers, looked with longing at her, she had comprehended the gift of herself which she would present to Romulan.
For Romulan could now be drawn to her by sorcery. Irresistibly she could drag him to her sphere.
By the time a maid came to prepare her for the morning rituals of the palace-Tower, Iuletta was keyed to an ascending excitement. It seemed she was eager for this night of her formal betrothal, eager to see Troian once again. Attendants marked her care of herself with knowing winks.
They did not know she expected another—Romulan—to appear at any second, through a door, through a wall, off a roof, out of a tree, out of thin air. But as the day moved on with the new golden clock in the ancient Chenti banquet-hall, so the truth came to her. Since Romulan must come by human means, he would be among the guests at her betrothal.
The perverseness of this did not trouble her. Behind all the dreams, she was glad (without unkindness). Belmorio would be at her side, a foil and a shield.
But, as her hair was washed, and combed with an attar of roses, she knew quite well why, and for whom.
PART TWO:
The Blade
FIVE
The storm broke on a count of twenty after sunset. Thunder, like a clap of enormous wings, the wings of some fabulous giant bird made of metal, smote out impending stars, and crushed the last strawberry colors from the sky. The winds came back, tearing around Sana Verensa like the ruffians they really were: Ah, fine town, we duped you, you thought us tame! A trickle of sound came from the campanile bell, gusts fisting the clapper. (Here and there the ten-year-old earthquake was recalled, and how all the bells had rung by themselves.) Shutters banged, lights were blown out. Young leaves ripped off swirled like bats about the blackened streets. Lightning, a cannon-blast, threw itself on every tower at once, even daring the peak of the Basilica. Rain, all Heaven’s emptyings, crashed and sizzled on the roofs, the paving below, and any unfortunates caught between.
Mercurio stood in the rain, water streaming from hair and cloak, and the finery beneath. “I have bathed, Sir,” he told the sky. “You may desist.”
Half the torches were out, their bearers struggling with blistering curses to rekindle them in the shelter of an overhanging porch. The Estemba musicians cursed as loudly as they attempted protection of strings, reeds and drumskins. Five Estemba and three Montargo houseguards waited stoically, and apart, brass and blue liveries darkening. Two Estemba cousins huddled. All were on foot, all drenched. Romulan, blue-black hair washed into his eyes by water, black-blue clothes a river, put back his head and let nature anoint his skin.
“The rain’s warm as milk.”
“It is still wet. Come, damn the torches. The Chenti Tower is one street off by my reckoning. We’ll run for it.”
They ran, in a herd, swords clacking, mantles and smoke streaming, the sodden sheet of the wind in their jaws and their heads down.
At the end of the street, on a steep curve, one of the musicians skidded and sat with a mighty oath and ill-omened thump of viola de gamba. Trees poured over walls like jugs. Fresh cannonades of lightning and thunder, a million glasses smashed, lit the way, and hid it.
“Strike Floria!” one of the Estemba kinsmen shouted at the storm, and there was laughter.
The pack, barking blasphemies, hurtled along the second street and collided with the Chentis’ tall grey stair-posts. Pink lamps swayed to the wind in their chains. All but masked by weather, the stair, the ghostly Tower, pierced on all floors and at every outcropping by lights, loomed like a lighthouse in the hurricane. Chenti guards blocked the way on the upper landing.
“Let us past in God’s name,” the second Estemba kinsman pleaded.
“Who are you?”
“We are the drowned.”
“Estemba, we are Estemba. And these, Montargo.”
“We’re unsure of your colors. Your brands are out.”
“Swords will be out presently,” said Mercurio, stepping to the front. He pointed to the Ring-and-Arrow blazon on his shoulder. “Connected to the fortunate bridegroom. Let us by.”
The guards, well-sopped themselves, moved churlishly back, and the Estemba-Montargo party, like an invading army indeed, with bellows of angry mirth, charged the remainder of the stair and against the iron-clasped doors. Fresh water was hurled on them as they buffeted at these, from the banners overhanging the balconies above, gold lion-leopards on crimson, and tonight, for honor, Rings and Doves on sullen green.
