A Dancer in Darkness (29 page)

“Gone? How could she be gone?”

The porter glowered at him through the Judas window in the gate. “She was too good for us. She has gone to found a
convent
in Amalfi, so they say. And good riddance.” The Judas
window slammed so hard that the bell jingled again.

Bosola slunk back into the shadows. He had to get away. He could go to Amalfi through the hills. No one could save him now but the Cardinal. His sister would have to intercede for him. If she would not, then he would force her to.

Sor Juana had got her wish. The Cardinal was seldom hesitant to reward those who might be of use to him later, and besides he looked upon Sor Juana as an experiment. Now she knew who was master, he was curious to see what she would do. Nor was he unmindful of his own fame. To found convents was a meritorious act.

It was true that Amalfi made her uneasy. But she did not intend to remain there for ever. At least she was free of San Severo. Her new order was approved by the Pope. She was well pleased. The foundation itself was negligible, but it would grow. She rose even earlier than usual to inspect its quarters. She longed and begged for money. She would have her cloister frescoed with the best art. At last she had something to do. And never again, in the middle of the night, need she become aware of that walled-up nun beneath her.

It was in this mood that Bosola found her.

He had no way of knowing what had happened on the island, but he was still afraid. He was glad to be out of sight of it. Nor did Amalfi make him feel any easier. He was known here. He might be recognized. He had waited to slip down from the hills, and so came to Sor Juana at dawn.

He knew it would be useless to appeal to her affection for him. She had no affections. As soon as he saw her convent, he felt it would be better to appeal to her sense of power. Others might found holy orders with two nuns and an empty room. Sor Juana’s plans were more immediate and more practical.

The building lay at the back of the town. It had been
abandoned
for some time, but was solidly built of stone. It was now being remodelled, according to her own designs. The kitchens were to be stately, the reception rooms somewhat larger than the chapel. He flitted through the deserted building, leaving
footprints behind him in the plaster dust, and saw her standing in the middle of what was to be the library. The stuccoists had already been at work. It would be a noble room, sixty by thirty feet, with huge baroque wooden cases billowing out into the middle of its floor. The ceilings were to be allegorical.

She stood alone, while plaster dust danced around her, in the light from an open window. Her face was full of the wispy gloating joy of the truly bookish. It made her look young and innocent.

He stepped forward, stumbling over a peeled pole the
workmen
had left on the floor. It clattered away. Sor Juana looked up, and her manner was abruptly far different. “Who’s there?” she called. She shielded her eyes with her hand and peered down the gallery. “Come forward.”

He emerged into the patch of light.

“I have come to ask your help,” he said.

She looked over his shoulder. She would not meet his eye. “Where have you come from?”

“Ischia.”

For the first time she looked nervous. “What has happened?”

“The Duchess is dead.”

Her face abruptly became blank. She seemed to peer around his body at the room. Somewhere a bell tolled. “We cannot talk here. The workmen will be up soon. Follow me,” she said, and turned her back on him. The place was enormous. They climbed the state stairs, and came at last to the suite of rooms she had set aside for herself. He was impressed. They had the simplicity of great expense. She sat down on a chair and folded her hands.

“Now then. How did she die?”

“She was strangled.”

“By you?” She looked up sharply.

“By her brother’s guard.” He told her about it. She listened quietly. It did not seem to disturb her. Perhaps only a threat to her convent could disturb her.

“And what do you want me to do?”

“Speak to the Cardinal. If I am under his protection,
Ferdinand
cannot harm me.”

Her eyes widened. She did not answer at once. Instead she
toyed with the rosary in her lap. He did not want to hear her refuse him.

“Where is the child?” he asked.

“I will not tell you that.”

“If you have it, I know who it is. Tell him I know who it is.”

“I do not have it.” She paused for a moment. “The Cardinal is here. He has been here for some time. But he has no use for you. There is nothing I can do.”

“Are you afraid of him, too?”

She dropped her eyes, flushed slightly, seemed to grow angry, and then thought better of it.

“There has been unrest here. Someone is stirring up the bandits and the gipsies in the hills. He thought it better to come here to control them. He has the child. He will be regent.”

“So he knew she would die.”

“Of course he knew,” she said angrily. “What is that to me?”

“You serve a good master. How does he keep you under his thumb?” he asked. For it was true. There was a new edge of fear in her eyes that he had never seen there before. She did not answer him. Somewhere in the building they heard clattering noises. Bosola became tense.

“The workmen,” she explained. She stood up. “Very well. You cannot stay here. I will find some way to speak to him. But he will not help you until he has a use for you.” She seemed anxious to get rid of him. “Disguise yourself and hide in the hills. You know your way there.”

“Do you hope the bandits will kill me?”

She flinched. “They will not kill you,” she said wearily. “You are practically one of them.”

He did not believe that she would intercede, but it was the best he could do, until he found out where the Cardinal was and what his humour was. He turned and left her.

The safest conduct through bandits and murderers is to be one of them. Dress like the mob and keep your mouth shut, and no mob will hurt you. Destroy what they destroy, and they
will love you for it. Bosola did not dare to go to the palace. In his own way he found a
lazzarone
dress, such as he had worn when he escaped from the galleys, left its owner gagged under the waterfront, and put it on. Once he had donned it, he felt stronger and safer. He rode through the early streets
unnoticed
and headed for the hills.

In two hours Amalfi lay below him, and he was not frightened any more, except when, far over the sea, he caught a glimpse of the dim shape of Ischia. He had done better as
lazzarone
than as a courtier. He would do better now.

Below him Amalfi seemed squalid and insignificant. He turned inland, over the uplands and the sudden ravines,
peppered
with trees. He had a pistol and a knife. What food he could not kill he could steal. He met no one.

Yet Sor Juana had spoken the truth. There was uneasiness and revolt in these barren hills. Something was stirring there. He could sense it all around him. People seemed to be
watching
him, though they had no cover from which to do so, and he saw no one. Not all the birds that abruptly shrilled out into the air sounded quite like birds. And out of the corners of his eyes he sometimes thought he saw someone draw back along the ridge.

This did not seem furtive. It seemed planned.

That night he camped under an oak tree, beside a small stream, charring a rabbit over a small fire. The dry grass rustled from time to time. A twig snapped. There was more the sense than the sound of someone moving treacherously through the underbrush. He pretended that he did not hear, but he slept lightly. His horse whinnied and he sprang up, in time to stop some lumbering shadow from leading it away. But he could not tell the features of the shadow. He lay down again.

In the morning the landscape was once more empty. He did not care for that. If someone would come forward, then he could identify himself, and so pass safe. The deeper he got into the hills the stronger the feeling of being watched became.

Then, unexpectedly, a few miles above Arosa, he came upon a small band of gipsies. As he approached several of the men took horse and rode away, but not before he had caught a glimpse of one of them. It was a gipsy bravo, tricked out like
the others, but there was no mistaking that white face. It was Antonio.

Bosola trembled. If his part in the Duchess’s death were known, or even if the Duchess’s death were known, he would be dead himself by nightfall. He dared not alarm the gipsies. He bought a flask of wine, and then got out as quickly as he could, and worked his way backward towards the coast.

Drawing rein upon the cliffs, he saw a dark boat slowly approaching the harbour. The air was so clear that he could see every detail. He thought his own disguise adequate. Cautiously he worked his way down towards the town.

It was a boat bearing the Duchess’s body back to Amalfi. It had been decided to give her a state funeral. This was to be held the next day.

The reason for that Bosola soon learned in a tavern. He learned other things as well. Someone was sending spies into the hills. Duke Ferdinand had arrived. The Cardinal was shut up in the palace. The Amalfitani were restless and terrified. They feared an insurrection from the hills, and they were without a ruler or a leader. Very seldom did the bravos and gipsies rouse themselves to sack a town, but when they did so, their violence was deadly. That night Bosola slept at the tavern.

The funeral next day was sullen and full of pomp. The authorities had heard rumour that Antonio was in the hills, and was behind the unrest. They hoped the funeral would bring him down.

Antonio did not appear.

State funerals take some time to organize, so this one had no panoply. The coffin was lowered from the ship and carried from the town to the cathedral, where a Mass was to be sung over it. The crowds along the streets said nothing. They were absolutely silent. The wheels of the catafalque made the only noise to be heard.

Bosola had slipped into the cathedral early. From the shadow of a Corinthian column, he watched the catafalque enter the square. The coffin was shouldered, tilted, and carried up the stairs, as though it had been the statue of some saint. It seemed to stare at him. Far over his head the cathedral bell tolled, and with each thunderous note a cloud of doves rose into the air
like shredded pieces of paper in a gust of wind. The air was full of the stench of street filth and iodine.

There was a second coffin on that catafalque. The faces of the pall-bearers ran with sweat, but it too was shouldered and started its slanting passage up the stairs. It was somewhat larger than the first, but plainer. The crowd now murmured ominously, and glanced up towards the hills.

Bosola fell back, his eyes widening. They carried Cariola past him and into the church. He could almost see her body through the sides of the coffin, and the startled look on her face, above her folded hands. Despite himself he was drawn into the cathedral after it. But by a side way, for only the Duchess’s faithless courtiers were allowed inside.

This was a death of the quality. It had its own protocol. The people had no part in it.

The shadowy cathedral was tall, dim, and choked with
incense
. It took him a while to become accustomed to the light. Then, as though it were materializing in a haunted room, the figure of the Cardinal became visible. It was not to be told that the Duchess had been murdered. It was given out that she had caught the plague. But everybody knew. The Cardinal moved supplely through the motions of a Mass, a red wraith against the gloom. The courtiers seemed indifferent to the occasion, but they watched him. In the turn of their heads you could see that they knew who their new master was.

Then Bosola caught sight of Ferdinand. The man was
standing
directly before him. Bosola panicked and drew deeper into shadow. Ferdinand was unrecognizable. It was he who had brought the body here. His eyes seemed blind, and something shuffling had happened to his gait. He was dressed in black from head to foot, theatrically. On his chest he wore a medal with the Duchess’s portrait. Marcantonio stood
compassionately
close to him, with something maternal in his stance, as though he were a nurse, or a trainer with a dancing bear. Tears streamed down Ferdinand’s face, and yet he was not precisely weeping. He was only containing himself. Violence welled out of his eyes.

He broke from the crowd, rushed forward, and flung himself against the coffin. His voice was an animal bellow. The
Cardinal 
glanced round, frowned, and waved a pale hand. Even Marcantonio seemed shocked. Then he sprang forward, with his two bravos, and pulled Ferdinand off. The sound of
Ferdinand’s
fists against the coffin had been deafening. Ferdinand snarled.

The Cardinal seemed to hold his breath. Marcantonio spoke to Ferdinand earnestly. A crime against public decorum was the worst of all crimes. The Mass droned on. Ferdinand was led away.

Bosola was shivering. He had caught the look in the
Cardinal’s
eyes, and knew what it meant. He slipped out of the church and went immediately to his sister’s convent. If
Ferdinand
was here, then no one was safe. He would need
sanctuary
for a while. He must know if she had spoken to the Cardinal.

He was about to enter, when a porter stopped him at the door. He was denied admittance. He lost his head and shouted. It did no good. He explained that he was Sor Juana’s brother. The order was specific and detailed. It was her brother who was not to be admitted. She had betrayed him. She had always wanted to, and now she had the excuse. She had her position to maintain.

He had nowhere to go, but he could not stand there and call attention to his presence in the street. Raging against her, he slunk off down a dark alley. He must wait for nightfall before he dared to leave Amalfi. With Ferdinand here, it would not be safe for him to try to storm his way in to the Cardinal. He felt sick. The loyal servant should not be rewarded thus. He was a worse fugitive even than Antonio.

Antonio at least had power in the hills. Antonio could defend himself.

He wandered round the slums of the town, working himself up. So that, at dusk, when four heavily cloaked men swept out of the town, and he recognized Marcantonio’s voice, anger boiled over in him. Out of this rotten mess he decided that at least someone should escape undefiled. He himself was trapped. If die or fall he must, then he would cheat his enemies of their satisfaction. He took horse after them, with the advantage that he knew the route. He would get there first and carry a
warning
.
He did not stop to think beyond that. Despair had swept away all his cunning, and uncovered one last remaining shred of decency. Decency, too, could be revenge.