Death of a Duchess (13 page)

Against the wall by the window, watching his brother with a concerned look, was the Lord Paolo. Beside him, on the cushioned windowseat, his son Tebaldo sat awkwardly, shifting himself to ease his body from one pain to another. In this proximity, family likeness and difference were very clear; Tebaldo had inherited the melancholy fold of the upper lid, and his face had the particular sadness of one who is often ill. The Lord Paolo’s eyes now widened as he saw in surprise what man escorted his niece.

The Duke’s reverie lasted no longer than it took for him to realise that his daughter had come into the room. He surged to his feet and advanced to embrace her. Tebaldo stared openly at Sigismondo, unannounced and, to him, unexplained.

The Lady Violante looked back at her escort from her father’s arms and said, ‘This man tells me that Leandro Bandini claims that
I
invited him,
and
in secret, to the Palace.’

The Duke exclaimed. His brother strode forward, saying, ‘What insolence!’ and in his anger the resemblance to the Duke was suddenly strong. ‘I hope no one knows of this. People will say such dangerously foolish things. Has anyone else heard this tale?’

‘No one but the lady, my lord, and I.’

‘You spoke with young Bandini?’

Sigismondo bowed, and Paolo, after a long, considering look, turned to his niece. ‘It may be di Torre used your name to lure the boy. We must never forget that the terrible quarrel of their houses may be the root of all this.’

The Duke’s voice broke in furiously. ‘
God’s bones
, I’ll make them pay for their wreckage of our peace. If this can be proved on di Torre, it is his own death. Yet I cannot believe that, even to destroy Bandini, di Torre would murder his Duchess. Can it be possible?’

He seemed to ask himself, not his audience, but Paolo replied with a shake of the head, reluctantly, ‘Men will stop at nothing when they seek revenge. They see nothing but their own aim. The past gives us too many examples of it — it’s like a spell blinding them to their actions. Di Torre must have done this if the Bandini boy is innocent.’

The Duke had listened to his brother but now he turned the falcon stare on Sigismondo who, even standing without movement or words, made his presence felt.

‘Did you find the dwarf?’

‘I found him, your Grace, and have the money to restore to the jeweller.’

‘Your Grace, was the dwarf then found who stole the ring? I thought the jeweller could not tell which it was. Which was it? Might he have killed her for it?’ Paolo had come to his brother’s side and both, so like and so unlike, looked at Sigismondo.

‘Poggio, my lord, the one you banished, took the ring. But no, I do not believe from all he said that he could have killed her Grace. He found her dead.’

Paolo leant forward, intent. ‘Then, did he see no one? Can he bear witness to one who might be the murderer?’

‘He saw no one. And he cannot bear witness.’

‘He cannot? Did you not bring him back?’

‘I was bringing him, your Grace, when we were set upon by robbers. We drove them off, but Poggio died in the fight.’

‘Poor little wretch,’ Violante said, ‘he always made me laugh.’ She looked up at her father, leaning against him, and he stroked her hair.

‘Let that be his epitaph, that he made you laugh. I would have punished him for the theft, but I would not have had him dead. God rest his soul.’

With the others, Sigismondo gravely signed himself. Violante took her father’s hand as it descended from touching his shoulder, and plaited her fingers with his, saying coaxingly, ‘Your Grace does not mean to execute Leandro Bandini? If he has indeed been tricked, you would kill an innocent man.’

The Duke sighed, raising their interlocked fingers to look at them. ‘When cities are to be ruled, the innocent do not always escape. I must take measures that will guard Rocca against my enemies, far as well as near. Duke Francisco is a bird of prey that doesn’t sleep—’

His brother made some involuntary movement and the Duke glanced at him. ‘That tireless advocate of mercy, your uncle, has persuaded me only now, in Council, that I must not be ruled by these fears, that Rocca cannot be taken if its citizens remain loyal. But how do I ignore things that have happened? When I—’

‘The blood on the gates?’ Only his daughter dared interrupt. The Duke slightly nodded.

‘That, and other things.’

‘What things?’ She clasped her fingers with his into a double fist. ‘What have they dared to do?’

Her uncle put out a soothing hand. ‘Some jailbird, perhaps some agent of Duke Francisco — some one man may be responsible for it: daubing his Grace’s statue with blood, putting rhymes on the walls. If his Grace stands firm and ignores such provocation, all Rocca will be behind him. Rumour is not—’

Violante stamped her foot, an action making up in force for its lack of effective sound. ‘They
cannot
think for one moment that your Grace... They
cannot
think such a thing of you.’

‘They will say I found her with a man.’

‘But if you had, who could say it was wrong to kill her? Others — yes, princes — have done so.’

‘You forget Duke Ippolyto. Is he to accept that his sister had a lover? It attacks his honour; he will demand
proof
.’

She was silent, swinging the Duke’s hand for a moment, thinking, and then she released it.

‘How will you keep the peace with him, then?’

The Duke went to the window, putting a hand on the shoulder of Tebaldo, who had made an effort to raise his wasted body as the Duke approached. He pointed.

‘There, in a week’s time,
someone must die
. It may have to be Leandro Bandini. I lose support of the Bandini faction to keep my alliance with Ippolyto.’

‘Can someone not be found, some story made that would convince Duke Ippolyto — that would earn time while you find who is guilty and save the Bandini’s loyalty?’

Paolo put out his hand to draw Violante to him. ‘Niece, you become a statesman; but think, Leandro Bandini may not be innocent. Remember how he made open love to the Duchess at the feast in his guise of Wild Man. He spilt wine on her dress so that she was forced to withdraw. He follows her, forces her and would have escaped if her Grace had not, so bravely, struck him down. Who can swear that he is innocent?’

The Duke spoke from the window. ‘Sigismondo says that he was given drugged wine, brother.’

Paolo gave Sigismondo another thoughtful stare. ‘Who gave it to him?’

‘My lord, he does not know.’

Paolo made an incredulous sound, and smiled. ‘You take his word for it? If he took anything in his wine, and I don’t doubt that to act as he did he must have drunk freely, then he took some aphrodisiac. Forgive me, niece, but young men do such things.’

The Duke watched Sigismondo as if waiting for a response. ‘Might it be so? Are you so sure of the drug?’

Sigismondo’s bow and turn of the hand could have implied anything. The Duke took it to be assent. He strode to the table and, as if reminded, drank off his wine and spoke with fresh energy.

‘Justice will be done. The people shall see it done and we can put this behind us. Look no further, Sigismondo. I release you of your task.’

‘With your Grace’s leave: there may be more yet to uncover.’ The deep voice was respectful, yet it objected, and the Duke was hesitating when Paolo spoke again.

‘There is always more to discover, as there are secrets and things unknown in every family. What his Grace wishes is for peace to return. Render up your authority as his Grace desires.’

Sigismondo took off the ducal ring and brought it to its owner. The Duke slid it onto his finger and extended it to Sigismondo to be kissed.

‘You will be rewarded. We’ll talk later.’ It was dismissal in more ways than one. Sigismondo backed from the presence. The Lady Violante’s gaze followed him with speculation. Lord Paolo’s expression suggested that his brother was over-generous to a man whose services had amounted to the restitution of a tradesman’s gold, and a dead dwarf; unless the addition of a dead slave girl improved the sum.

Benno was vacantly chewing something when Sigismondo found him propped against a pillar outside the Council chamber. Two guards were eying him askance, unused to any but official lack-wits in the Palace. He was pleased to see his master and looked him over with a proprietary air. As they went off through the corridors and passages, he said, ‘Ring’s gone, then, is it? Duke take it back? That means now we can go and look for the Lady Cosima, doesn’t it?’

The smell in the tiny out-of-the-way room chosen by Sigismondo when he bore the Duke’s authority could be traced, past Benno, to the dead dove hanging up. Benno showed it off proudly, parting the feathers to check on the state of the flesh beneath.

‘Coming on nicely, but it’ll need a while longer. We’ll take it with us, come in handy. Where’re we going?’ He stuffed the bird into a bag and was about to follow it with his master’s rolled-up cloak when Sigismondo’s hand intervened and took it from him. ‘Oh, yes, you’ll need it, a-course. Wish I had something as thick.’ On the bed, an unexpectedly white furry object emerged from under a horse blanket Benno had come by, and shook itself, cocked its ear at Sigismondo and wagged a plumy tail.

‘You’ve washed him. It was time.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have, but it was the fleas. He was like Flea City.’ Benno stopped and put a hand to his mouth. ‘ Oh, there was something I had to tell you, but I expect you’ll want to be off.’

Sigismondo surveyed the room, stripped of their few belongings, and fastened his cloak over one shoulder. He made sure that the purse of gold given by the Duke’s steward was securely stowed, and turned to Benno.

‘First, you’ll tell me what it was, or we go nowhere.’

Benno shouldered his bag and looked resigned.

‘One of Ugo Bandini’s men came. I told him you was with the Duke and he could tell
me
. He knows me because we always used to fight when we met, me being a di Torre man. I’ve given him more black eyes than would fit out a Turkish brothel.’ Benno rubbed a corner of his jaw as though remembering what he had got in return. ‘Ugo Bandini wants to see you.’

‘Is he still with the Cardinal Pontano?’

‘Not him. Back at the Palazzo Bandini, tearing his hair out over his son. I’m told the Cardinal got tired of his moaning and lamentation, so it was a case of
“See you again at the execution, I’ll be praying for you, my son.”
’

Benno was already hurrying to keep up with Sigismondo, whose passage through the Palace was attended with as many glances and whispers as before; but with a subtle difference, as though the absence of the Duke’s ring could be sensed somehow.

‘Bandini swore his innocence on the altar of St Agnes?’

‘He’d have sworn his son’s, into the bargain, if they’d have let him. The Duke was furious he went to the Cardinal for safety. Said he wasn’t a tyrant and Bandini could trust his justice. Strikes me—’ Benno skipped to keep up — ‘that’s what he’s afraid of. Anyhow, he’s back in the family hovel and wants to see you. I suppose we’re going? We’ll look for the Lady Cosima after, won’t we?’

The reply was a ruffle of his hair that made Benno stumble forward, ahead of his master for once. They left the Palace, not by the Castello gates and the long ramp, but by the modern door onto the square, and the dog began to cast in circles after the new smells.

‘Thought I’d call him Biondello,’ Benno said, ‘like the other one. He’s not as pretty, I mean he’s not a lady’s dog, but he’s little and he’s white.’

‘He is now,’ said Sigismondo.

They threaded their way through the city by the lanes, alleys and courts known to Benno as the most direct route. Biondello scorned direct routes. The city was the place of miraculous smells, and he ran at least double the distance without ever straying far from his masters’ heels. One extremely fine heap of garbage, though, was in the possession of a family of pigs, who drove him off in short order. He was also kicked out of a shop and hit accurately by a blind beggar he investigated. He was frisking down a narrow street between high houses, in front of the two men, when the second attack on them took place.

Benno, when the muffled figure rushed on him from the mouth of an alley, simply dropped like a scythed flower. His assailant’s blow fell with deadly force on the man beyond, who was attacking Sigismondo; he thrust this sagging form aside and was about to deal with Benno’s attacker when a third skirmisher came from above. He had been crouched on a wall, and most likely intended to bear Sigismondo to the ground, but the slight noise made by his falling body was enough to assure him a welcome. He was seized in irresistible hands and slammed against the wall. While this operation was being repeated, the first assailant had crouched over Benno and swung his right arm back for a neck punch. At this moment Biondello’s young sharp teeth closed on the back of his thigh and he rose, Biondello attached, with a supernatural cry.

Sigismondo dropped the man he was holding and brought his fist down on the angle of the howling man’s neck.

Benno was the only man to rise to his feet. The lane had recently been traversed by the pigs. Biondello shook himself and released his feeling in a fury of barking. He had, in defending his masters, outraged the conditioning of all his short lifetime, and he was utterly confused. Sigismondo saw the assassin’s knife in one attacker, and looked where Biondello’s victim lay with eyes open to the cold sky, and blood at his mouth’s corner and in his ear. Biondello, calming as nothing further happened, lifted his leg on the nearest body.

Sigismondo picked up the man from the sky, taking his head between his broad hands.

‘
Speak
to me! Ah...’ and a hum of disapprobation followed. ‘
Still
no one to tell us anything.’ He let the man drop. ‘Do you know any of these, Benno?’

Benno, who had been searching them, stopped to examine their faces. ‘No. They look like tavern roughs to me.’

‘So who hired them? Benno, we’re just getting too good at this.’