The Silver Devil (9 page)

He
was gone in a whirl of silk and perfume, leaving Father Vincenzo standing
before me like a mute.

I
said with difficulty, "What did he mean?"

For
a moment I thought he would not answer. Then he said reluctantly, "I am
not only your physician but the duke's. I am bidden to ensure that no woman he
lies with has any disease that could harm him. It is no more than a task I must
do; you need not fear me."

I
flinched away from him. "Father, I give you my word..."

"I
dare not take it. Many are sick who do not know it themselves, and the duke's
health is the health of the whole state. Be still and trust me, and it will
soon be over; but if you will not, I must have you held."

The
resistance drained from me on a long shuddering sigh. "I will not fight
you. What must I do?"

He
did his work deftly and in silence while I stayed dumb with shame and
humiliation. As he had promised, it was over quickly, but when he had done, I
could not look at him.

"There
is nothing to cure." He sounded ashamed. "I am sorry I had to do this
thing, but I am sworn to obey the duke. I shall tell him."

"I
hope he rewards you well," I answered bitterly.

"Lady,
pardon me for my office. Remember that the prisoner forgives the hangman."

The
note of pain in his voice was so sharp that I nodded speechlessly and heard his
quick breath of relief. Then, with a swish of robes, he strode across the room
to call Piero.

"What,
are you done already?" The courtier spoke from the doorway, his voice
edged with sarcasm. "You have made short work!"

All
the color drained from Father Vincenzo's face. He said in a low voice,
"She is clean enough to be corrupted. Now let me pass."

"Always
your servant, Father." Piero stood aside and swept him a flourishing bow.
He laughed as the door closed and turned to me, his eyes fever-bright.

"My
congratulations, lady, for being all that the duke could desire. Although in
truth," his lips twisted, "he does not ask much! Any that is shaped
for a woman and is less than wholly rotted will serve his turn—so the priest
can freshen her for him. But you are new enough, and fair enough, to hold him a
little longer." He studied me thoughtfully, his fingers stroking his beard
in that habitual, irritating gesture. He took & step towards me, and I
flinched.

"You
must learn not to be so squeamish with His Grace," he remarked
sardonically. "He is soon impatient with a cold wench."

"Perhaps
he will tire the sooner and set me free."

"Why"—he
moved nearer still—"where would you go, after he casts you off? You were
better to choose yourself a gallant who is close to the duke and live under his
protection. If you chose rightly, you would scarce know you had stepped lower
than the topmost rung of the ladder."

"A
rare stratagem," I retorted, "if I could find a man willing to take
up the duke's neglected whore."

"You
need not seek far."

"Who
would be such a fool?"

"I
think I would, for once." He was so close now that his body pressed
against mine, and I twisted to escape him. But I was hard against the wall and
could not thrust him away. His face was only inches from mine, and I could see
the paint grained in his skin; the traces of brown at the roots of his silvered
curls, and the way his breath came quickly between his parted lips. I realized
then that my struggles excited him, and I stood still.

"Even
if you were enough of a fool to take the duke's leavings," I answered
angrily, "I doubt I would take such a foolish offer."

For
a moment I thought he would murder me, but then he laughed. "You will not
have the choice, lady. You will find I am dear to His Grace, dearer than twenty
harlots; and when he begins to look sullenly upon you or gazes on another woman
and smiles, then I will beg you of him. He is as like to take it as a favor
that I will husk the grain that he has thrashed. It will not be long," he
added as I made a little sound of disgust. "His Grace is no more constant
than the moon."

"Then
I wish his mind had changed when I lay sick," I said. "The delay
ought to have outrun his patience."

"You
mistake." For an instant there was something like tender reminiscence in
Piero's eyes. "He is a sort of child in that—he wants nothing so much as
the thing that is withheld. And once he has it"—he stepped away from me
and shrugged elaborately—"he breaks it, like as not, or tosses it away
unvalued."

"He
is a monster," I whispered.

"A
royal one." Piero's excitement was dying; he was once again the brisk and
dapper courtier I had seen at first. "Come, we have debated long
enough—you must be dressed, and fitly. Time is precious."

As
I hurried in Piero's wake through a labyrinth of passages, those we met stared
at me as though I were some freak from another country. Two guards flanked me,
helping me when weakness made me stumble, but I would not let them support me;
it seems strange that I should have striven for dignity at such a time, but my
pride would not support such humiliation. I kept up as well as I could,
half-blinded by the harsh alternations of fire and shadow and chilled to the
bone by the howling drafts.

The
Palazzo della Raffaelle seemed to me the palace of a nightmare, a crannied
warren of gray stone stretching into seeming infinity. Blazing lights loomed up
in the blackness of its sudden turns and vanished again as swiftly. And always
before me was Piero della Quercia's hurrying back, his stride somewhere between
haste and swaggering, the silver threads in his cloak gleaming in the
torchlight. At last, when I had lost all sense of direction and no longer knew
how far we had come, he turned suddenly into a doorway and bowed me ahead of
him into a high tapestried chamber. Two women were standing there, waiting.

"Madonna
Niccolosa." Piero addressed the elder woman with a brusqueness that
carried me straight back to the Eagle. "Here is your charge. You know your
duties from the duke's secretary."

The
woman nodded. She was tall and forbidding, wearing severest black, with gray
hair high-piled above a harsh-boned face. She was not young, but she stood
erect and stiff; only her hands, veined and swollen-knuckled, betrayed her age.
When she spoke, it was with a harsh, slow accent, in a voice devoid of all
expression. "We do, my lord."

"Very
well. The fashion of her dressing is to be as the duke pleases — none of your
nun's attire, remember."

He
must dislike her, I thought, to treat her so rudely. Her lips thinned at his
tone, but she answered him levelly enough.

"We
have had His Grace's commands. He sent them himself."

"Did
he so?" Piero sounded startled. "What was the order?"

"Lombardy
silk, and silver," she said grudgingly, and he gave a low whistle.

"But
nothing else, Piero!" The younger woman spoke for the first time, and I
jumped; her voice was as deep as a man's, husky and intriguing. "That is
some comfort, for he sent no jewels for her. He will not waste his treasure on
such a common wench."

Piero
surveyed her mockingly. "What, are you jealous, Madonna Maddalena? He has
squandered enough upon you to maintain you for the rest of your days—now you
must give place."

"Not
to that," she returned scathingly, glaring at him.

Suddenly
I remembered where I had seen her before. She had ridden in the procession to
the cathedral; I remembered noticing her because her hair, a lovely dark
bronze, was one of the few not bleached to fairness. It was dressed in two
horns on her head in the Venetian fashion, and her gown—a wonderful thing of
black and silver—threw its color into relief and showed off her delicate,
faintly tawny skin. But it was the antagonism in her face that shocked me; as
she glanced towards me, her enormous pale-green eyes were smoldering and her
mouth was hard. She could not have been much older than I was, and I wondered
why she should be jealous of that disgusting old man—but then I noticed her
jewels.

They
weighed down her thin fingers, circled her pliant neck, and lay across her
breast like a hauberk of mail; diamonds, glittering like a web of fallen stars
even in this grim place. Evidently Madonna Maddalena coveted such favors.

Piero
did not answer her, but his smile was malicious as he bowed. "Ladies, I
take my leave—and you were best to use all haste. I will send someone to bring
you to supper in good time." A click of his fingers to summon the waiting
guards, and he was gone.

It
was Maddalena who spoke first, breaking the oppressive silence. "And we
are to make that beautiful. My God!"

The
older woman frowned. "Madam, we must waste no time on blasphemy."

"We
need a hundred years for such a task." The green eyes surveyed me a moment
longer; then she said, "Well, call the maids and let us begin."

I
hardly knew what went on for the next hour; I was too dazed with shame even to
raise my eyes. Maddalena kept up a flow of scornful little comments on my
plainness as I was bathed and dressed, but I barely heard them; my whole mind
was slowly succumbing to overwhelming dread.

For
the first time I was beginning to realize what submission to the duke's lust
would mean. Until now my fears had been instinctive, a dread of the unknown,
but now as I turned and returned, moving like a puppet to order, I had time to
think. I remembered my stepfather kneeling by my bedside with his breeches
gaping open, his hand dragging back the covers and his voice a threatening
growl in my ears; I remembered Messire Luzzato's wet, pouting mouth and greedy
eyes. Then I thought of the man I had seen bowing in the street to those other
women; I imagined the scrabblings of those podgy fingers, the kisses of that
slack mouth, and nearly retched. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps he is so old that
he will be impotent, and then I shall be safe.

A
sharp little push from Maddalena brought me back to the present, and I turned
as she directed. For a moment, I thought I must curtsy to the fine lady who had
entered unseen; then I realized that I was looking at my own reflection in the
great mirror on the wall.

It
seemed that court tailors knew no colors but silver and black, for I, too, was
dressed in them. Stiff black silk over a cloth of silver petticoat, a
tight-laced stomacher crusted with silver thread, the embroidered skirts spread
over a broad farthingale. The gown was cut low, as low as Maddalena's, and my
skin showed silver white against it.

I
stared, searching for some remembered feature from my reflection in Antonio's
pewter pans, and recognized only the color of my eyes, that odd untinged gray
like a gull's feathers. For the rest, I might have been gazing at a stranger.
Hair black and shining as the silk of the gown, piled high on my head: oval
face, oval eyes wide, and cheeks colorless with apprehension.

Well,
I thought, meeting the lurking misery and fright in my own eyes, there will be
no more of that. The duke should have no weeping, cringing victim—if I had to
yield, I would yield with dignity. I took a step away from the mirror. The
weight of the gown was so crushing that I was forced into the slow sursurrating
walk of the other women, trailing its massy skirts to ease the burden; as I
turned, I thought I glimpsed a flicker of compassion in Niccolosa's face, but
in an instant her expression was stony: Maddalena's held nothing but flaming
antagonism. In that moment, my last impulse to beg for their help died.

The
candles flared wildly as the door burst open, and a gaunt gnome of a man,
painted and trimmed like a whore, hurried over the threshold and bowed, eyeing
me curiously. "Ladies, you are sent for to join the duke."

Niccolosa
nodded grimly. "We are ready, Messire Vassari. Tell His Grace we are
coming."

"I
will, lady." He slanted a look at me under his eyelids. "Is this the
latest phoenix?"

"Yes."
Maddalena spoke sullenly.

"A
sweet thing! And she does not look unduly proud." There was meaning in his
voice. "I cannot abide a proud harlot."

Her
eyes blazed. "You would not have dared to speak so ten days since!"