A Dancer in Darkness Read online

  “I am your sister,” she said sharply.

  His face was livid.

  “Very well,” he said. “You are deceitful. Your state rots, and you are like all women. I shall announce your engagement and force your marriage to Ciampino.”

  “To that lout,” she said scornfully.

  He glared at her. “Can you marry him?” he demanded. He was full of a suppressed fury that was close to rage. “Can you?” And then, half stooping, he scuttled towards the garden door.

  For a moment she could not move. She looked up at the acid sky that seemed ready to burst over her, and turned away.

  II

  The rest of that day was unendurable. Ferdinand did not appear, and that was ominous. It was like knowing a mad dog was in the building, but not to know where.

  She could not force a smile for ever. She retired as early as she could decently manage without occasioning comment, and went directly to her room. There she was careful to bolt the doors. She had seen that maddened lust in Ferdinand before.

  It was when Cariola was undoing her hair that she thought she heard a noise on the private stair. She sent Cariola away at once, and turned to face the wall. She was not even sure it would be Antonio. Others now might know the secret of that stair. In her hand she held a brush, and found herself clutching it like a sword. The door creaked open. She let out her breath and sank down on a bench.

  It was Antonio. He stood in the centre of the room.

  “There is some mischief going on,” he said. “I came to tell you.”

  “Wherever my brother goes, there is mischief. He makes everything unsafe.”

  “This is in the town.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Someone is stirring the people up.”

  “Against me?”

  Antonio hesitated and then nodded.

  “Who?”

  “The Cardinal has an agent here. A man called Amici.”

  “We could have him dealt with,” she said.

  Antonio had not expected that tone. He looked at her closely. “It would make no difference.”

  The Duchess got up and paced the room. “If it came to a struggle, could we defend ourselves? Suppose there were a siege, or an invasion? What about the court?”

  He shook his head. Her popularity with these people had only been a whim. There was not enough money in the treasury to make them loyal. And courts are the same anywhere. If she had nothing left that they could take away, they would shake her out like an empty money sack. She kicked her skirt aside, and glanced warily at the door.

  “My brother came here to force my marriage,” she said. “He knows I cannot marry. I am sure of it.”

  Antonio sat down, facing her, with his hands between his legs. “There is something you should know,” he said, and told her what had happened to the priest of Arosa.

  It was the sort of thing Ferdinand would delight to do. She shivered.

  “There are no records. He was too ill to speak. The church was locked. He cannot be certain,” said Antonio.

  “But we cannot be sure.”

  He was silent for a moment. “No,” he admitted slowly. “We cannot be sure.”

  They sat silent, facing each other. The room was shadowy. They made no attempt to touch each other, for there was no shelter for the two of them together. Now they would have to shelter separately, just when they had most hoped that the storm was over. Happiness had been only a lull, while intrigue gathered its powers. They had only to close their eyes to see that surf, and feel that grinding reef. It suddenly seemed there was no security anywhere.

  “We have a few days,” said the Duchess. “Ferdinand will not dare to act without the Cardinal. He is a coward. And this is not the Cardinal’s hand. This man, Amici, are you sure we could not deal with him?”

  “It would only set the town on fire.”

  “Do you think they know who you are?”

  He hesitated, glancing instinctively towards the closed door, and shook his head. Neither one of them even thought of Bosola.

  “I could go away,” he said.

  She shook her head. She could not bear that. Her brothers had no right to tear them apart, and she could not do without him. At the same time she saw him, mutilated, as Ferdinand would have him.

  She thought again of Amici. “But how could he find out? There must be someone here.”

  Again Antonio looked towards the closed door, but she refused to accept that. Not, at any rate, until she had time to think of it, for surely someone in this world must be loyal, and Cariola had been with her always.

  “You should not be here,” she whispered, but she made no move to force him to leave. And neither did he have the will to go. Yet there was no safety in this room. There seemed to be a ticking in the walls.

  III

  Most of the time Bosola lived in such an agony of frustration that he forgot his appearance, and thought that he must look the way he felt.

  Because he often woke at night glistening with sweat, he thought his body must be sordid, but this was not so. It was as though it had been beaten out of purple pewter, and much use had only tempered it.

  None of this had escaped Cariola. To her Bosola was not so much a man as a principle. And a woman who first finds a man at forty is not apt to abandon him simply because of his character, or because of loyalty to someone else. Cariola sulked.

  The intrusion of the Cardinal’s brother was something for which Bosola had not been prepared, and of which he could make no sense. He kept to his quarters.

  But his quarters turned out not to be defence enough. Ferdinand had no reverence for doors.

  At between twelve and one of that night, when Bosola lay on his bed, unable to sleep, cursing the music and revellers the Duchess had left behind in the hall below, his door was literally beaten in. Bosola leaped from his bed and lunged for his sword.

  Two guards in the Duke’s saffron livery stood before him, with fixed staves. One of them was Marcantonio. Marcantonio looked as astonished as Bosola did. Daggers twitched at their thighs, and on their heads were saucer helmets. Ferdinand turned to them. “Enough,” he said. “Get out.”

  They slung their staves over their shoulders, and went out, banging the sprung door behind them. Bosola put down his sword. No doubt they were still loitering outside in the hall. A sword would be useless here.

  Ferdinand strode up and down the room. It was easy to hear that under his doublet he wore a link corselet, and his massive boots swallowed up his legs, as though he were dressed for flight. It was so he always dressed when bent on violence, and violence was clearly what he was working himself up to.

  “So you are the Cardinal’s spy also?” he said.

  Bosola wore only his shirt and pants, and a bully always goes heavily armed when there is bullying to do. He waited.

  Finally Ferdinand stopped in front of him, hands on hips. “Who is this man?” he bawled. “Who is this man?”

  Something kept Bosola from answering. Perhaps it was resentment. Resentment was stronger than fear, and he could not bear to be bullied.

  “Answer!”

  “I do not know.” It occurred to him for certain that the Cardinal knew nothing of this visit. This was not the Cardinal’s way. And from that thought he took security.

  With a vicious swipe of his gloved hand, Ferdinand swept him aside against the table and lifted one enormous heel to kick him, not with the toe, but with the spur. Bosola scrambled hastily aside, and stood behind the table, panting.

  Ferdinand laughed.

  “What do you know?” he demanded, and began to advance around the table. In that state there was no way to deal with him. He stuck out a cruel leg, and tumbled Bosola down again. But he made no attempt to kick him. He only toed him repeatedly and hard. Ferdinand used his feet as another man would use hands.

  “You have a woman. The Duchess’s woman-in-waiting. You must know something. I have only to stamp your face in, and what would she make of you then?”

  Bosola panted,
clinging to Antonio’s name as another man would have clung to decency. With the great one must always hold something back.

  But there were other ways.

  “There is a private stair to the Duchess’s apartments,” said Bosola. “I think it is used.”

  “By whom?” shouted Ferdinand.

  “I do not know.” Bosola was hurt and tired. Let Ferdinand find out for himself, and then the matter was over and no responsibility of his. He could be torn two ways no more.

  Ferdinand kicked Bosola again: “Show it me,” he bellowed. “Get up and show it me, or I’ll have you carried there.” He put his fingers to his mouth, and the guards sprang into the room.

  With one look at Marcantonio Bosola got up and showed him the entrance to the stair. It was not really concealed but might easily pass for a closet door at the end of a corridor.

  Ferdinand disappeared up the stair.

  IV

  Some second sense warned them, some different sound in the relaxing walls. They had only an instant, and there was nowhere to hide. The Duchess sprang up and pushed Antonio half-naked into Cariola’s room. Whether they dared trust her or not, they had no other choice. Then she returned hastily to her bed.

  The door in the wall opened and Ferdinand clattered into the room. He sniffed round the room greedily, but saw nothing. Then he headed for Cariola’s door. The Duchess grew tense. But beyond the door she heard nothing but Cariola’s indignant voice. Ferdinand came back and banged the door behind him.

  “Where is he?” he demanded.

  “There is no one here.”

  “Then why this stair?”

  “It was built by my lord Piccolomini. These are his rooms. I understand he made use of it in his own way.” She folded her hands before her, lay back on the pillows, and closed her eyes.

  “Do not look at me like that,” shouted Ferdinand. He had never been in her bedroom before.

  “My eyes are closed.”

  He swaggered uncertainly, the fire gone out of him, and suddenly flung himself against the bed, tripping against the dais and falling face down upon the embroidered coverlet.

  The bed was huge. In the old fashion, it stood in the centre of the room. Piccolomini had been such a little man that he had taken his ducal pretensions seriously. The bed was therefore a throne for sleeping. It was shadowy and vast, about seven by seven feet. Baroque columns supported the baldachin, where wooden angels soared and swooped after a ducal coronet. The Duchess did not stir. She looked at Ferdinand at the foot of her bed, huddled up like a wounded child. He was very drunk.

  “I sit in Rome and think about you,” he said into the coverlet. He grasped the stuff in his fists, face down. “I wonder what you do, and why you will not see me. And my brother sits there and plots against me.” He raised his head. “Do you think I do not know what I am? Do you think I have not always known? He laughs at me. He married you to that dirty old man. Did you think I liked the thought of that?”

  The Duchess moved uncomfortably. She wondered if Antonio and Cariola were listening. There were some things even they should not know.

  “I want you pure,” he said. “You are my sister. I always watched you. You were the best one of us, the one my brother could not touch. You had no part in what we do.”

  “And what are you doing to me now?” she asked. The words slipped out of her bitterly.

  “I?” He raised his head. “Nothing. You will not let me see you, so I came.” He half sat up on the bed and looked at her. “I thought of you with that old man. I could see you both, and what you were doing. I saw it all the time. It was horrible.”

  “It was not very pleasant. We know what marriages are.”

  “Do we?” he shouted. He clamped his hands down on either side of her body, and stared down at her. “Do we? Then why did you marry again?”

  “I did not marry again.”

  “You lie. You are like all of them, all women. You lie.”

  “There is no one.” She could not quite keep her voice level. Their eyes were too close. He could read hers, and she could read his.

  “No? But I warn you, if I find him, I will kill him. I will kill you. I will not have you do this to me.”

  “No one is doing anything to you.”

  “You are,” he whispered. “You are.”

  She tried to slip from under him. But he would not let her, and she wanted to do nothing to rouse him.

  Over his shoulder she could see the closed door behind which no doubt Cariola was listening to everything.

  “I shall have to kill you,” he muttered. His voice broke, and he half-fell, half-threw himself on her. Despite herself, she began to scream, beating him with her fists.

  He stumbled, and then turned to her, furious and yet beseeching. The door behind him burst open, and Cariola and Antonio rushed into the room. Antonio had a dagger in his hand.

  “No,” she said. Her hand went instantly to her mouth. “Get back.” She knew Ferdinand must not recognize him.

  But Ferdinand whirled without even seeing them, and ran back down the stair.

  Now he knew for certain there was someone. But at least he did not know who it was, and in that there was still some safety. She could think only of that.

  “So that is the truth of it,” said Antonio slowly, coming towards the bed, the dagger still in his hand.

  The Duchess glanced warningly towards Cariola, and then gave up. “Yes,” she said. She had not realized it before, but it was so. She could still feel Ferdinand’s hot, dry hands on her body, and she shuddered. “Yes, that’s the truth of it.”

  “He must be mad.”

  “It does not make him any the less dangerous,” said the Duchess. She leaned back wearily. “You must go.”

  V

  Ferdinand was so terrified of himself that the Duchess hoped that he would run away to hide. It was what he had always done after giving way to violence. But this time he did not. That complex creature was too much for her. She kept to her rooms, and would see no one. She wanted the private stair walled up. As she moved about uneasily, she was always aware of that door, and she kept Cariola by her.

  Late in the afternoon Ferdinand sent up a messenger. He was leaving. Would she accompany him through the town to the harbour? She thought it best to comply. The situation had gotten beyond him, so he was fleeing to the Cardinal.

  She went down the state stairs slowly, with Cariola beside her. She had worn a black silk dress. She wanted to look as unattractive as possible. She dreaded seeing her brother.

  But Ferdinand was in the oddest of all his moods. It was one even she had never seen before. He stood in the middle of the hall, surrounded by his court of bravos, talking to Ciampino. There was no real malice in Ciampino. He was only a dog who had nothing to do, and whose master, at the moment, did not smell quite right. Her life would have been simpler with someone like that. For the first time the Duchess really looked at him, with a certain weary relief.

  He was not like Antonio. There was no fire in him. But fire can burn, and then we need the salve of mediocrity, to take away the sting. He stood there sturdily before Ferdinand, his arms crossed, balancing self-consciously on one foot, with the physical ostentation of the healthy young, staring up at his master’s face, confused. What Ferdinand was saying she could not tell. But men like that have no speech. They grunt at each other companionably, and that is enough.

  She reached the foot of the stair and Ferdinand turned to her. He was up to something. When he spoke, she could not make out his manner. She was disturbed. His cleverness was childish, but it was also ruthless. And the behaviour of children, like that of birds, is unpredictable. Death and life are all one to them, and it is not until long afterwards, if at all, that they are sorry.

  Their horses were waiting in the yard. Antonio held her palfrey. She thought she saw Ferdinand look at him thoughtfully. If so, she pretended to ignore it. Ciampino would have ridden beside her, but Ferdinand took that place. Cariola was forced to ride behind
. With a jingle of silver bells on the harness, they left the palace and entered the town, pacing slowly. The streets were virtually deserted, but what people were out stared after her with closed faces.

  “The people are sullen,” said Ferdinand shortly. “Have you noticed?”

  She shrugged, but wondered what he was up to.

  “I do not think they will applaud you any more,” he told her. He kneed his horse aside, towards an alley.

  “This is not the way to the harbour.”

  “There are many ways to the harbour,” he said. “This is the darkest. The day is hot. It suits me.”

  He had his company about him, and they rode in tight formation. There was nothing she could do but follow.

  They came out into a small square, shadowed by tall rickety houses. Here a crowd surrounded the open door of a shop. Hearing the horses, they turned to watch. They said nothing. But their faces were sullen, and one of the men tightened his fists. They turned their heads to watch, as the horses crossed the square and entered a street, on the other side.

  Ferdinand smiled. Just as the horses reached the far street the crowd began to boo. It was a deep guttural sound, full of anger and something like contempt. It was a sound the Duchess had never heard before.

  Ferdinand grunted. “Would you like to know why?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “A man called Amici was found murdered in his shop this morning.”

  “What has this to do with me?”

  “They think you had it done.” He shrugged. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “What is this game?”

  “He was tortured first. He was very popular here. At any rate, he is popular now he is dead.”

  “And why did I murder him, if I did?”

  “He was the Cardinal’s spy. Naturally they believe that there are certain things you would rather not have found out. At any rate they believe it now.”

  “You saw to that?”

  “I saw to that,” said Ferdinand. They came out of the back alley, and on to the quay that faced the sea. There was no wharf. The company would have to ride through the surf to the boat. Ferdinand nudged his horse towards the water. At the surf he turned.