The Assassin of Verona Read online

Isabella slapped his arm.

  ‘William the would-be poet, you dare deploy a metaphor so lavish in its uses, so common-hackneyed to the ears of men? A schoolboy might use it in his first effort but you, a full-grown man?’

  He crossed to her and grasped her with both hands.

  ‘Scold me for my poor poetry but never doubt that I speak true. Isabella, you are all the good seasons of this earth to me. If you ever left me, then would I be in winter perpetual.’

  She reached up and kissed his earnest face.

  ‘Then we must give you more occasion for the practice of your versifying, brave poet, for I could not stay with one who wields imagery so crudely.’

  ‘Occasion for verse of all kinds?’ he asked and took her waist in his arms.

  ‘I think, mainly love poetry.’

  ‘That I think requires the most practice.’

  Much ado about nothing

  ‘You are alone?’ asked Oldcastle, looking up from his lunch. His face was shaped into a mooncalf’s look of surprise.

  William sighed his acknowledgement. Oldcastle knew well he came alone for William had come to the House of the White Lion at Oldcastle and Hemminges’ summoning, parting only reluctantly from Isabella, who had contrived business of her own to attend to.

  ‘Rare, rare happening,’ continued Oldcastle. He looked to Hemminges: ‘To find the snail without its shell would not occasion more comment than to find our young lover without his love.’

  ‘It is not so,’ said William.

  Hemminges merely snorted at this denial. Oldcastle held up an imperious hand to stay his companion’s mocking.

  ‘We humble friends, we mere ciphers to his company, we must not question the ways of Heaven that we should have been sent this rare visitation. Rejoice, rejoice only.’

  ‘We are often with you, Oldcastle,’ William said, shaking his head. He could see that his friend was in good spirits this day and wondered what prompted it.

  ‘Indeed, indeed you are, but when the beauteous Isabella is with you, what eyes have we for you? You are but a cloud that sometime obscures her sun. We wait for wit and poetry from her lips and are too often confronted instead by your punning and Latin doggerel.’

  William raised his hands in mocking applause of Oldcastle’s speech. ‘It is rare I find myself in full agreement with you, Nick. But on this occasion I can say with my whole heart that I too wish she were here.’

  ‘You should not do so,’ replied Oldcastle with shocked face. ‘Now is your moment to shine. As a candle at noon wastes its light but against a dark background comes into its own, so you, the bright star of your lover no longer obscuring you, may at last be seen.’

  ‘Seen mayhap, but against the surging sea of your words, I think not heard,’ William replied.

  ‘Monstrous calumny,’ said Oldcastle, ‘I offer you praise and you respond with insults, why young master lack-love, master kill-courtesy, you would do well to attend the Queen’s Ambassador.’

  ‘Enough,’ said Hemminges, interrupting the familiar game between Oldcastle and William. ‘To business.’

  ‘Business, what business have we?’ asked William.

  ‘Save pleasure,’ said Oldcastle.

  ‘Save pleasure,’ echoed William.

  ‘I know that for you all days are sporting holidays but since you insist your pleasures require that we stay in the lion’s mouth, William, I have decided that we must profit from the stay.’

  As Hemminges spoke he steered William on to a gondola waiting outside the House of the White Lion.

  ‘Come, we have an appointment.’

  ‘An appointment? Where are we going?’

  ‘Where?’ cried Oldcastle, stepping into the gondola and causing it to rock alarmingly as he sat. ‘Where? We are going to where we three belong, Will. We are going to a play!’

  ‘I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend

  Verona

  Aemilia crept along the wall toward the palace’s private chapel. Tall, in a dress of bright red velvet with a wide train, she was not well set for tiptoeing about like a thief. Thus far she had been fortunate. I am too bold, she thought. God but if I am caught my father shall have me whipped. She had feared she might be late for she had come from an audience with her father, the Duke, and he had held her longer than she’d expected. Of late her father had seemed to her more distract, his worries deeper and their place in his thoughts greater. He had not listened to her so much as spoken at her, of her needful duty to his house, of how she was not free to run wild as she had done as a child, seeking the company of the palace guards rather than her maids. She must show herself decorous, becoming, a fit wife for a good noble family, one that would bring fresh blood and money to her father’s line. She’d asked what had brought on this sudden talk of marriage but her father’s only reply had been to curse the arrival of a new priest from Rome. An answer that she did not understand and that her father would not make clear. Only the arrival of her father’s steward, Rodrigo, with new report of outrages by the growing band of robbers in the country outside Verona had, by her father’s instant angry turning to it, released her.

  Aemilia cast about to see if any servant passed by and, seeing no one, slipped through the door into the chapel. Moving from the light of the courtyard into the sudden gloom of the chapel’s antechamber blinded her.

  ‘Valentine?’ she whispered as loudly as she dared. No answer came. The darkness and silence was suddenly a little frightening. She took a breath. A foolish maid, she thought, to be afeared of nothing, of mere want of light, absence of sound. It ill became a woman of twenty years let alone a count’s daughter. She should be made of sterner stuff.

  ‘Valentine?’

  She called again her cousin’s name. The beautiful cousin whose arrival had so changed her view of the court, made it seem at once older, more staid, more set in its ways. She moved from the darkness of the antechamber into the half-light of the chapel proper. Still Valentine made no reply to her call. Was he late to their meeting? Did he not know how hard it was to find even half an hour out of her maid’s sight that he should waste half of it being tardy? She tried to let anger at Valentine’s lateness push out the frightened trembling in her breast born of the dark and silent chapel and the fear of being caught. It seemed to her so childish. She made herself walk down the aisle, crossing a chequerboard of light and dark; the low winter’s sun through the chapel’s narrow windows letting in only sharp-edged columns of light between the sepulchral dark of stone and wood. At the far end of the chapel the sun through the great windows, the stained glass depicting scenes from the life of St Zeno of Verona, caught the altar in a halo of light. There was an unearthly beauty to it, motes of dust caught rising in the light like spirits ascending to heaven. Aemilia moved towards the pulpit, to see if from that higher point she could see out over the valley beyond.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Aemilia gave a cry of fear at the sudden voice from the darkness and stumbled back. She turned about and saw a tall figure standing with terrible stillness in the gloom of the transept. The figure stood so still it was as if a statue suddenly came to life and spoke.

  ‘The pulpit is reserved for the clergy,’ the voice said.

  ‘I only...’ said Aemilia.

  ‘Why are you here?’ demanded the voice.

  ‘I...’ Aemilia did not know what answer to give. A lightening of fear and embarrassment was pricking at her fingers and toes. The statue stepped from the transept into the light around the altar and a gaunt face appeared, high cheekbones, pale eyes, and a wolfish look of judgement and dislike. She did not know him. She wanted to ask who he thought he was to bark questions at her but the courage to speak escaped her. His pale eyes were daggers that pinned her in her place.

  ‘Why are you here? Alone and unescorted? Who is this Valentine that you call for to disturb me at my prayers?’ the man’s demands shot at her.

  Aemilia stumbled for an answer that did not betray her. The terror of the
strange man’s appearance and his coldly uttered demands was with her. A silence fell within the chapel, the questions hanging unanswered, fear rising in her gorge. The man began to advance towards her. Aemilia took a step back, and then the step became a flight and she turned and ran down the aisle back into the darkness of the antechamber and through the door into the courtyard.

  The return to daylight returned her calm to her and, immediately, she felt a shame at her own terror and retreat. A hand grasped hers and she cried out once more.

  ‘Aemilia, quiet, or others will hear,’ said Valentine.

  ‘Oh, Valentine!’ She flung her arms about his neck.

  ‘Not here, sweet, not here, we’ll be discovered.’

  He grabbed her hand and made to draw her into the privacy of the chapel but she pulled him back and turned and ran, dragging him after her, wanting to put the chapel behind her and with it the memory of the figure whose cold eyes had so frightened her.

  Which, to be spoke, would torture thee

  Venice

  Fat Andrea, Marco Venier’s banker and chief rumour monger of the city, patted Oldcastle on the knee and pointed to the wooden stage where the Commedia all’Improvviso was being performed.

  ‘Those, Sir Henry, are the Innamorati, the young lovers,’ he whispered to Oldcastle. On the stage, a woman dressed in rich clothes, her face heavily painted, one arm flung up across her brow as if about to faint, was singing to a young man whose burnished breastplate and puffedout chest declared him a soldier. Her voice was high and sweet and clear and it twisted and turned in flights of fancy while her lover responded in more solemn, simpler counterpoint.

  Andrea leaned across Oldcastle, heedless of the old man’s discomfort at being put so close to a Venetian almost as fat as he, to where William sat with Faustina, another of Marco Venier’s circle and almost his equal as a gossip. He grasped William’s knee and raised an eyebrow. ‘The lovers, Flavio and Isabella, appropriate, eh?’

  ‘Don’t listen to that quarrellous weasel, Sir William,’ counselled Faustina, fanning herself with vigour though the afternoon was not warm. ‘The part is not, of course, named after your own paramour but after the actress herself, the great Isabella Andreini. Venice is fortunate to have her and her company of players. I Gelosi, they are called.’

  It pleased Faustina to give William not just his false name of William Fallow but also to treat him as a knight. It was not only the giving of this false title that made William squirm, but Faustina’s merciless jibing. Faustina turned to smile at William. ‘She is a poet like your own lover.’

  William kept his gaze on the stage to avoid Faustina’s look. The five of them sat, along with other wealthy citizens of Venice, on raised benches in one of the piazzas of San Polo. A stage had been built on one side, against the wall of a church, and on it were the players. The action upon it changed. The song ended and from the back of the stage stepped a dark-clad, masked figure.

  ‘Pantalone, Isabella’s father,’ hissed Faustina to William. The dark cloaked figure was dressed in tight red leggings and a red cap, his mask, which covered all but his jaw and mouth, bore two flowing plumes for eyebrows and a great hooked nose. The story was an old one: the young woman loved a man, her father forbade it, the young woman by her cunning got her will. At its end the crowd burst into great cheers and shouts of pleasure.

  Hemminges joined them. As they rose at its end he turned to William, ‘Clever, clever, did you see? Each player has his part and each moment allows for the business and yet moves on swiftly enough not to pall. They keep the shape but leave in it room for action and speech extempore, to gauge their audience’s mood and run with it.’

  Oldcastle was less enamoured. ‘It was not for me,’ he declared, mopping at his brow, which despite the cool day was still dewed with sweat. ‘I prefer a well-crafted line to a gabbled rhyme and bumbling pranks.’

  William’s own verdict lay between the two. ‘I thought it cleverly done. That business with the servants was good fooling, the old man taken in by the feigned madness. There is truth in all their figures for all they are drawn with heavy hands. Old men do grow jealous of their daughters and their gold and mad men are forgiven acts that would be crimes in others.’

  A pointed cough from behind them interrupted their debate. It was Andrea inviting them to meet the players. ‘I have had occasion to employ them in the past and they know I may again. I am sure they will make time to speak to the Ambassador of England. You, my lord, should seize the moment to do so for it is a rare chance. The players come in anticipation of the Carnival and we are fortunate that they do. Not all admire the plays nor that women have a role in them.’

  ‘True, true,’ added Faustina. ‘Now that we have a new legate from the Pope we must expect the usual contortions from the Signoria to show themselves willing to abide by St Peter’s edicts. The plays are an easy sacrifice to make.’

  ‘There is a new envoy from the Pope?’

  ‘Arrived yesterday,’ said Faustina, delighted to be delivering news. She looked knowingly at Oldcastle. ‘It seems the Pope is not entirely pleased that Venice plays host to so many heretics.’

  ‘If only the heretics did not have quite so much money,’ murmured Hemminges, whose eyes sought William’s.

  ‘Quite so, quite so,’ nodded Andrea, oblivious to this silent parley of the English, ‘and thus we must lose a little entertainment so that the godless English money may remain.’

  ‘But for how much longer, Andrea?’ chimed in Faustina with a sly glance at the others to gauge their reaction. ‘I hear this new Pope’s missionaries are to be found simply everywhere now, looking askance on pleasure and searching for heresy under every stone. I hear the most ghastly stories about one who is apparently so eager with the hot poker and the pitchforks that one might think him a devil himself were it not that he moans the name of our Lord each time he presses the iron to your flesh. An Englishman like yourselves, they tell me.’

  Faustina took William’s arm and pressed it. ‘You mustn’t worry, Sir William. I shall protect you.’ She laughed and moved on to catch up with Andrea.

  As they walked to the stage, William whispered to Hemminges, ‘You knew of the new envoy?’

  ‘I heard of his arrival but this invitation was chance to discover more from Andrea or Faustina. Or from the players.’

  ‘From the players?’ asked William, but there was no moment to hear Hemminges answer. Their short walk had brought them to the players’ tiring-house, a tented area behind the stage.

  ‘May I present the Ambassador of England,’ said Andrea to the woman who had played the lover and the man who, his mask now removed but his red trousers and cap still in place, had played the part of Pantalone.

  ‘Francesco and Isabella Andreini,’ answered Pantalone as he swept into an elaborate bow. ‘Of the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi. We are honoured to welcome the Ambassador of England, Sir Henry Carr.’

  William winced to hear Oldcastle’s false name said out loud. It was too keen a reminder of the dangerous game that, at his insistence, they still played. Oldcastle was less concerned to be called knight.

  ‘Admirable, admirable,’ Oldcastle proclaimed in his most mellifluous voice and William recognised, in its use, jealousy of the players. ‘You, sir, were magnificently present on that stage.’

  Pantalone responded with a bow more elaborate than the first, though William was not sure what compliment he discerned in Oldcastle’s words. They had the shape of one but not the substance. Hemminges, however, was more direct in his praise.

  ‘The piece was marvellous well devised and in the playing of it had as much modesty as cunning. You are the author?’

  Isabella Andreini curtsied to Hemminges. ‘I am.’

  ‘Does the play have a name?’ Oldcastle asked in a tone that hinted of jealousy at Hemminges’ praise for another player.

  ‘I call it Tanto traffico per niente,’ she answered. ‘Much ado about nothing.’

  ‘Apt,’ said Oldcastle
. ‘Though if you will forgive me, I thought the lady you portrayed a little too eager to be wooed. In my experience women are more calculating than headstrong. It is the man who must do the wooing.’

  ‘Is it so?’ said Isabella, with a glint in her eye that made William wish that Oldcastle would be quiet.

  ‘In my experience,’ said Oldcastle in tones of false humility.

  ‘Not in mine, Sir Henry,’ answered Isabella. ‘You men may say more, swear more, but your show of love is more than will. Why, we have known a woman who gambled all for love of a man.’

  ‘Oh ho, and who was that?’ scoffed Oldcastle.

  ‘Vittoria Accoramboni, Duchess of Bracciano.’

  William’s eyes flicked to Hemminges at the name of the beautiful Roman noblewoman who had incurred the Pope’s hatred and against whom the Pope had sent his assassin, Prospero. The woman whose life he, Hemminges, Oldcastle and Isabella had saved almost at cost of their own.

  ‘We had heard you performed at her estate, in Salo,’ said Hemminges, not returning William’s look. ‘The story of the Duchess is well known. Is she as beautiful as they report?’

  At Hemminges’ question, to William’s surprise, Isabella trembled and it was her husband, Pantalone, that answered.

  ‘Alas, sir, we cannot say. We were bidden to her estate as you heard, on our way from Padua to Venice, to entertain her and her servants but—’

  Here he too broke off and took a moment to gather himself. The English looked at each other in anticipation of the news that had struck the two players so dreadfully as to take from their mouths even simple speech. At last Pantalone went on.

  Alas, we came too late. The Lady was dead,’ he said, and turned to look at his wife before finishing, ‘murdered, it seems, by her cousin Lodovico Orsini. The hand of the Pope, uncle to her murdered first husband, is seen in the killing. It is a great scandal and one we were sorry to be tangled with.’

  That ever spider twisted from her womb