Beatrice and Benedick (9 page)

I held a hand to my visor, and shook my head. Don Pedro's interest was piqued. ‘The unknown knight. Well, if we may not know your face, may we at least know your name, señor?'

‘Signor Arcobaleno,' I said, lowering my voice to a growl, my tones obscured anyway by the visor. I'd thought the alias witty, and it had come to me upon the spur of the moment from the sight of all the different pennants flying here today. Signor Rainbow; I was not of one colour, but all of them.

There was a titter among the ladies. Don Pedro raised one dark brow.

‘Signor Arcobaleno,' he said. ‘Despite your name, you must choose a colour.'

‘Since Your Highness is winning the day, I will wear the girdle of my host.'

Don Pedro, untroubled, nodded, and my uncle Leonato gave me my sky-blue sash without a flicker of recognition. I knotted it about my heaving stomach and turned to face Signor Benedick, who was busy juggling apricots.

He threw the fruits into the crowd, where three lucky
children caught them with a cheer, then he turned to face me. Only I stood between him and the priceless reliquary, and suddenly he was deadly serious. We bowed, then moved our weapons to the commencement position; rapier high, dagger low.

His first blow stung my arm all the way to my shoulder, and I knew from that first strike that I had made a mistake. He was taller than me, and tougher than I expected, and I remembered those strong arms around me when he'd taken me to my chamber. My knees buckled as with rapier and dagger I desperately tried to fend off the stinging blows. I had the advantage only in my weight and agility and I did my best to dodge the strikes by moving fast. I was also out of practice – it was a month since I had been at home and had taken up swords with my brother. In the end I had nothing else to give – Signor Benedick's rapier point touched my breastplate again and again, while the marshal counted the palpable hits. In the end I grappled with my opponent to buy myself a moment's respite; for an instant our arms were about each other as close as an embrace and we tottered together until the marshal separated us.

And then, a miracle. I do not know whether Signor Benedick tired or what, but the tide unmistakably turned. Suddenly I was breaking through his guard, his blows had no purchase and I made hit after hit upon his breastplate until the marshal raised his flag. It was blue!

Sicily was the victor, and the courtyard erupted. I was deafened momentarily by the blast of the cheers, and blinded by the dozens of Trinacria flags thrown to garland my victory. Before Signor Benedick could shake my hand I was carried up and away at shoulder height, around the courtyard in a circle of honour; before being deposited, breathless, before the loge to claim my prize. My uncle was beaming from one ear to the other, and even Don Pedro, to give him his due, could not forbear to smile.

‘And now, surely, señor, you will show us your face?'

I merely bowed with a flourish, desperately hoping he wouldn't press the point. And he didn't. The prince turned to the crowd. ‘He is as valiant as Hector but as modest as Jove!' he cried, as the crowd cheered again. ‘Well, let it be enough to say that if you would ever take a commission in my regiment, I will write you the letter of marque in my own hand.'

I bowed again, and as I did so I saw the dark lady with the ringleted hair in the flame dress staring at me intently, a little smile playing about her lips. She held her hand up to me in a peculiar salute; every finger and the thumb tucked away, save the index finger and little finger, sticking up like a devil's horns. I was wondering what this tribute meant when it struck me like a sunburst – she was Guglielma Crollalanza, my aunt's friend, and the one who had worn the sun's face at the masque. And further, that she, alone of all the people in the courtyard, knew exactly who I was.

‘Signor Arcobaleno?' Don Pedro was holding the reliquary as high as the host, and he handed it to me over the front of the loge as if he was handing me the True Cross. I grabbed the thing and ran, with probably not quite enough reverence for the Spanish, St James's fingerbone rattling in its little bejewelled housing. I was hotter than a lobster in a kettle in the accursed visor, but dared not remove it before I was under lock and key, so much did I fear my uncle's wrath. For a stunt such as this one was neither a good example of a maid's modest behaviour for Hero, nor was it what he would countenance in the behaviour of his niece.

Escaping though an archway, I cannoned into Signor Benedick coming the other way. Cursing, I tried to edge past him but he was as tall as he was broad and the way was blocked. He had removed his visor, and his hair now curled as it used to about his face. Two days' growth had consumed the ridiculous beard, and his colour was high from the exercise, in contrast to
the white windings about his throat. He looked remarkably well.

‘I commend you on your victory,' he said.

I nodded briefly in thanks and sidestepped, but he was too quick for me and moved the same way. ‘You did the feats of a lion in the figure of a lamb.' His eyes raked my torso, and I squirmed as if I had fleas. ‘Won't you remove your helmet, so that I can know my conqueror better?' He moved closer, and I could feel the heat of his body. ‘For I must tell you, privately in your ear, that I have never been so overthrown. I might as well have been holding a
parsnip and a stick of celery.
'

Something about this tribute made me uncomfortable. I pushed past him, and he let me go this time, but I could feel him looking after me as I clattered up the stairs. Reaching mine and Hero's chamber, I shed the visor at last and loosened the breastplate. Something fluttered out of the doublet to the floor.

It was the
settebello
card – the seven of coins.

Slowly, I picked it up and stood, frozen, with the thing in my hand as the swifts called from the eaves outside the casement.

He had known.

I played the bout again in my head. When we had grappled, and been close as an embrace, he must have guessed then. For that was the turning point of the fight – after that he had changed, as if he had been deflated, he had made silly mistakes, swatted at thrusts that did not connect, parried blows that did not fall, tripped on stones that were not there.

He had known, and he'd let me win.

He'd known when my eyes met his through the visor, and flared blue, for no one else in the court had eyes of that colour. Then, in those few heartbeats, he had put the card in my doublet, right between my breasts. I blushed, even though I was alone, and the blood sang in my ears with the swifts.

He could have defeated me. He could have stopped the fight, taken off my visor, for by the rules of the tourney no woman
could bear arms. He could have taken home the reliquary, and the honour of it, for his family's church in Padua. He could have exposed me to the wrath of my uncle. But he had not. He had let me win. The wretch had been more than forbearing. He had been
chivalrous.

I was the victor, and as such he had given me back my gage. But he was the worthiest knight.

Beatrice:
It had taken us only from dawn till noon to reach Syracuse in our train of carriages, but it was as if we had come to a new country, or rather, an old one; the ancient Greece of myth and legend.

The stones of the city were bleached to pale gold, ancient pillars and fallen temples were everywhere, strange spiky trees grew from the very pavings themselves and rock flowers garlanded the capitals of the temples, as if the roots were nourished by the stone. We left the carriages and crossed a causeway to an ancient island city called Ortygia, surrounded by a sea as pale blue as a duck's egg. It was the day after the tournament, my muscles protested and ached, but my uncle would not let us rest. We were to attend the wedding of one of the sons of the Duke of Syracuse, who was lately returned from a long sojourn in Ephesus.

The duomo was also a temple, giant pillars making up a vast cavernous colonnade, which in later eras had been closed over with a roof. There were hundreds of people crammed into the church – as was custom, the nobility sat at the front, with the merchants behind and at the back the peasants of Syracuse with their children and their curs and their hawks on their wrists, ready to leave once the coins had been thrown.

The Archbishop of Monreale was taking the service, and I watched him carefully as he droned through the Latin form. He took to the pulpit early on and seemed to have little intention of
leaving it; for the bells rang twice during his sermon. He held forth on a familiar theme; the evils of women both in the single and the married state. He took as his text 1 Timothy, Chapter 2, verse 12:
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Since his premise was so distasteful to me I stopped my ears and studied his form instead. The archbishop was a strange, reptilian-looking fellow – clean shaven, with full purplish lips and yellow almond eyes and pasty flesh – and it was impossible to tell his age; for all that he was Claudio's uncle he could be anything from twenty to fifty. As he descended to the chancel steps at last to begin the prayers I watched, along with all the congregation, for his trademark; for he was famous for a little physical peculiarity. Sure enough, as he spoke the paternoster tears began to swell and form in his eyes, and fall down his jaundiced cheeks. The congregation crossed themselves rapidly – for the archbishop was known as a true devout, and his tears were thought to bring down the favour of God. The frantic crossings of the people made a whispering sound throughout the ancient temple.

I did not copy them but instead sought Signor Benedick among the throng – he was easy enough to pick out among the swarthy Sicilians by reason of his blond poll, but he sat some rows away from me. I consoled myself that I would surely see him at the feast, and my heart gave a little lurch. I blinked my eyes to see him better; his head seemed to be lolling at an odd angle towards his neighbour. He was fast asleep.

A swift flew into the vast vault of the cathedral roof space, fluttering and twittering, and one of the peasants' hawks rose above it, the raptor striking the little bird with its talons. Blood spattered the bride's silver gown, and the unaccountable Sicilians cheered fit to raise the roof – apparently this was a good omen for the match. The archbishop laughed and beamed along with the rest, but when he gathered the little dead swift in his hands from the chancel steps, his tears flowed again.

After the interminable service the father of the groom led the company through this Grecian city. The procession was like a bacchanal of Dionysus for we were all given wreaths of flowers to wear about our necks and musicians played upon the gilded lyres that nestled in the nook of their arms. White peacocks pecked and strutted by our feet, glancing nervously at the white leopards straining at their handlers' leashes, answering their roars with pathetic mews.

We ended our procession at an imposing palace clad in white sun-bleached stone, set on a promontory thrust directly into the sea. At the great doors there was a brief confusion, as form dictated that we would enter by rank and seniority, but the two sons of the house were twins, and had of course been born together. We all stood about, baking like salt in the sun, while the niceties were decided; all too polite to tell them to get on with it. The matter was settled at last when the groom and his brother joined hands and walked into their house together, just as they had come into the world, while their wives followed behind.

In the great hall, where the feast and the dancing were to be held, there was a vast and ancient archway entirely open at one end so the room was light and airy. There was a pleasing vista of the Far, a rocky finger of land terminated by an antique lighthouse. In the hall itself long tables garlanded with vine leaves awaited our presence. I hoped Fate would seat me next to Signor Benedick at dinner but was not prepared to leave the matter entirely in the hands of that tricksy goddess, so I manoeuvred beside him in the melee, and landed in the chair by his side. A stranger who would not trouble us sat on the other side of me, so I looked forward to recommencing our merry war. We all stood, with a great scraping of chair legs, for the bride and groom to enter, and Benedick, released at last by his sponsor, turned to me. I caught an expression of surprised delight upon his face before his cocksure half-smile chased it away. He bowed with an ironic flourish. ‘Signor Arcobaleno!'

I bowed stiffly and replied in kind. ‘Signor Mountanto.'

His eyes raked my gown – I was back in my favourite colour. The blue of my bodice was as dark as midnight and sprinkled with a cluster of diamonds at the bodice, which fell in a cascade to stud the kirtle in lesser number like the evening sky. The skirt fell in graduating circles of lighter blues, like the night fading to dawn.

‘You look even better than you did in the lists,' said Benedick, with frank approval, ‘and today perhaps we will use our blades for eating.' He picked up his knife and speared a piece of bread. The Archbishop of Monreale, three places away beyond the prince, looked murder at him, for the grace had not yet been said. Benedick palmed the bread into his hand.

The tables were set with cups and goblets of coral and ivory and rough glass, all of which looked as if they had been preserved from antique times. The food was strange fare, another vestige, I guessed, of Greek rule here; for there were dried fruits and sallets and vine leaves aplenty but not enough, to my taste, of things that have wings and are more substantial. I picked at the dishes, but I was more anxious to talk to Signor Benedick than to fill my stomach. ‘Thank you for the reliquary,' I began, all pretence abandoned. ‘I will render it you again if you would like it, for it is yours.'

‘Keep it, and the card too, for both were won fairly.' He made a little pantomime of looking beneath his trencher, where he had found the
settebello
once before, and I smiled. ‘Besides, if that bauble contains the fingerbone of Saint James I am a Dutchman. Every church I have visited boasts another such. Saint James must have had as many arms as Briareus and a score of fingers terminating every one.'