Death of a Duchess (9 page)

By the time the Duke sent for Sigismondo, he had heard Mass in his chapel, where priests had been saying prayers for the dead all night by the body of the Duchess, lying in state under a black velvet pall sewn with the Rocca arms in gold. Tall wax candles burnt in torchères around her. The Duke had knelt at the foot of the catafalque before Mass, joining the priests’ prayers, and had stood to look at the pale face. It was beautiful in death, not as he had last seen it and had seen it before his eyes during the night, but composed to serenity by loving fingers. The little crease in her cheek which had always been there even when she was not smiling, gave her still that air of being secretly, remotely, amused.

Sigismondo found the Duke in his study pacing restlessly to and fro. His secretary, a dark man with thin, apprehensive face, stood at the lectern, fair-copying from his tablets onto parchment. The Duke’s great seal, and wax and ribbons, waited ready on the marble table. The Duke’s hound, uneasy at his master’s unease, sat near the hearth, swinging his head to follow the Duke’s pacing. An enormous fire burnt in the cavern of the hearth, now and then a gust of wind from the mountains sending an eddy of apple-wood smoke into the room.

‘You see this?’

The Duke pointed towards the secretary’s work.

Sigismondo, who could not be expected to know what was being written, acquiesced as to seeing it, and the Duke continued, ‘I have a messenger waiting to carry this to the Duke Ippolyto. It invites him to come himself, or to send those who may represent him, to witness the execution of his sister’s murderer. In a week’s time, on the Feast of St Romualdo.’ He reached the tall window in his pacing and, framed against the pale blue of the winter sky, stared at Sigismondo, and asked, ‘Is the one to be executed Leandro Bandini?’

‘That is for your Grace to say. There are certain things in the matter your Grace would wish to know.’ Sigismondo’s eyes flickered towards the pages and secretary. The Duke banished them with a word, then beckoned Sigismondo and for a moment they stood together looking down on the square below, its patterned pavement sloping a little down from the Castello and the Cathedral. People passed to and fro and gathered in knots by the fountain. Stalls were there as usual, and those who bought and those who sold had leisure, even on this chill day, to linger and talk. An arm was outflung towards the Palace gates. Some watched the Duke’s men supervising the scrubbing away of the blood. The splash of water as well as a cry of voices came up through the glass.

‘What can you tell me?’

‘He
was
drugged, your Grace, in a cup of wine.’

The Duke’s eyes fixed on him in concentration. ‘By whom?’

‘He would not know the man again.’

‘You have only his word for that?’

‘I could tell he had drunk valerian, its smell concealed by verbena, in a draught of spiced wine which would disguise any strange taste; it would cause him to lose control of his senses, perhaps to see visions.’

‘Would it lead him to force her Grace?’ The question was delivered coolly but the Duke’s voice was harsher than ever.

Sigismondo watched the square below, the small figures moving beyond the distorting glass; then he said, ‘There was no sign of forcing. Her Grace’s wrists were unmarked, there was no trace of violence other than her wound. There were no scratches on Bandini’s face, neck or hands.’

‘Yet she struck him with her mirror or the candlestick.’

‘Someone did.’

‘Or he fell, fleeing?’

‘It is possible, your Grace.’ Sigismondo’s tone all but dismissed the theory. ‘He was also struck, harder, on the
back
of the head.’ His hand indicated the place on his own smooth scalp.

The Duke put long fingers to his forehead and massaged the creases between the fierce brows. He returned as if in despair to the thought that would not let him rest.

‘She lay with him by consent.’

The deep voice was firm. ‘With him, or with another.’

The Duke’s hands flew together, fist into palm. ‘
Find him
. I shall not have peace until his death.’ He swung to look at the square as if he could see the scaffold and the moment that would set him free.

‘Did your Grace take a ring from the Duchess’s hand last night?’ Sigismondo, broad hand splayed on the brocade curtain, pressing back its folds, looked down at the square as though his question had little significance. The Duke grasped its importance at once.

‘What ring?
I did not touch her
.’ His vehemence sounded as though he answered all the voices in the city who accused him.

‘The ring her Grace always wore.’

‘The emerald her brother gave her? Is that gone?’

‘Was your Grace with the Duchess until the Lady Cecilia came? You did not leave her until that time?’

The Duke shook his head.

‘Then we conclude that the ring was taken before you discovered the Duchess.’

‘The murderer. There was no ring found on Leandro Bandini?’

It was Sigismondo’s turn to shake his head. The Duke clasped his hands and, steepling the forefingers, struck them lightly against his lips. He frowned still. We are dealing with a
thief
? Nothing else was taken?’

‘The Lady Cecilia spoke of the ring only.’ The Duchess’s honour, which was also the Duke’s, had vanished during that time before her death.

‘You will enquire further, no doubt, of the Lady Cecilia, the Mistress of the Robes.’ He paused. ‘A week. I cannot give you more than a week. I cannot delay the message to Ippolyto; he will come here at and must be answered.’

They looked down at the Duke’s messenger, in green and white over total black, walking a great black horse in the inner court, to and fro, as the Duke had paced above. Man and beast walked in a cloud of their breath in the chill air.

‘In a week my justice must be seen to be done.’

If Sigismondo could find no more likely candidate for the scaffold, Leandro Bandini had not a long time left in which to regret coming to the assignation last night.

‘Her cross is gone too.’ The Lady Cecilia raised her eyes to Sigismondo with a look of dismay. Her gold was confined in a black silk net, her white skin ghostly in her black velvet gown against the dark panelling.

‘What was it like?’

‘It was of diamonds and pearls. It had belonged to Duke’s first wife, the Duchess Maria. My lady seldom wore it, being of the opinion that it did not become her. But everything became her.’

Sigismondo brooded over the marquetry jewel case. Its crimson velvet was a voluptuous nest for engraved gems of sardonyx and crystal, brooches of balas rubies, table-cut diamonds, strange-shaped pearls that were the bodies of Nereids or unicorns; a cluster of amethyst grapes with golden leaves; clasps of jade; a set of diamond buttons; rings of all kinds, the mount of one a pair of gold hands delicately presenting a large sapphire; a rose of rubies; filigree earrings; chains of gold and enamel work, heavy chains with links of twisted gold, ropes of pearls, in soft colours or the true pearl; a small lion lay on the velvet, a lion rampant, of gold, a gold collar attaching him to a chain, his eyes rubies, in his mouth a pearl the shape of a heart. The case was perfumed. Its musky scent lingered in the air of this empty room.

‘You can be sure that is all that’s gone?’

‘I know her jewels.’

‘Did you alone know of this hiding place?’

‘I alone, save for her Grace. An old gentlewoman of the Duchess Maria’s showed it to me, and she has since died.’

Sigismondo made no comment on this; it was likely enough that in a palace full of servants, most of whom had been here before the Duke’s second marriage, any of them might have seen either Duchess go to the wall and press the panel.

‘When did you last fasten the case with all the jewels in?’

‘When I dressed her for the feast. She did not wish me to dress her because I was the bride. But who else should do so? Who else could have proper manage of the maids? They are all very well...’ She caught herself back, perhaps in realisation that she, like the despised maids, had no place now. She drew from under the lawn at her long throat a gold chain of ruby flowers. ‘She gave me this as a bridal gift. It is the only other thing not in here.’ Her face crumpled. She closed the box, and looked at that moment more like an unhappy child than a woman thrice married. She turned away, putting the box down on the table; her head made graceful bird-like movements as she dried her eyes. She said abruptly, ‘These jewels had better be given into the Duke’s keeping. He has a strongroom and I — I cannot, it seems, keep them safe.’

Outside the door there came voices, an infant pipe and a boy’s. The small page entered, a wren of a child, already in the Duke’s gift of a mourning tabard. He advanced round the bed and his eyes widened as he suddenly saw Sigismondo looming there, but schooling held; he fixed his gaze on his mistress’s back and spoke rapidly.

‘My lady, his Grace requires your presence in his library, with the Master Sigismondo.’

The Duke, among the shelves and stands of books, the pigeon-holes of encased scrolls and documents, was at a table, where the plans for his new library were spread. The architect, crow-like with his mourning-gown over his brown working clothes, was in exposition, hands and arms at work as he spoke conjuring distances, airy bays, galleries, columns. The Duke stopped him with raised hand and came towards them at his usual headlong stride.

‘The ring is found.’ The blue eyes fixed, and Cecilia di Villani curtsied deep. ‘A goldsmith has brought it to us.’

‘A goldsmith?’ From her tone, the whole Guild of Goldsmiths were as foreign to her understanding as so many giraffes.

‘A dwarf brought it to him for sale.’

The lady made an attempt at this. The words
a dwarf
were formed by her lips.

‘When the man asked the provenance of the ring the dwarf said that her mistress had lost her post at Court because of the Duchess’s death, and would need money.’

The Lady Cecilia closed her mouth with precision. Her eyes turned upward and her lids fluttered. She put out a hand for support in the general direction of Sigismondo, a wise choice for as her knees gave way and her head fell back he was behind her. Her head lolled helplessly against his chest, loosening the black net, which slid away. A surprising quantity of soft golden hair cascaded over her drooping face and over the soft, black, turned-leather of his jerkin. He gazed gravely over her head at the Duke, who looked morose.

‘It is of course ridiculous,’ the Duke said. ‘The Lady Cecilia cannot be said to need money. She is overwrought. I don’t suppose di Villani spared her. He’s the man to ride his mares to death. He has the sensibilities
of a neat herd
,’ he finished.

Sigismondo appeared to have no difficulty in supporting her, and both men looked down at her head.

‘I’ve ordered all the dwarves to attend in the west guardroom. My steward is in charge of it and the goldsmith is to identify the one he saw. I will leave that in your hands. I am waiting to receive his Eminence Pontano — who is going to tell me, I trust, why Bandini hasn’t restored the di Torre girl, and to ask whether the death of his son is negotiable.’

Cecilia di Villani now stirred in Sigismondo’s arms, and made small lost moans. The Duke gave her a blue glare, like a critic marking down an actor’s performance, and left them.

Sigismondo changed his grip, bent to package the lady’s considerable skirts together and get an arm round them, straightened up and walked out. She was emitting words of confusion and had got her head onto his shoulder by the time he reached the anteroom and put her down on a tapestry-covered bench there. The small page, aghast, was instantly at her side.

‘I leave you in good hands, my lady,’ Sigismondo said. ‘You will excuse me. I have to see some dwarves.’

The small page resourcefully picked up the fan that hung at her girdle, and fanned her face with such vigour that her hair flew in all directions.

The goldsmith had put on a gown of dark blue stuff to come to the Palace, and he kept his hands in his sleeves as if for warmth; a working goldsmith’s hands are apt to be unattractively stained. He was conscious of where he was, and the quite sudden arrival of Sigismondo failed to reassure him.

The Duke’s steward had his back to the guardroom door, an impressive affair of oak. He was attended by two of the guard, in black-sleeved livery and carrying halberds. On seeing Sigismondo, he opened the door with a caution that showed apprehension.

While it was probably known to the steward how many dwarves there were, the immediate view suggested an illimitable number. They filled the floor, were standing on benches around the walls and sat in a row on the table. They were of both sexes, all ages and, within limits, of all sizes. None of them was pleased and most were saying so.

All of them were in black and all wore, or were waving, even the males, headkerchiefs, some issued to them by the steward.

They pressed back from the door and enquired of the steward why they were there. Sigismondo’s entrance produced a comparative quiet, but it did not last. It took the grounding of a guard’s halberd, repeatedly, on the flagstones to produce a silence sibilant with complaint.

‘Had you all been quiet before, I would have explained—’ The steward querulously achieved no more. Babel supervened. Sigismondo had been watching, and now he leant across to speak to an elderly dwarf who had been relatively silent. This one accordingly stood up on the bench and raised his arms. As the rest saw him, they bit by bit stopped their clamour.

‘That’s better!’ said the steward. ‘Now. What has happened is that a ring belonging to the Duchess, God rest her soul—’

A respectful ‘Amen’ was the only interruption as yet, but there had come upon the gathering a watchfulness.

‘—is missing. Or rather, was missing. As it happens, it was offered for sale to this worthy person this morning, and a colleague of his having identified it—’

‘Is this to do with us?’ enquired an ominous voice. There was now all the quiet anyone could want, a quiet of utter stillness. Hardly an eye blinked.