Angel-face hurdled him without faltering, the knife leaving his hand to skim past Sigismondo’s ear, strike the wall and clatter down the stairs underfoot. The big red-headed man bellowed like a baited bull while from the kitchen regions long-pent-up screams bore witness that not everybody’s throat had been cut.
Another knife seemed to grow in Angel-face’s hand. A fierce grappling hold from Barley prevented him from attacking Sigismondo yet again. He was finally placated with an oath from Barley that the apparent pursuer, their intended victim, was a friend.
Sigismondo stood, thumbs in belt, enjoying the noise and confusion with a broad smile. A dwindling hysteria in the kitchen prevented any humming from being heard. Benno raised only his head from where he lay prone on the marble, to judge when rising would be safe, and justified once again in his absolute belief in his master’s mastery. Upstairs, a door had opened and the Widow Costa and the Lady Cosima peered down the stairs.
Persuaded at last to put up his knife, the beautiful viper, introduced by Barley not surprisingly as Angelo, bowed to the ladies, acknowledged one man he had tried to murder with a salute, and helped the other to his feet. Sigismondo had picked up the knife thrown at him and held it out hilt foremost, still smiling.
‘It’s my day to stand for target. I must try it at a circus one day and get paid for it. It’s thirsty work.’
‘Spoilt this blade on the wall,’ Angelo remarked.
‘He’s too fast. I missed him too,’ Barley assured him. ‘You’re lucky, Martin: you name it, he’s knifed it.’
Benno had not the nerve to enquire about the kitchenmaid, though he had eyed the knife his master so genially restored. Now quieter voices in the entrance hall reassured the kitchen. The tapestry veiling the door shook and the cook’s face peered cautiously out. The sight of Angelo nearly drove her back, but she perceived that he was in converse with the lady of the house as well as the appalling pedlar, and curiosity and the absence of any corpse drew her further into the hall. On this day of knives she, too, had armed herself afresh. With her came a strong reek of burnt feathers, explained by the sight through the open door of the kitchenmaid lying on the stone floor, not yet responding to the housemaid’s efforts. Angelo had also his priorities, and the disposal of Benno rated above that of the kitchenmaid. It was flattering, Benno was glad to be alive to feel it.
The widow, a woman of serene temperament besides good sense, led the way upstairs again. Benno was sent to the kitchen with the cook, to convey the good news that no one had been, or was about to be, murdered, and with strict orders to carry up the wine which, but a short time ago, the maid had failed to bring.
The cook had the more difficult task of getting dinner for five extra guests while her chief assistant was being ministered to by a hysterical maidservant in a muddle of cabbage slices and raw pork. However, as her advance into the hall with a knife showed, the cook was a woman of courage and resource. Vinegar proved better than burnt feathers in resuscitation and the process was completed by a brisk clapping on the cheeks with hands capable of shifting huge pans on the stove. The cook had her assistant back, though excited and reluctant to wash the cabbage and pork, and liable to talk ceaselessly about the fair devil who had nearly killed her.
Benno smelt still of stables, with a whiff of the bag he had dropped when he ran and, of course, of himself, as he brought the wine upstairs; where Angelo, with a grace as natural to him as knife-throwing, took the tray, poured the wine and offered the glasses round to the company. Benno regretfully, at a nod from his master, took himself back to the kitchen, where he saw that Biondello was not only present but was covered in white feathers and a vibrant smell. He had rifled Benno’s bag in the yard.
Upstairs, the party so strangely convened was beginning to liven. There was relief in the air, the relief that comes after battle with the realisation that Death has passed you by. The companion had been coaxed out of her prayerful trance and sat, making little gasps from time to time, taking comfort in holding the hand of the girl she believed to be a nun, and gazing at the face of the angel who had fallen from Heaven to sit opposite. There was stirring, somewhere in her mind, the idea that she might soon, perhaps later in the spring, go on pilgrimage again. Certainly on such a journey she would, this time, not sit dumb in her corner when each pilgrim contributed a story. She now had her own tale to tell!
The widow, although she felt more and more entitled to an explanation of all that had exploded round her in the last half hour, managed to keep quiet and to drink a good deal of her own wine. It might be that she would not get the truth until it was told in privacy that night. The thought of this put her into an excellent mood and she was glad to note that Benno had brought several bottles. At a request from her, Angelo rose and filled glasses yet again, his hair shining in the gathering dusk, dreamily followed by the gaze of the companion. The widow smiled, and set herself to attend with greater concentration to the story Barley was telling, with embroidery by Hubert — had he really been known as Martin? — which involved some astonishing ambush which they, and her husband, had survived. Men were the same the world over, and you had to be grateful that some of them came home.
The cook contrived her dinner, not a little hampered by her assistant’s repeated and irrepressible descriptions of her ordeal and demonstration of the tiny mark on her neck to Benno and some of the farmworkers who had come in with firewood. These were vociferously confident of their powers to deal with any intruders had they been there, and they inclined to shrug off the women’s vivid descriptions of the size of the pedlar and the demonic attributes of his henchman as feminine exaggeration. Benno’s confirmation was dismissed indulgently. What nobody could understand was why the mistress and her formidable guest were drinking wine with this murderous pair.
The servant who doubled as groom, and by virtue of this did meet foreign, city folk occasionally, was sure it was politics; the cook thought it might be a curious joke such as the gentlefolk often liked; the maid believed they would all have their throats cut in the end, and was continually having to be fetched back from the hall where she had crept out to listen, as if she expected to hear horrid groans from upstairs and see a river of blood flowing down the marble stairs towards her.
Benno said little, but took all that came his way. Whatever happened, his master would prove victorious; had he not retrieved the Lady Cosima? Biondello, with quite equal trust, laid his head between Benno’s knees and accepted willlingly his half of all Benno received.
Not groans but laughter came from upstairs, and what flowed freely was the widow’s good wine. Sigismondo and Barley, capping each other’s stories, strayed into fantasy and bawdry as time went on. The widow laughed; the companion laughed, though not because she understood the humour but out of general euphoria. Cosima di Torre, an unmarried girl in a rich household, had had less opportunity than anyone for meeting people, so that even more of the talk was as strange to her as was the whole situation. She kept up her pretence because, like Benno, she had grown to trust Sigismondo and he had not told her to declare her disguise. She therefore drank little, kept her eyes down, and did not laugh.
Angelo also said nothing. His contribution was to fill the glasses and look beautiful, tasks he performed to perfection. It crossed Cosima’s mind, she did not know why, that the pale gold of his hair might not be its natural colour.