‘It was beautifully done,’ Sigismondo’s voice soothed. ‘I was there. When were you told to do that?’
‘Just before the feast started. This man — he had come to me before when we were rehearsing and offered me money, if I would execute a jest, he said; an admirer of the Duchess would pay me well for it. It was a lot of money, because he said it might well get me into trouble.’
‘Did you get the money?’
Angelo smiled. ‘And kept it, though that I wasn’t meant to do.’
Silence supervened while one of the servants brought in another dish and served it. Anther swept up the onions into a pan and wiped the floor. They departed together to tell the company below stairs that it was like supper in a monastery.
‘What was to happen when you’d kicked the wine over?’
‘Clear out quick; and I didn’t need telling.’ Angelo rubbed his ribs. ‘I wasn’t popular.’
Sigismondo hummed. ‘Her Grace gave orders you were not to be beaten.’
‘They didn’t wait for orders. Everyone got in a swipe at me on the way out. I earned that money.’
‘What became of the Wild Man suit?’
‘I was to get out of it, quick, and hand it over to man who’d told me — he was waiting for me in one of the antechambers. Helped me get the skin and mask off and bundled it up, inside out. He gave me my money and said I’d done well and I was to clear out.’ Angelo paused and drank, the companion watching him devotedly. ‘I wasn’t intending to hang about and get everyone’s opinion taken out on me. I don’t like messing up a good act in the first place, but money’s money. So I went out the way he took me, back ways through the Palace.’
‘He knew the Palace well?’
‘Like a mole. He didn’t need his eyes. He shut me out of this little door that opened on the courtyard where they had the bonfire. People were coming out to see the fireworks and I was sorry to miss them.’ The beautiful face became wistful. ‘On my way, I looked back to see if they were going to set any off, and then I saw him. Lucky I did.’
‘Saw the man who’d paid you extra?’
Angelo showed his teeth — crooked, more like a devil than an angel — and nodded. ‘Him. He was chucking the skin right in the middle of the bonfire.’
‘Why’d you call that lucky?’ Barley thumped the table. ‘Cost money, skins. That bearskin, now-’ he drank — ‘and it stank.’
Angelo wrinkled his nose. ‘Who had to wrestle with you? Who got hugged to it? No, it was lucky I looked back because I got suspicious. Why was he so close behind me? Why was he burning the skin? I thought, some people don’t like parting with money, and it’s a good sum; and burning the skin looks like the Wild Man was set to disappear. When I got out on the street I kept my eyes open.’
‘Especially the ones in the back of his head.’ Barley clapped Angelo with a fond crippling hand on his shoulder. ‘They can see in the dark too.’
‘For God’s sake, sir,’ said the widow, ‘let him tell his tale. Did he follow you?’
Angelo nodded. ‘For a little way. I made sure that’s what he was doing. Then he jumped me with a knife.’
There was a pause while everyone pondered the foolhardiness of this move. The companion made a noise like a trodden-on cat.
‘What did you do?’
Surprised at the question, Angelo said, ‘I killed him.’ He frowned. ‘I thought at first that he’d simply wanted his money back. He wouldn’t be the first. When I got back to the inn, I found word was going round that the Duchess had been murdered and I knew I was in the shit. When he-’ the golden head jerked sideways at Barley — ‘got back to our lodgings he told me Leandro Bandini was in prison at the Palace for killing the Duchess. I started to breathe again. I thought that let me out. Then he said Bandini was found dressed in a Wild Man skin.’
‘So it was Bandini’s man who hired you!’
They all turned to look at the nun, who had spoken for the first time. There was no question of her keeping custody of the eyes as she leant forward to stare at Angelo, her pale pretty face intent. ‘Bandini planned that you should take the blame. The action of a murderer and a coward.’ It was clear, as she spat out the words, which category she thought was the worse. ‘He had to have someone to do the dancing, which he couldn’t do.’ She was scornful. ‘To kick the wine over the Duchess so that she would have to retire — I see it all — and then he could kill her!’
Suddenly she was aware of their attention upon her, and she flushed vivid pink. The Widow Costa, patting her hand, thought it a shame so lively a spirit should take the veil; judging by the men’s faces, this girl would never have lacked for offers.
‘But, Sister, why should he want to kill her?’ she asked.
The nun gave a small shrug, as if to imply that no one need ask why a Bandini should murder. Sigismondo was silent, watching.
‘One can see,’ Barley spoke through a mouthful of braised turnip and leek, ‘that the Duke tries to mend the di Torre-Bandini feud by marrying the di Torre girl to the Bandini boy and of course-’ he flung his arms wide — ‘they don’t like it. Saving your presence, Sister, it’s hate the world runs on, not love. They hate the Duke for it. And they’ll ruin Rocca between them.’
‘But why kill the poor Duchess?’ the widow persisted.
‘It’s easy.’ Barley sprayed some turnip, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Revenge, isn’t it. You don’t have to get at a man direct to hurt him. And now what they’re saying in Rocca about the Duke…’
‘That he is the murderer.’ Sigismondo roused to pour wine. Barley pointed a spoon at him triumphantly.
‘You’ve heard. It’s all whispers in corners, but it’s being said.’
The widow put in impatiently, ‘She can’t have been murdered by Leandro Bandini and by the Duke.’
‘Lady,’ Barley was a patient bear, ‘if you’re Duke you can’t kill your wife just so, pouff! She has kinsfolk, she’s highborn. Dukes need scapegoats.’
‘That’s not sense. One minute you say the Bandini boy did it out of hatred at the idea of marrying the di Torre girl — am I right? — and next minute you say it was the Duke himself. Was the man who hired your friend Angelo, then, working for the Duke?’
‘What I would like to know,’ Sigismondo’s deep voice came in after the widow’s contralto, ‘is why you called me a traitor to the Duke. Someone hired you to kill me for that?’ He folded his arms on the table and regarded Barley under his brows. The companion, pleasurably dazed though she was with wine because Angelo had kept her glass filled, put her hands to her heart and hoped that no fight would start anew between these redoubtable men.
‘He told me, this one that hired me, more than I needed to know. The name and the money was all I needed; or a passable description if there’s no name. But these people — they want to be at ease with their souls about what they do, so they tell you their reasons.’ Barley laughed indulgently and drank. ‘So this shaven Sigismondo has become privy to the Duke’s secrets and has then gone and hired himself to the Bandini-’
‘The Bandini!’ cried the nun, on her feet.
‘Be at ease.’ Sigismondo’s hand sat her irresistibly down. He shook his head at her, and smiled. ‘Barley is telling us this man’s excuses. One who wants me dead is not on oath.’
She subsided, doubtfully.
Barley scraped his plate with bread. ‘But I dare say the rest is true, knowing you: that you’ve found your way into Palace secrets.’
‘The Duke trusted me; but he trusts his brother more. It was the Lord Paolo who feared I had seen too much.’
‘There’s a good man!’ cried the widow. ‘I’d a Mass said in St Agnes’s for Federico on his anniversary last year,’ her hand moved in a cross, ‘and Lord Paolo spoke to me in the great doorway as I left. There he was, a man with a great place at Court, stopping in the middle of the crowd of folk to talk to a crying widow; good sensible comforting words too, nothing mawkish. And as he went off, I saw he’d come half across the Cathedral to talk to me — his friends were waiting at the door that leads to the Palace. Someone said, “Isn’t that the Lord Paolo for you!” And they say charity flows from his hands. I remember on that day when I was walking back to my town house, we were held up by a great fight in the square, di Torre and Bandini men, all among the market stalls — poor folk packing up their goods as best they could to save them, fine potters’ ware shattered and trampled, good cloth thrown down, and I took up a little child to save him, half dead with a broken arm. I can see I have a di Torre partisan at my side,’ and again she patted the nun’s hand, ‘but Rocca will never prosper while those two fight.’