The Widow Costa’s new steward, put out by the arrival of guests without notice, was struck by the strong likeness of the sister to the widow herself. The letter she gave him, with her seal attached, was hardly needed to prove her identity and, with respectful obeisances, he made her welcome and despatched his family about the airing of mattresses, the hanging of bed curtains, lighting fires and dressing meat for dinner. The Lady Donati’s daughter kept her face veiled before the steward, as any high-born maiden should, but if her looks could be judged by her not fearing competition with those of her maid Angela, they must, he thought, be exquisite indeed.
The chaplain wielded formidable authority. It was evident to the steward that everyone in the party looked to him for earthly as well as spiritual guidance, though he spoke so little. The steward was quite unaware that while he was in the kitchen examining the provisions, deciding what could be served and what must be procured, this same chaplain was slipping about the house with a sinister turn of speed, exploring staircases and passageways, checking on the exits to alleys and streets bordering all sides. Three separate doors were found, the bolts tested for ease of drawing, the bars shifted in their sockets in case they jammed. Each door, from the judas at eye level, looked out on a different alley, one within all but touching distance of the house opposite, and dark as a rat run. A maid coming up from the cellar with a bundle of faggots tucked under her arm, for the fire in the great drawing room, was confused to come upon a priest peering out of the door at the street, but collected her wits enough to bob as he turned and blessed her.
One thing which did surprise the steward was that the witless servant was sent to exercise madam’s rather horrible little dog not in the street but in the gallery, where he feared one of his family would have to be sent to clear up after both of them. The steward could not know that the lovely Angela had offered to remedy the dog’s identifying characteristic herself by removing the other ear, but he had heard the indignant yell of the lack-wit as he snatched the dog to his unsavoury bosom.
Another surprise was madam’s summoning the vast brute of a groom to her bedchamber, when the fire had been lit there. Certainly her daughter and the maid were there; it was not improper. Luckily for the steward’s sanity he never saw this same brute seated in Madam’s chair in a strong light, trying not to blink while his sandy eyelashes were re-darkened, with oil and candlesoot, by Angela’s professional hand.
Angela left, her golden hair covered in a linen kerchief, herself shrouded in a dark wool cloak, a basket on her arm. She respectfully reported to him before she went, so someone of the party, he reflected, knew the proper conduct of a household. He could have made no sense of the fact that her errand was to the elderly dwarf at the Palace, named Durgan, and that the word employed to gain the confidence of that dwarf and fetch him to the servants’ entry to sponsor the beautiful creature in, was ‘Altosta’, home village of the late, lamented Poggio.
By the time that Angela returned, the steward was satisfied that he had the house in a fit state for his mistress’s guests, and that the dinner now being prepared for them by his exhausted wife and niece would be worthy of the Lady Donati’s praise. It had been hard to manage, for the city was in such a ferment — people in shops more ready to talk politics than to serve, and supplies short because the Palace was buying in for the Duke Ippolyto’s visit, expected at any minute for the execution of his sister’s murderer. Such vegetables as there were at this season, coming in out of the country every morning, went at high prices to the Palace, and even the pigs in the street were at risk of being abducted. Madam Donati was surprisingly affronted by his assumption that she was in Rocca to see the execution. After that, he did not see how to object when she asked for his keys in order to look out something that her sister had asked her to bring back, from the rooms kept locked since Federico Costa’s death.
‘Well, yes, madam. I have them on a separate small ring; here. I would point out that on Madam Costa’s express instructions I have not entered the rooms myself save to ensure that damp or rodents-’
‘It’s no matter at all. I shan’t look at the dust.’
He was more relieved than he could say, as he could not have induced his wife or daughter to enter the rooms to dust them. They were possessed of the idea that they were haunted, and it would not be tactful on his part to imply that Madam Donati’s brother-in-law was an unwelcome guest, in however translated a form.
For a party newly-arrived in the city, the visitors showed themselves highly restless. Their journey here did not seem to have taxed their energies. Shortly after the beautiful maidservant returned, she and Madam Donati’s daughter, heavily veiled, set out on an unexplained expedition, accompanied by the huge groom. He looked, in his close-fitting black hood, unnervingly like the man who would shortly appear behind Leandro Bandini on the scaffold being erected in the grand square.
Cosima’s first reaction to the part proposed for her had been a violent refusal.
‘Never, never, never! How could I, a di Torre, do such a thing? How could you ask it? Never. I will not.’
In the silence that had followed, she was aware of their eyes upon her, considering, while her cheeks flamed with her — surely righteous? — indignation. She had expected at least Benno to speak up in support, but the only sound from him was the scratching of his beard in uncouth concentration. What she did hear was Sigismondo’s deprecatory hum, so much deeper than the voice she had first heard him use.
‘I didn’t think you would do it,’ he said. ‘I told them you couldn’t bring yourself to it. We must think again.’
No one spoke for a bit and her breathing had quietened. Then Angelo, sitting up straight in his green wool dress as though he had studied feminine deportment all his life, remarked in that light, incisive voice, ‘We are all risking our lives here, and you are unwilling to risk your pride. You have been rescued, Leandro Bandini has not.’
Barley broke out, ‘Do you know what death he faces, lady? What they do to a traitor? First-’
‘No.’ Sigismondo raised a hand; she noticed that Barley at once fell silent. ‘You can’t know what this lady feels. A di Torre could not give a cup of water to a Bandini were he in hell-flames. This young man is innocent of what he is to die for. He has done the Lady Cosima no harm. He is to die a terrible death but, as a di Torre, she must rejoice in it.’
‘That’s not true.’ She knew she had flushed again, she was so angry she could have wept. ‘I’ll do what you want. No one shall say a di Torre is without Christian charity.’
She had not known what it would be like.
All her life, she had only rarely been permitted out of doors, for instance to Mass at the church nearest her father’s house, rather than hearing it in the family chapel. She was now out in the streets far from home. She was grateful that the young man in skirts who walked a step behind her, just as Barley loomed a step in front, was in charge. Since she left her father’s house less than a week ago, she had crammed more astonishing experiences into her life than she had dreamed possible. Now here she was walking among crowds of people in an ordinary street, in the crosstalk and hubbub of a city square, seeing beggars holding out stumps or revealing hideous sores, seeing ragged children fighting over a filthy piece of bread, hearing a hammering and shouts and looking up so see a curious platform being erected in front of an ornate balcony; behind her, Angelo said flatly, ‘That’s the scaffold.’