Chiara – Revenge and Triumph (66 page)

To her dismay, everybody in the palace seemed assembled along the walls of the enclosed court. Over her breeches she wore a colorful, comfortable cotton dress she had borrowed from one of the maids, together with the broad belt that contained her four decorative knives. Mercurio had set up a plank of a soft wood against the wall at the far end on which he had drawn a cross in thick chalk.

She gave a shout that reverberated from the high walls and cartwheeled in a wide circle, passing so close by Beatrice that the girl could have touched her, ending it in the center of the court with a few head-over-heels somersaults. Barely upright, she had already withdrawn two knives from her belt and started juggling, adding a third and then a fourth, the knives going higher and higher as their number increased. After a while, she collected three in her left hand and the fourth flew to the board with the same movement that caught it, followed in quick succession by the other three. Each embedded itself into a different quadrangle of the cross, roughly a hand width from the center. Then she bowed repeatedly around the circle of spectators. Lord d’Appiano was the first to applaud.

Many people milled around the plank, some checking how firmly the knives stuck. Beatrice came to Chiara who was talking to Mercurio and begged her to repeat the knife throwing part again. Mercurio asked the people to move away from the board and brought her the knives. Chiara returned them to their places in her belt.

"Beatrice, you call when you want me to start."

The girl beamed, waited a few seconds, raising the tension in the crowd, and then shouted a shrill "now."

Within a second the first knife was on its way, following at two-second intervals by the other three. They were almost perfectly aligned in a vertical row at the center of the board.

The girl clapped her hands excitedly, her whole face beaming. "Lady Chiara, will you play a funny skit, please? I have brought along several masks that you could use," she begged.

The sly little girl,
she mused silently.
I like her, and why not?

She selected three of the masks, one of a man, another of a woman and the third a simple black half-mask. Changing position and masks, tone of voice and manner of speech, and body stance, imitating in her mind Jacomo as the arlecchino, Alda as the shrewd farmer’s wife, herself in the half-mask as the noble young man who thought himself too clever to be cheated, she gave them one of the skits they had regularly played on the road and which always got the crowd into stitches. It received the same response here. After a few seconds the spectators were roaring. Several times she had to pause and wait for quiet to return so that she could be heard.

At the end, she called Beatrice over, took off the girl’s little hat, and put it upside down into her hands. "Now you go to all the ladies and gentlemen of the court and hold out your basket to collect their donation, and when they give you a coin, you thank them loudly and grace them with one of your most joyous smiles."

"May I?"

"Yes, Beatrice, go and do not forget to smile."

The girl went shyly to the count, curtsied, and beamed when he put a silver coin into the hat. After making the round, she returned to Chiara.

"Now Beatrice, what do you wish to do with this money?"

"Give it to you, Lady Chiara."

"No, that would not be right. Think of some good cause or something that people, who are not as privileged as we are, might enjoy."

"Maybe I could give the money to the sisters of the orphanage. Would that be a good cause, Lady Chiara."

The countess had joined them.

"Yes that would be fine, but give it for some specific purpose. For example, to buy toys, or new clothing for some, or several special Sunday dinners. Think about it. Maybe Lady Maria will help you."

"Thank you, Lady Chiara. This has been one of my most exciting days."

"You will have many more exciting ones if you are willing to let them happen, my dear girl."

"Chiara, do not fill her head with your unconventional ideas," said the countess, but the warm smile with which she looked at Beatrice belied her reproach.

"I think Lady Beatrice has all the making of becoming a fine and courageous young woman," replied Chiara.

* * * 

Professor Barbarigo arrived the day before the first court sitting. He briefly questioned Chiara about the escape from Elba, the events on the Santa Caterina, and the attempt by two of Casa Sanguanero’s sailor to abduct her in Pisa.

"Lady Chiara, I know it must distress you terribly to have disclosed in open court what happened to you on the Santa Caterina. But it is vital evidence."

"Esteemed Professor, what happened on the Santa Caterina is not my shame. It is Massimo Sanguanero’s dishonor. You do not need to worry about me. I am made of stronger material."

"Oh, I know that to be true, but Signor Sanguanero’s lawyer will do his best to dispute this claim and sow insidious doubts and taint you as an ungrateful liar who thanked her rescuer by blinding him. The fact that you ran away from a marriage contract with them that your father had signed will speak against you."

"I am aware of that. As I said before, I am willing to testify and be cross-examined."

He then summarized the line of his argumentation — a slightly expanded and more complete version of what he had done in class.

The count informed her that Niccolo and his lawyer were lodged with Casa Boncompagni, one of the leading families in the small town, while the three judges were staying in the castle. He advised her not to have any contact with either of them. For that reason, she and Barbarigo ate separately in a small parlor. She enjoyed his company, conversing in Latin, and got him talking about his research. He again praised her several times for her incisive questions.

"You should have been born a man and you would have had a brilliant career as a law scholar. I admit, I was disappointed when I heard that the novice Anselmo had left Siena, particularly after I discovered that you had upset Professor Gomez with your clever observation that contradicted his claim that the world is flat. Frankly, I think he is a bit of a fool and only on the faculty because he is under the protection of Cardinal Vincenti."

"He countered my observations by stating that this was the accepted truth of the Mother Church, as if religious beliefs or the words of the Bible could serve as proof for matters of science."

"Young lady, watch out to whom you make such statements. They could get the Inquisition down on you."

"Thank you, esteemed Professor, I know."

* * * 

The tribunal sat in the great hall of the palazzo. The three judges, men in their fifties or early sixties, one of them brought from Siena, another from Pisa, occupied high-backed chairs on a dais, while the two lawyers with their client sat opposite each other at small tables, about ten paces apart, in front of the dais. Behind them and along the walls was the public, more than a hundred people, Chiara guessed, as she took her place beside Barbarigo. She saw the count and the countess and most of the nobles of the town in their finery sitting in the first two rows of individual chairs, while the other spectators sat on benches.

Niccolo and his lawyers were already seated when she entered. An aura of hatred emanated from him.

She had outdone herself, wearing the same dress as for the reception of prospective grooms in Siena — a deliberate slap in Niccolo’s face, not that he was likely to notice. For once, she was not openly armed, although two small knives in protective shields where in the deep pockets of her skirt. It had become such a habit of always being armed that she did it almost without thinking. Lady Maria’s personal maid had helped her with her hair, the false braids wound around her head, as she had worn them in Siena, except they matched her own dark reddish-brown color. The distinctive birthmark gave her face the final touch.

Beatrice was outside her door when she came out. The girl must have been waiting there.

"Lady Chiara, you are so beautiful," she murmured. "I hope that the judges will agree with you."

"Thank you, Beatrice. That is very thoughtful of you."

After the initial formalities, Professor Barbarigo and Messer Chiamora, Niccolo’s lawyer, in turn greeted the three judges and introduced themselves and their clients. They spoke in Latin, Barbarigo in cultivated, refined phrases, Chiamora somewhat cruder, but fluently.

Barbarigo first set out in detail why his client contested the document that signed over the Elba property to Casa Sanguanero. Next, he summarized the current legal position as it derived from Roman law, and then gave a detailed and eloquent argumentation of why that interpretation denied the heirs of the injured party due redress, as should be the aim of the law that sought to administer justice, and allowed the offending party to keep the fruits of unlawfully obtained benefits. He then drew the parallel to the situation of the heirs’ responsibility to assume the debts of the deceased up to the value of their inheritance.

Chiara quickly perceived that Chiamora was unprepared for this line of attack. The initial frown on his forehead gradually changed into smugness, as he listened. After Professor Barbarigo closed his arguments, Chiamora’s only response was that under the law as it stood the position was clear, the document was valid and his client did not even have to defend himself. As an afterthought he added that it would be a dangerous precedent if the tribunal accepted the arguments of the claimant.

The three judges conferred with each other for several minutes and then the senior judge spoke.

"The tribunal is fully aware of the seriousness of setting a precedent. It is also cognizant that if the events are as presented by the claimant, natural justice would demand that the validity of the document be declined and that the claimant, as the only heir of Seignior Alberto da Narni, be declared the legal owner of the said property. Messer Chiamora, do you wish to proceed and deny the validity of events as presented by Professor Barbarigo."

He quickly consulted with Niccolo and then rose again. "Your honor, my client denies crucial aspects of what my honorable colleague, Professor Barbarigo, has presented concerning the events on the Santa Caterina and in Pisa. Therefore, I humbly request that I be permitted to question the claimant under oath."

"Your request is granted." The senior judge turned to her. "Lady Chiara, please come to the front." He pointed to a chair facing the dais.

She noticed that he had addressed her in the vernacular. She rose, briefly let a proud gaze roam over the people assembled — a way to signal her confidence to both the judges and the defense. Then she walked to the chair, holding her head high, and remained standing, making eye contact with each of the three judges.

A clerk approached her with a bible, and the judge spoke again in the vernacular: "Lady Chiara, place your right hand on the bible, and swear to our Lord and the Holy Father, under the pain of eternal purgatory, that you will speak the truth and only the truth."

She answered in Latin, her voice carrying into every corner of the hall: "Your Honor, I swear to tell the truth and only the truth, so help me God."

For a split second, the senior judge seemed thrown. Then his eyes lit up and he asked her in Latin: "Lady Chiara, do you wish to be questioned in Latin."

"Yes, your Honor."

"So be it. Please, be seated. Messer Chiamora, you may proceed."

The lawyer approached her halfway, a false smile on his face. "Lady Chiara, will you tell the tribunal why you were drifting in a small rowboat in the Ligurian Sea?"

"I had fled Elba to avoid being forced to marry Signor Niccolo Sanguanero and in my inexperience got caught in the current of the Canale di Piombino."

Chiamora seemed surprised by her answer. Did he expect me to lie? she wondered. After a short pause he said: "So, you admit that you ran away and against your father’s wishes who had signed a binding contract of marriage with my client."

"My father had signed that contract under duress. He was —"

Chiamora interrupted her: "I did not ask you why your father agreed to a liaison with the illustrious Casa Sanguanero. The advantages are obvious to everyone."

She was not going to be bullied by this man. "To continue where you so rudely interrupted me, Messer Chiamora, my father told me on his deathbed that he had agreed to the marriage, because the late Signor Massimo Sanguanero —"

He interrupted her again: "— because Signor Sanguanero convinced him of the advantages of such a union, is this not obvious?"

She briefly made eye contact with the senior judge, making her determination clear.

"Messer Chiamora, I ask you to let Lady Chiara finish her sentence."

"Your Honor, I apologize, but I do not see the relevance of what she wants to say."

"That we can only judge if we hear her out. Go ahead, Lady Chiara."

"Signor Sanguanero threatened that, unless my father agreed to the marriage, he would renew the vendetta that had raged between our two families some sixty years earlier and had been laid to rest by the marriage of Signorina Magdalena Sanguanero to my grandfather."

"Did your father tell you the reason why Signor Sanguanero made this threat?" the judge continued his questioning.

"The vendetta had been over the dispute of ownership of a treasure, and Signor Sanguanero believed that this treasure was still hidden on our property on Elba and wanted to make sure that, since my brother and only mail heir had been taken by the sea, the land would become theirs after my father’s death."

"Did he tell you all this?"

"No, he was too weak to say much by the time I saw him. Some facts I had already discovered earlier, others I found out later on. In particular, after I boarded the Santa Caterina, Signor Niccolo Sanguanero took away from me a book of Latin poems, together with all my mother’s jewels. While locked into the captain’s cabin, I overheard him ask his father whether this book was not the one he had wanted to get his hands on since it contained the key to finding the treasure."