Of Love and Evil (11 page)

Lodovico looked at his father. He was choking and shuddering. The guards backed away and only Signore Antonio held him as he began to convulse and then to slip to the floor.

“Merciful Lord,” whispered Signore Antonio, and so did I.

Merciful Lord, have mercy on his immortal soul. Lord in Heaven, forgive him his madness.

“Witchcraft!” said the dying man, his mouth smeared with
saliva and mud, and it was his last word. On his knees, he bent forward, his face contorted, and the convulsions shook his entire frame.

Then he rolled over on his side, his legs still twitching, and his face took on the rigid grimace of the poor animal that had died before him.

And I, I who in a life hundreds of years away, and in a land far far away, had used this very poison to dispatch untold victims, could only stand staring helplessly at this one. Oh, what a blunder, that I, sent to answer prayers, had brought about a suicide.

A silence fell over us all.

“He was my friend,” Vitale whispered.

As the old man started to rise, Vitale took his arm.

Niccolò appeared in the gateway. Not making a sound, he stood there in his long white bed tunic, barefoot, trembling, yet staring at his dead brother.

“Go out, all of you,” said Signore Antonio. “Leave me with my son here. Leave me.”

But the elder priest lingered. He was much shaken as were we all, but he gathered his resources and said in a low, contemptuous voice,

“Do not think for a moment that witchcraft is not in operation here,” he said. “That your sons have not been contaminated by their intercourse with these Jews.”

“Fr. Piero, silence,” said the old man. “This was not witchcraft, this was envy! And I did not see what I did not want to see. Now leave me, all of you. Leave me to be alone to mourn my son whom I took from his mother’s arms. Vitale, take your patient to his bed. He will recover now.”

“But the demon, does it not still rage?” the priest demanded. No one was listening to him.

I stared down at the dead man. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. I knew they were all going out, except for the old man, and I must go out as well. Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off his lifeless body. I thought of angels, but without words. I appealed to an unseen realm, intermingled with our own, beings of wisdom and compassion who might be surrounding the soul of this dead man now, but no comforting images came to mind, no words. I had failed. I had failed this one, though I might have saved another. Was that all I had been meant to do? Save the one brother and drive the other to destroy himself? It was inconceivable. And it was I who had driven him to this, most certainly.

I looked up and saw old Pico in the gateway gesturing for me to hurry. All the others had gone out.

I bowed and went behind Signore Antonio and out of the orangery, and into the larger courtyard.

I was dazed. I think perhaps Fr. Piero was there, but I didn’t really look at those standing about.

I saw the open doorway to the street, with the dim silhouettes of a couple of servants keeping watch there, and I moved towards the door and then went through it.

No one questioned me. No one seemed to notice me.

I walked numbly into the crowded piazza and for one moment stared up at the darkening grayish sky. How perfectly solid and real was this world into which I’d been plunged, with its crowded stone houses, built slap against one another, and their random towers. How real the walls of the palazzos opposite, somber and brown, and how real the noises of this motley crowd, with their carefree conversation, and bursts of laughter.

Where was I going? What did I mean to do? I wanted to pray, to go into a church and fall on my knees and pray, yet how could I do this with the yellow patch on my clothes? How
could I dare to make the Sign of the Cross, without someone thinking I was mocking my own faith?

I felt lost and knew only that I was wandering away from the houses to which I’d been sent. And when I thought of the soul of the dead man, going now to the utter unknown, I was desperate.

I
STOPPED
. I
FOUND MYSELF IN A NARROW MUDDY LANE
, overcome with the stench of the filth flowing into the gutters. I thought again of trying to reach a church, a place where I could go down on my knees in the shadows and pray to God for help with this, but then again the thought of the round yellow badge on the left side of my chest stopped me.

People passed me on both sides, some politely giving me room, others shouldering me out of their path, while others milled at the open cookshops and bakery shops. The fragrances of roasting meat and baked bread mingled with the stench.

I felt suddenly too weak in spirit to go further, and finding a narrow margin of wall between a fabric merchant’s open stall and a bookseller, I slipped my lute around into my arms, and then holding it like a baby, I leaned back and rested and tried to find above the narrow margin of the sky.

The light was dying fast. It was getting chilly. Lamps burned in the shops. A torchbearer made his way through the street with two smartly dressed young men behind him.

I realized I had no idea what month of the year it was here, and if it corresponded in some way to the late spring weather I’d left behind. But the Mission Inn, and my beloved Liona, seemed utterly remote, like something I’d dreamed.
That I’d ever been Lucky the Fox, a paid assassin, seemed unreal as well.

Again, I prayed for Lodovico’s soul. But the words seemed meaningless suddenly, in the face of my failure, and then I heard a voice say very close to me,

“You don’t have to wear that badge.”

Before I could look up, I felt the badge being ripped from the velvet of my tunic. I saw a tall young man standing there, dressed very well in brilliant burgundy velvet, with dark hose and black boots. He wore a sword in a heavily jeweled scabbard, and a short cloak over his shoulders of gray velvet as fine as that of his tunic.

He had long hair, much like my own, but it was a soft brown in color, very lustrous and curled just as it touched his shoulders. His face was remarkably symmetrical and his full mouth very beautiful. He had large dark brown eyes.

In the gloved fingers of his right hand, he held the round yellow badge that he’d so easily ripped from its stitches, and he crumpled it up now, as best he could, and tucked it into his belt.

“You don’t need it,” he said in the most gentle confidential way. “You’re Vitale’s servant and he and all his household and family are exempt from wearing the badge. He should have thought to tell you to take it off.”

“But why, what does it matter?” I asked.

He lifted a short red velvet cape that he’d been carrying over his left arm and he put it over my shoulders. He then put a sword on me, buckling the belt into place. I stared at it. At the jeweled handle.

“What is all this?” I asked. “Who are you?”

“It’s time you had a little rest, and time to think,” he said in the same soft confidential voice. “I’m to take you away from here for a while, to give you some time for reflection.”

He took my arm. I slung the lute over my back again and let him lead me out of this alley.

It was now almost completely dark. Torches were passing us, making a spitting sound as they flared, and some of the shops now poured their light into the narrow walkway. I couldn’t quite see for the glare of the lights.

“Who sent you to me?” I asked.

“Who do you think?” he answered. He had slipped his arm around me, under the lute, and he was pressing me gently forward. His body seemed immaculately clean and smelled faintly of a dark sweet perfume.

The others I’d encountered here had not by any means been dirty, but even the best of them had a slightly dusty appearance and some smell of natural skin and hair.

This man gave off nothing of the sort.

“But what about Vitale?” I asked. “It’s all right to leave him at such a time?”

“Nothing will happen tonight,” the man assured me, looking directly into my eyes as he bent slightly towards me. “They’ll bury Lodovico, and it won’t be in consecrated ground, of course, but the father will accompany the body to the site. The household will mourn, whether it is permitted to mourn a suicide or not.”

“But that priest, Fr. Piero, what about his accusations, and I don’t know whether the dybbuk is still raging.”

“Why don’t you put yourself in my hands,” he said, as gently as if he were a physician, “and let me heal the pain you’re feeling? Let me suggest that you’re in no state to help anyone just now. You need to be refreshed.”

We walked through another huge piazza. Torches blazed at the entrances of the immense four-storied houses, and lights shone in myriad towers against the dark blue sky. A sprinkling of stars was visible.

I saw that men around me were very ornately dressed, flashing ringed fingers, or bright colored gloves, and many were hurrying in groups as if to an important destination.

Women in lavish silk and brocade made their way daintily through the dust, their drably dressed servants hurrying to catch up with them. Finely decorated litters passed, the bearers trotting under their burden, the passengers concealed behind brightly colored curtains. I could hear music in the distance, but the noise of voices swallowed it up.

I wanted to stop and take in all of this ever-shifting spectacle, but I was uneasy.

“Why didn’t Malchiah come to me?” I asked. “Why did he send you?”

The brown-haired man smiled and, looking at me lovingly as if I were a child in his care, he said, “Never mind about Malchiah. You will forgive me a little mocking tone when we speak of him, won’t you? The powerful ones are always mocked a little by the less powerful.” His eyes flashed with good humor. “Come, this is the Cardinal’s palazzo. The banquet has been going on since this afternoon.”

“What cardinal?” I whispered. “Who is he?”

“Does it matter? This is Rome in an age of splendor, and what have you seen of it, so far? Nothing but the dreary goings-on of one miserable household?”

“Wait a moment, I don’t …”

“Come now, it’s time to learn,” he said. And again it was as if he were talking to a small child. I found this both attractive and extremely off-putting. “You know what you’ve been longing to see all this time,” he went on, “and there are things that you should see here because they are a glorious part of this world.”

His voice had a rich resonance to it, and it seemed he was thinking of these things naturally as he spoke. Not even
Malchiah’s smile had this quality of tenderness to it. Or so it seemed in the brightening light.

We fell into a veritable stream of lavishly dressed company, and entered beneath a huge gilded archway into what might have been an enormous courtyard or hall, I could not tell which. Hundreds of people were milling about.

On the margins of this space were tall stately evergreens decked with candles, and just before us an endless row of heavily draped tables stretching out to the right and the left.

Some guests were already seated including a company in rich robes and caps, their faces toward the great open space beyond the tables where any number of male servants were coming and going with wineskins, trays of goblets, and platters of what appeared to be gilded fruit.

High above us were great painted wooden arches garlanded with flowers, and supporting an endless canopy of shimmering silver cloth.

Torches flared on the margins of the room. And heavy golden and silver candelabra were being placed every few feet along the tables, together with golden plates. People were taking their seats on cushioned benches.

I was led to the far right where several men were already seated, and we quickly took our places. I found it awkward handling the sword. I placed my lute safely at my feet.

The place was now swarming with guests.

There must have been over a thousand. Everywhere the women were a feast for the eye with their bare white shoulders and scantily covered breasts, in deeply colored gowns with slashed sleeves, and ropes of pearls and gems in their elaborately done hair. But the younger men seemed equally as interesting, with their lustrous long hair, and brightly colored hose. Their slashed sleeves were as ornate as those of the women, and they wore an infinite variety of colors as well. The men were
preening, more boldly than the women, but a contagious goodwill seem to unite all.

Suddenly, a troop of boys appeared, dressed in flimsy belted tunics, obviously intended to evoke ancient Greek or Roman tastes. Their arms and legs were bare, and they wore gilded sandals, and garlands of leaves and blossoms in their hair.

Surely their cheeks had been rouged, and maybe some paint applied as well to darken their eyes. They laughed and smiled and murmured easily, filling goblets and offering plates of candies, as though they’d been doing this sort of thing all their young lives.

One of these lithe little Ganymedes filled the silver goblets in front of us from a huge wineskin that he handled deftly as though he’d done this a thousand times.

Far to the right of us, a group of musicians had begun to play, and it seemed the voices around me grew louder, as if excited by the music. The music itself was uncommonly lovely, with a rich melody rising, a melody that sounded familiar to me but which really wasn’t, played by viols, lutes and horns. Surely there were other instruments, but I didn’t know what they were. Another group of musicians far to my left joined the first in the very same song. A slow rhythmic drumbeat underscored the melody, and other melodies became interwound with it, until I lost track of the structure of the music altogether. I could feel the beating of the drums against my ears.

I was enthralled by all of this, but I was also disturbed. My eyes were watering as much from perfume as from candle wax.

“Malchiah wants me to do this,” I pressed. I reached out and touched the young man’s right wrist. “He wants that I attend this banquet?”

“Do you think he would allow it if he didn’t want it?” the man answered with the most innocent expression. “Here, drink. You’ve been here almost a full day and you haven’t tasted
the delicious wine of Italy.” He smiled again that very sweet and loving smile, as he put my goblet in my hand.