S. PERRY - The Heretic’s Mark

‘Surely you don’t think this man will make an attempt on Bruno’s life in broad daylight, do you?’

‘But it isn’t broad daylight, is it?’ Nicholas points out. ‘And it will start getting dark before long.’

‘All the more reason for you not to go stumbling about a city you don’t know, Nicholas. Send one of the Corio cousins instead.’

‘They sit outside in the street all day playing dice. I can’t imagine they’ll suddenly discover alacrity.’

‘It may be a holy day, Nicholas, but this is still Padua. The cut-purses will be busy.’

Nicholas’s eyes narrow. ‘I know what this is about: you want me not to go alone because you fear I’ll sneak away to see Hella Maas.’

For a moment Bianca just glares at him. Then she purges herself with a stream of Italian vocabulary that Nicholas may not yet have learned, but whose coarse, contemptuous meaning is clear.

He waits for her range to dissipate. Then, calmly, he asks, ‘What was it you said to her – when we saw her this morning preaching by that statue in the square?’

‘It is not important.’

‘Oh, but I think it is. What is it about Hella that still troubles you – even while you tell me we must forget her?’

Tears begin to well in Bianca’s eyes. Her face twists in pain, becomes almost ugly. With a desperation in her voice that alarms him she says, ‘I’m trying to protect you, Nicholas – just as I protected you from yourself when I found you half-drowned by the river four years ago. Just as I have protected you from all the ills that have come upon us since, in your work for Robert Cecil. It is what we Caporettis do: protect those we love, whatever the cost to body or soul.’

‘I don’t know any Caporettis,’ he says. ‘I know only Bianca Merton. And I fear that some vile melancholy is stealing her from me.’

She shakes her head wildly, as though trying to block out a scream that her ears cannot bear to hear. ‘No! It is not so,’ she sobs.

Nicholas takes her in his arms, feeling the heave of her despair against his chest. He says, ‘I know what it was that Hella said to you on the Via Francigena.’

He feels her body go still. She looks up at him, her eyes brimming.

‘She told you?’

‘Yes. And see for yourself: I am still here. The words she spoke had no more potency to harm me than did the images on that painting in Den Bosch. I can hear the words – I can see the images – and I am not destroyed. We are not destroyed. They cannot harm us, not unless we let them. There is no curse that Hella Maas can lay upon us that would be worse for me than the curse of a life without you, whatever she has foretold.’

There are two Biancas who lay their head against Nicholas’s chest. The first, Simon Merton’s daughter, allows the fear to drain out of her. She understands now, finally and completely, that his Eleanor and the child she carried are locked away securely in his past – a past that cannot now harm either of them. But the second, the daughter of Maria Caporetti, feels no such happy resolution. Because a Caporetti knows that regardless of what the new learning teaches, there are old fears – old curses – that can only be expunged by the old, reliable methods.

The call to Vespers rings out from the bell towers of Padua, strangely muted in a mist that has, if anything, grown thicker with the onset of dusk. Torches are set, bonfires lit. Through the chamber window the evening air has a fiery hue to it, as if the city is being sacked. Shadows dance against the stucco walls of the house opposite as people pass below.

‘Look at me,’ Bianca says with a sad, disparaging laugh. ‘This fine new gown Bruno has bought for me – the lace around my neck is all damp.’

‘Even so, you will be the brightest star of the evening.’

‘It is a pity I may not march with you and Bruno in the procession. I should like that. If my parents’ ghosts are still here, they would be so proud. And I should like them to see my handsome English husband.’

‘Can you walk beside us in the crowd?’

‘I will try. The parade is always stopping and starting, so I should be able to keep up. And I know the route well. I know the shortcuts, if I need to use them.’

‘I’m going to leave now, to find Bruno. Are you ready?’

Bianca sits up against the bolster. She studies his face carefully, almost as if she doubts her eyes. Then she lowers her head, almost evasively.

‘I need to rest a little longer. I’ll follow, with Luca. But promise me that you’ll take one of the Corio cousins. I know this city, remember?’

Nodding his acquiescence, he says, ‘You’re tired – I understand.’

She places a hand over her belly. ‘ We are tired.’

He rises, makes a gallant’s bow and – smiling – says, ‘Then I will see you in a while, in the Palazzo dei Signori… my ladies .’

‘I shall look out for you by Bruno’s banner, with its bright comet. A long-tailed star.’

She leans up to bestow a gentle kiss upon his mouth. When he opens the door, she calls to him, ‘A comet is a portent, is it not?’

He turns. ‘So it is said.’

‘Then I name Bruno’s comet as a portent of good fortune to come.’

The door closes. She hears the soft fall of the latch. She waits until she hears voices below the window – Luca ordering one of the Corio cousins to accompany her husband. Cautiously Bianca leans out a little way and watches until the two shadowy figures have been consumed by the mist. Then she closes the shutters, tidies the trim of her gown, covers her face with a lace veil, throws a cloak across her shoulders and goes downstairs to the street door, where she too exchanges pleasantries with the two remaining Corio cousins.

And then, rather than turn left to follow the general drift of people heading towards the Piazza dei Signori, she turns right – in the direction of the Porta Portello and the storehouse beyond.

Time has begun to run again. The Arte dei Orologiai has sent its best artisans to repair the clock in the Piazza dei Signori. Around its face – the colour of a Paduan sky in summer and rimmed with the signs of the zodiac – the hour-hand restarts its sweep just as Nicholas arrives in the square. He is welcomed by the deep tolling of the tower’s bell.

The piazza is filling up with people. In the mist they look like figures painted on a faded fresco, softened, indistinct. Torches bloom like fiery raindrops on glass, though it is not yet fully dark. In the centre of the square, set upon a trestle, a wooden replica of a Venetian galley awaits its bearers. When the parade begins, it will be carried to the Basilica of St Anthony, where the victory over the Turks will be commemorated and the banners of the Arti blessed.

The Podestà’s men have organized things with practised efficiency. The banners have been set out for the guildsmen to muster beneath, the senior guilds directly beneath the triumphal arch of the clock tower, the rest in the order of march.

It takes a while for the Corio cousin to help Nicholas locate Bruno’s banner – halfway down a side-street. Alone, Alonso holds onto it grimly as if he’s the sole survivor of a doomed last stand. Of Bruno himself, there is no sign. ‘No need to fear, Signor Shelby,’ Alonso says. ‘We have almost an hour before the procession will be fully assembled. He’ll get here in time.’

‘He’s probably in the piazza, trying to sell the Podestà a new clock,’ Nicholas says, trying hard not to let his concern show. ‘I’ll go and look for him.’