Of Love And Evil Part 8

He licked his lips. He'd had but the tiniest portion of the caviar, and could easily conceal the effects.

Again a deep silence fell. Only the sudden shuddering of Niccol broke the silence.

"Brother," he whispered. "This is all on account of Leticia."

"A lie!" said Lodovico thickly. "How dare you?"

"Oh, if only I'd known," said Niccol. "What is she but one of many lovely young maidens who might have been to me a gentle bride? If only I'd known."

Signore Antonio glowered at Lodovico.

"Leticia, is it?" he whispered.

"I tell you, these Jews have bewitched him. I tell you it is they who put the poison in the caviar, I tell you I am innocent." He was weeping, he was angry, he was whispering and muttering, and once again, he spoke. "It was this one, Vitale, who brought the flower to the house. I remember it now. How else should he and his friend know of its power? I tell you, this one, this Toby, is convicted out of his own mouth."

The old man shook his head at the pity of it.

"Come," said Signore Antonio. He gestured for his armed servants to take Lodovico in hand. He looked at me. "Take me down to the orangery and show me this medicine."

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE YOUNG MAN'S FACE WAS TWISTED WITH MALICE. The very plasticity which had given him such easy grief before now gave him a mask of fury. He pushed the armed men off and walked with his head high as we descended the steps, and gathered, all of us, save for Niccol, of course, in the orangery.

There stood the plant, and I pointed out the many black seeds which had fallen already into the soil. I pointed out the half-withered flowers already harboring the poison.

A servant was sent to find some poor stray dog that it might be brought into the house, and soon the yelps of the poor little beast were echoing up the broad stairway.

Vitale stared at the purple flowers in horror. Signore Antonio merely glowered at it, and the two priests stood staring coldly at me and at Vitale as though we were still somehow responsible for what had happened here.

An elderly woman, much bewildered and frightened, produced a crockery dish for the poor starved dog and went to fill it with water.

I put back on the gloves I'd removed to play the lute, and requesting Lodovico's dagger, I gathered the seeds into a heap and then looked around for something with which to crush them. Only the handle of the dagger was at hand. And so I used it to make a powder, a good pinch of which I now put into the dog's water. I put in another pinch and yet another.

The animal drank thirstily and miserably and licked at the bare dish and then immediately began to twitch. It fell on its side, and then on its back and writhed in its agony. In a moment, it had become rigid, its eyes staring dully at nothing and no one.

All watched this little spectacle with revulsion and horror, including me.

But Lodovico was incensed, staring at the priests, and at his father, and then at the dog.

"I swear I am innocent of this!" he declared. "The Jews know the poison. The Jews brought it here. Why, it was this very Jew Vitale who brought the plant to the house..."

"You contradict your story," said Antonio. "You lie. You stammer. You beg for credence like a coward!"

"I tell you I had no part in it!" cried out the desperate man. "These Jews have bewitched me as they have bewitched my brother. If this thing was done by me, it was in a sleep in which I knew nothing. It was in a sleep in which I wandered, carrying out the acts they forced me to carry out. What do you know of these Jews? You speak of their holy books, but what do you know of these books but that they aren't filled with the witchcraft that drove me to this? Doesn't the demon rage in the accursed house at this very hour?"

"Signore Antonio," said the elder priest, the one with the sharp yet gentle features. "Something must be said of this demon. People in the street can hear it howl. Is all this beyond what a demon can do? I think not!"

Lodovico had a thousand protests-that yes, it was the demon, and yes, it had worked its sinister magic on him, and could no one imagine the evil of this demon, and so forth and so on.

But the solemn Antonio was having none of it. He stared at his natural son with a face that was sad to the point of tears, but no tears flowed. "How could you do this?" he whispered.

Suddenly Lodovico broke loose from the two men who stood beside him, their hands barely holding him.

He rushed at the tree of purple flowers and grabbed at the black seeds in the mud of the pot. He caught as many as his hand could hold.

"Stop him," I cried. And I flew at him, pushing him backwards, but his hand shot to his lips before I could stop it, forcing the mud and seeds into his open mouth. I jerked his hand away but it was too late.

The guards were on him and so was his father.

"Make him vomit it up," cried Vitale desperately. "Let me get to him, stand back."

But I knew it was useless.

I moved away, utterly distraught. What had I allowed to happen here! It was too awful. It was exactly what I myself had wanted to do to him, what I myself had pictured, scooping up the seeds, forcing him to eat them, but he had done this himself as if my evil intentions had taken hold of him. How had I let him do this dreadful deed? Why had I not figured some way to turn him from his purpose?

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.

Niccol 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 compa.s.sion 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.

CHAPTER NINE

I STOPPED STOPPED. I FOUND MYSELF IN A NARROW MUDDY LANE 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 G.o.d for help with this, but then again the thought of the round yellow badge on the left side of my chest stopped me.

People pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sa.s.sin, 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 l.u.s.trous 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 st.i.tches, 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sed, the bearers trotting under their burden, the pa.s.sengers 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.