The Master of Verona (32 page)

"They are beautiful," Pietro admitted.

"The warhorse is a direct descendant of my own. When I'm not riding him, I have him covering some of Montecchio's mares. Now, as to the commission — in that, too, I am quite serious. It isn't the holiday you may think. A banneret is a leader of men, but those men must be his own. He pays them, he commands them, he takes responsibility for their behavior. You are welcome in any army I ever command, as soldier or civilian. But to be a banneret you must raise your own force, train it, and command it."

Pietro gestured helplessly to his crutch. "Lord — how can I? I'm..."

Bailardino clucked his tongue. "Are you sure you want him, Francesco? He seems a little thick." He laid a hand on his shoulder. "A knight is a
mounted
soldier, son. He does very little fighting on foot. In fact, only an idiot jumps off his horse." He dug his elbow into his brother-in-law's ribs.

Cangrande momentarily clasped his hands to plead to the cross on the far wall. "Dear Lord, what good is it to give me power when I cannot use it to smite those who ridicule me? But Bail's not wrong, Pietro. There is nothing preventing you from being a great soldier. Unless," he added, "you think it's not in your stars?"

"Don't answer him, Pietro," came a familiar, cool voice. "He doesn't believe in the stars."

Pietro hadn't heard that voice in months, not since he'd left the palace at Vicenza. She had been too busy with her new charge, and far too unwelcome in Verona these last months. Turning, he saw Donna Katerina emerge from the curtains enclosing the baptismal font. It was like breathing again.

Clasped in her arms was the child — Cangrande's bastard heir. The infant had grown in the months since Pietro had seen him last, limbs long and thin. Now his eyes were wide, his mouth working silently, his body damp.

A low huff came from the door. Turning, Pietro saw Mercurio's ears curiously flattened, his tail wagging intensely.

A Franciscan priest was now crossing the threshold of the baptistery. Feeling monumentally stupid, Pietro finally made the connection between the alcove, the water, the priest, and the baby.

Pietro started to bow to the lady, but the baby reached out a hand and grabbed his nose. Pietro yelped. Though the adults chuckled, the baby himself seemed disinterested as he let loose a long yawn.

"From the mouths of babes." Cangrande beckoned his chaplain forward, indicating Pietro. "This lad needs to receive confession and be dressed in time for the first entertainment of the day." He slapped Pietro on the shoulder. "One of a knight's merits must be punctuality!"

Pietro made way for them as the family exited via the metal-studded double doors of the south exit. The young hound moved to follow, straining at his tether. "Mercurio. Stay."

The priest stepped towards the confessional. "Come, young man. It's a busy day."

"And an early one," observed Pietro.

A weary-looking fellow with a knowing eye, the priest nodded. "Well, as the lord of today's festival, the Capitano had to be shrived. Though why the christening had to be today, I have no idea." His tone was disapproving. "The child — well, you won't guess what name the Capitano gave him."

"Francesco."

"Oh, you knew? Can't say I approve. The Capitano has never formally acknowledged any of his natural children before."

That caught Pietro's attention. "Did he now?"

The priest considered. "No-o-o," he admitted, drawing out the sound. "But his sister is raising a child he has given his own name? It seems to me that he might be planning — if, God forbid, Donna Giovanna remains barren –" His voice trailed off. "Well, God works in mysterious ways. Come."

Stepping into the penitent's seat, Pietro's thoughts were on the boy.
Francesco
. Pietro alone knew that wasn't the name he'd received at his first baptism. His mother had given him a different name, a name the Capitano saw fit to erase from memory.

Another thought occurred to him. The custom was that the ceremony of baptism would drive the evil spirits from a child, making him cry as they departed. This child hadn't cried. Did that mean the demons had already departed at his first baptism? Or did they still lurk within?

The walk to the Arena was an ordeal. After confession, Pietro had struggled back to the room, trying twice to run, falling both times. Poco, under strict instructions from their father, was now extravagant in his compliments. "Really, no one deserves it more. It's the least he can do, and really about time! It's not like he's been busy. I wonder what took him so long –"

"Shut up, Poco." Pietro hurried over to his uniform for the ceremony and dressed rapidly.

Poco examined his brother's new farsetto with great interest. "The Capitano knows his fabrics." Lifting a fine pair of knee breeches, he added, "And he's considerate — he knows about your new aversion to hose. And that hat! Look at that feather! It's perfect. Daring, but not foppish."

Dante was beginning to laugh. Pietro said, "Seriously, Poco, I mean it, shut up."

But his little brother was on a roll. The purple of the doublet was a subject of particular eloquence. "This is a Tyrian dye — you know, the sign of senators and emperors. It's not the purple of violets, but more a plum colour. Do you know where they get it? From the ink sacks of a Mediterranean mussel. It takes hundreds of shells to obtain just a pound of it. First you have to crack the shell, then pull out the tiny sack, which contains only a few drops."

From across the room Dante arched an eyebrow. "And how, pray, does my son know so much about dyes?"

"When we were in Lucca, I — knew someone involved in the art."

The patriarch's left eyebrow arched even higher. "Oh? And you didn't introduce me, why?"

Jacopo shrugged, kicked the bed with his toe. "You wouldn't've liked — I mean, this person wasn't very –"

"She wasn't very what?" asked the father gravely.

"Did I say it was a girl?"

"No, but evasion is as good as an oath. I swear, Jacopo, if you've—"

"Father," said Pietro, "the Capitano is waiting."

Dante's jaw moved from side to side under his beard. But the poet decided to let it go for the moment. With a mutter about Poco being blown by eternal winds, he wrapped a scarf about his face. At fourteen, Jacopo was already close to notorious among the ladies, and Pietro was vaguely jealous of his little brother.

They departed the Domus Bladorum in the predawn light, Mercurio padding dutifully along by Pietro's legs. As they passed by the arch with the highly decorated monster's bone, a newly established phenomenon occurred. The occupants of the Piazza delle Erbe spied Pietro, and a murmur began to ripple through the crowd. Applause started, not for the poet, but for Pietro. Bailardino hadn't been lying — everyone loved a battle wound. Nothing gave more proof of devotion to a just cause and to God.

Strangely, this reverence of injury had grown into a passion for disfigurement. The worse the wound, the greater the knight's daring and endurance. Pietro himself thought this a little backward. A skilled knight avoided injuries, as Cangrande had. But while the common people revered their Capitano as something akin to a warrior angel, popular lore had embarrassingly turned Pietro into an earthy romantic hero. His wound was just right, not hard on the eye, only evidenced in his limp.

"Stay awake, boy," muttered Dante as Pietro bumped into someone. "You're not as spry as you used to be."

"
Mi dispiache
," muttered Pietro as he struggled with his crutch. It was all he could do to look self-sufficient enough to fend off the well-wishers pressing forward to carry him to the Arena. Even more disturbing, several young ladies were making eyes at him. Mercurio growled.

They continued through the throng all the way up to the Porta Borsari. Once past the old Roman arch, Pietro suggested that they turn up a small side street. "It'll be less crowded."

His brother looked put out, but Dante was grinning. "So. For once it is you being harassed in the streets, not I. A pleasant change." Incredibly, the wryness of the old master's grin indicated pride.

Old master
. His father did seem older than his years. It might have been the exile that had so aged Dante, but Pietro fancied it was the epic poem itself. An auspicious fifty years old this June, at the end of each writing day the poet looked far older. Each stroke of the quill removed a day of his life. Today was an unaccustomed respite, a pleasure-filled day, yet Pietro could sense the resentment in his father. As his patron's client, he was obligated to show himself in public. But it meant a writing day lost, which he deemed a terrible price.

Focused on not falling, Pietro was startled to look up and see a wide area, like a Greek agora or a Roman forum, filled with thousands of massed bodies pressed against their neighbours for warmth, blocking out the chilling air. The Piazza Bra. The sun was just peeking between the city towers, the first race still some five hours away, but already the rowdies, having begun their celebrations hours, nay, days early, were being trounced by men in Scaliger livery.

Pietro stopped in his tracks. In front of him, rising like magnificent island in a sea of men, was the Roman Arena. He had only seen it in passing in autumn, and since his return he'd been pretty well confined to the streets around the palace.

Though dressed in brick, the body of the Arena was made of cement mixed with river pebbles and tile fragments. Supporting the body were arches, huge, square blocks of rose-marble, creating in each space an arch four times taller than a man, wide enough for five men to walk abreast with room to spare. Pietro counted twenty arches before it began to curve out of sight. It was magnificent, titanic, collossal, far greater than he could ever have imagined.

"The one in Rome dwarfs it," murmured Dante.

"I don't believe it." Pietro finally understood his father's obsession with the Arena, the model for Dante's version of Hell.

Pietro drew in an awed breath, and Dante nodded. "Literally inspiring, I see." His father pointed to the top of the Arena, indicating a set of exterior arches that rose higher than the rest. "See that? It is the remains of an outer wall that collapsed in an earthquake long ago. But come. The Scaliger waits."

Several civic caretakers bearing the badge of Verona were cleaning new graffitti off the lower walls. A trickle of water seeped between the stones of the Arena. It mixed with dirt, claylike and red, that must have been left over from some event. The red dirt turned to mud, making it appear that the stones themselves were bleeding, a river of blood flowing out of Hell, through the stony earth, and into the mortal world.

Emerging from the corridors beneath the Arena, the Alaghieri family arrived at the balcony reserved for the Capitano's personal guests. They were guided to the second row on the left-hand side. Not bad seats, though more for being seen than for seeing. Opposite them on a twin balcony sat many of the city elders and local nobles. Craning his neck this way and that, Pietro looked for Antony and Mari, hoping they were near.

Cangrande himself had not yet arrived. Pietro got Mercurio settled in at his feet. As they waited in the biting air, Dante fidgeted with his cap and scarf. Poco was twisting in his seat and winking at older girls in rows behind them. Seated between them, Pietro was still looking around for people he knew when the horns began to sound.

Down in the pit, fifty mounted knights appeared from the arches and rode headlong at each other as if to clash at the Arena's center. Suddenly all wheeled, merging into a tight formation for a series of mounted maneuvers that had the crowd on its feet. Drawing up into dual battle-lines, the knights stilled their mounts and drew longswords. The scraping of fifty blades departing their sheaths echoed around the great bowl. Slowly the lines advanced towards each other until the steel tips of the swords touched.

A hush fell over the crowd. Pacing slowly under the canopy of swords was Cangrande's nephew Mastino, playing in the role of the Herald of Verona. He carried before him the ceremonial bow to launch the Bolt of the People, an honour long held by the Scaligeri. In his youth, Cangrande had walked in this place. Mastino's older brother Alberto had been Herald for the past three years. Now it was Mastino's turn. The bow in his grip was symbolic of the weapon that had slain the legendary monster in La Costa.

Reaching the open air beyond the swords, the boy lifted the bow. He took no particular aim but loosed his bolt high into the air. People watched the shaft hurtle into space, wondering upon whose unfortunate head it would fall.

When they glanced back down, the men-at-arms had melted away to the far walls of the Arena and Mastino had vanished. In his place, mounted on his magnificent warhorse, was Cangrande. He wore his finest armour, his famous Houndshelm resting in his lap. In his left arm he held the two scrolls that symbolized his sovereignty over the merchants. In his right hand he held a ceremonial sword. On his head was the laurel wreath, denoting his recent victory over the Paduans.

The audience surged forward, calling and cheering, stamping their boots and shouting his name. Cangrande stepped lightly from his saddle to kneel on the ground. The crowd calmed somewhat as the same priest who had heard Pietro's confession now recited a loud, short invocation to the Virgin Mary and her son.