The Rossetti Letter (v5) (23 page)

“I almost didn’t return to my lessons. It was with a heavy heart that I approached the house the next day, not with the mixture of joy and anxiety that I had felt so many times before, a sensation that had become the most important of my life. She was not standing in the window, and I was almost glad of it, for surely she would have seen the sadness and disappointment in my face.

“I was terrible at my lessons that day, so clumsy and mindless that Don Gaspar gave me a good scratch without even trying. I think he was more upset about it than I was. I was so dispirited, I hardly cared. He yelled at me, saying that if I could do no better, I should leave.

“So I left, feeling as if I wanted to die: my mind was in turmoil, my heart in despair. I was untying my horse at the front of the house when a walnut fell out of the sky and landed at my feet. It was odd—the trees were too far away for the nuts to be blown hither, even with a strong wind. Then I realized it had not come from the grove, but from behind me. I turned and looked up, and there she was, in the window. She gave a barely perceptible nod, and I understood that she had thrown the walnut, and that I was to pick it up. When I did so, I saw that the shell was hollow. I pulled the two halves apart and inside found a bit of white cloth, folded very carefully into a tiny square. I unfolded it. In the center of the cloth was a beautifully embroidered heart of red silk.

“It took a moment for me to comprehend the significance of this. I looked back at Ephegenia. She stood as still and silent as ever, then she lightly touched her right hand to her heart. The expression on her face changed ever so slightly, not a smile, but somehow a brightening. This was all I needed to understand her meaning.

“She loved me. I wanted to leap into the air, to shout, to sing—but instead I tried to preserve my youthful dignity. I bowed low, then held the cloth to my chest, to show her I would always keep her heart next to my own. And for the first time, I saw her smile. In such a way did she transport me from death to life once again.

“I jumped on my horse and raced home. I couldn’t wait to tell my father the news. I found him in his study and announced that I wanted to marry Ephegenia Ortiz. What he told me in return would lead to the destruction of all our lives.

“I could not marry her, my father said, because she was betrothed to another. And who was this man? None other than the duke of Girrón. I will not exaggerate and say he was our most hated enemy, but there was no love lost between us. The duke was our neighbor to the south; our lands and his shared a border. He had been unfairly claiming rights to some of our lands for years. At first, he had tried to convince my father to sell this land to him, but when my father would not agree, Girrón tried to take it from him. That he had not been able to do so made him angry and bitter, and our encounters with him in the town were generally less than pleasant. Girrón was much older than Ephegenia or I; he was a widower with two children, one of whom was nearly Ephegenia’s age, fifteen.

“When my father told me that the duke was going to marry Ephegenia, I was overcome with jealousy and rage. When he pointed out that the duke was much richer than we were, with many men-at-arms, horses, fine houses, and so on, and could provide Ephegenia with things I could not, it just made me angrier. He also reminded me that the dowries for my three sisters had emptied his pockets, and that it would be necessary for me to marry a rich girl. ‘Although Ephegenia is a fine girl, of a respectable family, she is not rich,’ he said. ‘Even if she were not already betrothed, I would have to advise against it.’

“I had gone from death to life to death again in one day. That my beloved father did not understand the depth of my love for Ephegenia only added to my despair. He thought I could be dissuaded by another suitor, or by the need for money, but I refused to be put off so easily. I would devise a way to speak to Ephegenia, to meet with her in secret. After all, she had given me her heart. Surely she despised this proposed marriage as much as I did.

“The next day, she was waiting at the window as always. I was prepared. I had written a note and put it in the walnut shell. When I held it up for her to see, she opened the window, and I quickly threw it inside. In the note, I’d written that I’d wait for her in the walnut grove after my lesson. I knew that Don Gaspar tutored another student after me, and would be occupied. Still, she would have to sneak out past her duenna and the servants. I told her I would wait there every day, until she came.

“Three days later, she finally arrived. Our meeting was so strange—at first it felt like a dream to hear her speak again, to be so close to her. I kissed her hand, and knelt before her, and told her I would lay down my life for her. She burst into tears when she spoke of her upcoming marriage to the duke. For a few weeks, we went on so: I would wait every day, and she would meet me when she could. Finally we could not bear it anymore, and we decided that we must elope.

“Sometimes now I wonder what I was thinking. It seems to me I wasn’t thinking—for certainly our plan was only half a plan at best. I left my home in the middle of the night and rode to Ephegenia’s house to find her waiting for me, as we’d agreed, in the walnut grove. She was shivering with cold and fear. But when she got on my horse, and put her arms around me, and we rode away, I believe we were happier than we’d ever been in our lives. And so we were, for the next few hours that it took to ride to Utrillo and then Pamplona.

“I had stayed at an inn in Pamplona with my father, and there we were headed—beyond that, I’m not quite certain what we proposed to do, except find a priest who would agree to marry us. I suppose we believed that if the deed was done, our families would be forced to accept it. But we had no sooner arrived at the inn than we were caught up with, first by my father and Don Gaspar.

“My father had noticed my absence soon after I’d gone, and quickly understood the reason for my late-night departure. My feelings were apparently not as concealed as I’d thought. He rode to Ephegenia’s house and woke her father, who was ready to leave within minutes. Riding hard, they nearly overtook us on the road to Pamplona. They were angry and upset, of course, and we were heartbroken by such a terrible end to our escape. Ephegenia was crying hysterically as Don Gaspar took her away.

“But our bad luck did not end there. A few of Girrón’s men had seen us when we had earlier passed through Utrillo. Not long after my father arrived, so did the duke, full of fury and demanding satisfaction.

“Although my father explained to the duke that he had discovered us before we had eloped, the duke insisted upon a duel of honor. I had despoiled his intended bride, he said. Although I hadn’t done what he suggested, I was eager to fight him, but my father wouldn’t allow it.

“‘He is a boy of seventeen,’ my father told Girrón, ‘and you are a man of much experience. It will be easy for you to take him, and it will add no luster to your reputation. Surely there is another way for us to satisfy you.’

“My father offered the duke the lands he had so long been coveting. But the duke wouldn’t have it—he wanted a fight. I argued with my father to let me fight Girrón, but he refused. And so my father and the duke drew swords.

“In his day, my father was an excellent sword fighter, but he had not been in a duel for many years. Girrón was a brute, always in one dispute or another, and rumors said that he had made many a man a corpse. It was clear, very quickly, that Girrón had the upper hand. I tried to step in to help my father, but his men held me back. And that is how I watched my father die: first with a jab to the stomach, then one in each arm—I think the duke was tormenting him, tormenting me—then the killing thrust through the throat. As my father lay dying, he could not even speak to me any last words.

“After my father took his final breath, I stood and drew my sword. Girrón’s men moved toward me, but the duke waved them away.

“‘Behold the new viscount,’ he said. He wiped my father’s blood from his sword and faced me. ‘The last viscount of Utrillo-Navarre, I’d wager—and the one with the shortest rule.’

“I knew he was going to kill me, but I didn’t care. My father was dead, on my account, and Ephegenia was gone—I knew I would never see her again. My life, as I’d known it, was over. But perhaps that—that and all I’d learned from Don Gaspar in the past year—saved me, for I fought as I had never fought before, without fear of pain or death. And the duke was complacent; he did not expect such a fierce combatant. It seemed that every feint he made, I countered with a thrust, wounding him three times, even leaving a long cut along his cheek. Then, growing bolder, I stabbed him in each arm, as he’d done to my father. By this time, the duke was worried, and his men were getting restless. I realized then that I was all alone; even if I killed the duke, there would be four of them left for me to fight, should they choose to avenge their leader. And then Girrón made a foolhardy move. Perhaps he was tired, or perhaps I had wounded him more seriously than I’d thought. In any event, he left his chest unguarded, and I ran him through. He fell, clutching his heart, and expired in seconds.

“Just as Girrón’s men were about to close in, other men who had been watching our duel came forward to my defense. One was the duke of Ossuna, who then and there took me under his protection. He had seen the entire encounter and would proclaim my innocence to any court; I had the right to avenge my father, he said. I could not but be grateful to him for this; and since there was little left for me in Navarre, I went with him to Sicily, where he was viceroy for a few years, and then to Naples.

“So all I know of love is how it can destroy people: my father, my mother, who did not long survive my father, Ephegenia…”

“What happened to her?”

“Don Gaspar sent her to a convent. From what I know, she is there still.”

“And you? Did it destroy you?”

“I’m alive, am I not?”

“For the second time today, you evade my question.”

“Yes.” He turned to her with a thin smile. “Forgive me.”

“You are forgiven, but only because that is one of the saddest stories I have ever heard.”

“We both have such stories, it seems.”

“Still, yours was an unduly harsh introduction to the ways of the world.”

“I suppose. But you understand now why I owe my life to the duke of Ossuna.” He was silent while he thought of what he hesitated to tell her: how, when he saw his father and Girrón dead on the ground, it was as if all feeling had left him. How killing a man in practice was quite different from what one imagines: more difficult, messier, more agonizing than his brief description would imply. He’d never been able to forget the grimace of surprise and suffering in Girrón’s face as he died. Or how every man he’d killed since seemed to look back at him with Girrón’s eyes.

The sun was low in the sky. “We should go back,” Antonio said.

“Are you ready to join the festivities again?”

“Must we?”

“Yes, I insist. Carnival is most exciting at night. You must see it at least once.”

The moon had risen and set before they made their way back to Alessandra’s house. In companionable silence, Antonio and Alessandra rode facing each other in the gondola. She’d shown him the best of Carnival: the flotilla of decorated boats in the Grand Canal; tumblers, jugglers, dancing dogs, and puppet shows in every square; the midnight performance of the Flight of the Turk, in which an acrobat made a spectacular descent along a rope from the top of the Campanile to the door of the Doge’s Palace. They ended the evening at an outdoor ball in the Campo Sant’ Angelo, so packed with bodies that they never felt the chill night air. At first, Antonio had taken her hand with what appeared to be reluctance—perhaps he did not dance?—but soon the music and the gaiety inspired him, too, and they whirled around and around with the others until they were laughing and nearly breathless with the simple pleasure of it all. She looked away from him as she remembered it, a recollection based more on sensation than thought: the sudden charge of standing so close to him; the way her palm fit neatly in his; his lips as they brushed against her forehead; the warm, intoxicating feeling of his hand at her waist.

They turned into the Rio di San Giuseppe, preternaturally dark and quiet in contrast to the celebrations in the city center. As the gondolier steered their boat to the mooring post outside her garden gate, Alessandra was surprised to see that another gondola was already there.

“The ambassador is here,” she told Antonio.

“You were expecting him?”

“No.” She peered at the gondola. It was empty. “He must be in the house already. Wait here. I’ll see why he is come, then I’ll return.” She had already offered Antonio her spare bedchamber for the night, and now she’d have to sneak him in somehow. She stood up to step out of the gondola, but Antonio held her back.

“The last time I was here you asked me about the marquis, and I could not answer,” he said. “I have an answer for you now. He is an ambassador—which means, of course, that he is a spy.”

“What do you know exactly?”

“Nothing that I am at liberty to tell you. But you must trust me when I say that I know something of the world in which he moves. I don’t think it wise for you to be connected with him.”

“And just what do you expect me to do? Tell him to leave me be?”

“That is one way…”

“You are not so wise if you imagine it will be so easy. Please, do not concern yourself.” She looked back at the house, saw the glow of firelight in the parlor windows. “Wait here. I’ll be only a moment.”