A Bed of Earth Read online

  “As I was told,” my uncle said, “there was fighting between the two families when the Barbarons were trying to keep ahold of what they had in Venus, and the della Scorpias were trying to escape before Jurneian ships arrived. I don’t know the facts well. Suffice it to say, the families took a dislike to each other. And it happens that the burial ground of each, meanwhile, abuts that of the other.”

  “Then,” I said, breathless with surprise, “that place beyond the little broken wall—”

  “Is disputed earth.”

  “So the trees were cut and the wall built to keep out the Barbarons—or show them they can’t come in—”

  “Supposedly. And you will find something like that too, when and if you must serve the Barbaron burial garden. Of course, neither would truly encroach inside the other’s wall. It is the stretch of ground between, that they haggle over. So neither may use that.”

  “Why do they dispute it? Has one family tried to steal part of it—or done so?”

  “They have tried. Each house says it belongs only to them. And you know, don’t you, Bartolo, how ground for full burial, not for the ashes only, is valued on the Isle.”

  I stared now at the fire. I was perturbed, but not enough, I admit, to prevent my taking another sausage. It had been a prolonged wait for me, cold and wet, on the Isle of the Dead. Although, naturally, the dead wait there longer.

  Finally I said, “What about the Barbaron lands at Veronavera? Can’t they bury their dead there?”

  “They do sometimes. But think—a journey of two or three days—in summer, it’s not always possible, or in winter, if the road is bad. Besides, it’s to do with the honor of their houses.”

  “Have they never gone to the courts—or to the Ducem—to settle it?”

  “It seems so, but nothing was settled, and that was five or six decades back, when the legal rights to the burial ground must have been better remembered.”

  “Do they fight openly?” I said, abruptly intrigued at the idea of wild swordplay in the alleys.

  “Sometimes. More to the point, they keep a distance from each other, and hate each other. It’s ingrained with them. If the Ducem holds a feast and asks Andrea Barbaron, he does not also ask Como della Scorpia. And conversely.”

  I had heard of such things with several of the high families of Venus. Perhaps I was losing interest, turning to the sweet gelatina and the grapes Rossa had left on the old black sideboard.

  “There was one terrible thing,” said my uncle. His voice was now so soft it thoroughly caught my attention, and for some reason the hairs stood up along my neck and scalp. “I don’t know if I would be right to tell you. But I will, I think, since you’ll hear of it one day I expect, though it occurred some fourteen years ago. Again, I impress upon you, Bartolome, chat about this with no other. It’s a horrible tale, and even though all the City probably has some version of it, we who see to the result of such things, the Grave Guild, must always know more—and say less.”

  MERALDA

  AT FIRST ALL SHE COULD RECALL of him were his eyes. She had been told that they were fine, just as she had been told he was rich and of a noble house—Ciara. She kept the image of him, standing at the end of the long table, in the smoke of the candles, which much activity to and fro had disturbed.

  Her father led her forward and put her hand into the pale, narrow, ringed hand of this lord of Ciara. Everyone clapped approvingly. And when she looked up, afraid, into his face, perhaps he was smiling, or not, but she saw nothing save the eyes. And they were an awful molten yellow—like the yolk of eggs.

  Meralda was fourteen, the perfect age for betrothal.

  They seemed to think, or pretended to think, she should be pleased and excited by it all, as if this were a new toy for her. But at the same time, they lectured her on how she must now put aside childish things and practice the duties of a woman. For, in a year, she would be wed.

  At night, after her aunt’s women had chattered to her of the splendors of the Palazzo Ciara, which stood somewhere across the City, and other houses and lodges belonging to the Ciara family, Meralda lay on her back, her own eyes tightly shut. And there inside her lids she saw the eyes of her intended husband, floating like candle flames. The reason for her utter revulsion, her panic, she could not have explained.

  Meralda was a typical young woman of her class. She had been kept immature, and spoiled—that is, had been given things. But also she had been chastised for every transgression. She knew now she could not approach her confessor, or any of her remaining female kindred. Her mother was long dead. She knew that she could never speak to her father on this or any other matter, save to thank him and meekly concur with his wishes.

  Justore della Scorpia’s position was that of uncle to the young head of the della Scorpia clan, Como. Lord Como, at that time, enjoyed loose living, gave feasts, and had three or four mistress about the City (and two others at Veronavera). Besides, he often drank heavily, gamed, went off hunting for days, and even dabbled in the painting of canvasses of the goddess Venus, under the tutelage of an artist of whom he was the patron. Justore, though still quite young himself, did almost none of those things, though he was said to keep a mistress, an educated courtesan, near the Setapassa market. Of course, he had had to consult Como, as the head of house of Scorpia, on Meralda’s betrothal. But Como, having idly agreed, took slight notice. The Ciara family name was good, and the groom was still only thirty, youthful enough to give the girl years of marriage and several sons. And he was wealthy. The della Scorpias, like most of the noble rich, now found themselves not quite as rich as they had been, and would make only profitable alliances among the nobility.

  Every bit of this, Meralda also knew. But she knew it as every child knew the world was flat. What use was it to her? What did it mean? Only that she was a slave to the rules of her household.

  So sometimes she lay long awake, or had incoherent nightmares, for the next three or four months of that year. Then, just as they were finishing the golden pomegranates on her bridal gown, she saw Lorenzo Vai.

  This took place in the walled garden of the Palazzo Scorpia, one early morning in summer.

  Meralda had come out with her younger sister, to sit with straw brims around their heads to shield their white faces and throats, while they left their hair uncovered to bleach in the sunlight. Certainly Meralda’s skin was very white and pure, and her hair already a lucent saffron color. In her blanched gown, her hair streaming undressed down her to her waist, the straw brim in her hand, she was undoubtedly very lovely. But Lorenzo was like a lightning flash to her.

  He had been kicking his heels in the courtyard for some while, grown bored, and gone through a long passage, uninvited, to the garden.

  There he stood under a sculptured tree, among the pots of basil. His hair was also long—brown, thick, and curling—and his skin flawlessly bronzed. His eyes, as she was later to think, were the blue of a star-filled twilight. He was tall and strongly built, and vividly dressed, his sleeves slashed over silk, and pinned to his doublet by golden arrows.

  As it happened, he was none other than the nephew of Como’s pet painter. He had been brought to the palace in the hope—the painter’s—that Lorenzo might gain some lucrative job through the assistance of the della Scorpias. But so far, Como had not given the painter a chance to call his relative in.

  There they stood then, the charming girl and the handsome young man of seventeen. The arrows were not only on Lorenzo’s sleeves, but in the air. After a second, Meralda charmed Lorenzo further by blushing deeply. But then she hurried away, the sister giggling beside her.

  Lorenzo, for all his beauty, was not especially clever. Nor did he think of anything much beyond the gratification of the moment—he was like Como, then, in this; they might have got on.

  Soon Lorenzo, having followed the two girls along a path laid with small stones, found Meralda lingering, as if perplexed, by the fountain. Nor did she know what she was doing, but she had sent her sister
on an errand.

  Reared so elaborately and exclusively, Meralda had learned all the wrong things. Paramount among these was the thought that, in order to experience anything truly desired, it must be thieved, by means of subterfuge and slyness. But as she knew no more what she was at than did Lorenzo, her start at seeing him again was quite real.

  “M’donna,” he said, “pardon me. I didn’t mean to alarm you. But oh, you’re like the goddess of day surprised!”

  Then, when she neither answered nor took flight, Lorenzo began to make courtly love to her. He did not think he was doing anything more than enjoying himself. Perhaps he would get some privileges from the girl—kisses, leave to caress her breasts—such had gone on elsewhere with other girls, and, never having been discovered, had apparently done no harm.

  For her part, Meralda had never been spoken to like this before. (His rather conceited view of his verbal skill was nothing to her appreciation.) Or, if she ever had, never by a man so near her own age and so good-looking. She guessed it would be forbidden, this fruit. So, not even really knowing what she did, she led him into an arbor overgrown with vines, which would conceal them from anyone in the house, or on the path.

  How did the conversation go?

  The way such conversations go.

  “I never saw a girl like you.” “Never?” “My brother sets me to study hands for the studio. I should like to draw yours. What a soft pretty hand.” “No, you mustn’t take my hand.” “Don’t you like me to?” … “Yes.”

  Once, he kissed her, but only at the corner of her lips. He had found out who she was by then—the daughter of Sre’donno Justore. A mad idea that he might make a high marriage had come over the painter’s nephew—crazy indeed. But worse than that, much worse. Her innocence and vulnerable loveliness had abruptly touched him, deeper than the flesh.

  As for Meralda, she had fallen in love on sight. It felt to her like recognition. And thus it seemed to her that he was her destined love. How stupid and how strong she was, Meralda della Scorpia, to have thrown off, with one thrust, all they had forced upon her, all those weighty chains of obedience, honor, and female uselessness. Despite every one of them, she had chosen for herself, whether she knew it or not.

  A bell roused them from their dream. It was the noon Solus faintly ringing from the Primo, and tolls began everywhere else from the numberless churches of Christian Venus.

  The bell, reminding the City of God of the time, reminded Meralda, too, of her plight.

  She raised to Lorenzo a face whiter than before, and whispered, “But—I am so afraid.”

  “Of what?” he cried. He would kill for her. Such a distance, in that short time, they had gone.

  Then she told him of her betrothal to a lord of the house of Ciara. She said, meekly, confiding at last to this one being who would understand and assist, “His eyes—they frighten me. They’re yellow—yellow as my hair—”

  “Your hair is like the wheat—like a topaz—” insisted Lorenzo. But he was floundering a little. He said, “I’ve heard of this man. Why do they give you to him? I’ve heard bad things of him—”

  “Is he diseased?” cried the girl in fresh horror. Her elder sister had been given to such a man. And although Meralda had not quite comprehended the nature of his ailment, she had seen her sister’s anguish and, later, the decline in her health.

  “The Frankish disease? No—he hasn’t that, or I don’t believe so. But he has done things, to his enemies, things unproven, but muttered about.”

  Belatedly he saw her trembling and was sorry, genuinely sorry, and cursed his mouth that should have kissed her, not made her afraid with gossip.

  But then, the younger sister came along the path with Meralda’s maid, a tall, harsh creature of nineteen.

  “Melda! Melda!” cried the sister, looking about the garden.

  “M’donna!” called the harsh maid, frowning.

  Meralda clung to Lorenzo.

  He thought, She loves me! He thought, She longs for me to save her.

  Both of these thoughts were true enough.

  When the searchers had passed by without seeing them, Meralda became adult and serious. She sent Lorenzo away for his own sake. But she had heard enough romances to know what to do. Before he left, they had arranged their next secret meeting.

  Where they met was a church, the Little Church of Maria Maesta behind the Aquila Lagoon, and not a great way from the Palazzo della Scorpia.

  This was the sanctum to which the women of the house generally went. It was therefore simple enough to obtain permission—a girl wanting to visit a church was thought both prudent and seemly, particularly if she were a girl betrothed.

  Lorenzo, of course, being male, might move about as he chose.

  For some while after, quite regularly, they found each other in a pillared side-chapel where the shadows were deep even at midday. On the wall, a painting of the Virgin, robed and crowned as a queen, watched benignly enough: When she arrived, Meralda would always placate her with a gift of flowers.

  The maid, Euniche, was more difficult.

  Euniche was an exact product of the codes and practice of the great families of Venus. She thought herself high above the common run, but bound, by holy will, to her superiors. Among these, however, despite her correct politeness toward the girl, she did not yet count her mistress, Meralda.

  To herself, Euniche put this down to Meralda’s youth, and foolishness. She had not as yet earned a loyal servant’s approval. Actually, Euniche had that infallible eye which rests always and solely on the main possibility. She was subservient and perfect with the men, even the boys, of the house, never faulting them even in her thoughts. With the ladies of the house, though mentally much more critical, she was also outwardly fawning. With the unmarried girls, Euniche took her time, waiting to see what they were; which was, if they were dangerous or not. Meralda, with her softness, her night fears, her toys and fancies, was not dangerous at all.

  At first, Meralda had managed to elude Euniche on her visits to the chapel. She had taken the tone that Euniche needed to be busy with all the preparation for the wedding—the sewing of gowns and sorting of linen and so on. Instead, Meralda was accompanied by another maid, a girl younger than herself, whom it was easy to send off to buy sweetmeats or something of the sort, once they reached the church door.

  At Meralda’s fifth excursion to the church, Euniche had raised her head from her sparkling needle, like a tiger scenting deer.

  “Who is to attend you, M’donna?”

  “Oh, the girl.”

  “That simpleton. It’s not fitting. Until last month you had old Cloudia to be your chaperone, which was only proper. A pity she died.” (This dismissively, for old Cloudia had been in her sixtieth year, a great age, when death must be hourly expected.) “No, I must go with you. It’s entrusted to me, lady.”

  “Oh no … no … you mustn’t leave my dresses … the other women stitch them crooked—”

  “What nonsense, lady. I shall be ready in a moment.”

  And she was—but by then Meralda had escaped her, and was gone.

  Of course, Euniche was suspicious. But what did she suspect? The very facts, it seemed. Why else would a fool like Meralda be running off, save to a clandestine lovers’ meeting? Enough idiots used the churches in this manner. Euniche even deduced whom the young man might be, for she had glimpsed him that day at the palazzo.

  She thought him callow and unruly. In other words, she knew inwardly he would never have turned his head to glance after her.

  “I believe my servant mistrusts me,” Meralda said that day to Lorenzo, standing in the cool indigo shadow of a pillar, her hand fast in his, while the Madonna looked a them kindly under her diadem.

  It was then that Lorenzo declared, with near violence, “Let me take you from them. Let me have you. You’d do better with me than in that cruel house. Or do you think otherwise?”

  Perhaps he assumed she would refuse, and he was therefore at liberty to mak
e this extraordinary offer. Or again, simply he did not think. At any rate, refuse she did.

  “I can’t. It would be wicked.”

  “Why wicked?”

  She blushed.

  He said, “But I would marry you, Meralda. We could go to one of the churches at Silvia. The priests there will take a present of money and perform the ceremony—”

  “No … no.”

  “Then you don’t love me as you swear to me you do.”

  “It would ruin us,” she murmured.

  Her voice was filled by a mixture of terror—and wistfulness.

  But then Lorenzo, stirred, began to kiss and feel her all over like his priceless possession, and she succumbed to the singing delight which always took her at such times. Her blood was hot, if anything, hotter than his. She flung her arms about him, clutched the stonework, shivering in ecstasy as his fingers and tongue found out everything reachable through the gathers of her gown.

  That night, however, the Gorgon came to her room. The Gorgon was her own name for Euniche.

  “M’donna, I’m very concerned.”

  “Why?” said Meralda, trying to effect the chill off-putting notes of her della Scorpia aunts. Failing.

  The Gorgon told Meralda she was very much afraid Meralda had gone out to meet a young man of the lower orders, a mere artisan, a nephew of the one who came to the palace to give Lord Como painting lessons.

  “I’m afraid for you, M’donna. If it were to be found out … what would become of you?”

  Meralda stood against the wall of her bedchamber, like a rabbit hypnotized before a snake. She tried yet to brazen out her propriety, but she shook, and she was nearly as pale as on the day after she had met her betrothed.

  Infallibly the Gorgon now alluded to this very person.

  “More dreadful than anything, lady, if news reached Signore-donno Ciara. What might then not happen?”

  “How dare you—” croaked the rabbit, petrified, hopeless.