A Brood of Vipers(58)

Remembering that an assassin was abroad, I scurried across to my saddlebag and threw a towel round the most precious part of my anatomy. When I turned, the Lady Bianca was standing there, eyes glistening, wetting her lips as if she was some heifer and I some prize bullock at Smithfield.



'Oh!' she said in mock pity. 'Master Shallot, you are bruised and cut.'



She came up, swaying slightly from the cups of wine she had downed, pressing her taffeta close against me, her plump pretty face raised, staring up at me with eyes fluttering and lips half-open.



'Shall I dress your wound?' she asked throatily. Then she laughed. 'When you returned, we could smell you before we saw you! But, Master Shallot, you are a man.' Her hand went down and grasped my genitals. 'Oh, yes!'



(Excuse me, my little chaplain's shoulders have gone rigid and he is not writing properly. Oh, I know what he is thinking, the filthy-minded turd! Here goes old Shallot again, bouncing around with anyone in petticoats! Now that didn't happen. 'Ah!' he sighs in disappointment.)

Lady Bianca was becoming excited and so was I, though I was petrified. Two duels in one day was testing fortune. I did not want any enraged Roderigo thirsting for my blood. In the event my virtue was saved by another knock on the door. Lady Bianca stepped backwards. I wrapped the towel round me as Beatrice flounced in.



'Mother, can I help?'



If I had not been so terrified I would have burst out laughing.



Bianca assumed all the airs of an outraged duchess.



'Master Shallot has been wounded, he may need our help.' Beatrice looked at the bulge beneath the towel. 'Yes,' she said drily, ‘I can see that. But the Lord Roderigo awaits.'



She opened the door and her mother stalked out. Beatrice closed it behind her and grinned at me.

'Perhaps tomorrow, Master Shallot? In the evening. The servants will go to the carnival. Perhaps I can help you with your wound?'



I just nodded. She smiled once more and slammed the door behind her. Poor Beatrice! Poor Bianca! Poor Albrizzis! Years later my master confessed that he made a dreadful mistake that night and I am forced to agree. I returned, fully dressed, to the table. Benjamin was seated there, regaling them with fictitious stories about our visit to Florence. Oh, it was a sweet night, well after midnight, the witching hour which brews murder. Benjamin now waited for me to join him as he proceeded to compare Florence with London.



'And how did you find the Lord Cardinal?' Enrico interrupted.



'He was most gracious.'



'And Borelli?' Lord Roderigo asked.



'He has promised that he will consider our offer,' Benjamin lied, it seems likely that he will accompany us back to England.'

I dug my face into the deep-bowled wine goblet, embarrassed and rather flattered by the way Bianca and Beatrice were staring at me.

'And so you will return to England,' Alessandro drawled, 'with my father's murderer still unmasked?'



'Did I say that?' Benjamin said.

I gazed quickly around the table. The lies Benjamin had



told up to then had provoked not so much as a flicker of astonishment or puzzlement, but his comment now came like an icy wind across that warm, perfume-filled garden. Beatrice was staring at him, leaning across the table. She touched his wrist.



'What is it you say?'



Benjamin said deliberately, ‘I think I know who the assassin is.'



'Tell us now!' Giovanni hissed, flailing his hand out and knocking a wine cup across the table. 'Tell us now!'

'I cannot,' Benjamin said. 'We have not yet collected all the evidence.' He picked up his wine cup. 'But I have said enough. No one at this table need fear us.'

Oh, Lord, the folly of youth! What we thought was such a subtle ploy! But, in fairness, who can fathom the mind of a killer? Follow the sinister byways of his heart? Perceive clearly the blackness of his soul? Benjamin had used such a device before to flush out a murderer. But this was different. We were playing chess with human lives and the killer was moving faster than us. God knows, I still blame myself. Yet perhaps the bloody and horrific climax of that Florentine business was fated and may have happened anyway.



The meal became a desultory affair. Benjamin and I withdrew. I was half-dead with fatigue and the wine was making itself felt. We bolted the door and, despite the warm evening, made the window secure. We checked our bedding. I slept like a baby until late the following morning. Benjamin and I spent the rest of that day in our room, even sending away Maria, trying to review all that had happened and to sift the truth from the dross. We had no proof, no tangible evidence, just a logical-seeming solution to the riddle that confronted us.



Late in the afternoon the servants in the villa were dismissed to attend the carnival in the city. Only the old cook and her husband remained. The villa became silent. We heard Enrico leave, shouting in the courtyard that he was going to the city and would not return until the following day. We heard other noises, but the house settled down. Different people went into the refectory to help themselves to the cold meat and fruits that the servants had laid out before leaving.