Star-Cross'd - Book Two

Twelve

Castelbarco’s teeth were clenched as he whispered, “I take it this wasn’t part of the plan.”

Pietro could only shake his head. “I should have known that Cesco wouldn’t stick to any arrangement. Even his own.”

“We’re all dead men,” moaned Bail sotto voce.

They may as well have spoken aloud. All attention was focused on the boy, who now made a rude face and continued, pitching his voice high to carry through the square. “I am proud not to be Veronese! If what I see before me is evidence of the true spirit of Verona, I’m relieved I wasn’t raised here. If you, the citizens of this pestilent blight of Lombardy, can be swayed by words – mere words, paltry, hollow, meaningless words – then this is indeed the foulest pit of Creation, worthy of Dante’s Inferno! How dare you! You have all knelt to this man.” From the foot of the steps, Cesco pointed to Mastino, high above across the square. “You’ve sworn to follow him for all your days! How dare you contemplate a change of allegiance? Is he a will-maker’s ape? Is a Veronese oath so scorned, so worthless, that it melts away with the slightest gust of wind?”

Moving to high ground, he halted on the top step of the Giurisconsulti. “I am a child, untested, unknown. This great lord, so many years my senior, has taken up the mantle of my sire – and where was I? Suckling at my nurse’s teat!”

There was a single laugh from someone in the crowd. Cesco pointed to the amused man, egging him on. “Yes, I’m a baby – indeed, I am what he called me, a pretty baby! Perhaps I have a taste for boys – since I’m surely not old enough to like women!” The laughter began to spread. “No, if you are able to set aside your faith in one leader and exchange him for another on the basis of mere words – words! – then Verona is not the city I was taught she was!”

Cesco turned in a slow circle, peering at the buildings. “What a strange place! Is Verona a horse that, in mid-charge, changes the rider in the saddle? O fickle bastion of pride, where is the honour in that?” He suddenly spied Castelbarco and company. “How dare you, you elders of the city, how dare you raise a hand to put a weak child in the place of the noble and magnificent Mastiff? Do you wish to control the city – and the city’s money! – by using a mere babe to your foul ends? Am I your Paduan bardassa, your butt-boy, that you can me hold up and use me to hoodwink the good people of this city into reneging on their chosen oaths?

Cesco bounded down the steps and into the crowd. They parted, confused, listening, unsure what was happening. “The great Mastino is quite correct! I am a child! How do you know that I am the true son of your beloved Lord of Verona? What proof have you seen?” He threw up his hands and roared, “NONE! None at all! You have heard only words! Pretty words, fine words, but only words words words! They prove nothing! Perhaps I have my father’s eye, perhaps his chin – but he was a great man, a warrior of great renown! Now, he might have earned his fame at a younger age than I – for as you all know and I learned only this morning, he was knighted at the age of six. But how could you see that man in me? Puny me, a weakling, short for my age, not able even to carry a man’s sword!” Cesco shook his head of chestnut curls, the blonde streaks catching the midday sun. “No, citizens of Verona, I say NO! Whatever they tell you, do not be deceived! Whatever they say, do not believe them! They speak meaningless words! If you, the citizens of this great city, allow yourselves to be swayed by words, then you are nothing but whores and fools who follow a promise of a primrose bed! How could I lead you, the people of a great and noble city, a city destined to be the grandest of all the world, a city that will bring about a new age of man!”

All at once the people cheered. Breathless, Pietro was startled into a smile. Base and noble alike were grinning. Completely aware now that they were being played upon, it was so well done they could not bring themselves to object.

Suddenly Pietro saw Tharwat. The Moor had appeared on the far end of the street, his height catching Pietro’s attention. He raised his left hand. The sinister hand. The signal that Cangrande’s wife Giovanna was in the city. Cesco was in danger. But they couldn’t whisk him away now! Damn! Pietro started scanning the crowd of jubilant faces for something, anything that posed a threat.

But the only threat was Mastino, who sensed he was losing his grip on the masses. “Cousin Francesco! I hear what you say, and I applaud you for not letting yourself become the tool of these avaricious men! Truly, Scaligeri blood must run through your veins! Come up here, cousin, let us embrace!”

Alone in a wide circle made by the crowd, Cesco bowed his head. “You do me too much honour, my lord! You call me cousin, but you must know – all of you must know – I was born on the wrong side of the blanket! Yes, perhaps Cangrande was my father, but my mother is unknown – even to me! Who knows, in the hot night after some battle, what woman was brought to his tents to ease his tense mind? Perhaps she was a common whore. Or worse, a Paduan!” Peals of laughter. “No, great one, I dare not contaminate you with the filth of my birth!”

Mastino was grim, having to play through this farce. “Filth? You say you are the son of the great Cangrande, yet you dare call our late lord, my beloved uncle, filth!”

Cesco’s ashamed head bowed even lower. “I claim to be no such thing! It is these men, these wicked men, who try to abuse the great people of Verona into believing that I am what I am not! Until yesterday I was told I was the nephew of Ser Alaghieri! All my life I have been lied to! Never was I told the truth of my heritage, never even told my true name! Now that I stand here before you, I cannot claim the great mantle they place upon my shoulders! I am not worthy!” He spun about and held out a demanding hand to Castelbarco. “Let me see this so-called will!”

Castelbarco blinked twice. He’d listened to the boy in horror, wondering if the child’s antics were going to get him torn to pieces by an angry mob. Now he knew he would be lynched if he did not hand the paper over to this monstrous infant.

Receiving it, Cesco made a show of reading the will. Suddenly he let loose a cry of surprise. Running through the crowd, he leapt up onto the lip of the well at in the Volto dei Centurioni where he waved the paper over his head. “They lie! My lord, my friends, they lie!”

The crowd reared in shock, none moreso than the conspirators, chilled in spite of the sun directly overhead.

“They lie to you, my lord,” Cesco called to Mastino, now on the far side of the square opposite him. “And to you, cives Veronae! All of you! They lie!”

Mastino managed to not play along. But he didn’t have to. The cry of “what lie?” was taken up from all quarters as eight hundred citizens pressed to hear, with more outside the square demanding to know what was happening.

Cesco waved the paper again. “There is another bequest! Oh, that I were Veronese! But they don’t want you to know it, friends! They don’t want you to hear it! They’re afraid that, if you remembered your love of him, you might tear them to pieces for their cupidity! If you remembered how much my father loved you, how deep went his civic pride, you could not tolerate these avaricious men who try to fob off a mere child on you!”

“Read it!” came the cry from ten score voices at once. “Read it!”

“I cannot!” There were tears on his face, his voice cracked. “How can I? I am not worthy! They say I am his son, but you don’t know me! Even I don’t know who I am! They tell you who I am, but those are just words! But these words, these here, they are direct from the great man! Only a great man could possibly have written this last bequest! Oh, if only I’d known him! Father!” Throwing his head up to the sky, Cesco’s whole body shook as if filled with great emotion, tears pouring down his face.

This is the performance of a lifetime! thought Pietro in chagrin. We should have charged admission. What Verona may have gained, the stage has lost. Now we can only hope that he can lead the herds to where they need to go without over-playing his role.

Mastino was shouting, but over the thunder of the masses he could not be heard. The whole crowd was chanting, bleating, urging Cesco to read the last bequest. “Read the will! Read the will!”

Holding the parchment out away from his body, as if begging someone else to take up this burden, he finally raised his hands in surrender. “If you insist! But brace yourselves, citizens of Verona. If you are the men I believe you to be, this will break your hearts!” He raised the parchment to eye-level. “And to the people of Verona, that glorious jewel in the crown of Italy, I bequeath a further tenth of my fortune to be distributed to every man of woman born, and endow a yearly festival of sports and games to honour the city of my birth, whose humble and faithful son I have always been.” Lowering the paper, he made a show of gazing at the mob. “You see? This was the man! This was Verona’s true son! This was Cangrande! This was the Greyhound!!”

With a secret smile, Pietro did some quick math and came up with eleven-tenths. But the crowd didn’t waste time on such trivialities. They erupted and surged forward. Cesco was plucked off the lip of the well and handed from body to body, carried along over the heads of the crowd in a joyful processional that ended at the front steps of Cangrande’s palace, directly below the balcony upon which Mastino still stood, utterly flummoxed. “Sca-la! Sca-la! Sca-la!” they roared. No longer for Mastino. Their chants were for Cangrande’s heir, this magnificent child who championed the common citizen, the tragic boy who had been lied to all his life, the boy almost twice as old as Cangrande had been when he’d earned his knighthood.

“Holy Christ,” murmured Castelbarco in genuine prayer as he watched in wonder. Pietro felt the same astonishment, but with an inner glow of pride. In minutes this eleven year-old had turned a suspicious and angry crowd into a cheering, jubilant throng of supporters.

Yet when the crowd set him down, something in Cesco’s expression made Pietro start. Still smiling and waving, he wore look of puzzlement on his face. Pietro saw Cesco’s hand lift to pluck at his collar, his movement swift as if swatting a fly.

Immediately Pietro swung out of the saddle towards the boy, but Cesco held up his free hand to halt him. Taking this as an indication that he was about to speak again, the crowd stilled.

“For the love you have for the city, the love you bore my father and the love you have for the noble Mastino, please – let these questions raised today be answered by wiser heads than mine.” Cesco stepped out of the shadow of the palace and, looking straight up, addressed the Mastiff. “O cousin, we must discover the truth of this matter! Shall we retire indoors to discuss these lies and this marvelous truth?”

Under the Houndshelm, Mastino shook his head. “But, my little friend, I fear – I fear for my life! These men who have brought you, they have suborned the army! As you say, men who yesterday swore faith to me now serve your masters! If I open the doors, will they stop until they have slain me and all my loyal followers?”

Cesco’s next move was so swift that no one had time to react. Plucking a knife from the belt of someone in the crowd, he sliced the flesh between his shoulder and his neck. Dropping the blade, he squeezed the wound, wincing in real pain as the crimson liquid spilled forth. “See, cousin! I bleed! I would sooner see my own life-force spilled here and now than let them harm one hair on your head! But your fear is no cowardice, I am sure! If you like, let me in alone. I shall place myself in your power, and let the people see the amity between us!”

Pietro was horrified by both the sudden violence and the dangerous suggestion. He was even more surprised at Mastino’s response. “Youth is fragile. What if some mischance befell you? How could I quell the masses? They would suspect me of having done away with you and my life will be forfeit! No, little one, let us meet tomorrow when cooler heads have prevailed and we can untangle the knots your sponsors have woven!”

Cesco bowed his head in reverence. “I am but a child and have not the wisdom of your years. I shall retire to my uncle Bailardino’s house. Meanwhile, talk to them, cousin! Talk to the people of Verona! Make them see sense! For, in spite of all good will, this great city cannot have two masters!” Cesco turned to where Pietro was hovering. “Ser Alaghieri, will you escort me from this place? I have caused enough trouble today!”

The crowd begged him to stay, hands plucked at him, a cloth came forward to staunch the blood flowing from his neck. Pietro touched the boy’s exposed flesh and was horrified to discover, despite his dappling of sweat, how chilled he was. Was it the sun? The performance? The old nervous illness? Pietro glanced around for Tharwat, but the Moor had disappeared.

Soldiers made a path for them back to Pietro’s horse. Before they could start, Cesco stumbled. “Lo,” he called out as Pietro lifted him, “I swoon! Remember, all of you – the only blood that should be spilled here today is mine! Not Mastino’s! Never his! He is an honourable kinsman to my great father!”

Lifting Cesco into the saddle, Pietro had to hold him in place as they exited the square by the easiest route – past the church of Santa Maria Antica, and so to the street behind the square, heading towards the river.

Bailardino’s house was just a few yards from the gate to Mastino’s palace. Lifting Cesco down from the saddle, Pietro had to fight the throng to get him to the door. Cesco waved and smiled all the while, though Pietro noted that he only waved with one hand. The other seemed to be cupped around something.

Pietro got the door closed behind him. “You little bastard. That was amazing. Though a little melodramatic at the end.”

“I had no choice,” murmured Cesco just loud enough for Pietro to hear. “Our enemies don’t waste any time.”

“What do you mean?”

Cesco daubed the cloth at the self-inflicted wound where his neck met his shoulder. “Well, I don’t want to unduly alarm you, uncle,” he said, smiling crookedly, “but I believe I’ve been poisoned.”


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