“The pouch,” Pia said. “I know.”
A fierce boom shook the dwelling as rain pounded overhead. Drips seeped through the thatching, plunking onto the rush mats.
“Will we keep watch?” Enzio asked. “Will we stay here, or will we—”
Pia scanned the dark, wet patches over her head. “We will have to see what the day brings,” she said. “You wearing your corno, Enzio?”
He pulled at the string around his neck, revealing the small piece of red coral hanging on it.
“Good,” Pia said, releasing her own corno and stroking it gently. “Good.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Castle Conversations
“Ewww!” squealed Princess Fabrizia, covering her ears. “Ewww! I don’t like thunder.”
The Queen had joined the King in his chamber and had bid servants to set up cots for the royal children. She had not wanted them out of her sight while thieves were on the loose.
Prince Gianni lay on his cot, listening to the rain. He felt foolish, sleeping in his father’s chamber. He, heir to the throne! But he was also comforted. He would not have liked being alone in his chamber with a thief prowling through the castle. He did not know how he could ever be King. If only he could be free to wander the meadows composing poetry.
Prince Vito slept soundly, oblivious to the disruption that his dreams and shouts had caused. His Man-in-Waiting had been unable to rouse him and had had to carry him to the King’s chamber. Several times in the night Prince Vito called out again in his dreams: “You cannot flee!” and “I am the Prince!” These mutterings cheered the King and Queen amid their worries. “Isn’t he darling?” the Queen said. “Heroic in his dreams.”
Now, in the morning, as the rain continued to beat down on the castle walls, the King and Queen, Count and Countess gathered around the sturdy oak trestle table laid with fine white damask and porcelain plates emblazoned with the King’s seal. The Count, sporting a purple tunic and purple hose, awaited the King’s first words and then replied, “Your Majesty, such a night!”
The Countess, billowing in apricot organdy with matching wimple, burbled, “Your Majesty, such a ruckus—you must have been—not that it bothered us—”
“No, no,” said the Count, “slept fine, like a dog, or a log, but we hope—”
“Oh, we do hope, all is well? Did you catch—”
“The thief?”
The King waved his hand dismissively. “The thief—much bother over trivialities. Come, sit, we eat.”
Sudden thunder bellowed overhead, jolting the foursome. The Countess pressed her hands against her cheeks. “Oh my, oh my, oh my.”
The King summoned the servants, who arrived carrying silver platters laden with pheasant eggs, steaming buns, dainty pots of porridge, cream, strawberries, pears, and slices of roast pork garnished with sprigs of rosemary. As the King lifted a warm roll to his lips, the Count said, “Sire, wait! I—pardon my—what I mean to say—”
The King was irritated. Could he not even eat his roll in peace?
“Sire, given the—sorry to mention it—the thief, and the—how should I say—strain?—of last night, do you—?”
The Queen could not bear it. Normally, she would have kept silent and allowed the Count to babble on unintelligibly, but this morning she had no patience for it. “What?” she said. “What are you trying to say, Count?”
The Countess’s lips pinched, as if she’d swallowed a sour grape; she was stung by the Queen’s tone, aimed at her husband.
The Count rushed to complete his thoughts. “I was trying to suggest—have you, or do you, or, let me be blunt—”
“Please do be blunt,” said the Queen.
The Count rushed on. “Well, then, my question is: Do you have a taster?”
The King and Queen exchanged glances. “A what?” the King said.
The Countess beamed. This was a magnificent question her husband was asking.
“A taster,” said the Count. “Someone to taste your food before you eat it.” He said these last words slowly, the way he might speak to a child.
“A taster?” said the Queen, struggling to disguise her scorn.
“A taster?” echoed the King. “Why would I want someone to taste my food?” He snorted and bit into his roll.
The Count, ruffled, did not touch his food. “You’ve heard about Count Malpezzi, I assume?”
The Countess leaped in. “Oh, Count Malpezzi, terrible, terrible.”
“Terrible, terrible what?” asked the Queen, who had replaced her roll on her plate without taking a bite.
“Poisoned!” boomed the Count triumphantly.
Thunder rumbled overhead, rattling the dishes. The Countess clutched the edge of the table. “Yes, yes, poisoned, in his food, in his soup—”
“Died instantly.”
“Instantly!”
The King stopped chewing, his roll dry in his mouth.
“Poisoned?” said the Queen. “By whom?”
“Don’t know,” said the Count, satisfied that his hosts were now interested in what he had to say.
The Countess tapped her cheeks. “A servant? An intruder? No one knows!”
The Count, who had still not touched his food, said, “It might be wise, therefore, given the thief—”
“And the ruckus, the disturbing—”
“It might be wise to engage a taster, that’s all I am—most humbly—suggesting, Your Majesty.”
The King, with some difficulty, swallowed the remains of his first bite of warm roll, the kind of roll he had previously so enjoyed.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Cottage Conversations
An odd hush had descended over the village. The rain had slowed to a drizzle of fine mist, but heavy clouds, like bundles of soiled laundry, hung low in the sky.
There were none of the usual shouts of the villagers or the creaking and rattling of carts in the lane. Pia and Enzio had spent the morning cleaning and cooking and mopping up the water, swirling with dust and clay, that had invaded the cottage.
“Curious, this quiet,” Pia said.
Enzio peered out the door. “Don’t like it.”
Shortly before bells chimed the noon hour, Master Pangini returned. Pia had his meal ready, but he did not stay long enough to eat it. “You are here?” he said. “You haven’t left?”
“No,” Enzio said. “We haven’t left.”
“Remember your promise. You stay here today, all day.” He ducked back out the door and hurried down the lane.
“I could sneak to the market,” Pia said. “See what Franco is saying—”
“No. We promised.”
“I don’t want to be stuck here all day!” Pia snatched at the master’s dirty clothes lying on the floor. “Here, then, you’ll have to help me. Lug these to the rain barrel out back.”
Enzio scowled at the mound of laundry. If I were a prince, he thought, I would not throw my clothes on the floor, but someone else would wash them for me, and they would be fine clothes, and I would have a fine horse, a white one.
Pia, whose mind often traveled the same lanes as her brother’s, said, “Enzio, if I were a princess, I would never have to soil my hands again, ever! And no one would tell me what to do or call me a dirty beetle. I could do whatever I chose—anything, anything at all.”
“And we would eat pheasant and sweet cakes—”
“And I would wear silken gowns—”
“—upon a white horse—”
“—and we wouldn’t have a care in the world!”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Greener Grass
Against her better judgment, the Queen led the Countess to her favored spot, the secluded hornbeam tunnel. Normally, as soon as she entered its shelter, the Queen felt calm. Deep green leaves swirled overhead, blocking out all but the most slender shafts of light, and the long path ahead of her looked safe and comforting and smelled so fresh, with the distinct, slightly tangy aroma of the leaves and bark.
The Queen always walked here alone. It was her sanctuary. On this day, however, she included the Countess, for she needed a private place to speak. She regretted her decision the moment they entered the tunnel, when the Countess began chattering.
“Oh, how divine, how exquisite!” The Countess clapped her hands. “Isn’t this—isn’t this—so quaint and—”
It was dry on the path, so densely interlaced were the branches overhead, but the Queen could smell the rain that had washed the outer roof of leaves. She searched for words with which to stop the Countess’s chatter. She decided to be blunt, to get to the point immediately, and so she asked about the hermit.
“She is the most perfect hermit for you,” the Countess replied. “She came instantly to mind.”
Despite the Countess’s rushing words disturbing the normal calm of the hornbeam tunnel, the Queen was enchanted. Soon she would have her own personal hermit. When they came to the end of the tunnel, the Queen felt a surge of joy, for there, off to the right, stood a timber storehouse, and the Queen recognized that it would make a perfect cottage for her hermit.
“I’ll have the servants clean it, of course,” she said to the Countess, “and add some beautiful tapestries—”
“Oh, no,” scolded the Countess. “You must not do that.”
The Queen, not used to having anyone tell her what she must or must not do, looked sharply at the Countess.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, forgive me. I am only suggesting—I believe that a hermit is supposed to live sparely. They like it that way, hermits. I think you might also want to suggest she let her hair grow long and wild, and let her fingernails grow, and—”
The Queen tried to compose herself. The Countess might go on like this for hours. “Countess, how long are you planning to stay?”
“I am so sorry to say—it is with deep regret—such a disappointment I cannot tell you—but we must depart—the Count has urgent matters—”
“Ah, yes, so disappointing.” The heavens echoed the Queen’s inner joy at the impending departure of her chattering guests: the sun burst briefly through the clouds, its rays making the grass sparkle like a carpet of tiny diamonds.
The King nearly skipped through the gardens as soon as the carriage carrying the Count and Countess departed. The paths were wet and the benches damp, but still the King chose to admire the puddles and to settle himself on a bench so that he could sort his thoughts.
He tried to rid his mind of the Count’s talk of poison. The Count had gone on for some time about the necessity of a taster. A taster! It had sounded utterly ridiculous at first, but as the Count prattled on, the King began to worry. After breakfast, during which everyone’s appetite was diminished, the King, in part to attempt to silence the Count, had said, “Fine, fine. I’ll see to it. One of the servants can be my taster.”
“I am not sure that is best,” the Count said. “I would not presume to have your wisdom in this matter, but how could you be sure that the servant was not a poisoner? Mm?”
It was all the King could do to disguise his astonishment. One of his servants? A poisoner? Never!
“It was thought—suspected—that it was one of Count Malpezzi’s own servants who poisoned him. Never proven, but suspected. I think they hanged the servant anyway, yes, I think they did. You might want to choose someone outside the castle, mm?”
Now the King sat on the damp bench, trying to dismiss the Count’s warnings. There was so much to say to the hermit. There was the new thief, of course, and this taster business, and the inventories—oh, so much to tell the hermit. At the edge of the path, a pile of leaves, blown from their branches in the morning’s storm, rustled. They shifted and rose and then fell again, revealing the black, wet body of a snake.
“You! Again!” the King cried, leaping up from the bench and rushing down the path, hurtling headlong toward the hermitage.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Free?
In the village, in Master Pangini’s hut, the day stretched on so long that it seemed to Pia that the sun and earth were stalled, and that the morning’s storm had captured the air around them and fled with it to some distant land.
“Why did Pangini say to ‘keep watch,’ Pia? Keep watch on what?”
“Or for what, Enzio.” She touched the corno hidden beneath her smock, for reassurance. “I don’t think I can scrub another wretched pot or wash another dirty shirt or beat another moldy mat. I feel like a prisoner.”
“In a dungeon,” Enzio added.
They were grateful when the long-awaited darkness finally slipped over the village, so they could curl up on their straw mats and sleep and hope that tomorrow they would be free to leave, to scour the village for news and, more urgently, to be rid of the pouch and the guilt it brought them.
Dawn, too, came slowly, limping, as if the burden of shedding the night required strenuous effort. An odd, reddish-orange glow bled low across the sky as Pia pried open the door to peer out.
They had heard the master come in late, not stumbling or shouting as he so often did, but shuffling purposefully across the room to his bed. When he awoke, he seemed not to know how to behave. He tried on a few grumbles, but they were awkward grumbles, not his usual boisterous, forceful tirades. “Porridge is too lumpy. Well, it is. Dirty—radish—mmf.” He thumped the table when he wanted something, so that they had to scurry to interpret his demands.
“No, not more porridge. More—that—”
Behind his back, Pia and Enzio opened their mouths in mute, frustrated screams.
As the master was departing, without yet having given any orders for the day, Enzio said, “Master? Can we leave today?”
“Leave?”
“I need to go to the market,” Pia said.
“And am I to relieve Rocco today?” Enzio added.
Pangini roused himself, his voice booming in its old, familiar way. “Of course, you idle turnips! You think you’re going to lie around here all day? Clean this place up and then get to the market and—and, do all those things you’re supposed to do! Hrmph!” And with that, he slammed the door behind him.
“Free!” whispered Enzio.
Pia tapped her corno, once, twice. “Free!”
Some of the usual noise had returned to the village. Carts rumbled through the streets and villagers shouted to one another, but fewer people were about, and those who were out were jumpy and cautious.
“Something strange going on, Enzio.”
“And Franco will know what.”
They were disappointed, however, when they reached the market and found no sign of Franco. They asked about him at several stalls, but the responses were not what they expected. Most people looked around before they responded, their answers silent gestures: a shrug, a shaking of the head, a roll of the eyes, all suggesting “Who knows?” or “Who cares?”
Pia helped Enzio during his shift at the stall, busying herself piling up oranges and grapes and melons, stacking them in attractive groupings. Few people spoke except to ask for this or that fruit or vegetable.
“All strange, Enzio, very strange, don’t you think?”
“No one’s talking.”
Around her waist Pia had tied the narrow, coarse sack which contained, deep inside, the leather pouch, and from time to time she could not help but reach for it, to reassure herself that it was there. In the tense quiet of the marketplace, she feared that someone might snatch the sack from her, or kidnap her, holding a sword to her neck.
When Rocco reappeared, Enzio and Pia raced down the dusty lanes, bound for Signora Ferrelli’s. The red of the early dawn had long disappeared and now dirty gray clouds gathered overhead, pushed by wind that carried with it an eerie but soothing lavender aroma, as if, Pia imagined, the wind had first swept through grand castle gardens.
When they reached the Signora’s dwelling, they tapped at the door and waited. They tapped again. They knocked louder.
“Maybe she can’t hear,” Enzio said.
“She heard
well enough the other night.”
They slipped around the side of the hut, stopping at a narrow window at the back. Pia slowly parted the oilcloth draped over the window. It was dark inside. No fire was lit. No sign of the Signora.
“She’s gone out, probably,” Enzio suggested. “To the market.”
Pia thought they would have passed her on the way. The room appeared odd, but she didn’t know why. And then, she felt a peculiar throbbing from the corno around her neck.
“Enzio, come with me,” she said, hurrying back to the door.
“You’re not going in?”
Pia’s answer was evident. She had already pushed against the wooden door and stepped over the threshold. She stood there a moment and then backed out.
“Enzio, she’s gone.”
“I knew that.”
“No, I mean completely gone. She had a big cross on the wall. It’s gone, and her cats are gone, too.”
Enzio and Pia returned to the marketplace. They walked the cramped aisles, hoping to catch someone gossiping.
“Pia, he’s back.” Enzio pulled at Pia’s arm, leading her to the far end of the marketplace. There, on his stool, sat Franco, and around him gathered a small pool of villagers. Pia and Enzio had to slip in close because Franco was speaking in softer tones than usual.
“…and I tell you, they came even to my home,” Franco was saying.
“And mine,” a villager said.
“Mine, too.”
“Everywhere!”
“Shouting and swords drawn—”
“Looking for a thief!”
“Another one?”
Franco bit off a piece of bread and spoke with his mouth full. “Mmf. More thieves.”
“But not from here?” said one thin, wrinkled woman.