Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne and the Privateer

Silence fell once again. Marianne sat rigid, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of breaking the spell through which Eleonora's voice had seemed to come. She recalled too well her own terror when she had discovered the ruins, and Matteo Damiani there, embracing the statue. But she guessed that the ordeal which this woman had endured had been far worse than her own and her voice was very gentle as she breathed: 'You saw…'

'Hassan first of all. He was the singer. He was crouched on the marble steps with a sort of small drum, like a gourd, between his knees and he was drumming on it with his big black hands to accompany his chanting. He was gazing up at the stars as though lost in some mindless dream, but the torches burning inside the temple made his black skin gleam like bronze and glistened on the gilded loincloth and barbaric jewels he was wearing. His back was to the temple and I could see through the pillars to a great, gilded bed, all hung with black velvet. And on that bed two people were making love… The woman was Lucinda… and the man was Pietro – my Pietro. I still wonder why I did not drop dead where I stood, how I found the strength to escape. But I do know that was the last time I saw Pietro alive. The next day, they found his body hanging from a tree on the hillside. And three days later, I left with the players.'

This time, it was a long moment before Marianne uttered a word. She knew the place so well, the place whose name she bore, that she almost felt, listening to this terrible story, that she had experienced it herself, or at least been there to see. It did not surprise her when she saw the other woman brush away a tear, furtively, with the tip of one finger. Only when she thought that her companion was a little recovered, did she busy herself again with the tea-tray, and as she handed Eleonora her cup, asked: 'You never went back?'

'Yes, once, in 1784, when my mother was dying. She had never left the estate, but she had long ago forgiven me for my flight. I think, at heart, she was glad that I had got away from that dreadful house, where she had seen so much that was tragic. It was she who brought up Prince Ugolino, and she was there at the time of the fire which burned down the temple and in which Lucinda met her own, terrible, though self-inflicted, end. Yet she had hoped, then, that the future would be better once the familiar demon of the house had gone. And for a time, it seemed as if she were right. A year after Lucinda's death, her son Ugolino married a charming girl, Adriana Malaspina. He was nineteen and she sixteen and it was a long time since anyone in those parts had seen a more perfectly matched pair, or one more in love. For the sake of Adriana, whom he adored, Ugolino mastered his naturally violent and difficult nature. As ill luck would have it, he took very much after his mother but, wolf though he was, he made himself a lamb for his young bride. It seemed to my mother that the evil days were indeed gone for ever…

'When, after a little more than a year of marriage, Adriana found herself with child, Ugolino surrounded her with all imaginable attentions, guarding her day and night, even going so far as to have the horses' hooves muffled in case they should disturb her rest. Then the child was born – and the evil returned. When my mother was dying, she wanted to unburden her heart a little and, before sending for the priest, before she received the last sacrament, she told me of the twofold tragedy of that spring of 1782.'

'A twofold tragedy?'

'Yes. Only two women were with Donna Adriana when Prince Corrado was born: my mother and Lavinia. But,' she added, seeing the sudden light in Marianne's eyes, 'do not imagine that my mother revealed to me the secret of his birth. That secret was not hers to tell and she had sworn on the cross never to reveal it, not even under the seal of confession. What she did tell me was that, on the night after the birth, Ugolino strangled his wife. He could not touch the child, however, for Lavinia, fearing for its life, had carried it away and hidden it. Two days after this, Don Ugolino was found lying in one of the stalls in the stables with his skull smashed in. His death was naturally accounted an accident but, in fact, it was murder.'

'Who killed him?'

'Matteo. Ever since her marriage to Ugolino, Matteo had been passionately in love with Adriana. He lived for her and he killed his master to avenge the woman he loved. From that day onwards, he cared for the child with jealous fondness, he and Lavinia.'

The thought crossed Marianne's mind that perhaps, in spite of what Eleonora had said about her love for her husband, Donna Adriana might have returned Matteo's passion? What if the child were his and it was this resemblance which had unleashed her husband's fury? But then, if that were so, why had he not killed Matteo first?

She had no time to ask her final question. The door of the room opened to admit Quintin Crawfurd. Talleyrand was with him and at once the tragic shades of Sant'Anna fell back before the cares of the present. It was true that the Scotsman's appearance, supported on two sticks with his gouty foot swathed in a mountain of bandages, was funny rather than anything else, but the Prince of Benevento's grim expression was enough to dispel any tendency to laughter. It seemed that once again the news was bad.

With a bow to the two women, Talleyrand silently held out an open letter on which, ominously, the scrawled signature of Napoleon was clearly to be seen. Marianne took it.

***

'Sir,' the Emperor had written, 'I have received your letter which I read with some displeasure. While you were my Foreign Minister I was prepared to overlook many things. It grieves me, therefore, that you should raise matters which it has been my wish to forget.'

The letter was dated from St Cloud, 29 August 1810. Marianne returned it to Talleyrand without a word.

'You see,' he said bitterly, refolding the sheet. 'I am in such bad odour at court that I am now suspected of attempting to defend one of my foreign friends! I am deeply distressed, Marianne, most deeply and sincerely distressed.'

'He wants to forget!' Marianne said through clenched teeth. 'I dare say he would like to forget me also! But he shall not get away with it so easily. I will not let him destroy Jason. I will see him, whether he likes it or not, I'll force my way in, even if they do put me in prison afterwards! But I swear by my mother's honour that the Emperor will hear me! And before very long—'

She was already half out of the room when Talleyrand stopped her. 'No, Marianne. Not now, at this moment. If I am any judge of the Emperor's mind, you would be as good as condemning Beaufort on the spot!'

'Would you rather I waited – sat here calmly drinking tea, until they kill him?'

'I would rather you waited at least until he has been tried. It will be time enough to act after the verdict. Believe me. You know that I desire our friend's release as much as you. Be calm, then, and wait, I beg you.'

'And what of him? Have you thought what he may be thinking in his prison? Is there anyone who has ever told him to wait, to take heart? He is all alone, or so he believes, at the mercy of this devilish plot. I want him to know at least that while I live I will not abandon him! Very well, I agree not to try and see Napoleon – for the present. But I want to see Jason. I want to get inside La Force.'

'Marianne!' Talleyrand exclaimed, alarmed by her excited state. 'How can you do that?'

'Nothing could be simpler.' It was Crawfurd, coolly intervening. 'For a long time now, I have had turnkeys in every prison in Paris in my pay.'

'You have?' Talleyrand appeared genuinely astonished.

Shrugging his heavy shoulders, Crawfurd eased himself with a sigh of relief into the armchair which Marianne had quitted, and drawing a low stool towards him tenderly placed his gouty foot upon it.

'It is a useful precaution,' he said, with a small chuckle, 'when one has had, and will doubtless continue to have, friends under lock and key. It is a practice I have been familiar with for a long time. My first – er – clients were two of the gaolers in the Temple, and after that at the Conciergerie. Since then, I have maintained the habit. It is not difficult, if one has money. So you want to see your friend, little Princess? Well, I, Crawfurd, promise you that you shall.'

Marianne, trembling with happiness, could scarcely bring herself to believe in the miracle that was being offered her. To have the gates of Jason's prison open to her, to see him, talk to him, touch him, tell him – oh, she had so many things to tell him.

'You would do that for me?' she asked huskily, as though trying to convince herself.

Crawfurd raised a pair of china-blue eyes to her and smiled:

'You have listened to all my stories with such patience, child, that you deserve some reward. Besides, I have not forgotten what my Queen owed to your family. It is one way of paying the debt. Leave it to me. Before a week is out, you shall be inside La Force.'

The cab turned out of the me St-Antoine and entered, at right-angles to it, a short stub of a street no more than thirty yards long and ten broad, blocked at its farther end by a low, grim-looking building on one floor surmounted by a mansard roof nearly as high again, behind which rose another, taller building. In the darkness, the few peeling houses which gave on to this close, which was called the rue des Ballets, had a sinister appearance and a bleary lantern fixed above a fat stone bollard bound with iron at the farthest corner of the street, almost opposite the entrance to the prison, shone on the greasy cobbles, slippery with the mud and filth left by the rain which had fallen in the early part of the evening. A deep gutter running down the middle of the street was intended to drain off both the water and the refuse but in practice constituted only an additional hazard in the uneven surface. The cab lurched and the driver brought his horse to a stop under the lantern, alongside the squat, round bollard, and, with a weary, automatic gesture, leaned down and opened the door on Marianne's side.