Free Death of a Duchess by Elizabeth Eyre

and put Leandro Bandini there to be blamed. There had to be someone to blame although she’d been unfaithful because of the alliance with her brother. Her brother’s a duke too, I didn’t know. Duke Ippolyto. They say our Duke couldn’t risk just killing her, there had to be a scapegoat.’
    Sigismondo hummed. ‘And?’
    Benno took up willingly, interrupted only by an almost negligible belch. ‘Well then, one of the Duke’s guard said young Bandini forced her and then killed her so she wouldn’t tell, and knocked himself out in his hurry to escape.’ Benno produced a quill and began picking his teeth.
    ‘The simplistic view.’
    Benno looked up with unquestioning confidence. He said, ‘After all, there was blood on the Duke’s hand. At dinner, you remember. The wine. So they say it was the Duke, that he caught her with the Wild Man making love, and he killed her and he’s got Leandro Bandini in prison waiting to be unmanned and drawn and quartered to please the Duke Ippolyto.’
    He reached to the floor by his bundled-up feet, found a leather bottle, upended it so vigorously over his mouth that he tipped backwards and all but kicked the brazier. Sigismondo’s swift hand righted him.
    ‘Ta. There’s been another omen, too,’ he went on, getting to work on his teeth once more, which gave his narrative something of the effect of a cleft palate. ‘The statue of St Agnes groaned this morning at Mass. Half the congregation heard it. And the Duke’s new chapel in the cathedral, they’re digging the foundations still just beyond the Innocents’ chapel and they dug up a nun’s body and it was the holy sister Annunciata that died in the old Duke’s time. They say it’s bad she was disturbed.’
    Sigismondo reached under the bedding, produced a pack and, feeling inside, drew out a small flask in a straw case. They each drank, and Benno mopped his deplorable beard and went on. ‘There’s another story. The Lord Paolo’s page said he didn’t believe it but he told us. He said it’s the sort of thing that people will say. The story goes that my — my old master the Lord Jacopo had lured Bandini to the Palace, for a wager like, that he could get away with going there in disguise. If Leandro Bandini could get in, then the Lord Jacopo or his men could be here disguised as entertainers too; then they killed the Duchess and left him there to be guilty. People said that would be a great revenge if it was true, a really good payment for abducting my Lady Cosima; except for the Duchess. Some said that spoiled the skill of it, murdering the Duchess. Others said a feud doesn’t have boundaries, anything is permissible.’
    ‘I hear that Bandini himself has taken refuge with the Cardinal Pontano.’ Sigismondo was not niggardly with gossip in return.
    ‘Bandini’s lent the Cardinal money. Some say he’s lent money to the Pope. So the Church will look after him. Do you want some of this cloak?’
    ‘If I do, I’ll take it.’
    Benno nodded, believing this. ‘What did you get to hear besides?’ He looked up hopefully.
    ‘There’s a ring missing from the Duchess’s hand, one she always wore.’
    Benno gazed at the glowing wood. ‘If anyone took it, they’re stone mad. It’d be known. Did you see her body?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Benno waited, then realised he was getting no more. Sigismondo passed him the flask, as either consolation or a reward for asking nothing. He drank, sighed, and kicked his bundled legs.
    ‘You know, my life’s really got interesting.’
    There had been footsteps, rapid or slow, up and down the stone stairway, but now someone stopped and said, ‘Master Sigismondo.’
    The bed creaked as Sigismondo leant and raised the curtain.
    ‘You asked to be told when the prisoner came round. He’s conscious and moaning.’
     
    Leandro’s memories of what had led to his lying on the disgusting straw in the Duke’s dungeon were blurred, but his immediate perceptions, as he swam up to consciousness,