Free The Silver Devil by Teresa Denys Page A

I had lost all sense of direction and no longer knew
how far we had come, he turned suddenly into a doorway and bowed me ahead of
him into a high tapestried chamber. Two women were standing there, waiting.
    "Madonna
Niccolosa." Piero addressed the elder woman with a brusqueness that
carried me straight back to the Eagle. "Here is your charge. You know your
duties from the duke's secretary."
    The
woman nodded. She was tall and forbidding, wearing severest black, with gray
hair high-piled above a harsh-boned face. She was not young, but she stood
erect and stiff; only her hands, veined and swollen-knuckled, betrayed her age.
When she spoke, it was with a harsh, slow accent, in a voice devoid of all
expression. "We do, my lord."
    "Very
well. The fashion of her dressing is to be as the duke pleases — none of your
nun's attire, remember."
    He
must dislike her, I thought, to treat her so rudely. Her lips thinned at his
tone, but she answered him levelly enough.
    "We
have had His Grace's commands. He sent them himself."
    "Did
he so?" Piero sounded startled. "What was the order?"
    "Lombardy
silk, and silver," she said grudgingly, and he gave a low whistle.
    "But
nothing else, Piero!" The younger woman spoke for the first time, and I
jumped; her voice was as deep as a man's, husky and intriguing. "That is
some comfort, for he sent no jewels for her. He will not waste his treasure on
such a common wench."
    Piero
surveyed her mockingly. "What, are you jealous, Madonna Maddalena? He has
squandered enough upon you to maintain you for the rest of your days—now you
must give place."
    "Not
to that," she returned scathingly, glaring at him.
    Suddenly
I remembered where I had seen her before. She had ridden in the procession to
the cathedral; I remembered noticing her because her hair, a lovely dark
bronze, was one of the few not bleached to fairness. It was dressed in two
horns on her head in the Venetian fashion, and her gown—a wonderful thing of
black and silver—threw its color into relief and showed off her delicate,
faintly tawny skin. But it was the antagonism in her face that shocked me; as
she glanced towards me, her enormous pale-green eyes were smoldering and her
mouth was hard. She could not have been much older than I was, and I wondered
why she should be jealous of that disgusting old man—but then I noticed her
jewels.
    They
weighed down her thin fingers, circled her pliant neck, and lay across her
breast like a hauberk of mail; diamonds, glittering like a web of fallen stars
even in this grim place. Evidently Madonna Maddalena coveted such favors.
    Piero
did not answer her, but his smile was malicious as he bowed. "Ladies, I
take my leave—and you were best to use all haste. I will send someone to bring
you to supper in good time." A click of his fingers to summon the waiting
guards, and he was gone.
    It
was Maddalena who spoke first, breaking the oppressive silence. "And we
are to make that beautiful. My God!"
    The
older woman frowned. "Madam, we must waste no time on blasphemy."
    "We
need a hundred years for such a task." The green eyes surveyed me a moment
longer; then she said, "Well, call the maids and let us begin."
    I
hardly knew what went on for the next hour; I was too dazed with shame even to
raise my eyes. Maddalena kept up a flow of scornful little comments on my
plainness as I was bathed and dressed, but I barely heard them; my whole mind
was slowly succumbing to overwhelming dread.
    For
the first time I was beginning to realize what submission to the duke's lust
would mean. Until now my fears had been instinctive, a dread of the unknown,
but now as I turned and returned, moving like a puppet to order, I had time to
think. I remembered my stepfather kneeling by my bedside with his breeches
gaping open, his hand dragging back the covers and his voice a threatening
growl in my ears; I remembered Messire Luzzato's wet, pouting mouth and greedy
eyes. Then I thought of the man I had seen bowing in the street to