A Dancer in Darkness Read Online Free

guard made a lunge for her. She slapped him, and went on singing. Then the other guards closed in on her. The players capered themselves to the safety of the wall.
    The woman burst out from among the soldiers, her bodice torn, righted herself, and ran towards Bosola. The yellow guardsmen streamed after her.
    Bosola reached down, scooped her up to the saddle, and wheeled his horse. The woman made no sound. He cursed himself for a fool, and dug his rowels into the scarred body of the horse. A crowd was jammed in the far opening of the street, where it opened out into a small square.
    There was nothing to do but jump. The horse’s hooves caught on a basket a woman had on her head, sending bright slimy squid flying through the air. The horse stumbled on the cobbles on the other side, and its hind quarters went down. There was no time to worry about the horse. Bosola grabbed the woman, and ran for the portal of the church at the far end of the square.
    The church was draped with long black streamers over the façade. Bosola shoved the woman through the portal and ran into the nave. The woman sobbed and followed him. They were fortunate that the church was draped for a funeral: the crowds were superstitious, and would remain outside.
    He peered round the quiet darkness of the nave, and moved forward towards the catafalque which dominated it.
    “What’s your name?” he asked.
    “Rosina.”
    “You should know better than to provoke soldiers.”
    She shrugged. “I must earn my living, and some are not bad.” She sat down on a chair, untied her skirt, and took money out of it, counting.
    “Then why run?” he asked contemptuously.
    “I am six months with child.”
    Bosola grunted and went to inspect the catafalque.
    The church dated from Norman times, and it had the Norman gloom. The catafalque hid the High Altar, whose flicker was dimmed by the giant candles which stood at the head and foot of the sarcophagus. He jumped on a reed chair, to look on the bier.
    A little man lay up there, like the abandoned chrysalis of a butterfly. He had been small in life, and death had made him smaller. He was dressed in engraved pageant armour whose helmet was four times the size of his head. It stood at the top, its plumes nodding in the breath from the candles. The man had a grey beard and a pinched, mean, haughty face. Over his body was flung the scarlet cloak of the Knights of Malta.
    Bosola jumped down from his reed stool and caught the superstitious eyes of the woman.
    “Who is he?”
    “My Lord Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi. That is why they are all here. The Duchess is a widow with a three-year-old son.”
    “The Duchess?” That would be the Cardinal’s sister. “She cannot be more than twenty.”
    Rosina dusted off her skirts and pulled her bodice into place. She was such a huge woman that her pregnancy was scarcely visible. “They must marry her off again, so they all come here. Poor thing, they say she’s beautiful,” she added wistfully, in that way that the poor have of pitying their betters.
    When he had last seen the Duchess, she had been seven. Bosola jumped on the stool to look at the catafalque again. Then he drew the dagger in his boot and tossed it in the air thoughtfully. If the whole brood were here, his chances would be the better, but he scarcely knew which he was after, preferment or revenge.

TWO
    In the ten years since Bosola had been sent to the galleys, the Sanducci had climbed far. This palace was what they had come from, provincial nobles with one horse, who had ridden the Spanish coat-tails into power. Bosola looked round the courtyard . He knew the place well.
    Ferdinand, it was true, was sixth count and second Duke of Bracciano, but Bracciano was a sterile vineyard in the hills, with a strawberry patch down by the lake. Now there was Capelmonte , Astri, the fief of Erculano, Calabria (but Calabria did not recognize the fact), and Papal lands for all. In power or out, the Spanish had made them rich.