The Silver Devil Read Online Free PDF

me who would not
stir out of the way, so he bowed to me instead."
    "Court
manners!" Celia snorted, but she sounded envious. "He meant nothing
by it, I swear, but mischief to those young women."
    "Now
there you wrong him, Mistress Guardi, I dare be sworn you do. He meant no
mischief; it was the overflow of his good heart."
    Celia
abandoned the point. "What does he look like, close?"
    "Oh,
handsome and cheerful—he favors the old duke's family. Short like Duke Carlo
and dark as he was when he was young, but with a square sort of face like a box.
And he has blue eyes, and they never came from the Raffaelle side."
    "You
sound half in love with him," Celia said scornfully.
    "All
Fidena is, Mistress Guardi. I give you my word! No one who saw him can talk of
aught else, he was so merry and courteous."
    Yet
he can have had little cause to be merry, I thought. Fidena so resounded with
Lord Alessandro's popular return that the people had forgotten the less than
glorious part their idol had played in the battle, forgotten the soldiers who
had followed him to their deaths, and had seen only the smile of victory on the
Bastard's face. To them he was the flower of Cabria, the hope of his house, and
the pride of Fidena; the duke's heir and his nobles rode in unregarded while
the citizens were lost in admiration of the general who had cost the state so
many lives. So eager were they to show their approval that they were up at dawn
on the day of the duke's triumph to cheer for the lord Sandro.
    The
voices in the street woke me, and in the fast-growing light I rose and hurried
into my old black dress. I was sure that today, of all days, Celia must relent.
The city was keeping holiday, and even the port would lie idle today while the
duke rode to the cathedral to give thanks to God for his victory over the
Spanish. It was unthinkable that I should stay cribbed up in my bare, stuffy
room while the sounds of rejoicing were beginning to echo against lath and
plaster.
    I
wanted to pace the floor in my impatience, but it was too cramped; instead, I
sat down to wait, with what patience I could muster, for the sound of Celia's
tread upon the stairs. I thought I must be dreaming when I heard her voice
below, in the yard. She cannot, I thought feverishly, she cannot have forgotten
me.
    Celia's
best gown stood out vividly among the crowd down below in the sunlight, purple
glinting with gold thread; and her voice sounded clearly above the hubbub.
"... not enough brains to reserve one window in the whole house for your
wife, you money-grubbing, fat-brained oaf! Well, now you can pay Barilli's boy
what I promised him for saving us places on the steps of San Domenico, and see
how you like that!"
    Her
denunciation was swallowed up in the surrounding noise as the two of them
vanished into the crowd. Poor Antonio, I thought. He never thinks beyond his
own immediate gain; and then I remembered, with a sickening feeling, what their
departure meant to my hopes. I was not to go free. I must spend this day like
every other, doing penance for a fault that was not mine—and fasting, I
remembered wryly, until Celia returns and thinks of sending me something to
eat.
    I
turned away from the window, measuring the time. The duke would come to the
cathedral at noon and pass here a little before; it might be that Antonio and
Celia would return then, but it was far more likely that they would wait,
fearing to lose their dearly bought places in the crowd, until the procession
had passed again on its way back to the palazzo. Whichever they did, the day
for which I had harbored such hopes stretched emptily before me.
    Then,
suddenly, I laughed aloud, and the sound rang back oddly from the plaster
walls.
    I
am as foolish as Antonio, I thought, moping because I cannot see the
procession. Unless I want a silk-hung balcony and a gallant to fan me while I
gaze, I cannot be better than where I am!
    It
had not occurred to me that I should be able to see the triumphs from my own
window