Death of a Duchess by Elizabeth Eyre Page A

hoisting the door open. Like all the village, she had been closely observing until now, and she had formed her plan and now carried it out. She denied, not Poggio’s existence, but his presence. She had not seen him since last summer. He was too busy to visit his poor mother. It was a pity he was not here when the gentleman had come to see him, but his poor mother...
    She was a large woman, a woman whose bulk in a village such as this showed a source of food denied to the others. Food was the only currency they had with which to pay for her skills, as midwife, as layer-out of the dead, as mixer of potions for enemies and lovers, for wives to endow fertility or to check it. Bunches of herbs hung in the half-dark round her head like suspended bats, a fire of twigs and rubbish gave off an unpleasant smell, to which a tallow lamp and Poggio’s mother contributed. A snuffling grunt in the shadows told that a pig shared her accommodation.
    Sigismondo heard out her excuses and lamentations without further question. He pushed back his cowl and hood and her eyes took in the shaven head.
    ‘A priest? Oh, Father, I’m telling the truth. I’ll swear it on your cross. My Poggio isn’t here, I’ve not seen...’
    The priest produced, not a cross convenient for her to perjure herself on, but a sword. She screamed. Three hens which had been quiescent in the rafters launched themselves into the room. The pig squealed. Benno, outside with the horses, on guard over beasts and saddlebags with a cudgel in hand, wondered if Poggio had been found.
    He was not, at first, but as the sword enquired into the corners, somewhere halfway up one of the wattle and daub walls a quantity of straw plugging a hole fell out and a face appeared. It was a large, intelligent face with a wide mouth, turned-up nose and very bright eyes that examined Sigismondo with care. The next minute the large face was followed out of the hole by a small body in a green jerkin and red hose. With the agility of a stoat he put his foot on a projection of the wall, his hand on another, and dropped to the floor. He flourished a Court bow.
    ‘Poggio, and your servant, lord.’
    Poggio’s mother, infected by these courtesies and unembarrassed by her son’s proving her a liar, fetched, and wiped clean with the filthy sacking of her apron, a three-legged stool. When Sigismondo was seated, she put a cake of dung on the fire and poured a brew smelling of tansy into an earthenware cup which she offered him, showing several teeth in an ingratiating smile. Poggio dumped himself on a pack of straw, presumably the bed, and seemed surprisingly ready to talk.
    He was sorry to hear of the death of the Duchess. She had been kind to him. Yes, he had made a foolish joke about her, and the Duke had been angry. The Duke was often angry. All the dwarves had to be careful. Poggio had been hoping to be summoned back from exile at any time, but now that her Grace was dead, the Duke was not likely to want jokes.
    Sigismondo drank his thin ale and smiled comfortably at him.
    ‘On the contrary, his Grace has sent for you.’ He held out the hand on which the Duke’s heavy ring gleamed. ‘As you hoped.’
    Poggio’s face contorted into what he probably would have liked to be an expression of surprise and pleasure. To his mother, who was skilled in reading his face, and to Sigismondo skilled in reading faces, it was plain he was terrified. Sigismondo’s smile widened.
    ‘He wants to question you about her Grace’s ring.’
    It was not particularly warm in front of the meagre fire, but Poggio’s face shone with sweat.
    ‘I know nothing of her Grace’s ring. I cannot. I was not there.’
    ‘You were not there — when?’
    Poggio glanced desperately at his mother who, quick on cue, bent to fold him in her arms where he all but vanished.
    ‘My child! Of what do you accuse my child? He has been with me all this time. What could he have done?’
    Sigismondo rose, genial still. ‘That’s what