gave her a eunuch for a lover when she was all but out of her mind. Well, I am no eunuch. I am a man, Marc Antonio.”
Tonio had risen. But Carlo was beside him.
“You are the devil in hell as he said you were!” Tonio whispered.
“Oh, did he say that of me!” Carlo cried out. He caught Tonio by the small of his arm and held him. But his face was constricted with suffering. It was hurt he was feeling as he confronted Tonio. “He said I was the devil, did he? And did he tell you what he did to me! Did he tell you what he took from me! Fifteen years in exile. How much can a man bear? Would I were the devil, I would have had the devil’s strength in that inferno.”
“I am sorry for you!” Tonio freed himself with a violent pull of his arm. “I am sorry for you.” They were facing each other, the table behind them. The servants were gone from the room, and the candles gave off their blazing light everywhere. “I swear it before God, I am sorry for you,” Tonio said, “but I cannot do anything, and she is as powerless as I am.”
“Powerless? Is she? How long can you endure in a house turned against you?”
“She is my mother, she will never turn against me.”
“Don’t be so sure of that, Marc Antonio. Ask yourself this first, what was her crime for her fifteen years of exile?” He advanced as Tonio moved away from him.
“My crime was that I was born under a different star, of a different humor. He loathed me from the day I was born, and no one could show him the slightest virtue in me. That was my sin. But what was hers that he should deign to make her his child-bride and wall her up alive in this house with an infant her only companion?”
“Get away from me,” Tonio said. He could see the dark well of the Grand Salon opening beyond the doorway. And yet he couldn’t break loose though Carlo was not touching him.
“I’ll tell you what her sin was,” Carlo said. “Are you ready to hear it? And then we will see if you can tell me I must not speak of her to you! It was that she loved me, that was her sin, and when I came for her at the Pietà, she went with me!”
“You’re lying!”
“No, Marc Antonio…”
“Every word you say is a lie….”
“No, Marc Antonio, nothing I say is a lie. And you know it. You’ve guessed it. And if you have not, go to that eunuch of yours for the truth, go to your beloved cousin, Catrina. Go to the streets where everyone remembers it. I took her out of that convent in bold daylight because I wanted her and she wanted me, and he, he would not so much as look at her.”
“I don’t believe you!”
Tonio raised his hand as if he would strike Carlo, but he could no longer even clearly see him. He saw only a blurred shape before him, drawing ever closer, passing in front of the wreaths of candles, now dark, now expressionless.
“I begged him to let me marry her! On my knees I begged. Do you know what he said? Mainland nobility, he sneered, dowerless girl, orphan. He would choose my wife, and a burnt-out shrew he chose for her wealth, for her position, for his hatred of me! ‘Father,’ I begged. ‘Come to the Pietà, see her.’ I knelt on this very floor, imploring him.
“And when the worst was done, and he’d sent me away, he took her himself for his bride! Mainland nobility, dowerless, orphan, he married her! He bought her into the Golden Book with his wealth. And for me, he could have done that! For me, but he refused. And banishing me, took her to himself, I tell you! Weep, yes, weep, little brother. Weep for her and for me! For our rash love and rash misadventures, and for how we have both of us paid for it!”
“Stop this, I won’t hear it!” Tonio clamped his hands to his ears. His eyes were shut. “If you do not stop, so help me God…” He reached out for the door frame, and finding it, lay his head there, unable to speak another word, unable to stop his helpless crying.
“Come tonight to her door,” Carlo said softly behind him. “Listen at the keyhole if you will. She belonged