Beyond the Raging Flames Read online

  Beyond the Raging Flames

  Volume 2 in The Hermeporta Series

  Hogarth Brown

  Copyright © 2018 Hogarth Brown

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this book to the family and friends that have shown me so much love, encouragement and support. Thank you.

  Chapter 1

  The Message

  Padua, morning, Saturday, 22nd of October 1611

  ‘No mother!’ said Bianca incredulous, ‘but how so? You poor thing.' Illawara scrabbled in her mind for answers as Bianca snatched up her hand to her breast, that heaved like the bellows used to stoke a fire. ‘What did she die of my dear?’ She continued, as she stroked a stray hair from Illawara’s pink face, ‘Typhoid… Dropsy?’ She searched Illawara’s face for answers before she took in a sharp breath, ‘or was it consumption?’ She said with all the gravitas she could muster. Illawara shook her head and cast her eyes around the drawing room: as if looking for answers to be revealed by the light that entered the space through the lace curtains. The shutters lay open, and she let her gaze rest on the trinkets and ornaments, poised everywhere, that Bianca had collected during her years of exile. Illawara sat still like them, on their pediments, as she looked on from her chair: moulded, fragile, and mute.

  Bianca’s voice took on a grave tone as she removed Illawara’s hand from her pulsating breast, and lay it on the table next to the fresh pot of tea that Grizelda had laid out that morning. Bianca massaged Illawara’s hand as if to stimulate it to answer questions for her: ‘childbirth? It was childbirth wasn’t it?’ Illawara gave a blank expression, ‘oh my dear, you poor thing. The curse of the woman’s lot. I was lucky with Antonio’ she sighed, ‘I didn’t suffer like other women, some cramp, a few deep breaths and a push and he walked out, but your mother bore you and died of pride when she saw how pretty you were.' The mistress of the house sighed and crossed herself and raised her palm to the ceiling as if to accept, with resignation, the sad fate of Illawara’s dead mother. But Illawara shook her head,

  ‘I’ve never known my birth mother’ she said, ‘I don’t know if she’s alive or dead. I’ve no idea who she was, or is?’

  Bianca took on the expression of a hen laying an egg,

  ‘What?’ she said, after some seconds, mouth ajar, with the light catching the glassy blue of her eyes that she shared with Antonio, ‘did someone not tell you?' Illawara shook her head as Bianca’s brows scrunched, 'that is most queer, most queer.' She released Illawara’s hand for a moment to grasp the teapot, and top up her chipped porcelain cup with weak tea, and apologised for the use of common honey to sweeten it instead of fashionable, sweet salt, cane sugar. ‘So, who raised you then?' She said, 'and who gave you succour? It must have been a strong breast that gave you such shape and vigour.' The mistress chortled as she raised her cup to her lips, and took a loud sip while her glass-like eyes studied Illawara for information.

  ‘I honestly don’t remember’ Illawara lied, seeing Iona walk out the door, in her mind’s eye, with her bags packed and her father powerless to stop her: Iona was the closest to a mother figure that she had. But she was not going to give Bianca that information. Her mouth trembled at the memory. She seemed at a genuine loss as she looked into the distance, beyond the room, and tried to imagine herself suckled while a baby.

  ‘Your father then?’ Bianca enquired. Illawara hesitated, ‘heaven forbid - tell me at least that you have a father.’ Illawara nodded,

  ‘I do’ she said, as Bianca clapped a free hand to her neck with relief, ‘I do have a father. He’s how... I mean, why I’m here.' The mistress noted that her surrogate seemed unsure as to how to answer:

  ‘In Padova you mean?’ said Bianca warming to the information coming to her, as Illawara shook her head, ‘was he in Florence then? You take me more for a Florentine - like me - something about you dear: a spirit of refinement.’

  ‘You could say that I'm fond of Firenze’ she agreed, ‘and thank you. I think, no I mean, we were there for some time…’ The mature woman eyed Illawara when her voice trailed off before she spoke again.

  ‘What’s your last name: your father’s name?’

  ‘Sloane’ she said. Bianca’s lip curled at the corner.

  ‘Sounds foreign’

  ‘It is, he’s English. He came to Italy to teach after leaving Oxford.' She lied again with conviction, although she told the truth about Oxford. But the mistress took in Illawara’s dark hair and honeyed complexion with another sip and a glassy look, as she ran a short mental tally of the few English men she had seen who Grand Toured: and remembered their fair looks.

  Bianca nodded before she replied: ‘yes, yes, makes sense then that I wouldn’t know him or your family as I’ve been here since Antonio was born: over twenty-seven years now.’

  Illawara’s shoulders relaxed, while Bianca hummed as she thumbed a small crucifix that hung around her neck. ‘That’s more than enough time for you to grow up’ she added with a cool expression as she sipped again at her tea. ‘It’s nearly thirty years, but part of me still feels like a foreigner in this place’ she said as she threw a glance around the room, ‘sometimes I long for Firenze so much it makes me cry.’ Bianca’s eyes glistened with memory before Illawara then took up her hand and squeezed it. Grizelda came back into the room to check if her mistress needed anything: her voice sweet and empty, as she observed Illawara clasp Bianca’s hand with compassion.

  ‘What of the boys?’ said Bianca to her maid, dabbing at her eyes with a square of nun’s lace.

  ‘They’ve gone out to drink “Turkish Broth” as men are inclined to do. Dondo is with them; Donna Marconi’ said the maid as she gave Illawara a narrowed glance from the corner of her eye after she had topped up the weak tea with yet more hot water.

  ‘Why must men sip the Arab’s dark Devil drink?’ said Bianca exasperated.

  The maid could not hold back: ‘they say it livens the wits. But I say it corrupts: and leaves Christian minds as tarred as their hearts!’ said Grizelda, who cut a look at Illawara before she flinched away and left the room.

  Illawara felt heat rise to her face before her full lips narrowed to a line: ‘too right, too right' the mistress nodded, 'ah, She’s a good maid’ she added with a sniff. Her head turned around after the maid had closed the door behind her, and Illawara agreed in a sweet tone as genuine as Grizelda’s.

  ‘So, your father then?’ The mistress continued, ‘he must have looked after you in the absence of your mother?’ Illawara nodded, ‘did he marry again? There must have been a mistress of the house of some kind?’ Illawara chewed at her lip, and Bianca gestured at the air. ‘A widowed man can barely face life without a woman to cook, stitch, and mend for him.' The mistress fluffed at herself with pride - missing Illawara's grimace, 'for all their bluster and might, with time, I’ve learnt that men can be feeble creatures.' She nodded before she answered, and wondered if Bianca ever lifted a finger to stitch, or even stir a pot in her kitchen:

  ‘My father had a girlfrien… I mean mistress, no, I mean…’ She stopped herself, and Bianca arched a brow and gave a sage nod as Illawara stumbled over her words.

  ‘You mean you had a GOVERNESS to educate and advise you on how to be gentlewoman’ said the older woman with a tilted head, before taking another loud sip of watery tea, and giving a knowing nod. Images of her father shouting, red-faced and distraught, as Iona walked down the long drive away from the house flashed in Illawara's mind: Iona never looked back.

  ‘Correct’ said Illawara, after breathing out, ‘oh my, you’re wise.'

  'Antonio tells me otherwise' added Bianca, eyeing her protege over the rim of her cup. She avoided Bianca's look before she poi
nted her toes under the table and then snapped open a fan that the mistress had lent to her, and cooled herself. Bianca sat still and observed Illawara again as a cat watches a bird from a windowsill: ‘your governess educated you well, at least as well as I, and that is a very unusual thing in these times.’

  ‘My education was wide - my father is very broad-minded’ she said as she tilted her face in the breeze she created.

  ‘As was, mine’ added Bianca, ‘yet another thing we have in common.’ Illawara gave a wooden laugh and rolled her eyes as she continued to fan herself.

  ‘My father is a PROFESSOR.’

  ‘Of what?’ said the mistress, her face stiff. Illawara collected her thoughts before she answered.

  ‘Natural Philosophy. Yes, He’s a Professor of Natural Philosophy’ she added with evident pride as she recalled in her mind the numerous and enlightened conversations she had had with him, and the other Professors back home - before he left her too – conversations the likes of which Bianca could not comprehend. Illawara smirked. But the mistress sat stony-faced in silence. ‘Oh my, this tea is hot’ she said, after she took a deep sip, and looked around the room again, using the fan to blow stray hairs from her face.

  ‘Have you EVER been to church?’ said Bianca after some time. Illawara bristled before her head recoiled as if in disgust. With a clang of cups, Bianca bolted upright from the table - Illawara flinched - before she could answer: ‘have you had Holy Communion?’ Illawara glared at Bianca and then cast her eyes down to study the tablecloth, ‘Confirmation?’ the mistress continued, before pausing... ‘BAPTISM?’ She added, raising her voice. Illawara observed the table cloth’s delicate stitching as she shook her head in silence. Bianca exclaimed with shock, crossed herself, and paced the room as if tormented: ‘I should have known, I just caught it off you now. I think your father is a wretched Atheist, worse than a Protestant, who has risked your tender soul with hellfire and damnation.' Illawara baulked at the comment:

  ‘Just because my father doesn’t believe in God it doesn’t make him an evil man.' The mistress exclaimed again, but this time as if struck by lightning and rushed forward in a gust, such her speed, that her skirts stretched behind her in the minute time it took her to cross the room and clamp her hand to Illawara’s mouth. ‘NOT another word’ she gasped, as one of her angel figurines wobbled on a plinth, ‘not another word. What if the Devil were to hear you?’ She said, her head bobbed and weaved as she searched the shadows of the room in the bright sunlight. Illawara had to prize away Bianca’s hand from her mouth so she could breathe before the exiled lady spoke. She made signs of the cross: ‘Heaven protect! It's a miracle that you live unscathed. We must have you Baptised - it is the LEAST I should do in my duty as a Catholic.' Illawara shrank back, but the mistress shook her head, 'an unbaptised woman living under my roof cannot be endured.' Illawara threw up her hands in protest and gulped for air. 'That’s it' she insisted, 'it’s decided. Tomorrow we go to church’ she said with a faraway look toward the drawing room window. Bianca shot up an imperious hand to silence Illawara’s rancour and extended the other into a shaft of light as if to summon angels as she spoke. The teenager wriggled as she watched the woman who stood transfixed, and uttered her words as if reading the future of some great portent: ‘tomorrow we shall walk to church, with you veiled in fine lace and modesty.' Bianca held her pose before turning towards Illawara. 'Poor heathen daughter, I shall present you to the congregate as my exotic niece from a brother who married a wealthy and mysterious woman abroad - a woman that died in bringing you into this world.' Illawara tried to stand, but Bianca stuck out her palm to continue uninterrupted. 'I shall say that you have come to visit me to bring me comfort in my years of exile, and be baptised into the faith - ridding yourself of sin and ignorance - so that you may one day find a suitable husband.' Illawara guffawed. Marriage had never entered her head. She had come to Italy for her father: and that was all.

  ‘You cannot be serious?’ she exclaimed, her dark brows in knots,

  ‘I am’ said Bianca, ‘don’t tell me you don’t wish to be married? What kind of woman are you?’ Illawara had to hold her tongue lest she blurted out the truth - a truth that she comes from a future where a young woman has her own mind and decides her own destiny - a truth that Bianca would find incomprehensible.

  ‘I’m too young to marry’ she said, stumped for a better response.

  ‘How old are you then?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘You’re ripe for marriage: empty-headed girl’ she flapped, ‘why half of Padova would fight for your hand.' Then the mistress’ eyes flashed, but not with temper. A sly look and a thin smile came to rest on her face. ‘Are you intact?’ she asked, but Illawara looked confused. ‘Is your honour intact?’ But Illawara gave a confounded shrug and flapped her arms. Bianca could not conceal her irritation, ‘are you a VIRGIN?’ She said, at volume. Illawara’s eyes bulged, and she hesitated. The mistress crossed her arms: ‘if you’re NOT a virgin then you can take off that dress and leave my house in the stained one you arrived in.' The nineteen-year-old’s tan skin took on a deep pink hue,

  ‘That’s a very personal question to ask’ she said, but Bianca, in silence, then moved her hands to her hips, and raised a brow to her high plucked forehead, and Illawara observed the grey stubble that had begun to form there. Illawara remained seated and nodded in silence.

  ‘Good’ said Bianca relieved, ‘I shall instruct you, as it’s clear to me that you’ve had none, that nothing is more important to a woman than her reputation and honour.' The younger woman raised her brows.

  The irony of the statement from Bianca on honour had not been lost on Illawara when she thought how the fallen woman had lost hers. But she avoided contradicting the mistress that could have her turned out into the street. She kept quiet and ran her tongue over her teeth. The noblewoman then took in a sharp breath that clenched her nostrils: 'we go to church tomorrow’ she continued, ‘and I shall handle things, and I’ll not hear a word against it. To a motherless and unbaptised child, it’s my Christian responsibility to take a hand in your future and guide you as a true mother should. I’ll not ask any more of your father, as it’s clear to me the state he has left you in, circumstances or not, and has set you adrift in this dangerous world alone and unprepared.'

  Bianca’s words found their target, and Illawara’s lip had begun to tremble again as she thought of Iona and her father, and how they had abandoned her to fend for herself. She couldn’t argue with Bianca on that point and became struck to the core by her insight.

  ‘I see fit then’ Bianca continued as she reached toward Illawara with her arms outstretched. ‘That as you have no mother - and have never known of a proper mother in your short-misguided life - that I take on that mantle for you as sweet Mary, Mother of God, would do for any lost lamb in need.'

  Illawara had done her best to hold back, but her emotions got the better of her, and she started to cry when Bianca walked towards her with her arms flung wide, ‘embrace me then daughter: I’ll be your mother.' Illawara stood before collapsing into Bianca’s arms, shaking. The mistress had made a majestic sweep forward to catch and clasp Illawara to her breast, and cradle the younger woman in her arms like a babe as she kissed her head and stroked her hair. ‘There, there’ she said as Illawara sobbed, ‘there, there.'

  Earlier that morning

  Dondo had not quite known what to do with himself that morning when he had received the news. He had crept from Bianca’s bed after he had untangled himself as usual, in the small hours, stretched, and peeped through the shutters of her bedroom window. The sky had begun to bleed into life with streaks of red and orange, that stained the blue of twilight like a dash of watercolour. He turned back to glance at the bed and his sleeping lover, Bianca, who had then turned in her sleep and clung to her pillow to continue the gentle snore that Dondo had grown to love. Dondo looked at the lines that ever increased upon her face, at her grey hairs, at her plucked brows and forehead,
and smirked at her constant worries about her fading looks. Yes, he thought, she was no longer the fresh-faced beauty he had come to know years ago, but she was still a handsome woman, and he had grown to love her foibles and all her contradictions: fallen, but still a lady.

  Dondo had pulled his clothes over his paunch and his strong, compact, body and blessed his years on galley ships as he admired his sculpted white-haired forearms. He flexed his robust hands, like the paws of a bear, such a favourite feature of Bianca’s.

  He snuck out of his mistress’ bedroom, after checking that no one had stirred, and passed through the short passageway to check that the others were still asleep. The door had stood ajar to Grizelda’s tiny bedroom, little more than a broom cupboard, where he found her asleep on her back: her mouth slack and her white teeth in the air as she breathed slow and deep. The door to Illawara’s room, the official spare that belonged to Antonio, was closed. Dondo crept the extra steps along the passageway to the living room, before the kitchen. He peeped into the room where he had made a makeshift bed for Antonio and Hermes to sleep on: he found the two slumbering, spooned, with Antonio’s arm cradled over Hermes’ shoulder where the brown-skinned youth clung to the arm like a scarf around his neck. Dondo looked on with a half-smile before he made his way to the kitchen and looked about to read Bianca's list of chores for the day. He nodded as he took in the information. Grizelda had already cleaned the plates from last night’s dinner, but he could also see they would need more firewood soon, and that the maid’s broom would need replacing, as well as other little things that caught his keen eye.

  Dondo had yawned and stretched again before he tore off a strip of cold chicken from the bone of the cooked remains that hung from its spit on the fireplace. He had then looked out of the kitchen window to see dawn progress.