Silent Water Read online

  I held my breath.

  “Don Mantovano.”

  “What?!”

  He nodded. “The guards testified that Mantovano had come by an hour after midnight with a flagon of wine and a goblet in his hand, though not visibly drunk, and said that he had some work to finish on the queen’s agriculture reforms. He offered them a drink, and as they were parched—those are their own words—they accepted it.”

  “And it didn’t seem suspicious to them that he was not drunk on New Year’s Eve?”

  He spread his hands. “Maybe he had a strong head?”

  I shook my head. “No, not Mantovano. He doesn’t drink—didn’t drink,” I corrected myself. “We often made fun of him behind his back for that.”

  I looked around, bewildered, as if someone could deny what I had just heard. This whole story, at first just sinister, was now becoming bizarre. I remembered that the secretary’s desk had been empty of all papers on the morning after his death, and the chair had been pushed in as if he had never sat in it that night. Whatever he had been up to certainly did not involve working on the queen’s business. And this despite what he had told us in the sleigh during the sanna, and later to the guards. He must have been planning it for some time—but what was it?

  “Lucrezia Alifio, the maid of honor who found him, had thought he was having a secret rendezvous with a woman,” I said, casting my mind past the lingering headache and back to the interrogation. “Maybe she was right and he had brought wine with him for courage?”

  Konarski gave a small chuckle of disbelief.

  “I know,” I said, unable to suppress a smile myself and feeling bad about it, for we were talking about a dead man. Then I added, more somberly, “Before yesterday morning, I never would have believed he had been drinking, but now—now nothing makes sense anymore.”

  Queen Bona, even in the middle of grieving, could not stay idle for long. That evening, she sent a messenger to summon her advisors to her sitting chamber.

  After I had helped her dress in a black silk gown and put her hair up under a black headdress trimmed with white pearls—the only jewelry she would wear until her secretary was buried—I wanted to leave, but she bid me stay.

  “You have friends in His Majesty’s household, don’t you, Caterina?” she asked, causing me to blush fiercely. By then Don Mantovano’s death was no longer a secret, though its cause had not been announced, and fevered speculations had already begun. But even amid that uproar, the news of the time I had spent with Konarski during the New Year’s night must have already reached her ears. But what did I expect? At court, gossip spread like the plague, and it was equally hard to contain.

  The queen saw my embarrassment. Taking it as a confirmation, she added, “I want you to stay and hear what my advisors know and what they think I should do.” She paused. “I have a feeling they will not want me to become involved in this investigation.”

  She was likely correct about that. Gamrat and Carmignano were fully aware of the tensions between her and Stempowski, and the last thing they needed was to see them inflamed further, which would make their job of advising a headstrong queen even more difficult. I wondered if she had told them about her suspicions. But whether she had or not, I was not sure what all that had to do with me or why she wanted me to stay.

  Perhaps the queen could see my perplexity, for she explained, “I want you to keep your eyes and ears open when you go about the castle to see if there is anything else you can add to what they already know.”

  “I, Your Majesty?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “You have more sense than most men at this court. You are also very curious about these murders.” There was little that got past Bona Sforza; then again, I was the one who had offered to visit Maciek Koza in the jail.

  “They are very puzzling,” I admitted, my heart fluttering with excitement. She needed me!

  “Indeed.” She took a sip out of the Venetian goblet I had filled with her favorite Lombard wine. “But what is even more puzzling is how the chancellor has managed to hide his tracks. And you know people who might help you get to that.”

  So there it was: she wanted me to use Konarski to learn what she or her men might not be able to. I did not relish the idea of taking advantage of his trust in that way, but I could hardly refuse. It was not a request, it was an order.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, although I doubted that Konarski would tell me everything that was said within the king’s household. He would be selective with me, just as the king’s advisors were selective with Carmignano and Gamrat, a subtle but persistent rivalry.

  The queen nodded, satisfied, and took some more wine. “If you hear anything, bring it to me immediately, day or night.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “What is your opinion about these murders, Caterina?” she asked suddenly, startling me with that question. “Do you believe those who say that Zamborski was killed out of jealousy and that Mantovano must have had a shameful secret of his own?”

  She turned her blue eyes on me, usually so steely and assured, and I thought I glimpsed a flash of uncertainty in them. It was so unusual for her to doubt herself once she had made up her mind about something that it took me a while to find my voice.

  “No,” I said at length. “I don’t think that either of them was killed in a jealous rage.” She nodded slowly for me to go on. “I didn’t see the body of Don Mantovano, but based on Doctor Baldazzi’s description, there was a precision to that attack which suggests that it had been planned. I believe the same is true of Zamborski’s death.”

  “Ha!” she exclaimed, her regal confidence back. “I knew it!” She set the goblet aside and began thrumming her fingers on the carved armrest of her chair.

  I found myself pondering whether this was a good time to tell her about my doubts regarding the Stempowski theory, or whether I should keep them to myself until I had proof. The assignment gave me a chance to earn her gratitude, and it also made me proud. Proud and—yes—excited, for it would help alleviate the daily tedium of safeguarding the girls’ virtue. The headache from earlier in the day was gone, and I felt a surge of energy.

  I decided to voice what was on my mind, but I had to do it carefully. “There remains the problem of both victims having nothing in common with each other,” I began. My pulse quickened as I saw the known facts lining up before me in two neat rows. “That difference—in their nationality, age, position at the court, and, especially, in their lifestyle—is something that the judges will be sure to wonder about when the accused, whoever he is, stands before them.” I paused as I heard the logic of it from my own mouth. “The first thing that must be established is a thread that connects the two of them.”

  Bona swung her head toward me. “What connects them is that beast Stempowski and the fact that they were both inconvenient to him—”

  There was a knock on the door, and Magdalena entered to announce that Gamrat and Carmignano had arrived. What the interruption had prevented me from saying was that not only were the two men different from one another, but that the manner of their deaths had been as well: Zamborski had been killed with one stab in the back, while Mantovano had received three thrusts in the stomach. If the chancellor had used an assassin—for he was not even in the castle when the secretary had died—would not the mode of the killings have been the same?

  Those were just a few inconsistencies in an increasingly strange and, it would seem, demonic plot. Stempowski or not, the killer was a madman, quiet and elusive, and we were all at his mercy.

  Piotr Gamrat and Antonio Carmignano were so like each other that they could have passed for brothers. Of course, they were only so in their chosen profession and their shared service to the queen, yet because of their short statures, round bellies threatening to snap the seams of their doublets, and small but intelligent eyes, anyone new to the court might have been forgiven for getting them confused.

  Their arrival was followed in short order by that of Jan Dantyszek an
d the poet Adam Latalski. What were they doing here? Dantyszek, in particular, with his fashionably sculpted beard framed by a lacy collar above his black leather doublet, upon which was draped a short cape of blue velvet girded off the shoulder, seemed like the last person who would concern himself with so unsavory a matter as murder, even if the victim had been his friend. Latalski, thin-shouldered, pale-faced, and with a mouth perpetually twisted in a wry grimace, looked equally out of place.

  I poured wine out of the decanter for the guests, and when everyone was holding a full goblet, the queen ordered Carmignano to brief us on what he knew about the investigation into Mantovano’s murder. The advisor repeated what Konarski had told me about the guards partaking of the wine with the late secretary. I studied the queen’s face for a reaction, for it complicated her version of Stempowski’s involvement.

  “That doesn’t sound like Lorenzo at all,” the queen admitted after a long pause. “But it was the eve of the New Year, and he must have felt lonely without his wife and children about, so he sought solace in drink, poverino.”

  The advisors wisely chose to remain silent.

  “Panie Dantyszek,” she addressed the courtier. “Was Don Mantovano a member of that group of drinkers and eaters of which you are the ringleader? Be honest with me!” she appealed to him, a bit dramatically.

  “No, Your Majesty.” Dantyszek shook his head with not even a hint of embarrassment. “Upon my word.” He put a manicured hand adorned with topaz and emerald rings on his heart. He sounded genuine.

  “I thought not,” the queen sniffed, looking relieved. “He was as devoted to me as he was to his wife, even though she was so far away. It was a source of great sadness to him.”

  “Of course.” Dantyszek inclined his head, although I doubted that he had any sympathy for that kind of marital longing.

  “His Majesty is of the opinion that I should not concern myself with the investigation,” she said. I had not known that; they must have discussed it when the king visited her that morning. “He says he has his best people working on it,” she added, unable to keep a contemptuous note from her voice on the words “best people.” “But I will see that the truth of the matter comes to light. Don Mantovano’s loyalty to me over the past six years demands no less.”

  Given what she had told me in private, this was a cautious and benign-sounding statement. I thought it was wiser that way.

  Dantyszek inclined his head in acknowledgment, but he, too, stayed silent.

  The queen spoke to her Polish advisor. “Panie Gamrat, do you think that we should stay away from it and let the chancellor investigate?” she asked.

  “I do, Majesty.” He bowed, and the gemstones adorning his large cap—with which he tried unsuccessfully to mask his balding pate—sparkled. Next to him, his Italian counterpart nodded in agreement. They had clearly already discussed it among themselves. Perhaps Stempowski, too, had encouraged them in this line of advice to the queen. “As they say, too many cooks—” Gamrat started to quote a popular Polish proverb, but she cut him off with a hand gesture.

  “Who do you think is responsible for these killings?” she asked directly.

  He blinked. “I don’t know, Majesty. They are most mysterious.”

  “Don Carmignano?” She turned to the Italian. He was older than Gamrat, perhaps as old as fifty, but he had a full head of hair, which was all white, as was his beard. He tended to be pompous where Gamrat could sometimes be too cautious, and it was that pomposity I disliked about him.

  “It appears that they were religiously motivated.”

  We all looked at Carmignano with a great deal of surprise, which he visibly relished.

  “Would you care to explain?”

  He puffed out his round chest with an air of importance, and despite my irritation, I was all ears. This was a theory I had not yet heard.

  “There has been increasing strife between those loyal to His Holiness in Rome and supporters of Martin Luther,” he said, sending a meaningful glance in Dantyszek’s direction. The latter was known to have friends among sympathizers of the reforming German priest—some even suspected him of leaning toward the new religion himself. There must have been some truth to those rumors because I had overheard a conversation Dantyszek had had on that very topic with Fugger the banker only a week before at the Christmas banquet.

  “We have been getting reports of attacks and killings being committed by both sides, not just in the German lands, but also in the Low Countries, anywhere these blasphemous views”— Carmignano grimaced—“have taken root. We have not seen this type of violence here yet,” he added, “but we cannot exclude the possibility that this may be the start of”—he hesitated—“similar troubles in this kingdom.”

  “But is there any proof?” The queen wanted to know.

  “Last year, after he returned from a journey to Saxony, Zamborski was involved in a brawl in one of the city’s taverns and briefly arrested. It was then that copies of Luther’s theses were found in his possession.”

  “Hmm. I don’t remember that.”

  “His family hushed it up.”

  “So why hasn’t the chancellor announced that to be the motive instead of arresting some half-witted servant?”

  “Perhaps so as not to embarrass himself for having nearly allowed his daughter to marry a heretic,” Carmignano suggested.

  “Of course.” The queen scoffed. Then she said, “It would absolutely not surprise me if someone like Zamborski had been mixed up in so godless an activity. But what about my secretary? He was a staunch Catholic!”

  “Who can know what darkness resides in a man’s heart?” Carmignano said philosophically, shooting Dantyszek another malicious glance. “Not everyone flaunts their heresy openly.”

  There was a brief interval of silence, then the queen turned to Dantyszek. “What is your view?”

  I doubted that the Italian had convinced her, but I could see that she was intrigued, nonetheless. Perhaps, like me, she found these awful developments also strangely fascinating. Or maybe that was her way of dealing with her grief over Mantovano.

  Dantyszek, who had endured Carmignano’s subtle attacks with studied indifference, made a show of thinking about it. I guessed that he was preparing a strong rebuttal, and I was not disappointed.

  “With all due respect”—he made a small bow toward the Italian advisor that was both deferential and mocking, something only a consummate courtier could achieve with such ease—“I do not think it very likely.”

  “And why is that?” I could see that the queen was glad to hear it.

  “Because such killings look very different,” he replied. “Signor Carmignano is right in talking about a rise of religious violence these last few years. It is indeed deplorable. I have traveled extensively throughout the empire, and I have seen such crimes and their aftermath.” His eyes swiveled in my direction, concern over my delicate female sensibilities visible in the subtle lift of his eyebrows, but the queen motioned for him to continue. “Almost always those killed for their reformist sympathies are branded in some way, typically with a cross carved into their flesh”—he hesitated, then added in a tone of defiance—“or their foreheads, or even over their hearts.”

  He glanced at me again, but I remained impassive, even though my insides were gripped by an icy cold. What madness was this that compelled one man to destroy another in the name of preserving the purity of the faith?

  “In many cases,” he went on, “regardless of whether such mutilations are performed or not, the killers leave rosaries or crucifixes in their victims’ hands. It is meant to shame them and send a message to everyone else, to discourage others from becoming swayed,” he added grimly.

  I was struck by how similar his tone was to that of Carmignano. Watching those two men eye each other warily and with thinly veiled hostility, it occurred to me that such violence was not inconceivable even in this kingdom, where toleration of religious differences ran deeper than elsewhere, deeper certainly that in
the empire or in Italy. It was unlikely—for the reasons Dantyszek had just listed—that Zamborski and Mantovano had been killed by a religious zealot. But whether such things might happen in the future, as the break from Rome solidified in the northern lands, was an open question.

  “There,” Bona said, a note of triumph coloring her voice even as her advisor’s face soured. “We can lay that possibility to rest.”

  She motioned to Dantyszek and Latalski, who had thus far remained silent. “I summoned both of you,” she said, “for two reasons.” There was palpable tension in the air as the courtiers awaited her next words. They were both ambitious and eager to serve, and she knew it. It occurred to me that she might ask them to work with me in conducting an investigation into the murders on her behalf. It would be odd, not just because of who they were, but also because I’d had the impression that she wanted to keep my mission a secret.

  “Firstly, I am now deprived of a secretary, and I will need a new one after poor Lorenzo is laid to rest,” she said, and I let out a small sigh.

  As if on cue, both courtiers executed their deepest and most elegant bows.

  “Panie Latalski, with your excellent Latin and Italian, I will entrust you with that position, if you will accept it.”

  “It will be an honor, Your Majesty.” The poet bowed again, his head nearly touching his bony knee.

  “You will be working closely with my advisors.” She gestured toward Gamrat and Carmignano. “They will explain your duties and responsibilities and debrief you on the business Don Mantovano was involved in.” Her fingers curled tightly around the end of the armrest of her chair until her knuckles went white. “We are not going to let his death slow down the farming reforms; we are going to go ahead just as we had planned. It’s what he would have wanted.”

  “Of course,” Latalski hastened to agree.

  Across the chamber Gamrat and Carmignano exchanged a look, and I knew that they were just as aware as I was of the queen’s true—or at least main—motivation. She wanted to send a signal to the chancellor that she would not back down. The gleam in her eye also told me that she could not wait for the official announcement to be made, for she was convinced it would infuriate Stempowski.