Chapter 109

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 109
Chapter Title: Caught by the Tail
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Sancha stuck close to Ariadne as they left the Rambouillet Almshouse. Unable to hold back, she asked urgently, her eyes wide.

“My lady, are you really going to make Maletta Lord Ippolito’s wife?!”

Ariadne chuckled lightly.

“I’m not His Majesty the King. How could I possibly arrange a marriage that the man and his parents both oppose?”

“But you promised…”

“The promise I made wasn’t to get her married.”

Ariadne had promised Maletta, ‘I will make a place for you in the family.’ Nowhere did she promise that Maletta would become the official wife. That ‘place’ could be as a mistress, or it could be the place of a forgotten lover, banished to the countryside to raise an illegitimate child. Hearing Ariadne’s explanation, Sancha’s jaw dropped.

“Even if things go exceptionally well and you manage to install her as a favored mistress, Maletta will be furious.”

“And what can she do about being furious? Report me to the royal family for breach of contract?”

At this, Sancha raised a question. If they were going to play dirty anyway, why not pursue maximum efficiency to the very end?

“If Maletta has no way to force you to keep your promise, then don't we not even need to mention marriage to His Eminence, Cardinal de Mare? We could just say, ‘Thanks for the testimony, now get out.’ That would work too, wouldn’t it?”

“The testimony comes first, and making a place for her comes after, so yes, that would work.”

Ariadne smiled faintly. Her smile held a trace of bitterness.

“But I don’t want to become that kind of person.”

Someone who cast aside all his promises like a worn-out shoe. Cesare de Como. If you live only for convenience, you lose your humanity.

“I made a promise, so I will speak to Father. But I doubt he will accept.”

“Then will Maletta become Lord Ippolito’s concubine?”

“Would Ippolito keep a woman he’s already had his fun with by his side? I think, if things go well for her, Maletta might be sent down to the Bergamo farm to live quietly while raising an illegitimate child.”

Ariadne and Sancha rode the carriage back to the de Mare estate in silence.

“A scandal like this is best exposed when the capital is crowded.”

“It’s bound to leak out no matter how you try to hide it… The rumors will spread like wildfire.”

“That’s right. Let’s arrange a meeting with Father around the time the royal court returns to San Carlo from Taranto.”

***

Maletta and Sancha shared the same blood. Though the sisters had very different personalities, they had one thing in common: they were both exceedingly enterprising. When the Great Famine struck and they were on the verge of starvation, their parents were the first to abandon their hometown and set out for the capital. They decided to do something, anything, rather than sit and wait for the end. The outcome of their venture was not good, but their adventurous spirit was passed down to their daughters. However, Sancha inherited patience along with that spirit. Maletta inherited only the spirit of adventure.

“Why haven’t I heard anything?!”

On the third day after Ariadne’s visit, Maletta began to be consumed by impatience.

“I have to go back before Lord Ippolito forgets me!”

Maletta’s head was still in the clouds. She couldn’t imagine that Ippolito had cast her aside. She believed it was merely due to Lady Lucrezia’s spitefulness and that Lord Ippolito was waiting for her. But even Maletta, who didn’t understand Ippolito well, understood one thing clearly. Ippolito did not love her. He was a man who tired of things easily, and if she was out of his sight for too long, he would truly lose all interest in her.

“I can’t just sit here like this.”

Maletta clenched her jaw. When she was kicked out of the de Mare estate, she hadn’t been able to take anything with her. The clothes on her back were all she had. In this state, she couldn’t last long anyway.

“I have to do something.”

Lady Ariadne had given a prompt answer, but there had been no action. When on earth was she going to be summoned? Moreover, with Lady Lucrezia in the house, there was no way to contact Lady Ariadne again. If she could have gotten into the estate, she would have tried to meet Lord Ippolito and plead with him.

“…I’ll go see His Eminence the Cardinal.”

Cardinal de Mare was the clergyman in charge of the Basilica of San Ercole. A clergyman—regardless of the reality—was meant to guide the souls of the people, so in theory, he had to grant audiences even to the poor. Besides, didn’t he commute to the Basilica of San Ercole every day? Even if her request for an audience was denied or indefinitely postponed, she could meet him by standing in his path and throwing herself in front of his carriage.

“Let’s go.”

Maletta rose to her feet. Now that she’d said it, she intended to leave today. The Basilica of San Ercole was only about a half-hour’s walk away, anyway. Maletta pulled on the cloak given to her by the Rambouillet Almshouse.

***

“My lady! My lady!”

Lucrezia glared in annoyance at Loretta, who had just burst into her room.

“What’s all the fuss about? You’re so loud. My head is throbbing.”

“This is no time for that, my lady! Someone saw Maletta!”

“What?!”

Lucrezia shot up from the bed where she had been lying.

“Where did they see her?”

“She was spotted at the Basilica of San Ercole!”

“What!”

“She was walking around in a cloak bearing the seal of the Rambouillet Almshouse! She must have been staying there!”

Lucrezia’s eyes widened. My God, that insolent wench was surely trying to tell her husband that Ippolito was another man’s son! Heavens, what grudge did she hold against me to go this far?!

“I have to stop her.”

I have to kill her. That was the only way to silence that wretched maid. Lucrezia got up and began to pace the room frantically.

‘Will Niccolo the butler help me?’

Lucrezia shook her head inwardly. Niccolo was fundamentally Cardinal de Mare’s man. Even when Lucrezia held absolute power, he had never complied with requests that crossed the line. The male servants from the Rossi family, whom Lucrezia used for her dirty work, had been promptly dismissed by that Ariadne girl as soon as she took control.

‘If only I had gold…!’

No matter how principled Niccolo was, a sum of a hundred ducats—a fortune—would be too much to refuse. But Lucrezia’s finances were in shambles. Not long ago, she had pawned Isabella’s pink sapphire tiara but had only received seventy ducats for it. Raising a large sum in the hundreds of ducats right now was impossible.

“Ippolito, bring me Ippolito!”

What was the point of having a firstborn son? Rather than worry alone, Lucrezia decided to bring her son in to worry with her. Ippolito, hastily summoned by a breathless Loretta, asked his mother.

“Mother, what is it?”

As soon as she dismissed Loretta, Lucrezia cried out to Ippolito.

“That Maletta girl is trying to ruin us!”

“What did you say?”

“She was seen loitering around the Basilica of San Ercole! She’s undoubtedly trying to tell your father the secret of your birth!”

Strictly speaking, he wasn’t Ippolito’s father, but at this point, Lucrezia couldn’t care less about such details.

“If your father hears about this, we’re both doomed!”

Only then did reality seem to sink in for Ippolito. In truth, he had suspected something when he heard his Uncle Stefano’s slip of the tongue. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, so he had insisted it must be Arabella who had a different father. He felt a slight regret—‘I should have asked Uncle Stefano for confirmation before he left’—but hearing Lucrezia’s definitive words now, he was glad he hadn’t. Why listen to something unpleasant if he didn’t have to? He wanted to hide behind his mother’s skirts forever, pretending not to know. But he was slowly reaching his limit.

“…Mother, what will happen to me if he finds out?”

“Who can know your father’s mind! Do you really think he’ll accept you out of affection for having raised you?”

After spitting out the words, Lucrezia looked at Ippolito. Ippolito looked back at his mother. The mother and son exchanged a knowing glance.

‘Not a chance in hell.’

Simon de Mare was, in some ways, a very soft man. But founding the House of de Mare was the Cardinal’s lifelong dream. If he discovered that the woman he thought had shared that dream from the very beginning had brought a cuckoo’s egg into the nest from the start, he would not stand for it. It was obvious how he would treat that cuckoo’s egg.

“We have to catch that Maletta and kill her. Ippolito, do you have a way?”

“What about those servants you used to command, Mother?”

“That Ariadne girl drove them all out!”

Lucrezia fumed.

“We can’t use Niccolo either. I don’t have enough money to buy him.”

Ippolito, too, had squandered his money on revelries and had no large sum available. But he did have friends from the back alleys. It was the only gain from his lavish spending.

“Mother. What about vagrants?”

“Vagrants?”

“You know those friends I met while studying abroad, the ones who dealt in tobacco?”

“You had friends like that?!”

Lucrezia stared at her son in shock. To think she’d sent him away to study hard! But this was no time to be picky.

“Go on.”

“They work with muscle. They know the vagrants in the capital. For a paltry sum of a few dozen ducats, the vagrants will take care of a person or two.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner!”

*As if Mother would have been thrilled to hear I associate with vagrants from the capital,* Ippolito thought, giving his mother a disgruntled look.

“The vagrants can be a bit sloppy with their work. But Maletta has no parents, so there’s no one to raise a fuss and demand an investigation after she’s dead. We can just have her killed and dumped in the Tiberi River.”

“Yes, let’s do that!”

“Where is that Maletta girl?”

“It seems she’s at the Rambouillet Almshouse.”

“Then I’ll send the boys right away.”

***

Ippolito contacted the vagrants through his friend who smuggled tobacco.

- Kill a plump, red-haired woman dressed in fine clothes for a commoner and throw her into the Tiberi River.

Lucrezia, arguing that they couldn’t trust vagrants, insisted that she must see proof of Maletta’s death with her own eyes.

- After killing the woman, cut off her head, place it in a box, and leave it at the fishmonger’s at 8 Campo de Spezia.

The fishmonger’s was a regular haunt of Lucrezia’s. To be precise, it was a shop that laundered the origins of the salted fish sent from Taranto. Since she couldn’t have Maletta’s severed head brought to the de Mare estate, her plan was to have it left at the fishmonger’s, then send Loretta to secretly retrieve it for her to confirm.

A group of vagrants, having received their instructions, headed for the vicinity of the Rambouillet Almshouse, each with a dagger hidden in their clothes.