Taquisara

by F. Marion Crawford

It was midnight when they lit candles, and set them beside him in great candlesticks as he lay. And she sat down at his feet and watched his still face, from beneath the shawl that hung over her head. It had been in her hands when they had told her, and her fingers had closed upon it stiffly; so she had it when she came to his room. She was glad, for she could cover herself from the eyes of those who came and went, but her own eyes could see out, from under it, and no tears blinded her. After she had sat down, she did not move.

Gregorio Macomer had come, and had gone away, and then he had come again, when all was done, and had knelt a long time beside the couch on which his brother lay, repeating prayers audibly. His face was as grey as a stone. He only spoke to give directions in a whisper, and he said nothing to his wife, but let her alone, bowed and covered as she sat. When he had prayed, he went away, with reverently bent head, and she heard that he trod softly. In two hours he came back, knelt again, and again repeated Latin words. She knew that he was doing it for a show of sorrow, and she wished to kill him. Then, when he was softly gone again, she wondered how soon she herself was to die. There were two servants in the room, behind her, keeping watch. They were relieved by two others, changing through the night. She heard them come and go, but did not turn her head.

When the dawn forelightened, like the ghost of a buried day risen from the grave to see its past deeds, she was not yet dead. She had once read how the murderers of Vittoria Accoramboni had been torn with red-hot pincers and otherwise grievously tortured, and how knives had been thrust deep into their breasts just where the heart was not, but near it, and how they had died hard, for they had lived more than half an hour with the knives in them, and at the last had been quartered alive. She had not believed what she had read, but now she knew that it was true. She envied them the searing, the tearing, and the knives which had at last killed them, though they had died so hard.

The wan dawn turned the dead man's face from waxen yellow to stone grey. The servants saw it, whispered, and closed the inner shutters, and the yellow candle-light shone again in the room. Any light is better than daylight on a dead face.

Matilde sat still, bowed and covered. Fixed in the world of grief, the hours of sorrow passed her by. There was neither night nor day in the dead watch of the closed room, under the tall candles, burning steadily.

Then, at last, other feet were on the threshold, stumbling, shuffling, ill-shod feet of men bearing a burden. In that city, one may not lie in his home more than one day after he is dead. They set down what they bore, beside the couch, and waited, and the woman saw their questioning faces and heard them whispering. Then one of them, with some reverence and gentleness, thrust his arm under the low pillow, and with his eyes bade another lift the feet. But Matilde rose then and came between them and the dead. They thought that she would look at him once more, and they drew back, while she looked, for she bent over his face. But the shawl about her head fell about her, and they could not see that she kissed him. They waited.

The great woman put her hands about him, and bowed herself, and lifted him from the couch, and the men could not believe it when they saw her turn with him and lay him down in his coffin, alone, with no one to help her.

For she was very strong. She stood and looked down at him a long time, and once she stopped and moved one of his crossed hands, which touched the edge. And then she drew from her neck, from beneath the shawl, a piece of fine black lace, and laid it gently over and about his head.

"Cover it," she said to the men, and she stood waiting, lest they should touch him with their hands.

She had seen his face for the last time, and when they had covered him, they laid the coffin in another of lead which they had brought, and she stood quite still, watching the gleaming melted stuff that ran along the edges of the grey lead, like quicksilver, under the hot tool of copper. When that was done, with main strength they laid him in the third, which was covered with black velvet. And there were screws.