Tender Is The Tyrant Read online

  ‘All set to slay di Corte’s lions?’ He stood ruffling his wiry hair as he smiled down in his kindly fashion at Lauri.

  ‘All set to be slain, Mr. Lanning.’ Her hand clenched on the baluster of the stairs as she saw Andreya looking across at her with a cold intentness. She shivered and felt like a martyr about to enter an arena of lions. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of to let Andreya needle me into this,’ she added despairingly. ‘I—I can tell from the Signor’s manner that he’s angry with me.’

  ‘When the Director looks fierce like that,’ Bruno cast a glance over his shoulder and smiled, ‘it sometimes means that he is pleased.’

  ‘Pleased?’ she echoed, her bewildered eyes on the tall, dark-browed figure as he wheeled a lovely old harp to the edge of the felt matting. She watched as his long fingers strayed over the mother-of-pearl inlay, surely the gesture of a man who loved beauty and would not hurt sensitive things?

  Her own hand gripped the carved baluster as he came striding across the hall towards where she stood with his regisseur. He might have stepped down from one of the portraits that hung upon the panelled walls; all that was missing was the doublet and hose, and a long, crimson-lined cloak.

  ‘Your orchestra awaits you, Bruno,’ he smiled. Then his eagle eye was sweeping Lauri from head to toe, taking in her wand of a figure in the ballet tunic. Before she could move his hand was covering hers on the baluster. ‘Cielo, you are cold as a little frog!’ he exclaimed. ‘Come over to the fire while we wait for Lonza—or would you like to call off the performance?’

  ‘And disappoint everyone, signor?’ She felt his touch, so vital and warm, so seemingly concerned, and the next instant had snatched her hand from beneath his. ‘I want to dance—with Lonza.’

  ‘I want you to come and get warm,’ he insisted.

  She shook her head, for Andreya was sitting over there with the other dancers grouped nearby,

  ‘She has temperament, you see, Bruno.’ An amused gleam came into Maxim’s eyes as he studied her. ‘There is a ballet called Lurline and the Knight. Do you know it, Miss Garner?’

  She nodded. Lurline was one of the first ballets she had learned, and a favourite of hers because of its enchanting story.

  ‘Do you think you could dance the pas de deux with Lonza?’

  The suggestion took her breath away, and he immediately accepted her breathless silence as acquiescence. ‘Good.’ He thrust his left hand into his dinner-jacket pocket and withdrew something that gleamed golden. ‘Here is the magic talisman for you to give to your Knight,’ he slipped over her head a slender chain on which hung a carved topaz heart ... the heart which Lurline gives to her Knight to protect him in battle, though she dies herself in parting with it.

  Lauri fingered the gem, which hung against her fast-beating heart, and instinct told her that the topaz was real and not just an imitation. Would it be a magic talisman and help her through the ordeal that, in all fairness, she had wished upon herself?

  She glanced up at Maxim, her eyes reflecting the deep-gold of the heart. Tt’s valuable,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Are you sure—?’

  ‘Yes.’ His nod was almost curt. ‘Ah, here comes Lonza!’

  ‘Good luck, Lauri.’ Bruno gave her an encouraging smile as he went and seated himself at the lovely old harp, and a ripple of excitement ran through the hall as Lonza came running down the stairs, lean and lithe in a silver-mesh doublet and black tights, transformed into a being out of a world Lauri had never seriously thought to enter ... the magical world of ballet.

  ‘Have you told Lauri that you wish us to dance the pas de deux from Lurline?’ Michael gave her a brief wink as he spoke to their Director.

  ‘Yes.’ Maxim captured her eyes and held them with his. His gaze was magnetic, his voice low and deep as he said to her: ‘Forget your audience, forget everything but your interpretation of Lurline. She is a girl so deeply in love with a man that she is prepared to die for him. She is a forest being who knows he will fall in battle unless he is protected by her heart, which has been turned to stone but is softened by love, If you make the role real enough, exciting and magical enough, then you need not fear your audience—or anyone. Do you hear me?’

  She nodded, feeling herself mesmerized by him.

  ‘You are a girl infelice in amore—remember.’ His brilliant smile flashed over his face, then he was striding across the hall, and gesturing at Bruno to begin the music.

  Lonza took Lauri’s hand and led her on to the felt matting. Oh, Michael,’ she whispered, ‘I’m terrified. I—I can’t remember a step of the ballet

  ‘Don’t try,’ he whispered back. ‘We are not about to dance in a theatre, and what you forget I can always cover up with a little improvisation.’

  His hand squeezed hers, and a little consoled, she gazed around and saw the expectant faces softly shadowed by the Venetian lamps, and the great tapestry behind her and Michael, glowing with a forest scene. She felt a compulsion to glance at Andreya, but fought it, knowing it would unnerve her to meet the ballerina’s unsmiling and critical eyes. She looked instead at her partner, and gave a tiny gasp as in obedience to the music he swept her into the first movements of the pas de deux. In those first moments Michael did everything he could to cover up Lauri’s nervousness, a strong partner, superbly at ease in handling her and guiding her. It was when he projected her into the first off-balance position of the dance that she came fully awake to the fact that she must do her part and not leave everything to him. The harp music rippled through the hall like Pan-pipes, and suddenly like a being enchanted Lauri was dancing without timidity, feeling Michael’s breath fan her forehead in a soft laugh as he arched her over his thigh.

  She lifted a hand to his face as he drew her up the length of his lean body to his, shoulder, leaping with her, pagan and exultant. She stretched her pointed feet in the air until they were talons, flicked them, and came down softly, silently, spinning round in Lonza’s arms and breaking from him to stab the stage in a rapid run.

  Her dancing now was truly that of a creature of the woods, and she flashed around her partner until suddenly made captive again and carried aloft on his shoulders. When he swept her through the air, she took wing and he seemed to hold her back from flying away. And because she wore a tunic and not a tutu he was able to come in close to her and almost brush her mouth with his ... a dark and dangerous lover, with a jag of black hair clinging to his forehead.

  From far away Lauri seemed to hear quickened breathing as she and her partner went through the feints and attacks of their love-dance. There were ripples of laughter as she played the rogue and eluded his arms. A taut silence as the moment came for her to stretch on full pointe and slip over his head the talisman that would always protect him, though she could not live now she gave him her heart.

  She drew away from him, assuming a poignant stillness. Her hair had become loosened—the long hair once the symbol of enslavement, something for the invader to catch hold of when a woman attempted to run away. Lonza leapt and as though trying to hold her back from what was taking her, his fingers twined in her hair until she came close to him, held captive for the last time. In her stillness she had to express the double fear of dying and wanting to remain with him. She pressed closer to him, but even as triumph lit his eyes, she slid down his body and out of his grasp, flying to the ends of his fingers.

  All was still, and then she sank to her knees, abandoned like a little animal to the pain, the dread and the final loss. Lonza knelt, he stroked the dark wing of hair over her face, cradled her, rocked her as they exchanged a kiss of death.

  There were no curtains to close and cover them, so Lauri could not struggle free as Lonza’s kiss deepened, his lips holding hers as a wave of applause broke over them. ‘You sweet thing,’ he breathed. ‘I don’t think you have ever been kissed before;’

  She flushed, broke free of him, and was aware of running past Maxim di Corte as she made for the stairs, for the sanctuary of her room and refuge from t
he reality that had broken so shatteringly into her dream world.

  Her lips still felt the pressure of Michael’s, and she carried with her into her room the dark blaze of Maxim di Corte’s eyes. Whenever he looked fierce, Bruno had said, it meant he was pleased! She hoped she had pleased him tonight, for after those first faltering moments she had danced as never before in her life.

  Tiredly she stripped off her practice clothes and slipped into a robe. Moonlight filtered into her room when she opened the curtains, and she stepped out on to her small balcony and stood listening to the rippling of water against the stone walls of the palazzo.

  Venice ... a city drowned in legends and lagoons, only the lap of the moonlit water to be heard in the night.

  A silence that all at once was broken by the sound of voices rising from the piazza just beneath Lauri’s balcony. She was about to retreat into her room when her name was mentioned, and all too human, she had to stand and hear what was being said about her. ‘Do you think I don’t know why you brought that Garner girl to Venice?’ There was a note of hysteria in the woman’s voice. ‘You mean to partner her with Lonza in the new production of Giselle—you think she will dance the role better than I because she is younger—’

  ‘Lydia, must we indulge in this quite unnecessary scene?’ Maxim di Corte’s voice held a note of strained patience. ‘I have made no explicit plans regarding the girl, and that is the truth.’

  ‘Don’t deny that like the rest of the company you noticed how well she looked with Lonza. You noticed all right! Young, so dewy fresh that I would like to kill her—ah, my wrist, Max! You—you are hurting me!’

  ‘How often must I tell you that you don’t have to be jealous of anyone?’ he grated. ‘You are Andreya ... beautiful and bewitching, with a following no young dancer could hope to achieve for a long time.’

  ‘You hurt my wrist,’ she said petulantly. ‘You are ruthless, Max, and if you thought to replace me in Giselle you would do so.’

  ‘You hate the role, it always upset you, but I would hardly let a mere child dance it in preference to you, Lydia,’ he rejoined. ‘The girl shows promise—she would not be with us otherwise—but others in the company have more technique, more experience—’

  ‘Others in the company have not that certain look. Max—’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He sounded very angry now, and Lauri on the balcony above flinched for Andreya.

  You know well enough what I mean.’ Andreya spoke defiantly. ‘I have studied your own special portrait of Travilla often enough to recognize that this girl has the same look of elfin innocence, as though she dwelt always in the woods among the fairy folk and had no idea what real life was all about.’

  There was a startled sort of silence, during which Lauri could have counted the beats of her heart. A breeze stirred through her dark hair, and she could feel her own tenseness as she waited for Maxim’s reply.

  ‘There is a physical resemblance,’ his voice carried clearly to Lauri’s ear, ‘but that cannot make up for what is otherwise lacking,’

  ‘This English girl lacks something important, Max?’ Andreya’s voice had grown honeyed, as though at last he was saying something to her liking. Lauri’s hands clenched the coping of her balcony, and it hurt more than she liked to admit to hear Maxim di Corte say that she lacked something when tonight she had thought she had pleased him.

  ‘It grows late, coccinella,’ she heard him say to Andreya. ‘I think we will go in.’

  ‘You have not called me coccinella in a long time. I love you too.’ A note of intimacy came into Andreya’s voice, ‘It reminds me of that first ballet in which I danced for you—Max, do I still dance as I danced in The Ladybird? Be honest with me.’

  ‘I am always honest with you, my dear,’ he replied.

  ‘You always dance with seduction and witchery. You are Andreya—is anything else important?’

  ‘You are, Max. I—I would be lost without you, caro.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ he said, and then a silence fell and Lauri sensed that the ballerina had been drawn into the circle of Maxim’s arm. Though a man of depth and discernment, he was obviously bewitched by Andreya’s beauty, indulgent of her jealousies towards his younger dancers. Lauri felt suddenly cold and she withdrew into her room and quietly edged her balcony doors together. She took up her hairbrush and automatically brushed her hair, counting the strokes as though they helped to counteract her thoughts.

  All was quiet, except for the rippling of water against stone, when she slipped into bed. ‘Tonight she slept in a palace. Cinderella who had danced and been kissed...’

  A kiss could be comforting and exciting, she supposed, but in front of Maxim di Corte it had been rather humiliating. Her cheeks burned against the coolness of her pillow. Did he think her brazen because she had submitted to Michael’s kiss in front of him, and the rest of the company? But she had been taken by surprise, and was too helplessly shy of men to know how to handle their inclinations, and their oddly uncomfortable moods.

  She sighed, and wondered again what it was she lacked in Maxim’s dark, eagle eyes. Whatever it was, he needn’t have told Andreya just to make her purr.

  In the following days Lauri was put through her paces in a practice room that was sparsely furnished with some chairs, a huge wall mirror, and a barre. These lessons with Maxim di Corte lasted two hours, and at the end of them she joined the rest of the dancers. They had coffee and rolls, then rehearsed with Bruno the ballets that were lined up for the new season. The ballroom of the palazzo made a vast and impressive practice room for them.

  They were a close-knit group who spent a great deal of time together. They discussed ballet in each other’s rooms, where they also mended their tights, darned ballet slippers, quarrelled in a good-natured way and made up again.

  But it wasn’t all work. They all loved Venice, and boat outings were frequently enjoyed. In the evenings groups of them went out to dine at a local cafe, where Venetian music was played, and where the atmosphere was always gay and informal.

  It soon became apparent to Lauri that her fellow dancers regarded her as Michael Lonza’s ‘little friend’. Several girls far prettier than herself were openly envious, others were amused. Watch out, they warned her, the Panther is a dangerous charmer and very fickle.

  Lauri had guessed this long ago, but she wanted to see all she could of Venice and he seemed to enjoy showing her around.

  Sometimes when they were alone in a fascinating old courtway, or drifting along in a gondola, a wicked little glint came into his eyes and she would guess the trend of his thoughts. ‘If all you want is a lot of foolish kissing, Michael, then you had better not take me out,’ she said to him one afternoon. ‘Kissing is for people in love, and I don’t care if you think me old-fashioned and square for saying it.’

  ‘Now will you know you are in love, or not, if you refuse to let a man kiss you?’ he teased.

  ‘I’m not falling for that one, clever Mike,’ she rejoined. ‘Falling in love is a serious matter, and I don’t intend to think about it until I’m at least twenty-one. I may never think about it, in fact.’

  ‘You will eat your words before we leave Venice, Miss Prim,’ he warned, ‘Don’t you know that two people who dance perfectly together are bound to fall in love?’

  ‘I don’t dance perfectly according to Signor di Corte.’ She gave a wry little laugh, ‘I am informed that if I wasted five minutes on-stage as I did at the start of our Lurline pas, he would fire me from the Company.’

  ‘I doubt it, my pet.’ Michael lounged against a statue in an arcade of St. Mark’s Square, where they sheltered from a spring shower. ‘Next time you are alone with the Maestro, take a good look at that stubborn chin of his. The man thrives on challenge, and you, being a female, challenge him even more than I did when I agreed to give up my vagabond ways so he could make a real dancer out of me. If you knew what I was like then, Nijinka!’

  ‘I imagine you kicked up the dust wherever you went,’ she
laughed. ‘Did the Maestro have a hard job taming you—as far as you can be tamed?’

  ‘We often came close to a fight,’ Michael admitted. ‘He then taught me to fence and whenever our tempers flared, we fought it out with Italian foils. Now and again it is still necessary for us to cross swords, but he did what he set out to do, he made a danseur noble out of a Romany wanderer who thought of dancing as an easy way to earn money for a glass of wine, or a meal.’

  ‘It’s strange,’ Lauri murmured, ‘how you have to bow down to the man even though he makes you hate him. No matter how well you think you’ve done a fouette or a pirouette, he always finds it less than perfect, and though you want to aim something at him, when you do the fouette as he suggests, you see at once that he’s right. He’s infuriating, and tireless. Sometimes I crawl out of that practice room, but does he care? No! “Have a cup of coffee,” he growls. “You are young. You will soon survive my treatment and revive.” ’

  Michael laughed out loud, and a raindrop fell from the jag of hair that lay across his forehead. His laughter echoed across the empty square, where pigeons huddled under stone eaves, and the pavement of the Campanile shone wet. The Laguna beyond was hazy, a little melancholy.

  ‘I find you very refreshing, Lauri.’ He gave her dark braid a light tug. ‘You are a deep one, but now and again you bubble in a most unexpected way. You “walk between passion and poetry”, as Wilde once said. You are a little out of reach, and that beguiles me. You see, I don’t take you on these Venetian tours because I hope to be rewarded in the usual way. I like just to be with you, to watch your eyes light up the dimness of an old church, to see you stroke all the brindled cats and avoid like a superstitious little witch the black ones.’

  ‘I like all cats,’ she protested. ‘I just don’t like a black one to run across my path.’

  ‘Scaramanzia, touch wood,’ he mocked, his eyes glimmering in the deepening shadows. ‘You women are all beautifully mad. Look around you at this moment—is this Piazza in the rain-wet dusk not a setting for romance, or tragedy? Othello could come stalking out from one of those archways ... or armoured knights climb down from their base.’