Page 44 of Thus with a Kiss I Die

Papà and Elder groaned.

Imogene, Katherina, and Princess Isabella whimpered.

Barnadine squeezed himself into a dim corner as if that hid him from sight.

Marcellus decided Holofernes and Dion had the right of it, and without taking his gaze off the scene, he backed slowly and silently out the door.

Torn between horror and humor, I said, “Cal, this is not your best moment.”

Mamma released a brief laugh and settled back to enjoy the pyrotechnics.

Nonna Ursula did not disappoint. She rose to her feet without help, without a wince or a struggle, buoyed by vivid, visible choler. “Am I so feeble and bitten by age you can’t comprehend I could have a thought on how to find my son’s killer? Do you think me so toothless and without claws that I can’t seize the past by the throat and wring its neck until it spews forth justice?”

Cal seemed to realize that he’d angered the whirlwind and he would be lifted into the cloud and slammed to earth, bleeding and broken. In a placating tone, he said, “Nonna, I never meant—”

She chopped her hand down.

He stopped midsentence.

Her voice gained the strength of an orator exhorting a crowd. “What can you possibly mean that won’t insult me? It’s a good thing I have you, Prince Escalus the younger, to build me a marble shithouse and help me piss in a fur-lined pee-pot!”

Whew. Nonna Ursula had a way with an insult.

Cal clasped his hand into a fist, placed it on his chest, and bowed to her. “Forgive me, Nonna. I doubt not your power and wisdom.”

“You may meditate on your foolishness while I retire and ponder what the spirits have told me this evening.” In a voice laden with mystery, she said, “If I read the portents correctly, your noble father’s butcher is closer than we realize.”

At that moment, the door from the atrium swung open and Yago, Elder’s brother, stepped onstage. “As you commanded, Mamma, I am here!”

CHAPTER24

Nonna Ursula cackled, then laughed until she collapsed back into her chair.

Horribly, after a few moments of shock, so did we all, leaving Yago standing in the doorway, the framed picture of puffed velvet indignation. In chilly tones, he asked, “What is the jest?”

When Nonna Ursula gained control of her amusement, she told her son about the séance and that he’d walked into a Situation.

Cal apologized to his uncle for his misplaced mirth, and offered him a seat.

Expressions of acute dislike passed across Yago’s face as he realized he’d been summarily dismissed as his brother’s killer. He was insulted as only a weak man could be, and Elder agreed with me. “Yago wants to think hecouldkill me if he desired, but he doesn’t have the gut or the wit. Yet I wonder about the wife. She has cunning, ambition, frustration. Where is she this night?”

“Yago, where is Lugrezia?” Nonna Ursula spoke as if Elder’s question had prompted her. “I commanded she come, too.”

“Alas, she begs your forgiveness, Mamma.” Yago sat in the seat offered him and fussily arranged his puffed sleeves. “Last night she took ill of a bellyache.”

“That peacock was undercooked,” Mamma murmured.

Yago continued, “It’s too bad. She would have loved to attend one of your séances.” He shot his mother an evil glance. “What ghosts did you meet? What wisdom was given you? None, I surmise, for young Escalus’s sword remains sheathed and I hear nothing of the ballyhoo after the assassin or the search for his whereabouts.”

“In sooth, we learned far more than I expected.” Nonna Ursula smiled enigmatically. “Assist me, Grandson, and you, Rosaline. I am to bed.”

“But I just got here!” Yago complained.

“Too late. Too late! And without the required wife.” She dismissed him with a gesture. “I’ll summon you another time, with a specific schedule, and you’ll attend as you’re told. You are, after all, the lesser son.”

“If she’s deliberately prodding him—” Elder began.

“She is,” I replied.