The King's Agent (46 page)

“This is, ultimately, your journey. It did not begin with me as a part of it. Life puts before each human the tests belonging to each life. Here is one of yours.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but not a sufficient word came forth. She spoke the truth, though how she came by it he could not surmise. Why he believed her he could not understand. It was a spiritual test, and yet he felt as if she tested him as well. Battista stared at Aurelia for a long heartrending moment, astounded and confused by the unfathomable beauty of her, turning away, for she made him long to sob.

Battista stood before the son of God, all of them, feeling as torn by the visages as by Aurelia. His life had always been a battle between his faith and his fortune, between patriotism and prize. This moment was no different.

He flitted a glance at Aurelia over his shoulder. He took a step closer to the tiles.

“Choose not in haste.” Aurelia’s words nipped at his back.

Battista studied each panel, an eye to every detail. In the first, Jesus wore the best of robes, the fabric thick and heavy with embroidery. Jewels glittered from his fingers and around his neck. Battista walked away from the inaccurate depiction.

In the next, Jesus was not quite so ostentatiously attired, but behind him stood a thick crowd of men and women, nobles and courtiers without a doubt, their faces hungry and greedy. Battista shook his head at them. Those who stood, literally and metaphorically, behind the prophet were as charitable as he. Never would they wear such avaricious expressions.

Battista stood before the last two, indecision plaguing both his heart and his mind. In each, Jesus wore simple attire, no jewels adorned his limbs, no finery lay upon his body, the differences arose in the background alone. In one, men draped in the robes of priests, cardinals, bishops, and popes surrounded him. In the other, Jesus stood alone.

The earthly truth—that which Battista had been taught by the nuns and his parents since he could first remember—placed Jesus as the leader of the Church, of the Catholic faith. But Dante’s words echoed to Battista, those nearly memorized during the days and nights spent poring over the
Commedia
, leaving him confused and irresolute at the depth of meaning behind the words. Dante’s Paradise overflowed with admonishments heaped upon the clergy, damning them for the deterioration of the Church, condemning them for their greed and avarice, a scathing commentary renouncing monasteries as “dens of thieves.”

Battista looked back at Aurelia, and though he saw confidence in her soft expression, he found no help. Turning forward, giving the two last panels one more quick glance, Battista closed his eyes and listened to his heart.

It came to him, the truth of all mankind, no more readily apparent as when Jesus hung on the cross. Battista moved before the solitary image and stepped on the tile.

With a shudder and a crack, the wall fell away, behind it another staircase heading upward, leading to the heights of Paradise.

Battista heaved a thankful sigh as he reached back for Aurelia, as her slim hand slipped into his.

Aurelia pulled him back, just long enough to bend him toward her, rise up on her toes, and kiss his soft cheek. His skin felt warm beneath her lips and she carried it with her as they ascended the first step.

The stairway was narrow, squishing them together, their outer shoulders brushing the smooth stone as they passed. Their arms swept away the stone dust, sending motes swirling in the luster. The universe revealed itself, freed from its mantle of dirt, the planets etched and stained upon the smooth stone walls.

As Dante foretold, they climbed through the planets, first the pale moon, then an umber Mercury, and a sapphire Venus. The Sun stood out, bright and golden, followed by a vermillion Mars and a russet-striped Jupiter.

The stairs narrowed and Battista wiggled in front of Aurelia, stepping onto the first rung of a golden ladder scaling upward as the stairs ended. Aurelia followed, her legs quivering as she scaled each rung, moist hands slipping on the rails as she pulled herself aloft.

“Are you all right?”

Above her, Battista held upon a rung, one crooked elbow holding him on to a rail as he leaned backward, looking down at her.

Grateful for even a moment’s pause, Aurelia pushed back the thick strands of russet hair plastered to her head, drenched with sweat. Her forehead crinkled in exertion. “I am doing the bes—”

Mouth agape, eyes big and white, his sudden expression of shock and wonder nipped off her words.

“Aurelia, look!” He raised a finger to the passage left behind. “It’s ...”

She turned in the silence of his unfinished articulation.

Images of the planets they’d passed now hovered in the narrow stair passage, their forms somehow projected in the air by the light. In the dimensional illusion, the images circled one another in the air, creating a universe in the space where the stairs had been, as if their own passage—the addition of human energy—had brought the images to life.

“
Benedicimi,
” Aurelia breathed as she turned.

Battista could not speak, could not tell her that he, too, felt blessed. He dared not speak or move, for fear the apparition would dissipate. He unfurled his arm, leaned farther back, longing to draw as close to it as he could, to a beauty of such consequence he could hurl himself into it, live forever among it.

“We must continue, Battista,” Aurelia urged.

In her voice he heard his own longing to linger, but recognized the imperative as truth.

With far more than a twinge of regret, Battista turned back to the ladder, placed his hands upon the rail, and began the climb again.

They had but a little farther to go, their panting breath loud and harsh, their movements slowing with each tread. Ahead of her, Battista hurtled over the last rung, turned, and reached out a hand to pull her up and beside him, holding her there for a moment, resting in her arms.

Aurelia fell into him—as she would plunge into warm, buoyant water—but for no more than an instant. She looked up at him with a mixture of yearning and vigilance.

“We have reached the end, Battista,” she said, eyes skidded from his.

They were indeed at the top; no roof hovered above their heads, only an infinite sky ablaze with stars. No walls rose up to enclose them, only a low parapet, distant corner turrets, hemmed them in.

Unlike the floors below, evening’s darkness shrouded this rooftop. Two lit torches flanked their point of egress, and Battista pulled one from its wall mount and held it before them as they looked around. A dazzling glimmer at their feet drew Battista’s gaze away.

“It cannot be,” he mumbled as he first bent, then squatted, closer to the floor.

It began as only a trickle, a tiny thread running from their feet and away, the squiggle of it expanding as it went. Their gaze followed it, wide eyes growing wider as the stream stretched away, as it ended in a pool. No more than three feet above the pool, a painting rested on a tall, wood easel.

“Is it ... ?” Aurelia croaked.

“I cannot tell.” Battista squinted.

It was a painting, indeed, and the rectangular shape was the same size and formation as the other two. She could make out no more than the silhouette of a lone figure upon the canvas, the shape curvaceous, with long flowing hair. Any more she could not perceive, but she did not need to.

It was the last piece of the triptych, indisputably, and yet the full force of Battista’s attention lingered on the stream of light at his feet.

“Gold. It looks like a river of gold,” he whispered as he bent farther still. “ ‘He triumphs in his victory; he who is the keeper of gold.’ ”

Aurelia heard Battista mumble the words of Dante—with the voice that had become their driving force—once more in the air.

Circling round, positioning himself between the inception of the stream and the painting, Battista dropped to one knee, bent at the waist, and reached out the torch closer to the glistening trickle, eyes squinting with the effort to see it better.

Aurelia’s fingers dug in his shoulder. “Stop, Battista! Do not—”

Too late. His cuffed hand moved, tipping the torch over and down, the flame no more than inches from the stream ... one lick dripping out ... and lapping at it.

Thirty

The night that hides things from us

—Paradiso

T
he river exploded, the fire stampeding along the course of gold.

The whoosh of scalding air pummeled them, heat displacing it in crashing waves, knocking them onto their backs. Battista’s skin burned with pinpricks of pain. The ferocious propulsion set him flying backward, head bouncing on the hard stone. His vision popped with black spots and, in between, Aurelia’s face, two of them.

He shook his head to clear it even as the force continued to propel him backward, skittering across smooth stone. But his vision did not clear; the mirage of the two Aurelias did not dissolve.

The fire hissed as it snacked along the room, crossing the passage, careening toward the pool at the foot of the painting.

“No!” Battista shouted, wobbling to his feet, stumbling toward the flames. The fire could not reach the canvas, could not set it ablaze. He would throw himself upon it if he must. But equilibrium eluded him; he staggered about like a drunkard.

“Aurelia?” he cried out, but no more than the wisp of his name did he hear in return, the sound diluted beneath the plangent rustle of the fire, so faint it may have existed only in his mind.

The flame was no more than an inch from the puddle, and he lunged forward, reaching out, as did the fire.

The pool of gold burst, as if the heavens themselves exploded.

Battista screamed as the force hit him, as his body curled in half, as he hit the floor once again.

“Aurelia.” Her name slipped from his lips as the blackness took him.

Pain. First came the pain upon his skin.

Battista lay on the floor, not trying to get up, hands reaching to his face and the skin that burned as if the fire had devoured him. His face stung at the touch, but his skin was still smooth, still intact, merely scorched raw by the explosion.

With a quavering breath, a groan of exertion, he pulled himself up to a sitting position, raising his knees and dropping his head between them as he whirled from the effort.

“Aurelia!” He called her name, her well-being the second thought to batter his already-battered mind. Receiving no answer, he called again, and yet again. But still her voice he did not hear. The vaguest recollection came to him, of her face, more than one of them, blurry in the haze and chaos of the explosions.

As soon as his body allowed, as soon as the nauseating dizziness subsided, Battista rolled up to his feet, brushing at the burn holes upon his shirt and breeches, feeling for the satchel about his shoulder, and looking about.

Smoke and sparks filled the air, but the river of gold no longer existed—no longer burned—only a small fire rustled, flames sputtering as they clung to life, where the pool of gold had been. He could barely see through the miasma filling the air.

Battista shoved his hands into his hair, eyes bulging as they racked backward.

He couldn’t see the painting; the fire must have destroyed it. He walked forward, stumbling in disbelief, breath hitching with incoherent protests.

“Aurelia!” he cried once more, needing her to be there, unable to bear the loss of both, her and the painting. All he had hoped for Firenze, his homeland, would be lost. And yet it paled in comparison. He had sacrificed too much this time.

Battista moved closer to the small blaze popping and crackling as the last vestiges of liquid caught and flamed. Behind him, a ribbon of soot curled along the floor where the river of gold had been. In front of him—

“
Dio mio!
” Battista cried out, hand clenching his chest, heart bursting with equal parts revelation and rapture.

A few feet beyond the fire, the painting sat upon its tripod, still in existence, still in perfect condition. He could not make out the details through the smoke, an ever-billowing cloud rising from the small fire, thicker and thicker. He could not see it clearly, though he saw no soot stains, no black-charred splotches.

“Aurelia!” Battista stepped around the small fire, waving his hand to dissipate the blinding smoke, coughing on it nonetheless. “Aurelia! It’s here.”

No answer came; he turned from the silence, refusing it and what it meant.

As he neared the painting, an especially dense pocket of air nearly devoured it, the haze of smoke thicker than ever. Fearing he would lose it, that it would somehow disappear beyond the vapor, Battista rushed forward.

“Aur—”

Her name died on his tongue, for there she was in front of him ... in the painting.

His knees broke ... his legs wobbled ... failing him.

Battista toppled to the floor, stricken gaze frozen on the canvas above him.

“What madness is this?” He shook his head, denying what he saw, looking away, for the vision burned his eyes, scarred his mind. “Dear Lord, what madness is this?”

He gawked at the center panel of the triptych ... the green gown, the three women, the palazzo behind them.

Battista stared into Aurelia’s face; he knew it as assuredly as he knew his own name, as he would know the face of his mother.

Upper lip curling, barely containing his cries, Battista dared to look up once more.

He gasped for breath, unable to tell if his heart crashed or stopped. Aurelia’s changeable eyes looked down at him, dark and bereft of the glimmer of mischief that had come into them since she had met him. Teeth together, lips open, the full upper lip dominating the luscious mouth.

And there was the relic, the long, narrow piece of sculpted stone covered with hieroglyphics, gently pointed at one end, curved in an almost-circular curl at the other. He saw it in her hand, or did he? The object glowed from the center of the painting—as if it came away from it—at the very center of her body, but its radiance distorted the details, and he could not differentiate if her hands held it, if it hovered in the air in front of her or just behind her. With what he saw with a squinty-eyed glare, the main figure appeared slightly translucent as well, though not as lucent as the two on the sides.