Into the Lion's Den (59 page)

Konrad decided to clean the area. 'Repin had a hard life indeed. Guntram does nothing and they all come running to him, like flies to the sugar.'

The priest was lively talking with Guntram when the Duke stood next to Guntram -smiling shyly (and adorably) and showing him sketch pad-. “Yes, good indeed. Could be much better if you work harder. Do you have a teacher? I can recommend you one very good in Rome,” the man was saying.

“I'm living for the moment in Zurich. I study there with Rudolf Ostermann,” Guntram said very proud of his teacher.

“With Rudolf? Are you not by any chance the boy with the unusual name?”

“My name is Guntram de Lisle, sir.”

“I'm Enrico d'Annunzio. I work at the treasury. What a coincidence to find you here! Rudolf sent me some examples of your work for an opinion. You have to work more, but could achieve a lot if you would let yourself go; you seemed to be very constrained in your painting.”

Konrad blanched at hearing the man's name. Not that Italian pest asking for a loan of his collection for the past five years! With Ostermann's support. Time to recover his kitten and disappear before he would be forced to have tea with the man and give his Cimabue for the masses entertainment. “Guntram, it’s getting late. If you would excuse us, your Eminence.”

“Hello, my son,” D'Annunzio greeted Konrad, extending his hand so he could kiss the ring and the Duke made reluctantly a genuflection and kissed the golden seal. “Enrico, Cardinal d'Annunzio. Your grace?” he said while Guntram repeated the gesture, very impressed that he was standing in front of a cardinal and wondering why Konrad didn't look impressed at all.

“Konrad von Lintorff,” he introduced himself very briefly, aware that he was doomed.

“An expression never better used, my son,” the man chuckled. “I see that you're in holidays. Are you staying in San Capistrano?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Wonderful! Then, tomorrow I can visit you and see this young man's work. Should we say at five?”

“I would be honoured to receive his Eminence,” Konrad resigned to his fate. Probably the man's expert eye had recognised in Guntram's sketches part of his collection.

“Your Eminence should not bother to travel. I could come here, Sire,” Guntram interfered and Konrad wanted to kiss him, but the following answer was not what he was expecting at all.

“Guntram, I want to look at your work and the Duke's collection too. He's a very busy man and whenever you have the chance to catch him, you should take your opportunity. Many of the artworks there were last time photographed in the thirties when they were moved to Switzerland because of the upcoming war. As a historian, I have to see them.” He explained very gently to the boy who nodded in agreement.

“I read your book. The one about pigments used in the Umbria region. It was a very detailed study.”

“It took me almost ten years of my life to write it. We'll see each other tomorrow at five. Good day, Duke.” The Cardinal smiled kindly to the youth; a sharp contrast to the man almost boiling with fury.

'No doubt, the Vatican still has the best intelligence service in the world. The Mossad boys are amateurs compared to them!' “Come, Guntram, we drive home now,” he growled to the astonished boy, wondering what had set Lintorff on fire. The Cardinal had been very nice. It should be what had happened in the morning. After all, the man had kissed him and he had jumped on top of him. Perhaps he had misunderstood everything. He only wanted a nanny, not a lover and coming to think, who in his right mind would like to have something with him when you could bed a woman like Stefania? She was like Angelina Jolie! Absolutely gorgeous woman!

Guntram believed that it was time to put an end and save himself another mess like the one with Constantin. 'You and rich powerful mobsters? Bad idea Guntram.' He got in the car without saying a word.

Dinner had also been as silent as lunch, Konrad musing and mechanically eating, had closed himself to the world as it was his practice when he had troubles. Guntram had tried to excuse himself, but the Duke had only growled, “Come with me to the terrace”.

The view of the countryside from the battlements was breathtaking and Guntram fell in love with the barely lighted fields, looking at them in rapture, leaning on the parapet.

'He's truly beautiful, but I have to let him come to me again. If I rush it, he might flee again,' Konrad thought and left his glass on the stone wall.

“Is it not too hot for cognac?”

“Please, don't tell me you're going to put ice in it!”

“Ice? Never. I thought it was more for winter.”

“A weather less warm would help, but it's all right if you only have one glass. Do you want to try? It's a Rémy Martin.”

“No, thank you. Alcohol and I don't mix together well,” Guntram said, remembering his first time with Constantin. 'Part of the fun was the champagne, brother.'

“Yes, that's the first thing doctors take away,” Konrad commented with sympathy. “Sometimes, I believe that my own father had his second and final stroke because the doctors forbid him to drink. The poor man was desperate in the end for a good Armagnac. He would die if he sees me drinking this,” Konrad chortled, glad that Guntram had smiled finally.

“I'm not so classical. My father was more into apple cakes and cinnamon. I also. His cologne also smelled like apples, now that I remember. Very similar to yours. What's an Armagnac?”

'Exactly as Roger, must be in the family,' he also remembered but decided to answer the question. “It's a kind of brandy, from Gascony, distilled once while cognac is distilled twice. Far more rare than cognac and the flavour is more delicate. I prefer something stronger, but if you want we can get you an apple cake.”

“No, it's all right,” Guntram chuckled. 'Now or never, he's in a good mood.' “About this morning, I wanted to apologise for ...”

“Was I so bad?”

“I beg you pardon?”

“If you start to apologise it means it was a really lousy kiss and now you're going to tell me that we can be best friends,” Konrad smirked and Guntram gaped like an idiot.

“No, it's not that! It's the other! The opposite!”

“Do you want to repeat it?”

“Yes! I mean, no! Not at all!”

“But you said yes. Did you like it or not?”

“Very much, but that's not the point here!” Guntram confessed without a second thought and blushed the second the words were out of his mouth.

“How so?”

“We should not do it again! Forget we did it!”

“I also liked it very much, Guntram,” Konrad said softly. “Would love to repeat it.”

“We won't! It's very wrong!”

“You are single at the moment and I am also. We have established we both liked it. How can it be wrong?”

“Because of who you are!” Guntram shouted in pain and turned his back to Konrad.

The man sighed and advanced till he put his hands on the youth's waist half expecting a blow from him but nothing happened, encouraging him to continue with his strategy. “Guntram, don't let something that happened almost fifteen years ago rule your whole life. You're perfectly aware that your father was very sick when he took that decision. It was in his autopsy report. The cancer would have killed him in a few months.”

“I know, but I only wanted my papa. Nothing else,” Guntram whispered, leaning his head against the man's shoulder.

“Let me give you a new family; one that you can take care of. Let me love you as you deserve,” Konrad murmured, tightening his embrace. “I wasn't responsible for your father's death! He saved my ruling and gave you to me! He trusted me as to look after his only son! Why can't you trust me too? Didn't I protect you the minute I found you?”

“You were very kind to me. You saved my life.”

“Then, give me a chance to win your love. It's all I ask from you.”

Guntram tried to think the best course of action but he couldn't get his mind away from the memory of that morning's kiss, so he took the next logical step. He jumped to Konrad's lips and kissed him with all the accumulated desire for three months.

His initial surprise at his kitten's reaction let Konrad unarmed for an instant but his desire to taste once again those lips, driving him mad since the first minute he had seen the boy, clutching onto his enemy's arm, kicked him into reaction.

Both men kissed each other madly while Konrad swiftly lifted Guntram in his arms, too lost in the kisses, and leaned him against the wall, almost crushing him with his weight in his eagerness what was being offered to him with so much freedom and joy; without restraints or calculations. Something really pure and innocent. He could feel the boy returning his kisses with more fire than before and his ragged breathing and his heart pounding against his chest.

“Guntram, stop! I don't want to fuck you against a wall!” Konrad protested, letting the boy go. “You don't even have permission from a doctor!”

“But I do want it! More than ever before!” Guntram pleaded like he had never done before.

“I don't want to risk you for ten minutes fun! Stop right now! Our first time shouldn't be like this! Not against a wall! What you are going to give me it's very precious. Should not be wasted here.”

“In case you didn't notice, Konrad, I'm well worn out. Since I was nineteen,” Guntram huffed

“I didn't mean your virginity. It's your heart that I want. Forever. Till death do us part. I want you to be my Consort, not my friend. Would you take me?”

“Yes,” Guntram answered in a blink, his eyes lost in Konrad's.

“Why do I have the impression that we are forgetting something?” Konrad pondered in the terrace overlooking Piazza Nabona, where they had stopped for lunch after walking during the whole morning.

“I don't know. Do you have your agenda with you?”

“Right,” Konrad remembered his blackberry, hidden in his pocket and got it out, reading intently and fighting with the temptation to open his e-mails. “I forgot him! The cardinal. Finish your tea and we have to come back.”

“Why are you so upset that he visits you? He seems to be a cultivated man.”

“Because he wants to take my paintings away. For an exhibition at the Vatican.”

“You have fantastic pieces. Some of them are in history books! Why don't you let people to see them?”

“Because once they're ruined, there's nothing to be done! They don't belong to me, they belong to the family!”

“People behave in Museums!”

“I don't want my name made public. I hate publicity or the press.”

“You can always write “private collection”.”

“No, and that's final, Guntram.”

“It's a real pity. They're unique and inspiring.” He sighed dejectedly, but didn't press the issue any more.

Cardinal d'Annunzio couldn't believe his fortune. First, the boy's paintings were much better than you could see on a photo and had a classical style. The studies he was making for a portrait of an Argentinean priest and his pupils were exactly what he was looking for Cardinal Righi Molinari.

Lintorff had finally agreed to lend the two remaining panels of St. Catherine's Altarpiece from Bernardo Daddi and a work done by an Umbrian follower of Giotto di Bondone. The “Crucifixion” by Francesco Giotto, acquired in 2000 for half a million pounds was out of the question. 'Perhaps in a few years. One step at a time.'

“It was very generous of you to give him the paintings,” Guntram rearranged his head in Konrad's lap, as the man was mind absently caressing his light brown bangs while he read his e-mails on his blackberry.

“Does it make you happy?”

“Very much. They're wonderful and it's a shame that they're hidden here,” Guntram said softly.

“Not hidden. Protected. You never know what could happen. We have many enemies, kitten,” Konrad sighed.

“Constantin would cut himself an arm before doing something against them. Art is his true love in this world.” Guntram looked at Konrad in the eyes and the man bent his head to softly peck his lips.

“Repin is not my only enemy. He's just a nuisance for me. This is a very big game, kitten. Stay out of it.

There's nothing for you here.”

Chapter 22

For the first time in years, the cup of coffee didn't ease his nervousness. Friederich could feel that there was something amiss since Konrad had returned from his holidays in Rome. First, the concept of holidays was something totally amiss in his vocabulary. He never stopped working. Only once in 1996 and it was because he suffered a serious pneumonia, but he had managed to run everything from his sickbed. Out of the blue, he had decided to take Guntram for a week to Rome with the excuse that the boy needed some sun after being so sick in early July.

Second, Konrad had returned in an excellent mood, looking ten years younger and had behaved like a teenager during lunch, taunting Ferdinand von Kleist over the hard time the man had had in China, after two weeks at Michael Dähler's mercy. Guntram was only smiling in a silly way and quiet as usual. He had brought along two sketch pads full of drawings, so he had been working diligently.

Third the boy didn't complain or pout when he was informed that tomorrow he had a date with his doctor. In fact, he had been glad.

Fourth, Monika van der Leyden had phoned him two days ago to joyfully inform him that “finally the Duke saw reason and dismissed that vulgar woman. I was never so happy in my life to call a real estate agent to take care of the papers for her flat in Via Condotti, where else?” The rest of the compensation fee was too generous, considering she had been getting several presents over the years and a €10,000 monthly allowance. No, Konrad had done something bad and wanted to shut her up or he had found something much better.

Fifth, Ostermann had told him to arrange with the insurance company the lending of three pieces to the Vatican when Konrad had refused to do it for a long time.

Sixth, he had taken the rest of the day free when normally he was running to his office the minute he was setting a foot in Zurich. No, after lunch he had sent Ferdinand back and decided to go for a walk in the forest, taking Guntram with him.

Seventh, Guntram was in an excellent mood, almost shinning, nothing like the terrified, sick boy that he had received in February.