The King's Agent (2 page)

A few more steps, into the door on the left, and he’d be in the kitchen and on his way out. He grinned, lifted the pronged latch, and pulled the door open.

All air left his lungs with a wheeze. His eyes protruded almost painfully from his head.

The four armed and armor-clad men lounging about the room—polishing swords and playing at dice—stared at him with the same bewildered gape ... but only for a fleeting moment.

“
Arresto!
Stop!”

“Get him!”

The cries erupted as the guards jumped to their feet, overturning chairs, upending tables, in their rush toward the intruder. Battista jumped backward out of the room as leather-clad fists and sword tips stretched out at him.

“
Porca vacca
. Damn it! The
right
door is the
right
door!” Battista cursed himself, slamming the door shut in their faces.

Shoulder bolstered against the portal, his whole body trembled as hard warrior bodies crashed against the other side, jarring the door violently in its cradle. With one hand, he set the latch. The other seized the handle of the largest of the three daggers tucked into his belt. He planted one foot back, stretched his arm high and taut above his head, arching his back, stretching like a bow about to launch its arrow.

With a propulsive growl, he slammed the dagger into the wood of the door at its edge, penetrating through it and into the jamb surrounding it.

Seconds,
the thought rushed at him as rushed across the hall.
It gives me seconds, no more
.

Barging through the opposite door, he almost fell into the nearly abandoned kitchen. The house fire embers glowed red in the two large stone alcoves at either end of the massive room, the blood-colored gloom festering in every corner.

Three servants, two boys and a woman—those on night duty should the master return and call for anything—flinched back, already roused by the screaming and banging from across the hall. They stared openmouthed as Battista ran through the room, pulling down copper pots and cauldrons with a deafening clatter as he went, anything to throw between him and the angered guards soon to follow.

“Scusi.”
He ducked his head sheepishly to the older woman as he rushed by her, seeing his mother’s condemnation in her wrinkled face and narrowed eyes. His steps faltered, his head swung back, and he swiped a biscotto off the counter between them. “
Grazie, donna mia
. Thank you, my lady.”

The woman rolled her eyes, but not without a hint of a grin.

With a raucous splintering of wood, the door across the hall ruptured open and the four men burst out, a rushing ocean hurling through a broken dam, tripping over one another to get out and get at him.

“
Sbrigari!
Hurry!” The old woman flapped her apron at Battista, pointing him to the wide double door in the east corner of the room with one fleshy finger.

Battista spared her no more pleasantries, running for escape as the guards jumped and tumbled over the obstacles thrown down in their path.

He burst through the doors, gasping at the cool night air as with his last breath. If he didn’t move quickly, it would be.

In the shadowy courtyard, two horses whinnied in alarm; a male voice squeaked in almost-feminine surprise. Battista turned to the sound, finding his horse and his accomplice waiting, just as they planned, on the cobbles below the portico, the small, round man no more than a perched ball on the smaller of the two powerful steeds.

“We must away!” Battista shouted, running full tilt now, hurtling himself from the top of the five steps, leaping across the beast’s derriere with a two-handed launch, and landing directly, if painfully—with a gruesome groan at the jolt to his groin—on his horse’s saddle.

“They are on to us,
amico mio,
” he hissed at the flustered man bouncing on the horse beside him, grabbing the reins and taking control of his mount. “The chase is afoot, my friend. Hiiya!”

The leather straps snapped at his will and his horse leaped forward, Frado’s following, impelled by the panic now thick in the air.

The horses’ metal shoes clopped noisily against the stones and into the quiet of the night, thudding onto grass-covered field, an ever-increasing thrumming of urgency. In those seconds Battista had foretold, cries of protest rang out behind them and galloping pursuit exploded, muffling the men’s bellows.

“Dio mio.”

Battista spared a quick look at his praying friend, the urge to laugh barely contained at the sight of the flabby man hanging on to his reins and the saddle’s pommel for dear life, bereft of even the pretense of control over his horse as he bounded up and down, grunting with each downward slam on the hard seat.

The sound of pursuit grew ever closer. Battista dared a look and saw their pursuers had taken form, if only as ghostly shadows intent upon malice. Were they close enough for his dagger to find them? He couldn’t be sure. No matter, only two blades remained and at least four men came for them, if not more, as the alarm most surely had brought others to the chase.

He tugged his horse closer to Frado’s, close enough to see the look of sheer panic upon the man’s round, red-splotched face.

“We have no choice.” Battista raised his deep voice over the thunder of the hooves. “We must throw them.”

Frado answered with a pitiful look of pleading, but Battista shook his head.

“Do it, Frado. You know you can.”

With a curled lip of anger, Frado reached into the saddlebag behind him, drawing out a moist goatskin sack, one of a perfect size to fit into his palm. Without looking backward, tilting precariously as he lifted his right arm, he threw the dripping ball, quickly reaching in for another, then another again.

The sound of splitting skin and splashing liquid pop, pop, popped behind them and within seconds a screeching of horses followed, answered by painful, frustrated human cries and a rumbling as bone and flesh—of horse and man—tumbled hard upon the ground.

The sounds of pursuit faded behind them, dissipating into the dominion of night’s stillness, returning it to tranquility once more.

With more than a modicum of disgust, Frado shook the residual drops of wolf urine off his hand, casting a worried glance toward Battista.

“I hope the horses are all right.”

Battista’s brows jumped up his forehead as he turned, catching the glint of amusement in his friend’s winking eye. He threw back his head then, howls of laughter ringing out through the starlit sky, bursting with peals of relief and triumph.

“To home, my friend,” he hooted.

“
Sì
, home.” Frado chuckled, round head bobbing in relieved agreement.

They turned their horses south, no one behind them close enough to see, and made for Florence.

Two

And just as he who, with exhausted breath,
having escaped from the sea to shore,
turns to the perilous waters and gazes.

—Inferno

“
A
ck, you son of a dog. You cheated!”

The outrage scaled the stairs, penetrated the door, and trounced upon Battista, waking him from his deep slumber, be it midday or not.

Battista pulled a pillow over his head, his arms dropping back to the silk-covered ticking with a plop. His exhaustion permeated every bone and muscle in his laden body. He wanted no more than to sleep a few more hours; not even the thought of gloating over his prizes could rouse him or his spirit.

“I didn’t, I swear, Giovanni.”

An answering yelp soon followed and Battista sighed, hoping it punctuated the end of the fracas. Such nonsense could not last long; such nonsense would not dare keep him from his rest.

“You lie like you smell ... badly!” The next salvo launched, the battle ensued.

Men barked at one another; chairs thrown out scraped across stone floor. Someone threw a punch and it landed with a riotous thwack.

“Basta!”
Battista roared, flinging the pillow off and to the floor in one fluid motion of frustration, jumping out of bed, and kicking it as if it were the men who woke him. Stumbling and tripping to his door, his unsteadiness adding fuel to the flames of his fury, he leaned out the door to scream once again. “Enough!”

Despite himself and his ire, he bit back a smile as silence doused the tomfoolery below, as hissing whispers took the place of childish braying.

Battista walked back into his room and stood in the midst of the chaos. He could not remember what time he and Frado had arrived home. They had traveled hard all through the night, not knowing for sure if di Carcaci’s men had regrouped and resumed their chase. Not daring to slow and find out.

They had arrived at Battista’s three-story home on the Street of St. Proculus in the shadow of the Palazzo dei Pazzi as only a smudge of the next day’s light appeared on the horizon; not a soul had been stirring in the quietest of hours, save for those spirits haunting this ancient city.

As he stood with the afternoon sun streaming through his southern windows, he looked down at himself, shiny black hair falling in two large, soft waves to his chin.

He still wore his thick hose, though the laces fell loose, the long ties hanging down to his knees. He wore neither boots nor stockings, satchel nor jerkin; his ecru linen undershirt hung out on one side only, as if he had fallen asleep while trying to dispatch it, and the whole of it was a mass of wrinkles, wounded by the crush of his hard sleep. The night’s antics had exhausted him, not an easy task on a man of his prowess, of his eight and thirty years. Oh, but what a night it was.

The sculpture! The thought of it lurched into his mind. He kicked at the piles of clothing and linens covering the floor, searching for the satchel.

With a rejoicing cry, he spied it, rushed to it, and flopped to the floor beside it. Throwing the flap of the bag wide, he took the wrapped bundle in his hands and tenderly unfurled its covers with a cautious grace as if he unclothed a beautiful woman. It had been his night’s conquest and he caressed it with the respect such a distinction deserved.

Rising slowly, he laid it lovingly upon his mattress as he headed for the corner chamber pot. Opening his breeches, taking his stance, he took his aim, and—

“Take that back, you scurrilous mongrel!”

He jumped at the screech rising up from below, and turned to yell back.

“Merda!”
He cursed, realizing with disgust that his release had already begun. Battista stared down at the mess he’d created—censuring his own slovenliness. What would it require to cure him of the excesses of his maleness?

“Nuntio!” he called down for his servant, certain the abiding man never strayed far. “Your assistance, if you please.”

“
Sì,
Messere Battista.” The answering cry came but two seconds later and Battista smiled at its cheerfulness. “I’m coming.”

The scene below was no improvement from the one left behind.

With one sharp and critical glance, Battista could see all, for better and worse. The open design revealed every corner of the ground floor; no walls stood to hide the offenses. One bricked corner served as kitchen, another bookshelf cubby as a study, while the entire street front half of the modest home functioned as a catchall of settees, feather mattresses, tables, books, cards, dice, bottles, and men. Upon every surface treasures sat, painted tables overflowing with glass vases, antique bronzes, ancient illuminated manuscripts, and around them the crates, boxes of every shape and size, stood like sentinels, some full, others empty, tops off, waiting with open hungry mouths for their own treasures to be packed in. The wooden-slat boxes commanded the room above all else.

If he had the family he imagined in the portrait, it would be here, in this part of the house, that they would take their leisure together, read together in the quiet of the evenings, and entertain their families in the sacredness of a Sunday afternoon. But that portrait lived only in his mind. In truth, this room belonged to his band of men as much as to him; here they congregated—day, night, and every moment in between. Battista refused to complain, though a part of him longed to, and far too often these days, for without these men he could not do his work.

“There he is. He will tell you the truth of it.” Frado’s call greeted him first, though Battista had not yet taken the last step off the stairs.

“Battista!” another man cried. “Frado jabbers that he saved you from near death. Tell us this is but another of his vividly imagined tales.”

A trunk-legged older man jumped to Battista’s side, his high-pitched squeak incongruent to his boulderlike build. “I have news, Battista, such that will please you well, I’m thinking.”

Others rose from their lounging positions, chattering away as they gathered round him. Battista stood in the heart of the maelstrom, not knowing whom to answer, which to turn to first, like the mother bird who has brought but one worm back to a crowded nest.

He answered none of them, merely held up a long, lean hand as he made his way to the kitchen and the warmth of its ever-burning fire. An early spring had come to call, long before the pending late April Easter, but here and there a chilly day made a surprise visit, a day such as this.

With slow nonchalance, he placed the sculpture in the center of the large, round cherrywood table in the center of the area, took his time to pour a mug of spiced hot water and to grab a sweet bun from the still-warm pan. Sauntering toward a vacant settee, he plopped himself onto it and bit off a large bite.

“I am most sorry to tell you, Ercole”—Battista chewed on the sweet bread along with his words, wide jaw muscles bulging with the effort—“but it’s true. If not for Frado, I would be in the clutches of the duca di Carcaci and his guards at this very moment.”

Battista smiled over the rim of the terra-cotta cup as he sipped from it, watching Frado swagger away, his age-imposed monk’s tonsure of black hair and round circle of baldness hidden beneath a royal blue
beretto
. Ercole and another followed grudgingly behind. Battista held his tongue as his portly friend carried on about his audacious exploits in last night’s adventure. Frado tortured them with a performance worthy of the stage, pudgy arms mimicking as if he himself had scaled the palazzo walls, taken on twelve guards single-handedly, and come away with every treasure the duke possessed. Battista allowed the man his glory gratefully. Indeed, if not for Frado, he would have felt the noose about his neck years ago; it was his pleasure to share every moment of réclame and profit with the man.