The King's Agent (34 page)

“What do you see?” Battista stood behind the artist, towering over him like his Giant, more than a passing resemblance to the sculpture’s warrior bearing.

Michelangelo rubbed his weak chin, rough skin rasping against the wiry beard. “There is little to gain from the woman. She is the main subject of the triptych as a whole, but in this piece her secret is still hidden. But here, this background, it is but a simple landscape, a pastoral meadow, a well-rowed farmland, and yet it looks distinctly of the peninsula.”

“I thought the same,” Battista agreed, turning to Aurelia for corroboration, but she stared blankly at the painting, seemingly devoid of any impressions; perhaps fatigue got the better of her.

“And you say the other side showed a village?” Michelangelo asked.

“Sì.”
Battista waved his hands as if to conjure the image. “A well-cared-for village rendered with warm, welcoming colors. We thought it meant to tell us where the other piece could be found, but that is the sole function of the Duccio. We believe the triptych—all of its clues—are meant to bring us to the relic.”

“A piece by Praxiteles that will ensure the king’s victory.” Michelangelo sat down and flopped back, both hands to his face, searching gaze flung upward into his mind or the heavens. “Such a perilous, divine mystery. You are right, Battista, where these two backgrounds meet, a place that lies between a village and vast farmland, will be your ultimate destination. But whether you find the woman, the piece, or both is yet another unknown.”

“Only the last piece of the triptych will tell us where to go.”

“And what of the Brotherhood of the Guardian?” The older man closed his eyes, rubbing hard at the space between them. “The words tickle my memory, as if I knew them before, heard them before, but have forgotten.”

Battista filled his tankard and drank deep. “After what we have seen, in both Hell and Purgatory, they were near fanatical in their duties. These challenges are masterful, meant to kill those too feeble or too impetuous to hurdle them. Yet clearly constructed to enable those with knowledge to pass unscathed to the paintings if need be.”

“Such devotion and ingenuity is to be admired,” Michelangelo said.

“Indeed,” Aurelia breathed with almost-grudging respect.

“They were clever to leave the center for the last,” Battista echoed her esteem. “For the other two are useless without it.”

Michelangelo raised his eyes. “And do you know where to find it?”

“No, not really,” Battista said with disappointment. “The Duccio showed us a castle upon the shore.”

The artist snorted gruffly. “Well, that narrows it down to a few hundred.”

“Exactly.” Battista collapsed into his chair, threw back another long swallow of wine, and plopped the empty goblet back upon the table with a thud.

“But it is not just the Duccio, but Dante which guides you,
sì?
” Michelangelo asked.

Battista smiled as his friend fell under the ensnaring, enticing entanglement of the quest. Battista was glad of it, for it would not only add a brilliant thinker to the puzzle, but the puzzle might, for a time, relieve Michelangelo’s heavy burdens as well, the layers of concern over his work, his family duties, his loyalties, and his aloneness.

“True,” Battista replied.

“I must reread the
Commedia.
” Michelangelo rubbed his hands together. “It is a most religious piece, a most Catholic piece, and yet it speaks to the true nature of humanity in a way Catholicism refuses.”

Aurelia blinked at him. “Are you a pagan, Michelangelo?” Battista put his nose back in his cup. Lifelong friends, these men knew every one of each other’s intimate truths; Battista knew well of Michelangelo’s spiritual struggles. He held his breath as he waited to hear if the artist would admit to them or not. Battista’s friend was a private man who had learned, through scarring tribulation, to keep his deepest feelings close to his chest.

“When I was a young man, I learned much in the library of Lorenzo de’ Medici, surrounded by the greatest thinkers of the age, men who found the majority of their answers in the teachings of Plato.” Michelangelo’s voice grew distant as he recalled days long passed. “The pagans understood, as do the Humanists, that we need not destroy a man’s mind, his creativity and independence, to ensure the safety of his immortal soul.”

He laughed, though with no great amusement, leaning forward, hands brushing along the sage linen atop the table. “Yet I know myself to be a son of God, a disciple of Christ. I simply choose to practice my religion in creating beautiful and harmonious human bodies.”

Michelangelo turned his smile upon Aurelia, and she answered with one of her own, one of understanding and gratitude.

She sighed heavily and Battista laid a gentle hand on her forearm.

“Are you tired,
cara mia?
”

Weariness had come to dampen the spark of delight in her eyes. “A bit,” she admitted with a reluctant shrug.

Michelangelo jumped to his feet and to her side, pulling out her chair, holding out his arm gallantly to assist her. “I will keep you no longer,
donna mia
. But we thank you for your splendid companionship this evening.”

He took her injured hand and brushed his lips softly across her knuckles, the only portion not covered by wrappings.

“I will remember this night for as long as I live,” she assured with no coquetry, and Michelangelo could only bow humbly at such a pronouncement, handing her to Battista’s waiting arms.

As he led her away, Aurelia turned back to Michelangelo, the delighted imp returning.

“You will not forget your promise, Michelangelo? You will take me to the Sistine?”

Michelangelo chuckled, raising his hand into the air with his vow. “I promise, my dear. Have no fear.”

One lone candle, guttering low with flickering flames, revealed the outlines of her chamber and the few pieces of furniture in it.

She and Battista stood together in silence and stillness, an awareness of each other and their place vibrant in the air between them. Her bed had been turned down and her freshly washed, thin chemise spread out upon the linens.

“I will fetch Agniola for you.” Battista stepped back from her warmth and light, so vivid in the dimly lit room, afraid, but of what he could not say.

“No, leave her be. I am certain she is fast asleep by now.” Aurelia turned, showing him the curve of her back and the laces requiring attention, her dark green gaze finding him from over her shoulder. “You do it, Battista.”

No coyness hid in the request; its truth hummed in every vibration of her low whisper, in the thick provocation of her glowing gaze. He stepped to her eagerly, fear denied, if not forgotten.

With a delicate touch, he untied the laces, pulling the silk ribbon through the eyelets with slow languor, reveling in each inch of flesh revealed, in the sensuous hum of the slick trimmings sliding against fabric.

Reaching the bottom of the laces and the glorious curve where her back ended and her buttocks began, he lowered his lips to the smooth creamy skin on the back of her neck, lips smiling against the flesh as bumps of delight broke out upon it. His mouth and tongue drank of her, wrapping one arm around her waist as she fell against him. Pushing her body into his, Aurelia reached up one hand to encircle the back of his head, to thrust her fingers in his hair with a tug of insistence.

Battista groaned with urgency, flung her round, and lowered his lips to hers, the full, moist flesh open and waiting. Gently at first, he rejoiced in their secret as he did in the prizes he had sought all his life. As her tongue reached out for his, he captured the mouth, taking ownership of it.

Aurelia leaned against him, bandaged hand at his waist, the other rubbing against his chest, moving downward.

He gasped and pushed her away, staring at her as she blinked owl-like at him.

“Are you sure,
cara?
Do you know what you are doing?” The strangeness of her life came to him, the consequences of their actions—if they were to go further—all the more precarious.

Aurelia sniffed softly, looking up at him with unfettered desire. “I know exactly what I am doing ... well, not exactly. But I am fully aware, Battista, fully conscious and in
this
moment. This—you—is exactly what I want.”

He hummed low and feral, her assurance tantalized him. Abandoning all rational reflection, he lowered his mouth to hers once more.

Twenty-two

Do not be afraid; our fate
cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.

—Inferno

“
T
hat was almost as exhausting as the mountain.” She giggled in the darkness.

Against hers, Battista’s cheek blossomed with a smile, but the belly she stroked beneath her fingers did not move, his chest did not rumble with any answering laughter.

Raising herself up on her elbow, she peered into the face, the masculine bone structure so precise as he lay back, yet the features so indistinct in the dearth of light.

The candle had burned to a stub and snuffed itself out with an unheard hiss; the hours spent indulged in each other’s arms had passed without intrusion or notice.

Though she had never heard the cries of a man in the throes of ecstasy, she had known them from Battista’s lips, known he had been as overwhelmed as she. Yet she saw nothing of delight upon his still countenance.

“Have I ... have I offended you?” she whispered, not with the fear of being overheard, but of the answer. “I know I am not as experienced as your other—”

Battista lurched upright, swells of stomach muscle undulating, and took her by the shoulder. For all his sudden intensity, he eased her back down gently, his physical control at odds with the heat of his touch, the passion in his eyes.

“Speak not another word, Aurelia.” He leaned over her, silky black hair falling over a flushing face. His gaze narrowed and flitted, not—she saw clearly—with disappointment, as she had feared, but with shame. “I did not expect ... I was surprised to find you a ... a maid. You’re so ...”

Aurelia waited, feeling as if she were perched on yet another cliff. But she did not rush him; she saw the conflict in the puckers upon his brow. With a tender touch, she pushed the silky floss from his face and tucked it behind one ear. “I am ... what?”

And then it came to her.

The chortle rose from deep in her throat, quivering with cynically tainted amusement. “Old?”

Battista flung himself back on the bed, ruddy face now scarlet with embarrassment.

“No, well, yes, but ...” He rose back up and faced her, an honorable, courageous man who would not retreat in the face of adversity. “Not
old,
but not a child, either. I would have ... I could have done things ... differently ... better, perhaps.”

She could not allow him to suffer anymore.

She hushed him with a brush of three fingertips upon his swollen, well-used lips. “I would not have wanted it differently. You could not know I am ... was ...”—she giggled again, rich and deep with lascivious satisfaction—“the world’s oldest virgin.”

Aurelia saw the smile tugging at his mouth, try though he might to disguise it, and sighed with relief. She would not want a shred of regret to taint what they’d shared.

“But what of conception? At your age, it could be dangerous.” Her harsh laughter silenced him this time.

“Do not fear on that score,” she assured him. “It is not possible.”

“How can you be so sure?” His voice rose in the quiet of the house, in the stillness that lived as one day traded places with another.

“I know.” Aurelia put her hand forthrightly upon his chest as if to stifle further questions before they formed. But it was a futile attempt.

Battista sat up, thin linen falling to the crook of his hips. Aurelia’s eyes followed the thin line of dark hair as it dipped below the sheet, longing—with an innocent, awakened curiosity—for the sheet to fall away completely.

“You are not old enough for your courses to have stopped,” he said with more conviction than she expected. “It is a possibility. We must—”

“I tell you it is not possible.” Her clipped, harsh invective squelched his insistence like an ax bent on beheading. “I cannot conceive, Battista. I am infertile, as are all of my kind.”

Aurelia bit hard on her upper lip; he had pushed her one step too far, pushed her to loosen the guard standing sentinel over her words. She cursed silently, turning her head from his poignant stare.

With an insistent finger upon her chin, he brought her back. “Your kind?”

“My ... m-m-y family, many of those in my f-f-amily,” Aurelia sputtered, hoping her stammer appeared as embarrassment rather than deceit. “It is an inherited disorder of sorts.”

She watched as his befuddled gaze softened with sympathy, as he lowered his lips, kissing her gently, sucking playfully on her heavy top lip. “I am sorry, Aurelia, and for your kin,” he said, and she believed him, making her feel all the worse.

“Tell me of Michelangelo.” She rushed to other thoughts, other words.

He smiled. “I have a feeling you know a great deal about him.” “Of his work, and his adult years,
sì,
I have read much of it,” Aurelia replied. “But I know little of his childhood.”

“It was not a happy youth.” Battista’s face crumpled at the recollections. “His mother died when he was but six, and his father was useless with his grief. His aunt Cassandra ran the household, but she was cold and efficient. I fear he endured much loneliness, unwanted, too, by any save his Nona, and the Topolinos.”

Aurelia shook her head. “I do not know the name.”

“It was the stonecutter’s wife who suckled him when his own mother became too ill. As a child, Michelangelo fled there at every opportunity, an urchin running wild on the streets of Florence.” He laughed brightly. “Some say he ingested stone dust with Signora Topolino’s milk, and that is how he came by his talent.”