The King's Agent (6 page)

A deep furrow formed on his smooth ruddy brow as he read it, sat, and read it again. The men around the table inched closer, each looking for the opportunity to grab the missive from his hands.

“Tell us, Battista,” Frado encouraged with soft persistence.

“It is bad news.” Ercole’s fatality revealed itself, refuted quickly by a shake of Battista’s head.

“Not bad news, no. A request.” He spoke with a peculiar inflection, confusion and hesitance in the indistinct diction. “But it is very strange indeed.”

Frado snatched at the paper, the others crushing around him to spy the words over his round pate and around his chubby form. Battista watched their faces, saw their bewilderment dawn.

“There is a dire insistence in his words, if I am reading this correctly.” Frado spoke first, looking to Giovanni for consensus.

“
Sì, sì.
It is there. But I couldn’t be certain if I conveyed it properly,” Giovanni replied.

“You did, Gio, most distinctly,” Battista assured him of a job well done. “But why is he so insistent? And what is this piece he speaks of?”

Pompeo leaned forward, hands braced upon the table. “He gives us very little information. His reference to Praxiteles is clear, but then he confuses the point with the next line.” The young man turned his intense black eyes to Giovanni. “You are sure of it?”

Giovanni took up both parchments once more, dedicated, not defensive. “Ah,
sì
. That section was quite clear. ‘By Praxiteles’s hand it was wrought, but which Praxiteles I do not know.’ ”

“This means something to you?” Battista asked of Pompeo.

“It does. Praxiteles was a remarkable Greek sculptor, in the days long before the birth of our Lord. But he is the only Praxiteles I know of.”

“A child of his by the same name?”

Pompeo shook his head vehemently, spiky hair tossed with the motion. “Praxiteles never married. It is rather interesting, in truth. It is oft told that he loved the same woman for all his life, modeled many of his works after her in fact, but they never married nor had children. Marriage may not have been necessary, but the insistence to procreate was deeply ingrained.”

“A child by another woman, perhaps?”

“Perhaps, though his unwavering fealty to the woman was well known and often remarked upon.”

“Knowing who made it is but a small part of this mystery,” Frado grumbled, pointing to the pages on the table with unfettered accusation. “Finding it with this ... this ... bizarre information will be quite another.” His round face scrunched and reddened at the thought of the effort lying before them, much of it upon his rounded shoulders.

Battista waved a hand back and forth before his face as if to scatter an aggravating fly.

“What do we know?” Reaching across the table, he pulled the translation closer. “It is a sculpture, not very large, almost dagger-like but with more purpose to it, and wrought by the hand of a man named Praxiteles.” He raised one long finger from a fist for each item mentioned.

“Well, then,” Frado mumbled, “we know everything.”

Battista slammed his palms upon the table and each man jumped at the slap.

“It is enough to begin, yes?” It was a puzzle, and he had never met one that did not excite him.

Few of the mumbled acknowledgments were enthusiastic.

Battista stared at Frado, a narrow-eyed, twinkling glare, the slightest upward tilt on his full lips. “Enough.
Sì,
Frado?”

Frado looked hard at the man, at the youngster who had insisted Frado’s skin be saved as if it were his own. Long ago, Frado had thrown the lot of his life in with this patriot disguised as a scoundrel; he would not—could not—change anything now.

“Yes, yes, yes. Enough. Come now.” Frado pushed his rotund form away from the table and stomped away, heading for the study and the shelf upon shelf of books. Ascanio, the most learned on sculptures and antiquities, followed close.

With his satisfied smirk full blown, Battista rose to join them, brought up short by the hand on his arm. He looked up to the face and found Giovanni and his apprehension.

“Are you not concerned by the last line? That I did translate word for word.”

Battista looked down at the closing words of the translation.

It is said to possess the strength I need to reign victorious.

The two men exchanged a glance over the paper; each reflected the same worry and hesitation, the same struggle with the perplexing allusion.

“A victory for François is a victory for Florence. We must not forget.” Battista gave Giovanni’s shoulder a squeeze. “The path to victory is never without peril.”

Giovanni offered but a hesitant nod, mouth stretched in a grim line across his face, and said no more of it.

With the setting of the sun, Nuntio gathered every candle and candlestick and set them about the study, on every small table, on every opened shelf, until the cubby glowed. The three men, heads bent over thick leather-bound books and unrolled sheets of parchment, offered silent thanks, rubbing their tired eyes and creaking necks.

“How are we to see the dice?” Giovanni called across the expanse.

“Perhaps it is a sign from God that you should cease your wicked gambling,” Nuntio mumbled back, but even he smiled at the ludicrous sentiment.

“Take thee off, all of you,” Battista called to Giovanni, Ercole, and Pompeo. “We are in for many hours, you—”

“Days,” Frado sniped, curmudgeon’s nose stuck in his book.

Battista glowered at him but gave no response to his interruption. “Make for your beds, all of you. We’ll send Nuntio round if we find anything.”

Pompeo rose and took a few staggering steps toward them, mouth opening with a cavernous yawn, a lion’s silent roar. “Are you sure, Battista?”

“Quite sure. I will need you when we—”

“If we—” Frado again, with a fling of a page.

“
When
we find something. We can handle it for now.” Battista smiled snidely. “Frado is most happy in his work.”

Pompeo suppressed his laughter between clamped lips and scurried out with the others, before Frado directed any more of his frustration toward the retreating men.

The blanket of silence tucked in about them. Ascanio stood and stretched, back popping with the change in position, and removed his green doublet, revealing the bright yellow, puffed-sleeved
camicia
beneath, a blazing color that matched the lined and stuffed bombast hose.

Battista raised one eyebrow at him, always amused but never surprised by the flair of Ascanio’s clothing, though this flouncy, heavily embroidered shirt was one of the more elaborate ones he had seen in some time.

“Venice,” Ascanio said with a grin, as if that explained it all.

Battista shook his head with a chuckle and bent his back to the book in his hands. It pressed heavily on his knees and his feet tingled from the pressure. In the stillness, his eyes grew dry, stuck on the same words on the same page, he ac—

“Aha!” Frado jumped up, sending his chair flying out behind him. “Come, come, you must see this.”

Battista and Ascanio were already on their feet and jumping to his side, keen study following his stabbing finger to the book on the table before them.

“It was written by Pliny the Elder of Rome, sometime in the first century ... 64, 70 ...” His tongue stumbled over the words as he rushed them out.

“ ‘And Praxiteles created it, but no man looked upon it and no man looked away, such was its power. Wars were fought over it. Wars were won and lost because of it. Praxiteles begged for it to be hidden away. He died knowing it was.’ ”

Frado finished reading, voice fading, excitement draining away, lost on the forceful tide of the words. The three men barely breathed in the wake.

“What the hell is this thing?” Ascanio croaked, two hands rifling in his wavy brown hair, their confounded stares the only reply.

Battista turned away, from the question and all it implied. He fell back into the wing chair, its wooden clawed feet creaking with the sudden weight.

Frado stood before him. “I have a very bad feeling about this, Battista.” He rubbed circles around the globe of belly hanging in perfect roundness over his leather belt.

“You ate too much.” Battista tried to joke his trepidation away, but it was a sorry attempt at best. “You know of the absurd superstitions of the pagans as well as I, so much based in the fanciful. I am sure this is but another example.”

“You are sure, are you?” Frado used his sarcasm with a heavy hand, hammering home the one thing they could be sure of ... that they could be sure of nothing.

“We must continue our investigation.” Battista’s eyes scurried from the scathing implication and he reached for another giant tome. “Of that I am sure.”

They set back to their reading, not a one of them sleepy any longer, not a one ready to entertain the thought of sleep, leery of things that walked in the night.

“Phryne,” Frado mumbled, head still bent over his book.

“Scusi?”
Battista asked.

“He loved a woman named Phryne, a courtesan it seems, but one renowned not only for incredible beauty but for her daring and intelligence as well.” Frado barked a laugh, one filled with respect. “It seems her magnificence inspired Praxiteles so, he is celebrated as the first to sculpt a life-sized nude female form.” Frado’s jowls quivered as he shook his head with lusty reverence. “That must have been some heavenly body indeed.”

Battista snickered silently, glad Frado had found something to inspire him, and they settled back to silent study. But it was not long until Ascanio, this time, once more broke their reverie.

“Do either of you recognize the name of di Bone?”

“Giotto.” Battista and Frado said the word together, an assured chorus.

“Ah, of course.” Ascanio flipped a page backward, then forward again. Not a word more required to explain the identity belonging to the nickname.

Giotto di Bondone was most often called simply Giotto, though a few, very few, referred to him by the intimate moniker of di Bone. Many credited the Florentine painter and architect with the renewed vigor for the arts that had captured the entire peninsula in its fervor. The Florentines considered him one of the land’s most cherished sons.

“What of Giotto? What have you found?” Battista put a hand to his chin, pulling on the small tuft of hair growing from the upward curve in the middle of his full bottom lip. Frado closed the book in front of him with a snap.

Without raising his eyes, Ascanio paraphrased the text before him. “This passage talks of a painting by Giotto, a triptych in fact. And in the same portion, both the names are mentioned.” Ascanio held the book aloft before his handsome face. “ ‘Praxiteles created it, Pliny warned of it, and Giotto’s
Legatus Praxiteles Canonicus
pieces will show the way to it.’ ” Ascanio looked up, mind working furiously on the Latin phraseology behind an unfocused gaze. “The Legend of Praxiteles’s Legacy.”

“Dio mio!”
Frado slapped his forehead with his hand and threw himself back in the chair. “We do not have to find one piece! We have to find three pieces to find the one piece!
Bafa—
”

“Wait, wait, there’s more!” Ascanio yelped over Frado’s cursing, holding up a halting hand as he read aloud again.

“ ‘With Dante’s words to lead across the land and Giotto’s images to guide through the cities, only the truly selfless may find the glory.’ ”

“Dante and Giotto,
Dio mio, sì.
” Battista covered his face with his hands, pulling them away, tugging at the skin as he dropped them to his lap. “If it is a triptych by Giotto, the words must be those of Dante’s
Commedia
. Threes,” he mumbled to himself, but neither of his companions refuted the obvious conclusion.

Try as he might, Battista could avoid Frado’s piercing stare no longer, nor deny the consternation of it. But neither would Battista back down from his appointed task. He slipped forward on his chair, perched on its edge, elbows on knees, hands clamped together.

“We have been preparing for this all our lives,
amico mio
. Do you not feel it?”

Frado shook his head back and forth, as if to deny it, but not a word against it did he speak. Ascanio’s gaze volleyed between them, the air thick and heavy with the harbingers unearthed.

“Across the lands, through the cities,” Frado intoned, repeating the words with a grisly condemnation. “How far will this take us, Battista?”

It seemed a simple question, yet both knew it spoke not just to geography.

“From city to city, from state to state, until we find it.” Battista sat back, crossing his thick arms over his chest with determined finality, daring either to contradict him.

Frado threw his hands up into the air, beseeching the heavens, face comically twisted with sarcastic amusement. He surrendered, but it would not be categorical.

“From city to city, from state to state ... would that include those at war?”

Five

This miserable state is borne
by the wretched souls of those
who lived without disgrace and without praise.