She felt Micheletto approach before she saw him. Silence followed him, careful steps to avoid his notice, a hushing of meaningless conversation. A horse snorted, then the gate was opened.
He stepped out, face already set into the lines of a scowl. "Who..." he began; seeing her, his eyes widened, a quirk darting across his lips that was almost a smile.
Micheletto leaned his bulk against the wall. "And here she is..." his eyes caressed her, full of heat that he did not disguise; he opened his mouth to speak again, then noticed the dark figure waiting behind. He straightened, the mocking light that had gathered in his face replaced by quiet watchfulness. He cocked an eyebrow in inquiry and Betta nodded in reply.
"This way," he murmured, all teasing gone, then instructed the guard to close the gate. As they walked toward the hall, Betta looked back in time to see the guard still watching them, a morose expression on his thin face.
Betta turned away, following behind. The bulk of Micheletto's back obscured the frescoes that decorated the walls. As he walked through the hall, Betta could not help but admire the breadth of his shoulders in the fitted leather doublet. The manner of his walk, so quick and easy, was like watching a dancer perform a complicated series of steps, but never had there been a dancer who possessed this man's strength and air of dangerous ability. Could Bernaldino have bested him? She thought not, and the thought sent a thrill of excitement down her spine.
A flight of stairs brought them to the next floor. At the end of a long series of rooms, a single large window matching the one at their backs let in strong sunlight, allowing her to see a single closed door.
"Does he sleep?" Lucrezia spoke for the first time.
Micheletto nodded.
"Then there is no need to accompany me." She walked to the door and disappeared into the closed room.
They were alone. Suddenly nervous, Betta could not look up to Micheletto's face. She hastily turned, surveying the room. It appeared too plain to be the home of the most powerful cardinal in Rome. A single tapestry decorated the walls, and the heavy candlesticks resting on the carved wooden chest were of pewter, not silver. The only resemblance she could see to the splendor that she had become accustomed to while working for the family was in the excessive cleanliness. Not a speck of dust could be found, even in the small areas around the legs of the heavy wooden chairs. The small panes of glass in the windows were free of dirt.
A measured footstep sounded behind her, and a puff of warm breath heated her neck.
The gasp she could not contain made Micheletto chuckle though he came no closer. Still leaning against the wall, he crossed his ankles, the movement flexing the long muscles of his leg.
"Little Betta." His voice caressed her name, tongue wrapping around the sound. "Wondering when I would see you again. Still have the knives I gave you?"
Nodding, Betta pulled at the wrist of her gown until the hilt of the blade appeared, dark against her skin.
"I'd see that you're keeping an edge to it," he said, extending a hand.
Betta crossed her arms over her chest. "You would leave me defenseless?"
A lazy grin split his face. "You can hold one of mine, though it's bigger then you are used to." Reaching into his doublet, Micheletto removed a blade, this one as long as her foot.
Though her cheeks were flaming, she refused to drop her eyes. "I've handled larger."
His bark of laughter caused a momentary silence in the muffled conversation which had provided a soothing backdrop to their words. Shaking his head, Micheletto reached out and took hold of her arm. They walked to the end of the long corridor, where the single large window provided an ocean of bright light on the floor. Betta felt the warmth of it seeping into her scalp, dispelling the last of her headache.
"Bernaldino said you learned much."
Betta nodded. Unable to meet his eyes, she looked over his shoulder to the window beyond, which showed the frantic activity of the Roman street, teeming with life. Recent rain had left puddles that crowded the men and women to each side of the thoroughfare, and in doorways, words and coins were exchanged.
“Came to see me, before he left for Jativa Said that he had taught you, and you were skilled.” He chuckled again and ran a finger down the edge of the blade. “He would not look at me. Had I said a word against you, I think he’d have split my throat.”
“He was an able tutor.” The memory of their last meeting was a pleasant one. During the quiet moments of the night, she sometimes pictured him in a large house surrounded by sons who were formed in his likeness and a sour wife more used to his absence. He would hate it, she thought, the life most men dreamed of. As Micheletto would. Bernaldino and Micheletto were like spirits, too wild to be tamed.
"There may be more that I could teach you."
"For what price?" Betta could not keep the weariness from her voice. A flash of something caught her eye, the movement as quick as the flapping of a bird's wing. She squinted, trying to discern what had caught her attention.
"No price, only pleasure." He took a step, crowding her back against the wall. She let him, though her hand itched for the hilt of the blade. “Do you take no one to your bed?”
"What did Bernaldino tell you?"
"That you were quick, and mean." He bent his head, speaking the words near her temple. “I think he might have been in love with you."
Her laugh rang out, hollow sounding even to her ears.
“What could you teach me that he did not?”
In a movement so fast that it raised the hair on the back of her neck, Micheletto snatched a fly that had begun to buzz angrily overhead. He closed his fist, ending the sound, and then opened it, letting the insect fall to the floor. "You could come here again, and I will show you."
Betta bit her lip, trying to find a way to keep him distant. Her heart was pounding with fear and another more dangerous emotion, warmth and longing and the wish for something she could not name. A flash from the street caught her eye. The hand that had been about to push him away stilled, and she leaned closer, trying to see more clearly.
Below them, the same guard that had allowed their entry was speaking to a man in a sky-blue tunic.
"Micheletto," she whispered; her tone must have alerted him, for he straightened and looked to where she was pointing.
"What?"
She chose her words with care, trying to convey the sudden sense of danger winding through her mind. "As we came, that man jostled my lady."
"Could he have recognized her?"
Betta touched her coif. "A lock of her hair came down. The blonde, it is rare, even here."
He nodded. They watched in silence as the man in the tunic left the gate after clasping hands with the guard, coins passing between them in a furtive exchange. Moving with a suddenly jaunty step, he strolled up the street before finding a deeply recessed doorway. A moment passed, then another approached him, a man dressed in street garb, linen tunic and striped hose. After a quick exchange of words, the second man hurried off, leaving the man in the blue tunic to return to his shadowed hiding place, a broad grin visibly stretching his features.
Clamping a hand around Betta's wrist, Micheletto hurried her back down the corridor, stopping at the closed door. The knock shook the paneled wood.
Seconds passed before the door opened, and a disheveled Cardinal Borgia appeared clad in a linen shirt and hose. He looked sleepy and tousled, as though only recently awakened from pleasant dreams.
"Trouble, my lord." Micheletto quickly explained what they had seen, and all expression fled from cardinal's face, leaving it smooth and expressionless. He opened the door, and Betta followed Micheletto inside. Lady Lucrezia was standing near the bed, her cloak and mask a pile on the floor.
"What..." she began, then quieted when the Cardinal crossed the room and removed her cloak from the floor and enveloped her in the folds.
"You were followed," he answered, turning her to fasten the mask. "Micheletto, see her back to the Palazzo."
&nb
sp; Micheletto nodded. Betta had pulled the concealing hood of her cloak up when the cardinal, who had been waiting in the center of the room, looked at her.
"They expect to find a woman in my bed."
Betta nodded, seeing the wisdom in it, and made shooing motions with her hands. "Go, go. Along the river, through the fish market. They will never look for her there. And keep the cloak pulled low."
They left in a swirl of perfume, the muscled arm of Micheletto curved protectively around her lady's shoulder. It gave her a strange feeling to see them together, the two halves of her life that never seemed to meet. His care of her, the gentleness in the way he shepherded her from the room as though she were a precious treasure, sent a stab of some hot emotion through her chest. She watched them leave, a frown gathering the skin between her eyes.
Without Lucrezia's bright presence, the details of the room flared into focus where before there had only been shadow. As with the hall, the Borgia's famous love of luxury was in little evidence in the Cardinal's sparse chamber. Save for the enormous bed carved of some dark rich wood and draped in midnight colored cloth, there were no softening touches, only a table covered in books and maps. Weapons were placed throughout, swords and daggers; the candle flames caught their edges.
"Undress."
Betta plucked at the laces that bound the two halves of her bodice together. When it was loosened, she pulled it down her shoulders to land in a puddle on the floor, the sleeves still attached. Her fingers found the small knot of cloth at the base of her skull; she began unwinding the long strip of fabric.
Borgia was watching her; heavy lids had come down over the hazel eyes, concealing them, but she had already seen something in their depths which made her breath quicken in fear.
She untucked the two ends of the linen cloth concealed in the twists that bound her hair. After a pull, it slithered free, falling in a straight, heavy curtain of black past her hips. Hair like a horse, she thought, without a trace of beauty.
She began to walk towards the bed, but the cardinal stopped her.
"The camicia as well." A new note roughened his voice.
The camicia billowed, free of the heavy woolen gown, into a cloud hanging to her knees. Betta expelled a breath and loosened the tie. She pulled the undergarment from her shoulders. Borgia's eyebrows rose at the sight of the wide band around her chest. He stepped closer, placing his fingers over hers when she reached up to untie it.
"For your courtesy," he said, freeing the knot and then rolling, keeping the bundle tight, the edges perfectly aligned. "You bind your breasts."
Betta made no reply.
"Why?" His hand reached out, brushing his knuckles against the hardened tip of one breast as the fabric fell to the floor. She stepped back, avoiding the caress, traitorous excitement flooding through her veins.
"Why?" he repeated. "I will have an answer."
"I do not wish men to look at me." She answered honestly.
"Then you have utterly failed, despite your efforts." He reached down and touched her thigh, the place where the knife rested, bound tightly by leather thongs. “And these.” He paused, running a finger across the steel. “The blades Micheletto gave you?”
Betta nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Have you used them?”
Memory sparked an image in her mind, a drunken man stalking her as she walked along the shore. When he had tried to grab her, the knives were there before she had the chance to think, hot blood spurting on her hand the answer to a question. Little mouse, Micheletto had called her. She was no longer a little mouse, though neither, she thought, was she a wolf.
“Yes.”
His eyes closed, the skin across his cheekbones tightening. "The stockings."
Bending from the waist, she untied one garter, rolling the wool stocking down her leg before moving to the other. The ties binding the blades to her arm and leg were loosened, weapons tucked beneath the pile of garments, but carefully, where she could find them if the need arose. Naked, she stood before him and straightened her shoulders. She lifted her chin, prepared to see anything in his eyes.
He reached out and drew a finger down her straight black hair. "A treasure well concealed." His eyes shuttered, and he took a step back. "The bed. It will afford you some modesty."
She walked toward the bed. Her unbound hair feathered down, caressing her backside as though a finger were drawing a gentle line. Linen sheets met her hands. The bed smelled of Cardinal Borgia and oranges, as though his skin carried some memory of the hot Valencian sun. Perhaps a hint of musk as well. And, underneath it all, steel. The woolen coverlet caressed her neck and fingers, arms and thighs as she lay back, the feathers airy as clouds beneath the smooth cloth.
He stood looking down at her for a minute, linen tunic brushing his thighs. "How lovely you are." He sounded surprised. "I confess that I never noticed. But then, you made every effort to conceal your charms. Why, I wonder." Hands went down and clasped the hem of his tunic, drawing it overhead in a swift motion that left Betta breathless with shock. His was not the body of a man such as she had become accustomed to, hairy and large, jiggling with fat and sweat. Borgia was slim but well-muscled, with a breadth of chest concealed by scarlet robes.
She would not look below his waist. For a moment, she savored the feel of the linen against her skin, letting it calm her nerves. Then, when she could stand the fear no longer, she rolled onto her stomach and came up in a crouch, raised on hands and knees.
"Do what you must."
Feathers shifted as he sat on the bed. Though he reached out and stroked the toughened skin on the bottom of her foot, he came no closer.
"Do you expect me to ram myself into you like the gate of a castle being breached? Your introduction into the arts of love must have been an occasion for little joy if you treat it as a task to be completed with such expediency."
Betta flinched, the motion so pronounced that there was no hope of disguising it. She blinked back tears.
The cardinal's voice gentled. "And yet you agreed to this..." his voice trailed off. The coverlets draping the bed moved. "Come, lay beside me. You need have no fear that I will mount you like a rutting bull. Closer." Betta stopped when she was a hands breadth from his chest; waves of heat emanated from him, as though he were a stone removed from the fire. "Drape your leg across my hip. There. Lovely." He leaned closer, breathing into her ear. "And now we wait."
Silence descended, so profound that her shuttered breaths echoed from the corners where paintings and mirrors formed spots of color. Head resting against the bolster, he looked across at her, and she was struck again by his youth, his comeliness. It was said by many that he was the most handsome young man in Rome, and she agreed. There was nothing coarse or weak about his face or person, only chilly perfection concealing a dark maelstrom.
"What shall we speak of, if the other way we could spend the interim is so repugnant to you?"
"The war with the French?" Betta offered, hopeful. "Or the rains?"
A chuckle moved his chest against her, and she scooted back. "I think not." He brushed the hair back from her brow. "My Micheletto is fascinated by you. I could not understand why, at first. The skinny little girl who served at my mother's home. The one my sister trusts."
Betta shrugged. "He is unused to a refusal."
The Cardinal's arm came up and laid across her waist, the hand on her back. The warmth of it was shocking; vividly she could feel each finger, the rough callouses overlaying the bones. Betta had to resist the urge to squirm against the sensation of heat. "A failing, I share." Fingers danced along her spine, making her shiver.
"He will soon tire of it."
"Perhaps." His hand had come up to rest on her hip, his thumb making small circles. "Though should he know of the beauty I have seen today, he would redouble his efforts."
"Beauty?" she scoffed, suddenly noticing that he had bridged the distance between them. His chest pressed lightly against her breasts, making the skin prickle. Bet
ta shifted her legs, uncomfortable with his proximity, and her thigh brushed something smooth and hard.
The iron clasp of his hand kept her anchored in place even as she gasped, panic making her heart race and sweat explode in a thousand tiny droplets that misted her body.
"Shhh," he murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder, making soft, comforting noises. “I have said that I will not harm you.” They were silent for endless moments while he caressed her. Gradually, her breathing slowed, and she relaxed under his gentle touch. The hand slid up, finding the skin of her neck and brushing along it with delicate fingertips.
Though she pressed her lips together, Betta could not restrain a giggle. Her neck had always been sensitive. When she had been a girl, her brothers would pin her to the ground and tickle her until she dissolved into fits of laughter. Next to her, Borgia startled; she could feel the movement in his body, the sudden clenching of his muscles at the unexpected noise. Slowly, he reached out and stroked her neck again. Though she tried to flinch away, it only made the touch more delicate; she giggled again, helpless to resist.
“A weakness,” he murmured, a grin stretching across his face. His hand came up to caress the skin beneath her ear. Wiggling and unable to restrain her laughter, Betta tried to resist, shifting herself back and forth, trying to escape his tormenting fingers.
“Please…please, my lord,” she laughed, wedging her hand between them to press against his chest. The skin was soft.
“When I have found a gap in your armor?” he whispered, sliding his hands down her neck to rest against her shoulders. Betta was so relieved that his maddening tickles had stopped that she did not protest when she felt him shifting, the side of his chest laying against hers as his lips found the place where his hands had so recently been. As soft as featherdown, they drifted up to her neck, caressing the hollow beneath her ear. The sensation was strange, filling her body with something that was like hunger, only sharper.
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