Whatever bitterness they might have felt for Franco Pietro before, he was beloved of the crowd now. Even Matteo was standing, shouting with the rest as his father rode to the princess and presented the armored destrier with a bow. The boy said something eagerly to Elena, received a smiling nod, and sprang over the draped railing with a child’s carelessness. Nimue came right after him, under the rail, nearly taking down a swag of cloth as she scrambled from the dais. Matteo took possession of the great warhorse and led it from the lists at his father’s side.
Allegreto stood straight from the wall. He pushed his way through the swarm of onlookers and walked alone up the steep ramp that led from the level of the tournament yard to the main fortress.
He avoided the imposing shadow of the great tower and circled instead through the smithy, where all work was suspended, even the bellows and tools carried down to the tournament grounds to provide repairs. In the deserted precincts of the upper citadel, he passed through the empty guard barracks and entered a small courtyard. The walls resounded with distant sound, a faint rumble in the quiet. In the afternoon light, olive trees and herbs gave off a pleasant scent.
The tourney would be over soon. The princess was to journey part of the distance to d’Avina before nightfall, in preparation for the reenactment of her first glorious procession to the gates of Monteverde. Allegreto thought it a foolish scheme, a dangerous excursion from the city. But her favorite, Raymond, had put the idea in her head, and so country maids were harvesting sunflowers and mending their best clothes all along the road from the mining town, in readiness to laud the princess as she passed.
Allegreto paused in the court, looking at the small door that led to the guards’ infirmary. It was a chamber cut into the side of the rock itself, bricked out by more stones to make a room. Broom weeds grew in the cliff beside the deep passage to the open door.
There was no sign of the surgeon. The single guard was snoring softly, propped insensible against the stone wall. Zafer had made sure of that. Allegreto moved silently into the doorway. Raymond de Clare lay on a pallet, sleeping. There was a bandage about his head, and another across his ribs.
Allegreto leaned on the crude frame of the door. The Englishman seemed to be resting easily for a man who had been almost beaten to death. Zafer had discovered from the surgeon that Clare had no bones broken, and only a few cuts across his chest. From the moment Raymond had stumbled into the presence-chamber, whining as if he were like to expire, Allegreto had been sure he wasn’t gravely injured.
It would be easy to gravely injure him now. Easy enough to take one of the surgeon’s knives from the box by the door and slip it into the Englishman’s heart. The wound might even be overlooked—Allegreto could use the most slender pick and wipe the spot of blood on the bandages. The man died of some internal harm from the beating. And Raymond de Clare would no longer be a question, for Allegreto or anyone else.
For a few moments he amused himself with the possibility. The Englishman was a well-looking harlot. She had written of his first kiss as if he were Galahad.
It was tempting. But she wouldn’t like it if she found out. She believed Allegreto now. Took his word. He discovered that it would be a painful thing to lie to her.
Allegreto kicked a pebble across the floor. Raymond jerked on his pallet. The Englishman came upright quickly, reaching for his sword. Allegreto watched him realize that he wasn’t armed, or alone. Raymond stared at Allegreto for an instant, started to scramble up, and remembered he was mortally wounded. He sagged back on the pallet.
"Are you in dire pain?" Allegreto asked, lifting his eyebrows.
Raymond shuddered and laid his head back. "Pain enough. Curse the Riata villains." Then he turned his head with a scowl. "You’re Navona."
"I am." Allegreto gave a courteous nod. "And I won’t dispute your opinion of Riata."
Raymond made a soft snort. He put his arm over his chest, as if it hurt him. "Villains, the lot of you! You’ve done nothing but cause her sorrow. Where’s the guard?"
"Elsewhere," Allegreto said.
Raymond looked up at him. Allegreto leaned in the doorway, his ankles crossed.
"What do you want?" the Englishman said testily, tugging at the bandage across his chest. "Do you also wish to kill me?"
"I desire nothing so much," Allegreto murmured, "but it would cause the princess sorrow. Foolish as she may be for it."
Raymond plucked at the binding. His bare shoulders had begun to sweat. "I could say the same to you, Navona. I could find it in my heart to murder you for what you did to her."
"Get up and try it," Allegreto said.
The other man glared at him, then laid his head back on the wall, his face turned away.
"But you’re injured," Allegreto said. "I beg your pardon. I don’t wish to quarrel with you. Or to kill you. It was a small jest."
"I’m hugely amused," Raymond said.
"Let’s talk a little of money." Allegreto smiled. "By chance that’ll be more to your taste. Who paid you to feign this attack on you?"
Raymond closed his eyes. "Oh, is that what the two of you have invented to mislead her? I feigned it! Does she believe you?" He gave a laugh and caught at his ribs. "And what sinister mission do I have that makes me smash my own head and cut myself open?"
"That’s what I wish to know."
The Englishman turned with a sneer. "I have no mission, Navona, but that I love her, though you’d comprehend nothing of that! I’ll do what I can to protect her from you and Franco. I begged her—but she was so rash as to set the pair of you free to work your evil. She thinks you have some honor in you." He made a commendable groan as he turned his back, lying undefended on the pallet with his face to the wall.
"Honor I may not possess," Allegreto said softly, "but I have five thousand sovereigns for you, if you’ll work for me."
Raymond put his hand over his head. "You make me sick."
Allegreto observed him thoughtfully. "I wish your recovery well, then," he said to the Englishman’s back. "If you think again, you can find me."
He walked quietly out of the chamber. Zafer waited in the shade of an overhanging oak. They moved together just inside the barracks.
"Don’t lose sight of him," Allegreto said.
Zafer nodded. "You discovered anything, my lord?"
"No. Only that he doesn’t believe I have five thousand in gold to line his purse. I set about it badly. I should have played his friend." He shrugged.
Zafer made no remark. He only said, "The guard will awaken soon, my lord. I will keep watch."
* * *
She summoned them again to the presence-chamber, Franco with his hair still showing damp from a bath, and Allegreto wearing boots as if he meant to travel.
Elena was dressed to ride. Her retinue all stood gathered with Philip and Dario in readiness to escort her from the city. She felt herself grow heated as she caught Allegreto’s dark glance. It was impossible not to think of the night before, of his kisses and his body thrust against hers. She had looked for him all day, and seen him sometimes, leaning insolently in the shadow of the walls, lounging like one of the young bloods of the city who bet their fortunes on the breaking of a lance.
She tried to avoid looking at him now. She complimented Franco Pietro, thanking him for his brave performance at the tournament. It was exactly what she’d hoped for. The people had a new affection for him, and he’d represented Monteverde against Milan, instead of Riata against another house. He was favoring his leg heavily as he walked, but he looked tired and pleased with himself.
"I won’t ask you to mount a horse again, my lord," she said to him as he rose with difficulty from his knee. "I wish for you and Navona to remain in the city while I’m absent. It’s only for two nights—but all of the council will be with me. I’ll feel more at ease knowing that the citadel is in the hands of experienced commanders, even for a such a small duration."
There was a faint murmur in the room. They all gazed at her as if
she’d lost her reason.
She made a small shrug. "If you’re going to fight one another, I cannot stop you," she said bluntly. "You could do it as well in my sight as here. But I pray that you will both be alive and at peace when I return, and greet me at the gates together with welcome. It would make the people happy."
Allegreto gave a soft snort. "More like they would be struck dumb with wonder, Princess."
She let her eyes meet his. The moments in the dark with him seemed to set them apart, as if everyone else in the room were a stranger to her. The scent of lovers curled about them, so vivid that she was afraid it was more than imagination and memory.
His lashes lowered. He bowed his head and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "But I will remain. And I pledge that I’ll be alive when you return."
She tore her look away, fingering the cuff of her sleeve. It seemed the silence around them was too heavy, too curious. It was as well they would be apart for a day or two. "God grant you mercy for your service, my lord," she said formally, directing a nod to his left ear.
"Will my son stay in the city, Princess?" Franco asked abruptly.
"Matteo has asked to go with me." She forced herself to stop rolling the pearl on her cuff between her fingers. "He would like to see d’Avina again."
"What guard do you take?" he demanded.
"We have ten horse and a company of foot," Philip said. "Captain Guichard has also sent an escort." He nodded toward the French knights from the condottieri. "We’ll break the journey at their encampment, and continue tomorrow to d’Avina."
Franco cast a narrow glance at Allegreto. "I don’t suppose it’s wise to leave Navona at liberty alone here, Princess," he said. "I will remain."
* * *
The sunset on Monteverde’s duomo was famous. The golden mosaics on the facade of the cathedral caught light and sent a glow like a halo onto the piazza and the towers and into the air itself. The domes and spires glittered like stone-carved ice. Allegreto stood in the deepening shadow among a few pilgrims watching the sight wide-eyed, no doubt hoping for a miracle to appear in that golden mist of light.
He was watching for something else. Gerolamo had brought word that Franco was attending vespers at the duomo—not such an odd thing, for Franco always kept his soul in good standing. Allegreto supposed that it was an efficient habit—not only was Franco cleansed of his grievous sins shortly after he committed them, it also provided a suitable cover for meeting with his partisans and agents. The Riata made sure that he developed no certain routine, changing daily to churches all over the city in some order that Allegreto had never been able to fathom.
The distant sound of the choir floated on the golden air, the last psalm fading into silence. Allegreto could have recited by heart the canticle of Mary that would follow as the priest mounted the pulpit to read in a voice that echoed solemnly through the great aisles and columns. As the sun fell behind the mountains and the halo faded, the pilgrims rose and dusted off their knees. Allegreto keep his head lowered. He could just see Gerolamo and his other man, who stood in the lengthening shadows of the piazza and watched the duomo’s side doors.
The service came to an end. After a pause for thanksgiving, the huge bronze doors swung open and a small straggle of the faithful came out, old women mostly, completely swathed in black veils. They moved as old women should move, with tiny steps and care on the stairs. Allegreto scrutinized them, but they were all too short and feeble to disguise any Riata, or Raymond de Clare.
It was Raymond who had brought him here. He had vanished from the infirmary and the citadel an hour since, like Lazarus from his tomb. Raymond and Franco had both entered before the service, separately. But neither departed with the congregation.
Allegreto walked across the piazza and lightly up the steps. He slipped into the open door, kneeling and crossing himself, his head well down. Gerolamo had told him there was a scaffolding along the south aisle, tall enough to reach the upper windows.
He turned his back on the sanctuary and pretended to dip his fingers in the holy water, though he did not touch it or the carved stone font.
It was unnerving to enter a hallowed place against his ban. It was the church where his father lay sealed in the crypt below, no easy memory. In the dimness the windows glowed with brilliant color against lacy black outlines. The huge space echoed with whispers that were not quite voices, sounds that carried and reverberated endlessly through the long double row of pillars that marched down the nave.
He moved near the scaffold, quietly dropping an offering in the plate and igniting a candle among the bank of lights against the wall. It would be as well to pacify Gian’s tortured soul. Behind the cover of a massive column, he grabbed a rung of the scaffolding and hiked himself up. The wound in his shoulder gave him a twinge of reminder, even after a year, but he climbed quickly and silently up into the shadows near the roof.
From under the succession of arches that topped the pillars, he could see all the way down the length of the sanctuary. A small knot of men stood near the pulpit, highlighted in the fading radiance from the great rose window over the choir.
Allegreto scanned the empty nave below him. At the edge of one of the ponderous columns, he saw a movement. He stared at it through the gloom, distinguishing the shape of a man’s hand fingering his sword hilt. As he looked along the line of pillars, he saw more—six men in all, concealed against the colossal pillars, waiting stone-still but for that single restless hand.
Allegreto held himself in heightened caution, chary of some trap laid for him, a deception meant to lure him here into ambush. But the men looked toward the choir and chancel. Allegreto moved softly along the single board, pausing before he crossed each window to be sure they weren’t glancing upward. He came to the end of the scaffolding, overlooking the transept where Franco Pietro stood with his men.
Allegreto had assumed that Franco came here to meet Raymond by some preordained plan. But there were men hidden, and Franco had a wariness about him; an edged impatience. His four men were disposed in a guarding position, two before him and two at his flank.
A single priest worked calmly in the chapel of Saint Barbara, the patron of miners and Monteverde. He trimmed candles at the altar, then knelt and crossed himself. He walked across the nave, under Allegreto’s feet, and out the side door.
The door closed. As the boom faded away in the sanctuary, Franco said loudly, "Show yourself."
His voice echoed. Allegreto knelt on one knee, watching.
After a moment Raymond de Clare stepped from under the spiraling stair that led up to the high pulpit. "I asked you to come alone."
"I take no orders from spies," Franco said coldly. "If you have news of what Navona plans, then tell me. Or you’ll find yourself assailed by Riata in truth."
"Not I," Raymond said. With a sudden move he lifted his arm and shouted, "For Navona!"
His yell echoed down the nave. Men swarmed from concealment, a sudden drumming of boots on stone. Franco cursed and unsheathed his sword, swinging around to defend himself. He lunged just in time to parry a thrust, pulling back as his closest guard drove a point deep into the attacker’s chest.
Allegreto rose to his feet, staring down. The Riata made an instant ring of defense, their blades flashing in the circle around Franco, catching colored light from the windows. Raymond drew his sword, backing away. They were a dozen to Riata’s five, pushing forward, trying to reach Franco.
Allegreto stood incredulous. It was a church. He heard the flat clanking sound of a crossbow, a hiss—and one of Franco’s men pitched backward with a bolt lodged in his chest. Another assailant lunged into the gap left by the fallen man, his sword tip aimed at Franco’s unprotected side. The Riata turned and kicked the assassin’s exposed knee, stopping the charge. Raymond’s man stumbled and took Franco’s blade through his throat.
Blood began to spread, polluting the marble floor of the sanctuary. Allegreto pressed his hand against the arch beside him, breathing hars
hly. He’d never thought he would be sorry to see Franco cut down like a dog. He had spent a lifetime hoping for it. But this...in a church, in Allegreto’s name...if Franco died like this, it would be Navona to blame. And it would be war again.
Raymond could mean nothing but war. Nothing but to break the fragile peace of the houses and the republic. Nothing but to make the princess fail.
Rage gripped him. He watched the Englishman stand aside while Franco fought for his life. The Englishman who claimed he loved her, who had fawned on her and kissed her and inspired poems of ardor and devotion.
Franco could take two against one of these hired killers—they fought like cattle, with no skill—but he was favoring his leg, his footwork clumsy, his arm a fraction slow. The tourney had taken its toll.
His men had dispatched four of the assailants. But he’d lost two of his own already. He was going down. In the sounds of blade on blade and the harsh grunts of murderers in a place of God, Allegreto saw Elena’s dream falling to destruction before his eyes.
He looked down between the boards of the scaffold, toward where the bolt had been fired. A man crouched near one of the pillars, hastily reloading a crossbow. Allegreto slid over the edge and jumped down the shaky arrangement of supports. As his boots hit the floor, he was already turning toward the hidden archer. He went in low and at an angle, moving fast.
The man was sighting carefully down the length of the bow, doubtless trying not to shoot any of his companions. A noble thought, for his last. Allegreto slipped behind him, gripped a handful of hair, grabbed the man’s jaw, and twisted his head violently to the left. Cartilage popped and snapped as the archer’s neck broke. Allegreto caught the crossbow as it fell, preventing it from clattering to the stone. He left it on the dead man’s body, already in motion toward the Riata.
The Medieval Hearts Series Page 178