The King's Agent

by Donna Russo Morin

  “You will get nowhere without me,” she hissed.

  Aurelia half-carried the stumbling man, turning them right with a lumbering though spritely step.

  “The gate,” he muttered, dimpled chin jutting toward the double-doored exit they left behind.

  “The guards are upon us in an instant. They will know a stranger would use that exit.”

  After but a few gangly paces, she brought them to a much smaller gate, no wider than a single person, tucked away in the vines in the east wall, near the palazzo itself.

  “A servant’s door,” she told him, but only out of a need to flaunt her own knowledge. “As I said, you need me.”

  Slipping them sideways through the narrow egress, she took a quick moment to shut the gate behind them and, with his body relying on hers more with every step, rushed them across the meadow abutting the village and into the forest just beyond.

  Aurelia saw little in the glow of the half-moon hanging in the western sky; the troupe of tree trunks above blocked out even that meager light, allowing no more than inky blotches to gleam through. She brought them but a few paces into the foliage and smuggled them into a tight brace of evergreens, thick enough to keep them hidden, not so far as to lose their way.

  Battista slipped out of her embrace the instant she loosened it, slumping to the forest floor, leaves and twigs crackling beneath the burden of his weight. She arched her back, stretching against the feel of the burden relieved.

  Leaning his back against the bole of an evergreen, he reached down and patted his cloth-wrapped leg, hand coming away with no more than a few dabs of blood.

  “I am in your debt, Signora ... ?”

  “Aurelia,” she responded, prying her gaze from its study of the palazzo, scanning the space between for any guards who may have picked up their trail. But the small expanse of farmland was empty of all save the budding shoots of spring growth and the packs of scavenging guards headed out along the roads, not into this forest that would lead a stranger to naught but a cliff and a fatal drop to the river below.

  His thick brows rose on his smooth forehead. “Aurelia? It is just ... Aurelia?”

  “The Lady Aurelia.” She sat down beside him, offering as skeptical a glance as she received. “It is enough.”

  He laughed then, a low, sultry purring. “Very well then, Madonna Aurelia. I am Battista della Palla, and I owe you my life.”

  Battista lifted her hand off her lap and brushed his lips across it. She smiled at him as she would at a mischievous yet indulged child.

  “Yes, you do.” Aurelia longed to laugh as well, at him and his devilish charm, at what she had done, at the thrill of the unknown stretching before her. Her wishes had come true and she would suffuse herself in every serving of it like a fat man at a feast.

  With keen observation, she took in their position, the activity visible at the palazzo, and the condition of the man beside her.

  “Where is your horse? Where are your men? You have not come to this errand alone?” She frowned at him, at such a ridiculous notion.

  Battista stared up at the sky above and smacked his lips. “No, I did not come on this journey alone. But my companion, with my horse, is long gone by now, I presume. Or he had better be.”

  It was her turn to raise a skeptical brow and he capitulated beneath it.

  “I’m not sure if the agreed-to time has passed, or if he heard the alarm.” He shrugged as if his situation were of no great consequence. “In either case, he would have taken himself away, saved himself as it were. It has been our agreement for the whole of our lives.”

  “Oh, I see,” Aurelia stated with biting succinctness. “Then you are a habitual thief?”

  “How dare you, woman!” Battista blustered with outrage, but one only slightly sincere. She saw his amusement in the smile that narrowed his eyes. He tipped his body closer to hers, slipping sideways along the trunk holding their backs. “I am an art dealer, and a highly res ... ected one at that.”

  She smiled at his slurred protest. His handsome face, now no more than inches from hers, revealed his fatigue and weakness and her amusement faded.

  “If I am forced ... into thievery ...”—his head slumped farther still, until it came to rest upon her shoulder, his words slithering through lips no longer moving—“... then I do ... whatever ... God will forgive me.”

  His last argument—prayer—uttered, Battista lost consciousness, full weight once more falling upon her.

  Aurelia shook her head in wonder. A penitent thief, a religious rogue ... of all the men to encounter, of all the creatures on the earth to indulge her capricious desire, she had to choose such an ir-resoluble person.

  With a gentle touch, she lifted his head, shimmied out from under him, and laid him down upon the soft pine needles, bunching his cape beneath his head. She scurried on her knees to his legs, squinting in the dimness at his wound. The dark stain of the makeshift bandage had become moist; the wound still bled and required another wrapping. Her appraising gaze latched onto his satchel, and she snatched at it, sitting back off her knees as she pulled it onto her lap.

  Aurelia’s groping hand found smooth metal first, and she pulled out an engraved, finely wrought flask. She shook it and received the heavy gurgle of a full flagon. She pulled out the cork with a pop and touched the opening to her lips, nose curling, shivering at the strength of the libations dripping down her throat. She put the stopper back in the container, but kept it out of the sack; she would use more to clean his wound.

  A bundle of rope, a pouch of metal rods—tools of some sort—and two pieces of well-worn flint; the man was indeed prepared for anything. His vigilance served him well. In the meager light, Aurelia unwrapped Battista’s wounded leg and dribbled some of the powerful liquid onto the raw, bloody slash about two inches in length. The man flinched and thrashed a bit, but didn’t regain consciousness and Aurelia rewrapped the leg with a linen also found in the sack, its unknown dried meat removed and set aside. The ministrations had an instant effect; Battista calmed, breath growing deeper as he lapsed into a heavier rest.

  Aurelia sat back down, resting once more against the curved trunk. In the distance, she heard the refrains of orchestral music; the party carried on, as she knew it would. The marquess’s guards would have done their jobs well, containing the alarm, dousing the fire, secreting the search so as not to disturb or inform his guests. Only the nobleman would know of the intrusion. The pine needles beneath her pricked her skin as did her guilt for the worry she caused.

  The man beside her snuffled in his sleep and Aurelia smiled at the silliness of it, the expression feeling peculiar but pleasing.

  They dare not dally too much longer, for night would soon make its way to day. But if he didn’t rest a bit, he might not make the journey to ... wherever they might be bound. The thought of sleep impossible, every nerve in her body tingled with heightened alert; she hummed with the adventure in her grasp, unable to temper the mix of joy and fear thrumming through her.

  Reaching out, Aurelia pulled his satchel close once more. True, she had found all she needed, but perhaps there were other items of value, or so she told herself, arguing against her own chiding conscience.

  Her fingers curled around a parchment and she pulled it out. Aurelia could see the slanted lines and twirls inscribed on it, but not the words themselves. Her head tilted as she studied it, at the oddly familiar curve of the letters. She had seen this hand before.

  Aurelia held the parchment out, then up, searching for a patch of unfiltered moonlight. She stood, saw the beam of illumination wafting upon the patch of forest a few steps to the left, and with another tinge of guilt untied the bow as she made quickly for it.

  In the pale gray light, the unfurled parchment revealed its secrets.

  Aurelia wanted nothing as much as to deny them with a scream. She read the words, now convinced of which hand had wrought them, and read them again. Not one to welter in anger for all she may be constantly piqued at the marquess,
but in this she found a wealth of the disturbing emotion. How could he not have told her that this revelation, and what it led to, still existed? How could no one have told her? How could nothing have been done?

  Aurelia’s hand, and the parchment in it, fell to her side.

  Battista groaned in his sleep, her head snapped toward the forgotten man. Who was he and what was he doing with this? She wavered between the thought that the parchment changed everything and her much-believed conviction that nothing happened without a reason. She could destroy the parchment, but it would only be an impermanent repair.

  No, she shook her head, vehemence tossing her now-scattered chestnut curls further asunder. No, she had arrived at this moment for a purpose; the fates had brought her exactly where she needed to be. How many wars were won by those who kept their enemies close?

  Aurelia returned to the man’s side, rewound the scroll, tucked it into her palm, and sat down to wait.

  He awoke of his own accord, though just moments before she meant to wake him. Pink dawn light hugged the horizon beyond the woods; it would only be a matter of an hour or so before it touched them.

  Palm heels to swollen eyes, Battista rubbed at them as he sat up slowly, flexing and unflexing his left foot, testing the strength of his injured calf, satisfied, if not elated, at the results. Battista looked at her sheepishly.

  “Aurelia, is it?”

  She smiled slightly, not blaming him for the pain and loss of blood that rendered his recollection fuzzy.

  “Indeed.” She nodded. “I am Aurelia. You are Battista della Palla. And this ...”—with a flourish she revealed the scroll hidden in her hand—“... is what you were after.”

  Battista’s dark glare jumped from her, to the parchment, and back. He opened his mouth, said nothing, and closed it again. He pushed against the ground, as if to stand, but had not the strength for it. He could deny her question no longer.

  “Sì, it is,” he grumbled with more than a tinge of exasperation. “Well, actually it isn’t. I thought I would ... acquire a ... a sculpture, yes, a sculpture. But—”

  “You mean a triptych, sì?”

  The man’s square jaw sagged an inch, though he tried his best not to allow it, and she kept him pinned to the moment with a narrowed stare.

  “A triptych, yes.” He shrugged, throwing up a hand toward her and the parchment, upper lip curled with dissatisfaction. “But all I found for my troubles was this parchment, though the label implies it may be of value yet.”

  So he hadn’t read the parchment, she thought, all the better. “I know much of this piece, of Giotto himself, for I am a student of art and have been for a long while.” She inched closer, tapping the air between them with the parchment to drive home each contention.

  Battista tried to snatch it, but his reactions were too slow and with a flick of her wrist she denied him the prize.

  “He painted it for Scrovegni, you know, or at least that is the most prevalent theory. It is because of their mutual admiration for il Poeta.”

  The names she tossed so casually at him—that of Giotto’s last and perhaps greatest benefactor, the moniker by which so many Italians referred to Dante—had the hoped-for effect. Battista looked at her greedily, as if she were the next masterpiece he must filch.

  “I know more, much more,” she assured him with a cock of her head. “And I will share all I know ... if you take me with you.”

  Battista’s hopeful, wide-eyed expression closed like a slammed shutter.

  “What a ridiculous notion.” He shook his head and winced with pain, continuing to argue as he rubbed between his eyes. “You are a member of the marquess’s household, the same I have just pillaged.”

  “Pillaged?” she scoffed at him with a tilt of her head, brows rising high upon her smooth forehead. “Truly? If that sorry escapade is what you call pillaging—”

  He waved her impudence away with a long-fingered hand. “I have made off with an obviously invaluable item. Why would I take you with me?”

  She rose and his gaze rose with her.

  “Because you are intrigued by my knowledge and want more of it. Because you are seriously injured and weak, and won’t make it ten feet from here without my help. And because ...”—she held out the parchment before his face, taunting him with it—“... because I have already read this, could just as easily destroy it, and never reveal its message to you.”

  Battista smiled and in it she glimpsed one of his most powerful weapons, his malignant magnetism. She tried not to quiver as his gaze combed over her. “You are correct, my lady, those are all good reasons for taking you, but how do I know I can trust you?”

  Aurelia chewed on her lip; a sign of her veracity would seal their bargain, her lust for adventure indulged, her purpose respected.

  Without another word, she held out the scroll and released it into his hesitant grasp without vacillation. Aurelia watched him as he read it, observed the curtain of curiosity—one she had worn since her first reading—muddy his assured gaze. Aurelia squatted down beside him, perusing the words yet again.

  They bent together over the parchment, able to read it in the growing light, their heads brushing up against each other. He finished a second reading before she did, and she felt his stare upon her face.

  “It is clear and yet it isn’t, though I have read it more than a few times.” She stepped away but not without a twitch to throw off the shiver upon her shoulders. “It is apparent the pieces of the triptych are no longer together.”

  “Agreed.” Battista nodded. “But there is nothing said of where they are.”

  “Only the reference to the one painting and Dante’s words—”

  “Which I knew,” Battista rushed to reveal, not to be outdone by her knowledge.

  “—that will show us the way. But to which painting?”

  Battista shook his head, eyes rolling heavenward. “One painting to find three, to find—” He broke off his thought with a forced laugh. “Frado will wail with the angst of it.”

  But Aurelia had stopped her musings, head tilted to the sky.

  “The morning birds are beginning to call. We must away.”

  Battista pushed against the ground, fighting against the weakness, and she jumped to his side, helping him up. But once on his feet, he swayed before taking a step, and she quickly helped him back down.

  “You cannot travel on foot,” she mumbled, gaze jumping from him to the palazzo and back again. “Wait here,” she ordered, and set off along the faint deer path pointing toward the palace.

  Battista chuckled, tossing his hands weakly upward in helpless surrender. “How and where would I go?”

  She spared him not a response as she ran through the field, running with her back bent, hidden in the tall grass until she reached the stables. The young groomsmen were still asleep, thank the fates, and the horses left behind by the frenzied guards knew her scent, did not rankle at her appearance. She often indulged in an early morning ride, and the beasts knew her well. She saddled a great white charger—the perfect pale beast to balance the dark man waiting for her in the woods—along with her favorite stallion, the steed’s black, moist nose nuzzling her neck with familiar affection, as doubts crowded and nudged against Aurelia, but she refused to give them sway. She kept her mind on only what she need do in that moment, all else be damned.

  But as Aurelia scurried the outfitted horses out the rear door of the stable, as she grabbed a satchel and filled it with feed, as she rushed through the meadow with them, praying not to be seen, one thought etched itself in her thoughts and she greeted it with a mixture of pain and fiendish delight.

  Now I am the thief.

  Nine

  The more perfect a thing is,

  the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.

  —Inferno

  He recognized the slant of nebulous light through the translucent wood-framed oilcloths. Battista blinked against it, eyes adjusting with prickly slowness. He lay in his room, he d
istinguished it without another glance, but how could it be possible?... He was in the woods. Yes, in the woods in the early morning, with a woman, a very beautiful woman, and they were looking at ...

  Battista flung himself up, linens falling away to expose his unclothed body, skin warm as a balmy afternoon breeze fluttered upon it.

  Where was the woman and, more important, where was the parchment? He raked back the waves of dark hair from his face and closed his eyes, willing himself to remember. With painstaking deliberation, the images revealed themselves.

  Aurelia had returned with two horses and somehow he had gotten himself upon one. Though he did seem to remember her pushing at his behind with a strength and a curse he had not expected from one so seemingly dainty and demure. He remembered musing on her depths, far more than a lovely face and a curvaceous figure. She had led them away, along the edge of the forest and away from the palazzo. He had told her to head south for Florence, told her the name of the street this house sat upon.

  But there were no memories beyond that moment, and what could have taken place between then and now frightened him.

  Battista clamped a hand over his mouth, squeezing his face as he tried—to no avail—to remember more. He crawled sheepishly from his skin and studied the events earlier in the night through an outsider’s critical eye. To launch such an attempt alone was arrogance of grotesque proportion. Were his father alive he would cuff Battista sharply on the back of his head, and all too well deserved it would be, too. He could not confuse his success with who he was, but keep it only as what he had achieved. Battista flinched these thoughts away with painful aversion.

  A puzzled frown creased his face as he allowed his fingers to investigate his skin; the thick growth of hair upon his cheeks told yet another discouraging tale, one he had no desire to hear. At least two days had passed since his last memory, an abundance of time for mischief to run amok.

  Tossing back the bed sheet with an impatient hand, Battista surveyed his leg. The dull throb radiating from his calf reacquainted him with his wound, but upon inspection he found but a small wrapping. Peeling it away gently, he revealed more crude stitches than he dared to count, but no spreading redness, no oozing pus, to indicate infection. His leg and the binding reeked of earthy odors; he scrunched his nose at the malodorous mixture of sharp mint, dirt, and lavender. A physician had attended him; the chopped herbs speckling both his leg and the bandage testified to it.