The King's Agent Read online

  “Finally!” He grunted with exasperation to the empty room as the third lock fell away beneath his fingers. He flicked at each one, sending them dropping into a waiting palm, placing them quietly on the floor at his knees. With two hands, he hefted open the heavy domed cover and looked in.

  “What the devil ... ?”

  Battista’s clipped words echoed in the almost-empty trunk, one large enough to hold two men. He sat back on his haunches, hands on his thighs, as he studied the one item within with ill-disguised disgust.

  At the bottom of the otherwise empty chest lay a scroll, a curled and beribboned length of golden parchment no larger than his hand. He shook his head as if to deny its very existence, leaned forward as if to chastise it, but stopped—squinted and held. Lengthwise along the outside of the parchment had been inscribed two words, Giotto’s Triptych.

  This scroll was not the triptych, he groused silently with a petulant purse of his lips. It was, however, most assuredly some piece of the escalating conundrum surrounding the painting. Raising himself up, Battista tipped his head into the cavernous box. With a scrunch of his nose, he sniffed ... then sniffed again. It smelled caustic, as though the wood had been recently painted, but with a most toxic-smelling lacquer.

  He brushed away the worry of the stench. He had to leave; he had pushed all boundaries of safety having stayed as long as he had. He was quite sure Frado neared panic, as the moment of Battista’s agreed time to retreat must surely be upon them.

  In the same movement that brought him to his feet, Battista bent over and snatched the parchment from the bottom of the chest.

  Less than a second passed, less than one step away did he take, when the sharp click rang out.

  From beneath the trunk it came, the grating noise disturbing in its own right.

  Battista swiveled back. Before his eyes, the impossible happened.

  As if released by the detraction of the parchment, the bottom of the trunk fell away, splashing into some sort of liquid-filled basin waiting the few inches below, visible only when he bent all the way over, cheek skimming the floor as he spied the container hidden behind the stubby claw footing of the chest. Instantly smoke belched up and out, great funnels of dark gray vapors streaming out of the chest and filling the room.

  Battista jumped up and back as if to avoid it, but the rancid billow enveloped him, as it did the chamber. His eyes watered; his throat closed against the harsh air. He staggered around trying to regain his bearings, one thought louder than any other.

  A trap.

  He had known deep in his being that accessibility had been far too easy. He cursed himself for his stupidity. The Gonzaga family had been powerful for centuries; they did not do so by being naïve. He had to get out—he had to escape before the smoke escaped from beneath the crack of the door, before the noxious odor and thick gray fumes alerted the guards to his nefarious actions.

  Battista spied the door. Stashing the scroll safely in his satchel, he stepped toward it.

  And then things grew worse ... much worse.

  The flames ignited and swooshed through the room as if to devour it with one lick of their destructive tongue. The propulsion of heat tossed Battista against the wall. He held his hands to his ears as if to prevent the ringing from bursting in his head.

  But the explosion did not clang, but a bell ... three bells in fact. One hidden within each sconce on the wall behind the chest, each sent into motion by the waves of heat-propelled air. The riotous clash was as loud as the bells atop Florence’s churches, those that filled the entire city when calling the faithful to service.

  Move! The thought seared his brain as the flames seared the wooden floor. Finding nothing to grasp upon the stone walls, it spread its destruction along the planks beneath his feet. If he didn’t move now he would surely fall through, to the guard and the prison waiting, no doubt, on the floor below.

  Battista jumped through the door, slamming it closed behind him, hoping to keep as much of the vapors trapped within as possible. He turned right, the spiral staircase the intended goal.

  Too late.

  From out of the stone stairwell guards rushed at him, armored, sword-toting guards, bearing rapidly down upon him.

  He spun away, reversing direction and tearing down the corridor, shoulders hunched, head down, as if he ran upon the calcio field. Daring to sneak a look over his shoulder, Battista saw one of the three guards enter the room—perhaps to douse the flames, though Battista recalled nothing he had seen to use—the other two giving chase ... fast.

  “Stunad,” he cursed himself for his stupidity, for failing to plan for a different path of escape. He suffered now for his own arrogance. He had no time to slow his pace and find the right room, the correct door to lead to the chamber that would lead to the loggia, and Frado beneath it. Battista ran, ran and prayed his exertions would lead him out.

  He turned, turned, and turned again, somehow finding himself back at a circular staircase, though if this was the same that had brought him up he could not be sure. Heading down might mean a better chance for finding the way out. Three steps down ...

  . . . and the guards rushed up at him from below.

  With a growl of anger, Battista reeled, running back up. But instead of heading down the corridor, he ascended the next circle of stairs rising upward, hoping the third floor provided a more apparent egress. The clang of armor and sword, the pounding of boot heel on stone, impelled him faster and faster. But not fast enough.

  His gaze rose above the ledge of the next floor, his right foot gained the top step, when the pain seared through his left calf.

  With an outraged bellow, Battista fell, top step colliding with his gut, purging the air from his lungs. He swiveled round, looked down. The dagger penetrating his flesh hung from his leg; the guard who had engorged him stood just inches below.

  Battista kicked out his good leg, heel colliding with the guard’s face. The guard pinwheeled his arms, to no effect. Eyes closed in pain, blood spurting from his nose and mouth, he fell backward, falling on another guard, who fell on yet another.

  There was no time to bask in the comedy of the triumph; trained soldiers would be back on their feet—back at him—in seconds. Battista reached down and before his thoughts stopped him, he pulled the dagger from his calf with a grimace. Blood spurted from the wound, staining the dusty gray stone with its red wretchedness.

  He jumped to his feet, brushing impatiently at the strands of sweat-soaked black hair hanging in his face, teeth gnashing at the pain exploding in his leg. A few steps into the corridor and it widened to a large alcove on his right, one filled with two wing chairs and a table set before a cold fireplace, a gathering space for a small, intimate party.

  Battista grabbed one chair and hurled it down the stairs. The crashing of wood and stone met with the cries of pain and protest. He grabbed the other chair and did the same, then again with the table, knowing the three pieces would create a bountiful bottleneck in the curved stairwell.

  With a hobble, he set off again, no time to waste.

  Another long corridor stretched before him with only a turn at the end. He could not engage in another footrace; the wound slowed him far too much. Battista lurched into the first door on the right. If he had kept his head at all, if his unfailing sense of direction had not failed him, the room would be located along the eastern wall.

  The starlit sky beyond leaded glass was the first sight he glimpsed within the room, the lack of balcony was the heartbreaking second. He limped to the windows, threw open the sash, and looked down. Battista wondered, with more than a dollop of derision, how many people he would kill along with himself when he hurtled his body out.

  “Stop, you fool!”

  The harsh feminine cry froze his hand upon the sill, his knee halfway up. He hopped on his good leg, turning round, pulling two daggers out of his belt, one for each hand.

  She stood in a dark recess, a door with no frame, a hidden aperture he had not seen or fathomed.
The quick impression of her beauty took a backseat to the certainty of her ill-concealed impatience.

  “You’ll never walk away from that drop. This way.” She gestured a beckoning hand. “I’ll get you out.”

  Battista appraised her, seeing more than just the petulant look of annoyance on her porcelain-skinned face. She held no weapon, nor anything to impede or wound him, and she wore an exquisite brocade gown, a noblewoman ... a hothouse, defenseless flower.

  Battista stole another quick glance to the ground far below. She was right, of course, and he knew it. She had called him a fool. With a shrug, he took the first step on what might well be a fool’s errand. He followed her.

  She led him through the dark room behind her, straight for another door. Stopping before it, she hissed at him, “Grab my arm.”

  Battista blanched. “What?”

  She grabbed his hand, placed it on her opposite arm, and squeezed his fingers round it.

  “Keep hold.”

  Without another word of explanation, she opened the door, out onto another corridor, one narrow and ill lit.

  A cry of alarm rang out, but the woman did nothing to acknowledge it.

  Battista spun to their right, saw the two guards at the far end, and opened his mouth. Before a sound escaped his throat, his savior opened another door directly opposite the one they had left behind. On the other side of it, the woman flung a bolt, locking the guards out, but for how long Battista could not guess.

  The room inside was softly lit, aglow from candlelight and fireplace flame. Pink and green lace festooned every piece of fabric. Battista almost laughed at the frivolous absurdity of it.

  “You have an affinity for lace,” he managed as she rushed him diagonally through the large, luxuriant chamber.

  She doused his sarcasm with a withering look. “It is not my room. It is Isabella’s, the mistress. She is still downstairs, well enough for you. Now hurry.”

  In the far corner, she pushed at the wall, and once more a hidden door revealed itself. He stepped through quickly, right behind her, and looked back as the partition slowly closed of its own volition. Upon the wood floor, across the matching pink and green carpet, he had left a red-splotched trail of blood, an arrow pointing directly to their means of escape.

  “There’s nothing for it,” she hissed. “They will figure it out quickly enough when greeted by the emptiness of the room.”

  Battista nodded grudgingly at her astute reflection and turned to follow. Instead of finding another chamber as he expected, he found himself standing close beside her in a narrow, almost pitch-dark stairwell, the steps heading in a straight line downward.

  With each bend of his leg, the wound in his calf throbbed, alleviated only by the knowledge that at last he headed in the right direction.

  Light shone in a rectangle around the cracks of a closed door at the bottom of the stairs. His guide pushed at it and it gave way with ease. Battista lunged behind her ... and stopped.

  The sight he beheld was no less brilliant than the one he imagined awaited him in Heaven, if, by some miracle, he should earn his way there.

  A masterpiece covered every inch of the walls and ceilings ... the room was the painting ... the room was the art. He had heard of this chamber, as so many had, as any lover of Italian artistry must, and had been saddened his mission would not allow him to see it.

  The Camera degli Sposi, the famous Bridal Chamber. So I am able to see it after all, distressing though the visitation may be.

  He permitted his gaze to take in every inch of the frescoed room. Crafted by the brush of the genius Andrea Mantegna, it was the definitive example of illusionist painting, a technique allowing the art to share space and physicality with the people viewing it. To his right, a life-sized lord sat within a lush portico surrounded by a simpering court. A great meeting took place before him on the north wall, one filled with many and varied noblemen—one no doubt a prestigious Gonzaga family member—greeting one another with amiability. He raised his besotted gaze upward to the oculus that offered the illusion of blue sky and his breath caught, as if he did, in fact, glimpse Heaven.

  “You really are a fool,” the woman railed at him, pulling him toward the north wall, reaching out as if to shake the hand of a nobleman upon it. She pushed and a rectangle of partition gave way, Battista stumbling behind.

  The rush of cold air sobered him, bringing clarity to his pain-muddled mind. With a great gasp, he filled his lungs with the pure air and the taste of freedom.

  He bent over, bracing his arms upon his thighs as he caught his breath, as he willed the throbbing in his leg to subside. They stood in a small, intimate courtyard circled with a white-filigreed wooden wall overgrown with vines, an enclosure not unlike the one depicted upon the wall of the Camera degli Sposi. His breathing returned to something resembling normal; he straightened and stepped toward her.

  Lifting her hand to his lips, he brushed his mouth across the smooth flesh, a dashing countenance attempting to shine beyond the sheen of pain-induced sweat upon his brow.

  “I can never thank you enough, monna cara, you have saved my life.” With the gallant gesture and obsequious salutation, he stepped away.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” her sharp tongue snapped at his back.

  Battista did not slow his already-lethargic stagger, one noticeably off-kilter were he to stop and make an assessment, but pointed to the elaborate gate at the far end of the courtyard.

  “That is the way out, is it not?”

  “Well, yes.” Her words sounded very far away now, long sounds slithering at him, and Battista wanted to congratulate himself on a quick and painless parting. He turned to look at her, and found her only two steps away. Confusion possessed him; his head began to hum, stars burst in his eyes, and the ground rose up to meet him.

  Eight

  To run over better waters

  the little vessel of my genius now hoists her sails,

  as she leaves behind her a sea so cruel.

  —Purgatorio

  Aurelia stared at the man lying prostrate on the checkered gray and beige stone of the courtyard. What had impelled her to assist this thief she could not say. She had watched him in the ballroom, his beauty catching her eye, the gleaming black hair, the soft though nearly black brown eyes. But she had seen beautiful men before, many in fact.

  His manner had enticed her. Try though he might, there was something suspicious in his movement, to her eye at least. A devilish charm, an edgy allure of danger, accompanied his suave flippancy, and it beguiled her.

  Thankfully, the marquess’s speech had been short, and while the words still echoed on the roll of applause she had rushed from the room to find this man. Her curiosity—as forewarned through the ages—had brought her to this fine mess.

  Aurelia took a few steps forward and stood over the man. He breathed still, his chest rose and fell, but the puddle of blood below his left leg spread with a dastardly ooze, staining the stone beneath. The loss of more blood may soon prove fatal.

  She pulled at the short cloak bunched beneath him and, one end in each hand, she braced her arms across her chest, ripped the gold ribbing along the edge, tearing away a swath of fabric with it. With an economy of movement, she wrapped the cloth around his injured limb, the sinew hard beneath her hands. Within seconds, the material darkened with the tarnish of blood, but it did not flood through and quickly slowed.

  “Well, that’s that at least,” Aurelia said to the night, for it was her only alert companion. The implied silent question followed the words: What next?

  She straightened her legs, gaze reaching out to the horizon beyond the palace confines, heart trembling at the panorama, at the infinite, unknown vista stretching out before her. With a peek at the man at her feet, her glance turned to the building at her back, traveling all the way up the cold stone walls, walls that had forever hemmed her in. She bit her heavy upper lip, but it did little to stem the salacious grin spreading her mouth wide.

>   Aurelia curtsied, to the palace and the unseen lord within. “May strength, faith, and wisdom be my companions.”

  Stepping to the man’s head, she lifted it, bracing it against her now-bent knees, decision defined and accepted, her swift actions reflected her resolve.

  “Wake up. You must wake now.” She slapped his cheek gently, then again with more tenacity, his sharp cheekbones pronounced beneath her palm. She was a strong woman, vigorous from hours and hours of riding and walking the palazzo grounds, but he was a large man, tall and dense with muscle. Aurelia did not think she could drag him to safety. She leaned over, her lips so close to his ear she could smell the tang of male sweat and fire in his hair, and closed her eyes.

  “Now is the time.” She hissed a ferocious whisper from between the tips of her teeth.

  His eyes fluttered. His lips parted in a moan. It was enough.

  Aurelia pushed against his shoulders, bracing her unfurling legs, their bodies forming an inverted V as she used the leverage to raise them both to their feet. Further roused, the man’s head lifted from his chest and his blinking eyes took in his surroundings.

  “Still here?” he spat incredulously at the discovery of his lot.

  “Not for long.” As the sounds of armored guards clanged just beyond the palace door, Aurelia stepped to his left, his injured side, and threw his arm over her shoulder, shoving her body in the crook of his arm and hefting as much of his weight onto her back as she could abide.

  “No,” the man grumbled. “Stay. I ... can ... go on alone.”

  He took a step and faltered, dumping more of himself upon her.