"Little cat." He did not move, but the timbre of his words was like a caress. "I never thought to have the joy again."
Elena flushed, afraid that Dario would hear the emotion even if he could not understand the words. The youth watched Raymond from under his heavy eyelids, a slow blink that belied the speed with which Elena knew he could move. "You came from Bohemia, then?" she asked.
"As fast as my horse could carry me," he said. "I was not sorry to leave it." In English he spoke openly. "You know I hated that alliance." He cast a glance at the great desk. "But you—you spurned your betrothal! And now rule in his place! Elayne, I am struck in awe."
It was strange to hear her name in English. She gave a feeble laugh. "Oh, Raymond, I hardly believe it myself. It is not—what I intended."
"But even the duke congratulates you!"
"I’m sure he only wishes to know that his agreements on a dowry are not to be discarded," she said with a wry smile. "I hope he may not be too dissatisfied if they are set aside."
"I am here to speak to you on his behalf," Raymond said. He gave her an amused look. "I’m glad to hear you are set against his desires. God send that it may take a long time to persuade you, and many meetings between us."
"Raymond," she said, feeling her cheeks grow warm again.
"I never forgot you for one moment, little cat," he said low. "Never for one moment."
"You flatter me. Don’t speak so." She was flustered in spite of herself.
"I know I can never have what I desire," he said, soft and fervent. "I gave up my hopes for that, though it tore my heart from my chest. But if you need a friend, let me offer all that I am to your service. How strange it all is, that we come to this! I love you still, Elayne, I will say it though you despise me."
"No," she said, "I don’t despise you."
"But I speak too warmly," he said, lowering his head again. "I have no right."
She felt sad for him. He had only done what any man would do, obeyed his liege, as she had obeyed the duty laid on her. The dream of a safe home and this handsome knight seemed so faint and mild that she could hardly recall what she had wanted so badly.
She wanted something else now, even more unreachable, as impossible to possess.
They had that in common, that they both wished for things that could not be. And he was familiar, and faithful, and apart from all the burdens of Monteverde.
"I am in dire need of plain friendship," she said, holding out her hand. "I hope you will not hasten to depart too soon."
He took it between both of his and went down on his knee.
TWENTY-FIVE
Allegreto dropped her letter in the fire. He sat down before the great hearth, watching the wax melt in a sizzling red stream and drip to the stone while the parchment smoked and took flame. Her entreaties to him slowly vanished, marks of ink that blackened and curled and fell away to ash. "No reply," he said.
He heard Zafer go to the door and speak to the guard through the barred window in it. There were vivid moments when he thought to kill himself, most powerfully when she wrote to him of how willing Franco Pietro was to sign her accord if Allegreto would, and urging him to put his head on the Riata’s block for chopping.
He could find no way out. She had tethered and trapped him on all sides, and not with walls or guards. He could not leave, he could not remain, he saw no future. He could find no way to anywhere but Hell, by his own hand or by Franco’s.
He had a set of chambers furnished as fine as a silver merchant’s, with a featherbed and writing table, any books he desired from Ligurio’s library, a second room for alchemical work and visits from the steward appointed to administer Navona’s reinstated properties. Zafer shared his confinement, and Margaret seemed to have some lodging somewhere in the castle; they both served him, faithfully performing credence as if he cared whether he drank poison pure from the cup.
With Zafer’s contrivance, he would have been able to leave this finely furnished prison easily enough in a trail of blood. But he remained, watching the fortress across the narrows for Franco to make his attempt, watching the citadel, spreading a silent cordon of protection around her as he could.
His endeavor would have been more effective if Dario had not managed to discern every attempt he had made so far to infiltrate a man to the citadel. Allegreto received sharp chiding on the matter in his letters from Elena, as if it were a schoolboy’s trick. She seemed determined to be a martyr to this cause, exposing herself in peril to everyone but him.
Dario at least was there. Zafer was the best, but he was stained too deep with Allegreto’s taint to be suffered inside the citadel.
The small fire in the hearth smoked and popped. Allegreto opened the papal dispatch again, holding the smooth vellum between his fingers. The true Pope seemed to be going mad; Allegreto’s letters of supplication had chased him all the way to Naples, where the holy father appeared to have no business but to grab at some rich territory for his fat and useless nephew, leaving Rome in disarray. If Allegreto would bring armies from Monteverde in aid of this hallowed endeavor to wring more blood from the kingdom of Naples, God’s highest representative on earth would consider Allegreto’s humble petition to lift his excommunication.
Allegreto tore off the handful of holy seals and sent them with scornful flicks one by one into the fire. He laid his head back in the chair and thought of a girl with a bloodied sword in her hand and a dream of another way.
This is my answer, she had said.
It was not stone walls that held him here. Not guards or blades or chains. It was her answer, that there was another way, and even if he could not touch her or see her again, he could at least stand in the shadows and shield her from his kind.
"My lord," Zafer said, placing a goblet with the embossing of a stag toward Allegreto—signal that he had some news. Allegreto took up the wine and rose, carrying it with him as he ducked out onto the tiny parapet walk that overlooked the lake.
Zafer stood in front of the low door, as if he merely awaited his master’s orders. "Franco was invited to the citadel, under guard, to see his son and parley with her," the youth said, softly enough that his voice was carried away by the breeze.
Allegreto set his wine down on the parapet.
The lake glimmered, blue and purple depths, the color of her eyes. She invited Franco. Winter and spring and summer, Allegreto had endured, his mind and body screaming for release from this velvet trap.
She invited Franco. Allowed him inside the citadel.
He hurled the goblet, watching red wine arch through the air as the cup turned and tumbled and fell. It receded to a mere glint against the stunning drop of the walls and the cliff, the huge surface of the lake. He lost sight of it.
"What else?" he said.
"Only the public audiences, my lord. After Franco departed, she saw Venice and Milan and Trento. And an envoy has arrived from the Duke of Lancaster. She spoke to him after in private."
"In private?"
"Dario was with them. The envoy is an Englishman, Raymond de Clare by name."
Allegreto stilled. He turned his look on Zafer.
There was a nearly imperceptible flaring of Zafer’s nostrils; a sudden wariness in his dark eyes. "My lord—he is an enemy?"
An enemy. The sanctified knight of her love poems. The gallant, charming, faultless Raymond. She saw him in private, that mud-stained offspring of an English pigsty.
Allegreto turned back to the lake. His knuckles grew white as he pressed his fingers into the rough stone parapet. He stood looking across to the citadel, containing the desire to cut his own throat and let himself fall, plunging downward like the cup spilling wine.
* * *
Elena made plans for what she knew was an error. It was courting jeopardy past reason or defense. On the night before the council meant to choose a husband for her, she left the citadel.
She had Franco’s words, that he recognized her as impartial— thus far. But he was only the head of Riata. There were those o
f his house who chafed under his surprising restraint, hating their lowered status and Navona’s elevation. Her grandfather had warned of such things in his book. Elena was trying to follow Ligurio’s counsel, working to bring them into some bettered situation, raising this one to new offices, bestowing a windfall on another, trying to make certain no one of the houses worked directly together, or worse, over one another.
But they were not wholly appeased. If any rumor spread of her destination, all was at risk. And her life was always forfeit if she failed.
She took only Dario, though he was loathe to do it, his obedience bought by the threat of being removed entirely from his post at her bedchamber door. Through the rainy night he rowed her across the lake to the eastern headland. Both of them climbed the path on the cliff, past the little trysting cave. Thunder rumbled above the mountains. By the light of a shuttered lantern, they came to the postern door of the castle, set deep within the rock.
A guard met them there, one of Philip’s best men. Elena wore the modest clothes of a maid, only a black shift with short sleeves, her hair wrapped up in one long cloth like a poor woman. But over that, she had a striped hood, the legal mark of a prostitute in Monteverde.
She kept her face lowered as they climbed the stairs and passed through the tiers of guards, walking between Dario and Philip’s man. Any murmur of interest from the other soldiers was quelled with a cuff, or a gruff mumble: "It’s permitted to him for a night."
By the time they reached the last heavily guarded door, Elena did not know if her heart was working so hard from the climb or for the moment when she would see him. There was a brief pause as Philip’s man worked his key. The door opened. From her lowered gaze, Elena saw that someone moved into it, blocking the way.
"Out," Dario said briefly. "He won’t want your company."
She realized it was Zafer who stood in the door. He hesitated, and then obeyed, leaving the doorway free. Dario gave her a hard little push. Elena walked through. She heard the lock and bolt made fast.
She stood a moment, lifting her face, her heart pounding in her ears. At midnight several candles still burned, but the chamber was empty, furnished with excellent comfort as she had ordered, the table covered with parchment and books. A pot of fresh ink gleamed black beside a sheaf of new-cut quills.
One doorway led outside, standing open, the rain falling in a steady splatter of sound. A peculiar scent hung in the air over the fresh smell of rain, a sudden and intense reminder of his study on the island. She walked past the table to another arched door that stood open. As she lowered her head to go through, she saw no one beyond, though the familiar blue light illuminated a table crowded with glass globes and vials and a mortar and pestle.
She was about to speak when her arm was seized and twisted up behind her. The spike of pain would have made her cry out but for the hand gripped over her mouth hard enough to stifle anything beyond a muffled yelp.
He held her trapped for an instant, driving sharp agony into her shoulder. Then he drew a deep breath at her throat and suddenly let her go.
Elena sagged with relief, turning. She rubbed her shoulder, looking up under the hood at Allegreto.
His face held no pleasure, no sign of any surprise or feeling at the sight of her. "I thought Franco might have sent a woman," he said without greeting.
She realized that he meant someone sent to murder him. It was not how she had hoped to begin.
"I was afraid to send word ahead to you. That it might be discovered."
He observed her impassively. "Your disguise is well-chosen."
Elena lowered her chin, doubtful of how to take his meaning. He was as comely as she remembered—more so, with all traces of his bruises long vanished. He wore pure black silk trimmed with silver and pearls at his cuffs. His hair had grown long again, braided now behind his neck in infidel fashion.
Raymond was a handsome man of even features and a charming smile. Allegreto was simply Lucifer made real, the lord of light fallen down to perfect darkness in the flesh.
"What is it?" he asked. "Why have you come?"
Now that she was here, facing his cool reception, she was hardly certain. She had wanted to assure him that she would not give in to the council and marry. She had thought he would have heard of what was planned. She thought he would care.
In truth, she had wanted to see him so badly that she had not let sense or reason stop her.
She walked to the table, pushing the damp prostitute’s hood from her head. "The council meets tomorrow, to choose a husband for me."
"I know it."
She bent her head. Atop an open parchment, amid his curious beakers and tools, lay the piece of black stone that he had purchased from the Egyptian—a lifetime ago, it seemed. Across the parchment were inked copies of the strange letters upon the rock. She traced the odd carvings with her fingers.
She looked sideways at him over the folds of the black-and-white hood. "What should I do?"
He gave a short laugh. "You pose it to me?"
She wet her lips, looking quickly down again. She had not meant to ask, but to tell him. But now—he was so cold. He seemed to feel nothing of the tumult she had inside herself, the pain and thrill in her blood, the sensation of merely standing in the same chamber with him again.
"You have told me that we are wed," she said to the stone and parchment.
"I lied," he said bluntly. "You are free. You have the Pope’s own word on it, I hear."
She turned and leaned back with her hands gripping the edge of the table. "In my heart, I am not free."
He walked past her to the far side of the board. "You came to torture me, is that it? Monteverde bitch. I wonder that I have not killed all the women who ever bore the name."
She let go of the edge, watching him as he put his palms on the table and bent over an open book. The pearl-encrusted cuffs fell down over his hands.
"Do you think it does not torture me?" she asked.
With a slam he closed the book. He looked up at her. "Then why did you come?" he said fiercely.
"Why are you still here?" she asked. "I know that you could escape."
His hands opened wide across the leather binding, his fingers spread and white between the joints. "And go where? Do what? I would have fought Riata, and won, but I will not fight you."
"That is all?"
He gave her such a look that she nearly stepped backward, though the table was between them.
"You take pleasure in this, don’t you?" he said softly.
She did take a step back then, when he came around the table toward her. He seemed to move with leisure, and yet he was before her suddenly, dauntingly, cornering her against the table.
"You take pleasure in binding me here, while you bid Franco to the citadel and play with your English knight." His black lashes were like smoke, lowered over his dark eyes in disdain. "I know you."
She shook her head. "Not in this!" she exclaimed. "I hate it."
"Do you want to know how much it torments me? Do you want to see for yourself that I have a poison ready at my hand, for when I can bear this no longer?"
"No!"
He stood back. "But that is a distraction only, to give me comfort. I will not die a suicide. Nay, I’m ten times worse a fool—I think I might claw my way into Heaven somehow, and be with you when our lives are ended, since there is no way now on the earth."
She sank down on the stool, holding her arms and palms pressed together, rocking forward with her face in her hands. "Oh, God, if you would only make peace with Riata," she said. "Then you could be free. You could come into the citadel."
"And see you wed to another, with that English dog prancing in and out of your bed as you please. What mortal bliss. Leave me here to contemplate my poison vial, grant mercy."
She lifted her face. "I will not wed. Never. I came to tell you so. I would take no one else to me."
Thunder rumbled. The candle flames swayed in a draft of air, but the blue lights burned stead
ily. The sound of an increasing downpour drifted from the far chamber with the cool scent of rain.
The grim set of his mouth softened a little. "You will not be able to hold to that. And you are mad to trust Franco. You should not let him near you. I cannot give you any protection from him inside the citadel."
She let her hands slide apart. "What protection do you give me?"
"What I can. You have not made it easy."
She bowed her head. "Is there no way—no chance—that you could have faith in Franco’s intentions?" she asked humbly.
"Aye, when the Apocalypse comes to annihilate us all," he said.
She gave a slight miserable laugh and put her fingers to her forehead.
He turned and walked to a shuttered window. He pulled it open. Outside the rain poured down, splashing and dripping, darkening the stone as he stared into the black night. "You would not take another to you?" he asked abruptly. "Not even your sainted Raymond?"
Elena stood up from the stool. "No. Or I would not have come here."
He shook his head slowly. The night air ruffled a lock of his hair that had come loose from the braid and fallen over his face. "I am beyond a fool. Beyond it, to believe in this dream of Ligurio’s. To listen to what you say."
"You believe in it?"
"I do. Sometimes." He sounded distant. "But there is no place in it for me, Elena. I was born for everything you want to bring to an end."
She squeezed her eyes closed. She wanted to deny it, and yet she could find no way. Already there had been loud murmurs in the council that Allegreto and Franco Pietro should be tried as traitors to Monteverde, and it was clear enough what outcome was intended.
She turned back to the table. The books and scrolls on it seemed to have little to do with natural science. A Bible lay open to the Ten Commandments. On another parchment was a list of saints’ names with sums beside them, like the bankers’ ledgers in Venice.
A brief memory flitted through her mind, of the abbot’s pleasure in accepting a score of Allegreto’s unscrupulous orphans to his quiet house. She had thought at the time that he was an exceptionally kind and virtuous man, to receive them so happily and even refuse her offers to pay for their maintenance. She ran her finger down the list and saw the name of the patron saint of the abbey, with a startlingly large amount listed beside it.