The Wind Dancer

by Iris Johansen

  "Lorenzo." Lion took an impulsive step forward. "Come with us."

  Lorenzo shook his head. "You don't need me. Perhaps I'll come to visit you someday so that I may learn how fortunate I am to be free of the chains of domestic bliss."

  "You will be welcome." Lion's voice was husky. "Always."

  "Lion, you grow maudlin," Lorenzo said mockingly. "I must leave before you burst into tears and--"

  "I would do so, it would make you come with us," Lion said simply.

  The smile faded from Lorenzo's face. "That was a foul blow. You... unman me."

  "I love you well."

  "Another blow." A sudden warm smile lit Lorenzo's face. "Farewell, my friend." He turned and strode away from them.

  "Stop him." Sanchia clutched at Lion's arm. "Don't let him leave like this."

  "I cannot stop him." Lion's eyes glittered moistly as he watched Lorenzo stride down the deck. "He's made his choice."

  "And you're too honorable to try to make him waver in it." Sanchia's tone was exasperated. "You love him. He belongs to you. Have you not lost enough people who belong to you?"

  "This is different. It's his right to decide."

  "It's different only because you have the chance to claim him again." She saw the stubbornness in his expression and grew impatient. "If you'll not do it, then I will. I will not lose him too." She took a step forward. "Lorenzo!"

  He looked over his shoulder.

  "If you will not come now, promise you'll come when you finish what you have to do."

  "Perhaps." He turned away again.

  "Not perhaps. We do have need of you. Lion has a fancy to build me a fine castle. You know I have no training to run such an establishment. You must teach me."

  "You will learn by yourself." He continued to walk away from them.

  "It's going to have the finest rose garden in all of France. I'll need your help in planting it."

  His stride faltered for an instant and then he continued walking.

  "If our child is a boy, we'll call him Lorenzo."

  "God help him."

  "No, you must help him."

  Lorenzo started down the gangplank.

  "And if the child is a girl, we'll call her Caterina."

  He stopped on the gangplank, the line of his spine suddenly rigid. It was a moment before he turned to face them. "Ah, Sanchia, I always did say you were a clever urchin."

  His gaze was a warm caress, embracing them both Then he turned and strode down the gangplank to be lost from sight a moment later in the crowd on the dock.

  "Oh, Lion," Sanchia whispered. "Will we ever see him again?"

  Lion's arms went around her from behind and drew her back against him. "I don't know." His lips gently brushed her temple. "You did your best."

  "Because I love him, too."

  They stood watching, still hoping he would return or that they might have a last glimpse of him. They watched even after the gangplank had been raised... even as the ship put out to sea.

  "The breeze is cold," Lion said. "You should go to the cabin."

  It was cold, she thought. The sky was as leaden gray as the sea, and the wind had a sharp bite to it. Not a promising day to start a journey.

  "Soon. I want to stand here until I can no longer see the land. It seems strange to realize I may never return."

  "Does that thought make you sad?"

  "No." She hesitated. "Yes. I don't know." She nestled back against him. "My feelings change from moment to moment. Only one thing is certain. I want to be with you. All the rest will fall into place."

  The coastline was barely visible now and she had to strain her eyes to see it. Soon it would be gone and they would sail into the unknown.

  Dragons waited in the unknown, Lion had said on that night they had sailed toward Genoa.

  Well, she and Lion were strong enough to defeat any dragon who dared hurl his flames at them. There might be struggles ahead in that unknown, but there would also be great rewards.

  "You're very quiet," Lion said. "What are you thinking, cara?"

  "Of dragons." She straightened and squared her shoulders as she turned to smile into his eyes. "And of splendor."

  EPILOGUE:

  THE BUDDING

  On April 12, 1504, the major strongholds of Borgia's forces in the Romagna were yielded to Pope Julius, and Borgia was released from his imprisonment. People expected Duke Valentino to flee immediately to his old friend and comrade in arms, King Louis XII of France, but for some mysterious reason, instead he sailed south to Naples, then in the hands of Spain.

  On May 26, 1504, the Spanish forces in Naples arrested Borgia. They sent him by galley to be imprisoned at the Castle of Seville and later at the fortress of Medina del Campo.

  October 23, 1504

  The Vineyard, Mandara

  "There's a messenger waiting for you in the stable yard," Luigi said sourly. "I suppose this means you'll let my dinner get cold."

  "Not necessarily." Lorenzo pushed his chair back from the desk and strode across the room.

  "I'll not keep it hot for you," Luigi called after him. "I'll throw it to the pigs."

  "We have no pigs," Lorenzo shouted back at him.

  "And whose fault is that? I've told you that we should have pigs. If you will buy no pigs, how can I make pork dishes? Thanks to your miserliness I'll soon forget all my skills."

  Lorenzo stepped onto the stoop of the cottage and accepted a folded and sealed piece of parchment from a freckle-faced messenger who was little more than a boy.

  "Dismount and come inside and refresh yourself."

  The young man quickly shook his head. "I have orders to wait for an immediate reply, Messer."

  Lorenzo broke the seal and opened out the fine leaf. Unsigned, the message consisted of only one line of script.

  Is it enough?

  "I'll return in a moment." Lorenzo wheeled and went inside the house to his desk. On the bottom of the letter he scrawled in bold, decisive script.

  It is not enough.

  He returned to hand the parchment to the messenger.

  He did not bother to watch the young man's departure as he closed the door of the cottage.

  THE FLOWERING

  After Queen Isabella's death, King Ferdinand of Spain decided it would be a brilliant move to release Borgia and take advantage of his military acumen to make him his generalissimo in Italy. However, fate once again intervened to strike down Borgia's ambitions. The Castle Medina del Campo in which he was imprisoned was in Castile, and under the control of Ferdinand's daughter, Juana. There appeared to be no reason for her to turn on Borgia with such venom, but she did. On the day Ferdinand asked for the prisoner to be released, she had Cesare indicted on charges that he had conspired in the deaths of his brother, The Duke of Gandia, and Alfonso of Bisceglie, his brother-in-law. On September 4, 1506, Ferdinand finally abandoned his efforts to obtain Cesare's freedom and set sail for Naples without him.

  October 15, 1506

  The Vineyard, Mandara

  The messenger from whom Lorenzo took the letter this time was not a boy, but a man in his prime who accepted a cup of mulled wine from a grudging Luigi while Lorenzo broke the seal and scanned the contents of the dispatch.

  "Wait here." Lorenzo went into the cottage and straight to his desk. The terse message he had received was exactly what he had expected.

  Enough?

  The answer Lorenzo scrawled on the bottom of the letter was almost as brief.

  Not enough.

  He strode back out into the stable yard, gave the letter to the liveried messenger, and sent him on his way.

  THE VINTAGE

  Six weeks after Ferdinand sailed for Naples, Cesare Borgia escaped from the Medina del Campo and fled to Pampeluna, the capital city of his wife's brother Jean D'Albret, the king of Navarre. His brother-in-law welcomed him with wild enthusiasm, seeing the chance of using Borgia's military genius to further his own ambitions. The king spoke of supplying Borgia with new ar
mies to start him once more on the road to conquest. However, Navarre was very poor, and in desperation Borgia sent an envoy to his sister Lucretia in Italy asking her to speed to him enough of the family art treasures to yield three hundred thousand ducats from their sale. The messenger was arrested on Pope Julius's orders.

  Borgia also sent a message to King Louis of France begging him to pay the one hundred thousand ducats owed him as part of his bride Charlotte's dowry and also the sizeable revenues of his dukedom of Valentinois so that he might regain his former power and affluence. King Louis not only refused to pay either sum, he revoked Borgia's title, taking away his dukedom of Valentinois and stripping him of royal arms.

  By March 1507 Cesare Borgia at the age of thirty-one was ravaged by the swiftly progressing and debilitating French pox and was without power, money, or land. Shortly after he received word from his steward, Don Jaime de Requesnez, of his loss of Valentinois, Borgia was ordered by the king of Navarre to subdue the rebel lord, Don Juan, count of Beaumont at Viana. Borgia was heading a garrison at Viana when an alarm was sounded that the garrison was being attacked. He jumped out of bed, dressed, and giving no orders to his men, flung himself on a horse and rode alone through the city gates. It was said later that Borgia was screaming and cursing and appeared completely mad. He rode alone into the enemy camp in a ravine nearby and attacked them, still shouting wildly and uttering oaths.

  At dawn Borgia's soldiers rode out of the city and soon found Cesare Borgia's naked corpse hacked and pierced with twenty-three bloody, hideous wounds.

  April 7, 1507

  The Vineyard, Mandara

  I grow impatient. What more could you desire? Enough?

  Lorenzo's gaze lifted from the letter to the window across from his desk through which the scarred and blackened city walls of Mandara could be seen.

  Then, with a faint smile on his lips, he picked up his pen and scrawled a single word at the bottom of the parchment.

  Enough.

  May 21, 1507

  Bourges, France

  Lorenzo strolled down the long, gleaming corridor, his gaze lingering in admiration on the splendid paintings on the wall of the gallery.

  The liveried page stopped and looked reproachfully back at him over his shoulder. "Please, Monsieur Vasaro, His Majesty is most anxious."

  Lorenzo nodded, but his pace failed to quicken. "His Majesty has many fine paintings. Is that a da Vinci?"

  The page nodded. "His Majesty admires Monsieur da Vinci very much indeed. However, there are many more beautiful objects in His Majesty's private apartments."

  The page threw open the tall, beautifully paneled doors at the end of the corridor. "Monsieur Vasaro, Your Majesty."

  King Louis hurried forward. "Mon Dieu, Vasaro, you took your time about it." He stared eagerly at the chest Lorenzo carried. "Is that it?"

  Lorenzo nodded as he crossed to a Carrara marble table and set the chest on it. "Yes." He unfastened the chest and opened the lid. "As I promised."

  He started to lift the Wind Dancer out, but Louis forestalled him. "No, let me." With reverent care Louis took the Wind Dancer from its velvet nest. "Ah, it's as exquisite as I remembered. I thought perhaps anticipation might be playing tricks with my memory." He cast Lorenzo a resentful glance. "Your obstinacy in this matter did not please me. Three years is a long time to wait."

  "For me, also, Your Majesty." Lorenzo smiled. "But a bargain is a bargain."

  "You could have relented. You didn't have to have everything to your exact specifications," Louis said peevishly. "I did what you asked. I told Borgia he would not be welcome here and forced him into Spanish hands. That should have been enough for you."

  Lorenzo was silent.

  "And do you know how difficult it was for my envoy in Juana's court to manipulate her into turning against Borgia? The woman is now tottering on the verge of madness."

  "But he managed the task."

  "Because I told him I would have his head if he didn't." Louis carried the Wind Dancer across the room and set it on a black marble pedestal. He took a step back, looking at the statue appraisingly. "I had this pedestal carved two years ago for the Wind Dancer. How do you think it looks?"

  "Superb. You have exquisite taste, Your Majesty."

  Louis was silent for a long time, staring at the statue. "Do you know that the soldiers at Viana who saw Borgia ride out that night think he meant to end his own life?"

  "Then he's effectively barred his way to heaven, if he had not done so before."

  "You would condemn his soul to hell as you did his body to the grave?"

  Lorenzo did not answer.

  "When he first came to my court I thought him the most charming, the most brilliant man I had ever met." Louis's gaze remained on the Wind Dancer. "He would have been destroyed even if I hadn't aided you, wouldn't he?"

  "Perhaps, but it's not likely."

  "You're a hard man." Louis grimaced. "And as sharp and cutting as a Toledo blade. I have use for you in my retinue. What say you to a post at my court?"

  Lorenzo shook his head. "I have a fancy to go to Marseilles to visit friends who have recently been blessed with a child."

  "A boy?"

  Lorenzo shook his head. "A girl. They've named her Caterina after the child's grandmother and say she resembles her in many ways."

  "A pity it was not a boy. They must be disappointed."

  Lorenzo smiled. "They don't appear to be."

  "You are tired of your vineyard?"

  "Let us say, it's time I nurtured something other than grapes. Perhaps I will plant a rose garden."

  "You'll be disappointed. There is little profit in flowers."

  "We shall see."

  Louis took a few more paces back, frowning with dissatisfaction at the statue. "It does not look as well on the pedestal as I thought it would. The pedestal is not worthy of it. The Wind Dancer overshadows everything around it."

  "So it does."

  Louis fell silent again before bursting out with sudden defensiveness, "I did only what was for the best in destroying Borgia. It's only right and proper the Wind Dancer should be here at the royal court of France. All of the Italian city-states are fading in power, but France is beginning to shine like the sun. The Wind Dancer should belong to such a nation. Do you not agree, Vasaro?"

  Lorenzo gazed at the statue and a curious smile touched his lips. "Yes, Your Majesty, I believe that France is now exactly the right place for the Wind Dancer."

  An errant beam of sunlight streaming through the long windows surrounded the Wind Dancer in an aura of radiance, kindling the emerald eyes to brilliant life and striking the parted lips of the Pegasus at an angle.

  And, for the briefest instant, the Wind Dancer seemed to smile.

  AN AFTERWORD

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  I have interwoven fiction and fact so closely in The Wind Dancer that I believe clarification may be in order.

  The historical customs, costumes, and political events of the day are as accurate as my research could make them.

  Actually the black death devastated Europe's population during the fourteenth century, but there were still isolated outbreaks of plague during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

  As for the Borgias, the brilliance, greed, brutality, and ruthlessness of rope Alexander and his son, Cesare, are well documented. Although there is no record of their sanctioning such an atrocity as occurred at Mandara, it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility they would have done so. Both father and son did fall ill on that fateful day in August, and it was indeed assumed they had been poisoned. Many historians still cling stubbornly to the theory of attempted assassination, while others believe the Borgias succumbed to malaria after being bitten by mosquitoes while dining al fresco with Cardinal Adriano Corneto at his vineyards. Medical knowledge and records were so scanty at the time that neither claim can be substantiated.

  Cesare Borgia's bravo, Michelotto Corella, did raid the treasury on the night of t
he pope's death. Alexander's apartments in the Torre Borgia were ransacked by his valets, and his body lay unattended all through the night. It's entirely possible that someone could have infiltrated the Vatican during that chaotic period.

  The oleander is as deadly as I've indicated, and it did grow in Italy during the period of the Renaissance. Though, as Lorenzo says, the poisoners of the day were principally bunglers and lacking in skill, a master assassin such as Lorenzo Vasaro might well have discovered and used the plant to his advantage.

  So much for fact.

  Could the fictional portions of The Wind Dancer really have happened?

  The Renaissance was an age of velvet and armor, of abject poverty and untold wealth, of plague and assassination, of saints and sinners, of Michelangelo and Machiavelli. It was a time when the world was being reborn and boldly shaped to fit the needs of the men and women strong enough to conquer and hold it.

  Of course this story could have happened.

  About the Author

  IRIS JOHANSEN, who has more than twenty-seven million copies of her books in print, has won many awards for her achievements in writing. The bestselling author of Firestorm, Fatal Tide, No One to Trust, Body of Lies, The Search, Final Target, The Killing Game, The Face of Deception, And Then You Die, and The Ugly Duckling lives near Atlanta, Georgia, where she is currently at work on a new novel.

  Dear Reader,

  If you've only read any of my recent suspense novels, you'd probably be surprised to learn that I actually began my career writing historical romances. About ten years ago I began thinking of writing a book centered on a magnificent ancient statue with mystical powers called the Wind Dancer. But the more I thought about the book, the more complex the concept grew, and I realized it could not be contained in one book. It was soon clear this was to be a trilogy--the story of a family whose fate was intertwined with the Wind Dancer through the centuries--and although they were love stories, they were also filled with suspense and adventure. Each book stands alone, but the Wind Dancer is central to the thread of suspense that runs through each of them.