The King's Agent

by Donna Russo Morin

  “You have heard France and Spain battle once more for control of Italian lands?” Bernardino leaned his horselike face toward Battista, urgency in his hushed question.

  Battista smacked his lips, removing with his tongue a piece of food stuck between his teeth. “Of course I have, Bernardino. It is all anyone has spoken of for days.”

  “It is a sign, do you not think?” Cecchino asked the table at large, round puppy eyes blinking rapidly, not as reluctant as his companion to tender his words publicly. “The Medici days are numbered, I tell you. This action portends it for certain.”

  The other men at the table greeted his pronouncement with hopeful nods and grunts of agreement. None here backed the Medici, including Battista. He, and his family of apothecaries, had been loyal to the Medici, but after the death of Giovanni de’ Medici—who had died as Pope Leo X—and the influence of the teachings of Savonarola, the Dominican friar outspoken against moral corruption, Battista’s beliefs and loyalties had shifted, like most in Florence.

  All here were old enough to remember the benevolent rule of a signori, a republican body of government, functioning with the complete support and endorsement of its citizens. The taste of the returned Signore, a ruling family—one whose concerns did not often align with its citizenry—had turned bitter indeed over the last decade.

  The glory of the Medici rule had reached its peak half a century ago, under the administration of banker Cosimo and his grandson, Lorenzo, Il Magnifico. Though they took no title, their furtively wielded power bestowed them with despotic power, authority equal to that of the gonfaloniere, the head executive office of the signori. Cosimo had expanded their reach to Rome, Milan, Venice, and beyond. Under Lorenzo’s diplomacy, Florence dismantled dangerous alliances, creating his own and ensuring the peace of the land.

  But everything had changed under the rule of Piero, Lorenzo’s son, a feckless man who had fled when Charles VIII of France marched on Florence. The Republic rule that followed lasted only eight years—but few Florentines had forgotten the sweetness of it—before the Medici returned, under the power of Giulio, Lorenzo’s nephew. The man who was now Pope Clement VII had appointed Cardinal Passerini of Cortona as his administrator, and with him the citizens’ dissatisfaction grew sharper with each passing day.

  “Passerini is a crude and greedy foreigner,” Cecchino spat, “with no respect for our elected officials.”

  “You speak the truth there,” Battista joined in, as always pushed to anger at the mention of the contemptuous man. “Florence should be ruled by Florentines.”

  The grumbling of agreement whirled about the table, an opinion festering throughout the city.

  “I have heard he sends part of our taxes back to Arezzo, that sewer he crawled out from,” Ercole sniped.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Bernardino agreed. “But Clement does not seem to care. We have appealed to him over and over to replace the man, but every request has been dismissed or ignored.”

  “And the bastard, Ippolito,” Frado grumbled in his cup, cursing the sixteen-year-old illegitimate nephew of the pope. “Already he swaggers with obnoxious cruel power. They are born to their evil.”

  “And the pope allows it,” Bernardino quipped.

  “He is leaving us no choice,” Cecchino riled them all further.

  “And now a French king comes once more.” Bernardino clasped his hands together as if in prayer and leaned forward. Every man at the table focused upon the message he had come to deliver. “A French king has freed us from tyranny once before. I believe with all my heart he will do it again.”

  Battista held firm to that hope, ever more resolute as François I had made the same intimation himself when last they had been together, when the king had made it clear that Battista, and Florence, could count on his support in return for the great works of art Battista provided him.

  “That is why you must continue your work, Battista,” Cecchino chimed in. “Intensify it if you must. For the time is upon us and your work might well be the key to our freedom.”

  Battista nodded his head, throwing back a last gulp of his wine. He scanned the faces of his men as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Seeing the same burning passion in their eyes that pulsed in his heart, he banged his empty cup upon the table. “Sì. The time is now.”

  Nuntio rushed at him the moment Battista opened the door. Behind the bowed man’s back, he spied the stranger sitting upon his settee, and his hand eased toward the daggers at his waist.

  “He comes with a message. I tried to make him leave it ... I tried to keep him beyond the door ... but he pushed his way in.” Nuntio’s rheumy eyes drooped at the corners, flicking back and forth between Battista and the stranger.

  The strange visitor stood but did not move, drawing out no weapon, no look of fear or concern upon his unfamiliar features. Battista recognized no threat and concerned himself more for Nuntio’s fretting.

  He gently took the older man’s gnarled hands—the skilled fingers that had once picked more locks than Battista might see in a lifetime—in his, led Nuntio to the large table, and poured him a glass of whatever lay in the bottle perched upon it.

  “All is well, Nuntio. Have no fear.” Battista put the metal cup of red, fragrantly fruity liquid in the man’s quivering hands. “I know you did your best. You always do.”

  Nuntio graced him with a silent, grateful glance before lowering his lips to the wine.

  Battista turned back to the stranger, the soft sheen of patience and caring upon his face disappearing behind a stony countenance.

  “You have entered my home when you were not made welcome. I can only hope, for your sake, you have good cause.”

  The man’s right hand reached to the pouch at his waist.

  With a clamorous clanging and the sharp shing of steel upon steel, four swords and three daggers promptly pointed at his chest, the only missing weapon belonging to Lucagnolo, now returned to his wife.

  The man’s dark-avised face paled, and he swiftly raised both hands in the air.

  “A message, signore. One I was instructed to put into your hands and your hands alone.”

  Battista took in the measure of the man through narrowed eyes. With a flick of his head and the tip of his dagger, Battista gave the man permission to continue. With the weapons leveled at him, he’d be a fool to attempt anything else.

  Wary gaze remaining cautiously upon the circle of men surrounding him, the stranger pulled out a thick fold of parchments. At once, Battista recognized the seal of the French king. He replaced the dagger to its rightful place with his usual reverse twirl flourish and stepped forward, accepting the message. François had never sent a communication directly to Battista before; he didn’t know what to expect or what this man knew, but Battista would reveal nothing to him in the ignorance.

  Drawing out two large coins from his purse, Battista placed them in the man’s hand. “A pleasant journey to you, messere. I am saddened we will not see you here again.”

  The man reached out tentatively and accepted the coinage; there was no mistaking Battista’s cryptic salutation, nor the profundity of it in his pointed glare. “Arrivederci, signore.”

  With a tilted tip of his beretto, the courier took his leave. With a tick of Battista’s chin, the bald and bull-like Barnabeo stepped out behind him; he would award the man a safe, if covert, escort out of the city.

  Battista watched their shadowy images pass the glazed windows, swiftly retreating to the table, breaking the red wax fleur-de-lis seal with a snap, and unfurling the folded golden parchment with a crackle. As he sat, his men gathered round him, their silence thick with curiosity and the scraping of chair legs across stone floor.

  His wide-eyed expectancy sagged, mouth pursing. “It is in Latin.”

  Without a word, Giovanni raised himself up and reached across the wide expanse of polished cherrywood, pulling the pages from Battista’s hand and his reluctant grasp.

  With deep sighs of disappointment, th
e others stood and set themselves away ... some to cards, some to more drink ... leaving Giovanni to his work. All save Battista.

  “I can’t do this if you keep hovering,” Giovanni grumbled without looking at the man pacing behind him.

  Battista’s broad shoulders slumped as he raised his dark eyes heavenward. “But you are taking so very long.”

  “Well, it is a very long message.” Giovanni did turn then, his own impatience in the set of his jaw. “And it is strangely wrought. Please, a few moments of stillness and it will be done.”

  Battista looked as if he would argue, but thought better of it. Stomping to a chair in the front room, he flounced into it like a denied child on the cusp of a tantrum. His thoughts churned in turmoil, tossed about on the turbulent ocean of this message. The king must be riled indeed, to send a message directly. Only something so grave or of such dire consequence would impel him to forgo their usual and multibranched routes of communication. Battista envisaged plans to capture Florence or perhaps the imperative for Battista to return to France.

  The years he had spent at the French court were some of the dearest in Battista’s memory, especially the time in the company of the king’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre. Their discussions on the fanatical friar Savonarola and his teachings were among the most stimulating of the young man’s life. If not for Marguerite and her brother, he would be dead by now, at the least imprisoned. When first he’d arrived in France, when his name or allegedly words by his hand were linked with an assassination attempt on the then Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, it was only by the protection of François that he had been spared prosecution. In a printed declaration, the king of France had placed the property of the della Palla family, and those of other families indicted as rebels, under the official protection of the French Crown. Such aegis included Battista himself and, with the act, the king had secured the young man’s lifelong loyalty.

  Battista did not know his own mind should the missive call him once more to the king’s side. He would do whatever François asked, except, perhaps, turn his back on Florence when she needed him most.

  The anxiety of his thoughts propelled him to his feet once more. He spun toward Giovanni, only to flinch away again for fear of halting the man’s progress.

  “I believe I have it now.”

  The call found him like a beacon through a dense fog, and Battista clung to it, rushing to Giovanni’s side.

  “As I said, it was strangely formed. My translation is but the gist of it, as opposed to word for word.” Giovanni offered the parchment filled on two sides with his own pretty hand, and Battista grabbed it.

  A deep furrow formed on his smooth ruddy brow as he read it, sat, and read it again. The men around the table inched closer, each looking for the opportunity to grab the missive from his hands.

  “Tell us, Battista,” Frado encouraged with soft persistence.

  “It is bad news.” Ercole’s fatality revealed itself, refuted quickly by a shake of Battista’s head.

  “Not bad news, no. A request.” He spoke with a peculiar inflection, confusion and hesitance in the indistinct diction. “But it is very strange indeed.”

  Frado snatched at the paper, the others crushing around him to spy the words over his round pate and around his chubby form. Battista watched their faces, saw their bewilderment dawn.

  “There is a dire insistence in his words, if I am reading this correctly.” Frado spoke first, looking to Giovanni for consensus.

  “Sì, sì. It is there. But I couldn’t be certain if I conveyed it properly,” Giovanni replied.

  “You did, Gio, most distinctly,” Battista assured him of a job well done. “But why is he so insistent? And what is this piece he speaks of?”

  Pompeo leaned forward, hands braced upon the table. “He gives us very little information. His reference to Praxiteles is clear, but then he confuses the point with the next line.” The young man turned his intense black eyes to Giovanni. “You are sure of it?”

  Giovanni took up both parchments once more, dedicated, not defensive. “Ah, sì. That section was quite clear. ‘By Praxiteles’s hand it was wrought, but which Praxiteles I do not know.’ ”

  “This means something to you?” Battista asked of Pompeo.

  “It does. Praxiteles was a remarkable Greek sculptor, in the days long before the birth of our Lord. But he is the only Praxiteles I know of.”

  “A child of his by the same name?”

  Pompeo shook his head vehemently, spiky hair tossed with the motion. “Praxiteles never married. It is rather interesting, in truth. It is oft told that he loved the same woman for all his life, modeled many of his works after her in fact, but they never married nor had children. Marriage may not have been necessary, but the insistence to procreate was deeply ingrained.”

  “A child by another woman, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps, though his unwavering fealty to the woman was well known and often remarked upon.”

  “Knowing who made it is but a small part of this mystery,” Frado grumbled, pointing to the pages on the table with unfettered accusation. “Finding it with this ... this ... bizarre information will be quite another.” His round face scrunched and reddened at the thought of the effort lying before them, much of it upon his rounded shoulders.

  Battista waved a hand back and forth before his face as if to scatter an aggravating fly.

  “What do we know?” Reaching across the table, he pulled the translation closer. “It is a sculpture, not very large, almost dagger-like but with more purpose to it, and wrought by the hand of a man named Praxiteles.” He raised one long finger from a fist for each item mentioned.

  “Well, then,” Frado mumbled, “we know everything.”

  Battista slammed his palms upon the table and each man jumped at the slap.

  “It is enough to begin, yes?” It was a puzzle, and he had never met one that did not excite him.

  Few of the mumbled acknowledgments were enthusiastic.

  Battista stared at Frado, a narrow-eyed, twinkling glare, the slightest upward tilt on his full lips. “Enough. Sì, Frado?”

  Frado looked hard at the man, at the youngster who had insisted Frado’s skin be saved as if it were his own. Long ago, Frado had thrown the lot of his life in with this patriot disguised as a scoundrel; he would not—could not—change anything now.

  “Yes, yes, yes. Enough. Come now.” Frado pushed his rotund form away from the table and stomped away, heading for the study and the shelf upon shelf of books. Ascanio, the most learned on sculptures and antiquities, followed close.

  With his satisfied smirk full blown, Battista rose to join them, brought up short by the hand on his arm. He looked up to the face and found Giovanni and his apprehension.

  “Are you not concerned by the last line? That I did translate word for word.”

  Battista looked down at the closing words of the translation.

  It is said to possess the strength I need to reign victorious.

  The two men exchanged a glance over the paper; each reflected the same worry and hesitation, the same struggle with the perplexing allusion.

  “A victory for François is a victory for Florence. We must not forget.” Battista gave Giovanni’s shoulder a squeeze. “The path to victory is never without peril.”

  Giovanni offered but a hesitant nod, mouth stretched in a grim line across his face, and said no more of it.

  With the setting of the sun, Nuntio gathered every candle and candlestick and set them about the study, on every small table, on every opened shelf, until the cubby glowed. The three men, heads bent over thick leather-bound books and unrolled sheets of parchment, offered silent thanks, rubbing their tired eyes and creaking necks.

  “How are we to see the dice?” Giovanni called across the expanse.

  “Perhaps it is a sign from God that you should cease your wicked gambling,” Nuntio mumbled back, but even he smiled at the ludicrous sentiment.

  “Take thee off, all of you,” Battist
a called to Giovanni, Ercole, and Pompeo. “We are in for many hours, you—”

  “Days,” Frado sniped, curmudgeon’s nose stuck in his book.

  Battista glowered at him but gave no response to his interruption. “Make for your beds, all of you. We’ll send Nuntio round if we find anything.”

  Pompeo rose and took a few staggering steps toward them, mouth opening with a cavernous yawn, a lion’s silent roar. “Are you sure, Battista?”

  “Quite sure. I will need you when we—”

  “If we—” Frado again, with a fling of a page.

  “When we find something. We can handle it for now.” Battista smiled snidely. “Frado is most happy in his work.”

  Pompeo suppressed his laughter between clamped lips and scurried out with the others, before Frado directed any more of his frustration toward the retreating men.

  The blanket of silence tucked in about them. Ascanio stood and stretched, back popping with the change in position, and removed his green doublet, revealing the bright yellow, puffed-sleeved camicia beneath, a blazing color that matched the lined and stuffed bombast hose.

  Battista raised one eyebrow at him, always amused but never surprised by the flair of Ascanio’s clothing, though this flouncy, heavily embroidered shirt was one of the more elaborate ones he had seen in some time.

  “Venice,” Ascanio said with a grin, as if that explained it all.

  Battista shook his head with a chuckle and bent his back to the book in his hands. It pressed heavily on his knees and his feet tingled from the pressure. In the stillness, his eyes grew dry, stuck on the same words on the same page, he ac—

  “Aha!” Frado jumped up, sending his chair flying out behind him. “Come, come, you must see this.”

  Battista and Ascanio were already on their feet and jumping to his side, keen study following his stabbing finger to the book on the table before them.

  “It was written by Pliny the Elder of Rome, sometime in the first century ... 64, 70 ...” His tongue stumbled over the words as he rushed them out.