The King's Agent

by Donna Russo Morin

  Clement slammed his open palms on the arms of his chair as he flung himself upward, the sound like a clap of condemning thunder echoing up into the painted sky.

  “He makes excuses, but they make no sense,” Clement railed. He paced about, stopping before the window, leaning against it as if he longed to jump from it. A harsh breath rattled through his nose, but it stilled his tremble of fury, tempered the rage in his voice. “In one sentence he whines that he has no funds to raise a sufficient force, while at the same time he pleads for my prayers to save his sons.”

  “It is not surprising,” Cardinal Ridolfi quipped, a young man with high aspirations and little patience. “Any man in his position might long for the same.”

  “Sì, of course.” Clement turned with an impatient cluck of his tongue. “But then he prattles on of a power, a specific power, as if it were a tangible thing. That he waits for this power to come to him, and then he will set his course. He makes little sense.”

  “Blasphemy,” Ridolfi berated.

  “He was the choice you made,” Colonna needled him. “Now what will you do?”

  Clement stopped midpace, motionless before them, the deer caught in the hunter’s target. He opened his mouth, but found no answer to suffice; no action could set them from this course. He had longed to wear the pope’s mitre not to lead armies, but to spread the faith and the word of God. Yet in a moment of preternatural prescience, he knew he would be inexorably lost. For the sake of the Vatican and his faith, he could but make an attempt at salvation.

  “Send your swiftest soldier to Passarini and Ippolito in Florence,” he commanded of the soldier awaiting an order. “Have them send as many troops as they can, as quick as they can.”

  “Holy Father.” Di Ceri bowed and spun on his heels, heading out of the room with the same determination with which he had entered.

  Amidst the clatter of his boots, Clement listened to the silent rebukes, perspiring beneath the heat of the denouncing glares. The men remaining at the table had as little faith in him as he did in himself.

  Twenty-nine

  But then my mind was struck by light that flashed and,

  with this light,

  received what it had asked.

  —Paradiso

  Seagulls screeched with riotous laughter above their heads. Morning fog scudded across the ground, wraithlike souls tentacled to the mortal earth.

  They had traveled through the night, just they two, leaving Frado and his rousing chorus of protests behind. Aurelia thought to question Battista’s decision, but in truth had no need to hear the answer; he trusted her without reservation. He required no one else with her by his side. The certainty of it brought a tender pain to her heart.

  If they had questioned their fate—entertained even the smallest possibility that they were not meant for this destiny—it had withered as surely as a tender shoot in the grip of scalding heat. As they turned north onto the main road leading along the coast, they shared an ironic laugh, for they had set their horses upon none other than the Via Aurelia, the main thoroughfare winding northward up the coast.

  The small fishing village of Camogli remained blanketed in slumber. A few men walked the streets, eyes swollen with sleepiness, heading for the boats bobbing upon the gentle waves, the rows of white sails waving to the shore with each undulation of the sea beneath them. The sun rising behind them peeked over the horizon, reflecting off the water, sending sparks of light back into their faces.

  Aurelia breathed deep the salty air, briny with the coming tide, eyes wide toward the shoreline curving in a crescent away from the center of the village.

  “We should eat before we continue on,” Battista said. “I am sure the sweet rolls Nuntio packed are still fresh.”

  Aurelia led her horse onward, approaching the low stone wall separating the edge of town from the beach. She closed her eyes, slowing her breath to match the soft shush of the waves as they crept up the gray pebbles of the shore.

  “Aurelia?”

  Battista’s call niggled in her ear, but she paid it no heed.

  “Aurelia? Are you all right?” He bumped his horse into hers, joggling her into awareness.

  “Sì, Battista, I am fine,” she assured him, lips curling softly upward. “It is so very beautiful. I lose myself to it.”

  “Have you not seen the ocean before?” he asked with an incredulous whisper.

  She shook her head, grin growing wide. “Never. It is magnificent.”

  “Indeed it is.” He laughed.

  “Its beauty is but the tip of its splendor.” She could not tear her gaze from the frothing waves and the turquoise sea. “It pulls at me, a power I cannot name.”

  “You are not alone, cara.” Battista reached for her hand and she gave it gladly. “Many feel as you do. The grandeur of the sea, the earth, is one of God’s divine gifts.”

  Aurelia turned, dreamy eyed, her soft expression fading at the sight beyond his shoulder.

  Battista twisted in his saddle, following her stare with sudden caution.

  The wall before them trailed off to the right, heading up the coast and hugging the curve of the shoreline. Not far in the distance, beyond the row of brightly painted houses and shops, the wall ended at a jutting promontory. Thrusting upward from the outcropping—tall, powerful, and imposing—the castle rose into the sky, a finger pointing to the heavens, a clear arrow directing those worthy to the path to God.

  Without a word, they turned their horses upon the packed dirt road, thankful for the anonymity of dawn. Reining their horses in, they quit their saddles at the end of the wall, humans and horses dwarfed by the fortress towering above them.

  White droppings of seabirds—scavenging seagulls and profusions of pelicans—speckled the dark gray stone, dotting the monolith like spots on a robin’s egg. As the wall ended, a staircase began, a curving external flight of steps leading around the outside of the castle, its outer rail forming the outer wall of the structure.

  A burst of tide rushed in with a crash of waves, the white foam colliding against the castle, spraying up the tall side of the citadel to the rounded tower at the top of the stairs and splashing over them as they stood at its base, a brief flash of a rainbow forming in the scattered droplets.

  Aurelia laughed, at the cooling sensation upon her skin, at the sight of Battista covered in dots of sea spray, glittering as if plastered with small jewels. The beads of liquid traced the fine lines of his face and she quivered at the loveliness of him. She saw the emotion in his eyes, beyond the spark of delight, all the thick and rich emotion she had no right to feel reflected back at her in the soft brown depths.

  “Shall we sit upon the wall and break our fast?” Aurelia led her horse to the posts along the side of the castle, tied the reins securely, and returned to Battista’s side. He stared upward, gaze locked upon the narrow, dome-topped tower at the peak of the stairs, a deep furrow creasing between his brows.

  “I am not sure if I can wait,” he rumbled, voice thick with apprehensive zeal. “I fear what we will find, yet I cannot bear another moment without finding it.”

  Aurelia neared him, laying a soft hand upon his arm, rubbing it soothingly, yet the hard power of it served as a succor to her own hesitation. “You must wait, I fear.”

  He looked down at her, furrow of incomprehension rutting between his dark brows.

  “Dante and Beatrice ascended at noon,” she told him. “We must do the same.”

  “They arrived at noon, sì, on the vernal equinox,” Battista countered. “I will not wait another month.”

  Aurelia shook off the ludicrous notion. “Of course not. But I think it imperative to wait for midday at the least.”

  Battista tossed a wary look about the cobbled square in front of the castle, hand moving protectively to his satchel and the two pieces of the triptych within. He had insisted on bringing them, expressing the hope—success assumed—that putting the three together would immediately reveal the location of the artifact and s
et him and Aurelia on the final leg of this maddening quest.

  “By then the city will be awake. What of those who attend the fortress? Will they not obstruct our entrance?”

  “I do not believe so.” She led him to the bottom of the stairs and pointed to each in turn. “Look. See there? Those layers of dirt and sand have not been disturbed for many a day. I venture no one uses them. It looks as if they all enter by the front.”

  Battista could not argue against the testimony of the thick and crusted layers of earth and grime covering the rough stone steps. Without further dispute, he tied his horse beside hers, retrieved a bundle from his bag, and brought it, and her, to the wall.

  They turned their backs to the square, feet dangling over the wall, lifting their legs and laughing each time the splash of a wave threatened, munching their sweet rolls in companionable silence. Aurelia licked her fingers, wiping her sticky hands with unladylike coarseness upon the lap of her plain muslin gown. She wore her breeches beneath her gown, and though she gathered her hair in one long bunch upon her back, she wore neither jeweled net nor beribboned veil; she marinated in the freedom of the simple attire.

  Battista barked a laugh. “What has become of you, Lady Aurelia? I fear I am a bad influence upon you.”

  Aurelia smiled, shimmying closer to him upon the rocks, and laid her head upon his shoulder without rebuke. She had no desire to speak, or to think—to chew anymore on what could be or what must be—wanting only to be in that moment, in this place, with him.

  She opened her eyes, head flopping against his arm as he raised his hand and dabbed at the beads of sweat upon his brow.

  Aurelia straightened up and squinted into the sky. The fog had evaporated, the translucent curtains drawn back to reveal a pure blue firmament—a deep azure to rival the aqua sea below—and the sun had inched its way toward them, the heat of inevitability thumping upon their heads.

  She turned to the man beside her, gaze locking in the potent cusp of what lay before them. Battista swung his legs back over the wall, stood, and held out his hand. For a fleeting moment Aurelia thought to deny it, to jump off the wall and run up the shore, away from the destiny awaiting them.

  Taking his hand, Aurelia followed him to the shadows now inching away from the base of the castle, and together they stepped upon the first stair.

  As the steps led them around the building, it seemed as if they walked on the water. Their direction changed with each step, the path of stairs, uneven hot stones beneath their feet, winding them over the ocean and toward the sunlit tower above.

  Beside her Battista grunted from deep in his gut. Aurelia raised her gaze and flinched back; the piercing sun stabbed her eyes. She squeezed them shut, vision a blur of brilliant red, the blood in her lids emblazoned by the light. Their feet faltered on the steps, for they could see nothing, became fearful to move in the sightlessness.

  “Aurelia ... cara ...” His whisper beckoned and caressed her, urging her to open her eyes.

  Her lids fluttered open. All around her the world quivered with pure white light, only the faintest image of the stone castle, the steps beneath her feet, and the outline of the arched tower entrance, no more than a few steps away, discernible. So blinded, Aurelia could not tell if the angle of the sun was so perfectly aimed as to cause their loss of sight or if they had stepped into a patch of mist—one so dense the sun set it ablaze with its whiteness.

  “Aurelia.”

  The hushed, lyrical call roused her, and she turned.

  Battista’s smooth, tawny skin appeared colorless, yet the glow of his eyes—drenched with adoration—she would know anywhere. The light tricked her, urging her to believe that only the translucent essence of his form subsisted beside her, a brilliant, sparkling shimmer of his being. Aurelia’s breath quivered, yet it felt as if she need not breathe. They looked as if they had become, in a sense, transhumanized, their form—meaningless in the obfuscating light—traversing beyond the human and yet continuing to exist, the light surrounding and entering them.

  “How strange I feel,” Battista said with a low, enraptured voice. “Can this harm us, do you think?”

  Aurelia smiled. “No, we have naught to fear.” She would not attempt to explain what he could not begin to fathom, instead allowed space for a thought of gratitude for his presence. “It is the trap of Paradise. Those who protect the painting knew perfection itself could waylay any would-be thief.”

  Battista hovered closer, and she tingled at his nearness.

  To love beyond substance ... no emotion as powerful existed. They glimpsed what might lie in the beyond, and the power of it—of what would continue to survive between them—enveloped her. Her heart thudded as Battista leaned down, the brilliance of him drawing ever closer. It was not a kiss but a merging, a sensual overlapping of their beings, and she basked in the perfection of it.

  If this were eternity, Aurelia would gladly surrender to it. And yet she could not.

  She pulled away, one hand caressing the sharp planes of his face, her hand tingling with the feel of his skin.

  Together they turned, feet moving upon the steps once more, aiming for the grayness of the long, narrow archway ahead.

  As they passed through it, into what seemed to be a shadow, they found only more light, only the faintest silhouette of a passage visible, one stretching out to blinding infinity, or so it appeared. Aurelia thought it no more than a hallway, long and narrow with a low vaulted ceiling above her head, all of pale stone, the pietra serena of Michelangelo’s Giant. Panels of some type of glass picketed the ceiling, intensifying the power of the light. The scent of the ocean dissipated, replaced by a clear freshness ... cleansed perfect air. Aurelia stepped forward eagerly, progress instantly stymied by Battista’s hand upon her shoulder.

  “Hold,” he insisted. “I am not sure this is the way.”

  “It is, Battista. I am certain,” Aurelia argued. “It is a long passage, but I believe I can see its end.”

  “I see nothing, not even the floor.” Battista held her, bending low, eyes squinting in the light. “It is too bright.”

  With a gentle but insistent flinch, she shook his hand off, moving forward.

  “Aurelia, wait!” he called with irritated doggedness, but she did not yield.

  She took one step and then another, slippered feet finding solid ground, smooth and cool through the thin soles of her shoes.

  “See, Battista.” She turned back with a grin. “This is the way.”

  Battista followed with nagging caution. “Slow down, Aurelia. Be sure before you step.”

  She moved another pace, her right foot leading her onward ... to nowhere.

  For a split second, her foot fluttered into nothingness. Her mind screamed for retreat, but her body responded too slowly. She caught a flash of black abyss, receding darkness, below; just ahead, the barest glimpse of a white square of tile floor. Aurelia toppled forward, plunging into the square chasm. She threw her arms out, thrust her body forward.

  Her feet found nothing, but her ribs collided with a hard, sharp edge and she grunted in pain as her breath expunged from her lungs. Kicking her legs, pressing up on her elbows, a low guttural hum of effort rumbling in her throat, she pushed herself over the edge. Panting, she flopped onto her back, quivering with relief as all her weight rested safely on the floor once more.

  Tilting her head up without rising, she looked at Battista. “I am sorry,” she said penitently. “I allowed my own eminence to make me brash.”

  “Are you all right?” Battista rushed forward, heedless to the pitfalls they now knew hid within the light, drawing as close as he dared.

  “Stay back, Battista.” Aurelia’s became the voice of caution. Rubbing away the ache in her midsection, heart quaking beneath her fingers and the thin layers of fabric, she eased up to her feet. “I am fine.”

  Concern set at ease, Battista rammed fisted hands on his hips, stabbing her across the distance with a withering look. “You cannot move headlong,”
he chastised. “It may be Paradise, yet it is fraught with danger still.”

  But already Aurelia looked ahead. “I know, I know. But ...” She held up a hand with her plea. “But I think I have seen something meant to be seen.”

  His face crinkled with irritation and confusion. “What? No! Stop!” he demanded as she stepped forward.

  “Wait, please. Give me but a minute.”

  With a wary eye to the floor, fixedly chary of its traps, Aurelia inched forward, Battista’s voice no more than the sluice of fluttering wind at her back. She needed only to progress a few paces when the object became clear, its form at least, if not its purpose.

  Aurelia stood before it, head tilted, hands crossing upon her chest as she studied it.

  The full-length mirror was oval in shape, set on a pedestal of the same glittering gold that rimmed the glass, connected to the frame by two side axles. At its current pitch, one angled downward, she saw naught but her legs, from the knees down. Stepping forward, she reached out and pushed the top backward. It moved with far greater ease than she expected and it swung backward, out of her hand, angled upward now at the same degree it had pointed downward.

  With a flash of lightning, the glass caught a beam, pummeling straight down, directly upon the mirror, in a tight, small circle. The light shot from the glass, across the room. Like a hummingbird rushing from one blossom to the next with frenetic need, the ray bounced off another glass, and then another, until a zigzag beam snaked its way through the room, defining it and laying a path from where Aurelia stood to the end of the corridor and an arched threshold.

  “I’ll be damned.” Battista’s grudgingly mystified snip made her smile.

  Aurelia tried to erase the grin from her lips as he made his way cautiously to her, but she failed miserably. Battista possessed the good grace to snicker as he arrived at her side, though not without a small, petulant shake of his head. He reached out, wiping the sweat off her forehead, wiping his hand on his own soaked-through jerkin.