Shadowheart (38 page)

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 fell 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.

“I am trying to buy my way in,” Allegreto said as she touched the page of accounts. “If you know of any notably holy personages I might support, or a miracle I might sponsor, do inform me.”

She smiled painfully. “I have only one miracle to desire of you.”

“I am flesh and blood. I have no miracles within me, Elena. You know it well.”

She turned her face away. “I seem to have none, either. Sometimes I think it has been a great mistake. That my grandfather was wrong. We are weak. We are still divided. I’m a maid—hardly yet nineteen. Milan is only waiting for me to fail. Or not that long.” She drew a shuddering breath. “The stories I have heard of the Visconti… God save, they are beasts, not men. Sometimes I’m so afraid. And I wish you were there at my side.”

The rain lightened to a steady mutter outside the window. She remained staring down at her finger on the parchment list.

“Now you torment me in truth,” he said.

“And myself.”

She felt him when he came to her. When he stood behind her silently.

“What do you want?” he asked softly.

She could hardly speak. “Oh—do not ask.” It came out as a mere rush of breath, barely words. She knew why she had come here. Had known it all along.

She felt his hand touch the cloth wrapped about her head. It came free, drifting down to the floor as her hair fell around
her shoulders. He moved near her,
a heat and velvet touch all down her back and her hips. But no closer. He did not embrace her. Elena gazed at the woven mat on the wooden floor, feeling tears of anguish rising in her throat.

“I should go,” she said in a broken voice, and did not move.

He pushed his hands into her hair and pressed his face to her throat. “Let me remember.” He drew a hard breath beside her ear. “Let me remember first.”

She let her head fall back. Oh, to remember …

She turned, lifting her face to him. He doubled her hair in his hands and pressed her cheeks between his fingers, kissing her, opening his mouth against hers. He leaned back on the table and pulled her to him fiercely.

The sound of the rain seemed to rise to a roar in her ears, merging with her heartbeat. She let herself rest on him, his body strong and alive and real against hers. So long it had been, she had near lost faith that he had ever been more than a dream, a vision she had seen once between sleep and waking. Her dark angel.

He pushed her abruptly away. Elena made a faint moan, gazing up at him. They did not speak. There was no need to say that she had set aside any truth or lie that they had wed, that to conceive a child now would be utter disaster. And yet she had come here to him, and she knew not how she could leave again.

A faint bitterness played at the corner of his mouth. “How you must enjoy to annihilate me.”

She shook her head. “I cannot help myself. I cannot.”

He cupped her face and kissed her again. “I can.” His hands slid to her shoulders. “Though it slay me.”

She whimpered, seeking his lips, pressing herself to his chest. Through her plain thin gown, through his silk, she could feel his phallus erect. With a lascivious move, she rolled herself against him, begging.

“Hellcat,” he muttered, tearing his mouth away. He pressed downward on her shoulders, pushing her to her knees before him. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her face against the hard shape of him under the silky cloth.

Elena slid her hands up his thighs. He wore no breech above his black hose and laces, her fingers touched bare skin. She drew her hands together over his naked shaft.

With a deep sound he arched toward her. She kissed him through the black veil of silk, skimming her nails over his hot skin. He let go of her suddenly and gripped the edge of the table as she explored him, his body growing taut. She could hear him breathing between his teeth.

She opened her mouth over his rod, sucking through the silk. Her own body wanted him inside; she drew on him with that desire, as if she could take him to her very heart. She closed her fingers hard at the base of his shaft and felt the pain she caused travel up through him as he thrust into her mouth in response.

She tightened her hold and pulled and worked, tasting the wet cloth and another essence that made damp heat between her legs. She served him like a wanton, with no thought but to the way he trembled and plunged himself deep in her mouth. The silk pulled taut over the head of his rod with each shove.

She drove her fingernails into him. Low in his throat he made a sound of agony. His shaft pulsed in her hands. He cried out, arching back, an echo of the rain and wind as his body seized and shuddered. Elena opened wide her lips to take him as he burst and spilled into the silken sheath.

The exotic, earthy savor was only a trace through the cloth. She would have tasted deeper, but he pulled her up against him, thrusting his tongue in her mouth, holding her hard to his chest. When he finally broke away, she was lost for air or thought. She clung in his arms, wanting him still, consumed with folly and desire.

“Beloved,” he said fiercely. Suddenly he caught her up and carried her, ducking through the doorway. He laid her on the bed, half upon it, dragging up her gown. The edge of the high bed arched her body to him like an open offering; he leaned over her and kissed the mounded curls between her legs, thrusting his fingers up inside her.

Elena gasped and twisted, lifting herself to his mouth. Where his tongue touched her, her body convulsed. She closed her legs and strained, panting under the stroke and press of his fingers. Sweet hot sensation unfurled, rising to an explosion. She clutched at his hair, pleading for it. When it came in a fury of pleasure, she sobbed for breath, squeezing tears from beneath her eyelids as the peak rolled through her.

She had no long hours to tangle in sleep beside him. Keys and the slide of a bolt awakened her from what seemed a moment’s drowse at his side. Allegreto was already on his feet when a loud voice gave warning of the appointed time. Dario sounded gruff and irritable, but Elena heard the note of anxiety beneath. He would give her no longer than they had agreed. Less, she thought it seemed— or an hour had passed in the space of a moment.

She rose hastily. The fact of imprisonment struck her with force as guards came through the door without consent. Allegreto turned her into his arms, pulling the black-and-white prostitute’s hood close around her face. He bent as if for a kiss, blocking her from the view of the guards. “Farewell,” he said beneath his breath. “Farewell.”

He let go of her without lingering. She could not look up at him again for fear of revealing herself.

“For the girl.” Allegreto tossed a gold coin to the nearest guard as he turned away. Elena kept her face lowered under the hood.

“Ah.” The guard gave a snort and waved her toward the door. “She must have been good.”

Elena barely held her head erect under her heavy crown as she dined at the high board between Raymond and the Milanese ambassador. Exhaustion pulled on her mind and heart. She would have been glad to lay her head down on the snowy white damask and lose all awareness amid the cups of silver for the wine.

The council meeting had been a monumental conflict of wills between herself and some twenty men with no small opinion of their own judgment. She had clung to her refusal to wed, but the only thing that truly spared her was their inability to agree on a candidate. She feared that strong factions were forming, and none of them were behind her on this matter. It did not bode well for the unity of her rule. None had said so aloud yet, but some might think that if she would not marry at the council’s best, perchance her election should be overturned and a man put in her place. Or if she proved too stubborn for that, she might be removed by a more uncomplicated and fatal stratagem.

They had postponed a vote until the next meeting, at least. Elena broke bread and tried to master her weariness far enough for courtesy. Dario performed credence and kept a stony eye on the signor from Milan, but the plump representative of the Visconti seemed less inclined to poison Elena than to chide her incessantly in a gentle voice. In his face and manner he reminded her of no one so much as her sister Cara, reproving Elena for her reluctance to agree to his political proposals and insisting that Monteverde and Milan had always been friends and staunch allies. This was not what she had read in her grandfather’s history. She had taken Philip’s advice and paid handsomely from the treasury for an added protection if Milan should prove a true enemy.

She had not even dared speak to the council about it, for fear of spies, but hidden the sum in the expense of renovations to her chambers that had yet to be made. But the money went to another free company of soldiers, in the current pay of Venice, who ranged in the mountains to the north and held the passes open for commerce. It was a pure and simple blackmail—no doubt they would as happily close the way if no one paid them to do differently. But they were there, and Elena remembered Hannibal, and thought it worth her while to live with the same bed-hangings that had graced her chamber in Lady Melanthe’s day.

She nodded to the Milanese diplomat with what courtesy she could muster. She raised her finger for the signor’s wine to be filled, watching as his own taster took a ceremonial sip before the cup was passed.

The ambassador launched into a discourse on the ultimate futility of republican institutions, advising Elena to reconsider the wisdom of giving wide powers to an elected council. She was not overly pleased with the council herself at the moment, but his criticisms provoked her, as she knew they were meant to do. Before she could discover a suitably polite and clever way to undercut him, she was astonished to hear Raymond speak loudly in French.

“Nay, my lord, have you read Prince Ligurio’s book on the subject?” he asked, leaning to look past her. “I have just finished it, and it is worthy of consideration by kings.”

Elena looked at him, half-expecting him to grin and wink as if he made a jest. Raymond was no proponent of civil rule that she ever knew—he had served Lancaster as his liege and master without question, even to his marriage. But his face was serious as he took up a sharp defense of her grandfather’s ideas, countering the ambassador’s objections with quotes from the Latin and even Greek.

Elena stared at him in amazement. She had to be courteous herself, but Raymond grew quite heated on the subject, saying that he had spent the past fortnight in Monteverde in talking to people of all orders, and taking note of how they loved their elected princess. They were pleased with the new laws and just administration. A fisherman of unknown family could expect that he would receive treatment under the judges equal to that of any Riata lordling.

The ambassador mumbled about the disintegration of order, but Raymond said stridently that any bloodthirsty tyrant could keep order by spreading fear. Order in Monteverde came of respect and love for the princess herself, and the selfless way she governed. This was so near a direct insult to the merciless methods of the Visconti that Elena intervened before the ambassador’s color rose too high. She turned the talk to the upcoming days of grape harvest and asked the Milanese diplomat if the weather had been favorable in Lombardy. They spoke of the country festivals that would honor the harvest once it was gathered in.

“Your Grace,” Raymond said suddenly, turning to her with a smile. “Give me the honor of laying an idea before you. Let us have a celebration in Monteverde to mark the first year of your reign. It has been near a year now, has it not?”

She blinked at the notion. It hardly seemed a thing to celebrate—it had been a year of strain and misery and loneliness in her mind. But Raymond gave her a warm look, leaning near. He raised his eyebrow toward the ambassador and lowered his voice, changing to English.

“It would be a sign to doubters that all is going well,” he murmured. “Arrange some processions and feasting. The people always love display.” He offered her a sip of wine from his goblet. “Make liveries that they can keep. Distribute largesse, release some prisoners.” He shrugged, giving her a sideways glance. “Invent some cheer, Your Grace. By hap if I am fortunate, it will make you smile again.”

On a morning in late October they came for Allegreto. The splotches of colored banners, the movement of a troop—he had seen them marching on the fortress across the lake where Franco Pietro lay, but he had thought it yet another escort to take the Riata again into the citadel. Zafer had heard no hint or suspicion of anything more, beyond the plans to commemorate a year of Monteverde’s new republic. Those preparations had seemed to grow apace each time there was a new report. In addition to the procession to the duomo and the special mass, there was to be a feast and a hastilude in the tilt yard of the citadel, celebrations in the market and streets of all the towns, everything from a new ballad commissioned by the miners’ guild to a bronze statue of Prince Ligurio in a Roman senator’s robes and laurel crown, donated by Venice, to be raised in the piazza while speeches were declaimed by every worthy who could find an excuse to dally in the north of Italy.

The whole chaotic plan for celebration made Allegreto uneasy. He did not approve of opening the citadel to crowds, or the princess exposing herself at the head of a procession that would begin at Val d’Avina and advance to the city. He had even sent messages to tell her so. But his cautions seemed to fall unheard. Word came that it was her favorite, the Englishman, who promoted the festivities, and whatever delight he suggested, the princess granted willingly.

She had said she would take no other to her. Allegreto did not believe it. Zafer said nothing of carnal connection; the rumors claimed that she never saw any man alone. But still Allegreto did not believe it.

So when the soldiers came without warning on the first day of the event, he understood instantly. Haps the Englishman had convinced her at last of the wisdom of it, or Philip, or the council in some secret gathering. Allegreto hardly cared. If she meant to have an execution as the centerpiece of her entertainment, ridding herself of Navona and Riata at one brilliant blow, he could only admire the drama of it. Such a thing would impress the people beyond measure. She had offered mercy and urged peace—Allegreto and Franco had refused it. So everything came to its preordained end, and this was the perfect time to make it count.

He had tried to prepare himself. He had some slight hopes, floating half-waterlogged in a sea of desolation. He had not yet received a reply from the Pope on his latest appeal and offering—perpetual masses endowed at Monteverde and Rome and Venice, all of the isle of Il Corvo dedicated to a monastery in the service of whatever saint His Holiness considered most deserving, and the three fragments of the Black Tablet that he had managed to collect at extraordinary expense, which contained portions of the Ten Commandments carved into stone that would take no scratch from a normal tool.

He did not go so far as to make any claims that the Black Tablet was a holy relic. He only offered what he had with as much meekness as ink could convey on a page. He had begged the Pope to forgive his inability to send an army; he had no army at his command, but to have his ban lifted, to have a slender chance at Heaven, he would abase himself before this absurd madman of a Holy Father in any other manner the lunatic desired.

But it was too late now for the Pope. There would be a priest there for Franco; if Allegreto was fortunate he also might be suffered to receive the sacrament in extremity. He could hope for it.

He stood without resistance as they dressed him in a green shirt and silver houppelande. The robes were beautifully made, with fitted hose and elegant deep sleeves that trailed to the dagged hem at his thighs. The braided circlet for his head held a single feather plume, a whisper of weight that curled down over his temple and fluttered white just at the corner of his vision.

It was great finery for a man condemned. In haps she meant it as a compliment. He would have been more thankful to be spared the manacles they clapped on his wrists, rendering him helpless for the ride down the mountainside. He kept his gaze level, staring straight ahead for pride, containing the frenzy against the bonds that rose inside him. Two soldiers led the horse. Zafer walked beside, one hand on the stirrup.

Bells began tolling as they reached the narrow strip of level ground beside the lake. The captain of the troops ordered haste. Allegreto prayed that if it was to be a bonfire, she would not have the courage to watch, for he was not sure he had the courage to endure it in silence. If he lost his thin hope and found himself howling in everlasting flames, at least there would only be the Devil and the rest of the doomed to hear.

The city gates stood open for them. Crowds lined the streets, staring as he passed, bizarrely silent under the deep toll of bells from every church in the city. It nearly broke his nerve—he thought he could have borne jeering and pelting with refuse better than the expectant waiting.

They passed his father’s tower and the Navona enclave. It still bore marks of smoke and flame from the upper windows, but a new portico was under construction lining the street. He recognized faces—men loyal to his house stood atop the wooden scaffolding. He met their eyes, and they bowed their heads one by one as he passed.

There were other signs of destruction and renewal in the city—empty spaces where buildings should have stood, stacks of rubble and pallets of worked stone ready to be levered into place. But it seemed unchanged in its heart, in its fine tall towers that glared at one another across the piazzas and streets. Long banners hung below every window, a hundred colors and designs to mark each house and guild. The cloth drifted with lazy majesty over the streets, lifting and falling, a soft sound above the clatter of armor and hooves as the bells fell silent.

Allegreto felt a rise of his heart as the street turned. Down a narrow cleft of shadow between the towers, the colored walls and golden dome of the duomo stood framed in brilliant sunlight. The crowds parted. In a moment he expected to see what pyre or execution block would end his life, but the sight of the church was a glimpse of wonder through a dark tunnel.

He took courage from it as he rode into the open air of the piazza. From the other direction, in a stir of motion, a troop led Franco Pietro into the square. The mass of the duomo came wholly into view, dwarfing the horses and people, the great steps rising to a gigantic bronze door. The beautiful bands of green and white stone were like bannered stripes painted all the way around the walls, one atop the other. The sun struck full on the great mosaic of the Annunciation, a glitter of gold and turquoise and scarlet arched above the door. Allegreto knew every detail of it without turning his face, as he knew without looking directly at her that Elena stood beneath it at the top of the stairs.

The crowd began to rumble now. Next to the princess stood the bishop, and behind her a line of men. Allegreto knew only some of them; he recognized merchants and councilors, others who carried the badges of Venice and Milan and Ferrara. Near to her elbow stood a handsome peacock in parti-colored red-and-blue, his tunic adorned by white fleur-de-lis. Allegreto remembered the English insignia with clarity. He stared with cold venom at Raymond de Clare. It spared him looking at Elena, or knowing if she looked at him.

The Englishman paid him no heed. He seemed more interested in Franco Pietro, watching with a solemn look as the Riata was led to the foot of the steps. Allegreto dismounted under the rough command of soldiers. He saw no sign of preparations for an execution. He hoped then that she intended to pass sentence here before the church and withdraw to let her soldiers carry it out elsewhere. The noise of the people grew louder, anticipating.

Escorted by the guards, he climbed the steps with Franco. He would have thought to feel humiliation, but instead a sense of bitter victory filled him to see the Riata share his fate. She gave him that much at least, that there was some ultimate purpose and aim in the end. There was Ligurio’s peace, this mad marvel of an idea she meant to make real, and a white blaze of hate for Franco Pietro that almost blinded Allegreto as he stood before the crowd. He closed his eyes. He did not need to see or hear; for once he needed no caution or defense. Vaguely he was aware that the noise of the assembly begin to rise to a roar. The tight grip on his arms loosened and left him.

He felt a cool touch lift his hands. The contact startled him. He opened his eyes in a sea of sound, the bellow of the crowd echoing and washing in thunderous waves from the walls of the duomo to the towers and back.

Elena stood before him. She was looking down at his hands, inserting a key into the manacles. He could hear nothing but the roar; see nothing but the heavy gold circle of her crown over the black braids coiled about her head. The chains fell away and struck the ground, the sound of it lost in the clamor. She turned to Franco Pietro beside him and did the same.

The noise of the crowd rose to a deafening pitch, a note of confusion and ferment and outrage. They had expected what Allegreto had expected. Not this. As he stood in disbelief, she raised her hand high, holding the keys.

Sudden silence rolled outward from where they stood, the crowd-sound falling away into the streets and the distance like something living that ran away.

“We are all Monteverde!” she called, her voice loud and strong.
“All
of us.” She lifted her eyes to Franco, and then to Allegreto. She held his gaze for an instant, that open level look, the violet-blue depths of the lake. In the quiet she tossed the keys down onto the stairs, a faint clatter in the sudden immense stillness. “You are free. Do what you will.”

He was aware of Franco looking toward him, half-turned to see from his good eye. Allegreto looked back, confounded. He saw Franco unbound—a thousand possibilities seemed to threaten on the instant. There were arms, men, riots; she was overwhelmed and taken down in a flood of combat; Franco declared himself in control; Riata took the streets and the citadel…

Neither of them moved. They both stood as if some sorcery held them in suspended motion while Elena and the crowd waited.

The silence stretched.

The guards had their weapon hands at ready. Allegreto saw that he could not kill Franco, not without ending in both of them slaughtered on the steps before her eyes. He thought it—saw Franco think it. Allegreto was willing to die, but he did not believe Franco was. Nay, the Riata had only to step back, avoid a blow, and watch Allegreto be cut down for trying.

He would not leave her that way, in the midst of an attempt at murder. He glared at Franco in defiance. It would be both of them or neither.

The Riata’s lip twisted in disdain. He turned back to the princess as if Allegreto were some mongrel growling from the gutter. With a sudden intake of breath, Franco raised his fist and shouted,
“Monteverde!”
His voice echoed off the wall of the duomo as he went to his knee before Elena, bowing his head down in a clear act of submission.

The crowd broke into an uproar. Allegreto found Elena turned to him, looking at him steadily—expectantly.
Don’t believe him.
He stared back at her, willing her to see through this mockery.
It’s a ruse. It’s a lie.

But she gave him no choice. She made it impossible to reason. He could not refuse in public to give the same that Franco claimed to offer. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head amid the sheet of sound that broke over him. The hard stone pressed into his joints. He stared at her hem, the pointed toes of her green slippers peeking from under a heavy embroidery of gold and silver thread. He said nothing, shouted no declaration of loyalty to please the crowd. She had bound him long past.

After a moment she offered her hand. He took it and pressed it to his lips and forehead.

“Gardi li mo,”
he said against her skin, as if she could hear him. “You know I am yours.”

She curled her hand into a fist and drew it away, touching his shoulder, bidding him rise.

It was like a dream as she leaned up to him and pressed her cheek to his. He would not look at her. He could not. He made her a stranger in his mind, the warmth of her skin a formal touch, the flash of gold and gems from her crown a barrier. He bore it as she let Franco kiss her hand and rise and press his scarred cheek to hers. Allegreto was ready to kill if the Riata made any deceptive move, any hint of a threat. But the soldiers, too, were ready, and the crowd roaring its approval was another safeguard. At their displeasure he and Franco would be torn apart.

She outwitted them all with this unexpected play. He felt a flash of admiration for the pure foolish boldness of it, and a profound desire to gut the smug Englishman who stood grinning behind her as if someone had just handed him the keys to the mint. When she turned away from Franco and gave Raymond de Clare a shy, conscious smile in return, Allegreto nearly lost his rule over himself.

Only for a moment did she glance at the English pig. But it was enough. Allegreto felt his mind and heart vanish down a black well, a darkness that finally swallowed him whole.

Elena went through the processions and celebrations of the first day in a haze of dread. She had designed the list of events to keep Franco and Allegreto well-occupied and within sight of one another—and never beyond her view or Dario’s. She made sure they had no time to make connection with any of their followers. She might have freed them, but she was not so rash as to give them easy opportunities.

Only Raymond had known of her plan. She feared that she was unjust to him, using his devotion to sustain her courage when both of them knew his love had no future. But he did not falter or turn away. He found reasons to linger in Monteverde. Philip and Dario were staunch friends, but their understanding was not wide. Philip was a soldier, and Dario a watchdog to his bones—they could not see beyond their concerns to the greater scope of affairs. They were horrified at what she had done by freeing her prisoners. But Raymond understood. He comprehended Prince Ligurio’s words. Milan threatened, and they must— they
must
—all stand together.

But she thought of the look on Allegreto’s face as he rose on the steps of the duomo, and her blood chilled. She had hoped that when they understood the danger, he and Franco would relinquish their enmity and work with her to form a defense. She had discussed it long with Raymond, and he had agreed that only a daring stroke could break the impasse. But now she was not sure.