The Pirate Prince (45 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The next morning she woke alone, utterly alone.

She was seized with such dread, she virtually threw on her dress and ran out of the cabin, shaking. There was no one in the stateroom, so she strode out into the passageway, to find herself still all alone. At last, scrambling up the companionway, she came to the deck, which was warm with life, sparkling with dew.

The dawn sky was pearlescent peach, the waves a languid aquamarine. The wind was low. She spied Lazar on the quarterdeck, standing motionless at the rails. Before her pride could stop her, she hurried past the guards and officials to his side.

“Look,” he said, nodding toward the east.

The sun was rising behind Ascencion. Huge, magnificent rays of gold fanned out behind the island’s crooked bulk, which mounded up, deep violet, from the shining green sea, its jaggedness softened by the incredible light. The sight of it was glorious.

“I want to thank you for this day,” he said, staring straight ahead. “I wouldn’t be here—none of this could have happened—if it weren’t for you. I will never forget you, Allegra.”

It was quite possibly the most terrible moment of her life. The words held a burden of such finality.

“So, this is good-bye, then?” she barely whispered.

“Oh, no, nothing like that.” He casually stared down at his knuckles, brow furrowed. “I just wanted you to see the sunrise….”

Sunrise
.

He stared very hard at his hands on the rail, no doubt remembering, as she did, the sunrise they had once shared.

“Yes,” he said. “It is good-bye.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, look at me,” she uttered, fighting tears. “Just once, look into my eyes.”

He didn’t. He had to study his cuff links.

“What happened?” she cried, not caring who heard anymore. “What happened to us? Is it my fault Vicar died?”

“Keep your voice down,” he murmured, staring at his hands on the rail.

“Did you ever love me at all? Were you toying with me all along?”

“Allegra.”

“What did I do wrong?”

“I am a curse, Allegra,” he said in a taut voice, chafing under his own steely self-restraint. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”

“You don’t want me to be hurt,” she wrenched out, incredulous. “And last night? What was that?”

“A mistake.” He lifted his chin, standing tall as he always did when he wanted to hold himself remote from her.

She stared up at him, betrayed all over again because she had actually started to hope.

“Good-bye, Allegra.”

“You selfish—” She stopped herself, drew a breath. “Your Majesty,” she said, “you can go to hell.”

Parting words
.

She walked away from him abruptly, bumping into someone in her panic as she fled. Stumbling down the companionway, she was reeling with pain. In the cabin, she gathered up the few things that were hers and dropped them into her canvas satchel. She could barely see what she was doing in her effort to hold back tears. He did not come after her, of course. He had the business of the kingdom to attend to.

She was so great a fool she stole one of his shirts and stuffed it into the satchel, one he had worn and that needed washing, just to keep the smell of him close awhile longer, rum and smoke, leather and the salty sea.

She wished to God she had never laid eyes on the man.

In an emergency meeting shortly after dawn, the old dons of the Council broke the news to Domenic Clemente.

“He’s here, and he’s real,” said Don Carlo.

“The pope is on his way for the coronation,” Don Enrique added. “No one can fight
il Papa
. Pius apparently gave Lazar his confirmation when he was a boy. If
il Papa
recognizes him as Alphonse’s son, we can look to no higher guarantee of his true identity.”

Seated at the head of the long, glossy mahogany table in the newly repaired great salon, Domenic stared, blank with disbelief that was about to snap to fury.

“Rather than face a battle, Genoa is going to pull out quietly,” Don Carlo continued, his lined face impassive.

“And be damned glad for the chance,” another muttered.

Domenic slammed his healed right fist onto the table. “You’re not even going to put up a fight?”

“What would be the point?” The old man shrugged. “Ascencion is no longer profitable for us.”

“Damn it, that man must be brought to trial! He should hang. He’s a pirate, for God’s sake!”

“That was just a ruse,” one of the old men said impatiently. “Don’t be tedious, Clemente.”

“God’s truth,” Don Enrique muttered, “if he has survived all this time, I daresay the lad deserves the place.”

Domenic was so enraged, he was barely able to speak. He had never felt so impotent in his life. “What about me? What am I to do? This is my whole future you’re throwing away!”

The old men shifted uncomfortably in their seats and glanced at one another.

“King Lazar wants to put
you
on trial, my friend,” said Don Gian, the most intimidating Councilman.

Domenic sat back in his chair in disbelief.

“Don’t worry, Clemente. If he is anything like his father, we can probably get amnesty for you.”

Domenic laughed bitterly. “Amnesty.” He shook his head, still stunned. He knew that black-eyed savage would never grant him amnesty. “You think I don’t see what you’re doing? You think me a fool? You’re making a scapegoat of me, just as you did of Monteverdi.”

Don Gian stared at him keenly. “No one told you to burn villages and allow your soldiers to rape country girls. Nor, surely, did any of
us
advise you to reinstate the practice of burning men at the stake for their crimes.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” he shouted. “Crime has dropped dramatically.”

“There’s nothing left to steal.” Don Carlo chuckled.

Their laughter was like the rustle of dead leaves. He looked around at them wildly, feeling cornered.

“Don’t worry, Clemente. We’ll find some position for you in Genoa,” Don Carlo assured him, a bold-faced lie, for his eyes said,
You’re on your own, boy
. “Go home to your Maria, and wait there while we go to today’s conferences. We’ll get this matter straightened out. Just lie low for now. You’ll have guards to protect you from the rabble.”

House arrest, he thought, stunned anew. They could say they were placing soldiers at his heels for his protection, but he knew the truth.

“Yes, the people are indeed in a state of agitation,” another concurred.

Don Gian made a dour face. “They should be. Their legend has come true.”

Domenic swept to his feet, heart pounding, his handsome face calm. “Gentlemen, I shall take leave of you now, for it looks as though I have some packing to do.” He forced a contrite smile. “Forgive my outburst, if you will. It came as rather a shock, but I understand the situation is out of your hands, and I know you will do your best on my behalf.”

Don Carlo nodded.

Domenic went on. “While I wait for word of this amnesty, I’ll return presently to my country house and get everything in order so I may return to Genoa with you. Feel free to send the guards at your convenience. I’ll be there. You have my word as a gentleman,” he added. He bowed to them and walked sedately out of the tall, gilded chamber.

After closing the white double doors carefully behind him, he turned and fled.

One word pounded in his brain with every step.
Weakling!
The devil was beating him again. He could not believe the Council was throwing him to the wolves, though why he should be shocked, he did not know. He passed servants and guards who did not yet know they would be ordered in moments to lay hold of him. He stopped on the threshold of the government building, staring about wildly at the square of Little Genoa, where the Ascencioners were already celebrating Lazar’s return.

King Lazar.
No!
he screamed mentally.
I will kill you!

And there was the answer.

All of sudden, he was very calm, even relieved. Though he still had a few minutes to seize the chance to escape, he would not run. No, he was no coward, as his father had always said.

He knew what he had to do. With no king, who would take power? He could have it all back, he told himself. He could even have Allegra back if he wanted her. All he had to do was put a bullet in that pirate’s black heart.

Lazar di Fiore was not immortal, no matter what these peasant bumpkins claimed.

Just then the bumpkins noticed him standing there, the hated young governor who had burned three men at the stake—for perfectly justified reasons—and Domenic realized that perhaps he was not immortal either.

Acutely aware of their hostile stares and the way they began drifting toward him in the square with evil looks, he walked slowly, carefully to one of the mounted guards and ordered the soldier to give him his horse and his pistol. He swung up into the saddle, reeled the horse around, and went galloping toward the spot on shore where the so-called king would sooner or later disembark.

Moments later, the Council’s soldiers were riding hard after him.
If Fiore eluded them, by God, so can I
, he thought furiously.

The beach was in sight, as were the distant ships, when his tiring horse stumbled.

There was a village overlooking the sea, and Domenic turned in there to take a fresh horse, the best the village had to offer, before he lost his lead on the soldiers chasing him. He had his pistol, and he did not intend to take any insolence.

The whole village looked so poor that perhaps no one here owned a horse, he thought frantically. If no horse was to be had, he would find a place to hide. From somewhere around here, he could shoot the king as his carriage came by, he thought, for the same road went all the way down to the port. Fiore would have to come this way.

But as he rode toward the wealthiest-looking house in the village, the only home that might hopefully possess a horse for him, someone shouted, and he was recognized.

Domenic realized that in his panic he had stumbled into the wrong village—the same lowly place his three burned men had been from.

He screamed as the villagers closed in on him and pulled him off the horse.

It was late morning when Lazar’s men, pirates transformed to royal guards, came to take Allegra away. Men who pitied her. Men whom he had told she was a shrew, she thought, and the last woman on the earth he would ever want to sleep with. They were escorting her to the medieval convent, with its three-foot walls and innumerable hiding places, but she was beginning to wonder what the sisters were going to do with a pregnant nun.

As they rowed toward the beach, she pondered throwing herself into the swirling waters of the Ascencion coast, but she scoffed at herself for even thinking of the melodramatic gesture. She was not Mama, and he was certainly not King Alphonse. She was through martyring herself for that man.

Instead she just sat there, numb, as her heart was slowly torn from her spirit. Once they reached the beach, they hurried her to a waiting carriage, with a second and third carriage ahead and behind for protection.

Perversely, she was almost beginning to hope she
was
carrying Lazar’s child. It meant she could not become a nun, true. Indeed, it meant great embarrassment, but at least she wouldn’t be alone. At last, she would have someone who loved her and could not leave her.

In the carriage, Darius was staring at her earnestly.

“What is it?” she asked.

He shrugged, kept his thoughts to himself as usual, then looked out the window again.

How hurt the boy was, she thought sadly. Darius didn’t understand his idol’s rejection any better than she did, but he was too tough to show it.

As their small cortege made its way up the sunny hill, they smelled fire, and moments later heard many angry shouts and screams as they drew near a village. She rapped on the carriage.

“What is happening here? Is the village on fire?”

She realized she knew this village, Las Colinas. She had often brought medicines here for the sick. They pulled alongside the road, but even before the vehicles stopped, Allegra saw what was happening, and her eyes widened with horror.

The people of Las Colinas were burning a man at the stake.

Before even Darius, with his catlike reflexes, could stop her, Allegra jumped out of the carriage and ran toward the mob.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed.

The villagers turned around.

“It’s Miss Allegra!” some said in surprise.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “This is madness!”

They fell back, clearing a path for her.

“She brought our king back to us,” she heard some of them murmuring.

“She brought Lazar back….”

“Bernardo said she saved His Majesty’s life….”

Two big men came out from a nearby shed, dragging the fighting, swearing victim between them. Her jaw dropped at the sight of her ex-financé. She clamped it shut again, casting about wildly for anything she could possibly say. When Domenic saw her standing there amid the people, he began to bawl helplessly.