Immortal Muse (20 page)

“I have a husband, Signor. Your brother knows that.”

Luigi's smile flickered like a windblown candle. “Indeed, and perhaps he wonders how many besides him you've entertained in your husband's bed?”

She felt her face going hot. “Then your brother worries about nothing.”

“Nothing?” Luigi's hand rose, slid down her arm, and Costanza took a step back from him. He followed, still too close to her. He leaned in to her, his voice soft. “Is that what you say? With a young woman as attractive as you, Costanza, how could he not be suspicious? If your husband allows one person, even one as famous as Gia, to soil his bed, why not another, or three, or many? If someone were whispering that poison in Gia's ear, why shouldn't my brother listen?”

“Who?” Costanza demanded. “Do you mean Signor Maroncelli? What is he whispering?”

“Why, that you were willing to open your legs for whomever comes to your door,” Luigi answer. “And I am thinking, if that's true, why wouldn't she do that for
me
, who has wanted her no less than my brother for so many months?” His chuckle was low and sinister. He licked his lips.

Anger flared in Costanza. Almost without volition, her right hand drew back and slapped Luigi hard across the cheek. The crack of her hand against his flesh was loud in the studio; his cry of pain louder. “
Merda!”
Everyone was suddenly looking at the two of them: Costanza standing with a scowl, Luigi bent over with a hand to his cheek. Back in the studio, she heard someone laugh. She also heard the door to Gia's office open. He was standing at the door, staring at her; she caught a glimpse of Maroncelli behind him; the man was smiling and chuckling also. They both quickly turned away. She tried to imagine Maroncelli's face as that of a much younger Nicolas than the one in her head.

Yes, it could be him . . .

“Cavaliere Bernini,” she called to Bernini. “A moment . . .” Bernini had to hear her plea, but he gave no sign. He had already closed the door. Again, out in the studio, one of the assistants laughed. She whirled about to face Luigi once more, and he took a step back as if he thought she was going to strike.

“
Vaffanculo!”
Luigi said vulgarly, with a wave of his hand.

She spat at his feet and left the studio.

 * * * 

M
atteo had been given a small commission from one of Cardinal Barberini's priests: a Communion chalice. He'd told Costanza that he would be working on it late, so she was surprised when she heard the door to their two-room apartment open not long after she'd retired for the evening. “Matteo?” she called. There was no answer, but she heard footsteps in the outer room and a throaty belch. Someone bumped into the table there: she heard pottery rattle and a muffled curse.

“Matteo?” she called again, tossing aside the covers. In the night, she could barely see. She grabbed the candle from the stand beside the bed and spoke a single spell word in Arabic, one of the first spells she'd re-learned: yellow flame flickered to life on the wick. At the door to the bedroom, a man leaned against the jamb: Luigi.

He was drunk; she could see that immediately from his disheveled look and the half-lidded expression. “
Buona sera
, Costanza,” he said, slurring the words and wiping the back of his arm across his mouth. “I saw your husband at the studio, and so . . .”

“Get out!” Costanza shouted at him. “You're drunk; get yourself home!”

“Costanza . . .” Luigi leered at her in the candlelight. “You look so lovely. Let me stay with you.”

“That won't happen,” she told him. “I'm telling you that you must leave.”

His lips curled in a sneer. “That's not what Signor Maroncelli told me. I talked to him. He said that you've had dozens mount you, that even he had shared your bed. He said that you'd welcome me.”

“Signor Maroncelli?” Costanza gasped. She saw the candle shiver with emotion. “He doesn't know me at all. I swear on the Virgin's mantle.”

Luigi scoffed. “I told you—it was Signor Maroncelli who told Gia about your whoring,” he said. “He said he'd thought he recognized you from the bust; that's why he'd wanted to buy it, and once he saw you, he knew for certain. He knew you very well, he said. He told Gia that he could tell him what he hadn't sculpted.” Luigi's gaze was on her breast, and she realized that he was looking at the sardonyx carving on its chain. She remembered that Gia had asked her to take it off when she'd sat for the carving, but she'd refused. Bernini had shrugged, and gone on to simply leave out the pendant in the sculpture.

Maroncelli knew that . . .

Her suspicions hardened into certainty, a knife in her gut.

Luigi took a step toward her, his arms open as if he expected her to step into his embrace. Instead, she made as if to throw candlestick and holder at his head. Luigi ducked and stepped back. “Costanza,
il mio amore . . .”

“I'm not your love. And if you take another step, I'll guarantee you'll never make love to a woman ever again. I promise you that.”

He ducked his head, like a scolded child. “Costanza, why can't you love me as you do Gia? Besides, Gia is away; he told me he has business elsewhere tonight . . .”

“Luigi, the wine fumes have addled your head. I tell you again, you must leave.”

“Not even a single kiss?” He pouted dramatically.

“Not even that.”

He slumped down against the doorjamb, sliding down to a sitting position. “The wine exhausts me,” he said. “Let me at least sleep here.”

Costanza sighed. “No, you can't sleep here,” she told him. She set the candle down on the bed stand again and went to him. “Give me your hands, Luigi,” she told him, and when he responded sleepily, she pulled. He tried to grab her as she brought him to his feet; she beat his hands away easily, then put his arm around her. He staggered with her toward the door of the small house. She opened the door, gratefully letting in the cool night air, which helped to dispel the fumes emanating from Luigi. After the dimness of the house, the moonlight seemed nearly as bright as day. “Now,” she told him, “go home or go back to the tavern. I don't care which.”

“Costanza,” he slurred, “you are so beautiful and kind . . .” He bent his head down and planted a sloppy kiss awkwardly on her cheek.

“Get yourself home,” she told him, pushing him away.

“I could make you happy,” he told her. “More than Gia. I don't care how may men have already had you.” He looked at her so piteously that she chuckled.

“I'm sure you will make some other woman happy one day,” she told him. “Go
home
, Luigi.”

He tried to kiss her again and missed, then waved to her and started to walk off. As he took a few awkward steps from her, Costanza felt an emerald presence even as she heard Gia's voice shout angrily into the night: “Luigi!”

Bernini strode from the shadows, half running as Luigi turned. The artist was carrying a metal bar, and as he approached his younger brother, as Costanza screamed at the two of them, he swung it so hard that she could hear the sound of it in the air. Luigi's arm came up to shield himself, and the first blow knocked him down to the cobbles. “
Bastardo!”
Bernini shouted at his brother. “
Testa di cazzo!”
The bar swung again, hard, and Luigi howled in pain as it struck him in the chest. He pushed himself up, half-crawling, half-limping away. Costanza ran to Bernini as the artist lifted the bar yet again, grabbing at his hand. He pushed hard and she collapsed to the ground. His green heart pumped, but she could not touch its anger. She reached out to him, unable to speak. “
Puttana!”
he shouted at her:
whore!
“To come out on the street half-dressed, and with
him . . .”

He spat in her direction, then turned back to Luigi, who was limping away. “Gia, no!” Costanza shouted. “This is a mistake!” She spoke another spell word as Bernini lifted the iron bar again. A flash of light filled the street, and a crack of deep thunder rolled away. For a moment, even expecting the flash, Costanza was blinded. Around them, she could hear doors and windows opening, and people calling out. Blinking, she saw Luigi turn the corner, saw Gia rubbing at his eyes, the iron bar rattling on the stones of the street. He picked it up and staggered away in pursuit of Luigi.

She started to follow, then stopped, sobbing. She could feel the stares from her neighbors, could hear the amused comments. She gathered up her nightdress around her, and went back into her house. She pulled the door shut behind her, and collapsed to the floor, weeping.

 * * * 

Matteo came home not long afterward, as she was sitting at the table in the front room, head in hands, her face streaked and her eyes red with weeping. “Matteo?” He would not look at her. He walked past her toward the bedroom. “Matteo, it wasn't my fault. Luigi came into the house; I threw him out. That's all. But Gia . . . Cavaliere Bernini. He was waiting . . . He thought . . .”

“I know what he thought,” Matteo said. “Luigi came back to the studio, and the Cavaliere not long after. He took a sword from his office and threatened Luigi with it until his brother ran. Luigi's taken sanctuary at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore.”

“May God have mercy on us,” Costanza breathed.

“Indeed,” Matteo said.

“I have to talk to Gia,” she said desperately. “Luigi said that it was Signore Maroncelli who has caused this. I need to explain to him about Maroncelli . . .”

“The Cavaliere won't see you,” Matteo interrupted before she could finish the thought. “He told me to tell you that. And I've been released from his employ. I'm to go in tomorrow morning and clear away all my work and tools.”

Her chest hurt; she could not breathe. “Oh, Matteo . . . This is all my fault.”

“
Sì
,” he answered dully. “It is.” He said nothing else. He went into the bedroom and closed the door. She followed him. He was standing there, silent and stricken, his shoulders slumped. He seemed to be staring at Bernini's clay version of Costanza's bust, placed on a high chest on the far side of the room. She came up behind him, putting her arms around him, so hard that she felt the pendant pressing into her skin between them. His green heart, so pale alongside the glory of Bernini's, flickered with the blue that bound him to her, the blue that she had always ignored and never returned, the blue that was there even now, after all this.

“Matteo,” she husked, “can you ever forgive me?”

“You are what you are,” he answered. “I knew that when we married.”

“But even knowing, I have still hurt you.”

“
Sì
.” The admission burned. It flamed in her breast.

She released him, going to the clay bust. She picked it up, and with a cry, threw the sculpture hard against the wall. It shattered, going to dust and fragments.

They slept together that night, back to back without touching. In the morning, when he went to Bernini's studio to collect his things, she accompanied him. Bernini wasn't there. Silently, she helped Matteo pack away his tools and the works of his own on which he'd been working. The other assistants watched silently, pretending not to notice either of them, talking to each other about nothing. After they hired a quartet of apprentices to help carry everything back to the house, Costanza saw a carriage arrive at the studio's entrance. Signore Maroncelli stepped down from the coach as a footman opened the door.

He saw her at the same time, and his lips curled into a familiar, sardonic smile. He nodded to her.

A lance of fear impaled her, rooting her to the spot. Her mouth opened, and she could only whisper a name: “Nicolas . . .” Matteo was staring at her. Maroncelli—a young Nicolas, the Nicolas she'd never really known—strode by her in a miasma of perfume and a hush of ermine.

“So nice to see you again, my dear,” he said as he passed them. He spoke in French, not Romano. “Such a lovely young face you have . . .”

 * * * 

Cost
anza slept uneasily that night. Her dreams were dominated by images of Nicolas—his face as it had been so long ago, aged and bearded; now morphing into that of a leering, laughing, youthful Maroncelli. She was in bed with Gia, holding him as he thrust into her, and his face above her shifted suddenly, and it was Nicolas mounting her, the bed frame pounding against the wall, thudding loudly,
boom
and again
boom
 . . .

She woke with a start, the thudding still echoing, and there were footsteps and forms rushing into the bedroom, lanterns swinging their beams wildly around and hands grabbing at her and Matteo. She heard Matteo shout in alarm, then groan as she heard the sound of a blow. In the erratic light, he crumpled to the floor. In the confusion, in the panic, she couldn't think. She struggled against the hands holding her, and someone opened his lantern fully into her face. “Such a pretty face,” she heard someone say. Metal flashed in the yellow light. She felt the slice of a razor across her face at the same moment: a quick slash, then another, and another and another as she screamed and tried to writhe away and turn her head, hot blood flying away with each movement, the horrible bright pain searing her, her vision smeared with red.

Men laughed. She felt someone tug at the collar of her nightdress, ripping it down so that she was exposed to him. She was pushed down on the bed, and she realized that they weren't going to be content with having ruined her face. She kicked at the hands that were grabbing at her legs and trying to pry them apart, rolling and trying to summon spell words from her memory. She managed to find her feet, to run to the stand where her chemicals were stored. She grabbed at a large vial, throwing it down on the floor so that the glass shattered between her and the attackers, and she lifted her hands, palms forward toward the attackers, feeling the blood pouring down her face and neck, hot rivulets running down between her exposed breasts. She spoke the spell word of flame, directing it at the wreckage of the vial. A fury of white-hot sparks erupted from the floor, hissing and fuming, alighting on the men and igniting their clothing. She heard the men scream in terror and fright and pain, beating at the flames as they ran from the house. She recognized at least one of them: they were Bernini's house servants.