The Palace (7 page)

She was about to rise and seek her bed when she felt two small hands brush
her shoulders and pluck her nightshift away. The startled cry that rose in her
throat changed to a sigh of anticipation as she turned in the circle of
Ragoczy's arms.

"Francesco," she murmured, pressing her gorgeous body against him. "You
frightened me." The purr in her voice belied her.

"Did I." He cupped her pointed vixen's face in his hands and drew her nearer.
"And are you frightened now?" he asked when he had kissed her.

She laughed almost nervously. "No. Never that." She kicked her discarded
nightshift away. "But I am anxious, Francesco. I have not been pleasured for
eleven days." She touched his loose gown of Persian taffeta. "I have been too
much with myself. Take me out of myself. Take me." She moved sensuously in his
embrace, then stepped back and raised her breasts in her hands. "See? I have
perfumed them for you. They are soft-feeling." She rose on tiptoe and stretched
provocatively. "Tell me you like me. Tell me of your desire to possess me."

He laughed low in his throat. "What do you want me to say? Do you want me to
tell you that your skin is softer and more fragrant than the finest spices of
the East? Do you want me to tell you that I will roam over your body like a
thirsty traveler searching for drink?"

Estasia's face was flushed and her opulent flesh was gilded in the
candlelight. Her breath had quickened as he spoke to her and at last she reached
out for him. "Francesco."

Clasping her outstretched hands, he gathered her close to him and lifted her
easily into his arms, where she made a delicious, almost swooning burden. Her
arms clung to his neck as he made his way to her bed. With an easy gesture he
pulled back the sheet and stretched her beneath him.

"Do more. Say more." Her hazel eyes had darkened as her passion rose. Now she
pulled urgently at his gown. "Hurry. Hurry."

But he held back. "Gently, Estasia. Slowly. Gently." As he spoke, his small
hands stroked her, calming and arousing her at once. Lingeringly he sought out
each sensation, now at her lips, now at her breasts, now in the petal softness
of her thighs.

Estasia moaned, her head rolled back and a rapturous tension grew in her, so
that her body thrummed like the plucked strings of a lute. She reached to push
his hands away, but he would not be stopped. Unendurably, until it seemed that
release would surely fragment her into a thousand shards of glowing light, he
drew from her ever more dizzying delight until shuddering waves of fulfillment
possessed her. From the penetration of his kiss to the magic in his hands, he
and her sated hunger stilled the tempest in her soul.

She turned on her pillow, a strange smile in her eyes. "Will you love me
again before you leave?" She reached out and ran one finger along the strong,
clean-shaven jaw.

"Is that what you want?" He did not frown, although he knew that her desire
for him was becoming an addiction. She needed his hands, his lips to shield her
from the fear that lay coiled inside her mind. And her demand increased in
intensity each time he lay with her.

"Yes. Yes. I want you to do me again and again and again until I am
dissolved." She turned her pillow so that her head was lifted. "Tell me you
will."

He still tasted the frenzy of her need. "Perhaps. Sleep, now, Estasia."

"Swear that you will not leave me while I sleep!" She said this more
desperately, reaching out to take his hand.

"Bella mia," he said gently as he pulled away from her. "I told you when we
began that I will not be your servant. If you wish that, you must find someone
else."

Estasia hesitated, a kind of panic in her eyes. "But you want me. You
want
me."

"Of course. That was our understanding. Your widowhood makes you freer than
an unmarried girl, or a matron, for that matter. It was convenient for you to
take me as your lover." He had moved away from her and he spoke too coolly.

"You sound as if you are performing an act of charity."

"Hardly charity," he said, some of the humor back in his dark eyes. "It's
delightful to be with you, bellina. And as long as you have desires I can
satisfy, and you're willing to satisfy mine, why should either of us deny
ourselves? No one expects a widow of your age to lock herself away from the
company of men."

"They did in Parma," she said darkly, remembering the many stormy scenes with
her husband's family after his death.

"But you are in Fiorenza," he reminded her. "Here such matters are
understood, are they not?"

There was a remoteness about him that was new, and it frightened her. "You
said that you needed me," she insisted. "You told me that. Before we began."

"And you had no need?" Against his best intentions he turned toward her and
touched her face. "There. Do not frown, Estasia. It does not please me to see
you frown." He did not say that it was the ghost of age on her face that filled
him with foreboding. In so little time she would be gone. And she sensed it,
fought it with abiding hatred, devouring her youth in passions of the senses. If
her voracious hunger increased, she would be terribly dangerous later.

Her face glowed, but she scolded him. "It was cruel of you to speak to me
that way. I have half a mind to refuse myself to you next time you come. What
will you do then, Francesco? Where will you go?"

Ragoczy hated this kind of taunting and his eyes grew coldly penetrating.
"You may send me away if that's what you wish." He started to rise.

She reached out quickly, holding his arm through the fine Persian cloth. "No.
You mustn't go!"

"Estasia…"

Her fingers tightened. "I didn't mean it. I didn't. Francesco,
I didn't
mean it
!"

Ragoczy stopped, neither resisting nor relenting. Then slowly he reached out
to touch her splendid flesh. "Tell me, bella Estasia: do I leave or stay?"

Eagerly she guided his hand over her body. "Stay. Yes, stay." Already her
breath had quickened and she moved nearer to him. "Forgive me, Francesco. Show
me you forgive me."

His appetite for her was already sated, but he felt her need rising again. He
leaned across her and kissed her deeply.

"That's better," she said with a knowing smile as she looked up into the
handsome, irregular face above her. She touched his dark hair and tweaked one of
the loose short curls that clung to his head. "I like your hair, Francesco. You
scent it with sandalwood, don't you?"

"Yes." His lips lingered over the delicious softness of her breasts. Estasia
sighed, but there was an air of discontent in her response. "What is it?" he
asked, interrupting his expert arousal.

Estasia closed her mouth petulantly. "Oh, you will be angry if I tell you."
She pressed his head to her lovely body. "Do that some more."

But Ragoczy held off. "Are you regretting our delights? Do you wish now that
I were like your other lovers, and would take you as they do?" There was no
accusation in his words, only a gentle inquiry. "You needn't be ashamed to say
that to me, Estasia. I know you have desires I cannot meet."

Suddenly she was all contrition. "No, no. You are more than any of the
others. Truly, Francesco. No one has pleasured me as much as you do. But…"

"But?" he prompted kindly.

She gathered her courage and asked in a rush, "Francesco, are you a eunuch?"

Ragoczy's laughter surprised her as much as the amusement that glowed in his
dark eyes. When he could speak he said, "No, Estasia, I am not a eunuch. As you
should realize."

"But I
don't
realize it," she objected. "You've never… never…"

"Filled you?" he suggested lightly as his small hands sought out her intimate
joys.

"Filled me, pierced me. I have never had your body
in
me." She moved
her legs to accommodate his hand. "Oh. Oh, yes. There. There."

A knowing wry smile curved Ragoczy's mouth as he explored Estasia's passion
to the limits. In the last moments she was transfigured as her spasms shook her,
and her face was the face of a saint in holiest ecstasy.

When she was calmer he said, "Do you still think I'm a eunuch?"

She answered slowly. "I don't know. I'd hate it if you had another woman whom
you loved as other men do."

He pulled back her heavy chestnut hair. "Rest assured, I have not touched a
woman in that way since I was very young. And that was a long, long time ago."

"You are not so old."

"Am I not?" He reached to the foot of the bed and pulled her sheet up to
cover her.

"No older than Laurenzo, certainly, and he is little more than forty." She
pulled her pillow nearer.

"I am rather more than that," he said dryly.

Estasia was drowsy now, and her hazel eyes were fuzzy with sleep. "Truly?"
she mused.

He smiled in the golden gloom. "Sleep, Estasia. It is late. Already there are
birds singing in the fields and there is a faint glow in the sky the color of
silver." He rose and blew out the candles. A soft gray light hung beyond the
window and framed him, a darker shadow in the darkened room.

"You will come again, Francesco? Say you will come again." Even half-asleep
there was urgency in her words.

"If that is what you want," he said.

"Yes. It's what I want." Her voice trailed off and in a moment the window was
empty and Ragoczy was gone.

A letter from Laurenzo di Piero de' Medici to the Augustinian monk Fra
Mariano:

To the reverend brother of San Agostino, Fra Mariano, Laurentius Medicis
sends his grateful thanks on this, the feast day of the patron saints of his
house, Cosmo and Damiano.

It is with a humble heart that I write, good Brother, for you have been of so
great worth to our faith and our city that I search in vain for the adequate
expression of my obligation to you.

Your superb example of mercy and tolerance on the occasion of the tenth of
this month, when there was that lamentable confrontation in the Piazza di Santa
Maria Novella, places all Fiorenza in your debt. How I wish that our other
citizens had your goodness. And, though I am always a faithful and devoted son
of Holy Church, I cannot help but grieve that those few overly zealous
Domenicani would stray so far from their duties as to incite their congregations
to battle in the streets. That you were willing to preach to the people in so
dangerous a situation speaks most eloquently of your devotion both to the Words
of Our Lord and to the people of Fiorenza.

I beg you will not trouble yourself over the pronouncement of the Domenicano
Savonarola. It is God, and not he, who will say what time I will die. He is
presumptuous to announce to the world that he knows more than his superiors.
Certainly I must die, as all men, but that is the decree of Heaven, not Girolamo
Savonarola.

Your prayers on my behalf during my recent indisposition are much valued by
me, and I deeply appreciate your willingness to address the Mercy Seat on my
behalf. Certainly such piety as yours has helped me very much in my recovery.
Unfortunately, as this letter must tell you, I still have a degree of weakness,
and so I have to ask you to forgive the poor quality of my hand. It is
sufficiently difficult for me to hold a pen that I have yet to finish a sonetto
this morning, which is a hard thing for a poet.

Most humbly and reverently I commend myself to you, good Brother, and with
profoundest respect thank you for your great service.

Laurentius Medicis

 

In Fiorenza, on the Feast of SS. Cosmo and Damiano, September 27, 1491

On his way up the grand staircase, Ruggiero stopped to watch as a team of
joiners eased the last section of the elaborately carved wood paneling into
place at the landing. Below, the loggia glowed with light, for the new fixtures
were burning, their polished metal reflectors diffusing the golden glow
throughout the large room and turning the recently carved oak the color of
copper.

"Excellent. This is well done." Ruggiero had stepped forward, his houseman's
gown just touching the floor where it brushed the last of the sawdust. "My
master will be pleased." He ran his hand over the almost invisible joining and
pushed on the middle section to be sure that the door it concealed would not
open by force of the weight of the carving.

Teobaldo, the supervisor of the joiners, stood back as his Arte brothers
began to screw the last section into place. "The Patron has been very generous,"
he remarked to Ruggiero. "He has promised each of us four fiorini d'or if we are
finished by Advent." He laughed. "For that, we would fit each wall of the
loggia."

"There are still the alcoves to do," Ruggiero reminded him, reserve in his
smile. "But my master has faith in you."

"With good reason." Teobaldo squinted at the houseman, at the bronze-tan gown
he wore, at his ring of keys tied to his belt. Though he disliked this
foreigner, he added good-naturedly, "In other places,

I daresay that it might be otherwise. But we in Fiorenza are the best
artisans in the world."

Ruggiero, who had seen the temples of Burma and China and had watched
Frankish monks illuminate parchment manuscripts, and who had, himself, once
helped to raise a Roman bridge, nodded. "Indeed."

Something in Ruggiero's face made Teobaldo uneasy, so he went on, "It's not
unusual for a Patron to be so generous."

"It is not," Ruggiero agreed. "I have served him many years, and would serve
no other."

That was too much for Teobaldo, who shook his head. "He's a worthy Patron,
that's certain. But I know of no one who could command such loyalty of me." He
waited arrogantly for Ruggiero's reply.

"You mistake me," Ruggiero said slowly, staring at the joiner through old
eyes. "He does not command anything of me but what I willingly give." He turned
on his heel and strode on up the right side of the divided staircase, leaving
the joiners to mutter among themselves about the unpredictability of foreigners.