The King's Agent

by Donna Russo Morin

Genres: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

To the casual observer, Battista della Paglia is an avid art collector, or perhaps a nimble thief. In reality, the cunning Italian is an agent for François, the King of France, for whom he procures the greatest masterpieces of the day by any means necessary. Embroiled in a power struggle with Charles V, the King of Spain, François resolves to rule Europe's burgeoning cultural world. When he sets his sights on a mysterious sculpture, Battista's search for the elusive objet d'art leads him to a captivating woman on a mission of her own. . .

Having spent her life under the controlling eye of her protector, the Marquess of Mantua, Aurelia longs for freedom. And she finds it in Battista. Together, they embark on a journey to find the clues that will lead him to the sculpture-- a venture so perilous it might have spilled from the pen of Dante himself. From the smoldering depths of Rome to a castle in the sky, the harrowing quest draws them inextricably together. But Aurelia guards a dark secret that could tear them apart--and change the course of history. . .

Praise for the novels of Donna Russo Morin

"Morin has created a wonderful heroine and painted a brilliant portrait of a neglected court, which will interest fans of the Tudor era."--Publishers Weekly on To Serve a King

"History comes to life as Morin recreates the lush and dangerous world of the Murano glassmakers. . . Her story swirls together colors of political and religious intrigue, murder, and romance." --Romantic Times, (4 Stars) on The Secret of the Glass

"As opulent and sparkling as Louis XIV's court and as filled with intrigue, passion and excitement as a novel by Dumas. . .a feast for the senses." --Romantic Times (4 stars) on The Courtier's Secret

Reading Group Guide Inside

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 448

Sample

His hands quivered ever so slightly. Not with fear—he scoffed silently at the very notion—but with the exhilaration thrumming through his veins. His moment of triumph, of victorious possession, came upon him and he would not deny its power.

Battista della Palla stood before the carved door, shoulders hunched, broad body curled inward, as he jimmied the miniscule, well-worn silver rod into the small, square lock well. Dark eyes stole a quick, sidelong glance down each end of the empty corridor. A few flicks of his leather-cuffed wrist and ... click.

He hummed a contented sigh, pushed back the swath of wavy black hair from his face, and pushed over the arched swing shackle of the padlock. The heavy, intricately scrolled device dropped into his hands and he palmed it into his satchel; such locks were a treasure worth filching. For Battista, their value lay far beyond the monetary; they were trophies of a hunt well served. With a last glance to the empty passageway, a waggle of dark, thick brows, and a twitch of a smile, he took a bow to an imaginary audience and slipped in.

Stepping into the largest private room of the palazzo, he tucked his small tool back into its pouch on his cuff. One lone candle burned low in the far corner, its pale yellow light outshone by that of the three-quarter moon. The gray glow streamed through the four tall leaded windows on the opposite wall, checkering the room with squares of muted incandescence.

He had seen the inside of many a nobleman’s bedchamber, spent more than a little time in them, for here the privileged kept their valuables. Here Battista did much of his work.

The fire burned low in the grate to his left, meek blaze sparking upon the gold cloth of the pastoral tapestries covering the inside wall beside him. There, in front of him, at the foot of the curtained bed, stood the mahogany strongbox, rugged and rigid with its thick steel bands, incongruous against the flowing cerulean bed draperies.

Battista grumbled an irritated chuckle. Two more padlocks bound each band, ones equally as intricate and as valued as the first. He knelt before the large chest, knees cracking, leather braces stretching against flexing calf muscles, nettled mumblings unchecked. The duca di Carcaci guarded his treasures well.

What a shame I must steal one.

The passing thought came and went in Battista’s mind, one tinted with pale regret, brushed away with the impatient hand of his oft-thought though transitory vacillations. He had attempted to acquire the piece through diplomatic and pecuniary methods, had offered the duke a handsome purse—more than generous—and with it offered the nobleman a chance to assist Firenze. But both opportunities had been summarily denied, and now Battista must do what he must, whatever it took for his beloved Florence. If such efforts brought him a princely income in the doing, then so be it.

He dealt with these locks—round, bulbous, and brass—as easily as the first, and tossed open the heavy cover of the chest, cringing at the grating creak of the hinges. His glance tripped up and about sheepishly, as if waiting for the door to be thrown open and incarceration to commence. But with no true cause. The stillness continued unabated, as did his thievery. Only his gaze faltered, fixed upon the massive portrait crowning the large bed.

Four people gazed back at him, their happiness in the moment and in one another captured and undeniable. The duca, a middle-aged man but with youthful countenance, his wife still pretty, a full figure enhanced by the attentions of a loving husband and the births of their two children. Two girls played at their feet, perhaps two years apart in age, yet identical in their dark-haired beauty and mischievous smiles.

Battista recognized his feelings of respect and longing, measured out in equal parts, for he respected a man who loved his family, as his own father had, and desired to see himself the anchor of such a portrait, the patriarch of such a family. The yearning grew with each passing year.

Not likely, he chided himself with a surrendering shrug and a quirk of his lips, and not now.

Florence needed him now; it could not wait while he found love or conceived children.

Battista turned his almost-black brown eyes back into the cavernous strongbox, deep-dimpled chin tucked into his chest. His face bloomed at the treasures found within, so many of them made his hand tingle as it passed over them. But he came for only one, and rummaged quietly amidst the costly rubble within until he found it.

He stood the small statuette on the palm of his hand and studied every portion of the foot-length carving. There was no mistaking the Gothic style of Nicola Pisano, nor that this piece was a model created more than two hundred years ago as a basis for one portion of the artist’s monumental work on the pulpit of the Siena Cathedral. Few knew this miniature existed, and its anonymity compounded its value tenfold. How Battista’s patron knew of it was not for him to question.

Drawing out a thick cloth from his sack, Battista efficiently wrapped the piece, and placed it vertically in the leather satchel resting on his hip—worn, smooth, and shiny, curved to his back where it had rested for years, as if it were an organic extremity born with him.

Battista closed the strongbox, reattached the locks, and—with a tip of his head in gratitude to the man in the portrait—exited the room with the same ease with which he had entered.

Quiet hugged the palazzo in its nightly embrace as Battista made his way unremarked and unnoticed to the ground floor—where Frado waited, impatiently, with their horses, just outside the kitchen door at the rear of the building as agreed—and through a statue-guarded foyer and down a west-facing corridor. It had cost Battista little to get the pretty scullery maid to explain the layout of the palazzo: a good dinner, some time in his bed—which he enjoyed as much as she, bless her feisty heart—and she’d told him of every corridor and door in the palace.

Turning left, he did little to muffle the clack of his boot heels on the ochre marble tile, or contain the strut swinging his hips. Though many locks held the treasure of the house, Battista’s thievery had been far too easily done; a man with such little a mind for security as this nobleman deserved to be robbed. Battista quickened his step as he neared the end of the corridor and the two doors on either side.

A few more steps, into the door on the left, and he’d be in the kitchen and on his way out. He grinned, lifted the pronged latch, and pulled the door open.

All air left his lungs with a wheeze. His eyes protruded almost painfully from his head.

The four armed and armor-clad men lounging about the room—polishing swords and playing at dice—stared at him with the same bewildered gape ... but only for a fleeting moment.

“Arresto! Stop!”

“Get him!”

The cries erupted as the guards jumped to their feet, overturning chairs, upending tables, in their rush toward the intruder. Battista jumped backward out of the room as leather-clad fists and sword tips stretched out at him.

“Porca vacca. Damn it! The right door is the right door!” Battista cursed himself, slamming the door shut in their faces.

Shoulder bolstered against the portal, his whole body trembled as hard warrior bodies crashed against the other side, jarring the door violently in its cradle. With one hand, he set the latch. The other seized the handle of the largest of the three daggers tucked into his belt. He planted one foot back, stretched his arm high and taut above his head, arching his back, stretching like a bow about to launch its arrow.

With a propulsive growl, he slammed the dagger into the wood of the door at its edge, penetrating through it and into the jamb surrounding it.

Seconds, the thought rushed at him as rushed across the hall. It gives me seconds, no more.

Barging through the opposite door, he almost fell into the nearly abandoned kitchen. The house fire embers glowed red in the two large stone alcoves at either end of the massive room, the blood-colored gloom festering in every corner.

Three servants, two boys and a woman—those on night duty should the master return and call for anything—flinched back, already roused by the screaming and banging from across the hall. They stared openmouthed as Battista ran through the room, pulling down copper pots and cauldrons with a deafening clatter as he went, anything to throw between him and the angered guards soon to follow.

“Scusi.” He ducked his head sheepishly to the older woman as he rushed by her, seeing his mother’s condemnation in her wrinkled face and narrowed eyes. His steps faltered, his head swung back, and he swiped a biscotto off the counter between them. “Grazie, donna mia. Thank you, my lady.”

The woman rolled her eyes, but not without a hint of a grin.

With a raucous splintering of wood, the door across the hall ruptured open and the four men burst out, a rushing ocean hurling through a broken dam, tripping over one another to get out and get at him.

“Sbrigari! Hurry!” The old woman flapped her apron at Battista, pointing him to the wide double door in the east corner of the room with one fleshy finger.

Battista spared her no more pleasantries, running for escape as the guards jumped and tumbled over the obstacles thrown down in their path.

He burst through the doors, gasping at the cool night air as with his last breath. If he didn’t move quickly, it would be.

In the shadowy courtyard, two horses whinnied in alarm; a male voice squeaked in almost-feminine surprise. Battista turned to the sound, finding his horse and his accomplice waiting, just as they planned, on the cobbles below the portico, the small, round man no more than a perched ball on the smaller of the two powerful steeds.

“We must away!” Battista shouted, running full tilt now, hurtling himself from the top of the five steps, leaping across the beast’s derriere with a two-handed launch, and landing directly, if painfully—with a gruesome groan at the jolt to his groin—on his horse’s saddle.

“They are on to us, amico mio,” he hissed at the flustered man bouncing on the horse beside him, grabbing the reins and taking control of his mount. “The chase is afoot, my friend. Hiiya!”

The leather straps snapped at his will and his horse leaped forward, Frado’s following, impelled by the panic now thick in the air.

The horses’ metal shoes clopped noisily against the stones and into the quiet of the night, thudding onto grass-covered field, an ever-increasing thrumming of urgency. In those seconds Battista had foretold, cries of protest rang out behind them and galloping pursuit exploded, muffling the men’s bellows.

“Dio mio.”

Battista spared a quick look at his praying friend, the urge to laugh barely contained at the sight of the flabby man hanging on to his reins and the saddle’s pommel for dear life, bereft of even the pretense of control over his horse as he bounded up and down, grunting with each downward slam on the hard seat.

The sound of pursuit grew ever closer. Battista dared a look and saw their pursuers had taken form, if only as ghostly shadows intent upon malice. Were they close enough for his dagger to find them? He couldn’t be sure. No matter, only two blades remained and at least four men came for them, if not more, as the alarm most surely had brought others to the chase.

He tugged his horse closer to Frado’s, close enough to see the look of sheer panic upon the man’s round, red-splotched face.

“We have no choice.” Battista raised his deep voice over the thunder of the hooves. “We must throw them.”

Frado answered with a pitiful look of pleading, but Battista shook his head.

“Do it, Frado. You know you can.”

With a curled lip of anger, Frado reached into the saddlebag behind him, drawing out a moist goatskin sack, one of a perfect size to fit into his palm. Without looking backward, tilting precariously as he lifted his right arm, he threw the dripping ball, quickly reaching in for another, then another again.

The sound of splitting skin and splashing liquid pop, pop, popped behind them and within seconds a screeching of horses followed, answered by painful, frustrated human cries and a rumbling as bone and flesh—of horse and man—tumbled hard upon the ground.

The sounds of pursuit faded behind them, dissipating into the dominion of night’s stillness, returning it to tranquility once more.

With more than a modicum of disgust, Frado shook the residual drops of wolf urine off his hand, casting a worried glance toward Battista.

“I hope the horses are all right.”

Battista’s brows jumped up his forehead as he turned, catching the glint of amusement in his friend’s winking eye. He threw back his head then, howls of laughter ringing out through the starlit sky, bursting with peals of relief and triumph.

“To home, my friend,” he hooted.

“Sì, home.” Frado chuckled, round head bobbing in relieved agreement.

They turned their horses south, no one behind them close enough to see, and made for Florence.

“Ack, you son of a dog. You cheated!”

The outrage scaled the stairs, penetrated the door, and trounced upon Battista, waking him from his deep slumber, be it midday or not.

Battista pulled a pillow over his head, his arms dropping back to the silk-covered ticking with a plop. His exhaustion permeated every bone and muscle in his laden body. He wanted no more than to sleep a few more hours; not even the thought of gloating over his prizes could rouse him or his spirit.

“I didn’t, I swear, Giovanni.”

An answering yelp soon followed and Battista sighed, hoping it punctuated the end of the fracas. Such nonsense could not last long; such nonsense would not dare keep him from his rest.

“You lie like you smell ... badly!” The next salvo launched, the battle ensued.

Men barked at one another; chairs thrown out scraped across stone floor. Someone threw a punch and it landed with a riotous thwack.

“Basta!” Battista roared, flinging the pillow off and to the floor in one fluid motion of frustration, jumping out of bed, and kicking it as if it were the men who woke him. Stumbling and tripping to his door, his unsteadiness adding fuel to the flames of his fury, he leaned out the door to scream once again. “Enough!”

Despite himself and his ire, he bit back a smile as silence doused the tomfoolery below, as hissing whispers took the place of childish braying.

Battista walked back into his room and stood in the midst of the chaos. He could not remember what time he and Frado had arrived home. They had traveled hard all through the night, not knowing for sure if di Carcaci’s men had regrouped and resumed their chase. Not daring to slow and find out.

They had arrived at Battista’s three-story home on the Street of St. Proculus in the shadow of the Palazzo dei Pazzi as only a smudge of the next day’s light appeared on the horizon; not a soul had been stirring in the quietest of hours, save for those spirits haunting this ancient city.

As he stood with the afternoon sun streaming through his southern windows, he looked down at himself, shiny black hair falling in two large, soft waves to his chin.

He still wore his thick hose, though the laces fell loose, the long ties hanging down to his knees. He wore neither boots nor stockings, satchel nor jerkin; his ecru linen undershirt hung out on one side only, as if he had fallen asleep while trying to dispatch it, and the whole of it was a mass of wrinkles, wounded by the crush of his hard sleep. The night’s antics had exhausted him, not an easy task on a man of his prowess, of his eight and thirty years. Oh, but what a night it was.

The sculpture! The thought of it lurched into his mind. He kicked at the piles of clothing and linens covering the floor, searching for the satchel.

With a rejoicing cry, he spied it, rushed to it, and flopped to the floor beside it. Throwing the flap of the bag wide, he took the wrapped bundle in his hands and tenderly unfurled its covers with a cautious grace as if he unclothed a beautiful woman. It had been his night’s conquest and he caressed it with the respect such a distinction deserved.

Rising slowly, he laid it lovingly upon his mattress as he headed for the corner chamber pot. Opening his breeches, taking his stance, he took his aim, and—

“Take that back, you scurrilous mongrel!”

He jumped at the screech rising up from below, and turned to yell back.

“Merda!” He cursed, realizing with disgust that his release had already begun. Battista stared down at the mess he’d created—censuring his own slovenliness. What would it require to cure him of the excesses of his maleness?

“Nuntio!” he called down for his servant, certain the abiding man never strayed far. “Your assistance, if you please.”

“Sì, Messere Battista.” The answering cry came but two seconds later and Battista smiled at its cheerfulness. “I’m coming.”

The scene below was no improvement from the one left behind.

With one sharp and critical glance, Battista could see all, for better and worse. The open design revealed every corner of the ground floor; no walls stood to hide the offenses. One bricked corner served as kitchen, another bookshelf cubby as a study, while the entire street front half of the modest home functioned as a catchall of settees, feather mattresses, tables, books, cards, dice, bottles, and men. Upon every surface treasures sat, painted tables overflowing with glass vases, antique bronzes, ancient illuminated manuscripts, and around them the crates, boxes of every shape and size, stood like sentinels, some full, others empty, tops off, waiting with open hungry mouths for their own treasures to be packed in. The wooden-slat boxes commanded the room above all else.

If he had the family he imagined in the portrait, it would be here, in this part of the house, that they would take their leisure together, read together in the quiet of the evenings, and entertain their families in the sacredness of a Sunday afternoon. But that portrait lived only in his mind. In truth, this room belonged to his band of men as much as to him; here they congregated—day, night, and every moment in between. Battista refused to complain, though a part of him longed to, and far too often these days, for without these men he could not do his work.

“There he is. He will tell you the truth of it.” Frado’s call greeted him first, though Battista had not yet taken the last step off the stairs.

“Battista!” another man cried. “Frado jabbers that he saved you from near death. Tell us this is but another of his vividly imagined tales.”

A trunk-legged older man jumped to Battista’s side, his high-pitched squeak incongruent to his boulderlike build. “I have news, Battista, such that will please you well, I’m thinking.”

Others rose from their lounging positions, chattering away as they gathered round him. Battista stood in the heart of the maelstrom, not knowing whom to answer, which to turn to first, like the mother bird who has brought but one worm back to a crowded nest.

He answered none of them, merely held up a long, lean hand as he made his way to the kitchen and the warmth of its ever-burning fire. An early spring had come to call, long before the pending late April Easter, but here and there a chilly day made a surprise visit, a day such as this.

With slow nonchalance, he placed the sculpture in the center of the large, round cherrywood table in the center of the area, took his time to pour a mug of spiced hot water and to grab a sweet bun from the still-warm pan. Sauntering toward a vacant settee, he plopped himself onto it and bit off a large bite.

“I am most sorry to tell you, Ercole”—Battista chewed on the sweet bread along with his words, wide jaw muscles bulging with the effort—“but it’s true. If not for Frado, I would be in the clutches of the duca di Carcaci and his guards at this very moment.”

Battista smiled over the rim of the terra-cotta cup as he sipped from it, watching Frado swagger away, his age-imposed monk’s tonsure of black hair and round circle of baldness hidden beneath a royal blue beretto. Ercole and another followed grudgingly behind. Battista held his tongue as his portly friend carried on about his audacious exploits in last night’s adventure. Frado tortured them with a performance worthy of the stage, pudgy arms mimicking as if he himself had scaled the palazzo walls, taken on twelve guards single-handedly, and come away with every treasure the duke possessed. Battista allowed the man his glory gratefully. Indeed, if not for Frado, he would have felt the noose about his neck years ago; it was his pleasure to share every moment of réclame and profit with the man.

“Speaking of profit,” Battista announced to the room as if they had been privy to his thoughts, “have you sold any of the extra items from the Fénis Castle?”

“Ah, it is of this I longed to tell you.” The stocky Barnabeo sat beside him, gap-toothed grin spreading at the opportunity to share his news at last, voice squeaking higher with pleasure. “Del Nero has taken both pieces, the painting and the bronze, at a most generous price.”

As he spoke, Barnabeo took from his waist a large purse, which he handed to Battista with a noted flair, pride in a job well done in the flourish.

The jangling of heavy coins brought them all to attention, and every man drew near, once more the baby birds looking for a morsel from their mother.

“Sì, Francesco, I should have known.” Battista nodded happily, well pleased. He called Francesco del Nero a true friend, as he did only a few. The support of his fellow Florentine patriot del Nero kept them all fed, and del Nero’s recommendations to Filippo Strozzi brought Battista entrée to those who held the greatest art in all of the Republic. “When you drink these florins away, and I know you will,” Battista told the men with a wink, handing each one a heavy gold piece, “be sure to raise your tankard to del Nero.”

“Del Nero!” the men sang in chorus, laughing at the prospect Battista so easily foretold.

Battista called Frado to him, leaned over the back of the small sofa, and handed the man the purse and the coins left within it. “You know what needs to be done with these, my friend. But take an extra for yourself. You’ve earned it.”

Frado pulled two coins from the purse and tucked them into a barely visible flap on his well-stretched jerkin, but not without a smug smirk in Ercole’s direction. All knew of Ercole’s desire to take Frado’s place, of his longing to accompany Battista on his expeditions and not be a part of those who worked in either their preparation or conclusion. For all that Ercole and Frado had much in common ... same age, same build, and same quiet disposition ... all knew what Ercole would do he would do for the glory of it. What Frado did he did in loyalty to Battista and to benefit others. True purpose is the gauge by which all lives are judged.

“Now, my friends, to the matters at hand.” Battista rubbed his hands together, then brushed the trunk hose covering his thighs, ridding himself of crumbs, knocking them to the gray stone floor without thought. “Giovanni, write to King François and tell him of our latest acquisition on his behalf, would you? He will be overjoyed, I am quite sure.”

The young fair-haired man nodded. “Sì, as sure as I am that Pompeo cheats.”

“Dio mio, Giovanni, let it go. I do not cheat.” Pompeo ran in from the kitchen where he studied the newly acquired statuette quietly. As he ran his hands through his hair, the thick black spikes stood out like a porcupine’s quills while his smooth and youthful cheeks turned scarlet, nose still swollen and red from the impact of Giovanni’s fist. “How often must we have this same argument?”

“As often as you cheat.” Giovanni jumped to his feet, sticking out his chest as he thundered toward Pompeo.

“You are sh—”

“Basta!”

Once more Battista put a halt to the bickering, jumping between the infuriated men with a strong hand toward each. Unlike most Tuscan men—typically lean and small, unremarkable and unintimidating—Battista rose to an impressive height, and few had the nerve to test the brawn accompanying the breadth.

He sighed with exasperation, eyeing both with paternal impatience. “Pompeo, I do not know if you cheat. I know only that you win at cards far too often. Giovanni, you stink at cards, which is why Pompeo always plays against you and why he always wins.”

The others in the room howled with laughter, both combatants possessing the grace to grin as they stepped apart, leaving their argument for the next time the cards were dealt.

“I will send the missive, Battista, this very day,” Giovanni said contritely, returning to the subject of his work.

“Sì, bene.” Battista sat once more, stretching his long legs out before him, propping his feet upon the ottoman, and wiggling his long, still-uncovered toes. “Have we received any more requests from France?”

“Nothing yet,” Giovanni replied. “But there are a few old requests we’ve yet to fill.”

Battista turned a scowling brow to the man in the chair beside him. “Make me a list, Gio? Per favore? ”

“Of course.” The young man stood at once.

These fellows to a one were dedicated to Battista, to his work for Florence and for the food, clothing, and comfortable lives their work provided. He ruled them with a loving but firm hand and they responded with affectionate and devoted diligence. They were his famiglia, as much as his mother and widowed sister, who lived but a stone’s throw away.

“Pompeo, have you added this piece to the list?” Battista called to the man behind him as he stared out the window. He marveled at the glass coverings so recently installed on this floor of the house; cloudy and cluttered with lead, they were difficult to see out of, or, by the same token, into. And for the latter he was most grateful. He willingly gave up the view of the passersby on the street for the privacy and seclusion the barriers afforded.

“I have.” Now calm, his veracity no longer questioned, the youngest of the group came to sit with Battista. “I may look at it a bit more before packing it away, if I may. It is quite beautiful.”

Battista beamed at the man more than a decade younger than he. Pompeo’s deep admiration for art and antiquities made him ideal for his work. He had spent his childhood apprenticed in the bottega of the great Cellini, and had learned much at the master’s hands. When Pompeo admitted knowledge to be his gift, more so than ability, he had found his way to Battista.

“Of course. But by the end of this day, sì?”

“Sì, Battista, grazie. Someday I hope to travel to the cathedral and see it for myself. If it is anything like this, it must be brea—”

The door flung open with a slam, whumping away Pompeo’s words, and a thin, lavishly dressed man of Battista’s age rushed in.

“I have news. Oomph!” the man cried, tripping over one of the dozens of crates strewn about the room, bringing forth a curse before the tidings. “Merda! Is it not yet time to send these things on their way?”

Battista chuckled at the comical picture Ascanio created as he stumbled, arms windmilling, struggling to gain his balance. “There is not enough yet to fill a quarter of a cargo hold. Transport costs a fortune. Unless we fill the entire ship, most of our profit will sail away with it.”

“I understand, but can we not ... not”—Ascanio swirled his jeweled hands about as if stirring two big cauldrons of soup—“not organize it better?”

As if he heard his name called by a thought, the stooped Nuntio wandered down the stairs, yellowed rags bound for the garbage heap in hand. “I will work on it today, signore.”

“Grazie, Nuntio. You are—”

“Enough of your housekeeper’s cares, Ascanio. What is your news?” Battista barked.

Ascanio stood in the middle of the room, hands to hips, jaunty grin upon his ruddy face.

“France and Spain are at war ... again!”

The small orchestra—nothing more than a chitarra, a harpsichord, and a viola—in the shell-shaped niche played a lively saltarello. A smattering of couples kicked and hopped, merrily displaying their grace and virtuosity, their costly costumes and glittering gems. Amidst this intimate gathering in a small sala of the Mantua palazzo, cheerful voices, smiling faces, and bubbling laughter filled the quick hollows between songs ... a cheery night indeed.

Jolly for all save the two growling at each other over their chair arms.

The master of the house did little to disguise his impatience with his ward, who sat beside him, each slumped into the exquisitely upholstered chairs, each falsely convinced of their anonymity in the far corner of the spacious green marble salon. She burned with her own ire, the crimson stain painting her pale face as no cosmetic ever dared.

“I have no immediate plans to travel, Madonna Aurelia, and therefore neither do you.” Federico II of Gonzaga, the marquess of Mantua, made the pronouncement through his small, clenched teeth, looking much like a dark version of his favored bichon frise kept forever by his side, though not nearly as amiable as that tail-wagging creature.

“I am not suggesting you travel, Zio.” Though the nobleman was not her uncle, the Lady Aurelia called him by the title—for the sake of explanation—as she had the men w