The King's Agent (32 page)

Aurelia tumbled off the side, screeching in pain and fear as her body plummeted downward ... head and shoulder, legs and feet, swirling round and round ... until her anguished cries died away, until her limp body came to rest on the next twirl of the path at least thirty feet below.

“Dear God!” Battista cried again, jumping off the path through the jagged hole where Aurelia had found no footing, almost tumbling himself, controlling his mad, frantic pace so as not to lose his traction and fall himself.

“Aurelia, Aurelia!” He scrambled down to her, calling her name, praying she would raise her head and offer him her mischievous grin.

He came to her side, fear frenzied at the sight of her. Thick patches of blood covered her flawless skin, slashes cut over one eye and across one cheek. Her palms were scratched raw, one wrist crushed beneath her body at an inhuman angle, her clothes were torn and bloody in more places than he dared count.

With a strangled cry in his throat, he shoved one arm beneath her knees, the other beneath her shoulders, and growled as he gained his footing. Running now down the side of the mountain, heedless of his own blind repelling, he repeated one mantra over and over as her lifeless body flopped in his arms.

“Let her live.
Dio mio, per favore
.”

The path released him into the basin a far pace away from the low glimmer of fire pinpointing Frado’s position.

Battista ran again, not knowing how his body continued to move, his arms screaming with red-hot pain, her body falling farther and farther down the front of his body, his exhaustion pulling her down.

“Frado!” he shrieked.

The slumbering man started violently, grabbing at the sword lying beside him. Jumping up, twirling round in confusion, he blanched at the apparition hurtling toward him.

“What in God’s name happened in there?” Frado screamed as he ran to meet Battista, putting his hands beneath Aurelia’s limp form, helping ease the burden.

“It was ... There is too much to tell.” Battista’s voice cracked. “She fell, Frado. Not inside, but out, d-down the side. I c-cannot rouse her.”

Frado’s eyes bulged white in the darkness. He asked no more questions, pulling Aurelia’s body, still partially in Battista’s clutch, toward the small fire and the bedroll.

They laid her gently upon the thick wool. Battista watched helplessly as Frado lowered his ear to Aurelia’s mouth, as he patted her face and jiggled her hand, and though her chest rose and fell, it was a shallow movement and none of Frado’s attempts brought her round.

“We must get her to a healer.” Battista sat back on his haunches, refusing to relinquish the hand of the unconscious woman.

Frado reached into a large saddlebag, pulled out a thin, if soft, blanket, and draped it over Aurelia’s body, tucking it beneath her shoulders and legs. “Will she survive the journey? Two days, Battista.”

Battista could have struck out with frustration; he knew full well how long it would take them to return to Florence.

“No.” He shook his head, but at what he did not make clear. “We’ll take her to Rome. Michelangelo may be there. He ... he told me he meant to travel there soon. We’ll take her to Michelangelo.”

Twenty-one

The experience of this sweet life.

—Paradiso

T
he pain did not barrage her at first, but thirst—a consuming, maddening thirst—swelling her tongue and chafing her throat. Aurelia willed her eyes to open, pushing her brows up on her forehead, stretching her skin until the lids had no choice but to separate. She blinked against the light—a radiant magenta glow—startling to her long-closed eyes nonetheless.

The small brick-walled room had little in it, the four-poster bed upon which she lay, a scored and varnished coffer at its feet. In the corner beside the velvet-curtained window, a privacy screen of dark puce silk and a single chair of the same color, winged and claw footed. In it, a giant of a man slumbered, one who looked vaguely familiar. Aurelia turned her head to see him better, her tangled hair rasping against the linens and her dry lips cracking as they split slightly into a feeble grin.

Battista’s head, face dark and shadowed with fatigue and a thick layer of stubble, hung sideways off the chair, a swath of dark hair falling across his forehead. His mouth hung open in a crooked droop of utter relaxation, a low drone of slumber and a tiny droplet of drool dripping out.

A congestion of church spires, cream stone buildings, and red tile roofs crowded the vista beyond the window, all swathed in the brilliance of a fiery sunset. A magnificent view, one she could not name. Aurelia had no idea where she was, only that Battista sat beside her and it was enough. She stared at him, taken by his beauty, even in his awkward posture. Like his spirit, his splendor was both rugged yet graceful, an intriguing dichotomy.

Aurelia could no longer deny what she felt for him, feelings transcending a bond born of shared trauma, an attraction of the physical and the kindred soul. And yet the sentiments crossed at odds with her existence. She had left the safety of her lodging for adventure, but could she stretch its boundaries to encompass the heart of another? Could she be that selfish?

Aurelia turned her gaze from him, troubled eyes staring blankly at the rough-beamed ceiling, as if the answer lay above. She breathed deep of warm, fecund air, of thick blossoming in the fullness of early growth, of dirt rising up from a busy street. She sniggered silently at the boisterous greetings, at the deep rattle of a heavy-burdened cart, at the clopping of horse hoof upon hard-packed earth. She became again part of the flurry of life, and she healed in the energy.

“Aurelia?” A frog’s croak broke her reverie.

Battista blinked at her, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, chanting her name once more as if to assure himself what he saw was no illusion. “Aurelia? You are awake?”

She smiled silently with a swishing nod against the pillow.

He dropped to his knees at her bedside, taking one hand in both of his, resting his forehead upon their knuckles.

“I did not think ...” His voice trailed off and he shook his head in denial of any more words or thoughts. Looking up, his weary, pale countenance flushed with relief. “It is a blessing to see you awake.”

“Drink,
per favore,
” Aurelia begged of him with a thin rasp, a lump of emotion in her parched throat, thicker now for his tender attention.

He jumped to his feet. “Of course, of course.”

From behind the privacy screen Aurelia heard the tinkling of glass upon thin metal, and he rushed back, with a mug of heavily watered wine. With tender ministrations, he slipped one hand below her neck, lifting her gently, as he held the rim to her parched lips.

Aurelia closed her eyes in the ecstasy of the liquid upon her tongue, its coolness as it slithered down her throat. He moved it away, but she raised a weak hand, pulling the small, stemless chalice in his hand to her lips once more, and drank deep.

“Not too much.” He chuckled. “You have had little for a long time. You seemed to wake now and again, and we fed you water and broth, but not very much. You must not overdo.”

Aurelia’s brows knit, a stab of pain her reward. She raised a hand, feeling the linen bandage across her forehead. “How long?”

Battista’s shadow-rimmed eyes evaded her as he busied himself, refilling her drink behind the safety of the screen.

“How long, Battista?” She pushed against the bed with her elbows, inching upward with a frail attempt.

Rushing back, placing the cup on the lid of the coffer, he lifted her shoulders. “Eight days,” he mumbled, rearranging the pillows at her back and shifting her upward, allowing her to lie in a more bolstered position.

“Eight days!” Aurelia did not know if he lied or if some terrible dream had manifested itself. But the pains coursing through her body gave hard testimony to her consciousness. She looked down at herself; a bandage covered her left arm, something thin, straight, and hard keeping it stiff at the wrist. With her right she lifted the covers, shocked to find herself clothed in nothing but a wisp of a chemise bunched around her buttocks, her legs and arms a mass of bandages and cuts, lumpy with dark maroon scabs.

She shook her head at him, squinting. “I do not ... We made it out of the mountain,
sì?
With ... with the painting?”

“Yes, yes.” Battista sat back down, scraping the chair closer to the side of the bed, and tucked her back beneath the covers with a motherly gesture. “You fell as we climbed down, down the side of the mountain.” He pinched his eyes shut, as if to block out the memory. “But only partway. I carried you ... we, Frado and I, brought you here. Michelangelo’s physician has been caring for you. I knew he would. He wasn’t sure if you, well, if—”

“We are in Florence?” Aurelia frowned, the fuzziness and weakness obfuscating any recollections, but she could not reconcile the view from the window with her knowledge of Battista’s city.

Battista shook his head. “No. We are in Rome, at Michelangelo’s house.”

Her lips fell flaccid in a gaping maw, her head jutting forward on her slim neck, a turkey about to trot. “Rome, Michelangelo’s house ... is he ... is he here?”

With a low-throated chuckle, Battista nodded. “
Sì,
he has been here for the whole of your convalescence. He has been quite worried about you.”

Aurelia flumped her head back upon the pillows with a flush of pure joy, mitigating, if only for a moment, the marks of injury and illness. “I am to meet Michelangelo, at last,” she muttered with the profundity of a prayer.

“He will delight in your beauty,” Battista told her, then shrugged. “As he does mine. It is his way.”

Battista’s words piqued her, and she lifted her head off the pillow with a raised brow. He smiled at her almost sheepishly, but said not a word in further explanation, and yet she understood. With the curve of his lips and the veiled salacious look, she grasped, then, all the unspoken intentions of the artist’s great works, of the troubled life she had heard he led. No talent so vast could overcome the misery of living a life in constant conflict with itself.

“I thought I heard voices,” the slightly hoarse greeting hailed them from the doorway; in it stood the slight form of the man himself. “I am so relieved to see you awake,
cara mia
. Battista and I have worried much for you.”

Aurelia’s chapped lips formed a soundless O. She knew this man, recognized at once the flat forehead, the thatches of dark chestnut hair shot with grays falling forward upon it, and the heavy-lidded, amber-colored eyes.

“Signore Buonarroti,” she breathed with unbounded amazement. “I ... I know you.” Aurelia blinked wide eyed, at the same man she had shared those poignant moments with at the foot of the Giant,
his
Giant.

The artist nodded, face showing no surprise and but a little dabble of amusement. “
Sì,
I recognize you as well. It is a strange world we live in, my dear, is it not?”

“Most certainly.” If she possessed the strength, she would most surely have laughed. All this time, all her desire to meet this man, and it had already taken place. She may think herself wise, but knew, in that moment, she had much to learn.

Michelangelo narrowed his eyes at her with a tilt of his head; she saw a puzzling thought cross the high-boned ridges of his face, but he gave it no voice. Stepping away from the door, he gave her a shallow bow.

“I will have Agniola bring you some broth. And then you must sleep some more. I want you well so you may tell me of all your adventures.”

“
Grazie mille,
Signore Buonarroti,” Aurelia called as he left them.

He turned back with that ghost of a smile and shook a finger at her, one covered in paint and roughened skin. “No,
per favore,
I am Michelangelo, your most humble servant.” He bowed again and disappeared, a ghost vanishing with the coming of dawn.

“He wishes to hear of our adventures?” Aurelia whispered. It was a question not of Michelangelo’s desire, but of his knowledge.

Battista met her uncertainty straight on. “There are few men who walk this earth that I would trust as much as Michelangelo.”

He knocked upon the threshold, tilting his head around the doorjamb before an answer came.

“May I come in?”

“
Sì,
Battista. I am ready.”

Aurelia sat on the edge of the bed, the middle-aged Agniola hovering around her, tucking in a strand of hair, checking the laces upon Aurelia’s back, squinting at Aurelia’s just-plucked forehead for any stragglers.

It was the first time she had been dressed in a fortnight, and though she looked stronger than he had seen her since her tumble down the mountainside, the plum silk gown he’d purchased hung on her thin frame. He had loved the fullness of her, and though there remained some hints of it in the fine curve of her hips and the roundness of her breasts, they were not as voluptuous as they had been when first she and Battista had met. He promised himself he would see them fleshy and vivacious once again; if he had to hand feed her for the next month, it would happen.