The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,180

children growing like vines around your table. I never watched my children grow.” Her voice cracked and she suddenly looked much older.

I did not go to her, did not speak, but behind the mask of my stony expression I was, despite myself, a little touched at all she had lost, for all that she had brought our separation upon herself.

She came close. “I wish the best for you. In that way, I am your Vero Madre.” My arms almost twitched upward. I almost wrapped them around her but did not.

She kissed me once and left.

I was still and stunned for a moment. I was astonished that she had remembered what I had once called her. I had uttered the words Vero Madre to her but once, when I had woken beside her in the gondola in Venice; she had all but laughed at the phrase. I had never used it again, even to myself, my dream of sixteen years shattered, the notion of my warm and loving mother smashed like the false idol that it was.

As she left I heard more footsteps and was instantly on the alert again. It was the cambio di guardia—the changing of the guard. I froze—for although my mother would never have picked out Brother Guido from a battalion of soldiers, surely even she would know him if she passed him, she and he alone, in a narrow passage.

But no, she must have been as affected by her little interview as I, for the guard left, she left, and Brother Guido—I even knew his tread by now—was outside my door again.

I hesitated once as I went to pick up my cloak and mask from the floor—I knew that as soon as the door had opened and I left this room, I was setting myself against my mother and all the rest of the Seven. Forever and ever, amen. Against armies, against fleets of ships, against all the silver in the mountains, against a murderous leper who wanted me dead.

But when the door opened he only had to ask me the question and I knew I would follow him to the ends of the earth, no matter what danger we were placed in. For we would be in it together.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

We took the little stair down and down the tower as we had done the night before. I assumed we would use the covered causeway again to Santa Maria delle Grazie, and then somehow try to get out of the city gates before dawn.

“Too risky,” said Brother Guido. “Fortunately, there is another way.”

We doglegged left and down into a different passage, high and cavernous, an underground thoroughfare. “Why, a whole regiment could pass through here!”

“That’s the idea.”

“Where does it lead? Another church?”

“No. It leads behind the fortress, out into the hunting ground behind the castle.”

“Outside the city gates?”

“Outside the city gates.”

Before he could finish his confirmation I heard stamping footsteps and guttural grunts. Of course the tunnel would be guarded—I stood rooted, knew we were discovered, and hoped Brother Guido could talk fast enough to get us out of this one. From my mother’s demeanor tonight I knew that even she could not protect me if I transgressed again.

“Do not distress yourself. It is only our transportation.”

We rounded a corner and there, oil-black with a gilded coat of torchlight, stood the mountainous horse I had seen between il Moro’s thighs yesterday.

“Shit.”

“Yes.”

“But that’s . . .”

“I know.”

“And you want me to?”

“Yes. I’ll mount first. You get up behind me. The Templars rode two by two for many centuries. ‘Twill not harm you.”

I didn’t give a fuck about the Templars, whoever they may be, but I did know that I’d never ridden a proper horse in my life. The nearest I’d come was my pony ride from Fiesole to Pisa with Brother Guido, hardly the same thing. Despite my new education into the nobility, riding had not been among my list of lessons; Venetians are not horse people, since the only horses in that entire city are the four bronze ones atop the basilica.

Madonna.

Brother Guido vaulted expertly onto the black mountain and heaved me up after him. The horse stood stock-still, surprising me, as I expected him to rear and skitter.

“Do not worry,” said Brother Guido, sensing my fear. “He is well used to battle and is steady as a rock. Hold on, though.”

I barely had time to wrap my arms about his waist before he dug heels into the beast and it took off. I was bounced about