The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,194

looked back at him, and he smiled his sunburst smile, the old Brother Guido, with the light of faith in his eyes behind the blue.

“Then you’ll go back? When all this is over?” I needed to look beyond this night, needed to know there may be a time when I could visit him at Santa Croce. Just to know he was alive would be enough for me now.

“To the monastery? No.”

“But . . .”

He held my face in both his hands. “I could never go back. Not because I don’t love God. But because I do love you.” He kissed me once then, hard, his lips freezing without and warm within, moving across my cheek and to my ear. “Love is when you like someone so much you have to call it something else,” he whispered. And was gone.

Joy and sadness rushed in upon me: joy that he loved me but tempered with an unshakable feeling that I had touched him for the last time. Stricken, both with bliss and loss, I stumbled to the lighthouse with the doge in tow. The door was guarded by two militiamen with the crosses of Genoa on their chests. Their pikes sprang apart at a nod from the doge, allowing us inside without question. My skin began to prickle with foreboding, images nudging my dull brain as I climbed—one guard had had a sleeve so long that it flapped over his hand, another so short that a white circle of wrist showed above the hand that grasped the pike. Something was wrong.

Once within, the howling wind, the driving rain, and the crashing waves ceased—the walls so thick as to block out the tempest. The only sound as we climbed was our breathing and the clanking of the doge’s armor. I could see the glow of candlelight spilling down the steps even before the last turn of the stair. I knew who would be there in the chamber, unable to stay away, watching from the window as the grand scheme played out.

We entered the square room. Empty save for one figure at the window, clad in magnificent purple velvet and gold brocade, looking out to sea as the day bruised to the first of night. He turned at our steps.

Lorenzo de’ Medici.

49

“Lorenzo?”

“Battista, my dear fellow.” Both men registered shock and surprise, swiftly covered by their urbane courtier masks, in many ways as substantial as my mother’s.

The younger man spoke first. “What do you here?”

The gray Medici eyes were wary. “My, er, ship foundered in the storm. I took shelter here to wait until I could make my way to your palace and beg for your sanctuary.”

“Indeed?” The doge expressed polite surprise. “The spring tides are somewhat unpredictable.”

The noble pair regarded each other like street cats, not sure whether to purr or strike.

“Where were you headed?”

“To Pisa. There’s a marriage there soon, is there not, my dear?” I stepped out of the shadows of the door. “And I would so hate to miss your nuptials, child, since you were good enough to attend my nephew’s.”

I met his eyes steadily and saw that he knew everything. I did not know what to say, but fortunately the doge did.

“Strange. What an odd route to take, from Florence to Pisa by sea.” His voice was dangerously soft now. “You are sadly off course, my lord.”

Now it was Lorenzo that foundered and sought an answer.

The doge forestalled him. “Forgive me, my lord. Before we continue this interesting conversation, I must assist my guest in a small matter. Perhaps you will stay a while and admire the drama of the tempest.” He was all deadly politeness.

Lorenzo caught the tone. “Oh, I think I have trespassed long enough. The winds seem to be easing.”

“Indeed you are mistaken. The storm is as threatening as ever; I really couldn’t let you risk a journey in such conditions. I really must insist, and to help you make up your mind, know that my men are posted downstairs.”

“Your men? Is that so?” Lorenzo seemed amused, even though he was as good as trapped. I felt that prickle of unease again—it was all wrong for the lobster in the pot to laugh at the fisherman. “In that case, it would be churlish not to stay a while and converse a little. What shall we talk about?”

“How is your foreign policy?” The question was as pointed as a stiletto.

“Uneventful,” Lorenzo answered smoothly. “On the domestic front, however, I have invested in an attractive alliance which I hope