told me you were visiting our fair city; I had expected your tribute before now.”
Really? I had not seen Tok as a social creature, but apparently he had been running hither and yon, informing his lord’s heir of our doings. Now it does not, as you know, take me long to form an opinion, and I disliked Niccolò on sight. He had the family features, but it was as if an indifferent artist had attempted to set down Brother Guido’s face, and then left his work in the rain. The features were blunted and irregular, the noble nose angular, the chin so weak as to recede into the student’s neck. The lips were an unhealthy purple, permanently wet and formless, and the mouth was surrounded by little white spots that denoted an unhealthy lifestyle. His voice broke when he spoke, changing like a weathercock between boyhood and manhood, and his humor, too, seemed by turns falsely charming and childishly vicious. Shorter than his cousin and younger too, Niccolò nevertheless browbeat the monk with his higher rank, and Brother Guido, mindful of propriety but clearly reluctant, bowed to his relative. However, his words were barbed. “And I, cousin, expected I might see you at the feast at my uncle’s house yester evening.” Brother Guido fairly spat the words that reminded the boy of his duty.
“Ah, the feast. Yes, I was otherwise engaged, I’m afraid.” Niccolò’s pale eyes, weak in color as a winter sky compared to my friend’s summer blue, went to the door through which the catamite had left. “But I hope my absence did not ruin your feast. Nor the tourney that preceded it.” Tok had been busy with his information. “And who is this little poppet? Very pretty.” Niccolò’s eyes flickered over me without interest. I shifted a little, wondering if he could smell the fishy fumes from my oyster-soaked skirt and would mistake the odor for the similar one of sex. He did. “Broken your vows already? Or is she a little gift for my father’s grace, to win yourself some favor?”
Brother Guido flinched at the mention of Lord Silvio, visibly swallowed his dislike, and took his cousin’s hand, a gesture which sent Niccolò’s pale eyebrows right up into his neatly dressed bangs. “I bring grave news, cousin. I’m afraid my lord your father is . . . dead.” The word choked Brother Guido a little and even my stony heart melted, not for the son but for the nephew. Nevertheless, I waited for the tears and lamentations of the della Torre heir: perhaps he would throw himself prostrate and sobbing, over the couch he had recently defiled? I did not expect what came—the smallest ghost of a smile playing at the corners of the weak mouth.
“Dead, you say?” He picked up the jewel he wore about his neck and tapped it on yellow teeth. “Really.”
Brother Guido did a very bad job of hiding his shock and disgust. “There is more. He said”—the monk lowered his voice—“his last word was ‘murder.’ ”
Niccolò seemed intrigued. “Murder? The English word?”
Brother Guido nodded. “Yes. For remember that we had an English confessor, some years back, Brother Giles of Cambridge? He taught my uncle the language, to further his business dealings, and taught us English in the schoolroom too? I’m convinced that my uncle spoke English as a code at the last, so that others might not know his meaning. He was telling us he was killed by another’s hand.” Ah, that’s why I didn’t have a clue what he meant, for I have less English than a Scotsman. But as Brother Guido slid his blue eyes to the door, where Tok lounged in the doorframe, I suddenly knew that it was not from myself that Lord Silvio wished to hide the meaning of his final words. “And then,” Brother Guido continued, “then he told me to ‘follow the light.’ ”
I waited for Brother Guido to mention the gold thumb ring that Lord Silvio bequeathed to his nephew at his last, but nothing more was said. Now I thought about it, Brother Guido kept his left hand beneath the voluminous sleeves of his habit—well out of sight. I shrugged mentally—mayhap the monk wished to hold on to this keepsake of his uncle’s and feared that to reveal it would be to lose it. (Fair enough.) My thoughts were rudely interrupted as the new head of the della Torre family laughed in earnest, an unpleasant honking sound that would have sat better