The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,49

I grabbed both his hands. “Don’t panic!” I looked into terrified eyes. “I have you.” Although in truth my poor shoulder tendons screamed from the strain of his weight. “Find the rigging with your feet!” I gulped as his sandals scrabbled on the newly tarred ropes and found a foothold, but no sooner was he stable than I was down and past him, swarming down the rigging like a monkey. If we could reach the bank before they reached us . . . if we could reach the bank before they reached us . . . I was down on the deck, but footsteps sounded on the gangplank. “We’re trapped,” I mouthed at the following brother. “The hold, quick!” I swiftly located the entrance, lifted a grille behind the mainsail, and dropped below, with Brother Guido following so hard behind that he almost squashed me. We rolled behind a pile of sacks and lay still, breathing as low as we could. We could feel footsteps above, see planks buckling under men’s weight, and hear voices questioning. The flare of a torch flooded through the grille, as the watchmen searched the hold from above. I knew if they came below, we would be discovered; but after a cursory wave of the torch, footsteps sounded on the gangplank again, as the searchers moved to the next ship.

After a long moment, Brother Guido made as if to rise, but I held him back—we must wait till they were well clear. I resolved to count a thousand heartbeats, but had only got to three hundred before I felt a jolt, and an odd sensation in my stomach. I sat bolt upright. “We’re moving!” Brother Guido leaped to his feet. “Quick!”

We scrambled to the deck, but by the time we reached the ship’s side rail, there was already a stretch of black water between us and the bank too wide for any mortal to jump. We turned slowly, both knowing what we would see. A half-circle of torches surrounded us, each one illuminating the ugly countenance of the sailor that held it. Tanned, scarred, and practically toothless to a man, wrinkled and knobbled with muscle as a bag of walnuts, they did not look welcoming. Fuck.

The tallest and ugliest of the collection approached, clearly the captain. He shone a torch in Brother Guido’s face, while his mate did the same service for me. Except the first mate’s greeting was to grin and fondle my tits. I spat neatly in his face, an instant before his captain fetched him a ringing slap. The first mate turned to spit out a tooth, shrugged, and resumed his torch-holding duties, seeming to hold his captain no ill will. Madonna. They were roughnecks indeed.

Brother Guido, bristling at the insult to my person, obviously decided to begin on the offensive. “I am the nephew of Lord Silvio della Torre,” he announced, as if he had just stepped before the pope himself.

The Capitano did not seem impressed, and said with great economy, “So?”

“And I demand that you let us go in peace.”

The Capitano sucked on a hollow tooth, and rubbed his dry beard till the lice ran, their little pewter bodies visible in the torchlight. If ever an apothecary strayed aboard, he’d have his work cut out. “Can’t do that,” was the reply, not noticeably hostile, merely matter-of-fact. “Once you’re here, you’re here.”

“And where is here,” spat Brother Guido, gaining courage from the captain’s indifference.

“Here is the fleet of the Muda.”

I saw Brother Guido’s eyes flare open with surprise, then close instantly as the Capitano hit him with the butt of his torch.

Just an instant before the first mate did the same to me, and all went black.

15

I was aware of three things.

Cosa Uno: somebody had a headache.

Cosa Due: someone was groaning like a doomed steer at a butcher’s yard.

Cosa Tre: when I opened my eyes I thought that I had not, for it was so dark at first. I lay still for a moment, long enough to know that the headache was mine, and I was the one doing the groaning. I remembered the blow to my head, and knew from the rolling motion that we were on board ship. We? Yes, Brother Guido was there. I rolled against his soft bulk when the ship pitched, but he lay still, unconscious.

Dead?

The notion pulled me to my elbow as my head beat time with my heart. I nudged and shook the monk till his head rolled on his neck, but the black