The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,80

me. “Why aren’t they guarded?”

“No need,” rejoined my companion. “No one knows they are here save the Seven or the sailors who are in the pay of the Seven.”

We walked forward to survey the amazing scene—and I marveled again at the difference between this fleet and the one we had seen in Pisa—here there were no shipwrights swarming like ants, no carpenters. No tar-monkeys. These ships were ready. But ‘twas a ghost fleet with no one to sail it. “And where are those sailors?”

Brother Guido shrugged. “Disporting themselves in the port no doubt.”

I nodded knowingly. “Rum and whores.”

“As you say,” he replied wryly. “There is a great enterprise afoot—lives will be lost soon enough—they are doubtless enjoying their leisure while they may.”

“Jesu. What has your uncle gotten us into?”

He refrained from replying that it was, in fact, I who had gotten us into this.

“I don’t know. But it’s up to us to get ourselves out of it.” He pointed out to the ocean. “See, the sun climbs. If we are to return to the castello before the Angelus, we must away.” He turned back. We had seen what we had come to see, and headed back as if to return to Neapolis and thence the church of San Lorenzo.

And thence the leper.

It was time.

I put my hand on his arm. “Not that way.” I told him what I had seen—the Old Man of the Nile’s warning, the malevolent leper by the Roman pillar, the same leper in the church above, following us, observing us from beneath his cowl with his silver eyes.

For a moment I heard nothing but the whisper of the tide and the groan of the ships pressing against each other in the swell, then Brother Guido spoke.

“But even if he was there, what makes you believe that he is the author of all our woes and has followed us all this while?”

I shrugged. “I just do.”

“But that is not logical. You say he has a threatening presence, yet this is surely an impression assisted by his stature, and the fact he is swathed in robes and a cowl with his features bandaged—”

“It’s his eyes,” I insisted.

“And you say,” he went on smoothly without pause, “that his eyes have a strange quality—almost metallic. Perhaps it is so, for God makes man in many differing castes. But you must see how irrational you are being. We know not what this unfortunate’s business is with us. He could as easily be a friend as a foe. For you have not actually had any discourse with him, have you?”

“Of course not,” I scoffed, “as I’m fairly sure that our first conversation would be my last.”

He took my hands, and I realized with the touch of his fingers how cold my blood had run since I had seen the leper. “Luciana. Suppose you are right. Suppose this figure had some malign intent. Who are his paymasters? If he has indeed pursued us from Florence, then how is it that we are, and have been for some time, successfully playing the part of my cousin and his courtesan? If this person knows our true identities, why have we not been revealed to our hosts?”

I shrugged, sulky now. “All I know is, he scares the shit out of me. And if you’re so sure he’s no threat to us, why don’t you walk out of here right now and back to San Lorenzo, and make your courtesies? Perhaps you could shake him by his leprous hand.”

“I am not saying that he is no threat to us.”

My voice heated. “And who killed Enna, and Bembo, and Brother Remigio by the well, and even your uncle?”

He blanched. “I did not assert, as you know, that there was no foul play in these cases. I think, as I said at the time, that someone thought we had learned the secret of the painting and wished us out of the way.”

“So what do you think happened to those assassins?”

“That we lost them on the voyage to Naples. There was little chance that we could be followed across the high seas, for we did not even know where we were bound, and even if someone had followed us aboard ship, the flagship went down with all hands.”

“The rest of the fleet got there well enough, though.” I made a sweeping gesture at the multitude of ships anchored before us.

He turned to me, his blue eyes troubled as a stormy sky. “Very well. Supposing I accept your assertion that to