TWELVE

 

 

It was summer, but Her Grace the Magnificent, the Prima Elect, the Most Potent and Just Principessa Elena di Monteverde, couldn’t tell it from inside the council room of the citadel.

Within the huge chamber, it was still as cold as winter. Candles and torches barely lit the high ceiling blackened by decades of smoke. While one of her grandfather’s elderly councilors held forth with relish, she sat dressed in miniver and damask, her scepter laid at the head of the table. 

The life of the Prima di Monteverde was a life of harassment, of meetings and writs and petitions and mercantile matters, judgments and decisions, careful arguments and piles and piles of scrolls. She had no time to think of else, except at night in the moment she lay down to sleep, when she thought of Allegreto.

He was incarcerated within sight of the citadel. If she’d walked out on the parapets, she could have seen across the city and the lake to the two castles that rose from the promontories and guarded Monteverde’s harbor. Franco Pietro resided in one, and Allegreto in the other.

He haunted her today. The subject of this meeting was her marriage, and her councilors were fervent on the topic.

The discussion had been intense and brutally blunt, day-long, the favored and disfavored alliances flying back and forth across the table like frantic birds unable to find a roost. The cherished possibility of one faction was deemed to favor the anti-pope; another too ambitious for his own power to be allowed a role in Monteverde’s fragile new Republic. Elena sat and listened to endless names and disputes about princes and dukes from places as far away as Denmark and Spain.

But I don’t want a prince, she thought with a sad inward smile. Lost to her, the girl who had once said those words to her godmother. She’d had a letter from Lady Melanthe, of fierce support in what Elena had done. Lady Beatrice had returned to England safely—a miracle itself—with news of Elena’s abduction. But no one had conceived that she would fly from Navona and establish herself alone at the head of Monteverde. Ligurio would be proud, Ellie. I am proud. Lancaster is confounded. Be careful. Overlook nothing. Trust no one.

Her godmother promised to come in the next spring and spend the summer. Elena longed for it.

But it wasn’t in her character to trust no one. She trusted Philip. She trusted Dario. She trusted a great many things and people, because she had no choice. The houses of Riata and Navona were barred from the citadel, but no one else was.

It was trust and not suspicion that Monteverde needed now to heal. It was faith that she restored possessions to their former balance, that she showed no favor to either side. It was a thin thread, liable to be broken by any whisper of treachery. She lived in daily fear of word of some murder or escape from the castles.

But there had been none. For his son, or for realizing the popular support of Elena’s cause, or because she kept the French condottiere at hand, Franco Pietro yielded up his Navona holdings without direct opposition. But he wouldn’t sign any agreement to cease the blood vendetta until Allegreto did. And Allegreto would not sign.

Elena watched the old councilor in his fur cap and dragging robes. He was looking toward her expectantly. They all were turning toward her, two long rows of faces, bearded and smooth, elderly and middle-aged and a few near as young as she.

Elena was hungry. She was tired. And she felt utterly alone.

She put her hand upon the scepter. The old councilor nodded around the table and sat down with a flourish of his fur-trimmed sleeve, as if he felt none could dispute his point that Monteverde was in dire need of an heir and the custody of a strong man at the earliest possible moment.

Elena stood up. She laid aside the list of names that her secretary handed to her. "I don’t intend to wed at present," she said quietly.

An astonished silence met her words.

Before they could burst into protest, she lifted her open hand. "Monteverde doesn’t need an heir. We’re a republic again, and will choose our leader by the laws we have adopted, as set forth by Prince Ligurio."

The old councilor made forceful motions, requesting to speak. Elena nodded, but she remained standing.

"Your Grace, it’s true what you say, it is true. I misspoke myself, to speak of an heir to rule, though it would be great happiness to all to see the house of Ligurio again bear fruit. And doubtless your prudence and modesty prevented you from considering a marriage before we received the annulments from Rome. But the Holy Father has given us surety now; there’s no question of any betrothal between you and Franco Pietro of the Riata, or your—" He paused, with a slight gesture of distaste. "Your abductor," he said finally. "But Milan takes notice, that Your Grace remains unwed. They see that we have no man to order our defense."

"We have Philip Welles," she said, glancing down to the gray-haired soldier at her right hand. "He is experienced and loyal. He’s dealt well with the condottiere, has he not?"

She allowed them to sputter their objections. Philip was old, he was English, he was a bandit. She stared them down.

"Can you find fault with his ordering of our defense against Milan?" she asked.

They could not. She knew they couldn’t, for they’d approved it themselves in the last meeting.

"We’d be fortunate to find some prince or duke with as much understanding of matters of defense and guile," she said. "We’re repairing what was razed by the Riata—all of the Navona strongholds are impregnable again. For that, we hold the southern lake with greater strength than before. We’ve expelled the traitor Jan Zoufal and thwarted his intention to devalue the trust in Monteverde’s coin. I’m in negotiation with Venice for a fresh treaty of alliance. If there’s more that we should arrange in our own defense, put it before me for discussion."

The faces down the table looked unconvinced. There were low mutters. Another councilor asked to speak, and Elena nodded.

The man rose. He was one of the younger ones, heavy-browed under his fur hat. His name had been put forward as a possible husband for her. "Your Grace, what of your prisoners of Riata and Navona?" His voice had a heated edge.

"What of them?" she asked.

"Navona has already attempted to force himself upon you once, Your Grace," he said angrily. "Forgive me, but it would be disaster if it happened again, or some Riata malice found you. We’d be plunged into chaos, as it was in the years after your grandfather’s death. A strong husband at your side will prevent such." He turned to her. "And as long as you remain unwed, there are those who will scheme for a union between you and Franco Pietro or Gian Navona’s cursed bastard. It cannot be suffered!"

A loud chorus of agreement echoed in the chamber. Someone called for a vote of primacy, and instantly there were seconds from half the council.

Elena couldn’t stop it. It was part of her grandfather’s law, that eleven council members could call for a vote to override her decision, and force her to submit to it. While she stood and watched, they made a state resolution to bar the Prima of Monteverde from marriage to a man of Riata or Navona blood, on pain of death or exile for him. They further resolved to seek a husband for her without delay, the final decision to be made within a fortnight.

If Philip hadn’t looked up at her, his plain, hard-tanned face concerned, she would have borne it better. But his fatherly glance knew her heart; knew where her secret lay in the castle beyond the lake.

She felt her lip begin to tremble as the votes added up. The cloak of power and control began to slide away. She felt again like the girl who had sat on a stool before Lancaster, young and overwhelmed.

The voices died down. The resolution passed. She stood before them.

"You cannot force me to marry," she said, her voice shaking. "Not even with this. I will not consent."

The young councilman sprang to his feet without waiting for her recognition. "This is imprudence beyond bearing! What if you’re murdered?" he said loudly, all courtesy and formal practice forgotten. "What if you sicken and die?" He flung out his arm. "Do you want us to fall again to Riata? Or to fight among ourselves until Milan drags away the spoils?"

She narrowed her eyes. "It would only be what you did before I came," she said.

They shook their heads, disputing stridently. The eight months of her rule had been peaceful, even if it was like the peace before a storm. The people were pleased with her. The houses of Riata and Navona stayed their hands. But that wasn’t enough now.

"If God sends that I don’t survive, it’s your task to continue what Prince Ligurio tried to do," she said, banging the scepter on the table as she raised her voice. As they turned back to her, quieting, she lifted the heavy jewel-encrusted staff, trying to hold it steady, to prevent her voice from breaking. "Choose what man you like for me, but know that I’ll never consent to wed him. This meeting of the council is dismissed."

She turned, walking away amid renewed angry murmurs, with the scepter clutched in both hands and Philip and Dario at her side. A guard leaped to open the door for her that led into the privy chamber. As the heavy door closed behind them, she made it as far as the grand desk where Prince Ligurio had signed his decrees in state. The scepter fell from her fingers, making a mark in the wood as it struck.

She went to the window that overlooked the city. The watery green glass was open, letting a warm rosemary-scented breath of summer into the chill room. From here she could look down on the city, the bannered towers, the river that wound to the lake. She could see the cliffs that plunged into the water, with the two fortresses mounted high on them—as high as the citadel stood above Monteverde, on a level with her gaze.

The old bandit came behind her and set his hand on her shoulder, as if he were giving courage to one of his men. He wore fine studded mail now under a green tunic, his broad chest embroidered with the silver insignia of captain of the guard. But he was still Philip Welles of the forest and the camp, smelling faintly of wood-smoke and dirt. "Bless and keep you, Princess," he said brusquely. "It’s a hard fate for you, I know."

She pressed her hands together, rubbing the place where the ring had been. She felt it like a ghost, like Allegreto’s presence. "Sometimes I think he comes here," she whispered. "Sometimes I can feel him near, at night."

"I don’t believe it, Your Grace," Dario said. "He couldn’t enter here even to reach Franco. The citadel has no secret ways."

She gazed at the fortress across the lake. She only wished that he came, knowing he could not. Knowing that it was she herself who kept him bound there.

She looked back at Philip and Dario. "I cannot wed another," she said fiercely. "Not while he lives. Let them pass what laws they choose."

Philip shrugged. "As you will, Princess."

"We’ll keep and protect you, Your Grace," Dario said. His bullish face was set in stubbornness, his dark eyes serious. "You need no husband for that."

"Aye," Philip said simply.

They stood before her, solid and steadfast. Her mouth quivered. Philip gave her shoulder a rough squeeze. With a sudden sob, she turned into his deep embrace, weeping as he held her close and rocked her like a child lost.

 

* * *

 

On the morning after the council meeting, Elena had arranged for the first interview between Matteo and his father. It wasn’t going well. The boy refused to speak, standing with his back pressed to the door and his arms crossed while Nim and the mastiff sniffed and played about Ligurio’s desk in the privy chamber.

Elena contained exasperation. She’d already suffered through a furious dispute with Dario over whether there should be a guard present. He’d produced five new men to add to her protection, and insisted that all of them were to squeeze into the chamber with Elena and Franco and the boy.

She wouldn’t allow it. Even Dario was too much—he and Matteo were bosom friends, and the boy’s loyalties burned yet too fierce to have such competition present in clear suspicion of his father’s intentions. After they’d brought Franco Pietro from a search to his bare skin for any weapon or threat, she closed the door in Dario’s face, leaving him near to tears of rage and frustration. He opened it every few minutes and insisted on checking inside, which did not aid the matter.

Franco was little help, either. He had limped into the chamber and stood in a state of gloomy silence, leaning against the wall opposite Matteo and looking like some fiend from a prayer book with his scar and eye-patch and scowl. He also had his arms crossed, a mirror image of his son’s mute denial.

Only the dogs were friendly. Nimue had grown to her full size, as tall as the table now, still a bandit at heart but disguising it in the elegance of a downy white princess, her soft-lashed eyes full of nobility and joy. The huge mastiff was instantly smitten, fawning over her and rolling onto his back in majestic submission, full of canine hopes of a high alliance.

"Let’s play a game," Elena said, after exhausting the subjects of Matteo’s tutors and how he had grown. Both of the Riata males looked at her without enthusiasm.

"Indeed, Princess," Franco said after a moment, standing straight and making a courteous bow. "What game do you propose?"

"What of morra?" she asked.

Franco nodded. He lifted his torn lip in something that resembled a smile. "If it would please you, Princess."

"Morra is for babies," Matteo said with vast disdain.

"No, it’s a fine game for anyone. I’ll play with your father, if you don’t like to join in," Elena said, rising from the desk. She stood before Franco Pietro and held out her hand.

They played five rounds, very awkwardly. Elena won by three. She didn’t look around at Matteo, but from the corner of her eye she could tell that he watched them, petting his father’s mastiff while Nim sprawled panting at his feet.

"We should play for stakes, Princess," Franco said. "That’s what adds the relish."

Elena considered, tilting her head. "That is a fine gold button on your sleeve."

He nodded. "It’s yours, if you win in five rounds."

"And what do you play for, my lord?"

"Another visit with my son."

"Done," she said, holding out her hand.

Their rounds went smoother this time. Franco Pietro won. Matteo drifted closer

"But I haven’t won my button yet," she said. "You’re too clever an opponent for me, sir."

"I’m better than him," Matteo said, stepping forward with a proud, stiff move. "I can win the button for you, my lady."

"Excellent. I have a champion." Elena drew back and seated herself in Ligurio’s high-backed chair.

Matteo’s cheeks were burning as he stared down at his father’s hand in a boy’s ardent concentration. They played five rounds. Matteo lost.

"Curse you, Riata!" Matteo said, flinging himself away. "I hate you."

"Matteo," Elena said sharply. "You will not speak ill to your father."

The boy glared. But Elena had spent many months in gentle chatter, building a slender bridge to the heart of this high-strung child of hatred. Nim had helped, with her sweet tumbles and happy loyalty, gradually wearing away his desperate displays of what skills he had at deceit and murder. He no longer tried to show Elena how he could have killed both of the guards outside their door with a single thrust of the dagger she did not allow him to carry. He didn’t question Dario so often on what manner of poison would be best to slay his enemies. He even laughed sometimes.

She’d sent for the rest of Il Corvo’s island household and placed them with the monks and nuns of a double monastery within view of the citadel, advising the abbot that they would be wise to blunt their table knives. But she took Matteo as her own charge, slept with him and ate with him and spoke of her grandfather’s ideas. At night she knelt beside the bed with him and said a part of her own prayers aloud, including Franco’s name and Allegreto’s in the same blessing, along with Dario and Philip and Margaret and the others that he loved.

"I’m sorry, my lady," Matteo said sullenly. He spoke to Elena, not his father, but she let it pass.

"Another round?" Franco said to him.

Matteo gave him a seething glance. He’d only a week ago added his father’s name to his prayers. That was when Elena had sent to Franco, allowing him to leave his detention for a day and come to the citadel under a heavy guard.

The boy gave a contemptuous nod, as regal as any prince. Then he looked down and played the finger game as if ten thousand men were in fatal combat at his command.

He lost.

Elena could have hoped Franco Pietro would skew the odds a little, but morra wasn’t a game that was easily thrown without being obvious. Matteo stepped back, his cheeks spotted with red. "I can’t win!" he cried. "I never do anything right!"

He turned his back, marching for the door. Franco moved suddenly, his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Matteo stopped, shivering. Tears glittered in his eyes. 

"It doesn’t matter," Franco said.

Matteo shrugged his hand off. He stood and dashed at his eyes. "It matters! I’m not good at anything! No one will want me. I can’t even win a stupid game for babies! I try and try. And I can’t."

"It does not matter," Franco said. "You are my son."

Matteo drew a sobbing breath. His body stilled.

"My heart died when he stole you from me," Franco said roughly. "And then he made you hate me." He drew a breath between his teeth, as if he would say more, but stopped. He looked toward Elena. "You have no reason to trust me, Princess, and yet you have. It has been a revelation to me."

She lifted her face. He leaned on the table, still favoring his leg. She might have had him for a husband, a strange and difficult thought. "I’ve been fortunate, I know," she said. "By God’s grace, I thank you that you’ve not—done what you might have done."

He gave his twisted smile. "I thought you plain mad," he said. "I do yet. But you hold Navona in check, it seems. I didn’t think it possible. You’ve kept your pledges to be impartial thus far."

"I’m trying. If you have any complaint, then tell me, and do not brood on it."

"Oh, I’ve brooded. I don’t care to be penned up by a mere maid. But my son would have killed me, and you stopped him by your own hand." Franco turned as Matteo made a faint sound. "You think you can’t do anything," he said harshly to the boy, "but you’d have had a blade through my throat if the princess hadn’t saved us both. You have courage, Matteo, and that does matter. Listen to her, and learn how to use it better."

He took one limping stride to the door and gave it a hard blow. Dario opened it instantly, his sword on guard. The other men surrounded Franco, swiftly penning him between his jailers. The mastiff growled, but Franco silenced it with a word. The dog trailed close as the Riata was escorted out.

Matteo held Nim’s collar, watching until the door closed behind them. Elena let go of a muffled breath and sat down again at her grandfather’s desk. She had a list of her afternoon audience; she opened it and pretended to read.

"Would you like to see him again?" she asked casually.

Matteo shrugged. "Nim likes his dog."

"Perhaps I’ll ask him to come back, and bring it."

Matteo made himself very interested in rubbing Nimue’s ears. "I’ll practice at morra. I can beat him, I think."

"Good," Elena said. "I have a vast desire for that button." She sighed and glanced down at the list before her. "Now I must put on my crown, and be courteous to a great number of very wearisome people. You may come if you like."

Matteo grinned suddenly, going on one knee with a flourish. "My lady, I beg your indulgence. I’d rather take Nim to the tilt yard."

"Desert me in my hour of need, then," she said, waving him out. "Tell Dario where you’ll be."

He promised it and left, calling Nim after him. As the door swung closed under the hand of the standing guard, Elena looked down at the parchment. The Venetian ambassador, again. The representative of Milan, who would speak to her as if she were a three-year-old child who would not behave. A sainted envoy from the prince-bishop of Trento. And an emissary from His Grace the Duke of Lancaster, Sir Raymond de Clare.

 

* * *

 

"Little cat!" Raymond murmured in English, kissing her hand as he knelt before her. "What have you done here?"

"Don’t say such things," she said below her breath. She pulled away, walking to the window of the privy chamber. In the public audience they had exchanged nothing but exquisitely courteous formalities and the Duke’s letter, and even here Dario stood impassive by the door, a wooden guard on such virtue as she had left. "Rise," she said, speaking court French, turning from the view of Monteverde. "I’m pleased to see you, Raymond."

He came to his feet with a familiar chivalrous ease and a little sideways smile at her. "How I thank God for my fortune, Your Grace."

"I pray He grants you and your lady wife good health and gladness."

He lowered his eyes. "It grieves me to say that my wife returned her heavenly place, these five months since, may the Lord give her soul rest."

Elena was already discomposed, hardly knowing what to say to him. This news left her without speech entirely for a moment. He stood before her with his head slightly bowed, dressed fine in his black-and-red doublet and scarlet cloak, as if no day had passed since she had last seen him.

"God spare her," Elena said, making a slight recovery. "It is sad news."

He bowed his head further, and then looked up with an expression that said it was not sad news at all. "As my lord Lancaster knew me at liberty, and near enough to come with speed, he chose me to convey his greetings." He smiled openly then, the same playful grin. In English he said, "It was a boon to me!"

She found that he embarrassed her. She had loved him and hated him; all those rash and untamed feelings, with nothing left of them now. And yet it was a comfort to see him, to hear English words, to speak to someone who had no part in the hazards that surrounded her.

She found her lips turning upward and heat in her cheeks. "Raymond," she said, keeping to English, "truly it’s good to see you."

"Little cat." He didn’t move, but the timbre of his words was like a caress. "I never thought to have the joy again."

Elena flushed, afraid that Dario would hear the emotion even if he couldn’t understand the words. The youth watched Raymond from under his heavy eyelids, a slow blink that belied the speed with which Elena knew he could move. "You came from Bohemia, then?" she asked.

"As fast as my horse could carry me," he said. "I wasn’t sorry to leave it." In English he spoke openly. "You know I hated that alliance." He cast a glance at the great desk. "But you—you spurned your betrothal! And now rule in his place! Elayne, I’m in awe."

It was strange to hear her name in English. She gave a feeble laugh. "Oh, Raymond, I hardly believe it myself. It isn’t—what I intended."

"But even the duke congratulates you!"

"I’m sure he only wishes to know that his agreements on a dowry aren’t to be discarded," she said with a wry smile. "I hope he may not be too dissatisfied if they’re set aside."

"I’m here to speak to you on his behalf," Raymond said. He gave her an amused look. "I’m glad to hear you’re set against his desires. God send that it may take a long time to persuade you, and many meetings between us."

"Raymond," she said, feeling her cheeks grow warm again.

"I never forgot you for one moment," he said low. "Never for one moment."

"You flatter me. Don’t speak so." She was flustered in spite of herself.

"I know I can never have what I desire," he said, soft and fervent. "I gave up my hopes for that, though it tore my heart from my chest. But if you need a friend, let me offer all that I am to your service. How strange it is, that we come to this! I love you still, Elayne, I’ll say it though you despise me."

"No," she said, "I don’t despise you."

"But I speak too warmly," he said, lowering his head again. "I have no right."

She felt sad for him. He’d only done what any man would do, obeyed his liege, as she had obeyed the duty laid on her. The dream of a safe home and this handsome knight seemed so faint and mild that she could hardly recall what she had wanted so badly.

She wanted something else now, even more unreachable, as impossible to possess.

They had that in common, that they both wished for things that could not be. And he was familiar, and faithful, and apart from all the burdens of Monteverde.

"I’m in dire need of plain friendship," she said, holding out her hand. "I hope you won’t hasten to depart too soon."

 

* * *

 

Allegreto dropped her letter in the fire. He sat down before the great hearth, watching the wax melt in a sizzling red stream and drip to the stone while the parchment smoked and took flame. Her entreaties to him slowly vanished, marks of ink that blackened and curled and fell away to ash. "No reply," he said.

He heard Zafer go to the door and speak to the guard through the barred window. There were vivid moments when he thought to kill himself, most powerfully when she wrote to him of how willing Franco Pietro was to sign her accord if Allegreto would, and urging him to put his head on the Riata’s block for chopping.

He could find no way out. She had tethered and trapped him on all sides, and not with walls or guards. He couldn’t leave, he couldn’t remain, he saw no future. He could find no way to anywhere but Hell, by his own hand or by Franco’s.

He had a set of chambers furnished as fine as a silver merchant’s, with a featherbed and writing table, any books he desired from Ligurio’s library, a second room for alchemical work and visits from the steward appointed to Navona’s reinstated properties. Zafer shared his confinement, and Margaret seemed to have lodging somewhere in the castle; they both served him, faithfully performing credence as if he cared whether he drank poison pure from the cup.

With Zafer’s contrivance, he’d have been able to leave this finely furnished prison easily enough in a trail of blood. But he remained, watching the fortress across the narrows for Franco to make his attempt, watching the citadel, spreading a silent cordon of protection around her as he could.

His endeavor would have been more effective if Dario hadn’t managed to discern every attempt he’d made so far to infiltrate a man to the citadel. Allegreto received sharp chiding on the matter in his letters from Elena, as if it were a schoolboy’s trick. She seemed determined to be a martyr to this cause, exposing herself in peril to everyone but him.

Dario at least was there. Zafer was the best, but he was stained too deep with Allegreto’s taint to be suffered inside the citadel.

He opened the papal dispatch again, holding the smooth vellum between his fingers. The true Pope seemed to be going mad; Allegreto’s letters of supplication had chased him all the way to Naples, where the holy father appeared to have no business but to grab at some rich territory, leaving Rome in disarray. If Allegreto would bring armies from Monteverde in aid of this hallowed and bloody endeavor, God’s highest representative on earth would consider his humble petition to lift his excommunication.

Allegreto tore off the handful of holy seals and sent them with scornful flicks one by one into the fire. He laid his head back in the chair and thought of a girl with a bloodied sword in her hand and a dream of another way.

This is my answer, she had said.

It wasn’t stone walls that held him here. Not guards or blades or chains. It was her answer, that there was another way, and even if he could not touch her or see her again, he could at least stand in the shadows and shield her from his kind.

"My lord," Zafer said, placing a goblet with the embossing of a stag toward Allegreto—signal that he had some news. Allegreto took up the wine and rose, carrying it with him as he ducked out onto the tiny parapet walk that overlooked the lake.

Zafer stood in front of the low door. "Franco was invited to the citadel, under guard, to see his son and parley with her," the youth said softly. 

Allegreto set his wine down on the parapet.

The lake glimmered, blue and purple depths, the color of her eyes. She invited Franco. Winter and spring and summer, Allegreto had endured, his mind and body screaming for release from this velvet trap.

She invited Franco. Allowed him inside the citadel.

He hurled the goblet, watching red wine arch through the air as the cup turned and tumbled and fell. It receded to a mere glint against the stunning drop of the walls and the cliff, the huge surface of the lake. He lost sight of it.

"What else?" he said.

"Only the public audiences, my lord. And an envoy has arrived from the Duke of Lancaster. She spoke to him after in private."

"In private?"

"Dario was with them. The envoy is an Englishman, Raymond de Clare by name."

Allegreto stilled. He turned his look on Zafer.

There was a nearly imperceptible flaring of Zafer’s nostrils; a sudden wariness in his dark eyes. "My lord—he is an enemy?"

An enemy. The sanctified knight of her love poems. The gallant, charming, faultless Raymond. She saw him in private, that mud-stained offspring of an English pigsty.

Allegreto turned back to the lake. His knuckles grew white as he pressed his fingers into the rough stone parapet. He stood looking across to the citadel, containing the desire to cut his own throat and let himself fall, plunging downward like the cup spilling wine.

 

* * *

 

Elena made plans. It was courting jeopardy past reason or defense. On the night before the council meant to choose a husband for her, she left the citadel.

She had Franco’s words that he recognized her as impartial—thus far. But there were those of his house who chafed under his surprising restraint, hating their lowered status and Navona’s elevation. Her grandfather had warned of such things in his book. Elena was trying to follow Ligurio’s counsel, working to bring them into some bettered situation, raising this one to new offices, bestowing a windfall on another, trying to make certain no one of the houses worked directly together, or worse, over one another.

But if any rumor spread of her destination, all was at risk. And her life was always forfeit if she failed.

She took only Dario, though he was loathe to do it, his obedience bought by the threat of being removed entirely from his post at her bedchamber door. Through the rainy night he rowed her across the lake to the eastern headland. Thunder rumbled above the mountains. By the light of a shuttered lantern, they came to the postern door of the castle, set deep within the rock.

A guard met them there, one of Philip’s best men. Elena wore only a black shift with short sleeves, her hair wrapped up in one long cloth like a poor woman. But over that, she had a striped hood, the legal mark of a prostitute in Monteverde.

She kept her face lowered as they climbed the stairs and passed through the tiers of guards. Any murmur of interest from the other soldiers was quelled with a cuff, or a gruff mumble: "It’s permitted to him for a night."

By the time they reached the last heavily guarded door, Elena didn’t know if her heart was working so hard from the climb or for the moment when she would see him. The door opened. From her lowered gaze, Elena saw that someone moved into it, blocking the way.

"Out," Dario said briefly. "He won’t want your company."

She realized it was Zafer who stood in the door. He hesitated, and then obeyed. Dario gave her a hard little push. Elena walked through. She heard the lock and bolt made fast.

She stood a moment, her heart pounding in her ears. At midnight several candles still burned, but the main chamber was empty, furnished with excellent comfort as she had ordered, the table covered with parchment and books. A pot of fresh ink gleamed black beside a sheaf of new-cut quills.

A peculiar scent hung in the air over the fresh smell of rain, an intense reminder of his study on the island. She walked through an arched door. She saw no one, though the familiar blue light illuminated a table crowded with glass globes and vials and a mortar and pestle.

She was about to speak when her arm was seized and twisted up behind her. The spike of pain would have made her cry out but for the hand gripped over her mouth.  He held her trapped for an instant, driving sharp agony into her shoulder. Then he drew a deep breath at her throat and suddenly let her go.

Elena sagged with relief, turning. She rubbed her shoulder, looking up under the hood at Allegreto.

His face held no pleasure, no sign of any surprise or feeling at the sight of her. "I thought Franco might have sent a woman," he said without greeting.

He meant someone sent to murder him. It wasn’t how she had hoped to begin.

"I was afraid to send word ahead to you. That it might be discovered."

He observed her impassively. "Your disguise is well-chosen."

Elena lowered her chin, doubtful of how to take his meaning. He was as comely as she remembered—more so, with all traces of his bruises long vanished. He wore pure black silk trimmed with silver and pearls at his cuffs. His hair had grown long again, braided now behind his neck in infidel fashion.

Raymond was a handsome man of even features and a charming smile. Allegreto was simply Lucifer made real, the lord of light fallen down to perfect darkness in the flesh.

"What is it?" he asked. "Why have you come?"

Now that she was here, facing his cool reception, she was hardly certain. She’d wanted to assure him that she wouldn’t give in to the council and marry. She had thought he’d have heard of what was planned. She thought he would care.

In truth, she’d wanted to see him so badly that she had not let sense or reason stop her.

She walked to the table, pushing the damp prostitute’s hood from her head. "The council meets tomorrow, to choose a husband for me."

"I know it."

She looked sideways at him over the folds of the black-and-white hood. "What should I do?"

He gave a short laugh. "You pose it to me?"

She wet her lips, looking quickly down again. She hadn’t meant to ask, but to tell him. But now—he was so cold. He seemed to feel nothing of the tumult she had inside herself, the pain and thrill in her blood, the sensation of merely standing in the same chamber with him again.

"You’ve told me that we’re wed," she said to the stone and parchment.

"I lied," he said bluntly. "You are free. You have the Pope’s own word on it, I hear."

She turned and leaned back with her hands gripping the edge of the table. "In my heart, I’m not free."

He walked past her to the far side of the board. "You came to torture me, is that it? Monteverde bitch. I wonder that I haven’t killed all the women who ever bore the name."

She let go of the edge, watching him as he put his palms on the table and bent over an open book. The pearl-encrusted cuffs fell down over his hands.

"Do you think it does not torture me?" she asked.

With a slam he closed the book. He looked up at her. "Then why did you come?" he said fiercely.

"Why are you still here?" she asked. "I know that you could escape."

His hands opened wide across the leather binding, his fingers spread and white between the joints. "And go where? Do what? I’d have fought Riata, and won, but I won’t fight you."

"That’s all?"

He gave her such a look that she nearly stepped backward, though the table was between them.

"You take pleasure in this, don’t you?" he said softly.

She did take a step back then, when he came around the table toward her. He seemed to move with leisure, and yet he was before her suddenly, dauntingly, cornering her against the table.

"You take pleasure in binding me here, while you bid Franco to the citadel and play with your English knight." His black lashes were like smoke, lowered over his dark eyes in disdain. "I know you."

She shook her head. "Not in this!" she exclaimed. "I hate it." 

"Do you want to know how much it torments me? Do you want to see for yourself that I’ve a poison ready at my hand, for when I can bear this no longer?" 

"No!"

He stood back. "But that’s a distraction only, to give me comfort. I won’t die a suicide. No, I’m ten times worse a fool—I think I might claw my way into Heaven somehow, and be with you when our lives are ended, since there’s no way now on the earth."

She sank down on the stool, holding her arms and palms pressed together, rocking forward with her face in her hands. "Oh, God, if you would only make peace with Riata," she said. "Then you could be free. You could come into the citadel."

"And see you wed to another, with that English dog prancing in and out of your bed as you please. What mortal bliss. Leave me here to contemplate my poison vial, grant mercy."

She lifted her face. "I won’t wed. Never. I came to tell you so. I would take no one else to me."

Thunder rumbled. The candle flames swayed in a draft of air, but the blue lights burned steadily. The sound of an increasing downpour drifted from the far chamber with the cool scent of rain.

The grim set of his mouth softened a little. "You’ll not be able to hold to that. And you’re mad to trust Franco. You shouldn’t let him near you. I can’t give you any protection from him inside the citadel."

She let her hands slide apart. "What protection do you give me?"

"What I can. You haven’t made it easy."

She bowed her head. "Is there no way—no chance—that you could have faith in Franco’s intentions?" she asked humbly.

"Yes, when the Apocalypse comes to annihilate us all," he said.

She gave a slight miserable laugh.

He turned and walked to a shuttered window. He pulled it open. Outside the rain poured down, splashing and dripping, darkening the stone as he stared into the black night. "You wouldn’t take another to you?" he asked abruptly. "Not even your sainted Raymond?"

Elena stood up from the stool. "No. Or I would not have come here."

He shook his head slowly. The night air ruffled a lock of his hair that had come loose from the braid and fallen over his face. "I’m beyond a fool. Beyond it, to believe in this dream of Ligurio’s. To listen to what you say."

"You believe in it?"

"I do. Sometimes." He sounded distant. "But there’s no place in it for me, Elena. I was born for everything you want to bring to an end."

She squeezed her eyes closed. She wanted to deny it, and yet she could find no way. Already there had been loud murmurs in the council that Allegreto and Franco Pietro should be tried as traitors to Monteverde. It was clear enough what outcome was intended.

She turned back to the table. A Bible lay open to the Ten Commandments. On another parchment was a list of saints’ names with sums beside them, like the bankers’ ledgers in Venice.

A brief memory flitted through her mind, of the abbot’s pleasure in accepting a score of Allegreto’s unscrupulous orphans to his house. She’d thought the abbot was an exceptionally kind and virtuous man, to refuse her offers to pay for their maintenance. She ran her finger down the list and saw the name of the patron saint of the abbey, with a startlingly large amount listed beside it.

"I’m trying to buy my way in," Allegreto said as she touched the page of accounts. "If you know of any notably holy personages I might support, or a miracle I might sponsor, do inform me."

She smiled painfully. "I have only one miracle to desire of you."

"I’m flesh and blood. I have no miracles within me, Elena. You know it well."

She turned her face away. "I seem to have none, either. Sometimes I think it’s been a great mistake. That my grandfather was wrong. We’re weak. We’re still divided. I’m a maid—hardly yet twenty. Milan is only waiting for me to fail. Or not that long." She drew a shuddering breath. "The stories I’ve heard of the Visconti...God save, they’re beasts, not men. Sometimes I’m so afraid. And I wish you were there at my side."

The rain lightened to a steady mutter outside the window. She remained staring down at her finger on the parchment list.

"Now you torment me in truth," he said.

"And myself."

She felt him when he came to her. When he stood behind her silently.

"What do you want?" he asked softly.

She could hardly speak. "Oh—do not ask." It came out as a mere rush of breath, barely words. She knew why she had come here. Had known it all along.

She felt his hand touch the cloth wrapped about her head. It came free, drifting down to the floor as her hair fell around her shoulders. He moved near her, a heat and velvet touch all down her back and her hips. But no closer. He did not embrace her. Elena gazed at the woven mat on the wooden floor, feeling tears of anguish rising in her throat.

"I should go," she said in a broken voice, and didn’t move.

He pushed his hands into her hair and pressed his face to her throat. "Let me remember." He drew a hard breath beside her ear. "Let me remember first."

She let her head fall back. Oh, to remember...

She turned, lifting her face to him. He doubled her hair in his hands and pressed her cheeks between his fingers, kissing her, opening his mouth against hers. He leaned back on the table and pulled her to him fiercely.

The sound of the rain seemed to rise to a roar in her ears, merging with her heartbeat. She let herself rest on him, his body strong and alive and real against hers. So long it had been, she’d near lost faith that he’d ever been more than a dream, her dark angel, a vision she’d seen once between sleep and waking. 

He pushed her abruptly away. There was no need to say that she had set aside any truth or lie that they had wed, that to conceive a child now would be utter disaster. And yet she had come here to him, and she knew not how she could leave again.

A faint bitterness played at the corner of his mouth. "How you must enjoy to annihilate me."

She shook her head. "I can’t help myself. I cannot."

He cupped her face and kissed her again. "I can." His hands slid to her shoulders. "Though it slay me."

She whimpered, seeking his lips, pressing herself to his chest. Through her plain thin gown, through his silk, she could feel his phallus erect. With a lascivious move, she rolled herself against him, begging.

"Hell-cat," he muttered, tearing his mouth away. He pressed downward on her shoulders, pushing her to her knees before him. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her face against the hard shape of him under the silky cloth.

Elena slid her hands up his thighs. He wore no breech; above his black hose and laces, her fingers touched bare skin. She drew her hands together over his naked shaft.

With a deep sound he arched toward her. She kissed him through the black veil of silk, skimming her nails over his hot skin. He let go of her suddenly and gripped the edge of the table as she explored him, his body growing taut. She could hear him breathing between his teeth.

She opened her mouth over his rod, sucking through the silk. Her own body wanted him inside; she drew on him with that desire, as if she could take him to her very heart. She closed her fingers hard at the base of his shaft and felt the pain she caused travel up through him as he thrust into her mouth in response.

She tightened her hold and pulled and worked, tasting the wet cloth and another essence. She served him like a wanton, with no thought but to the way he trembled and plunged himself deep in her mouth. The silk pulled taut over the head of his rod with each shove.

She drove her fingernails into him. Low in his throat he made a sound of agony. His shaft pulsed in her hands. He cried out, arching back, an echo of the rain and wind as his body seized and shuddered. Elena opened wide her lips to take him as he burst and spilled into the silken sheath.

The exotic, earthy savor was only a trace through the cloth. She would have tasted deeper, but he pulled her up against him, thrusting his tongue in her mouth, holding her hard to his chest. When he finally broke away, she was lost for air or thought. She clung in his arms, wanting him still, consumed with folly and desire.

"Beloved," he said fiercely. Suddenly he caught her up and carried her, ducking through the doorway. He laid her on the bed, half upon it, dragging up her gown. The edge of the high bed arched her body to him like an open offering; he leaned over her and kissed the mounded curls between her legs, thrusting his fingers up inside her.

Elena gasped and twisted, lifting herself to his mouth. Where his tongue touched her, her body convulsed. She closed her legs and strained, panting under the stroke and press of his fingers. Sweet hot sensation unfurled, rising to an explosion. She clutched at his hair, pleading for it. When it came in a fury of pleasure, she sobbed for breath, squeezing tears from beneath her eyelids as the peak rolled through her.

She had no long hours to tangle in sleep beside him. Keys and the slide of a bolt awakened her from what seemed a moment’s drowse at his side. Allegreto was already on his feet when a loud voice gave warning of the appointed time. Dario sounded gruff and irritable, but Elena heard the note of anxiety beneath. An hour had passed in the space of a moment.

She rose hastily. The fact of imprisonment struck her with force as guards came through the door without consent. Allegreto turned her into his arms, pulling the black-and-white prostitute’s hood close around her face. He bent as if for a kiss, blocking her from the view of the guards. "Farewell," he said beneath his breath. "Farewell."

He let go of her without lingering. She couldn’t look up at him again for fear of revealing herself.

"For the girl." Allegreto tossed a gold coin to the nearest guard as he turned away. Elena kept her face lowered under the hood.

"Ah." The guard gave a snort and waved her toward the door. "She must have been good."

 

* * *

 

Elena barely held her head erect under her heavy crown as she dined at the high board between Raymond and the Milanese ambassador. The council meeting had been a monumental conflict of wills between herself and some twenty men with no small opinion of their own judgment. She’d clung to her refusal to wed, but the only thing that truly spared her was their inability to agree on a candidate. 

None had said so aloud yet, but some might think that if she wouldn’t marry at the council’s behest, perhaps her election should be overturned and a man put in her place. Or if she proved too stubborn even for that, she might be removed by a more uncomplicated and fatal stratagem.

Elena broke bread and tried to master her weariness far enough for courtesy. Dario kept a stony eye on the signor from Milan, but the plump representative of the Visconti seemed less inclined to poison Elena than to chide her incessantly. He reminded her of Cara, reproving Elena for her reluctance to agree to his political proposals and insisting that Monteverde and Milan had always been friends and staunch allies. 

This wasn’t what she’d read in her grandfather’s history.  She’d taken Philip’s advice and paid handsomely from the treasury for a secret added protection if Milan should prove a true enemy.

She hadn’t spoken to the council about it, for fear of spies, but hidden the sum in the expense of renovations to her chambers. The money went to another free company of soldiers who ranged in the mountains to the north and held the passes open for commerce. Elena remembered Hannibal, and thought it worthwhile to live with the same bed-hangings that had graced her chamber in Lady Melanthe’s day.

The ambassador launched into a discourse on the ultimate futility of republican institutions. Elena wasn’t overly pleased with the council herself at the moment, but his criticisms provoked her, as she knew they were meant to do. Before she could form a suitably polite and clever way to undercut him, she was astonished to hear Raymond speak loudly in French.

"No, my lord, have you read Prince Ligurio’s book on the subject?" he asked, leaning to look past her. "I’ve just finished it, and it’s worthy of consideration by kings."

Elena looked at him, half-expecting him to grin and wink as if he made a jest. Raymond was no proponent of civil rule that she ever knew. But his face was serious as he took up a sharp defense of her grandfather’s ideas, countering the ambassador’s objections with quotes from the Latin and even Greek.

Elena stared at him in amazement. She had to be courteous herself, but Raymond grew quite heated on the subject, saying that he’d spent the past fortnight in Monteverde in talking to people of all orders, taking note of how they loved their elected princess. They were pleased with the new laws and just administration. A fisherman could expect that he would receive treatment under the judges equal to that of any lordling.

The ambassador mumbled about the disintegration of order, but Raymond said stridently that any bloodthirsty tyrant could keep order by spreading fear. This was so near a direct insult to the merciless methods of the Visconti that Elena intervened before the ambassador’s color rose too high. She turned the talk to the upcoming days of country festivals once the grape harvest was gathered in.

"Your Grace," Raymond said suddenly, turning to her with a smile. "May I lay an idea before you? Let us have a celebration in Monteverde to mark the first year of your reign. It’s been near a year now, has it not?"

She blinked at the notion. It hardly seemed a thing to celebrate—it had been a year of strain and misery and loneliness in her mind. But Raymond gave her a warm look, leaning near. He raised his eyebrow toward the ambassador and lowered his voice, changing to English.

"It would be a sign to doubters that all is going well," he murmured. "Arrange some processions and feasting. People always love display." He offered her a sip of wine from his goblet. "Distribute largesse, release some prisoners." He shrugged, giving her a sideways glance. "Invent some cheer, Your Grace. Perhaps if I’m fortunate, it will make you smile again."