Part 10 (2/2)
”He values his honor. It is honorable to pay you for what is yours.”
Kate thought about that. ”But it isn't really mine. He knows I stole it, after all.”
”Oh, really?” The contessa must only be pretending to be calm at that revelation.
”I picked the pocket of a friend of Elyta Zaroff's.” There. The contessa knew exactly what she was now. She lifted her chin again. ”I'm quite good at it.”
”Well, then, if you won't believe it is his honor that demands payment, I'm afraid his motives will have to be a mystery, at least for a little while.” The contessa set down her cup. ”Now, you will also need clothes and an escort for your journey.”
”No, no, I don't want to be more trouble. I can take care of myself. And I already have several fine dresses your son... loaned me. If I could keep those... perhaps have them cleaned?”
”You'll deny me the pleasure of dressing you, child?” The contessa's overpowering presence almost demanded acquiescence.
And there was one thing Kate coveted.
She took a breath. ”There is something... If you can put me in the way to buy a mantilla... I mean... I would need an advance from the twenty thousand...”
”Nonsense. You may have one from my wardrobe. But are you certain it is necessary?”
Kate looked down at her hands. ”You see how necessary it is.” She raised her head and managed a laugh. ”I have already frightened your servants.”
”Oh, I think they are not so easily frightened as that.” The contessa rose and took Kate's arm confidingly. ”But let us see what I have in my closets.”
Chapter Nine.
The next afternoon, Kate decided she would see something of Florence before she left. The contessa had talked her into many things from her closet in spite of Kate's best intentions. Indeed the contessa had been very kind. She was now well provisioned for her journey. She wore a mantilla even now and was feeling much more comfortable. The contessa had sent round for the draft on her bankers-Montcerate-the oldest bank in Europe, and some ready cash for Kate's journey. Even the bank's name had a nice, secure feeling to it. The servants had taken away her clothing for laundry and brus.h.i.+ng. Now all that was left was to pack her trunk and arrange to hire a carriage on the morrow. One of the contessa's footmen trailed at her heels, insisting the mistress of the house would sack him if he let her go alone.
In truth, she was grateful for his direction. He took her to all the best works in the Uffizi, bequeathed fifty years ago by the last of the Medicis, Anna Maria Ludovica, to the public. They had walked out the back of the Uffizi over the Ponte Vecchio, lined with goldsmith's shops, to the marvelous Pitti Palace. In the monastery of San Marco, she gazed in fascinated horror at the preserved cell of Savonarola, the monk who led Florence at the head of a mob-rule theocracy and burned priceless paintings and irreplaceable illuminated books. Then it was back to the Duomo to climb the 463 spiraling steps to view the city from the top of the cathedral dome. It felt good to walk in the suns.h.i.+ne after so many hours in the dim carriage.
She turned back toward the Piazza della Signoria, determined to cross it on her way back to get the full effect of the palazzo's tall campanile. The footman, for some reason, had led her out a side door from the palazzo to the Uffizi earlier.
The afternoon was winding down. She was about to get everything she wanted.
Why did that feel so depressing?
And now her feet hurt. These half-boots were not as comfortable as she first supposed. She should have realized she was getting blisters and skipped the Duomo altogether. So she really did not want to hear the footman's imprecations about going round back of Palazzo Vecchio. Through the piazza was the quickest way home. Besides, it was getting dark.
She took off across the vast expanse of cobblestones at a hobble in the twilight, the footman trailing in her wake, protesting. She pa.s.sed Ammanati's Fountain of Neptune with barely a glance. On the far side an open-air market was just closing up for the day. Carriages crisscrossed the open s.p.a.ce with chaotic abandon. Over to the right was a huge crowd, mainly composed of women. They gathered around a nude figure of a man.
Kate gasped and froze.
”Come, miss,” the footman pleaded.
She had seen drawings of it, of course. But none did it justice. Michelangelo's David.
But it was more than that.
She started moving slowly toward it. Behind her, the footman sighed deeply. Her feet were not as important as they had been a moment ago.
Oh. my G.o.d.
It was Urbano! Of course she recognized the face. But she had also seen his naked body in a vision. And there was no question.
The vision burned upon her brain had more muscle in the shoulder and thigh. But it was he, down to every other detail.
Her eyes drank in the marble rendering. Buonarroti had got his likeness perfectly, even down to the expression that said he had seen the painful side of life, that his dreams had come true and turned out to be dust. But it was the wors.h.i.+p of his masculinity that struck one. Michelangelo had been enthralled by him too. No wonder the women cl.u.s.tered and whispered.
And no wonder no one wanted her to go out through the piazza. She turned on the footman. ”It's him.”
”Of... of course not, miss.” He gave a nervous laugh. ”How could it be?”
Kate turned back to the statue. And that was just the issue, wasn't it? ”You will say it is an ancestor.”
”But of course. The statue, it was carved long ago.”
”Fifteen hundred four, in fact.” But Kate, in her heart, knew that didn't mean it wasn't him. He said his condition gave him properties of healing. Was not age a wound of the most insidious kind? And his mother... Kate shook her head, half laughing, half wanting to cry. Pretending that her youthful appearance was an aberration brought about by good face cream... That heartsickness she saw in his eyes, echoed in the statue's expression-was it age? Had he seen everything and now could find no joy'? His mother still found joy. But perhaps she had not seen what he had.
Her thoughts careened around her head. He had explained away any supernatural elements about him through his disease. Could a disease make one live forever? He might not be eternal, but he had lived more than three hundred years and showed no trace of it. She believed her eyes, no matter any tales he might tell of ancestors who had posed for the David. He might not be supernatural, but he was certainly beyond her experience of natural.
In the twilight, she gazed up at the statue. She had imagined him looking just like this, in a stone prison, in chains, being tortured in a way she couldn't understand by the great, green stone that had come into her life shortly after he did.
She felt sandwiched between two unimaginable realities. Gian Urbano was, by any human standards, something beyond natural, regardless of his disease. And she was having visions about things she could not possibly know.
She pushed through the crowd, unseeing, as chaos trembled in the air around her.
”Gian, cara, you are up early. The sun isn't yet set.”
Gian didn't look up as his mother entered the dim room. He had not even been to bed today. He was still in s.h.i.+rtsleeves and trousers from last night. He ran a hand through his hair, knowing he looked haggard and disheveled. So much was eating at him: the things he had done in North Africa in the name of a cause, how to get the emerald back to Mirso, his strange pyrotechnic abilities. Everything was confusion. Then too Kate was leaving soon, and he could not get her out of his mind. For an instant he had considered telling her what he was, asking her to stay. One should never trust anything considered in the small hours of the afternoon. In the twilight, they were revealed as ridiculous.
”I've been thinking about whether I should escort her to England before I embark for Mirso with the stone.” He realized he hadn't used her name, but just referred to Kate as ”her.”
”Ahhhh.” His mother sat, her dressing gown of rust-colored silk shus.h.i.+ng softly around her. ”And you have been considering this all day at the cost of your rest?”
He shrugged. A crack of light around the shutters let in one bar of light.
”But of course you can't do that. You must go to Mirso. Is that why you look so bleak?”
He rose, filled again with the restless energy that had made him pace all day. ”No. I just don't see the point anymore, Mother. I mean, after I return the stone... it's done. The war is over. Mission completed. Then... what?”
”Find something that interests you and do it.”
He chuffed a half-laugh and paced to the door and back to the shuttered windows. ”What else is there? I've done it all. I built a s.h.i.+pping industry at Amalfi. I worked to establish the duchy here, I was a patron of the arts, but-”
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