“Then in what fashion?”
“You,” he said. “A permanent liaison that will discourage Lady Caterina’s hopes and free Lion from the responsibility of Mandara. That’s why you had to come here, Sanchia. Lion has been very careful not to bring any women to Mandara for fear it would shame Bianca. Lady Caterina must come to recognize that your presence here indicates a shifting in the balance of the situation.”
“It means nothing.” Sanchia gazed at him, stunned. “You’re using me as a pawn.”
“Yes,” he said calmly. “But you’ll be a beautifully cared for pawn and, if you give Lion a child, you’ll never again want for anything.”
“A child?”
“Had you not thought of that? There’s a possibility you might be with child.”
“No, I couldn’t—” She had not yet had her flux but surely it was not yet her time. So much had happened it was difficult to remember.
“If you’re not with child, I’m sure that happy circumstance will occur shortly.” Lorenzo added, “And the child would belong to Lion just as you do, Sanchia.”
“No! The child of a slave is free.”
“Perhaps in Florence, but in almost every other city-state the child would also belong to the mother’s master.” He paused. “Unless you could convince him to free the child. I don’t think you could bear to leave your babe and run away to this dream of freedom you’re nurturing. Judging by the way you acquired your band of little friends in Florence, I believe you to have an extremely affectionate and maternal nature.”
No, she’d never be able to leave her child, and how could she care for an infant by herself as a runaway slave? What if she became hurt or ill? She had seen the fate of children abandoned to the streets. She could feel the panic rising within her. “There is no child. There will never be a child.” She blinked away the tears stinging behind her eyes. “I’m going away and—”
“I’d wait to determine that. It might be too late even now.”
“You’re very cruel,” she whispered.
“No.” For an instant his eyes held a distant sympathy. “We can’t all have what we want. We have to choose. I choose Lion.”
She drew a deep breath. “Well, I do not.”
He smiled. “We shall see.” He turned to go. “I’ll leave you now. I’m sure you’ll need time to get over the resentment you’re feeling toward me and think about what I’ve said. I’ll return tomorrow to make sure all is well with you.” He opened the door. “Good day, Sanchia.”
Sanchia gazed blankly at the door that had just shut and then turned and moved slowly, heavily toward the salon. A child? Why had she never considered a child? If she carried his child, Lion would never give up searching for her to claim it. Surely God wouldn’t be so cruel as to give her a child. She had only to be patient and Lorenzo’s words would prove false.
She had only to wait and be patient.
As Lorenzo had predicted, Lady Caterina called on Sanchia late that afternoon and was ushered into the salon by an excited and awed Rosa.
Sanchia stood up, bracing herself as she closed the book Lorenzo had given her. She smiled determinedly. “You honor me, my lady.”
“Yes, I do.” Caterina Andreas gazed critically around the room, evaluating the tapestry-cushioned bench and matching hassock, the deeply recessed leaded-glass windows, the polished oak cabinet. Her gaze lingered longest on the huge amethyst on the lid of the silver pitcher on the richly carved Venetian table. “This is furnished quite pleasantly. You must be very content here.” She turned back to Sanchia. “Nevertheless, you must leave. I won’t have you at Mandara.”
Sanchia had been prepared for a dismissal but still found herself startled at the bluntness of the statement. “I have no intention of remaining here,” she replied with equal candor. “As soon as I’m permitted to leave, I will do so. You’ve forgotten I’m not free to make that choice.”
Caterina’s gaze narrowed on her face. “Yet you said you considered yourself free even though my son does not.”
“I do.” She swallowed to ease the sudden tightness of her throat. “But there are certain considerations that may interfere with my attempting to leave at once.”
“What considerations?” Caterina asked fiercely. “You like living in this fine house and having Lion pamper you with gowns and jewels? Well, it won’t do. I won’t permit—”
“No,” Sanchia cut through the tirade. “I want nothing.” She drew a deep breath. “That’s not true. I’d be foolish not to want all of those things. Of course I want them. But not enough to—” She broke off and then said, “You don’t have to worry about my staying here, Lady Caterina. Give me a little time and I promise you I’ll leave Mandara.”
“And what if I don’t give you time?”
“Then I’ll take it anyway.”
A look of surprise crossed Lion’s mother’s face followed by grudging respect. “You’re very bold for a slave.”
“I’m not bold at all, but I am determined.” Sanchia smiled sadly. “A slave isn’t permitted the former and would not survive without the latter.”
“Indeed.” Caterina studied Sanchia. “The same could be said of a wife.”
“I have no experience with which to judge the truth of what you say.”
“I have.” Caterina whirled toward the door in a flurry of violet silk skirts. “I’m not satisfied, but I’ll obviously win no further agreement from you, and I’m not fool enough to waste my breath. I’ll hold my peace for a time while you ponder your ‘considerations.’ “ She shot a level look at Sanchia over her shoulder. “But if you’re not gone by the end of the fortnight, you may expect me to take action. Be warned.”
She didn’t wait for a reply or issue a farewell but swept majestically from the room.
Sanchia sighed in relief. She felt as if she had been pummeled. It hadn’t been easy to face Lion’s noble mother as an equal when she was accustomed to behaving with a show of servility even to shopkeepers. This new life into which she had been tossed had a bewildering number of threats and challenges with which she had to learn to contend, and today she had been confronted with too many of them.
She didn’t want to be thrust into the tortured relations of the Andreas family. She didn’t want to have to face intimidating women like Caterina while she was still so unsure of herself. She didn’t want to be Lorenzo’s pawn or Lady Caterina’s nemesis.
And dear lord, most of all, she didn’t want to be held captive to Lion Andreas by a child within her womb.
“I like her.” Caterina wrapped the quilt around her nakedness and slipped out of bed. She padded barefoot over to the table and poured wine into a goblet with one hand while she clutched the quilt to her breasts with the other. “She’s no fool.”
“She has strength.” Lorenzo sat up and leaned back against the carved mahogany headboard. “I thought you’d appreciate Sanchia.”
“It means nothing, of course. She still leaves Mandara.” Caterina lifted the goblet to her lips and smiled at him over the rim. “She told me she would leave as soon as possible.”
“Then I’m sure she’ll make the attempt. I’ve always found Sanchia to be truthful.”
Caterina’s smile faded. “She also said there were considerations to ponder. Which smacks of your interference.”
“Does it?”
She took another sip of wine and strolled back to him. “You’re a rogue, Lorenzo.” She handed him the goblet and sat down on the side of the bed. “If I were wise, I’d put hemlock in this cup instead of good Mandara wine.”
“You are wise.” Lorenzo sipped the wine. “Though hemlock is far too obvious a poison for me not to recognize. If you wish to murder me, you must be more subtle, Caterina. I am, after all, a master of the art.”
Caterina tried to hide her start of surprise. In all the years she had known him, Lorenzo had never once mentioned his former profession to her. She took the goblet from him, drank a little and returned it to him. “Poison?”
He shrugged. “At times. It’s cleaner than most methods and relatively safe. However, there are so many ignorant and bungling practitioners in Italy today that it’s no wonder most noblemen and men of means have tasters.”
“But you’re no bungler.”
He met her gaze with eyes as clear and cold as polished stone. “I’m the angel of death himself, my dear Caterina. I am superb.”
She drew the blanket more closely around her to shut out the sudden chill. “You’re no longer an assassin. You haven’t been one for a long time.”
“You’re wrong. We always remain what we are no matter how our circumstances change. If you lost everything, you would still be a great lady. If I became the pope, I’d still be an assassin.”
“Nonsense.”
His long slender fingers caressed the raised design on the silver goblet. “Truth. Why are you so belligerent? Does it bother you that you’ve taken a murderer to your bed? A reformed assassin is acceptable, but a—”
“Why are we talking about this?” she interrupted abruptly. “What you were before you came to Mandara makes no difference to me. It’s what you do in this bed that’s important.”
“What I am makes a difference to many women. It fills some with horror.” He smiled. “And it fills others with lust. It’s not every woman who’s permitted to fornicate with the angel of death and live to boast of it. When you first came to my bed, I thought perhaps you might be one of those women. I admit I was disappointed, for I had great admiration for your strength and courage.”
“Then why did you accept me?”
“I’m only a man and you are very beautiful.”
“I’m not beautiful. My face is as long as a horse’s and I’m as tall as a man.”
“If strength and courage have beauty then there’s no one more beautiful on this earth than you, Caterina.”
She felt uncomfortable with his sudden gravity. “And I was not driven to you by some vile fascination. I came to you because you’re clever and amuse me, and I lusted after you. No other reasons.”
“One other reason.”
She frowned in puzzlement. “What is that?”
“I offered no threat to you or to Mandara either through marriage or a wagging tongue. You were and are safe with me.”
“Yes.” She bent suddenly and put her lips to his forehead. “I do feel safe with you, Lorenzo. Safer than I have ever felt with any man. I wonder why?”
“No more than I wonder. The knowledge that you trust me fills me with incredulity. No one has felt safe with me since I was a young boy.”
“Move over. I’m cold.” She took the goblet from him and set it on the floor. “I’m coming back to bed.”
She curled up spoon fashion with her back to him, her gaze on the embers glowing in the fireplace across the room. “How young a boy?”
“When I became the angel of death? Eleven. Though I didn’t really reach that exalted status without years of practice in my trade. I was quite clumsy at first.”
“I don’t want to know about your rise in your ‘profession,’ ” she said impatiently. “I want to know why.”
“Greed.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s the truth. Oh, perhaps not the first one.”
“Who was the the first one?”
“Vito Martinado. But don’t ask me the name of the last man I killed. I don’t remember.”
“Who was this Vito Martinado?”
“He was the captain of a merchant ship, a very unpleasant man. He had a fondness for young boys and he picked me up on the dock and took me to his room at the inn and used me for a week or so.”
“Used you?”
“It wasn’t the first time I had been so used. When you’re alone on the streets of Naples, you expect to become prey. If you’re lucky they feed and clothe you for a while before they find a new child with which to toy.”
The matter-of-factness of his tone touched Caterina far more than any outburst of emotion would have. She felt a painful tightness in her throat.
“But the good captain had the same tastes as Damari. He liked to hurt me.”
“Couldn’t you run away?”
“He kept me locked in the room when he wasn’t at the inn. He must have realized what a unique treasure I was.” His hand moved to her throat and began to stroke gently. “You have a magnificent throat. Long and graceful—”
“And you had to kill him to get away?”
“He was hired to captain a galleon going to Bombay and decided to take me with him on the voyage, a decision with which I wasn’t in agreement for obvious reasons. I objected. We struggled. I grabbed his knife and stabbed him in the heart.” He kissed her behind the ear. “Your hair smells of flowers.”
“I washed it today. You weren’t punished for it?”
“In Naples? Murder is more common than not on the streets of that illustrious city.” He sniffed again. “Lavender?”
“Yes.” She swallowed hard. “What did you do then?”
“I had a most unfortunate aversion to being touched with intimacy for quite some time after that, and I had to eat. I decided since I’d committed a mortal sin and was damned to hell anyway I might as well reap the benefits of the trade. Murder was as profitable as it was common and I had great confidence in myself even then. I knew when I’d mastered my trade, no one would practice it with equal intelligence and ingenuity.” His fingers moved up the long line of her jaw. “Lavender is delightful, but I think one of the scents from Arabia would suit you even better. They have something of the exotic about them, a maturity that—” He broke off and was silent a moment. “Tears?”
“The chimney must not be drawing well. The smoke …”
His fingertips brushed her cheek with a motion that was almost but not quite a caress. “Yes, that must be it. Smoke. For you’re far too sensible to weep for a rogue like me.”
“Far too sensible.”
“And you’re far too hardened to feel sympathy for the boy who died in that inn over thirty years ago.”
“Far too hardened.” She was silent a moment. “Did he die, Lorenzo?”
“Yes, there are some experiences that destroy what we are. Ask Sanchia. She went through that fire at Solinari, but she was born again. I was not. I was too earthbound to rise like the phoenix from the flames. The fire raged through and devoured me and left me empty. And each year that passed I grew more and more hollow until now I sometimes wonder why anyone who looks at me can’t see through me as if I were clear water.”
Two fingers gently touched her damp lash. “And you’ve suffered too much not to realize that though we must take what pleasure we can to alleviate the emptiness, we can never really fill it.”
Was it a warning or a plea for understanding? She doubted if he would admit to either, and she didn’t know if she would dare to answer if he did. “Yes, of course, I know that.” Another tear brimmed and then slowly rolled down her cheek. “As I said, it’s only the smoke …”
Thirteen
Lion returned to Mandara seven days later.
Sanchia was sitting on the balcony enjoying the afternoon sun when she saw Tabron picking his way down the twisting street toward her house. Her gaze rose from horse to master, and she felt a surge of emotion so strong she was dizzy with it. It couldn’t be joy. Please God, it mustn’t be joy. It had to be relief that Lion had suffered no harm from Caprino.
Lion raised his head and saw her. He reined in Tabron, his expression unreadable as he gazed at her for a long moment. “I’ve brought you a present.” He jerked his head at someone riding behind him. “Though God knows why you would want him. He has the obstinacy of the mule he rides. He would scarcely let me stop to eat or rest in his eagerness to get to you.”
Her gaze flew to the small figure mounted on the mule Lion was leading. “Piero?” she whispered in disbelief. “Piero!” She jumped to her feet and ran toward the doors of the balcony, down the steps and out the front door. By the time she r
eached the gate Piero was squirming on the small mule’s back, obviously trying to figure out how to dismount.
“Hold,” Lion said as he slid to the ground. “I didn’t bring you all this way to have you crack your stubborn head open on the flagstones.” He reached up, plucked Piero from the saddle and set him down. “What good is a present if it’s broken?”
Piero hurled himself into Sanchia’s arms and held on with all his might. “Sanchia, I want to stay.” He added with the fierce tenaciousness she knew so well, “I’m going to stay.”
“I told you he was stubborn. He’ll probably cling to you like a barnacle.” Lion smiled faintly as he stood gazing at the two of them. “Just as he clung to that mule all the way from Florence.”
“Piero …” Tears were running down Sanchia’s cheeks as her palm caressed the little boy’s fair hair. She hugged Piero’s small, sturdy body closer as she looked over his head at Lion. “Why?”
“You care for him. Is that not reason enough?”
She started to speak, but he went on quickly. “Elizabet is now wed and seems content. Your Bartolomeo is fired with the desire to become the best printer in all of Florence and the signor appears well pleased with him.”
“You went to see them?” she asked, surprise coloring her voice.
He scowled. “I knew you would want word of them. And after I finished my business I had time to spare to inquire.”
“Caprino?”
“Lorenzo told you?” Lion shrugged. “He will no longer trouble you. As I said, the business is finished.”
He meant that Caprino was dead. After years of fear Caprino’s threat to her was now ended. Strangely, the knowledge brought no feeling of relief only an enormous weariness.