The Master of Verona (66 page)

The room was a shambles, and not just from the brief fight. Quiet but determined, the two men had been tearing the room apart, looking for something. Someone.

Trembling, Morsicato reached the child's bed. He was unaware of holding his breath until the air hissed out of him. He glanced over at Bailardino. "Look at this."

"What is it?"

The bedding and mattress of straw were hacked to shreds. No blood. No flesh. No sign of the child.

"Where is he?!" The frantic question came from the door. In her robe, her long tresses released from their coil for the night, Katerina della Scala was a lovely sight. Until one noticed that her face was the colour of day-old ashes. At a run she crossed the room to gaze down upon the ruined bed. Silent tears formed at her eyes. Her hands twitched slightly. "Where is he?"

"This wasn't a kidnapping," her husband said, touching a loose feather floating in the air. "They mistook the pillow for him at first."

His wife had already come to the same conclusion. "Then he was hiding."

Morsicato looked around the room. "If that's true, they hadn't found him by the time I interrupted them. He must still be here."

Their adult eyes scanned the room in the same arc, left to right and back again. They saw no place for a child to hide that had not been ransacked.

"Where could he have gone?" asked Morsicato.

From above, there came a stifled giggle.

As one their eyes traveled up to the rafters. Setting his right foot on the ruined bed, Morsicato gripped the wooden struts of the crossbeam above. With an awkward hop, he pulled himself up. Bail's hands made a cup for the doctor to stand on, lifting the doctor until the forked beard jutted over the massive wooden brace.

Twinkling green eyes flecked with gold gazed back at him. "H'lo."

"Hello, Cesco," replied the doctor with a heartfelt sigh. He sent a look of triumph down to the others, then found himself being used as a ladder by the child. Stepping first on Morsicato's head, then his shoulders, the child dropped lightly onto the bed.

How he got up there they could never afterward discover. But clearly when he'd heard the scuffle outside the door, he'd climbed to a place of safety and waited in complete silence while the intruders searched for him. The timber was wider than his small body, entirely hiding him from view.

From the remains of his bed, two-year-old Cesco grinned up at his foster mother. But for the tear-streaks down his face, he might have been unaffected by the events of the night. "Here I am, m'donna."

She made no move to embrace him. All sign of emotion vanished in the blink of an eye. Her gaze was level, her voice calm. "I've been wondering where you hid when I looked for you. I shall remember to look where only monkeys, not men, may go." The child was momentarily downcast. Katerina held out a hand. "Come. Since you've made a mess of your room, you are being demoted. You shall spend tonight in the nursery."

Cesco's entire face lit up. The nursery was the room where his foster brother slept. The only time one could count on Cesco to be well behaved was when he was with Katerina's young son. Bailardetto. Which meant they were often kept together.

At the door Katerina turned to her husband. "I'll write to Francesco."

"I'm Cesco," said the boy.

"Hush." Katerina led him away, leaving Bail and Morsicato looking around the disorderly chamber.

The doctor said, "She realizes what this means?"

"Not much slips by her. I'd better go find where they hid the guards. I hope they're hurt, not dead."

Morsicato followed Bailardino out of the child's room. "They had accents. I don't know what kind — it wasn't familiar to me."

"Splendid. Now the enemy is hiring mercenaries."

But the doctor's mind had already moved on to imagine what Katerina's note to Cangrande would say.

He might have been surprised at the tone of the letter. She used a code known only to her father's children, of whom only two remained. After describing the evening's events, she added a coda that proved she'd come to the same conclusion as the doctor:

The stakes of your game have changed. This time they did not seem intent on taking Cesco. They appear bent on murdering him. The time for your precious secrets may be past. Next year he will be three, and you know what the astrologer's charts say. If you know who is threatening the Greyhound's future you must take whatever steps you deem necessary to stop them.

Arriving three days later, Cangrande's reply was characteristically brief:

I have no proof, and will make no accusations without proof. If you want to see the boy live, you'd best protect him better. Or else trust the stars. Isn't that what you always told me?

Reading this, Katerina balled up the note and threw it in the fire.

The May sun above reflected off the waters of the Rubico River. Pietro reached into his saddlebag and lifted out a hunk of cheese, made locally. Today was an idyll. The weather was glorious, the ride unhurried. Returning from a lecture in nearby Rimini, he pondered the topic: the need for good judges in this lawless world. "There's a real need," the professor had pronounced in the open-air theater, "for justice in the world today. And if the world needs knights to enforce laws, doesn't it also need judges and advocates to decide what those laws are, what they mean? Judges are more important than knights because, in the end, it's the judges who have to decide what justice is."

Riding along on Canis, Pietro now wondered,
Isn't the man who enforces the justice as important as the man who decides what justice is?

Pietro was coming to love the Law. Before going to university he could never have imagined loving a concept. Oh, he knew his father loved poetry. But now he understood. What poetry was to Dante, law was to his son.

It was a passion two years in the making. After the brief stay in Venice, where Ignazzio and Theodoro had picked up the scarecrow's trail, Pietro had gone to Bologna. It was supposed to be a pretense, Pietro feigning studious pursuits while waiting for news of their quarry. But weeks had turned into months, and for Pietro the end was lost in the means.

Growing up in Florence, Pietro had been trained in the basics of learning: grammar, logic, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric. But a hundred miles north of Florence, young men were striving daily to know more. Eschewing the common precepts of learning, they came to La Cittia Grossa, where the learning was as impure as the sausage invented here. Mortadella — bones, gristle and hooves, the deadest part of the pig, turned into a delicious meal. So the faculty explored the darker sides of life to find the unsavory but longed-for truths.

Bologna was second only to Paris as a repository for written knowledge. But unlike Paris, where the students ran around creating unchecked chaos, students at the Studium of Bologna made the rules and hired the faculty. Many of the students were already practicing doctors and lawyers. The motto here was
Bononia Docet —
Bologna Teaches.

Pietro had been greeted as a kind of celebrity — he was, after all, the son of the great Dante, famous not only for his poems but his essays and lectures, many of them having taken place right there in Bologna. Through Cangrande's subtle influence Pietro had started by taking classes in law, but soon he couldn't resist dabbling in other topics. He'd found himself thrust headlong into new ideas, scandalous thoughts having to do with the body as the root of truth, or Truth. The new art of opening up the dead for knowledge of anatomy and alchemy was as horrifying as it was enlightening. The latest argument in the new field of theology was that sex was the path to God. It was one the students had embraced.

Then, just after Calvatone, Pietro had received a coded letter from Cangrande. It was quite common for letters to be coded, having to pass through so many hands. Typical of the Scaliger, this letter didn't mention the stain on his honour. Instead, he had been entirely solicitous of Pietro's situation:

It seems the hunt is going to last longer than we expected. I want you to stay where you are. As you reside between Padua and Florence now, you are in a perfect position to hear things of interest to me. Especially since it is generally thought we quarreled. On top of which, I have directed Ignazzio and a few other of my spies to write any news they have to you. Calvatone is further proof that someone close to me is acting against my interests. As long as that person is at liberty, I cannot have sensitive information coming here to the palace. I am relying on you to coordinate any information that comes to me. I will make arrangements for those to be brought to me by a hand I trust.

In the light of this change in your assignment, I have a suggestion to make. A rented room is impermanent, it suggests mobility. I want your name to be linked to Bologna — or rather, unlinked from Verona. To further this, I have arranged with your father's friend Guido Novello of Polenta for you to be appointed keeper of the Benefice of Ravenna. It is a secular post for the Church, and your only duty will be to collect tithes and settle minor disagreements. It also comes with a casa. You will move in at once, and hire a couple of local servants. You will be close enough to Bologna to continue your studies, and it will be more secure if you have visitors.

The job also requires you to train a few men-at-arms. Make certain you do. Contact Manuel's cousin in Venice if you require more funds.

Cg.

For more than a year now Pietro had made Ravenna his home, leaving for weeks at a time to study in Bologna, then returning to collect tithes and arbitrate disputes between the laity and the Church. It was good training, he thought, for the career that now lay spread before him. Though he was wary of being a lawyer. That was considered worse than being even an actor.

Wading his horse through the water by Pietro's side, his groom Fazio wiped his brow. "Hot enough."

Pietro felt the heavy glare of the cloudless sky. Beneath him, Canis finished pushing his way through the waters. The ankles of Pietro's boots were wet, but no higher. A slight breeze passed pleasantly by. "Let's stay here a moment, let the horses cool off."

Fazio obediently dismounted and led his horse back to the water's edge. Pietro did the same with Canis. Looking down the length of the divide, Pietro said, "Nearly fourteen hundred years ago the greatest soldier in history picnicked over here."

"Who do you mean?" asked Fazio.

Pietro laughed. "Caesar!"

"Oh, him," said Fazio dismissively. From a smallish boy he had grown into a wiry fourteen year-old. He rarely had much squiring to do. To Pietro's dismay, he'd taken to throwing dice in his spare hours.

"What, not impressed?"

"He's got nothing on Cangrande."

Pietro chuckled, shaking his head. But the act of crossing the Rubicon was a legal question that fascinated Pietro.
It was almost this exact spot that Caesar left legality behind to claim his due. That act brought about an empire — the rule of one over the rule of many, the way God intended. But how can a man who puts himself above the law then claim to defend it?

On the far side of the river Mercurio darted out of some bushes and made for his master. In a moment both Pietro and Fazio were sprayed with water as the hound shook himself dry. Fazio shouted, "Dammit, Mercurio!"

The hound was already stalking a woodchuck in the bushes. Ravenna had agreed with Mercurio. The dog had grown into a fine-looking hunter, also becoming a father last winter with some neighbourhood bitch. Pietro had adopted the whole litter, though being mixed they wouldn't have the promise of Cangrande's purebreds.

Ravenna had agreed with Pietro, too. A fine coastal town close to both Polenta and Bologna, too near to Venice to be a great sea power, it was a quiet city. Sleepy. Pietro liked it. And he'd become a welcome member of the community. His duties didn't demand much time, consisting mostly of riding from farm to farm, knocking on doors, sharing a glass of wine, and taking the tribute due the Church. He'd been given command of twenty men in case of local strife or trouble collecting dues, but so far he'd never needed to call them up. But, based on Cangrande's hint, he'd kept them training even when he was away. As a result they were in better fighting shape than he was.

His readiness for battle was always near the forefront of his thoughts. He thought that Cangrande might call him up for the war in Cremona. The Scaliger and Passerino Bonaccolsi were currently besieging Brescia on the far side of the Lago di Garda. Verona itself was being guarded by Dante's former patron, Uguccione della Faggiuola. The Pisan lord, now exiled, was one of Pietro's many correspondents.

As was Donna Katerina. She kept Pietro informed on a variety of subjects, but her main topic was the boy. Just past his third birthday now, his volatile nature was keeping the entire palace staff on their toes. Each day she could see the wheels of his mind turning on some new project or plot or quest. Brilliant but dangerous was the general consensus. Katerina's pride shone in every inked word.

Smiling up into the warming sun, Pietro whistled Mercurio back. Remounting, he tapped Canis with a booted toe. It was a lovely day, and Pietro was in no hurry. In three or four hours he would arrive at his house on the outskirts of the city. He could spend the afternoon in the shade of his loggia reading scraps of parchment, looking down on his neighbour's vineyard. The local wine wasn't bad. Pietro could open a bottle when he got home, perhaps even read the new pages his father had sent him.
Purgatorio
was reaching a conclusion.

Yes, he knew he
could
do these things, but that he probably wouldn't. Instead he would heft his sword and spend the latter part of the day imitating a real soldier, working the muscles of his shoulders, arms, and hips. Fazio would happily partner him and waste no time in showing how fast he could move.

Pietro's eyes had taken in the mounted figure in the road before his mind had registered it. It took Fazio's saying, "There's someone in the road," to make Pietro straighten in his saddle.