Read Online Courtesan's Lover by Gabrielle Kimm - Free Book Online

pondered as he did so on the nature of arrogance. Was arrogance innate in the personality of someone who was prepared to work as part of an alien occupying military force in a foreign country, or did the very nature of the position create arrogance in characters who had not before possessed it? For Maestre Vasquez was indeed arrogant, thought Filippo, perhaps even the very personification of the word.
    Maestre Vasquez, however, was also slim and graceful. His movements were fluid and quick; he gesticulated frequently in his speech, and though the Maestre ’s eyes were cold, his hands were as expressive as a dancer’s. In his company, Filippo was frequently reminded of his own increasing age and lack of agility. Though he could not have been much more than fifteen years the senior, Filippo often felt in Vasquez’s presence like an aging, heavy-hoofed hack in the company of an Arab colt.
    â€œCome and see this, Filippo,” said the colt, in Spanish, and Filippo crossed the room to where Vasquez stood frowning at his papers in front of the long window. “Does the Conte di Ladispoli mean to attend the parade or not?”
    Filippo peered at the spidery writing on the small sheet of paper Vasquez then held out to him.
    I am, Signore, quite delighted to have been considered amongst your honoured guests, and regret most sincerely that I have not yet replied before but with my travels to Sicily now imminent I have been most sorely pressed and have only just extricated myself from several other less agreeable commitments.
    â€œI think he means to attend, Signore.” Filippo smiled. “He is always—how shall I say— tortuoso in his written communications. Always use ten words when one would suffice, he would say…”
    Vasquez twitched his shoulders in a dismissive shrug and threw the Conte di Ladispoli’s letter down onto a large pile of similar sheets. It took the two men the best part of the following hour to sort out the various replies, and by the end, a pile of letters of regret lay to one side of them, they had compiled a list of attendees, and the Spaniard had begun to draw up a plan of the parade ground. It was to be quite an occasion, it seemed to Filippo. A flamboyant exposition of Spanish power—ostensibly for the sake of entertainment, perhaps, but it would nevertheless be meant to be seen as a warning against any future insurrection, he felt sure.
    Vasquez then leaned across the table and picked up a finger-thick stack of paper. “Filippo,” he said, “I need this put into Italian.”
    Filippo flipped through the document: close-written in a spiky hand. His heart sank. This was not a task he would enjoy. Spanish had been as familiar to him as Italian since babyhood—his Castilian mother never having managed to master Italian—and Filippo and his superior always spoke together in Spanish, but Filippo found the painstaking business of translating anything this lengthy extremely tedious. He thumbed the sheets and glanced up at his companion.
    â€œBy when, Signore?”
    Opening a large, calf-bound ledger, the Spaniard ran a slim forefinger down first one page, then the following. He frowned, and the soft tuft of beard just beneath his lower lip lifted as he pouted in concentration. Then, finding what he sought, he tapped the place twice. “You have ten days. You can have the Long Chamber today, if you like. Nobody is using it.”
    â€œThank you, Signore—I will do that. May I go and make a start on it right away?”
    â€œYes. I shall not need you for anything else today.”
    Filippo left the room without a word.
    He worked hard for several hours. He had had hopes that the document might have contained something titillating: perhaps a whisper of the intransigent Don Pedro de Alfàn’s plans for the reestablishment of the tyranny of the Inquisition—news with which Napoli had been buzzing for weeks. The papers, however,