Read Online The King's Agent by Donna Russo Morin - Free Book Online

of glass, mumbling to it as if to find wisdom in its transparency. “ Sì, the day of reckoning. When you are trapped in the middle, either way may lead to peril.” Without turning, he gave his decree. “It is time we send a letter, Marcello.”
    “Yes, Holy Father.” Marcello fairly ran to the diminutive desk in the corner, to draw out parchment, quill, and ink pot. Dipping the quill in the tiny glass vial, tinking it against the rim, he poised it over the paper. “To Spain, Your Holiness?”
    With a grimace of fatality, Pope Clement shook his head. “No, Marcello, to France.”

Seven
     
In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, “Here beginneth a new life.”
—La Vita Nuova
     
    T he growl came at them through the thick forest on either side, though from which side neither could tell. Battista and Frado pulled in the slack on their reins as the horses whinnied and shied at the bellow of the unseen bear.
    “He is waking up from a long winter’s nap, naught more.” Battista calmed Frado with his words, leaning forward, caressing the silk of his pitch-black stallion’s mane, soothing the beast’s head-jerking protestations with each stroke.
    But Frado was not as easily mollified; his protruding gaze scoured the woods surrounding them, shadowed though the sun shone upon it, shafts of light pinched between thick-trunked trees. The woods, too, came to life after the cold-weather dreariness; maple and oak were fuzzy with bright green and maroon sprouts and curled fern tips sprung up from beneath the bed of fallen, dried pine needles. The forest of Casentino, just north of Florence, had always been rife with bears, and Frado had always done his best to steer clear of it.
    “Are you sure we must tread this path?” His voice trembled with his unease, but whether he spoke of their travel on this particular day or the quest itself Battista could not fathom. He chose to deal with the question only in the present.
    “I was convinced of this nobleman’s involvement before Pompeo’s report, but upon hearing of it, no one could deny the assertion. Not even you, my doubting friend. He is widely known as an art connoisseur. It makes perfect sense,” Battista cajoled, but Frado would have none of it.
    He made a vague unhappy noise deep in his throat, a wordless objection, his gaze refusing to meet Battista’s as it continued to search for brown fur among spring green. “If you are successful, if you acquire the triptych without getting yourself killed, word of its disappearance will spread far and fast.” Frado said nothing Battista had not already thought of. “Such attention we do not need.”
    Battista mulled Frado’s warning, offered for at least the tenth time since their destination had been determined a few days ago. It echoed the warning in King François’s letter, dire predictions of threats not only to their lives if it were known what they were after but to many others as well, especially if more war ensued.
    An artifact to cause war; one powerful enough to end it .
    The words—the sensation they caused—plagued him, an apprehension swaddling him with a cloak of fretfulness, and though he pushed at both contemplation and consternation, each returned with agonizing repetition.
    He shook it off yet again, but with a parting of certain return, and flashed a jaunty smirk upon his companion.
    “The sun is high, the air is warm and sweet, and we are on an adventure, amico mio .” Battista pulled on the reins and his horse trotted closer to Frado’s. “Let us make the best of it, sì? ”
    Digging his heels into the glossy flanks of his horse, Battista lurched forward, breaking from a trot to a gallop, a desire to launch the escapade or perhaps to outrun the pursuing thought.
    Frado rolled round eyes heavenward, annoyance at his friend’s exuberance clear on his already-stubble-shadowed face, but slapped his reins, urging his