Read Online The Wolves of Paris by Michael Wallace - Free Book Online Page B

was pinched. The fire was dying in the hearth, the candles burned down or snuffed, and his face lay hidden in shadow behind his hood.
    “And did you prepare the letters for Marco and Lorenzo?”
    “They will receive them first thing in the morning. But, my lady . . . ”
    “Yes, Martin?”
    “The leprosarium may put off some men, but not these two. And when they visit the leprosarium and nobody there has seen you, they’ll quickly realize that you lied.”
    “It will put them off for a day or two,” she said. “Before they can gather enough courage to question lepers, I’ll be back.”
    Lucrezia stood and turned to let him fasten the riding cloak around her shoulders with its heavy fur lining and a silver brooch shaped like an oak to fasten it at her neck.
    Tullia sat obediently on her haunches. She whined.
    Lucrezia rubbed her hand along the mastiff’s powerful neck. “Yes, of course you will come with us.”
    She whined again. A tremble shivered down her coat.
    “You miss him, don’t you?” Lucrezia said. She took the dog’s head in her hands. “He fell defending us. We’d all be dead if Cicero hadn’t chased them from the house. There, be calm. It’s all right.”
    “Maybe she’s frightened,” Martin said. “It’s like she knows. We’ll be crossing the bridge, riding through the gates at dusk. It will be a long trip with those creatures abroad.”
    Lucrezia crossed the room and opened the oak chest that sat next to the hearth. She pulled out a sheathed dagger, made in Toledo of hardened Damascus steel. It was a gift from her brother Domenico upon her departure from Lucca.
    “To use against those pesky Florentine brothers,” Domenico had said. “Or your husband, should he prove a scoundrel.”
    She had laughed off the suggestion at the time. Rigord, a scoundrel? And yet there was blood on the sheath, and it was her husband’s after all. Torn with guilt, she hadn’t even tried to scrub it out.
    As for the pesky Florentine brothers, Lucrezia didn’t always want to stab them. Under other circumstances than the present, she might have entertained the dream of returning with one of them to sun-drenched Tuscany, out of this dark, benighted corner of northwest Europe, to the land of Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masolino. Petrarch and Dante.
    She had history with both of them. Marco, cool-headed and sophisticated, the heir to the Boccaccio fortune. Lorenzo, the handsome, lovesick boy. Charming, but impetuous. He seemed to have matured since she’d seen him last, but maybe not. There was that troubling business with the Inquisition. Lucrezia most definitely did not want to step into the middle of that.
    She pulled back the cloak and belted the dagger to her waist. “We’ll be safe, Martin. They won’t attack moving horses on the open road.”
    “You let that one go. He has your scent.”
    “They already had my scent, Martin. Here or in the countryside, they’ll be hunting for me. My only hope is to get to Giuseppe first.”
    “The morning, then. We’ll ride out at first dawn, get ahead of Montguillon.”
    “And risk the prior spotting us on the road?” she said. “No. We leave tonight. We’ll stop in Saint-Denis, and reach the chatelet by morning.”
    Martin hesitated, then nodded slowly. “In that case, the carriage is ready, and we should leave at once.”
    Lucrezia returned to the chest one more time. She removed a small wooden box. It was white, with a red Eye of Horus painted on the surface, and a clasp in the shape of a lapis lazuli scarab beetle with gold eyes.
    ✛
    They left the Cité by the Grand Pont, which crossed to the right bank. They took the Rue de Saint-Denis north, and left the city walls at dusk.
    A light snow fell as they gained the fields. At this hour there would normally be stragglers on the road. Peasants with carts of hay, or drovers leading sheep into folds. Riders coming in from Normandy, and Flemish wool merchants slowed by the weather and late to arrive within