“You’re going to marry this French duke?”
Her dark eyes flashed, her beautiful lips, so red and full, came together as a scowl crossed her brow. “Lorenzo, go home.”
“I won’t. It’s a mistake, and you know it. Get out. Tell your father—”
“For God’s sake, Lorenzo.”
Two men grabbed him and dragged him back. Someone had a rapier and might have plunged it right into Lorenzo’s gut if Lucrezia hadn’t cried for them to stop. They dragged him away, kicking and cursing, until someone threw a cloak over his head, tossed him to the ground and kicked him until he fell quiet.
He was lucky. Lucrezia’s brothers were renowned fencers—even the daughters in that family could parry and thrust—and one of them might have easily challenged him to a duel and left him dying in the piazza. Instead, he got out of the bailiff’s cellar at the cost of a torn tunic and a fine of fifty gold florins. His own brothers Marco and Francesco brought him back to Florence, where news had spread gleefully through the city in advance of his return.
What a fool he’d been. Only twenty, head on fire. He should have waited, caught the procession as it crossed into Lombardy or better still, at the Alpine passes into Provence. Traveled with the company for a few days until he found a time to speak to Lucrezia in private.
But if he thought he’d got off easily, he was mistaken. Three weeks later, Father presented him with a letter from the priory of San Domenico, accepting him into the novitiate of the
Ordo Praedicatorum—
the Dominicans.
What did Lucrezia look like now? Lorenzo wondered. Two years older than him, which meant she was twenty-eight. No doubt as beautiful as ever. Did she and Lord d’Lisle have any children before the man died? He didn’t know, but tomorrow he would find out.
Lorenzo unpinned the yellow cross from his tunic.
Chapter Four
Lucrezia d’Lisle slipped out of the house after supper. It was not safe at that hour for a lady traveling alone, so she told Martin to arm himself and dress for the cold. He was an older man, as were all the men her husband had hired, but still handsome in spite of his age and the faint scar that crawled from his left eyelid to his upper lip. He was also tall and strongly built. An imposing figure on a dark night.
Martin raised an eyebrow at the unusual request, but complied without argument. He strapped on his sword, tied a flagon of wine to his belt, as she instructed, and pulled on a great cloak. When the churches rang for compline, the last services of the night, the lady and her servant found themselves pressing down darkened alleys.
A cat sprang from a pile of rags with a yowl, and her heart leaped into her throat. Moments later, she got another fright as another pile of rags straightened itself into an old beggar woman, whose hand shot out reflexively. When Lucrezia regained control she handed over a denier. The woman held it up to the sky and let out a delighted cackle when she saw it was not merely a black coin, but something of value.
“You’re carrying money, my lady?” Martin asked in a low voice as they pressed on. “Is that safe?”
His worries were well founded. The burghers, the Lord Mayor, and the king’s provost all kept small private armies to patrol Paris, but even here on the island everything from petty thieves to cutthroats worked their trade. The bridges closed at night, but the fishermen on the Seine were easily bribed to carry someone across.
“Possibly not, but I’ll need it before we return. Keep going.”
“Notre Dame?”
“Not tonight, Martin. I have other worries tonight than a secret confession. We’re heading toward the Petit Pont.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
Going from shadow to shadow, with nothing but the occasional candle flickering through a tiny blown-glass or oiled-parchment window, sound became her primary guide. Rat claws scritched on stones, street dogs growled as they passed. Her confidence improved when they reached the river.
She put a hand on Martin’s wrist. “Stop here.”
Lucrezia left him in the shadows and made her way cautiously to the end of the street, where the alley broke left and followed the river wall toward the gatehouse on the island side of the bridge. Keeping her back pressed to the cold stone house, she leaned around the corner. To the left sat the Petit Pont, crossing the Seine. The bridge had been the scene of violence a few day earlier. Gibbets hung from poles over the water, turning in the wind. The three that concerned her held the two condemned men and a dead dog. Two women had already burned as witches, screaming their innocence to the end, but there was nothing to be done for them.
To her rear lay the stately manors with their sturdy walls and watch towers. Her own tower lifted above the others, no more than a few hundred feet away, but was unreachable without backtracking through the maze of alleys.
A pair of watchmen armed with pikes paced from the gate tower, along the river wall, to the end of the gibbets, and then back again. They were part of the city watch, not meant to guard the gibbets so much as keep an eye on the river and watch for unusual crossings. The end result was the same; she couldn’t get to the gibbets without being spotted.
Two guards. She’d hoped for one.
But when they returned to the gatehouse, one of the two guards disappeared. Only one man returned. Where had the other one gone? Pacing the next stretch of river, perhaps? As she watched, the lone guard made another turn, returned to the gatehouse, then came back with the second man. Together, then apart, then together again. The cycle took perhaps fifteen minutes.
Lucrezia was shivering with cold by the time she returned to Martin, the fur-lined hood on her cloak failing to keep her lips and nose from turning numb. She explained to him what she meant to do. He grunted with displeasure.
“And if it works, my lady, what will you do with the dog? You can’t exactly put him in the ossuary beneath Sainte-Chapelle.”
“I’ll wrap him in linen and have the servants carry him in a cart outside the
enceinte
. Bury him in a field.”
“It sounds risky. If we’re spotted with the animal . . . ”
“Cicero died protecting us. He deserves that much at least, don’t you think?”
“As you wish.” Displeasure colored his voice.
She put a hand on his arm. “Do you trust me, Martin?”
“Of course.”
“And would you tell me if you thought I was making a mistake?”
This time he hesitated.
“Because that is part of trust,” she said. “That you trust me enough to tell me if I’m wrong.”
“But it is not for me to say, my lady.”
She sighed. Martin had been the one to stand by her side on that awful night in the library. The only one she’d shared her plans with, told about the black magic she’d discovered in her house. Upon Lucrezia’s arrival in Paris, her husband had attempted to isolate her by surrounding her with French servants. Mostly women, but a few old men as well, who he thought would be immune to her charms. Martin was the youngest, in his fifties, and still strong and handsome, but she’d heard gossip from the other servants that the man had suffered a spear injury in the war that left him unmanned. It was the same battle that had left the scar on Martin’s face.
The duke, it was clear, assumed Martin was no threat. Lucrezia knew better. Perhaps her husband’s loyalty to a woman was based only on carnal desires; Martin was a better man than that. Many of the other servants, too. She’d won their loyalty with kindness and honor, or tried, at least.
Lucrezia and Martin waited at the end of the alley until the guards turned their backs to pace in the other direction, pike butts clacking on pavement like a blind man’s stick. Then she crept after them. The men disappeared into the gatehouse. Moments later, only one man returned. Martin hid in the shadows while Lucrezia waited next to the wall for the guard to approach.
The guard was looking across the Seine at the bell towers of Saint-Germain on the left bank and didn’t see her at first. He sang a verse in
sotto voce
, a popular ditty she’d heard from her servants, about an innkeeper’s wife who personally warmed the bed of a handsome young traveler. The guard came to the part where the innkeeper bursts into the room, the young man springs for the window, and the innkeeper laughs, relieved that it’s only his wife and not his daughter in bed with the traveler.
Then the guard spotted Lucrezia. The verse died on his lips.
“Who goes there?” His voice was tight, frightened.
He lowered his pike. It was a long, heavy weapon, with a nasty, ax-like blade on the end. But not much good for fighting murderers who crept in from dark alleys. More a weapon for spearing men who tried to scale the wall from the river.
He was a young man, dressed in the black leggings and blue tunic of the city guard. When she didn’t answer, he turned as if to shout for help.
Lucrezia held out her hands. “Don’t cry out,” she said quickly. “I’m only a woman.”
“A woman?” His voice was incredulous.
She swept back her hood and beckoned him forward. He propped the pike on his shoulder and stepped closer.
His eyes widened as he came out of the gloom and got a better look at her face. “What are you doing here, my lady?”
Everything about him changed, from his posture to his tone. Lucrezia couldn’t remember the first time she became aware of the impact she had on men. She guessed thirteen or fourteen years old. By the time she was fifteen, their heads turned when she passed in the street. If she glanced back, she would see them staring at her figure. Young men she barely knew would appear at her balcony with a lute and a bit of ridiculous sentiment put to verse.
Lucrezia didn’t welcome the attention—it was oppressive and frustrating in turns. Even dangerous. Her sisters were jealous. Once, an older female cousin attacked her black hair with a pair of shears in a rage when the woman’s husband wouldn’t stop staring. On another occasion, when Lucrezia traveled with her father to Florence, she made the mistake of smiling at a pair of handsome young men loitering in the piazza outside the Duomo. Twenty minutes later she and her father emerged from admiring Brunelleschi’s masterpiece to find the pair dueling with rapiers. A bloodthirsty crowd goaded them on. Before Lucrezia and her father could break it apart, one of the young men lay dying with his friend’s sword point through his heart.
That was the same trip to Florence when she’d met the Boccaccio brothers. They were slightly more subtle in their pursuit than the duelists, but no less determined.
“It’s Lady d’Lisle,” the guard exclaimed.
“You recognize me?” she asked.
“Everybody recognizes you, my lady. You live in that house.” He pointed with his free hand. “Why are you . . . ? You know it isn’t safe out here. You should hurry home.”
His tone was both admiring and condescending, as if he were speaking to a beautiful child and not the widow of one of the city’s most powerful lords.
“I will,” she said, “but you must do me a small favor first.”
“Of course, dear lady. How may I be of service?”
She removed the coin purse from her sleeve. “I am willing to pay handsomely.”
The young man’s eyes narrowed. The money seemed to rouse his suspicions in a way that her mere presence had not. Martin chose that unfortunate moment to come out of the shadows. The guard whirled and lowered his pike.
She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t be alarmed. He is only my manservant.”
“What do you need, my lady? The other guard will be coming along in a moment and then we won’t be alone.”
She pointed up at the gibbets. “I need you to let those men escape.”
He let out his breath. “My lady . . . ”
“This purse holds five livres in silver pennies and grossos,” she said with a shake of the coins. “What is the pay of a watchman of the guard per fortnight?”
He licked his lips and glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t have the key.”
“You know where it is. It hangs from a big iron ring in the gatehouse. The watch sergeant will be playing dice at this hour. You can easily get it while he’s distracted.”
“How do you know that?”
She didn’t answer the question. “Will you do it?”
“I must turn around now. They’ll spot you.”
Lucrezia pulled out three silver pennies and placed them in his cold, trembling hand. “When you have the key, stop and put your pike up straight and face the river. I’ll give you the rest then.”
As the watchman turned and hurried back toward the gatehouse, she and Martin returned to the alley to wait.
“Will he do it, do you think?” she asked.
“Let’s hope not.”
Lucrezia turned and looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “Martin?”
“I am very sorry, my lady. You keep asking questions and sometimes the real answer slips off my tongue.”
The guards passed through their cycle three times, first two men, then one, and so on, and she grew desperate. A man walked through the streets a few blocks over, clanking midnight on a bell. A dog howled on the opposite side of the Seine, and the hairs rose on Lucrezia’s neck, remembering the harrowing events of three nights past. Her narrow escape.
The guard appeared alone again, walking slowly with his pike clacking up the line of gibbets next to the river wall.
“If he doesn’t stop this time,” Lucrezia said. “We’ll try harder measures.”
“And if he’s warned them? If they’re waiting to set on us? Are you willing to face the gibbet yourself?”
“They wouldn’t put me in the gibbet,” she said. “They’d burn me at the stake.”
Before Martin could respond, the young guard stopped, turned toward the river and stood his pike straight up. Lucrezia let out a low breath. “We must go.”
They hurried up to the wall and helped the young man swing the poles holding the gibbets until the cages hung over the walls and not the river. One of the men groaned and shifted in his cage, but the other didn’t move.
Lucrezia handed her purse to the guard as the man set down his pike. He tied the purse to his belt, then pulled off a heavy iron ring with a key the size of her palm. His hands fumbled and it fell to the ground with a clank. He groped in the darkness to retrieve it. Lucrezia and Martin joined him in the search. The ground was cold and damp and slimy. Her fingers brushed the fur of something dead, shoved up next to the wall. Most likely a rat. But she found the iron ring.