A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger

the others threw the friar over a horse and set off across the piazza. Scarlett took his time, arriving back at San Donato a full hour after the others. Hawkwood had waited for him, though, and as Scarlett walked through the dooryard toward the house the condottiero was just coming out the villa’s entrance. The men had bound Taricani to a chair, an ornate, high-backed seat brought out from the hall, and the man’s thin face now showed a few more bruises, a second black eye.
    Hawkwood stood before the chair, fixing Taricani with a friendly smile. “You were Bernabò Visconti’s swiftest knife for years, Brother Paolo. Why he let you retire I’ll never know.”
    Taricani shrugged. “The signore has his methods, Ser Giovanni.”
    “Indeed,” said Hawkwood. “Might be interesting to plumb them with you someday.”
    Taricani bunched his lips, exuding confidence. “At your pleasure, Ser Giovanni.”
    Stay humble, Scarlett silently warned the man.
    Hawkwood knelt in the dirt. He placed a palm on each of Taricani’s knees, looked up at his face. “You have a beautiful woman, Brother Paolo.” He let that sit, then, “And a daughter who ripens by the day. My men have seen her at the markets, Paolo. She can’t be more than, what, ten, eleven?”
    Taricani nodded, his eyes darkening.
    “And her name, Paolo. It is memorable, isn’t it, but I seem to have forgotten it. Help an old man, Paolo. What is your daughter’s name?”
    “Pic—Picco—Piccola—Piccolamela, sire.”
    Hawkwood chuckled at Taricani’s difficulty. “Piccolamela. Now I remember! ‘Little apple’ in my native tongue. An exquisite name for an exquisite girl, this virgin bastardess of an uncelibate friar. Did you choose this name yourself, Paolo?”
    “My—her mother chose it, sire.”
    “Well, good for her. Piccolamela. How about that?” Hawkwood clapped his palms on Taricani’s thighs, reading the new terror on his face. “Though it’s a strange coincidence. For do you know what my favorite fruit is, Paolo?”
    Taricani shook his head.
    “Can you guess?”
    He shook his head again. Less confidence this time.
    “Apples, Brother Paolo. I like apples best.”
    Taricani’s tongue flickered across his lips.
    “And you know how I like my apples, Paolo?”
    The assassin was still.
    “Green, Paolo. I like my apples green.”
    Taricani pressed against the ropes, then the pleas started. No, Ser Giovanni, you wouldn’t, Ser Giovanni, she is only a girl, Ser Giovanni, oh mercy, Ser Giovanni, mercy mercy mercy! Scarlett listened for a while, then looked off into the hills until the begging faded into the familiar moans of a newly broken man.
    Hawkwood stood, all business. “The fate of your daughter’s virtue is entirely up to you. If you refuse us we’ll have her in hand this evening, and your whore as well. I’ll make you watch, Paolo Taricani. I’ll taste your little apple first, then hand her to my man Scarlett here, then we’ll bring the garrison up from the river. I’ll cut off your eyelids if I have to, but you’ll watch every man take her, one by one, and in every way imaginable. You know I’ll do it, too. You’ve seen me do worse. By God, you’ve helped me do worse, Paolo. And if you fail in your mission, if I get word you’ve bungled the thing, or fled, why—why then I will take your Piccolamela to Venice and sell her to the Turks. Little apples fetch a handsome price in the doge’s slave markets.”
    He bent over the puddled friar. “On the other hand, Paolo, if you do this, know that I will take care of your daughter, and your woman too. They won’t be short of florins, and no one will lay a hand on them. And if you don’t come back I will still protect them. Your daughter, though the illegitimate spawn of a half-lapsed friar, will marry well.”
    Scarlett could see the resignation on Taricani’s face, the defeated angle to his shoulders. But only for a moment. Taricani was a professional, after all, and this was a