The King's Agent by Donna Russo Morin Page A

thrown along a pond’s smooth surface.
    “Come, my lady.” Federico appeared at her side and she turned, silent and skeptical, placing her hand upon the embroidered arm he offered.
    Passing her companions, she spared them no glance, fearing it would reveal their concern and intensify her own. The marquess brought her closer and closer to the far right corner of the table, and Aurelia’s free hand fisted, nails digging crescents into her palm.
    The empty chair sat in the middle of the most revered women among the company ... the grandmothers, the widows ... the oldest. She took her seat, looking slight amidst their buxom fullness, tall to their stooped, bright amidst their gray.
    “Signore, buonaserra, come stai? ” Aurelia greeted the women on each side of her, plastered smile set as firm upon her face as able. “Good evening, ladies. How are you?”
    They twittered at her, clearly delighted to have her among them, blind to any truth behind her darkened eyes.
    She nodded, offering polite responses without thought. But as if of its own volition, her piercing glare found Federico and stabbed him, jaw jumping as she bit back the harsh reproof with which she longed to whip him.
    The nobleman, perched at the head of the table, had the decency to look contrite, gaze skittering to the man on his left, blatting a laugh, holding up the forced jocularity as a shield against her.
    Aurelia twigged his game. She had never underestimated his intelligence or his intuition. The festive lives of the younger courtiers goaded her, true, inciting her to badger him for more of her own freedom, but to remove her from their company ...
    “My physician assures me the swelling will abate soon.” The warble came from her left and the shrunken woman beside her. The elderly ladies about them all leaned forward as the woman opened her mouth, revealing a wide gap on the bottom of her mouth, a swollen, red gum filling the hole.
    The sight served as a catalyst, the conversation erupted, and every woman among them launched into a detailed account of her latest illnesses and miseries.
    Aurelia dropped her knife onto her plate and it clanged angrily, an earsplitting echo of her emotion.
    I must be appeased . Aurelia’s thoughts rooted in her mind. If he will not do it, I will do it myself.

Six
     
Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind,
Which now comes this way and now comes that,
And changes name because it changes quarter.
—Purgatorio
     
    H e stared out the four storied windows, small in the grasp of the domineering architecture of the Apostolic Palace. The pope’s gaze wandered over the manicured gardens spreading out on the ground below, a profusion of the pale greens, yellows, and pinks of spring in bloom, yet all he saw were the blemishes of his own bad decisions, counted them as if they were nothing more than barren and scarred patches of earth amidst the splendor.
    In his moments of human weakness, he indulged in delusion, convinced himself that what he had done, he had done for the benefit of the papacy, for the strength of the Catholic Church. With the benevolent eye God had bestowed upon him, he saw the truth even as it taunted him; more than a small measure of his efforts were for his own glory, and that of the Medici. And now ... now righteous punishment beckoned.
    Clement heard the remote clip of slipper heels upon the marble, the distant ticking of a condemning clock. The sound grew louder, more insistent and urgent, as it neared, but the pope did not turn to it, keeping his deeply lined face upon the leaded glass and the vista beyond.
    “Do you truly believe in redemption, Marcello, no matter what the sin?”
    The clipping skidded to a halt with a jagged screech. The pope’s young secretary froze, hand bearing a sealed parchment outstretched to the air, mouth working soundlessly.
    “It is a question you, above all, need never ask.” The young man found his tongue and bowed to the pontiff, though the man still did not