“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, playing along at last. “Come here, woman-” And he pulled me into his arms and kissed me until I stopped laughing.
Only when I began unbuttoning his shirt did he speak again. “Do you,” he asked, briefly stopping my hands, “believe in forever?”
I met his eyes, surprised at his sincerity. Holding up the eagle ring between us, I simply said, “Forever started a long time ago.”
“If you want, I can take you back to Siena and… leave you alone. Right now.”
“And then what?”
He buried his face in my hair. “No more chasing ghosts around.”
“If you let go of me now,” I whispered, stretching against him, “it could be another six hundred years before you find me again. Are you willing to take that risk?”
I WOKE UP when it was not yet day, to find myself alone in a nest of tousled sheets. From the garden outside came a persistent, haunting birdcall, and that was most likely what had pierced my dreams and stirred me from sleep. According to my watch it was three in the morning, and our candles were long since burnt out. By now, the only light in the room was the raw shine from a full moon coming through the French doors.
Perhaps I was being naïve, but it shocked me that Alessandro had left my bed like this, on our first night together. The way he had held me before we fell asleep had made me think he would never let go of me again.
Yet here I was, alone and wondering why, feeling parched and hung-over from whatever it was that had hit me earlier. It did not help my confusion that Alessandro’s clothes were-as were mine-still lying on the floor beside the bed. Switching on a lamp, I checked the bedside table and found that he had even left behind the leather string with the bullet, which I had personally pulled over his head a few hours ago.
Wrapping myself in one of the sheets from the bed, I winced when I saw the mess we had made of Eva Maria’s vintage linen. And not only that, but entangled in the white sheets lay a bundle of frail, blue silk, which I had not even noticed until now. Strangely, as I began unfolding it, it took me a while to recognize it for what it was, probably because I had never expected to see it again. And most definitely not in my bed.
It was the cencio from 1340.
Judging by the fact that I had not noticed it until now, this invaluable artifact had been hidden among the sheets by someone who was determined to have me sleep on it. But who? And why?
Twenty years ago, my mother had gone to extremes to protect this cencio and pass it on to me; I in turn had found it, but quickly lost it, and yet here it was again, right beneath me, like a shadow I couldn’t shake. Only the day before, at Rocca di Tentennano, I had asked Alessandro point-blank if he knew where the cencio was. His cryptic response had been that, wherever it was, it was meaningless without me. And now, suddenly, as I sat there holding it in my hands, everything fell into place.
According to Maestro Ambrogio’s journal, Romeo Marescotti had vowed that, if he won the Palio of 1340, he would use the cencio as his wedding-sheet. But the evil Salimbeni had done everything in his power to prevent Romeo and Giulietta from ever spending a night together, and he had succeeded.
Until now.
So maybe this, I thought to myself, startled that I was able to make sense of it all at three in the morning, was why there had already been a smell of incense in my room when I came back from the swimming pool the day before; perhaps Friar Lorenzo and the monks had wanted to personally ensure that the cencio was where it belonged… in the bed they assumed I would be sharing with Alessandro.
Seen in a flattering light it was all very romantic. The Lorenzo Brotherhood clearly considered it their life mission to help the Tolomeis and the Salimbenis “undo” their sins of old, so that Friar Lorenzo’s curse could finally be broken-hence the ceremony this evening to put Romeo’s ring back on Giulietta’s finger and to discharge the eagle dagger of all its evil. I could even be convinced to look favorably on the placing of the cencio in my bed; if Maestro Ambrogio’s version of the story was really true, and Shakespeare’s wrong, then Romeo and Giulietta had been waiting to consummate their marriage for a long, long time. Who could possibly object to a little ceremony?
But that was not the issue. The issue was that whoever had placed the cencio in my bed must have been in cahoots with the late Bruno Carrera, and thus-directly or indirectly-been responsible for the break-in at the Owl Museum, which had sent my poor cousin Peppo to the hospital. In other words, it was no mere romantic whim that saw me sitting here tonight with the cencio in my hands; something bigger and more sinister was clearly at stake.
Suddenly afraid that something bad had happened to Alessandro, I got out of bed at last. Rather than scrambling around for new clothes, I simply slipped back into the red velvet dress lying on the floor and went over to open the French doors. Stepping out onto the balcony, I filled my lungs with the soothing sanity of a cool night before stretching to look into Alessandro’s room.
I didn’t see him. However, all his lights were on, and it looked as if he had left in a hurry, without closing the door behind him.
It took me a second or two to gather courage to push open his balcony door and step inside. Although I now felt closer to him than to any other man I had ever met, there was still a little voice in my head saying that-physiognomy and sweet words aside-I did not know him at all.
I stood for a moment in the middle of the floor of his room, looking at the décor. This was clearly not just another guest room, but his room, and if things had been different, I would have loved to poke around and look at the photos on the walls, and all the little jars full of strange knickknacks.
Just as I was about to peek into the bathroom, I became aware of distant voices coming from somewhere beyond the half-open door to the interior loggia. Sticking my head through the doorway, however, I saw no one on the loggia or in the great hall below; the party had clearly wrapped up hours ago, and the whole house lay in darkness, except for the odd wall sconce flickering in a corner.
Stepping out into the loggia, I tried to determine where the voices were coming from, and concluded that the people I could hear were in another guest room a bit farther down the hallway. Despite the scattered disembodiment of the voices-to say nothing of my own state of mind-I was sure I heard Alessandro talking. Alessandro and someone else. The sound of his voice made me nervous and warm at the same time, and I knew I would not be able to go back to sleep unless I saw who it was that had managed to lure him from my side tonight.
The door to the room was ajar, and as I tiptoed closer, I carefully avoided stepping into the light spilling out onto the marble floor. Stretching to see inside the room, I was able to make out two men and even pick up fragments of their conversation, though I did not understand what they were saying. Alessandro was indeed there, sitting on top of a desk in nothing but a pair of jeans, looking remarkably tense compared to the last time I had seen him. But as soon as the other man turned to face him, I understood why.
It was Umberto.
VIII.III
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face.
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
JANICE HAD ALWAYS CLAIMED that you have to get your heart broken at least once in order to grow up and figure out who you really are. To me, this harsh doctrine had never been more than yet another excellent reason for not falling in love. Until now. As I stood there on the loggia that night, watching Alessandro and Umberto conspire against me, I finally knew precisely who I was. I was Shakespeare’s fool.
For despite everything I had learned about Umberto over the past week, the first thing I felt when I saw him was joy. A ridiculous, bubbling, nonsensical joy that it took me a few moments to quell. Two weeks ago, after Aunt Rose’s funeral, I had felt that he was the only person in the world left for me to love, and when I had taken off on my Italian adventure I had felt guilty about leaving him behind. Now, of course, everything was different, but that didn’t mean-I now realized-that I had stopped loving him.