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some lampblack, and drew that small sun upon your back.”
He paused, and something of a rueful smile played upon
his lips. “You never once cried, though it took a long while
for her to finish. When she put the same mark on me, I
dared not shed a tear because you had not, no matter that it
hurt mightily with every stab.”
Abruptly, his expression hardened again, as if he were
once more caught up in that day.
“And as she drew upon my flesh, she made me swear I
would never tell what had happened. I must always act as if it
were my sister buried in the churchyard. I was only seven
years old, and I didn’t understand the reasons why. All I knew
was that I loved you with that unblemished love that only
a child can give . . . and yet she took you away from me.”
He fleetingly put his own fingers to the sun on his chest,
and I wondered with an unexpected pang how often he’d
done so over the years. But when I heard no softness in his
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289
next words, I knew the gesture held something other than
tender sentiment.
“When she was finished making that mark upon me,” he
went on, “she said that this way we would always know each
other, no matter how many years passed. But, of course, I
could never see you again, save at a distance when the conte
brought you out for some feast day or another. Eventually,
enough time went by that I should have forgotten I ever had
a sister, at all. But every time I pulled off my tunic and
glanced down to see that mark of the sun upon my chest, I
had no choice but to think of you.”
As he spoke, Caterina’s sobs had begun to subside. Now,
still wrapped in the Master’s arms, she raised a tearful face
to her brother.
“You never could have loved me,” she cried in soft de­
spair, “else how could you do what you’ve done to me?”
His short laugh in response held a bitter note. “Oh, I did
love you. . . then.”
As she stared at him uncertainly, he explained, “You see,
my dear Caterina, your true father was a mercenary. He
came home every few years, most times just long enough to
leave Lidia big with another child, before going off to fight
again. But he never came back after you were born. Later on,
we learned he’d been killed in some battle or another, his
body but one of many left behind on an unknown field.”
He shrugged, but despite his air of nonchalance I could
see something in his face of the long-ago hurt of a small boy.
“The few florins he’d sent our way over the years ceased,
of course. Even worse, by then Lidia had been sent away
from the conte’s household.”
An ironic smile momentarily twisted his lips. “It seems
that some of the other servants had been frightened by her
habit of divining the future using playing cards. No one else
would take her in for many months after that, and I was still
too young to earn more than a few soldi on occasion. Most
nights, I went to bed hungry . . . but it was not the kind of
hunger that people like you know.”
290
Diane A. S. Stuckart
Any trace of humor had faded from his face and his voice
as he regarded her.
“My hunger was not the sort that came from rising too
late in the morning, so that I had to wait for the midday
meal to break my fast. It came from living day to day on
nothing more than a crust of bread and a crumb of cheese.
Once in a while, we would find a shriveled vegetable to boil
in a pot and call it a fine soup. I’ve never forgotten that feel­
ing of hunger . . . that unceasing pain in my belly, like some
living thing shredding me from the inside out with its teeth
and claws.”
With a sound of contempt, he abruptly spun about, as if
he could bear to look upon her no more. “And all the while,
you were living in the conte’s castle, growing plump and
satisfied from the choice delicacies that filled his table.
That’s all I thought of, those nights that I lay crying in
hunger . . . and that is when I first started to hate you.”
While Gregorio spoke, Leonardo was helping Caterina to
her feet. She gave him a grateful look but pulled away to stand
proudly on her own. Her tears dried now, her tone held a sim­
ilar note of contempt as Gregorio’s when she addressed him.
“How can you blame me for that? And surely you cannot
think that you were the only one to suffer from our mother’s
choice. The conte had no love for me. From the first day that
I can remember, he blamed me for my mother’s”—she
paused and bit her lip, then corrected herself—“for the con­
tessa’s death. I should have preferred to know a true mother
and brother who loved me, no matter that we were hungry,
to the coldness of the conte’s castle.”
He shook his head as he turned back again to meet her
gaze. Once again, his soft, harsh laugh held no humor.
“You say that now, my dear Caterina, but I daresay that
after a time you would gladly have traded both mother and
brother for a full belly. I know that I would have done so,
and gladly. In fact, I am quite certain I would have joined
my so-called sister in the churchyard within a few months of
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291
her death, had I not found a small blade that some unlucky
traveler had lost upon the road.
“I practiced with that knife for hours each day, until fi­
nally I had the skill to bring down any small bird or beast
that came within my sight. After that, we had food. . . not
much, but enough to put a bit of flesh upon my bones. But
I could never stop thinking about you in your fine castle,
not even when I was finally old enough to join Il Moro’s
army and journey far from here. For I vowed that one day
I would return to take what was yours . . . and that you would
know the reason why.”
He abruptly fell silent and briefly lowered his head,
scrubbing his hand over his face as if to banish the emotions
that his words had allowed to take rein. Hardly daring now
to breathe, I glanced at the Master, still standing protec­
tively at Caterina’s side. His features set in stern lines, he
quietly addressed her.
“I fear your brother’s plan was quite simple. He knew that
you had the conte’s title and lands and the wealth that went
with it. And he also knew that, sooner or later, the duke would
marry you off to an ally. . . or, in this case, to an enemy.”
His frown deepened. “Once you had willingly come to his
bed, he had only to prove to you the truth of your relation­
ship. He would have guessed—and rightly so, I am certain—
that you would have paid him any amount to keep silent lest
the truth reach Il Moro’s ears before your marriage day.”
“Florentine, you are far cleverer than I thought.”
Gregorio’s harsh words cut the air more sharply than his
sword, which I saw in sudden fear he had drawn from its [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]