Crouching low, Ciolo found himself in a long hall, narrow, with a pair of doors on each side. He squinted until he was sure all the doors were closed. He felt like his breathing was making more noise than a bellows. If someone found him now he would be useless, his arms were shaking so fiercely.
But no alarums. No sound but the child. Ciolo flexed and stretched, each second gaining him another breath, each breath easing his beating heart. His eyes began to play tricks on him in the dark. Twice he swore he saw movement at the far end of the hall. But each time he was wrong. Or hoped he was.
After two or three minutes of watching from the shadowy corner by the window, Ciolo was as ready as he was likely to be. His right hand dropped to his left hip. Gripping the leather-wrapped hilt, he withdrew a dagger nine inches long.
Keeping well out of the faint light coming in the window, he made his way down the hall. The house plan Ciolo had memorized indicated he had not far to go. Down this hall, a right turn into a grand room, and up a single flight to a double door. Simple.
The hallway was tiled and clear of rushes. Ciolo placed first one foot, then another, so much on his toes that his boot heels hardly brushed the floor. He came to a pair of doors facing each other. Both were closed. Holding his breath, he picked up the pace past them. Nothing leapt out at him and he sighed, then instantly cursed himself for the noise.
The second pair of doors were also closed. Again, everything was proceeding as planned. He forced himself to stop and listen. One flight up the infant was still making noise, but the rest of the house was still.
Fortune favors the bold, thought Ciolo. He crept around the corner, feeling along the wall for the beginning of the stairs. Tripping would be bad. Most stairs creak at the middle, so Ciolo kept his weight to the far outsides of each step where the wood was unlikely to bend.
At the top of the stair there was another window, facing north. He could see the sliver of the moon, and it could see him. He crouched down, his back to the wall, and looked for the double doors.
There they were. The light from the partial moon just brushed their bottom edges. Inside he could hear the child. It was neither wailing nor giggling. More of a string of burbling noises. Ciolo thought the room must be small because he could hear an echo, as if the child's own voice was answering itself.
He waited, listening to the room beyond the doors. Was there a nurse waiting with the baby? Surely not. He'd be calmer. Or else she was asleep, dead to the world. And soon will be moreso. Smiling, Ciolo trained his eyes on the shaft of exposing moonlight. He needed complete darkness to open the door. He prayed to a merciful God to send a cloud, then on second thought redirected the entreaty to the Fiend.
Whoever heard his prayer, it was answered almost at once. The light crept away. Once it was dim, Ciolo moved swiftly. Lifting his knife, he grasped the handle to the child's room and pulled the door wide.
Blackness within. Ciolo stood to one side of the doorway, pausing for his eyes to adjust to the more complete darkness. Still the child burbled. Ciolo squinted at the corner the noise was coming from and thought he saw an outline. Reversing his dagger from point up to point down, a stabbing grip, he stepped fully into the gap, one hand on the door frame to guide him into the room. He was a professional. What did it matter that his victim was a child. He was certainly going to the Inferno already. One step. Two…
A sharp cracking noise made Ciolo wince. An instant later the breath exploded from his body. Confused, he found himself sprawled several feet back down the hallway. Something had hit him in the chest, hit him hard enough to stun him and knock him backwards. His free hand came up and found a thin line of wood protruding from his breastbone. His fingers brushed the fletched end absently. He whimpered, afraid to pull on the arrow's shaft.
A hinge creaked as the second door opened. A shuttered lantern was unveiled and the light approached him, growing brighter. To Ciolo's dazzled eyes it seemed to be borne in the hands of an angel. An angel all in white. The colour of mourning.
"Not dead, then?" asked the angel as she came to stand over him. "Good."
Ciolo sputtered, the blood on his lips leaving the taste of metal on his tongue. "Holy Madonna…"
"Shhh." The angel set aside both the lantern and the instrument of his demise, a small trigger-bow. Her right arm must have been hurt firing it, for she used her off hand to take the blade from his unresisting grasp.
Behind her was another shape, a young girl clutching a baby. The infant Ciolo had come here to murder. He didn't know if it was a boy or girl, it was too young to tell and he'd never asked. He wanted to ask now, but breathing was trouble enough. Still his mouth tried to form the words.
The woman shook her head. With a lilting accent Ciolo found beautiful, she said, "Tell me nothing except the name of the man who paid you."
"I–I don't…"
"Not a good answer, love."
"But — madonna forgive me, but — it was a woman."
The angel nodded but didn't smile. Ciolo wanted her to smile. He was dying. He wanted absolution — something. "Angel, forgive me."
"Ask forgiveness of God, man — not of me."
His own knife flashed left to right in her pale hand. He made the effort to close his eyes so as not to see his life's blood spill to the floor.
With a choked whimper, Ciolo lay still. The cloud above passed, revealing the stars once more.
I
One
The Road to Verona
The Same Night
"Giotto's O."
In the middle of a dream in which no one would let him sleep, it seemed to Pietro that the words were deliberately meant to annoy him. Almost unwillingly he dreamed a paintbrush touching a rock, forming a perfect circle.
The painter used red. It looked like blood.
"Pietro, I'm speaking to you."
Blinking, Pietro sat up straight in the rattling coach. "Pardon, Father."
"Mmm. It's these blasted carriages. Too many comforts these days. Wouldn't have fallen asleep in a saddle."
It was dark with the curtains drawn, but Pietro easily imagined his father's long face grimacing. Fighting the urge to yawn, he said, "I wasn't asleep. I was thinking. What were you saying?"
"I was referencing Giotto's mythic O."
"Oh. Why?"
"Why? What is nobler than thinking of perfection? More than that, it is a metaphor. We end where we begin." This was followed by a considering pause.
Shifting, Pietro felt his brother's head on his shoulder. Irritiation rippled through him. Oh, Poco's allowed to sleep, but not me. Father needs an audience.
Expecting his father to try out some new flowery phrase, he was astonished to hear the old man say, "Yes, we end where we begin. I hope it's true. Perhaps then I will go home one day."
Pietro leaned forward, happily letting Jacopo's head fall in the process. "Father, of course you will! Now that it's published, now that any idiot can see, they'll have to call you home. If nothing else, their pride won't let anyone else claim you."
The poet's laugh was sour. "You know little about pride, boy. It's their pride that keeps me in exile."
Us, thought Pietro. Keeps us in exile.
There was a rustling beside him, and suddenly there was light as a groggy Jacopo pulled back one of the curtains. Pietro tried to feel ashamed at his satisfaction for having woken his brother up.