The King's Gold (17 page)

“I didn’t stand you up! I was kidnapped. Sort of. At first.”

“
Kidnapped
. Come on, Lola. You got right on that plane with Marco. You didn’t yell out for security or anything.”

I pressed my hands to my head. “It was complicated.”

“I’ll bet that Marco just flapped that letter at you and you went
racing
after him.”

“Kind of —but—yes. Oh—wait—
on
the subject of the DJ? I still want eighties. Eighties or Mozart. Or classical Brazilian. Or thirties jazz. Or Elizabethan.”

“Um—
no
. You have to dance at these rehearsal things. I’m talking seventies. Disco. Donna. Sly and the Family Stone.”

“
So
over.”

“Oh, something else. You know how you want your sister to lead a scavenger hunt for the wedding party?”

“Ye-es.”

“She doesn’t want to do that.”

“Why?”

“She thinks it’s too stupid. She says she’d had enough of doing stunts for her family—something about how Tomas used to make her track all by herself in the jungle when she was just a kid—”

“Ugh. Yes. He’d dump her in the rain forest without any food or water, point her north, and say bye, only to pop back up a week later when he was satisfied with her performance. He was always putting her through these tests, making her prove herself to him.”

“That’s nice. Well. She says she’s a real tracker and not a side show.”

“Okay, no problem. I thought she’d like it. You know, give her something fun to do, have her track all around Long Beach—”

“Yolanda’s still so depressed about Tomas passing away that she’d probably just lead the bridesmaids into a golf course sand pit, bury them up to their necks, and leave them to die.”

“I hope she can get over it.” I held up Sofia’s journal. “I mean—like Sofia.
She
was able to start a completely new life—”

Erik laughed. “Ahh, yes. It’s easier to talk about neurotic historical figures than annoyingly alive family members.”

“Precisely! So let’s do
that.”

“All right.”

“Okay. Good.
As
I was saying—”

“As you were saying—”

“Sofia and Antonio had this very long engagement. Because she hated him when they were first betrothed.”

“Yes, yes. But then she changed her mind.”

“Uh-huh. She gave in to her father’s demands when Antonio returned from Mexico. After the expedition with Cortés, Antonio was so traumatized, or something, that he started being nice to her. So that’s when she agreed to the ceremony.”

“Not that it helped Sofia’s house gain any points with the Medici, because Cosimo the First pretty quickly afterward cut Antonio off from the family.”

“That’s right. Florence became dangerous, so they came to Siena in the fifteen thirties, living here for about five years in some kind of safe house attached to the Duomo.”

Erik spread out his hands. “The safe house—that could be where the she-wolf is. Though, I have to say, I’m going to need a
lot
more pasta before I haul my panties around any more of these blasted museums—”

“They lived—I’m not exactly sure where, but I do know they began having trouble with the locals...what was I reading?” I flipped the pages of the
Diario Intimo
. A few of the couples had just stood up to leave, but I saw that the man eating fish raised his head to listen to me. I paid him no mind, continuing to turn through the book. “Here, I’ve found it. This is from the year they left Siena—their last night. They’d had to leave town very quickly...”

December 3, 1538

We have just nearly been driven from the city by a band of peasants who have no liking for wolves or witches.

And to think, I’d had such hopeful plans for this evening.

One year ago, Antonio gave Siena’s Council two trunks of pure gold with which to restore their crumbling Duomo, in return for their agreement to shelter us and our books from the Medici in the cathedral’s cold womb. Yet despite their need for the metal with which they might make the repairs, the city’s craftsmen refused at first to lay hands on our Treasure. I worried they had heard what happened in America, and that Antonio was a Versipellis, for only after the Council threatened the knaves with flogging did they mix the reddish gold with Spanish copper, and then paint the Duomo into its former splendor.

Sadly, my fears, and their suspicions, have all been confirmed tonight. We have been repaid for our gift not with protection, but with violence, and during our most vulnerable hour:

This eve, a round white Moon shone in the sky, a dangerous time for my lord, but also the most auspicious hour to administer the Cure to the Condition. Though Antonio claims his Disorder is born of Mysterious causes, I think his nom de guerre fits him well: The Black Wolf, il Lupo Tetro, a dark and moody beast—for I agree with those philosophers who call the torment of the Versipellis a melancholia canina that changes Men into howling Dogs, and can be corrected only by administering to the patient a philter in the first few moments that he stands directly beneath the full moon—precisely before he commences his great Alteration.

It was in our search for his Remedy that we planned to travel to the Woods on the outskirts of the city. We went equipped with our flask of the Experimental Universal Medicine mixed of Gold and the Alchemical Elements, and two weapons to guard against any Enemies of the Wolf. The first was a sprig of the ubiquitous Fruit of Love, Belladonna. My second Defense was a candlestick—one of the deadly Tapers that Antonio and I have crafted within our Laboratory. Then off we hurried, to reach the silvered Forest before he felt the Luna’s effects.

Even as we had been walking not sixty paces, however, I could tell at once that his spirit had suddenly grown as dim as that sky’s silver Orb was bright.

“I am guilty of great Crimes, Sofia,” he said, his face darkening, already Shifting. “In Timbuktu, America, Florence. I starved a man, tortured him. I am a murderer. And yellow is the color of my courage!”

I brought my hands to my hips. “You killed a Slave, darling, which was no crime. The death of that Fool was in his cards, after all. I should know—I read them! In the Tarot, the Fool is the sign either of Dead End or Fresh Starts. It was his destiny. You are not to blame.”

“I will be punished. I am being punished—by the Condition.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is it? Do you fear nothing?”

“I am made of the strongest mettle when I am in your company.”

“And do you think we will always be together, my little Dragon?”

“Always, Antonio.”

“You are a liar. This Medicine will fail, and we will both of us die, and thus be eternally separated. That will be the worst penance of all.”

I said nothing, for I could not answer his morbid mood, which deepened as we walked through the shadows. I could hear his breathing change. His Features transformed even further. So I treated him as a good wife must, and began to drag him by his leash.

But it was already too late: the torches of the Mob could even now be seen, so in a twinkling peasants descended upon us, their twisted faces stained red in the fire.

My husband pawed at the ground; he barked and roared and bared his fangs.

“The Wolf,” one of the villeins hissed.

“The Black Wolf,” another cried, as the men beat Antonio, breaking his right hand.

“Vixen of the Devil!” a third bitch yelled.

“And who do you think you are?” I screamed back.

“We are the Salt of the earth,” the Banshee cried, as she and her sisters began hurling at me handfuls of just that white, stinging stuff, which they kept in little burlap sacks tied to their ugly skirts. On account of their Christian Gospels, they believe pure Salt repels devils—or Dragons—such as me. They heaved the bitter grains much as superstitious crones will toss spilled salt over their left shoulders in order to blind the Beelzebub they believe is always lurking behind them.

“Well, then, you are salt that has lost its taste.” I pointed at their unfashionable clothes—for I can quote Scripture just as well as they.

“Harlot! Serpent-Sorceress!”

“You are right to call me by my true name.” I gestured at the cowering furred form of my husband. “Love has transformed me into a creature powerful & terrible. So look, and fear what has been Created!”

I lifted my Taper to one the men’s torches, summoning the Candle-crafting Power of the Goddess.

“Raaassshhhhhh!” I cried in the secret language of Fire as a torrent of flame rushed toward the horde. Six men fell at my feet, their faces bubbling, their eyes smoking coals.

“Shhhhhssshhhhh!” I uttered the mysterious tongue of the Wind as I threw the belladonna on the blaze. A noisome Fume floated into the air. Ten of the women collapsed in a heap, a vile yellow fluid issuing from their crying mouths.

But I could not kill them all, I found, not even with my most powerful Magic.

And so this is when Antonio and I fled. To Sanctuary. To the Duomo!

Down the campo we ran, and my galloping husband could no longer call my name with a human voice. To the cathedral we raced, reaching its stone steps, the large portal. Yet, despite the law of Sanctuary, the frantic priests tried to bar the door when they saw the mob behind us.

We took care to remind them that we had fitted the Cathedral out of our own pocket, and funded many of its restorations.

And when this did not work, my husband convinced them by performing his Trick.

He used all his might, and then the Wolf turned clockwise round, and round again. And a third time.

Thus my werewolf Love protected us from all harm.

All last night, we huddled in the Duomo’s Den and prepared for our escape. We have only the time to pack our Treasure, and our rarest books— the Prophecy of Sappho, The Emerald Tablet—and the embroidered jacket worn by his doppelgänger in Gozzoli’s Procession of the Three Magi.

For we must leave Siena this morning, and strive to make friends in Rome. With my Candle-craft, my Tarot, my knowledge of the stars and precious stones and the secrets of Hecate—I know that I will be able to discover a way to sweeten that city, to convince it that Antonio and I are not just a wolf and witch, but friends.

For we are homeless. We will never come back here again.

“Well, here are some things that make sense.” I pointed to the lovers’ conversation about Antonio’s crimes. “‘
The death of that Fool was in his cards, after all.’
This is why Dr. Riccardi knew that Antonio called his slave a Fool, because she’d read this diary. The nickname fits too: In the tarot, the Fool is the sign of dead ends.”

“And fresh starts.” Erik brought his head close to mine. “But this—what does it say? I’m drawing a blank.”

He pointed out a sentence, which I translated again: “‘
Though Antonio claims his disorder is born of Mysterious causes, I think his
nom de guerre
fits him well: The Black Wolf,
il Lupo Tetro
.’”

“
Tetro
means...?”

“It’s Italian for sad, gloomy, dark. It’s the word for a depressive, basically.”

“He certainly was that. Not too cheerful with the death obsession. And—did you get this? The mob broke his hand.” We had ordered espresso by now. Erik twirled the dark liquid in a porcelain cup. “You told me that at the palazzo you compared Marco’s letter with another letter Antonio had written in Africa?”

“Yes. He wrote it from Timbuktu—while he was conducting a raid of an alchemy lab, and was almost burned to death by some sort of chemical. The writing in the two documents wasn’t the same.”

“Maybe the reason the writing was different is this fight with the mob. After they broke his right hand, he might have had to write with his left. So what we’re talking about here is a—”

“Southpaw
Versipellis
!”

“Exactly. A southpaw—
Skin-changer, or skin-shifter
, in Latin. The word they used for werewolf.”

“Mmm-hmmm.
Versi
means ‘change,’
pellis
is ‘skin’.”

“And that’s precisely what Antonio was supposed to have achieved: Skin-changing, or shape-shifting.”

“It sounds like he did have some type of epileptic fit—”

“She’s clearly got an imagination, though she wasn’t the only Italian with superstitions about Antonio.”

“Meaning...?”

“You see here, at the beginning of the entry, she writes,
‘I worried they had heard what happened in America
.
’
Lola, remember how Dr. Riccardi and I talked about this in the palazzo, the myth of Antonio’s demon possession?”

“What, about when he performed experiments on peasants in Florence?”

Erik pinched the space between his eyes, concentrating. “No. Hold on, let me get the timeline straight. First Antonio was in Florence, acting like a crazy person—then he sailed over to Timbuktu, burning alchemy labs, taking at least one slave. But his reputation took a
real
beating when he later went with Cortés to the Americas. That’s what Sofia’s writing about. I’ve read that something fantastically bloody
did
happen before Antonio sailed back from Tenochtitlán to here, Italy—Venice, actually.

“There was a massacre of Cortés’s sailors over Montezuma’s gold. It began with a fight among the men, for the shares of the treasure, and Antonio’s African slave apparently attacked him in the confusion. After that, Antonio is said to have lost his
mind,
really. He disemboweled about half his soldiers and drank their blood, that sort of thing. Some of the survivors who made it back to Europe ranted to everyone who would listen about his having been cursed by Montezuma and turned into some sort of dog-monster.”

I felt my bravery dissolving with all this ghoulish talk. Next to us remained the shadowed man eating fish, then the black
campo
beyond. The waxing moon was barely visible through a spooky, ragged layer of cloud, though a shaft of light struck the stones of the courtyard, so I had a sudden vivid image of the humped and growling Antonio standing beneath its rays. I also easily called to mind the innumerable bronze and marble she-wolves tucked into the crevices of Siena, as if ready to pounce. Then came even more disturbing visions from the past two days.