Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (books to read romance .txt) 📗

moment sober as a German count. In those days childhood was a rare thing, for people of any class.

      Lorenzo, however precocious, had not recognized my name. He had seen my letters, though, and could identify importance. He sat down at table and munched a piece of fruit while like a seasoned diplomat he killed time and sounded me out with a discussion of relatively neutral topics: the death of the Pope, the sad state of Italian roads. Then presently Lorenzo’s father hobbled into the courtyard to join us. Here was the ruler, certainly, and I rose to my feet; but Piero’s gnarled hand waved me to sit down again. Leaning on the table for support, he handed me back my letters, and bade me stay as a guest in his house for as long as I might choose.

      Lorenzo too had sprung up with alacrity, that his father might have the seat at my side. And Piero knew who I was; I could see it in his eyes as at last, he settled himself on the bench beside me with a groan.

      “Is it possible, Signore Ladislao, that we have met before? Have you lived in Targoviste, perhaps?”

      My old Wallachian capital. I doubted, though of course I could not be sure, that Piero himself had ever dragged his gouty frame that far from home. Medici merchants had certainly been there, though. Where in the known world had they not been? I admitted cautiously that I had once lived in that city.

      “Then perhaps,” continued Piero, “you were there some eight years or so past, when an incident occurred that caused one of my family’s most dependable trading representatives to bring back a strange report. Despite the man’s good reputation, some found his story difficult to believe.

      “It seems that this merchant, through a chain of the most unlucky circumstances, found himself alone and unescorted on the road, and carrying a great amount of gold coin, so that the first robber’s eye to light upon him must have meant at the very least the total ruin of his life’s work.

      “He had just entered the domain of the young warlord Drakulya, said by some to be a prince of unparalleled ruthlessness and ferocity—I do not know the truth of those stories myself. But at any rate our exceedingly fearful merchant, perhaps never having heard the worst of the stories, dared to approach Drakulva himself, pleading that the prince assign guards to protect the traveler’s property whilst he was passing through Wallachia.

      “The prince only stared at him coldly. ‘You say, then, that my good people are thieves?’ ‘Great prince, there must be some thieves in any land.’ ‘Not here, I do not tolerate them.’

      “The merchant, having seen the skeletons of impaled brigands at roadside—or at least skeletons labeled as guilty of that crime, among others—was not going to argue. The upshot was that the prince commanded him to pick out a dark street corner at random within the capital and to leave all his goods, unguarded, piled there for a whole night. The merchant of course had no choice but to do as he was ordered. Then, resigning himself to ruin, he spent a sleepless night in a room of the prince’s palace. In the morning, expecting nothing but the worst, he returned to where he had left his gold. In the daylight the bags looked like just what they were, bags of coin, unguarded by any visible presence. But not one had been touched. People of every degree, rich and poor, going about their morning business, were walking round them, giving them a wide berth as they passed.” Here Piero paused, looking at me with inquiring eyes.

      “I have heard the same story,” I replied, “when I lived in that city … of course it is possible, Signore Piero, that you have seen me before and do recognize me, but on the other hand I am sometimes confused with a great rogue who is presently imprisoned in His Majesty’s palace at Visegrad. It is of course not to be expected that such a man would be sent on a confidential mission for His Majesty; yet so strong is the resemblance that it sometimes causes me embarrassment.”

      Piero smiled his understanding. “Say no more, good Signore Ladislao; the farthest thing from my intention is that you should ever be embarrassed in my house. Say no more.” And he stood up, and bowed to me; and with that the offer of hospitality and friendship was sealed.

      When I had satisfied my appetite for food— which I moderated somewhat in conformity with what seemed to be the local custom—I was shown to what was to be my room, a sizable chamber on the first floor above the ground. Left alone in it, I blinked about me, wondering by what witchcraft these folk of common blood had managed to commandeer a royal palace. By comparison, my former palace in Targoviste was a savage barracks. Here, the bed was of inlaid wood, its covers and canopy and cushions all green velvet. A Byzantine mirror, its gilt frame wrought with cherubs, hung on one wall, reflecting a fresco of great beauty painted on the opposite. I stared at my lean, dark soldier’s visage in the glass— incompatibility with mirrors was some years in the future still—wondering how many similar or even richer rooms were in the vast house, and wondering also at how little I seemed, after all, to know about the world.

      How can I, even now, describe what the house of Medici was then? I cannot. Still, I will relate a thing or two. In a sense the place was like a luxurious, or I should say aristocratic, private hotel. There were merchants of other companies lodging there during my stay, along with religious of several ranks, agents, bankers, soldiers, travelers of every respectable kind coming and going daily. Of course Cosimo’s recent death must have done something to augment this traffic, so that I probably saw it at its peak. But though I