Page 91 of Thus with a Kiss I Die
“Did you mention her fear to anyone?” Cal asked.
“Of course not!” Old Maria’s voice grew ever louder, an elderly woman making her point. “When she whimpered, I dragged her out of Princess Ursula’s bedchamber and scolded her for her craven fear, while Princess Ursula was locked in battle with death’s cold hands. She fled, weeping, and I never saw her again.” She saw Tommaso had kept his duty to me and waited, arms crossed, eyes scanning the area for ghosts or men or any danger, and said, “Well! I’d better return and protect Princess Ursula from more mysterious men in cloaks.” She swept away, oblivious to the upset she left behind.
“The villain who attacked Nonna Ursula overheard Old Maria talking too loudly to Pasqueta. That’s why he knew she’d seen him.” I lifted my hands in helpless despair. “You found Pasqueta? Under the rosemary hedge?”
He gave two abrupt nods.
“Elder said the killer had been in a rage.”
“Rage or brutality, it’s hard to tell the difference. We’ve sent for a layer out of the dead. She comes anon and will put Pasqueta to rest.”
“Was Yorick’s skull intact?”
“The skull . . . had been battered by whatever tool struck Pasqueta down, by whatever tool struck Nonna Ursula down. Bloody marks streaked and marred the bone, but the bone didn’t break. Yorick triumphed.”
I laughed in a like triumph, then noted Cal’s grim countenance and sobered. “You believe the man who killed Pasqueta has failed twice now, in his quest to kill Nonna Ursula and to batter Yorick’s skull to symbolic crumbs of humanity. You fear that he’ll rampage further in frustration and fury.”
“In these assaults, I perceive a frenzy of guilt and desperation yielding to nothing but the finality of death. He’s loose in the palace, Rosaline, and I fear for us all.”
Yes, Cal was right and my laughter had been foolish in the extreme. “Where’s the skull?”
“Holofernes took it and is cleaning the dirt and blood from its bony countenance before bringing it back to Nonna. She doesn’t need to know the adventures Yorick has pursued since she used him in her séance.” To Tommaso, he said, “Stay with the dowager princess. Lady Rosaline will be safe with me.”
Tommaso looked to me; he hadn’t yet recovered from my recent encounter with Baal.
Cal got the message. “If that’s acceptable to Lady Rosaline?”
“Tommaso, if you would stay with Princess Ursula, it would relieve my mind. As you’ve probably overheard”—how could he not?—“we fear the man who attacked her came from within the palace, and you, who were not at the palace that night, have become our trusted mainstay. With her return to consciousness, we must be doubly vigilant, and I do vow to you, I’ll be careful and wise.”
“As my lady commands.” Tommaso bowed, took up guard at the doorway of Nonna Ursula’s suite, and inspected the passing servants until they were shied away.
Cal offered his arm, and when I placed my fingertips on it, he led me toward a wide-entranced chamber with tall double doors. “He’s not happy with his new charge,” he said.
“He was sent to guard me,” I reminded him.
“Perhaps he fears that in the right circumstances, you’re neither careful nor wise.”
He ruffled my feathers. “Are you referring to my trip from the palace to Casa Montague?”
“Those were the right circumstances,” he agreed.
Point made, and gracefully too. It would behoove me to remember his talents as a diplomat.
He gestured me ahead of him into a lofty room. A desk dominated the space. Doors stood open to Cal’s beloved garden, and ever vigilant of my reputation (or at least when it suited him), Cal did not shut the doors into the corridor. Shelves housed scrolls and leather books, paintings of exotic flowers and statues that had been uncovered from Verona’s ancient ruins; here was the heart of Cal’s palace domain where he performed the podestà’s work.
I grieved for Pasqueta and feared what a fetid, writhing worm stew we would find when we uncovered the culprit, yet curiosity drew me to examine the contents of the books and the art Cal chose to enjoy while he worked.
While I wandered, he took the seat behind his desk. “Old Maria made our mission easy. All we have to do is find the man in the cape.”
The marble bust of a Roman general, crowned with a laurel leaf wreath, drew me, and I touched the jutting nose, marveling at the cool, smooth stone and the faint traces of paint around the eyes. “Every man wears a cape, as does every woman.”
Cal looked at me. Just looked at me.
“Oh. You were being ironic.” Being born into the loud, brash, romance-driven family did occasionally obscure the subtleties. “Nonna told Elder and me that although she can’t quite remember her attacker, she called him a man of the street.”
“‘A man of the street’? Who in the palace is a man of the street?”
“Men who fight in the streets and don’t die in the mud are men of the streets. Your guards are now men of the streets.” I smoothed my hands over the gloriously decorated leather and wood binding on his newest book acquisition. “The man was bent on silencing her and that he didn’t bother to conceal his face is telling. It wasn’t an attack; it was a murder attempt.”
