"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - St Germain 2 - The Palace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

should talk more."
Lodovico removed Gasparo's hand from his shoulder. "Tomorrow, perhaps. But
I've got to leave now." It had, he thought, been a most unprofitable evening. But in
time he might, turn it to good use. He rose to his feet and shammed confusion.
"Which way… ?"
Gasparo clapped an affectionate arm around his shoulder. "Ah, Lodovico, you're
a good man. A good man. Now, there's the door. You'll be grateful for the wine
when we're out in the night." He reeled toward the door, dragging Lodovico with
him.
With a great deal of ingenuity Lodovico disengaged himself from Gaspare's
bearlike embrace. "My head… My head…" He leaned against the wall for support.
"Go on ahead," he said, waving Gasparo toward the door.
Gasparo laughed good-naturedly, waved vaguely to Lodovico and the landlord,
lunged through the door and was gone.
"Another?" the landlord asked Lodovico.
"No. No." He stood in the center of the tavern for some little time, his face closed
in thought, his bright eyes calculating. Then, with an unattractive smile, he tossed a
coin to the landlord and went out into the bright, cold night.
***
The text of a note from Donna Estasia Catarina di Arrigo della Cittadella da
Parma, housekeeper for her cousin, Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, to Francesco
Ragoczy da San Germane. Delivered by hand to the house of the alchemist Federigo
Cossa on the night of March 21, 1491:


Diletto mio,
 I pray that this finds you with your host, for my message is urgent. Sandro and
Simone will be gone for four days following this Sunday. For those days I will be
alone, and anxious for your company. I trust you will be so obliging as to continue
our most pleasant diversions of last week.
Should this be satisfactory, send me word, and I will receive you as before, in my
apartments. I have put your gift upon the bed and look forward in anticipation to
showing you how well it becomes me. Oh, say you will come. I grow mad for lack
of your kisses. Do not fail.
Estasia

2
Until she looked up with a start, Demetrice Volandrai did not realize how dark it
had become in the Medici library. On the trestle table in front of her three books lay
open, their texts indistinct now in the suffused light. She put a hand to her eyes and
told herself she had a headache rather than admit that her mind had been wandering.
She hesitated briefly before closing the books and setting them aside for tomorrow.
Reluctantly she tested the quill that lay beside her notes and was not surprised to
find it dried, ink caked on it so thickly that she despaired of being able to trim it
properly.
She rose slowly and went to the window. In the last burnished light of sunset her
woefully old-fashioned gown of rust velvet seemed more beautiful than it had ever
been in better light. Her pale rosy-blond hair framed her face in chaste braids and her
simple linen chemise, where it showed above the neck of her gown and puffed
around the terribly plain brooches that joined her simple sleeves to her dress, was