The King's Agent by Donna Russo Morin Read Free Book Online Page B

any longer, not a one ready to entertain the thought of sleep, leery of things that walked in the night.
    “Phryne,” Frado mumbled, head still bent over his book.
    “Scusi?” Battista asked.
    “He loved a woman named Phryne, a courtesan it seems, but one renowned not only for incredible beauty but for her daring and intelligence as well.” Frado barked a laugh, one filled with respect. “It seems her magnificence inspired Praxiteles so, he is celebrated as the first to sculpt a life-sized nude female form.” Frado’s jowls quivered as he shook his head with lusty reverence. “That must have been some heavenly body indeed.”
    Battista snickered silently, glad Frado had found something to inspire him, and they settled back to silent study. But it was not long until Ascanio, this time, once more broke their reverie.
    “Do either of you recognize the name of di Bone?”
    “Giotto.” Battista and Frado said the word together, an assured chorus.
    “Ah, of course.” Ascanio flipped a page backward, then forward again. Not a word more required to explain the identity belonging to the nickname.
    Giotto di Bondone was most often called simply Giotto, though a few, very few, referred to him by the intimate moniker of di Bone. Many credited the Florentine painter and architect with the renewed vigor for the arts that had captured the entire peninsula in its fervor. The Florentines considered him one of the land’s most cherished sons.
    “What of Giotto? What have you found?” Battista put a hand to his chin, pulling on the small tuft of hair growing from the upward curve in the middle of his full bottom lip. Frado closed the book in front of him with a snap.
    Without raising his eyes, Ascanio paraphrased the text before him. “This passage talks of a painting by Giotto, a triptych in fact. And in the same portion, both the names are mentioned.” Ascanio held the book aloft before his handsome face. “ ‘Praxiteles created it, Pliny warned of it, and Giotto’s Legatus Praxiteles Canonicus pieces will show the way to it.’ ” Ascanio looked up, mind working furiously on the Latin phraseology behind an unfocused gaze. “The Legend of Praxiteles’s Legacy.”
    “Dio mio!” Frado slapped his forehead with his hand and threw himself back in the chair. “We do not have to find one piece! We have to find three pieces to find the one piece! Bafa— ”
    “Wait, wait, there’s more!” Ascanio yelped over Frado’s cursing, holding up a halting hand as he read aloud again.
    “ ‘With Dante’s words to lead across the land and Giotto’s images to guide through the cities, only the truly selfless may find the glory.’ ”
    “Dante and Giotto, Dio mio, sì. ” Battista covered his face with his hands, pulling them away, tugging at the skin as he dropped them to his lap. “If it is a triptych by Giotto, the words must be those of Dante’s Commedia . Threes,” he mumbled to himself, but neither of his companions refuted the obvious conclusion.
    Try as he might, Battista could avoid Frado’s piercing stare no longer, nor deny the consternation of it. But neither would Battista back down from his appointed task. He slipped forward on his chair, perched on its edge, elbows on knees, hands clamped together.
    “We have been preparing for this all our lives, amico mio . Do you not feel it?”
    Frado shook his head back and forth, as if to deny it, but not a word against it did he speak. Ascanio’s gaze volleyed between them, the air thick and heavy with the harbingers unearthed.
    “Across the lands, through the cities,” Frado intoned, repeating the words with a grisly condemnation. “How far will this take us, Battista?”
    It seemed a simple question, yet both knew it spoke not just to geography.
    “From city to city, from state to state, until we find it.” Battista sat back, crossing his thick arms over his chest with determined finality, daring either to contradict him.
    Frado threw his hands up into