The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(42)

The next day, unsettled and eager to be gone, Giovanni hurried his groom to saddle his horse. The groom, a lad named Franco, nervous, trying to please his master, left the cinch too loose, and as Giovanni mounted, the saddle pulled to the side, dropping both Giovanni and the saddlebags to the ground. Giovanni was cursing his groom when he saw a book of papers wrapped in a white cloth slide out of the saddlebag.

“Careful, Franco. I’m planning to give it to my new bride when we wed.”

Franco whispered, “I looked at it, sire. It is a fine book. Will she be able to read it?”

“Of course she will. She speaks many languages.”

Franco scuffed his shoes in the dirt, then he leaned close. “Sire, I must tell you, I’ve heard the pages. They speak, at night, from your saddlebags, to me. They tell me to do things.”

Giovanni clouted Franco’s head. “You’ve been drinking the ale again, haven’t you? Do not say such ridiculous things.”

“Sire, forgive me, but truly, the words they speak are not ridiculous.”

What was this all about? Giovanni said, “Don’t say such things to the rest of the men. They might not understand, may decide to drop you off a cliff.”

And Franco bowed his head, nodded.

But that night, when the fire was low, Franco heard the words again, whispers in his head, growing louder and more insistent. He went the saddlebag, put his ear against the worn leather, and the pages spoke.

He couldn’t understand the words, exactly, but the whispers told him many things, including listing the names of the men who were planning to murder his master and steal the treasure for themselves.

Franco took up a sword and went to where three of the men still sat beside the fire. The nearest man was almost too easy to kill, the sword slid through his neck like butter. The second and the third were also easy. The fourth, though, alerted by the crack of a branch under Franco’s foot, jumped to his feet. His death was loud and roused the rest of the camp. The fifth ran from Franco, screaming. The rest of the soldiers wrestled the sword away from Franco. Giovanni, asleep farthest away from the fire, was awakened by the fighting.

Franco was on his knees by the fire, hands bound behind him.

Giovanni looked at the four dead soldiers, then back at Franco. “What have you done?”

Franco raised his eyes to Giovanni’s face. He whispered, “I did as the pages instructed. I killed four of the men who planned to kill you. I was protecting you. The fifth escaped me.” And Franco nodded toward the soldier.

“But my men wouldn’t kill me.” He looked to the fifth, and the man fell to his knees, crying, “They were forcing me, sire. They wanted me to poison your food, but I refused, I would never—”

His words were cut off along with his head, which rolled into the fire.

The soldiers looked on, wondering what magic had come to the groom.

Giovanni raised Franco to his feet and embraced him.

“Thank you for my life. Now, explain to me how you knew about this plot.”

“It was the pages, sire.”



Gradara Castle

Near Venice, Italy

Three Months Later

“Tell me the story again, Papa. The one in the book you brought home about twin brothers who drank blood.”

“One more time, Marco, and then it’s off to sleep with you. Once upon a time, there were two brothers.” Giovanni would never admit to his sons he couldn’t read the book, that it had been Franco, his groom, who’d told him the story of the twin brothers from long ago.

“Like Luciano and me?”

“Sì, like you and Luciano. They shared a womb and were born within minutes of each other. It was soon apparent that one of the brothers was stronger than the other, even though they should have been exactly alike. When the weaker began to sicken and waste, his brother, devastated, searched high and low for a cure.”

Marco whispered, “Like Luciano and me.” But his father didn’t hear him.

“He rode east, to the farthest corner of the earth, and collected strange herbs and the blood of young beasts. He then rode north, as far as he could, where it was light all day, and stayed a summer with a shaman who taught him how to use the herbs and the blood to live forever. He rode west, then, where the women were pale and staring, and collected books that would help expand his brother’s mind. And then he rode south, to his brother’s side, and, together, they experimented.

“They boiled the herbs, and they tasted the flesh of the young animals, and they drank the blood of the women in their village. And they grew strong, together, and the weaker brother wrote everything down in a book so they would never forget.”

The fire crackled, and sparks flew in the air. Giovanni looked pensively into the flames a moment, then turned back to his sons. “Everywhere they went, blood followed. And the brothers saw the villagers they’d spared die after growing old and sick, leaving behind another generation, who grew to maturity, married, created children, and still, the brothers preyed among them, and still, there was no gray in their whiskers. They remained tall and straight and vigorous.

“All of their tales they recorded, how they drank of the necks of virgins under the full moon, how the howls of wolves and bears never struck fear in their hearts. They moved unseen, unknown, until they set upon other young women and girls.”