He tumbled out, using the truck as cover, swinging his rifle to seek the enemy. There. The hilltop bristled with gun barrels and muzzle flashes. Dominic’s stomach sank into familiar dread as he fell into the old routine. Filled with terror, he squeezed the trigger and his rifle twitched and jerked in his hands.
“Bonelli!”
Hancock’s scream came just in time. Dominic ducked instinctively and felt heat on his right arm. He glanced down at his shoulder, barely comprehending, seeing the rip in the cloth and the healthy flesh just beneath. His closest call yet. Perhaps the next one would send him the same way as Paul, and he would never hold his beautiful wife and little girl again. He would never see his new baby. The thought of his family set his soul on fire. He threw himself back to his feet and fired with an accuracy born of desperation. One by one, the line of German soldiers fell as his every bullet met its mark. The last few, seeing the line of death growing nearer to them, hugged their rifles to their chests and fled back over the rise.
Silence fell. Dominic tried to peer through the veil of smoke. Finally lowering his gun, he saw that his hands were shaking. He turned toward the rest of the convoy, all staring at him, even Hancock. A niggling thought penetrated the white noise of his mind. Stephany. He swung his rifle back onto its shoulder strap and stepped over the body of his fallen comrade as respectfully as he could, walking to the truck immediately preceding his, where he pulled back the canvas.
Stephany was crouched on the floorboard, curled up as tightly as his body could compress itself, his hands clapped over his ears. Dominic’s heart broke as he realized that this was how the vicar had spent the entire Battle of Aachen, cowering beneath his pulpit. His lips moved in a string of sotto voce German that Dominic knew had to be prayer. He moved his hand to Stephany’s shoulder. “Vicar. Stephany. It’s okay.”
By degrees, Stephany uncurled, his eyes piercing Dominic’s with raw terror. His face was drained of blood, and his glazed expression said that he was back there in his beloved cathedral, stripped of its treasures, as the bombs fell. Dominic squeezed his shoulder. “You’re safe. They’ve gone.”
Stephany clutched Dominic’s wrists in trembling hands and stared into his eyes. “Why do they do this? Why all the killing?” he cried hoarsely. “My own people.”
Dominic wished he could ask those same questions out loud. Instead, he gave Stephany the closest thing he could to a smile. “There’s still time to go back to Bonn, you know. You don’t have to come to the mines. You’d still get your art back if we find it there.”
Stephany was shaking his head before Dominic could finish. “No, no. I come. The end.” His eyes flashed with determination. “They will not take everything from me.”
“Come on!” Hancock yelled. “Let’s get out of here.”
It was a long, slow day of crawling through the countryside, pausing to take cover whenever they saw movement on the hilltops. Somehow, they managed to avoid another skirmish. It was only as dusk fell and they moved into the cover of a dense forest that they managed to pick up speed. Dominic carefully laid each painting flat in the bed of the truck, examining each one for bullet holes or other damage.
Exhausted, Dominic leaned against the side of the truck, the familiar weight of his rifle pressing against his knees as they rocked deeper into the night. The firefight had pocked holes in the brown paper wrappings of the paintings. Dominic leaned his head back and watched the headlights of the truck behind them shine through the holes and reflect on the gilded frames. The sight was surreal, a speck of beauty that did not belong in this wasteland of death and destruction.
As the sun set, the truck rumbled across a bridge, and Dominic looked out to see the wide, sparkling expanse of the Rhine. They headed east, toward Siegen.
40
Cecilia
Milan, Italy
January 1491
“TIGHTER.”
Cecilia grasped the stone mantel of the hearth as Lucrezia Crivelli pulled the strings of her stays tightly around Cecilia’s burgeoning middle. She did her best not to cry out in agony.
“Signorina, your middle has grown,” Lucrezia said. “There is little more I can do. What a pity.” The insincerity in her voice made Cecilia’s scalp tingle.
January. Halfway through her pregnancy, and there was no more hiding it. Cecilia had bloomed with child and the growth was only going to become more apparent. It was no longer a secret; everyone in the castle whispered about Cecilia’s growing midsection. But Cecilia had sent word to Ludovico that she would visit him in his chambers—the first time she had ever requested such a meeting with His Lordship herself. Now, she did her duty to look as much as possible like the young, charming mistress who had earned her a place in the palace to begin with.
It took all her strength to stand upright in the constricting garment. Cecilia swayed into the marble corridor, as dizziness filled her head and trepidation welled into her breast. Would he listen to her, consider her pleas? Or would he want to take her just before he exchanged gold rings with Beatrice?
For weeks, the castle had fluttered with activity. Banners of blue, red, and gold arms flapped in the courtyards, proclaiming the alliance of Ferrara and Milan. Servants bustled down the corridors, dusting cobwebs and corners of the hallways and stairs. The smell of apple cakes wafted from the kitchens on the lower floors, where the cooks timed the rotations of the sandglass carefully before removing their edible masterpieces from the brick ovens. There they chopped onions, parsley, and beets until the juice turned their fingertips and palms blood red. The horses in the stable were brushed, slicked with oil, and shod with new irons from the blacksmith’s forge.
Cecilia did her best to ignore the details, but through the whispers of the servants and the ladies that Ludovico insisted on sending her as companions, she learned that the wedding ceremony had blossomed into something bigger than just a conjoining with Beatrice d’Este. It would be a double celebration, at the same time joining Beatrice’s younger brother Alfonso to Anna Sforza, the sister of Ludovico il Moro’s nephew.
In the flurry of nuptial preparations, His Lordship had retreated behind the closed doors of his own private chambers. Even Leonardo, whose job it was to orchestrate the staging of the wedding, had quickly abandoned Cecilia’s portrait. She was left again to the solitude of her books and her dog. Cecilia had insisted on her normal routine in the library, where she practiced her recitations and the lute with Bernardo. But it was only through a daily leap of imagination that she was able to ignore the marriage preparations around her.
She dismissed everyone who tried to engage her, everyone except for Bernardo the poet and eventually her brother Fazio, who had returned to Milan from Tuscany just in time for the wedding. He had lifted her into his arms and laughed, then run his hands over her middle, wide-eyed with wonder. And it was only Fazio who had the power to allay Cecilia’s fears that she might be cast aside or dead before the marriage took place.
“Nonsense, Cecilia,” her brother had said, squeezing her hands. “You are perfectly healthy and the joy of His Lordship’s life. You will remain so. I am certain of it.”
Now, Cecilia tried to corral some of her brother’s confidence as she dared to rap on the door to Ludovico’s private chambers. She heard his deep voice rumble that she should enter.