The King's Agent by Donna Russo Morin

...”—with a flourish she revealed the scroll hidden in her hand—“... is what you were after.”
    Battista’s dark glare jumped from her, to the parchment, and back. He opened his mouth, said nothing, and closed it again. He pushed against the ground, as if to stand, but had not the strength for it. He could deny her question no longer.
    “ Sì, it is,” he grumbled with more than a tinge of exasperation. “Well, actually it isn’t. I thought I would ... acquire a ... a sculpture, yes, a sculpture. But—”
    “You mean a triptych, sì? ”
    The man’s square jaw sagged an inch, though he tried his best not to allow it, and she kept him pinned to the moment with a narrowed stare.
    “A triptych, yes.” He shrugged, throwing up a hand toward her and the parchment, upper lip curled with dissatisfaction. “But all I found for my troubles was this parchment, though the label implies it may be of value yet.”
    So he hadn’t read the parchment, she thought, all the better. “I know much of this piece, of Giotto himself, for I am a student of art and have been for a long while.” She inched closer, tapping the air between them with the parchment to drive home each contention.
    Battista tried to snatch it, but his reactions were too slow and with a flick of her wrist she denied him the prize.
    “He painted it for Scrovegni, you know, or at least that is the most prevalent theory. It is because of their mutual admiration for il Poeta.”
    The names she tossed so casually at him—that of Giotto’s last and perhaps greatest benefactor, the moniker by which so many Italians referred to Dante—had the hoped-for effect. Battista looked at her greedily, as if she were the next masterpiece he must filch.
    “I know more, much more,” she assured him with a cock of her head. “And I will share all I know ... if you take me with you.”
    Battista’s hopeful, wide-eyed expression closed like a slammed shutter.
    “What a ridiculous notion.” He shook his head and winced with pain, continuing to argue as he rubbed between his eyes. “You are a member of the marquess’s household, the same I have just pillaged.”
    “Pillaged?” she scoffed at him with a tilt of her head, brows rising high upon her smooth forehead. “Truly? If that sorry escapade is what you call pillaging—”
    He waved her impudence away with a long-fingered hand. “I have made off with an obviously invaluable item. Why would I take you with me?”
    She rose and his gaze rose with her.
    “Because you are intrigued by my knowledge and want more of it. Because you are seriously injured and weak, and won’t make it ten feet from here without my help. And because ...”—she held out the parchment before his face, taunting him with it—“... because I have already read this, could just as easily destroy it, and never reveal its message to you.”
    Battista smiled and in it she glimpsed one of his most powerful weapons, his malignant magnetism. She tried not to quiver as his gaze combed over her. “You are correct, my lady, those are all good reasons for taking you, but how do I know I can trust you?”
    Aurelia chewed on her lip; a sign of her veracity would seal their bargain, her lust for adventure indulged, her purpose respected.
    Without another word, she held out the scroll and released it into his hesitant grasp without vacillation. Aurelia watched him as he read it, observed the curtain of curiosity—one she had worn since her first reading—muddy his assured gaze. Aurelia squatted down beside him, perusing the words yet again.
    They bent together over the parchment, able to read it in the growing light, their heads brushing up against each other. He finished a second reading before she did, and she felt his stare upon her face.
    “It is clear and yet it isn’t, though I have read it more than a few times.” She stepped away but not without a twitch to throw off the shiver upon her shoulders. “It is apparent the pieces of the