The back door banged, and her head came up. If it was Issie—
A sneeze. Not Issie; Umberto. He came through to the front parlor. Maria took in the wet-plastered gray hair and the faint bluish tinge to her man's lips. He smiled caressingly at her, and a wave of affection swept through her. Her man might have his faults and his rigidities, but he was a good one. People might become exasperated with Umberto Verrier, but you couldn't really dislike him; he was too mild a soul to engender anything so active as dislike. And he was such a good husband. A conscientious one, at least.
He was shivering slightly, and she beckoned to him, smiling. 'Umberto! Come over to the fire, before ice forms on your poor nose.'
He did, holding his thin hands out to crackling flames. 'There is a message from Venice? One of the foresters said he saw a messenger in the Doge's livery coming across.'
She'd pulled a chair up for him by this time, handed him the towel Issie had been trying to press on her. 'It was for me, dear. A letter from Katerina Montescue, the lady who was my maid of honor at our wedding. She is to marry Marco Valdosta, you know, the Doge-elect's ward, in a great state ceremony in the early spring. It's all finally been sorted out, and settled at last.'
Umberto looked at her wonderingly. 'I have never understood how you came to know such a one. The
Well, the wine might be just an excuse to find out what was happening, but Maria was grateful. Umberto was in need of it. 'There was more to it than just telling me that the wedding has been set, or she wouldn't have needed a messenger. She has asked that we—you and I—go back to Venice for the wedding. She has arranged with Petro Dorma to make it possible.'
Umberto sipped some of the hot wine. 'Well, it would be nice . . . I have been thinking how I would like to go to town. It would be very good to see people again, perhaps to ask if I might take a post closer to the city. But . . . what about the . . .' He hesitated, 'the baby?'
Maria patted her stomach. 'Baby should be born by then. It had better be. Katerina has asked me to be one of her matrons of honor.'
The goblet crashed to the floor. Neither Issie nor Umberto seemed to notice.
Chapter 12
'You're not that old,' protested Manfred for the fifth time.
The Emperor smiled wryly. 'Thank you. Nevertheless, I still want you to do it. You will pray for my soul in Jerusalem. It needs it, believe me. And it wouldn't do you any harm to do some thinking about your own mortality.'
Erik looked at the emperor's nephew. Manfred was trying to keep a straight face. He glanced at Charles Fredrik, and realized that the Emperor understood the humor in this too. Erik could see the similarity between the two men in the facial lines. Of course Manfred was bigger, and had a darker Celtic complexion, but the family likeness was definitely there—and went deeper than appearances. He could readily believe, looking at the Emperor, that there were some sins worth praying about.
Charles Fredrik shook his head ruefully. 'When I was your age I didn't believe in my own mortality either. Just do it, Manfred. Humor me. I'm an old man. I know that both in Venice and now in Norway, the chances of you being killed or injured were remarkably good. Neither luck nor Erik is going to stop everything. So I'm putting in a formal request to the Abbot-General of the Knights of the Holy Trinity to furnish you with an escort of knights. He has already acceded to my 'request' that you go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for me, while you are still in the holy order. I don't think he will refuse this either. You will be invested, both of you, as knight-proctors and given discretionary command over the Knights assigned to accompany you. To assist you I'm sending my old friend and mentor, Eberhard of Brunswick, with you.'
Manfred rolled his eyes. 'To instruct me in statecraft no doubt, Uncle. This pilgrimage is going to be a real penance after all.'
The Emperor covered a smile with his hand. 'Yes. Poor Eberhard is expecting to find it that, for a certainty. Now, Francesca, stay with me a while. I would like to talk to you without that young idiot interrupting me. Go on, you two. I'll want to talk to you as well, Erik. But not tonight, I think.'
Erik and Manfred had little choice but to leave. Francesca waved as she walked over to stand beside the Emperor.
* * *
'Did you see that!' said Manfred fuming. 'One minute he's dying and wanting me to pray for his soul, the next he's stealing my girl!'
'She's scarcely a girl,' said Erik, latching onto the one safe point in the entire argument.
The disapproving look brought a grin to Manfred. 'Among the things I can promise you, she definitely isn't a boy. Or have you forgotten a certain night in a certain brothel? Francesca says you're the biggest stiff thing she's ever had between her legs. Your whole body was rigid . . . with shock.'
Erik fumbled for something to say, and failed. The memory of the first time they'd met Francesca, fleeing from an ambush, still embarrassed him. They'd been ambushed in a brothel in which she was employed at the time, and she'd agreed to hide them—by using the expedient device of hiding them in plain sight, engaged in the sort of activity anyone would expect to see in a brothel. Erik himself, mortified, had faked his part of the thing. Manfred . . . had not.
Which was perhaps why Manfred reveled in the memory. 'It's old age, that's your problem. Memory's going first. Never mind, I'll get Francesca to refresh the picture. Just some millefiori beads as I recall, all she was wearing.'
'Manfred! You know that's not what I meant.' Erik wondered just how he should deal with this. 'Have you no
