Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [139]
I felt the tiny hairs rise all over my body. I wanted so to touch him once more with my cold fingers but I did not dare. I knelt beside the bed and leant over and I kissed his cheek warmly.
“Amadeo,” I said to him so that he might know his new name.
And then using the very Russian tongue he knew, but did not know, I told him that he was mine now, that I was his Master just as he had said. I gave him to know that all things were resolved in me. He must never worry, he would never fear again.
It was almost morning. I had to leave.
Vincenzo came knocking. The eldest among the apprentices were waiting outside. They had heard that a new boy had been brought into the house.
I admitted them to the bedroom. I told them they must take care of Amadeo. They must acquaint him with all our common wonders. They must let him rest for a while, surely, but they could take him out into the city. Perhaps it was the perfect thing to do.
“Riccardo,” I charged the eldest. “Take this one under your wing.”
What a lie it was! I stood thinking of it. It was a lie to give him over to the daylight, to companionship other than my own.
But the rising sun gave me no more time in the palazzo. What else could I do?
I went to my grave.
I lay down in darkness dreaming of him.
I had found an escape from the love of Botticelli. I had found an escape from the obsession with Bianca and her tantalizing guilt. I had found one whom death and cruelty had already marked. The Blood would be the ransom. Yes, all things were resolved in me.
Oh, but who was he? What was he? I knew the memories, the images, the horrors, the prayers, but not the voice! And something tormented me savagely, even in my avowed certainty. Did I not love this child too much to do what I planned to do?
The following night a splendid surprise awaited me.
There was my Amadeo at supper gorgeously turned out in blue velvet, as splendidly clothed as the other boys!
They had hastened to complete the tailoring of his clothes to make me happy and indeed I was, almost to the point of being stunned.
As he knelt to kiss my ring, I was speechless, and with both my hands I bid him rise, and I embraced him, kissing him quickly on both cheeks.
He was still weak from his ordeals, I could see it, but the other boys as well as Vincenzo had gone a long way to put some color into his face.
As we sat down to supper, Riccardo explained that Amadeo could paint nothing. Indeed, Amadeo was afraid of the brushes and the pots of paint. And that he knew no language but he was picking up with amazing quickness our own tongue.
The beautiful boy with the auburn hair who was Amadeo gazed at me calmly as Riccardo spoke. And once again he said in the soft Russian tongue: Master, which the other boys did not hear.
You are for me. That was my answer for him. The soft words in Russian that I gave to him through the Mind Gift. Remember. Who were you before you came here? Before they hurt you? Go back. Go back to the ikon. Go back to the Face of Christ if need be.
A look of fear passed over him. Riccardo, not dreaming of the reason why, quickly took his hand. Riccardo began to name the simple objects of the supper table for him. And Amadeo as if waking from a nightmare smiled at Riccardo and repeated the words.
How sharp and fine his voice. How sure the pronunciation. How quick the look of his brown eyes.
“Teach him everything,” I said to Riccardo and to the teachers assembled. “See to it that he studies dancing, fencing, and most of all painting. Show him every picture in the house, and every sculpture. Take him everywhere. See that he learns all there is to know about Venice.”
Then I retired to the painting room alone.
Quickly I mixed up the tempera, and I painted a small portrait of Amadeo as I’d seen him at supper, in his fine tunic of blue velvet with his hair shining and combed.
I was weak from the heat of my own miserable thoughts. The fact was, my conviction had left me.
How could I take from this boy the cup he’d barely tasted? He was a dead creature brought back to