HYACINTHOS
A tale by Ivor Sukwell
WARNING: This story, though it has as its central characters two men and a boy and does make many references to intimate activity between those men and the boy, is in the form of a "Who done it?" and not a "How often did they do it?"
If you seek detailed descriptions of rampant sex in every line and paragraph, it is probably a story you will wish to ignore, but whatever your decision, please consider donating to Nifty who make available for you stories you like to read.
HYACINTHOS
Chapter One
Magistrate Giovanni Baptista had barely entered his office when he was accosted by his most senior Assistant Magistrate, Paulo Vendozi.
"Must you be so sudden with your appearance?" Giovanni complained, "I have but this instant arrived and yet no chance to compose myself. I slept but little the past night, the air was so warm."
Paulo permitted himself a small, but secret, smile. It was a Monday morn, and well known by all that Magistrate Giovanni Baptista slept but little any Sunday night, be it winter or summer, and no matter if it be hot or cold.
"Were another man to tell me that I would offer my condolences," Paulo said, "But you doubtless made good use of your sleepless hours."
The two Officers of the Law had been colleagues for many years and knew each other well, and indeed there was some friendship and understanding between them, and nothing in Paulo's words was there to give offence.
"Indeed, Paulo," Giovanni contrived a smile, "The hours were passed pleasantly enough, though the air was truly somewhat warm and the exercise tiring."
"It tired you not so much as that of Enrico Francisci," Paulo said in flat tones, "He did not wake from his this morn."
"Francisci? The painter?"
`The very same."
Though Enrico Francisci was no del Sarto or Michelangelo, yet were his works known well and in some demand by those who appreciated the compositions he produced. Indeed one, a life-sized canvas of Hyacinthos, was said to hang in the private chambers of the Duke himself.
"How came he not to wake?" the Magistrate enquired, his tiredness forgotten. His Assistant, he knew well, would not come to him so early with mere idle gossip.
"Belike it had something to do with a dagger that it seems had pierced his body and found its way to his heart," Paulo informed his superior, "Such often causes men not to wake."
"Murder?" Giovanni sucked in his breath. Violent death was not unusual, men met their ends often enough at sword or dagger point, but not in their beds at night.
"It is not like he could not have inflicted the wound upon himself; there was no weapon found and having received such a stroke he would have been in no condition to dispense with the blade."
"Who found him? Who is with him now? Did he have a visitor in the night?"
The questions were fired rapidly, one following straight upon the previous; Magistrate Baptista was a man of Law and his duties were that he should investigate all crime, and murder was most definitely a crime.
"The woman who attends him to clean and prepare his meals," Paulo answered, having come prepared with all that was known. "She cried for aid and was attended straight by an Officer of the Day, and he called also straight for another to assist him, and both are present there now, waiting for the Coroner to appear. The record of the Officer of the Night there states that a boy, one Lucus by name, was admitted to the dwelling by Francisci just past the midnight hour, and departed from thence at four of the clock this morn."
"Who is this boy? Is he known to us?"
The records of the Magistrate's Office were most extensive and the Officers of the Night most particular in their duties and meticulous in their noting of events. No boy could visit the house of any and his arrival and departure not be noted and recorded, and that for the safety of the boys who earned some living by the selling of their night time services more than for any purpose of enforcing some concept of morality.
"The Officer listed him by name," Paulo said, "And records show he is a most frequent visitor there at nights, and always leaves unharmed."
"He must be found and brought to me," Giovanni said with no hesitation, "And have the records searched to discover what other houses he is known to visit. The woman also, she is the First Finder and we must discover all she knows. And the Officer of the Night who may enlighten us more on this boy's activities. I fear, Paulo, that we have a busy day ahead."
Chapter Two
"You need have no fear," Magistrate Baptista smiled in a friendly manner at the ample matron who had been brought to attend him, "You will be much distressed by your discovery, but, because it was your discovery, the Law demands that we must question you to discover all that you can tell us."
The matron twisted the ends of her black lace cloak in some consternation; to be summoned to the Hall of Justice to appear for question before the Chief Magistrate were no small thing and she had some natural fears that blame should be lain on her for the death she had discovered.
"It being that you are the one who made discovery," Assistant Magistrate Vendozi explained to the frightened woman, "You are known in Law as the First Finder and your evidence given to us is of the greatest importance; more importance, indeed, than may be the evidence of any other as you are the very first to have set eyes upon the body. What you saw may be of the greatest help in making discovery of who it was that did this dreadful deed."
"I saw Master Francisci was dead, sirs, and I called for aid," the nervous woman said, "It were no more than that, I swear."
"It were much more than that," Giovanni said, not thinking how his words may have sounded as words of some dread to a woman of very little brain, "How was it, tell us, that you understood that Master Francisci was dead?"
"From the way he was lying on his bed, sirs, and from the blood that had come from his chest."
"In what manner was he lying?" Paulo asked, his voice friendly and not threatening in any manner.
"With arms and legs akimbo, sir," the matron gave Paulo a thankful look.
"Not as if he were asleep?" Paulo questioned.
"Not at all so, sir," the woman began to relax some, "And nor would he have lain naked on his bed when the hour it was for me to arrive. Master Francisci was a most proper gentleman, sirs, though he was a painter."
"The blood," Giovanni asked, ignoring for the moment the gentlemanly or otherwise behaviours of the deceased, "Tell us of the blood."
"It were on his chest sirs," the matron patted her left breast, "Around this part."
"And was it dried or running free?" Giovanni wanted to know.
"I think it were not fully dried," the matron screwed up her face in an effort to remember clearly, "Though it were not running free," she added with some conviction. "Twere something like a rabbit when you open it for cleaning," she explained. "Though Master Francisci had not been opened," she added hastily.
"For which we may be grateful," Giovanni muttered and made a note that it seemed the victim had been dead for some little time when his corpse was discovered.
"How came it that you were able to enter Master Francisci's house if he answered not your call of arrival?" he wanted to know next.
"Bless you, sirs," The woman, now in a much more relaxed state, said, "It is a Monday and always is the door unlocked for me to enter on a Monday."
"Why so on a Monday," a puzzled Magistrate enquired.
"So I may know it is safe for me to enter," the matron stated, "That I know that young Lucus has departed and I should not be presented with any sight that may distress me. Master Francisci was a most proper gentleman, sirs, and never would he have permitted my eyes the sight of him and young Lucus in embrace, though that they did embrace much I have no doubts. Master Francisci was most fond of that boy and the boy also of him I do believe."
"And he was in the habit of having the boy visit him at nights?" Giovanni asked, "And this on a Sunday night alone?"
"I know not if it be a Sunday alone, sirs," the matron frowned, "I think it may have been other nights as well, but if it were so then did Master Francisci take much care to keep that from me. Sometimes, it is true, that when I arrived, young Lucus was present, but those times were ones when he was model for Master Francisci and they were at work because the light was good. But always on a Sunday, sirs, and always did Lucus leave the door unlatched for me when he departed."
"And Master Francisci? Was he abroad or abed when you came?"
"Abroad most oft," the matron said, "Though sometimes he were still abed and called to me from there when I entered. I always gave announcement of my arrival, sirs, by calling out to him when I entered the door."
`So, this morning you were of some surprise when your call was not answered?"
"Some, but not too great, sirs. There were a time or two when he slept late, but such times were few."
"But this morn, when he answered you not, you had no thought he were still asleep?"
"At first some, sirs, but I made great clatter and called again some few times, and when no answer came I went to his chamber for fear some misfortune had come upon him."
"Some misfortune?" Giovanni asked.
"Gentlemen, so I have heard, do some times suffer from some ailment if they have been," she paused to search her limited mind for a suitable word, "Too eager at night," she said.
"And this you feared?"
"He would have been well when Lucus left," she said, "He is a good boy and would have called for an Officer of the Night had any misfortune been suffered by Master Francisci when he were present, and all must have been well for Lucus left the door for me as he always did."
"So, fearing perhaps some seizure, you entered the bedchamber?"
"And saw what I saw and called straight for aid," the matron shuddered at the memory of what she had found.
`But all else was as normal?" Giovanni questioned, "No signs that any untoward events had occurred?"
"Nothing, sirs, nothing that I saw,"
"So what have we learned?" Giovanni said after the woman had been ushered out. He reached for paper he had made notes on, looked them through, and raised his eyes in an expectant manner at his Assistant.
"That the unfortunate Master Francisci made a mistaken choice in his boy of the night," Paulo shrugged, "What else could be the case?"
"And how arrive you at this conclusion?" Though murder of a man in his own home was a most uncommon thing to be investigated, the Magistrates held faith with the manner of detection that had served them well in other matters. In the case of a death, always was the First Finder questioned to begin with, and from what was learned Assistant Magistrate Vendozi would seek the most obvious reason for that death. Then would Giovanni make attempt to find reasons why that conclusion was mistaken.
"He takes a boy for his bed," Paulo examined his fingers, holding one upwards, "The boy is noted by an Officer of the Night on his arrival and on his departure. No others are noted as arriving or departing from there, and in the morning our painter is dead from a dagger wound to his heart. He is unclothed and no evidence of struggle is noted by the woman who cleans the house so we must suppose that his nakedness was due to the company he had, as I can think of no other reason why a man should receive a visitor unclothed at night. The boy, perhaps not of a mood to have Master Francisci's weapon thrust in him, thrusts instead his dagger into Francisci's heart, and leaves."
"And that enough to hang the boy," Giovanni nodded, "But I have no appetite for hanging boys, so let us make search if there be any reason not to do so."
That Magistrate Giovanni Baptista had, as many men do have, a different appetite for boys than one of wishing to see them hanged was a fact not unknown to his Assistant, and, indeed, that Assistant had himself found his hunger best assuaged by a boy, though in that regard he was less an epicure than his superior.
"Have you any knowledge of this boy?" Paulo enquired, knowing well the Chief Magistrate was not one to confine himself to one, but wished to sample as many varieties of boy as he could find.
The City was governed by a Prince of most liberal and advanced thinking, though the moral code that Prince enforced was most strict. It was of no concern to Prince or City Fathers if a man should find pleasure in boy or girl, provided only that boy or girl be of sufficient age to consent to the pleasure to be found in them, and though there was no formal decree of that age, by common agreement it was taken to be thirteen, though boys of fewer years than that were known to give consent and no displeasure placed on them or on those who made advantage of such consent.
Were consent not given, though, no matter what the age, it was decreed as rape, and the punishment for such most severe. Convicted of that most immoral of all crimes, the guilty man was taken to the scaffold and, in public view, his genitals were removed from his body and inserted in his mouth, and after some moments of being thus able to repent on his misuse of such, he was hanged till he were dead.
This being so, and the railings of the Church against what were known by that as `The Sins Of Sodom' having no sway or force in the City, there were an adequate number of boys most willing to give consent, sufficient number, indeed, to satisfy the appetites of those who found the taste of boys to be to their liking, and Chief Magistrate Baptista knew many of the flavours that abounded there.
"None," that Magistrate replied, "And I think it may be of some enlightenment to perceive the houses he is known to visit, though, from what we have so far learned, to Master Francisci's dwelling he did go with some frequency."
"The Office of the Night will have record of that," Paulo shrugged, "No man may receive a boy at night and that visit go not recorded."
"And so it should not," Giovanni agreed, "And that for the safety of the boys, in most especial those who are of fewer years than most."
The records of the Office of the Night were indeed most meticulously kept and most complete also. With as great a dedication as that of any Jewish banker, busy clerks referenced and cross referenced every boy and every visit he made and to where he visited, so, knowing the name of the boy concerned, it was but a small trouble to discover all that was known of him, though that discovery caused some surprise to the investigating Magistrates.
`No other house but that of the painter?" Paulo spoke with some air of disbelief, "What manner of living can he earn in such a way?"
"He visits there most frequently," Giovanni pointed out, "And not, as I believed from the woman's testimony, but on Sunday nights alone."
`She did not say Sunday nights alone," Paulo searched his memory, "But only that always on Sunday nights."
"Indeed so," Giovanni mused, and searched again through the pages of the records. "And see," he said, "Some visits he made but no Officer of the Night records his leaving."
"Did she not also say that there were times the boy was present in the mornings and working as model for the painter? Those nights, it seems, he visited and remained till rising time, and then worked after."
"If that be so," Giovanni thought out loud, "Then was the boy more welcome to the painter than just as model or of comfort alone. Would it not be more usual for a man to take a different boy for the night than the one who served as model for him?"
"Did not the woman say the painter showed much affection for the boy? And the boy also for the painter?" Paulo recollected.
"She did indeed," Giovanni agreed, "But that brings two more questions to the mind. If the affection was such that Master Francisci had no wish for a different boy to amuse him, but always and only this Lucus, who he used also as his model, why did he not take the boy as apprentice and so have him always in attendance? And if the boy had affection also for the painter, why then should he murder him?"
It took but little time to discover that indeed the painter had any other boy visit him at nights for many months, none at all since the first visit to him of the boy Lucus, and nor had that boy made visit to any other house than that of the painter.
"And no house before that first visit," Paulo said, "It doth appear this Lucus was not, till that time, a boy of the night for any man."
"And for no other man thereafter," Giovanni agreed, "Though his visits to the painter would show he appears to have no disliking for the purpose for which a boy makes visit to a man at night."
"That," Paulo disagreed, "You may not so simply conclude. May it not be that the boy wished to maintain his earnings as model and felt obliged to do other things also that he may keep that job?"
"A possibility we may not dismiss," Giovanni concurred, "And will discover when we question him. But are we now searching for a reason to hang the boy or to acquit him of this crime?"
"Both," Paulo stated with no hesitation, "We may have discovered reason for him to murder and reason for him not to murder. Both cannot be true, and it is our duty to discover the true from the false."
"Spoken like a true Magistrate," Giovanni approved, "And, as next we must speak with the Officer of the Night, and that man will now doubtless be abed, shall we to a tavern and take some breakfast before we have him woken?"
"Some small beer and a sweet pastry or two will be of aid to the brain," Paulo agreed without demur, and to a nearby tavern the Magistrates departed.
Chapter Three
"Is my report in some way amiss?" the Officer of the Night enquired, his eyes still bleary from his disturbed rest. His temper was not of the sweetest, having been woken by loud knocking at his door and faced then with two Officers of the Day who took him straight to the Hall of Justice, no reason given for so doing.
"I trust it is not," Assistant Magistrate Vendozi replied, he being entrusted with the questioning of the Officer whilst his senior watched merely. "I see you made note of the arrival of a boy, you name as Lucus, at the house of Enrico Francisco, the painter," he said, raising his eyes in question.
"I did, and of his departure from thence also," the Officer said in a tone that lacked something of politeness. "He arrived, as was his custom, at about the hour of midnight, and departed again at four this morning."
"And this you note," Paulo agreed. "You say it was his custom to arrive at midnight?"
"It is," the Officer confirmed, and still with little grace. What need was there, he thought, to so rudely disturb his rest for such a minor thing, and one that could be seen easily by examining the records?
"And left he usually at the hour of four?" the Magistrate enquired.
"I note always the times in my reports," the Officer said, his mood unchanged.
"I make no question of your reports," Vendozi said, "But seek to know your memory. The boy appears a regular visitor to that house and you give midnight as his usual hour of arrival. Is four, as you remember, the usual hour of his departure?"
"I would not say there is a regular hour for his departure," the Officer shrugged, "Some nights he leaves later, some nights not at all. It does depend, I suspect, on the degree of comfort required and given. But such is not my concern, only that he arrives willingly and departs, when he does depart, unharmed."
"Such is indeed, your duty," Paulo softened some his tone, "A duty you fulfil with utmost diligence and make most precise note of."
"Was it of any surprise to you that the boy departed at such an early hour this past night?" Giovanni enquired, "Gentlemen who take a boy for their comfort on a Sunday night do, I understand, often seek comfort more in the morning. Monday, as you know, is a day that starts not until midday for most."
"My waking hours are those of the night," the Officer responded, "And darkness comes when it will come."
"Indeed so," Paolo consented, "But more of the boy, if you will. Was he in any way disturbed, think you, when he left this morning? Was he agitated, in any hurry to be away?"
The Officer thought a while then shook his head. "Nothing that I found a need to note," he said, "Lucus saw me, which was not unusual, and waved a greeting as he often did."
"Waved a greeting?" Paulo questioned, "In such a manner as to make certain that you saw him leave?"
"I thought not so," the Officer said, "Lucus is a most pleasant youth and often does he wave and smile, both on departure and on arrival."
"But does not so on all occasions?"
"Not all," the Officer confirmed, having now some wonder why he was being questioned so.
"And saw you any other near that house this past night?" Paulo wanted to know.
"Few stir abroad in that hour," the Officer dismissed that suggestion, "And none I saw that stirred in any way close to the house of Master Francisci. I would have made note if any had."
"I am most sure you would have so done," Paulo confirmed. "We are most grateful for the help you have given us, and, I believe it no more reward than is deserved for the disturbance to your rest, that this coming night you take as holiday. Perchance an Officer will have need to make record of an unusual coming and going at your door tonight," he smiled.
"I know not of that," the Officer almost smiled himself, "Though such would mean it were a holiday night indeed."
"Learned you what from that?" Giovanni asked when the Officer of the Night had departed.
"That a cunning Man of Law would use that Officer's words to hang the boy," Paulo answered, his lips tight drawn. "The boy alone makes visit to that house, and on departure waves greeting to the Officer, and so makes plain his departure."
"Such is his habit," Giovanni countered.
"But not a habit he always indulges in, yet on this instance he did so. A co-incidence perhaps, but who is like to believe in co-incidence alone? Why, on this night, should the boy take care that his departure was noted? And do so in such manner as to make believe all was well? It could only be that he wished to make it appear he knew nothing of a murder just occurred."
"And no other was seen to enter there when the boy had left," Giovanni said softly, "So only one other that we know of could there have been to do that murder, and he you have most cunningly removed from suspicion."
"It has to be that the Officer of the Night knew nothing of the killing, and by his manner knows nothing still, or that he did the deed himself. Who, we may ask, is like to murder a man of little wealth who paints pictures save one who has deep dislike of those who make use of boys of the night? One who is a follower of that mad monk who rails always against sodomy and such, but such a man would reply not as this Officer did to my suggestion that he may take a boy for comfort this night if that was his wish."
"And one of that persuasion would not, I believe, describe the boy as being a most pleasant youth. So, we have taken one possible suspect from our list, but that serves only to bring the noose closer to the boy's neck, I fear.
"You have conviction, then, that this Lucus did not do this deed?" Paulo asked.
"Rather I have no conviction that he did," Giovanni answered. "More may we hope to learn from the boy himself."
That there was urgency more than some to make discovery of all he could was a thing the Magistrate understood well. Already word would be about that something was amiss at the house of the painter, guarded as it now was by Officers of the Day. Those Officers were military men, and though they served to police the City, still were they soldiers, uniformed and armed as such, it being thought that their very visibility were a deterrent to all of a mind to commit some disturbance of the peace or criminal act.
Two such Officers, resplendent in their flamboyant uniforms of red and yellow with shining helmets and breastplates, armed with pikes and swords, standing guard at the door of Master Francisci's dwelling were more than sufficient to light the fire of rumour and have that fire spread throughout the city.
That the whole city was not already aflame was only because the woman had called "Help Me," the traditional call for aid from the Officers of the Day, one used in emergencies or believed emergencies of all natures. Had she called, as well she might have done in the circumstances, "MURDER!" then the first flickering flame of rumour would have become wildfire straight. Even so, new flames would be growing fast; the Coroner had been sent for, and the arrival of that man could mean only that a death had been discovered.
None could make mistake of the Coroner, he being a man of medicine, clothed all in black and wearing the beaked mask of his profession to hide his face, accompanied, as he always was on his duties, by two more Officers of the Day in their resplendent uniforms, his arrival would mean only that the word of a sudden death would spread faster even than flames.
With that word would spread also a flickering of fear, for the death feared most by all came with the plague, and rumour of that would spread faster than any rumour of a murder, and Magistrate Baptista made prayers to whatever god it was that held the Scales of Justice that this was so this very morning.
`I sent straight for Officers to find and take the boy," Assistant Magistrate Vendozi said as though he had read the thoughts of his superior, "If Fortune favours both him and us, they will have taken him and brought him here before he knows any of the cry about the painter."
"Such was well done indeed," Giovanni smiled his gratitude, "If the boy is innocent of this murder, then his ignorance of it will show most clear."
"But his taking will have been seen by many," Vendozi said quietly, "And his taking, added with the word of murder, will make an easy sum for many minds."
"And such cannot we prevent," Giovanni sighed, "All we may contrive to do is to find the killer, if Indeed, that killer be not the boy."
The Magistrates had no need to prove the boy's guilt, that was surely already as good as proven, and if they ceased their efforts at this moment, the boy would hang, of that there could be no doubt. The proof they must search for, if they were to be true to their task of seeing justice done, was to prove the boy's innocence, a task far harder than the one of proving guilt.
"I wonder," Assistant Magistrate Vendozi pondered, "If we should exercise our endeavours so if it were not a boy that will hang?" It was a question posed to himself almost as much as to Giovanni, for though he held not boys in the same affection and regard as did his superior, he was a man, and being so he was conscious of the nature of boys and of their appeal to the sensibilities of men.
"You are right to wonder so," Giovanni conceded, and took no offence at the wondering, "And it is a wonder I would have you keep in mind. It is no secret between us, and doubtless no secret to others also, that in my thinking there is a better place for a boy to be than on a scaffold with rope around his neck, and I task you to let me not think more on that than I should. Our task is to see Justice done, however pretty the boy may be."
"Were it not for the affection you have for boys," Vendozi shrugged, "This one would hang by his neck next morning; but though I take not the same comfort from boys as you, I deny not that comfort they can provide, and, though why it should be I know not, but there is something that has me of a small belief that comfort is all this boy did provide this past night to our murdered painter."
"Let not that small belief give too much colour to your thinking," Giovanni warned, "It will not serve Justice if we both begin with that conviction. I will endeavour to find reason why the boy is innocent, you will take care to see I stretch not reason in so doing."
"And working so together we will discover innocence or guilt," Vendozi agreed, "Though if it be innocence we discover, then must we search for the one who is guilty."
"And such may be no simple task," Giovanni stated, "If any other committed this deed, then care he has taken already that another should be seen as guilty of it, and that being so, then this was a murder planned, and such a murder not easy to unravel."
Chapter Four
"Lucus Notti?"
The boy stared in amazement at the two Officers of the Day, resplendent in their red and yellow uniforms, the morning sun glinting on the polished steel of helmets and breastplates, his mouth agape.
He had but barely risen from his bed, though it were now past nine in the morning, pissed as he always did from the window, watering the rotting rubbish below, made adjustment to his hose and descended the wooden stairs from the two squalid rooms he, with his mother, called a home. He had moved with some care, both because the stairs were not in the best of repair and also because his arse was still somewhat sore.
The painter had been in a most amorous mood the night before, and much as Lucus was used now to the sport of the bed and, indeed, took much delight in that sport, still had the painter used him most often, inspired and sustained perhaps by the quantity of oysters he had consumed.
Lucus smiled to himself as he felt that soreness; it were like, he thought, the way his arse had felt after the first time he had yielded his virtue to the painter, though then he had been shy and uncertain, and that was not the manner of things this past night! Master Francisci had sodomised him four times or more in the few hours he had been at the painter's dwelling, and it had been only after the last that the man's ample member had shown signs that it was no longer able to stand for duty.
Doubtless, had it not been that Lucus must depart early, some little rest and both boy and man would have made more sport yet, but he was to return there again after noon and pose unclothed for the painting being made of him, and, being so unclothed, he had little doubt some daylight sport would be made. Master Francisci had a most wondrous way with his hands and his mouth on the uncovered body of a boy, and it was with that happy thought in his mind he stepped from the door to be waited upon by two Officers of the Day.
"You must with us," one Officer spoke, "You have been asked for at the Hall of Justice."
`The Hall of Justice?" The puzzlement was plain on Lucus' face, "For what am I needed there?"
"You have been asked for," the Officer replied simply, "Will you come willingly or must we be made to oblige you?"
"Willingly," Lucus conceded; for a boy not yet fifteen to avoid the attentions of two Officers of the Day was a thing beyond all possibility, and better to walk with them than be beaten, bound and forced. "Though why I should be so needed I have no understanding of."
"Good lad," the other Officer spoke and not unkindly; like the boy they were sent to fetch, they had no knowledge yet of the reason for their task.
For some time then Lucus waited alone in a small room at the Hall of Justice, wondering why he was there. He had committed no crime that he knew of, though hard he searched his mind for memory of one, and none he knew that may have laid complaint against him for some imagined fault. Knowing of no misdeed he must deny, he was in some way of agitation when he was, at last, taken before the Magistrates. With no knowing of what he was accused, he could fabricate no story to defend himself, and his distress was visible on his features.
Distress went to his bladder when he was taken to the Magistrates. Two men sat behind a large desk, two men in black robes with black caps on their heads. To Lucus they looked not like men who would question him but like men who would condemn him for whatever thing it was they believed him guilty of, and real fear went through his mind and body.
"Sirs," the words blurted from him, "A privy, sirs, I beg. I fear I may piss myself!"
For Baptista, the boy's words showed his innocence, for Vendozi, his guilt. Such was the way the two Magistrates worked when a suspect was questioned, one searched for innocence, the other for guilt. Words may be interpreted in ways more than one, and after would they compare and reason and decide if a conclusion may be safely reached.
"I believe our appearance strikes overmuch fear," Giovanni remarked when the boy was absent, "And fear will not aid us in discovering truth. Let us remove our caps, that it looks less like we but wait the chance to sentence him to the gallows."
"If he did not the deed, why should he have fear of gallows?" Vendozi questioned.
"Remember yourself at fourteen," Giovanni said, "Brought thus before Magistrates at such an age, would you not have had some fear of that?"
Vendozi confessed that such would, most like, have been the case, a boy's guilt proven by him being alone a boy.
Seeing the two Magistrates now without their black caps on their heads, Lucus felt some little relieved. The caps were still there and could be placed again upon heads, but while they were not so placed he believed no sentence would be passed upon him.
"You are called before us for some questions we would put to you that may be of aid to us in a matter of great importance," Giovanni said, and though his words were formal and in keeping with his position of Magistrate, yet were they not said with a tone other than one that implied other than some friendliness.
Lucus nodded his understanding, and stood, with hands clasped behind his back that the Magistrates may see not how they trembled.
"You are known to us," Giovanni tapped the sheaf of records before him on the desk, "As being a boy of the night."
Though he was not called upon to answer, Lucus felt need to give reply.
"But not so as others are, sirs," he croaked, his throat dry still from some fear, "I visit but one house, sirs."
"How may you earn food if you visit but one house?" Vendozi sneered. The records indeed showed that the boy visited no other, but the task of Vendozi was to exhibit disbelief in all the boy spoke.
"Indeed, sir, I do not visit others," Lucus protested, "Do not the Officers of the Night make record of all boys who visit men at night and all times they so do? If it is recorded that I make visits to others, then I swear there must be error made."
"Officers of the Night make no errors," Vendozi said sternly, "Let you have remembrance of that."
"Yes, sir," Lucus said humbly, but defended himself still as best he could. "It may be, sir, that another looks alike to me in the dark."
"There is no record of any house other that you have made visit to at night," Giovanni said quietly, knowing that his words would cause the boy relief and make it easier for him to speak more. "Magistrate Vendozi seeks but to establish you are a boy of truth, no more than that."
The sigh of relief Lucus made on hearing this was visible most plain. "I have no understanding of why I have been brought here sirs," he said, "But I have no reason to speak any but truth."
"And tis best you do," Vendozi again was stern and he also tapped the papers before him on the desk, "If you do not, we have the means to know it."
"Yes, sir," Lucus near whispered, his fear returning somewhat.
"It is the house of Master Francisci that you visit, is it not?" Giovanni questioned, and, knowing that his visits there were no secret and recorded always by the Officer of the Night there, Lucus said that this was so. "We would have you tell us all you know of him," Giovanni continued, "Of how you came to meet him first, of how it is that you visit him, and him alone, at night and so frequently so do as well. Tell all, and leave nothing out."
"Is Master Francisci in some trouble sir?" Lucus asked, concern plain on his face, "Has word perhaps been spoke against him for the painting he now does?"
Giovanni had great wish to ask more about that painting, but kept that question unspoken yet. "Later will we speak of the works Master Francisci paints," he said, "But first I would have you speak of all I asked. Sit you, and speak," he requested.
It had gone not unnoticed by that Magistrate the careful manner in which the boy walked and he had some suspicion of why that should be so; telling the boy to sit may show clear that he preferred to stand for the sake of comfort, and why that should be so he had wish to make discovery of.
Indeed, Lucus did have much wish to stand rather than to sit, but believed it were best he did as the Magistrate instructed, and placed himself with great care upon the stool by which he stood, and in so doing, showed plain to the Magistrates both that his arse was not without some pain or soreness.
That the boy was suffering some was most clear, and Giovanni Baptista knew of two reasons why a boy's arse should be in such a condition; either he had been soundly beaten or most thoroughly sodomised, and both may be cause for a boy to seek revenge and take a dagger to the man that caused him pain.
Once more, though, Giovanni did not seek immediate answer but asked again that the boy should tell his tale, and this Lucus did, though with some signs both of discomfort and, it seemed, embarrassment also.
Chapter Five
The City was the grandest city in all of Italy, and its ruler, the Duke Lorenzo the most benevolent prince in all that land. It was true that other cities were larger and more powerful; some, like the mighty Rome, had buildings greater than any in the City, the huge Saint Peter's a wonder in all the world, but those cities had also crowded and stinking slums where poor people dwelt, narrow streets where robbery and murder were commonplace.
The City had also its quarter of the poor, as any city must have, and there, as in all other cities, the streets were narrow and filled with rubbish, but murder and robbery were not common there. The Duke could not make those streets wider, keep them free of rubbish and dirt, but even in those filthy streets the Officers of the Day made their patrols, their colourful uniforms and shining breastplates making their presence plain for all to see.
Nor were the magnificent buildings confined to the centre of the City alone, but everywhere great edifices of white limestone and gleaming marble stood; even the main market of the City had marble columns and white limestone walls, its roof of red tiles glowing in the sun. The Duke had made decree that the City should be a place where men would delight to live, and sculptors and painters flocked there in hope to find commission to add yet more beauty to plazas and walls.
It was by a marble column of that market that Lucus did his best to seem more man than he was, his hand seeking the reassuring touch of the dagger he carried, hidden beneath the tunic he wore, the sheathed blade tucked into his hose. He was but a few days past his fourteenth birthday, but looked, and this he knew well, less than his years. The dagger was not for means of defence, nor for any other purpose that a dagger may be used for; it had been his father's and now he carried it more to make himself aware that now he was the man of the house than for any reason other.
It was a wondrous blade, of the design known as stiletto, the point as sharp as any needle, it needed but to be placed against skin and blood would come. Perhaps it was because that weapon was all that now remained of his father, more that the imagined safety that it promised, that Lucus carried it always with him.
Some two weeks since his father had fallen to his death from a plank high on one of the magnificent buildings of the City. Pater Notti had been a mason, not one skilled or learned enough to be a master of that craft, but one who knew most well how stone should be laid upon stone, and one who had plunged to his death when a foot slipped on a plank made green and wet by recent rain.
Lucus, at fourteen years of age, should by now be apprenticed to some craft, but his father had deemed him to be too slight and slender to follow his own trade, and though he had made all parental effort to find one who wished for an apprentice in a trade or skill of less danger, none had yet been found. There was a trade that Lucus, with his fair face and slight and slender form was indeed most suited for, but it was not one that Lucus found himself with any wish to follow.
It was not that the slight and slender young youth paid heed to the rantings of the mad monk who railed always against sodomy and condemned all who practised it to everlasting torment in Hell, nor that he held boys of the night in any disregard. No boy could reach the age of fourteen years and have no knowledge or understanding of what the Church proclaimed a most mortal sin, but Churchmen performed as avidly as any man, and no boy of Lucus' estate was stranger to the knowing that food and a warm bed may be found by giving comfort to the men who had desire for boys.
Nor was there danger to those who followed that trade more than to be found in other trades; all were known to the Office of the Night, their comings and goings most assiduously recorded and grievous penalties prescribed by law for any who brought them to harm.
Lucus was a dreamer and a boy of some intelligence more than others of his station. True, he could neither read nor write, though had any taken care to teach him those skills, doubtless he would have performed them as well as any boy schooled by priests or monks, though the learning of them would surely have given him also some skill in the art of sodomy, for that was an art boys learned most frequently together with their letters. Lucus dreamed only that, when the time came that he was sodomised, it would be by one he had some liking for, and not because he had no other way to find bread to eat.
Enrico Francisci watched the boy standing by a marble pillar of the market, as he had watched him for now a week or more. He was, Francisci judged by his height and slenderness of form, some twelve or thirteen years of age, and though Francisci had preference for a boy older than that, and had, for some three weeks now, cast his eyes on all manner of boys in search of one that would meet his needs, it was the one he now watched with great carefulness that most attracted his attentions.
The boy was most clear a boy well-formed, his limbs too long for proportion, the limbs of a foal just turning to colt, and a boy with such limbs was what he desired. His legs, though slender, still had shape to them, a shape most plain for all to see, covered as they were by hose that was tight upon them. Doubtless the boy had grown a little some since first he wore those hose, and that he wore them still made plain no others did he have to wear.
A boy then of the poorer sort, and by his presence at the market day by day, not apprenticed yet to any trade and thus a boy most like in need to earn a coin or two.
Close enough yet Francisci had not been to observe with any fullness the features of the boy, though the tight black curls upon his head were a feature he could most easily discern and found some liking for.
The boy moved with a natural, careless grace, a grace that some boys possess and all women seek for but can never equal, and even when he stood, quiet and unmoving, he composed himself in such a way that made men cast their eyes upon him. Young though he seemed, Francisci made determination that he would have this boy; none more suited to his needs had he discovered, and none, he now believed, were he like to discover.
Now did Lucus begin to discern that there was one who looked most often upon him when he waited with patience for the arrival of his mother outside the market. That men did often look upon him was a thing Lucus had no ignorance of and, indeed, it was a thing he took some small pleasure in. His features, he knew, were passing fair – did not his mother oft call him `her pretty boy' – and that his form were slight and slender and he seemed not the fourteen years he was never could he make pretence to deny. That men should look upon him and show desire some that they would have him in their beds gave him no distress, indeed he liked that men should so look on him and think him fair enough to bed. He was a boy and had all those desires and urges that any boy does have, and though he had no wish to be a boy of the night, still in his dreaming mind he waited for the man who would come for him and wish to have not just his body alone but have the boy entire. To such a one he would give his body most willingly, and in his mind he would be forever a boy, held close and safe in a lover's arms.
That this was but a dream, Lucus did not deny, even to himself. For some boys that dream became a truth; in the City it were not a thing of any shame for a man of means to take a boy as lover, bring him to his house and not just for the night but to live with him and be of comfort to him day and nights without end and be like a wife to him, but such boys came not from the tenements where Lucus dwelled, but from families of means also, and were first courted with care as though they were a virgin maid till man and boy and families all were content and that sodomy alone were not the cause of some seeming affection and that the man did truly wish to take the boy in the place of a wife and that the boy should have some profit and fortune from the union.
That such would never be for Lucus he did know full well, but dreams are free, and for a boy such as Lucus, a father freshly dead and care more than some that his mother could earn coin enough to eat, such dreams sustained him and kept a ready smile upon his pretty face.
Some men did make approach to him when he stood at the market, waiting upon the arrival of his mother, and those he turned from, and if that did not suffice, he would say with politeness that he was not a boy of the night and thank them for their interest and wish them success in their search for a boy who would give them comfort for that night, for always was Lucus a most pleasing boy and never would he willingly give offence.
The man was looking at him again, and, Lucus perceived, he was staring more than merely looking, staring as though he wished to plant in his mind every detail of the boy he studied.
Why that should be so Lucus could not discern. It was no secret to any that men had desire for boys, and why should they not have such desires? Nor was there any shame or approbation in a man approaching a boy in the hope of sodomising him; such a thing would happen a thousand times each day about the City, and here, at the market where boys of the night came often to seek for one who would have a wish for them, it was a thing most common. Why then should the man look only and not make approach?
It may be, Lucus thought, the man was a stranger to the City and knew not that here no man had need to sleep alone if he desired instead to share his bed with a boy. Though Lucus knew nothing of the ways of other cities, the rantings of the mad monk were known to all and he named the City as `The Mouth of Hell', a `cursed den of Sodom' the like of which there was no equal in the whole of Italy, so it was like, if a man came from another place, he had no understanding that here a man could seek openly comfort from a boy.
If it were that he was such a man, and had a wish to gaze upon a boy, then Lucus had no desire to withhold that gaze from him, and so turned his body some that he could be gazed upon fully from the front. He did not so with any intent that he should offer encouragement to the man and give him some cause to come closer, but only from a natural desire to be observed more fully by one, who it seemed, had some liking for his body.
That when he turned and stood thus, it was by no art or intent to create an interest, that he stood with his weight upon one leg only, thus causing the other to relax and the knee to bend somewhat, so he stood, unknowing, in the pose that the ancient sculptors of Greece did most often pose a boy when they would create a marble image of him.
It was turning and standing in such a way that caused Master Francisci to make decision to approach the boy and place his request before him. That the boy stood thus, revealing so all the lines and curves of his young body, and did so without apparent art that was the final conviction to Francisci that he must have this boy, and so, his decision made, he made approach to the boy.
Lucus turned not away as the man came closer, but waited still where he stood, intending politeness to the stranger when he refused the offer he was sure would be made.
"Sir," he said, "I must tell you I am not a boy of the night, though I give you my thanks for your interest in me."
"That you are not so, and do wait but for a woman I take to be your mother, I am well aware," Francisci said, though he was much delighted by the manner of the boy's words, which were as polite as the boy was indeed most fair. "I have no wish for you for the night," he said, "The use I would have of you must be in full daylight and not in the dark, though in the dark I have no doubt you would be of some great comfort."
"Sir, you dally with me," Lucus smiled, and aware of no reason why he should not so, he played some little of that game himself, "What is there that you could wish of me in the light that could not be wished for also in the dark?"
"I think that in the dark, your beauty, though more of that may be revealed, yes less of it may be seen," the stranger replied, delighting Lucus with that reply. Little enough reason had he reason for to be something light of heart this past two weeks, and harmless flirtation with the man a most pleasing diversion from his present state.
"Lo, sir," Lucus fluttered his long, black eyelashes in deliberate mockery of some woman, "I think more it may be that the dark would hide what I have no wish to be revealed."
"Is it not but vainness in a boy that he should wish to keep his beauty concealed from the eyes of men?" the stranger played his next piece in this game.
"And is it not also some forward of a man to talk of his hidden beauty to a boy he knows not?" Lucus countered, wishing to hear more that the stranger found some beauty in him.
"How then is a man to know a boy if he talks not with him?"
To this, Lucus had no answer ready, but wishing not yet to end the pleasant game, he had some thought and managed answer of a sort.
"That may depend, sir," he said, "On the manner of the knowing the man intends." It was, Lucus felt, a proper reply, and said that he was willing to continue a game of words, but if the purpose of that game were to know him in a biblical sense, then that may be a different matter entire.
"And also on what the boy wishes to have known of him," the stranger gave notice that he had understanding of Lucus' words.
No further play was possible as at that moment the mother of Lucus made appearance, her labours at a stall in the market now complete. That her hands and apron were somewhat besmeared with blood was no surprise to Lucus, who knew well her labours were to clean foul for sale, and the bloody bag she clutched were most like to contain some offal or other minor parts that could be used to flavour a sauce for pasta.
A painter of any worth must have some understanding of the nature of men, and indeed, if such is possible at all, of women also; unless he has understanding of thoughts and humours his works will be nothing but lifeless drawings and daubings, and Francisci saw at once that he would not get the boy unless he first found favour some with the mother. He had no knowledge of the reason, but it was most clear that boy and mother were, for now at least, joined by some bond, and the boy had no desire or wish to be parted from his mother.
It was to the mother then, that he must make request for the boy, and so to her he addressed himself.
"Mistress," Francisci said at once, "I beg leave of you. I am a painter, one of many who inhabit this fair city, and I am charged with a composition that must include some fair young youth. Much have I searched the streets and plazas and some days ago I made espy of this fair youth, who I believe is a son of yours. He is both fair of face and form, and I perceive by that he waits each day for you at this hour, he is apprenticed to no trade, and I would make beg of you that you give him permit to sit as model for my poor work."
His mother looked at him in an enquiring manner, but Lucus had no knowledge of this intent, he had believed the stranger had something much other in his mind.
Hesitation is a weakness that must always be exploited, and Francisci moved to strike when that hesitation of mother and son he did perceive.
"I would beg some few hours of his time, now when the light is bright, that he may sit for me to make sketch of him. He has the form and face that suits my needs, but has he the patience to hold a pose for the time I need? This can I discover only by a trial, and such a trial is all I ask."
Mater Notti had no knowing if the man spoke true or not, and much it was like, she thought it not. Lucus was indeed a pretty boy, and most like the man had intentions other than to have him sit while his likeness were drawn, and on that matter she had an opinion most firm.
"Lucus is an honest boy," she said, "And I would have no dishonour brought upon him."
Some perhaps may have thought she made reference to the mad monk who made such noise of sodomy, and had no desire to see her son used for that purpose, but this was the City, a place where delicate matters are delicately spoke of, and Francisci knew straight what her words meant.
"I mean him no dishonour," he made an elaborate shrug, "I mean but to test if he be suitable to be model for a painting. For the use of his time I will pay half a ducat, and if he be a boy that may hold a pose, then that same fee will I pay each day he models for me."
Half a ducat was a sum that would pay rent for a month, and to have that each day were a fortune beyond imagining, and straight did the mother of Lucus have no care if her son be sodomised or no, but agreed there that he should go with Francisci, and wished only for payment for today in advance of his departure.
It was only natural that Lucus was in anticipation of some attempt being made by the man, who he now knew to be Enrico Francisci, a painter, to persuade him into sodomy, and, in truth, he was of no certain mind how he should behave. He had no deep calling to remain chaste and intact, but his dream that he should yield his virtue only to that man of noble birth who wooed and courted him and would have him in the manner of a wife, remained still in his mind.
That the painter was, in sort, a man of some parts he could not deny. His clothing, though not of the finest to be spied in the City, was still in the manner of fashion, and his features were not unpleasing, his face kept clean of hair, which would, should it come to the matter of kissing, be more pleasant than if it were not so. And that he were a man of some means and could doubtless have money enough to keep a boy, yet still he were not a knight of old in shining armour and mounted on a white charger, come to rescue him from distress and after court and woo him.
That knight in shining armour was, Lucus knew well, a dream, an idle fancy, and the truth were a far harsher thing. He had been bought and sold, coin given for him to his mother, and if the intent of that coin were that he should be sodomised, then his honour demanded that it must be so.
It was then, a thing of much surprise to Lucus that the painter made no mention even of sodomy, and, indeed, played not that harmless game of words more, but took him straight to the place where he dwelt and worked, and seated him on a stool, bid his fix his eyes upon some object, and to bring to his mind some pleasant fancy that may show upon his face.
It can be of no surprise, that bidden so, Lucus fastened his gaze, not on some simple thing, but upon the empty air, and his mind filled with his dream of a knight in shining armour and this showed most clear upon his face. His eyes filled with distant longing and a small smile of welcome played upon his lips and Francisci reached straight for paper and charcoal, sketching furiously the beauty before him.
The boy moved not while the painter sketched, his features fixed as though in some trance in an expression that Francisci had dreamed of for his painting but not thought any boy could so artlessly achieve. He had no need to complete this trial, already was he determined that he must have this boy, and wished for him not as model alone, but also for his arms and bed.
Perhaps it was that the painter placed his own desire together with the dreaming of the boy, and indeed his charcoal flew seeming of its own accord across the paper until all was done.
"You are the boy I must have, no other will suit my painting so," he declared in a tone somewhat brusque for fear he may betray something other than his need to obtain a model for his work if he spoke in any other way.
"You would have me work for you?" Lucus asked, dragged from his dream by the painter's words, "And pay me coin just for sitting while you draw and paint?" This surely was the moment, Lucus thought, when sodomy would be mentioned.
"You will not sit, but recline as I will position you, and must I tell you now that you shall be unclothed entire."
This then, was that moment, and Lucus struggled as to how he would reply.
"The painting is to be of a youth of old Greece," Francisci explained, "A youth of beauty far greater than all others, and you must know that those men of old Greece found a boy's beauty to be not in his face alone, but in the entirety of his form."
This Lucus did not know, indeed he knew nothing of old Greece at all, so he had no knowledge if Francisci spoke true or false.
"The painting is to be of one `Hyacinthos', a youth, as I say, of most exceptional beauty, but also one who knew of his own beauty and made much wonder if any man were in the world worthy to be his lover. So did he waste the beauty of his youth, thinking that no man was there equal to him in bodily perfection, and never did he take a lover, but spent his youth in dreaming."
That this sad tale reflected some on himself was not unobserved by Lucus, and no trouble was it for him to imagine himself as that wondrous youth of old. True he thought not of himself as being of surpassing beauty, yet he knew that he was more than passing pretty, and also that his idle dream of a knight in shining armour was not far distant from the thoughts of that boy of old Greece.
"And must I be unclothed?" he asked.
"Indeed you must," Francisci declared, "Boys in that time suffered not at all from any modesty about their bodies, and knew well enough that men seek for more than just a pretty face. That, indeed," he dared to venture, "That a man may find parts other than the face to be most pretty."
Lucus blushed some then, for it was not possible for him to know not the parts the painter talked of.
"But if you paint those parts," he said, "Then all men may see them, and the City is not old Greece and boys go covered here."
"Not all men," Francisci said, "But only the one who has made commission for this painting."
One man perhaps he could oblige, Lucus pondered, but would it not be two? The painter would also see all there was to see.
"May I know who is this man?" Lucus asked.
"None other than the Duke himself," Francisci revealed.
The Duke! Though the Duke would view but his painted body, that were near enough his idle dream of a knight in shining armour. The Duke would never wish for him as lover, but would view his naked charms as often as he wished, and may, perhaps, wonder from time to time what the living boy may be like to hold in his arms.
"If you have wish for me, then will I oblige you," Lucus said.
It was two weeks before Lucus was obliged to remove his clothing, and those two weeks spent outside the City, close by a stream and on a bank of wild flowers.
"The Hyacinthos I will present for the Duke is to be a boy of the City," Francisci explained, "And I will have him not in some setting of imagination, but in a place the Duke may know and find."
So Lucus reclined on a bank while Francisci sketched, and thoughts of sodomy faded from his mind somewhat, though they did not so completely.
Those thoughts returned in full when at last it was time for him to reveal his charms, and it was with some hesitation that he unclothed himself in the artist's studio.
It was most clear that the artist gazed with both admiration and desire upon his nakedness and Lucus was confused that he knew not which he liked the most, or confused more that both took from him the hesitation he had felt upon revealing himself. One thing he was most certain of was that had sodomy been then suggested he would have given his consent.
He understood not why that should be, nor how and why he could wish to remain both chaste and yet be sodomised at the same time. Was this, he wondered, how that fabled Hyacinthos had felt so long ago? Was it, that being so exposed, he saw the fullness of the delight his body gave to a man and for that he had desire for a man to enjoy that delight? Though still he had no wish to be sodomised, could it be by that act alone that he could glory in the beauty of his youth?
Such thoughts were too much for an unlearned boy to reason about, and he cast them from his mind as he did as he was bid and lay himself upon a prepared couch, on his side, one elbow propped and resting his cheek in the cupped hand of that arm. A slender glass was placed on the couch beside him on a level with his chest, and he was bid to reach with his other hand for that glass and fix his other hand gently around it.
This he did with ease, but not so simple was the arranging of his legs, the one outstretched, the other bent a little at the knee and moved away from his body so all his private no longer parts were revealed to sight.
The painter did need to give him some assistance in obtaining this position, and did so with gentle hands that, when they touched, sent feelings of a most pleasant nature through his body.
More times this happened, and, without any knowing of why he did, Lucus began to make the positions that he took deliberately wrong so the painter would need to make adjustments to his body, and every touch of hands upon him sent thrills of wonder to his mind.
Still though, Francisci touched him only with care and gentleness, and Lucus began to think that perhaps the painter did not wish for sodomy with him at all, though he was sure also that the way that artist gazed upon his revealed body made denial of that.
Perhaps, had he been more in the world and less in his dream of a knight in shining armour, he would have understood how deeply Francisci desired him, and because of the deepness of that desire refrained from any but the lightest of touches, and those always in places that gave no threat of danger to his virtue.
Closer and closer he grew to the painter, and when asked by that man what it was he thought of that gave his eyes such a far-away look and brought also that sweet, small smile to his lips, Lucus, though he blushed some at his foolishness, did not refrain from telling of his idle fancy and dream.
"So you have the look of Hyacinthos because you share some thoughts with that ancient youth," Francisci smiled, "Dream that dream at least till this work be finished," he said, "Nothing else, I believe, could place that look in your eyes."
Doing so was not hard for Lucus, though, strangely, at some times, the knight lifted the visor of his helmet, and he seemed to have the look of Francisci.
At last the painter finished his sketches, they were, he said, named `cartoons' and done by all painters before paint was ever mixed because changes were easy made to charcoal drawings, but not so easy to a painted work.
Now was Francisci consumed by a desire for the boy, but a desire such as he had not had for any boy before, but that desire he kept hidden still, for the painting must be completed, and he believed that should he declare his passion, then Lucus may not come to him more, and, truly there was no need for him longer, the painting could be easily done from the finished cartoons, but the daily visits of the boy, revealed in all his wondrous nakedness, had become like life to Francisci.
That desire he made effort to assuage by taking boys of the night for comfort, and though they comforted him some, they did not ease the longing he had for Lucus, and he wondered how he could contrive a way to keep the boy when the painting was completed.
With the natural curiosity of a boy, Lucus wished to see the cartoons made of him, and, given permission to so do, he stood beside Francisci who sat at his drawing stand, and looked upon the charcoal work.
Though Lucus had no knowledge of art, the drawings made of him looked to his eyes to be things of wonder, the shape and lines of his young body drawn to perfection. He saw how the position he had been made to adopt drew the eyes first to the face and look of the boy, but then drew them downwards, following the lines and curves of the body till they came to rest on that part of a boy that men delight to see, and he wondered at the skill that made that so.
Then he noticed, that though all the rest seemed to have been drawn true, yet one thing was not so, and this, without thought, he mentioned.
"Why," he asked, "When even the smallest curl of the hair on my head is drawn with such perfection, have you not made drawing at all of the hair that is elsewhere?"
Francisci chuckled, amused by the comment of the boy and of his ignorance of ancient art.
"The Greek," he explained, "Wished for perfection in every line of the body. Their works, though they be works more in marble than in paint, never placed hair there upon a boy."
"But why so?" asked a puzzled Lucus, "Hair grows there on all when a certain age is reached."
"And in growing, destroys the lines of the body. See," he said, and with his charcoal added shading some to that part of the body they talked of. "Which then," Francisci asked, "Is the better to the eye?"
"Without the hair," Lucus giggled in the manner of a boy, and asked, in innocence, "Is it not harder to imagine no hair there than to draw if there were none indeed?"
"Some," Francisci smiled, thinking the boy's remark to be from interest only.
"Why then, did you not have me remove that hair, that you could see proper the lines that you would draw?"
Now was Francisci presented with a dilemma, and one that he had been at pains to avoid presenting itself. Should he dare speak truth to the boy, may he not endanger the easy comfort they now had in the company of each other? But were he to dissemble, would that not also have harm and create pretence?
Lucus stood now close beside him, no longer in any way concerned by his nakedness; that concern, such as there had been, had long gone as he had grown accustomed to being so unclothed in the company of the painter. Francisci imagined he could feel the air between them warmed by the body of the boy, and the desire to hold and caress that body grew stronger by the moment.
"Because I dare not ask such," he croaked, "Because I feared that by such a request I would give you cause to not wish to come here more."
"But you pay me more than fair to model for you," Lucus said in innocence still, and then he gave a boyish snigger, "Though I do confess I may have been of some nervousness taking a sharp blade to such a place."
"And any slip may have made you no longer suitable to be a model," Francisci laughed falsely, thinking that the moment of danger had now passed.
"And any future I may have to be a boy of the night be gone forever," Lucus grinned, but in so saying he brought some understanding to himself. "Sir," he said slowly and softly, "I have some belief that you would not have me as a boy of the night, but that you have some longing to have me as a boy in the night."
He did not move away as he spoke those quiet words, but held still his position close to Francisci, almost afeared of the words he had spoken.
"Were it not better for you to think only of the painting?" Francisci made attempt to divert the boy's mind from the path it had espied.
That the painter had denied not the words that he spoke escaped not the quick wit of Lucus, nor had the manner in which he had avoided reply, and in so avoiding had made in someway clear that he did have wish for what Lucus spoke of.
The light and gentle touches of his flesh that the painter had made, always only of the briefest and never lingering more than was necessary to arrange him in the required posture, came to Lucus' mind, and with that came a wondering now why that should be so. Never had Francisci made touch of him in any place near those parts where consent would have been needed first, so why should those touches be made in such a hurried, and now Lucus believed, a nervous manner?
And why, Lucus asked himself, did he find those brief touches pleased him so? Why was it that he never made move to cover himself when he was not posed for drawing? Why felt he so content to be unclothed always in the presence of the painter? Why was it, he thought at last, that his knight in shining armour had the face of Francisci now?
"I believe I have no wish to be Hyacinthos," Lucus said slowly and carefully, hoping greatly that his words would be not misunderstood.
"And I am no knight in shining armour," Francisci said with equal care, hoping also that his words would not be mistaken.
"But yet you have rescued me from much distress," Lucus whispered now, his heart for a reason both known and unknown now beating fast.
"And such is not a cause to bring you to my bed," Francisci said, his heart making threat to burst from his chest.
"But cause enough for me to have some wish to be wooed," Lucus dared to speak, making also a prayer that his words did not collapse the dangerous ground he now stood upon. "If you have wish to woo."
"I have taken many boys to my bed in exchange for coin," Francisci sighed, "But you I will not do so."
"And I not go there for coin," Lucus avowed, "But only for a different reason entire."
"And truly, you will be Hyacinthos only whilst I paint?" Francisci made his proposal, one that he had not before allowed himself to think of making.
"Then only," Lucus said to the man beside him who no longer wore a plain painter's smock of brown but was clad, from head to foot in armour glittering in the suddenly brightened sun.
But there was no cold steel on the knight's hand when he placed it round the boy and laid it on slender hip, and this not a brief and careful touch to position the boy for painting, but a long stroking, tracing with fingers the shape of the bone beneath the warm skin.
Lucus moved his body closer, hardly a movement at all, but one enough to show the touch on his flesh was not undesired, and what had been before soft now grew hard and pointed from his body.
"It was beautiful before," Francisci whispered, "But how much more beauty does it have now," though he made no move to admire that object with anything but his eyes, and though also Lucus would have shouted loud his consent yet was he pleased that no consent was asked for and he was admired by eyes alone.
Then did the painter make changes to the cartoons he had made before, the Hyacinthos he drew now was not a boy consumed by the vanity of his own beauty, but a beautiful boy who was consumed by a desire to be loved, and with the knowledge in his eyes of all that loving was.
Much did Lucus wonder at the skill of Francisci when he viewed next the cartoons, and the wonder was not only the art with which lines had been drawn but also how those lines were not alone the drawing of a boy's body, but told also the story in his mind.
The glass he had been bid to hold, and the one placed close behind him that he must keep his skin from touching were no more glass, but the flowers that bore the name of the boy in the painting. It needed no use of imagination to see those flowers not as flowers but as the thing they did in some small way resemble, for though the size was perhaps different the shape was not.
The one Lucus held he now was inclining a little towards his lips, and the one behind was leaning forwards towards that cleft in a boy's buttocks that hides his most secret place.
That fellatio and sodomy were both intended there could be no mistaking, yet still were the flowers just flowers, their other meaning shown only by the eyes of the boy and the tiny smile of longing on his lips.
Then did Lucus cease to be just model for the painter and became instead his lover and visited him at nights whenever he could, and both discovered all the joy and comfort there is to be found for man and boy when they share a bed for love.
"You have then, much affection for this painter?" Giovanni asked, his eyes placed somewhere above Lucus' head.
"Greatly so, sir, and he, I believe, also for me," Lucus answered.
"Why then did you murder him?"
Chapter Five
"Well?" Giovanni questioned Assistant Magistrate Vendozi when the boy, Lucus, had been removed from their presence.
Paulo Vendozi gave a small shrug of his shoulders, expressing the inevitability of his reply. "The boy must hang," he said bluntly, "No other judgement may we make."
"Your reasons for this decision?" Chief Magistrate Baptista asked, leaning his elbows on the desk before him and placing his hands together so his fingers steepled to his chin.
"No other but the boy was seen by the Officer of the Night to enter or leave the painter's house, and I think it most unlike that the Officer was derelict in his duty. Francisci was slain by a stiletto thrust to the heart, and the boy, by his own confession, is in possession of such a blade and carries it always with him. What more is needed?"
"Yet," Giovanni said slowly, "Can it be doubted that the boy be in love with the man now dead?"
"Of what consequence is that?" Paulo argued, "Indeed it gives some reason why he did do murder."
`Why should a boy slay the man he loves?" Giovanni questioned, "And the one who also provided him with coin to live by?"
"Did you not see the way he walked and the care with which he sat?" Paulo shrugged, "Discomfort more than some that boy has in his arse. Is it not most like the painter took too great liberties with a boy who trusted him, went from simple sodomy to entertainments more extreme? And that, in anger at so being used, the boy took revenge?"
"But does that meet with the clear distress the boy showed on learning of the painter's death? I think the shock and sorrow were most real."
"Pah!" Vendozi snorted, "I doubt not that a boy may display such if it be to save him from the rope. Or perhaps it may be that he intended not to kill, but to inflict a minor wound only, a lover's tiff, no more. You hurt me and so will I hurt you and on the morrow we will kiss again."
"And did without intention stab straight to the heart? One single thrust alone?"
"If it were without intention, then it were an unlucky blow," Vendozi agreed, "But having no intention to slay does not remove the guilt of slaying. Deliberate or accident, still is it murder and still will he hang."
"And with such reasoning a judge will certainly convict him," Giovanni agreed, "Now how may I defend him?"
"You think him innocent?" Vendozi asked.
"It matters not here what I think, as it matters not here if you believe him guilty. We but look at what is before us and make attempt to determine if we know all that is to be known."
"Such is our task," Vendozi agreed, this being ever the way these two upholders of justice worked, "We will not send one innocent to the gallows, nor permit one guilty to walk free."
"That the boy was present at that house and at that time there can be no question of, and that the boy owns a blade of the design that did kill the painter is also not a thing that can be questioned, but I would have you think upon that Master Francisci was slain by a single thrust of a dagger to his heart. Were I in some rage, and but fourteen, would I have thrust so carefully? Is it not more like my dagger would have been wild? A wound upon an arm perhaps?"
Vendozi could not but agree, and pictured in his mind the scene. Francisci, being naked, had most like but just finished taking his pleasure in the boy, and he would also still be naked. No boy takes a dagger with him when he goes to bed for fucking with his man, so he would have had need to rise from the bed, cross to where his discarded clothes lay, find and reveal the dagger and then approach the man with it in his hand. The boy is slight and slender, no match for conflict with a man full grown, and any man, approached even by a slender boy holding a blade will defend himself and so a thrust straight to the heart a most unlikely thing.
"And then the boy clothes himself and departs with no haste, waving a greeting to an Officer of the Night as though nothing were amiss," Giovanni continued, his fingers steepled together still. "An assassin may do such, but was that the behaviour of a boy of fourteen who has just slain his lover?"
"I think it most unlikely the boy we have below could behave in such a manner," Vendozi found himself agreeing, "Near did he piss himself when brought before us, and such, I think, makes him a most unlikely assassin."
"But would, to a magistrate sitting in judgement, be taken as clear sign of guilt, and so he hangs," Giovanni sighed, "I would not have him hang. He is too pretty a boy to dangle from a rope."
"It matters not if he be pretty or as ugly as the arse of a shitting cow," Vendozi stated forcefully, "It matters only if he be innocent or guilty."
"And you do well to remind me of that," Giovanni accepted his assistant's rebuke, "True it is I would be more inclined to hang a shitting cow's arse than I would a pretty boy."
"First must we find him innocent, and when that is done you may think of him in your bed," Vendozi smiled, "But till that is done, think only of the law."
"So must I do," Giovanni agreed, "And nor must you forget your part in this. Still must you seek for guilt in him, and not be taken by a pretty face."
"I would know more of the discomfort of his arse," Vendozi returned to his task, "Some motive must he have if he slew the painter, and his hurting arse may be that motive."
"Let us then bring him here again for question," Giovanni decided, "Some little time he has had to think and may try to change his story some."
Chapter Six
It was clear the Lucus had not spent his time in thought; his eyes were red and puffy, still leaking tears and his soft peach cheeks streaked by those that had flowed before. Even Assistant Magistrate Vendozi could not bring his mind to think the snivelling boy before him was one that had done murder, though were he sitting in judgement and no other evidence to hand, he would take the sight as being no other than the remorseful guilt of a boy who had slain his lover.
"We would know of your arse," Vendozi demanded, "And why you find such discomfort there. It would seem that in the night such assault was made upon your arse that you took your dagger and used it on the painter in revenge for the pain he caused you. Did the painter, this past night, in his lust and desire to possess you, take a rod and beat your arse till you obeyed his wishes?"
Lucus had his red and puffy eyes fixed on the floor between his feet and now he did not look up but simply shook his head.
"Never did Master Francisco have need to beat me for me to give consent to the wishes you speak of," he mumbled softly.
"It was for pleasure alone then, that he so whipped your arse," Vendozi sneered, "That beating you made his cock grow hard and made desire in you to be sodomised."
"NO!" Lucus did now lift his eyes and glared with anger at the magistrate who taunted him, "Never did Master Francisci lay a hand on me that was not most gentle, and never did he take a rod to me for any purpose. True it is that I was his boy at nights, and not for nights only, and that he took his pleasures in me as men do with boys, and never will I make denial of that! He was my knight of old, the hero of my boy's dreams. He rescued me from distress, and wooed and courted me most honourably with his drawing and his painting of me and it was at my wish he took me to his bed, and now that happiness is gone from me forever and you wish to say I murdered him!"
Sobs once more came then from Lucus, and he hid his face with his hands as he wept, anger and sorrow mixed within him.
"We have no wish to say you murdered him," Giovanni said quietly and softly, the boy's affection for the dead painter most evident to him, "But if it was that your dagger in your hand brought death to him, then reason for that must we find, and the discomfort of your arse may seem good reason enough for a magistrate should one sit in judgement on you. If it is not from being beaten with a rod, why is it that you have such discomfort?"
"The oysters," Lucus snivelled through his tears.
Vendozi opened his mouth to ask more, but closed it again when Giovanni signalled to him to keep his silence. He sensed they neared a moment of truth and of importance, and harsh words now would not help bring that to light.
"Oysters?" he questioned softly, and said no more but waited for the boy to answer.
"We had too many," Lucus held his tears in check to answer, though his words were mumbled still and hard to hear, "We were both raised to much desire and performed often the act of love."
Giovanni looked at his assistant and raised his eyebrows in question, could it be that the boy spoke truth and that his arse was sore but from over-much being used for sodomy and for no other reason?
"And did Master Francisci take you each time with your consent and do so in his usual fashion and not, perhaps driven by the influence of those oysters, take you with more force than usual?"
Lucus was not a boy who would talk openly of being sodomised, to him the things that happened in a bed were not matters to be talked of to others, and it was this way of his mind that had, in some part, kept him from becoming a boy of the night before the painter had rescued him, and though he felt no shame within himself that he had slept often with his knight of old, the hero of his boy's dreams, blood rushed to his pale face that now he must speak of it, even though it were to save his life.
"Master Francisci needed no words to ask for my consent," Lucus blushed deeply as he spoke those words, "I was his boy and he my lover, all consent given many weeks before and needed not to be given again or more."
Giovanni felt a sigh of relief rise in his breast; the boy was innocent of all crime, of that he was now certain. The words he spoke and the embarrassment he found in speaking them shouted loudly at the truth of them, but that truth alone would not save his neck from the rope. More, much more, did Giovanni have need to know.
"That you had much affection for the painter is most clear," he said kindly now, "But, though it pains you, more I think is there for you to tell us yet."
"Have you a wish to see my arse?" Lucus was moved again to anger, "No marks of a rod will you find there, nor anything save perhaps signs it was used often this last night!"
"Indeed, I could find some wish to see your arse," Giovanni smiled, "I doubt not it is indeed a most beautiful arse, but now is not the time and place for the seeing of it."
Giovanni did indeed have some wish to view the boy's arse, but did not so request so never could it be claimed that, if he found the boy to be innocent, he came to that decision influenced by a suggestion by the boy he may be bedded later.
That he did not need to present his arse for inspection was of some relief to Lucus, who had spoken words in anger and not with thought, and he was in no manner offended by the magistrate saying he had a beautiful arse; he was a boy, and all boys like to hear flattery of themselves.
Believing now that the magistrates were not seeking reason to hang him, he calmed his anger and asked what more was wanted from him.
"You spoke to us most honestly and fully of how it was you came to be Master Francisci's model and his boy," Giovanni said in his kindest manner, "I would you would now speak the same of all that happened this past night. And," he added with a gentle smile, "I think it may be best if I called for a cushion, that you may sit with more comfort while you speak."
Chapter Seven
Lucus had gone to the painter's house, near skipping his way along that he may get there faster. It was a Sunday night, and Sunday nights were nights of love and he felt all a young boy's longing to be in the bed again of the man he adored and to be held and loved through the hours of darkness. It was a disappointment that he must leave before dawn came, to return to home so he may escort his mother to her work in the market, so the faster he could reach the painter's dwelling, the more time would there be for loving.
Master Francisci threw open his door as Lucus arrived, pulling him to his arms as he always did in a most close embrace, searching for his lips with his mouth as though they were lovers new to loving, as truly it seemed to Lucus they always were, the freshness of love being always renewed.
"Have you desire for me so great this night that you cannot wait for me to be unclothed?" Lucus teased happily as he was held and kissed, "If this be how you treat me now, what must I suffer when in your bed?"
"Torment most exquisite," Francisci laughed, "Abandon now all hope of sleep this night."
"I came not here to sleep," Lucus sniggered happily, "And most displeased would you be if I wished so to do."
"And would not be the boy I love if so you wished." Francisci smiled and Lucus melted in his lover's arms, for much did he like to hear his knight of old say of his love for him.
"Come," Francisci said, "Divest you of your clothing that I may gaze upon your beauty."
"Have you not seen me naked enough already that you wish for more?" Lucus teased.
"Never enough," Francisci stated firmly, "I would have you always unclothed."
"You do have me always unclothed," Lucus giggled happily, "Even when you neither paint or draw you wish me to be naked."
"And you?" Francisci also teased, "When I lay down my brush do you rush at once to cover yourself?"
"Never," Lucus said, "It gives me too much delight that my being naked for you to gaze upon gives you some small pleasure."
Such talk between them was a common thing, a prelude to the lovemaking that would come after.
"But first, before we bed," Francisci said, "Some few oysters and sweet white wine. Tonight I am a happy man. This very afternoon I received a commission for a new work, a work that it is ordered must have as its subject that same boy who posed for the Hyacinthos for the Duke, so for some months more I have the means to pay you to be the model for my work."
Lucus also was overjoyed at this news and hugged his lover with abandon; he needed no payment to spend time with the painter, willingly would he have lived with him were it not that he had his mother to care for. Her earnings from the market were pitifully small, and it was the wages Lucus earned by being model for Francisci that paid for food and rent.
"This man asked for me?" Lucus squealed with delight.
"Not by name," Francisci smiled, "He demanded the boy who posed for Hyacinthos be the one who must pose also for the painting he desires."
"But was not that work for the eyes of the Duke alone?" Lucus asked, "Perhaps it is the Duke who wishes for this other."
"Indeed Hyacinthos was for the Duke to have in his chamber," Francisci agreed, "But who can know what others he has shown it to, what others have gazed upon and admired your uncovered beauty?"
"And now another has wish to see me unclothed in paint," Lucus giggled, much taken with the thought that men should so wish to look upon his unclothed charms and would pay a painter's fees to do so and never would he have need to display himself in person to them for that money.
"It is to be somewhat a different work than that of Hyacinthos," Francisci said when both man and boy had eaten oysters and drunk wine and their desires were somewhat raised, "It is to be the martyrdom of a saint, though this Saint Sebastian never will be displayed in any church, of that you may be sure."
"Because, as that saint, I will be unclothed," Lucus giggled, "And seen from the front I believe."
"Unclothed and more than unclothed," Francisci said, "A rough sketch of the outline of this man's wishes I have made, and that will tell you more than I care to say in words."
Lucus' eyes were wide with wonder when he saw the sketch his painter-lover had made that showed most clearly how he should be arranged as model for the piece.
The saint was, in this rough outline, shown clearly as a boy, the delicate lines made a slender form that could be nothing other than a boy, a boy of Lucus' age, and that it was the form of a saint shown by the halo above his head, and that it was Saint Sebastian shown beyond doubt by an arrow embedded in his thigh.
The tradition of that saint's martyrdom was followed in some measure by his being fastened to a tree, but not bound to it as was the normal way, by only by his wrists above his head to a branch of that tree, and his arms not pulled high above him so they were fully stretched, but in a fashion so that the arms formed a near circle round the head that may be taken as another halo, one of the sort favoured by the artists of Byzantium and not the air born circle shown in Roman art.
Feet were fully on the ground, the legs bent some at the knee, and the boy's head was uptilted a little so the hips were a little thrust forward, the centre of the boy made most clear.
It was that part that caused Lucus' eyes to widen; there was no pretence of a modest covering of the boy saint's loins, as was so often the case in paintings of this saint, and no pretence either that it was not a boy, for that part of a boy that men so delight to see was shown aroused, pointing plainly outwards and upwards.
That alone would have caused any eyes to widen, but it was not that alone that caused Lucus to stare so hard. Bound as he was to a branch, the body of the saint boy was some small distance from the trunk of the tree, and to that trunk, placed in such a manner that its purpose could in no way be mistaken, was a phallus of ample dimensions.
This saint was to be martyred in a most unusual and erotic manner and even the seeing of that rough sketch was sufficient for Lucus' blood to flow to his own boy part so that part also rose and stood outwards and upwards from his slender body.
"The Church would not take kindly to such a painting," Lucus breathed, "Never would the Pope permit a saint to be martyred in such a way."
"But Popes and Cardinals more than one be happy to have such a work in their private chambers," Francisci shrugged, "Should the boys they take there respond as you have done, doubtless they would be martyred often in the night."
Lucus blushed then that a simple sketch should have induced such a hardness as he had now, but, as he was a boy and had consumed both oysters and wine, his thoughts turned straight to his own impending martyrdom.
"You caused it to happen, so must you also cause it to unhappen," he grinned, and when the painter had placed that sketch in a safe place where no casual eyes may fall upon it, Lucus was indeed taken to his nightly martyrdom, where wine and oysters had such effect that he was martyred several times, and in the early morning, when he left, his arse was most sore from so much use.
Chapter Eight
Giovanni had no doubts the boy had spoken nothing but truth; were he to have Lucus repeat his tale, some small things would be different, some little remembrances added and some forgotten, such was always the way when truth was told. Had this tale been invented by the boy it would change nothing in the repeating of it. He looked now at his assistant, wishing to hear his thoughts before he gave voice to his own.
"This boy did not murder the painter," Vendozi stated, "But still will he hang for it unless we may discover who did."
Lucus' bottom lip began to treble, tears once more threatening to overwhelm him.
"But sirs," he begged, "I did do no murder. Why must I then hang for one?"
"Because a judge will say, that as no other was seen to enter or leave that house save you, then it must be you that did the murder, and as you own and carry always with you a dagger of the sort that was used to kill the painter, what doubts can there be that you did the deed?"
"And for reason," Vendozi said most bluntly, "The murdered man sodomised you so forcefully and often, that even now it pains your arse to sit, and in anger at such treatment you took your dagger to his breast."
"I did not so!" Lucus wailed, "True he did use me more than once, and true also we did join together with more energy than usual, but this did not displease or anger me. Indeed I begged him to use me as forcefully as he wished. A boy's arse takes but a little time to recover from such use," Lucus said defiantly, "And had I not been obliged to leave so early, more would I have begged him to make use of it till he could do so no more!"
"You need no more to tell us of your innocence or your affection," Giovanni said gently, making some attempt to calm the boy, "I know you did no murder, nor could have done in the manner Master Francisci was murdered. It is no easy matter to find a man's heart with a dagger such as yours or as the one that slew him. Much bone protects the heart, and a slender stiletto blade, used in anger, would break its point upon such bone, wounding the flesh but never reaching the heart. Also I have no doubt that your arse is pained only by more use than you are accustomed to, and that use done with the enthusiasm of two lovers rejoicing in some unexpected fortune."
"My task of finding guilt in you is also done," Vendozi now spoke kindly to the boy, "And none can I find. But still must we endeavour to save you from the rope and make discovery of who it was that did the killing and why murder was done."
"And can this be done?" Lucus asked, his eyes filling again with tears, but this time with tears of hope and not of anguish.
"The painting!" Giovanni said of a sudden. "This sketch you talk of, could it be that is what you meant when we first questioned you and said was it for the painting that Master Francisci was slain?"
"Those words I should not have said, they came from my mouth before I could stop them."
"Why?" Giovanni demanded, "Why should you not have said them? Your thought was that a painting was the cause of Master Francisci's death. Why did you have that thought?"
"Look at the boy," Vendozi sighed a sigh that would have become and actor in a commedia, "Is he not a pretty boy, as you have some several times said? I think it should not be too great a problem for your mind to imaging him unclothed and in the state he described in the sketch he has told us of. The Church would name such a painting blasphemy, and I can think of some in this city who would believe a man who would paint such a thing deserved to die."
"A follower of the mad monk," Giovanni nodded slowly. "We need this sketch if it be possible to find it, if only that it may be destroyed. You say the painter hid it?" he said to Lucus.
"He did, sir, and in a place where none would find it unless they searched most diligently," Lucus confirmed, "But why must it be destroyed?"
"Because it will be said when you go before a judge for murder that you were filled with loathing that you should be made to pose for such an abomination and slew the painter that would make you do so." Vendozi's words sent blood once more from Lucus' pretty face as in his mind he felt again the rope around his slender neck.
"Then search we must," Giovanni declared, "And that at once."
"There is no need for you to search, sirs," Lucus told the two magistrates, "I know where it is hidden. Master Francisci kept that not a secret from me."
Two Officers of the Day stood before the dwelling that had been the house of Master Francisci, their pikes crossed to signify that none must approach or enter and to keep at bay the small gathering of citizens who had gathered to observe what may develop. The Doctor and the Coroner had come and gone, and some from the Coroner's Office had removed a body, and that they should do so in such a manner as they did made clear that plague was not thought of and another cause of death must be sought.
The arrival of the Chief Magistrate and his Assistant sent knowledge at once through that gathering of idle citizens that the death was one that needed to be investigated, and investigation, to all, could mean only that a murder had been done.
Eyes eager for gossip saw at once that with those two important magistrates there was a boy, and why would they bring a boy to a place of murder unless it was to confront that boy with his crime? Some amongst those watching citizens knew the boy to be Lucus, and that he served the painter as model for his paintings was not unknown, and that, being the pretty boy he was, it was most like he served the painter in another way as well, so straight did rumour take to the air and spread about the city, that Lucus had murdered the painter who sodomised him.
Had any there been attending to what was before their eyes and not intent on seeking rumour and gossip, they would have seen that Lucus was neither bound nor in chains, and no person, boy or no, thought guilty of a murder would be permitted to walk free in such a way.
The dwelling was a simple one; a room for comfort where a fire could burn for warmth in winter, a kitchen for the preparation of food and another room for sleeping in.
"Where then did Master Francisci work?" Giovanni asked, there being no sign of a painter's studio.
"Through there, sir," Lucus pointed at a door in the bedchamber, and beyond that door there was indeed the studio where the painter had worked.
That it had been constructed for the purpose for which it was used was plain to see, built not of solid stone or brick, but of timber and with many windows for light to enter, with a large door of the sort found in stables at one end.
"That leads to a courtyard, sirs," Lucus explained, "And when Master Francisci works it is always open wide so more light may come. And from the courtyard is a path that goes to a different street, and it is by that means that those having business with Master Francisci always come."
Giovanni took but little notice of the boy's words, his mind fixed on the drawing he wished to discover and destroy.
Giovanni had but little acquaintance with the works or studios of painters, but that of Master Francisci was not how he imagined such places to be. Instead of chaos he saw order, no heaped piles of discarded drawings, no marks of spilled paint, no stacks of unfinished works. All was ordered; a table where paint was clearly mixed, a jar holding assorted brushes and an easel set where light fell on it clearly, the piece being worked on a simple landscape. The only work of art, and scarcely could it be called that, a poor bronze of what seemed a Roman Senator, holding aloft a scroll.
No cupboards or drawers where an item may be hidden or stored, and no signs that anyone had searched for something hidden.
"Where then is the safe place where this drawing is hidden?" Giovanni asked.
"Before your eyes, sir," Lucus could not help but smile, the place of concealment so plain that none would notice it. He approached the poor bronze and slid a slender finger inside the held aloft scroll and withdrew a rolled paper, handing it to the magistrate.
Certainly that paper was, as Lucus had said, a rough sketch only, but that it was a sketch of a blasphemy and an abomination was plain to see. No saint could have been martyred in such a way, or had one been, the Church never would have made him saint. No face was drawn, yet the rough lines of the body showed clear enough the form of martyrdom was much welcomed by the martyr, and the aroused state no incidental accident.
Rough as the drawing was, and in outline only, still was it sufficient to cause arousal more than a little in Giovanni, and he could not help but think on the boy Lucus in such a position while Master Francisci drew and painted his unclothed and aroused form.
No face was drawn, and Giovanni had never seen Lucus unclothed, yet he knew beyond all doubt that the form was his, hurriedly sketched by Master Francisci, a man who had seen many times the unclothed body of Lucus and knew the lines to draw to make the body of the saint that of Lucus, accurate, he was sure, even to the detail of his aroused member.
Never before had Giovanni felt a wish that he could draw and paint, but now he did, and for his model he would have none but Lucus, though his thoughts extended beyond simply drawing and painting that boy's body.
"Why no face?" Vendozi questioned, "All else is shown, but no face? Why is that?" he asked Lucus.
"Such was always the way of Master Francisci," Lucus said, "Even for that painting for the Duke, the one he named Hyacinthos, he did not draw or paint my face until he said my thoughts did match the thoughts he believed that Greek boy would have had, and those thoughts showed then in my face. In all paintings, he said, there is some secret hidden," Lucus now was happy to talk in praise of his murdered lover, finding relief some in speaking so. "Know you, sirs, the tale of that boy of old Greece?"
Vendozi did, but his investigator's mind told him the boy may reveal something, no matter how small, that would be of some assistance in the task of uncovering the murderer.
Giovanni also knew that tale, but his thoughts were only of hearing the boy speak so he may listen to his young voice, the words of no importance, but only the sound.
"Master Francisci said," Lucus continued as he had not been told any other, "That he was a boy of unsurpassing beauty, so beautiful he feared no man would wish him for a lover but for his beauty and his body alone, so was he always sad apart from when he dreamed of a love he would not have."
"I know the tale," Vendozi interrupted, "But what has this to do with your face?"
Lucus blushed deeply then, embarrassed that he must say again what he had said before. "My foolish boy's dream," he murmured, "Of a knight in shining armour who would ride out to rescue me from my distress."
"But by then, by the time that painting was done, had you not been rescued by that knight?" Giovanni asked, his voice filled with kindness and understanding.
"Sir," the boy pleaded, "I feel I make myself seem foolish in recounting this."
"Not so," Giovanni smiled gently, "Rather do you show yourself to be the boy you are."
"Then, sirs, you must know that at that time I knew nothing of love but that foolish dream. Master Francisci never had urged me to his bed, and though many times I lay unclothed for him to paint, never had he ventured near that part of me that later he took much delight in. He bid me, sir, think only of my most secret thoughts, and when I thought of nothing but my knight, a knight who now in my foolish boy's mind wore not armour but a painter's smock, he bid me, though he knew not what my thought was, to hold it fast, and painted then my face."
"And in this painting of Hyacinthos, what was the secret hidden?" Vendozi wished to know.
"Love, sir," Lucus said, though he blushed again to say it, "In looking at that picture most men will see only the form of a naked boy and take what delight they will in that, as men do take delight some in naked boys, but if one looks into the face and eyes of that boy he will see only love there."
"And in this painting if ever it had been done?" Vendozi questioned further, "What secret would be hidden there in the face of the boy?"
"Sir," Lucus protested, "You will shame me by making me tell of that!"
"Shame or not," Vendozi stated most plainly, "I would have you tell."
"Then must you know it would have been joy, sir!" Lucus threw the words at his interrogator.
"Joy?" a confused Vendozi asked.
"Joy, sir! The joy a boy has when he is fucked! Fucked by the man he loves and who loves him!" Lucus near screamed at Vendozi, his face red with both anger and shame at what he revealed.
"There is no shame in that," Giovanni said, his voice almost a whisper, "But why, I wonder, would Master Francisci want that to show in your face?"
"I know not, sir," Lucus was again near to tears, "We talked but little of it, he saying only that he would give what it was that was wanted, but also more than that."
"More than what was wanted?" Giovanni mused, "Those words have some importance I do believe."
"And some importance also in that other painting," Vendozi thought aloud, "The one of Hyacinthos."
"That work was for the Duke alone," Lucus said, "Master Francisci was bid he keep no copy and all drawings and cartoons must go to the fire."
"Yet did not you say," Giovanni turned again to Lucus, "That the one who wished for this to be painted," he tapped a finger on the sketch, "Made express wish the boy must be the same boy as used for that painting for the Duke?"
"That he did so, sir, was part the cause of Master Francisco's happiness at the commission, that he could afford to employ me more, and the cause also why our sport in bed was as it was and why my arse is somewhat sore still."
"For the Duke alone, no copies made and all drawing destroyed," Giovanni talked now to his assistant, "Yet demand specific that the boy in both paintings be the same. The request for this," again he tapped that sketch, "Must surely have come from one who has knowledge of the other."
"But not from the Duke," Vendozi opined, "All know the Duke has fondness for boys but none for lewdness."
"Hyacinthos hangs, we are led to believe, in the Duke's private chamber," Giovanni followed his thoughts, "But that chamber is private only in that the Duke invites no others there. Servants enter there to wait upon him and others to clean and tidy. All will see that painting."
"And see a naked boy only," Vendozi added, "And if one was secretly a follower of that mad monk, " he did not complete his thought but left it open to be followed.
"Then we may have a plot aimed at bringing distress to the Duke," Giovanni chased that idea, working as he did always with his assistant when searching for a truth. "This door, you say, leads to a courtyard?" he asked Lucus.
"It does, sir," the boy answered and lifted the latch, opening the upper part of that door to reveal the flagged area beyond. "The path that leads to the street behind is in the corner, there behind the shelter for the winter wood."
"Think you a man may conceal himself there, behind that wood, and stay there undiscovered for some time?" Giovanni wondered to Vendozi, who straight did undo the bolt that closed the lower door and crossed the small courtyard, disappearing from sight behind the piled wood.
"Close and fasten the doors," he called from his hidden place, "I will find if it be possible to enter."
Lucus closed the bottom door and placed its bolt securely, then pushed upper door which, when it swung closed dropped in place the latch.
"No other lock?" Giovanni asked.
"None is needed," Lucus shrugged, "No way is there to open it from outside."
In this Lucus was much mistaken, for scare a minute later the latch lifted and the upper door swung open.
"So we have the way our killer entered," Vendozi permitted himself a satisfied smile, when he regained the studio room by climbing easily over the bolted lower door.
"And left also," Giovanni said, "See, the latch drops itself into place when this door closes, no further fastening used."
"Easy then for one to enter that courtyard in daylight and none to think it strange even if he were seen, wait then concealed until darkness came and Lucus engaged with Master Francisci in the sport of the bed, so if some small sound were made by accident it would not be heard," Giovanni mused.
"And when the boy leaves, he simply passes through that door, slays the painter and departs the way he came, waiting until daylight again and no Officer of the Night to note his going," Vendozi concluded.
"But that would mean he knew of my leaving early," Lucus interrupted the magistrates discussion, "Many times I did not so."
"Some questions still must we find answers for," Giovanni said, "And here not the place to seek for them. Let us return to the Hall of Justice, take some of wine and meat and see if together we can fit the pieces of this puzzle."
"And me, sir?" Lucus asked, "Am I to go with you still?"
"Indeed you are," Giovanni smiled pleasantly, "You are suspected of a murder, are you not?"
The smile, Lucus noted, was not on the investigator's lips alone, but also in his eyes and gave the lie to his words and he did not question them.
That smile was noted also by Vendozi who was a most skilled investigator, and also close friend of the Chief Magistrate and knew him well.
"Polish your armour if you must," he said quietly to Giovanni when the boy was out of their hearing, "But delay the wearing of it till we have found our murderer."
Chapter Nine
"Think!" Giovanni restrained himself from shouting at the boy, but still his voice was forceful. They knew now how the murder had been done, believed they knew also the reason for it, but still they did not know the murderer.
Lucus knew; he did not know he knew but Giovanni was certain that he did. He stared hard at the boy, trying with his stare to force the boy to think, and trying also not to think of the boy.
Giovanni knew that the killer, in the darkness, could have waited patiently outside the door to the painter's studio, waited till the sounds of painter and boy engaging in the sport of the bed became unmistakable, and entered then any time he chose, entered and waited by the door to Master Francisci's bedchamber until the moment to kill arrived.
He could have entered any time and slain both painter and boy while they were joined together; a man in the middle of a fuck is in no position to resist, and the boy he sodomises unable to escape, trapped as he would be, beneath the body of the man inside him.
But the murderer had waited till Lucus left, and that had to mean it was not the intention to slay the boy; the plot was more subtle than that, far more suited to a devious, Italian mind, worthy indeed of one from Venice or Rome.
That the intention was for both the painter who painted that work for the Duke's chamber and the boy who posed for it should die, Giovanni was certain of, but how much more satisfying, how much more fitting it would be to the warped mind of the one who devised this plot, if the boy died on the end of a rope, accused and found guilty of the murder of the man who painted him, the man who loved him, the man who sodomised him. Then no search would be made for the real killer, the boy found guilty and hanged.
Paulo Vendozi, as was his role when he and the Chief Magistrate made attempt to uncover some crime, sought to find fault and flaw in his chief's reasoning.
"There are many ways to kill a man," Vendozi said, "And of them we may take no consideration of poison, for use of such would mean the boy has knowledge of such, and I think he would have none of a poison that would work in such as way as to permit frequent sodomy before it did its work. So also may we dismiss smothering; young Lucus, even if enraged, has too slight a form to smother a grown man, and so our murderer chooses a dagger, and as he wants Lucus to hang it must mean he knows of the dagger Lucus has, and uses just such a blade. How came he to know of that?"
Giovanni stared at the drawing he had laid on his desk before him; it had importance in the plot laid to bring about the deaths of Master Francisci and his model, Lucus, he had no doubts, yet the hidden nature of that plot he could not discover.
Master Francisci had drawn it if the boy were to be believed, according to the instructions of the one who brought the commission, and though Giovanni had no knowledge of the boy's unclothed form he was sure it was accurate in every detail, even to the proportions of the boy's aroused member, a thing Giovanni gazed long at. Yet if all were drawn with such care and accuracy, why was there no detail of the face? An outline only, not one feature shown; why should that be?
Lucus had said that Master Francisci would not form the face till the face reflected the purpose of the painting, and that the purpose of this was to arouse men to desire was most clear.
"He could not know of it unless he had knowledge of the boy," Giovanni forced his mind from the drawing and paid attention to the words of his assistant, "A man who knows that since his father met his end, the boy carries with him for comfort that dagger always as memory of his father. Think," he demanded again of the boy, "Who knows of this blade you carry?"
"My mother," Lucus answered, "But I know no other. Always I carry it hidden in my hose and beneath my tunic. I fear were I to wear it openly it would be stolen from me. I carry it not to use, though I believe it gives my mother comfort knowing I wear it when we go to the market and then to home again."
"Your mother did not do this murder," Giovanni sighed, "Some other must there be who knows of it."
"I know of none, sir," Lucus said, "Nor of how any may have known of it."
"One there is," Giovanni stared at the boy in attempt to make him think, and once more his mind told him he should stare not so at the boy's pretty face and think upon its prettiness when there was a murderer to discover. But the boy did have a most pretty face, a face that led a man's mind to think on other parts that would also be pretty and a delight to stare upon, and his eyes roved from the pretty face to the drawing before him on his desk where those pretty parts were most clearly shown.
"Why is it, Paulo," he spoke to his assistant, "That so often men dismiss the obvious and look for something hidden? We both have looked upon this drawing and puzzled why there is no face made. Yet Lucus told us when first we looked upon it that there was no face because Master Francisci had yet no face to draw. He drew only the design the one who wished for this to show, a boy aroused and shortly to be sodomised. Our eyes are drawn, are they not, to the boy's member and to what will soon enter him that is the cause of his arousal? Never was this intended to be painted; never was there one who made a commission. This was but a means of gaining entry to Master Francisci's dwelling so murder could be done. This was no cunning plot of the mad monk to bring discomfort and discredit to our Duke, but the act of one who had desire to know Lucus and to ravish his delightful body, and for he could not, he wished the boy dead so none else could have him, and the painter dead because he had the boy as his."
Lucus blushed some at hearing his body described by Giovanni as being delightful and desired, for though he was now most accustomed to the sport of the bed, that had been with Master Francisci alone, and though he knew he was a boy more pretty than many, still was he of his mind most modest.
Paulo Vendozi had no doubts that the Chief Magistrate had hit upon the truth, and that he had done so because he also had some desires for the boy gave substance to the truth he had discovered.
"Then, Lucus," Vendozi said, "You must do as you are bid and think. In your mind you know the one we seek, you have but to reveal it to yourself and then to us."
Chapter Ten
Lucus leaned against a pillar as was his custom when he waited at the market for his mother. Idly he held a hand beneath his tunic, softly touching the hilt of his dagger, but his mind was not on that dagger, but on another of a different sort that he would shortly touch and hold and take between his lips.
His mother met and escorted to home, he would straight to Master Francisci and pass some idle hours in the bed there, and it was of those hours he thought most often while waiting for his mother.
A small smile passed across his young lips as he wondered if his thoughts showed some upon his face, for often would man approach him and ask if he sought for company in the night.
Always would Lucus most politely say that he sought not for such company as always he had done so. Never had he found need to take or give offence when he was so asked, but now he knew in full the delights of the bed, his answer was always with a smile, thanking the one who asked for thinking him worthy to pass a night with.
One such approached him now, and with his ready smile Lucus politely inclined his head.
"Sir, he said, "I must tell you I am not a boy of the night, nor do I seek for company."
"A pity," the man replied, "A boy so pretty as you would be great comfort, and for more than a night, I think."
"I thank you for you kind words, sir," Lucus blushed some, "But already I have a lover, and now do but wait here to escort my mother home."
"Then there is one lucky man in this fair city," the stranger said gallantly, "But I came not to enquire if you were a boy of the night, but to ask what you have hidden beneath your tunic that so attracts the attention of your hand. It is not, I think, that which boys often find beneath their tunics that attracts the attention of their idle hands, but still is something you wish to keep concealed from the sight of men. Is it, perhaps a thing you should not have?"
"No sir," Lucus smiled, offended not at all that the man had made suggestion that it was himself he played with or that it was a thing Lucus should not have. The man was not of the common sort, and though Lucus knew he spoke of the private parts of a boy, he did so with humour and not with condemnation. "Myself I no longer have need to play with as my lover is a most considerate man, and what I keep concealed is but a memento of my father, who is but lately dead."
"For your loss I am most sorry," the stranger condoled, "But may I beg to ask what it is that you keep in remembrance of him?"
"It is his dagger, sir," Lucus lifted his tunic to reveal the hilt, "It is all he left for me, as his father left it for him. I carry it concealed as I have no wish to use it, and no wish for one to steal it from me."
"And you do well to do so," the man said, "And may I dare to ask who is the most lucky man in all this city who has you as his lover?"
"Oh, sir," Lucus made pretence, "Should a man ask a boy such a thing? But, sir, my lover is one Master Francisci, a painter I think to be of some note for he has painted a picture for the Duke. When I am not his lover, sir, I serve him as a model for his work."
"A boy such as you may aim higher than a painter, I believe," the man said and doubtless would have said more but for the appearance of Lucus' mother then.
At once that woman made conclusion that the man was conversing with her son in a manner that may involve the exchange of money, and as the man, by his dress, was not of the common sort, she determined to enquire if his interest was but for a night only. Lucus was a pretty boy and attracted much attention, as pretty boys do, and though the money that the painter paid for him kept them in food some and paid the rent, if another of greater wealth had wish for him as catamite and a price could be agreed, most willingly would she have her son from the painter's bed and in that other's.
"Mother," Lucus protested, "I will not think of it." And to the man he gave apology, "Sir," he said, "I give you my thanks for your interest in me, but I am committed to Master Francisci and I am his and no other man's while he wishes to have me still."
His mother scolded him much, both on the walk to home and also when they were there, saying how his foolish boy's dreams of love were of no account, and that, as clearly he was made for sodomy, from sodomy he should seek some fortune.
"Boys have risen to be bishops from a Cardinal's bed," she scolded, "But what fortune may you seek in the bed of a painter?"
Lucus still dreamed as boys do dream, and that man, though clearly a man of some wealth, wore not shining armour nor did he come to rescue Lucus from some distress, but wished for him for the bed alone, and though Lucus now found much pleasure in the bed, it was only in the bed of Master Francisci that he would seek that pleasure.
Chapter Eleven
"We have our murderer," Giovanni exulted to his assistant, Vendozi, and slammed his fist hard upon his desk, shouting loud at Lucus, "Why spoke you not of this before?"
"I thought it not of any import, sir," a startled Lucus answered, "Men ask me often if I be a boy of the night, and I think little of it, nor take it unkindly that they do so. I am a boy, sir, and being a boy it pleases me some that men should wish me for their beds."
`A boy that any man who had some liking for the beauty of boys would wish to bed,' was Giovanni's thought then, `And one, indeed, wish great enough to murder for.' Those words he did not speak aloud, but said instead to Vendozi, "Once more we fail to see what is before our eyes. Master Francisci was not slain because he would paint this lewd and blasphemous thing," he pushed the drawing before him around on his desk, "Nor for that he did that work of Hyacinthos, but because he had this boy," he pointed straight at Lucus, "In his bed and sodomised him with the boy's consent, and no other did this boy wish to sodomise him."
"Jealousy then, and not the mistaken zeal of a follower of the mad monk?" Vendozi asked.
"Nothing
has the mad monk to do with this, but only lust unsatisfied for the body of the
boy," Giovanni stated. "I doubt even if the one who the boy now tells us of had
any knowledge of that painting of Hyacinthos that has mislead us so. He but
spies a pretty boy and finds great desire for him, and when he finds he may in
no way find satisfaction for that desire because a painter has him for his
lover, then must he find satisfaction of a different sort.
The painter must die because he has tasted of the boy's delights that are
forbidden to him, and if he may not taste of those delights himself, then they
will be tasted by no other man."
"Why then did he not murder both painter and boy?" Vendozi pondered, "Or did he think, the painter being dead, he may try again for the boy?"
"You delve not deep enough into the midden of the man's mind," Giovanni sighed, "Look again at this drawing, see what it tells you."
"That it is a most perverse rendering of the martyrdom of a saint," Vendozi said, "What more is there to see?"
"The cess pit of the mind of the man who wished it drawn," Giovanni said, disgust some in his voice. "The arrow to the thigh shows plain which saint it is and that the manner of his martyrdom is to be slow and filled with pain, but it is that which is of importance, not that it is the martyrdom of a saint. The reason for the torture is not one of religion, but of the other things shown most plainly. The boy is aroused and soon to be sodomised by that phallus on the tree behind him, and the expression on his face, Lucus tells us, was to be one of joy. This boy," Giovanni again tapped the drawing, "Was to be seen as one who had great liking to be sodomised, and so, I think," Giovanni stared direct at Lucus, "Do you also."
Lucus then blushed a most deep red and wished he were anywhere but where he was.
"That is true, sir," he whispered, "Much indeed, I did like it that Master Francisci sodomised me and did so often, but it was only him that I wished for sir, and for no other."
"And for that wish it was intended that you should die," Giovanni said bluntly, "And like the saint, die most painfully and slowly. Master Francisci was murdered in such a way that none but you would be thought guilty of the deed, and then you would hang for it. A long time would it take for the weight of a form so slight as yours to draw the rope tight about your neck till it did strangle you, and all that time while you did writhe and kick your feet, hanging on that rope, there would be one watching, pleasing himself and gloating on the death of a boy who would not bed with him."
"The painter's death, then, was but a means to bring about the death of Lucus?" Vendozi questioned.
"Oh, not alone for that," Giovanni shrugged, "Think also of the torment to the boy's mind first knowing that his lover was murdered and then the anguish of knowing he must himself hang for that murder. A most cunning and cruel way to gain revenge on a boy who would not bed with one who lusted for him."
"Such a one will not be satisfied that the boy still lives," Vendozi said, "Still will he seek the boy's death if what you say is true."
"Indeed he will," Giovanni agreed, "And until we have this murderer hanging on a rope, Lucus' life is in great danger."
"We cannot then release him from here, allow him to return to his home," Vendozi stated plainly.
"Nor may we keep him here," Giovanni said. "If he remains here then still will it be thought he is suspect of this murder and very soon will there be demand to bring him to trial, and all that we now know will still not keep him from the rope. We have no evidence but the workings of our minds."
"What then to do with him" Vendozi asked.
Giovanni paused but briefly before giving reply, his mind already decided.
"I will take him home with me, no safer place for Lucus to be than in the home of the Chief Magistrate."
"But many will say that you save a pretty boy from the rope but to have him in your bed," Vendozi said gently, "Your affection for boys is well known, and, Lucus indeed is a most pretty boy."
"That cannot be denied," Giovanni smiled softly at the boy, "Most pretty is he indeed, but it is not for that I will keep him safe, but for that he is a boy that there is one who wishes to have dead."
"First, then, must we make a report of all we have discovered," Vendozi became most efficient in both tone and thinking, "That we believe the boy to be not guilty but in mortal danger and that you take him into protection till his innocence be fully shown. And," Vendozi added carefully, "That if indeed our further searching finds him indeed to be guilty, then you will yourself bring him back for trial."
"No matter how deep we search, we will not find him guilty," Giovanni said."
"This I know," Vendozi agreed, "But it is not the boy alone that needs protection. By taking him in your care you risk much."
"I care not for that," Giovanni said, "Nor care I what men may say. Might it not be," he said of a sudden, "That our murderer, enraged that the boy hangs not but is now in my care and in my home, thinks that he is there so I may sodomise him and will seek revenge on me and by so doing disclose himself?"
"So you not only protect the boy but seek to trap our killer?" Vendozi said, "A plan near as cunning as the one he himself devised."
"Such was not my first thought," Giovanni admitted, "But perhaps indeed, it may serve."
"It may," Vendozi agreed, and took a paper upon which he wrote some words and passed to Giovanni.
`Polish also your armour,' were the words Vendozi wrote, for though he held boys not in the same affection as did Giovanni, still had he some understanding of the workings of boys' minds.
Chapter Twelve
Lucus was now much troubled in his mind; great distress he felt that his lover was murdered, and much he wept at nights for that, but great also was his relief that he would not be hanged, and much he wept for that also.
He wept because the painter, who had been the knight in shining armour who rescued him from distress was dead, and he wept because he had once more been rescued from distress, a distress much greater than before, but the man who rescued him did not wear shining armour or sit on a great white horse, and, being a boy, he could not help but wish this was not so.
True, the one who rescued him had taken Lucus to his castle, and kept him there, and though that castle was but an ordinary house in a fine part of the city, it was a much finer castle than the one the painter had lived in, and no doubt his mother would have approved more of him being taken there than she had been that he was taken by Master Francisci.
Some days had Lucus been now in this castle and never had the one who rescued him made any attempt to claim his reward for that rescue, and this Lucus found he could not understand. In his boy's dreams, always had the knight who rescued him from distress courted him, and that indeed had been the way of it when he was rescued by Master Francisci, so why was it now not the way?
Little he saw of the Chief Magistrate who had taken him for safety to his castle, but when he was in the presence of that man Lucus thought he saw clearly in his dark eyes the look he had seen in the eyes of many men, that look that said they had desire to take him to their beds, yet never was any talk made of a bed to be shared, nor never did the man dress in the shining armour that would have sent Lucus running to his bed.
Much did he miss his dead painter-lover, and mostly so in the hours of darkness when his hand sought that part of him that had so often been taken in Master Francisci's hand and in his mouth, and much also did he long for the sodomy proper he had come to so much enjoy.
Hard he thought upon this with his untutored boy's mind, thinking perhaps more clearly when he had, with his hand, made that hard part of him soft again once more, and brought to mind the words of both those magistrates, that his lover had been murdered, both because he had been his lover and also that he would hang because he had not accepted an offer from another.
"I think," Lucus said eventually to Giovanni, "That you hold me here not just because in so doing you keep me safe from one who wishes to have me dead, but also as bait in a trap you lay for him. Master Francisci, you say, was murdered because he sodomised me and that I would not permit this murderer to do."
That truth Giovanni did not deny, and Lucus, thinking as a boy would think, continued with his words.
"Bait that is not seen is not often taken," he said, "And you keep me here concealed. This murderer wishes me dead because he cannot sodomise me, and slew Master Francisci from jealousy that he sodomised me much. Would not he have wish to slay you also were he to have reason to believe that you now sodomised me, and so take the bait in the trap you lay for him?"
"True I have given thought that you are bait to catch him," Giovanni agreed, "Though I keep you here more for your safety than for that. I would have no boy come to harm, and especially such a pretty boy as you."
"You think me pretty," Lucus asked, "And I believe have some wish to take me to your bed, for I think I see that in your eyes, so why then do you not make some request of me?"
"You are not a boy of the night," Giovanni answered gently, "And I know you have no wish to be one. Master Francisci you granted your favours to because you had great affection for him, and he has not for long been in his grave. Most unseemly would it be of me were I to have wish to replace him in your bed."
Though he was not of a mind nor intent to do so, with those words the Chief Magistrate donned shining armour at last, and though a boy's first love will never leave his mind he learns soon enough there are more knights than one who roam abroad in the world seeking to rescue boys from distress.
"True indeed it is that I have no wish to be a boy of the night," Lucus said, "And true also that I granted my boy's favours from affection to Master Francisci, and have within me desire to grant those favours only where my heart wishes, and from my heart I thank you that you have not asked for them in any way, but would not your bait be better used if appearance were given that your desire to sodomise me were satisfied? Should you not, at least, have me accompany you when you walk abroad as though I were your boy indeed? Would such not raise this murderer to jealousy once more?"
"Doubtless it would do so," Giovanni agreed, "But I have no wish to cause you distress or bring some stain upon your honour by having men think you go so soon from one bed to another."
Though it were then some hours since the setting of the sun, still did a shaft of sunlight then seem to glitter and glint on the armour Giovanni now wore, dazzling so the eyes of Lucus, brighter than they had ever been dazzled by the armour of Master Francisci.
"No fears need you have for my honour," Lucus said with a somewhat sad smile, "Boys of my condition have no honour to stain, and had it not been for Master Francisci and his kindness, doubtless would I now be a boy of the night though I have no wish to be so. I think I may be pretty enough for a man of such importance as you to feel no shame if it should seem you have me as your boy, and should you wish to use me in such a way to bring to justice the one who slew my lover and wishes for me to be dead, I will play that part most earnestly if you desire me to act it only."
"Pretty enough indeed," Giovanni smiled, "And not in face and form alone, but also in your mind you are far more fair than most, and this wicked man we seek spoke one thing true; Master Francisci was indeed the most fortunate man in this city to have you for his lover."
"Sir, you flatter me too much," Lucus blushed, but though he blushed, still was he a boy, and what boy is there who does not like to be flattered?
Then it was that Chief Magistrate Baptista took with him Lucus wherever it was he went, and soon the gossip was that if he was so often with the boy it must be that he was with him also at nights, though the only use Giovanni made of the boy was to bid him use his eyes to see if he could spy that man who had spoken to him at the market.
So willingly was Lucus to be used for bait he made suggestion to Giovanni that he should once more wait for his mother as he had used to do, a secret Officer of the Day nearby always ready to come to his aid if such was needed.
His heart pumping so hard with his nervousness, Lucus waited where he had always waited for his mother. Three times did men approach him hoping he was a boy of the night and all did Lucus decline with his customary politeness, not knowing those men were not seeking for a boy for their comfort, but were indeed secret Officers of the Day, sent to protect him.
His mother, not expecting him to be present, greeted him not with joy at his safety, but with words of anger. She knew of the gossip that had spread that he was now the boy of the Chief Magistrate, and was full of fury that he had paid no sum to her that he may sodomise her son, though she stilled her tongue soon enough when two Officers of the Day in their resplendent uniforms arrived to escort Lucus once more to where he now lived.
On the second day the fish that Giovanni sought for grabbed at the bait dangled before him and made approach to Lucus where he waited.
"The maggots have yet to start feasting on the body of your painter," he sneered at Lucus, "And so soon do you have another feasting on your body. You would not have me and now none shall again have you."
With those words he drew his blade, but never did he have chance to use it, for as soon as Lucus set eyes upon that man he made the secret signal of placing a hand before his mouth as though in surprise and not one, but several men appeared at once and held that murderer fast.
"I think he must be mad to attempt to slay me so, there in the open where all could see," he said to Giovanni when once more he was safe in the company of the magistrate.
Though he was safe, still did thoughts of what may have been filled his mind and he trembled much at those thoughts. "I was greatly feared when he reached for his blade," Lucus said, "That the one you had there to protect me would not reach me before he struck."
Much he trembled at that thought and Giovanna placed an arm around him to comfort him.
"Not one, but ten were there to keep you safe. The ones you told so politely that you are not a boy of the night were all my officers, and hid themselves by pretending to be looking for a boy for comfort."
"Ten?" Lucus gasped, "So many?"
"To keep you safe," Giovanni repeated softly, "You are too pretty to be allowed to come to harm."
Tears then formed in Lucus eyes, dazzled as they were by the light reflected from the shining armour his mind had dressed the magistrate in, and he pressed himself close into that man, offering what had not been asked for but what he knew was desired.
Chapter the Last
"It would seem now I must make a choice," Giovanni said, his voice neutral, "Should I seek for one who could make this drawing into a painting the size of the boy, for though this saint is martyred in a most unusual manner, still I find I must confess the uncovered form of that saint pleases greatly my eyes and often would I wish to look upon it; or should I beg upon my knees the Duke to permit me to view this saint when he was a boy of Old Greece who dreamed of love?
"Both, I think, would be true images of the boy," Lucus sighed, content in the protecting arms of the magistrate. "Hyacinthos dreamed of love but knew not what love is. He dreamed a boy's dream of love, of a knight most brave and handsome who would rescue him from distress and keep him forever safe from harm. The saint dreams also of love, but knows love comes only with martyrdom and so that martyrdom he welcomes most eagerly."
"But this saint we speak of is still a boy, is he not?"
"Indeed, sir, and being a boy he thinks as a boy thinks, and those thoughts, I believe, are not the thoughts of a saint."
"And which, think you, I should hang upon my wall? Saint or innocent boy of old Greece?"
"I believe you would need both, sir," Lucus said most softly, for now was he most daring with his words yet knew he must speak those words. "The boy of old Greece, though he has known of love, has great longing in him to know of it again, and the saint is not a saint but only a boy who desires much to be martyred by the knight who rescued him from distress."
"That knight is no knight of old, but just a man who has much affection for boys and would not see one harmed. I kept you from the rope not so that I may bed you," Giovanni spoke what was the truth.
"That I know," Lucus confessed, "And at the first I did not see you as a knight come to save me from a dreadful fate, but as the dragon who would have me dead, but now my eyes see more clearly, and truly I see a knight who has rescued me and would keep me safe from harm."
"No knight," Giovanni said again, "But a man who is happy to have saved a pretty boy from the fate another planned for him."
"And that boy is most grateful that you did so, sir, and well he knows that in so doing you put yourself in danger also. He heard the words of Master Vendozi, that men would say you took me in your protection and cared not if I be guilty of murder or no but that you did so only to sodomise me because I am a pretty boy and it is known you have much liking for pretty boys."
"I had no care if men said that," Giovanni shrugged, "Guilty of murder I knew you were not, but were indeed a boy in danger of being himself murdered."
"But still you placed your reputation in danger for me, and even now, when that danger is passed, still you keep me here, though not against my will, and I have some wonder why that is so?"
"Would you make me say words I should not say?" Giovanni asked, his mind in turmoil because he had great wish to say those words, "Master Francisci was your lover and he is dead for little more than but a week or two, and most unbecoming would it be of me, and like also to give much offence, were I to speak those words now."
"Master Francisci was indeed my lover as I was his," Lucus said slowly and carefully, "He was my knight in shining armour and rescued me from some distress, but, sir, would a true knight of old, wounded to death in protection of the boy he loved, not feel but joy and happiness that another knight rode to save that boy?"
"But would his spirit not feel great sadness if that other knight had desire to martyr the boy he saved?"
"I think he would weep tears, but those of joy and not of sadness," Lucus said, himself not far from tears. "Great affection I know he had for me and took great delight in my unclothed form, and being the boy I am, I took delight that he did so. Sir," Lucus cast all pretence aside and summoned all the courage he could muster, "I am a boy of the most common sort, untutored and unlearned, though I have some hope that I be honest. You say you have some wish to look upon a painting of me unclothed, but I think you would rather cast your eyes on the boy himself and not a painting of him."
"Unlearned and untutored you may be," Giovanni said, "And pretty by far more than most you are, and common you are most certainly not. You have a mind more perceptive than is commonly to be found in a boy of your years, and, in truth, that delights me more even than does the thought of your uncovered body."
"But you have much wish for my uncovered body," Lucus could now nothing but smile as he saw in his mind his new knight dismount from his great white horse, "That I see most plainly in your looks. It does not become the rescued boy to court the knight who saves him, but would you have some wish for the boy and not a painting of him, the boy will not deny you."
"You are not a boy of the night, Lucus, and have no need to offer me your favours in return for your protection. True, I would hold you here with me if such were possible. I see much merit in you, and with some little learning believe you could grow to be a wonderful investigator and in time do much service to this city as a magistrate, and in your turn may rescue some pretty boy from distress. I would not have you leave me, Lucus, unless that be your wish."
"I do not offer favours for protection," Lucus said, "But if you truly wish to keep me with you and have affection some for me, then you must know all the favours that I may grant are given most freely and most willingly. Truly, sir, you must know that I am indeed a boy of the most common sort and have no honour in me. My body will belong to you and, sir, I have to tell that greatly have I come to delight in all the forms of sodomy that Master Francisci taught me of, and that however many times you martyr me, never will it be enough."
"I do wish to keep you with me and delight me with your company," Giovanni confessed at last, "And if you be unclothed then, that also do I wish for."
"Then I am yours, sir," Lucus smiled with delight, "But I must tell you that should you wish me now uncovered you will discover a boy who is not a saint, but one who now is most hard and eager to give pleasure, and will not again cover himself until he has been truly martyred."
So Giovanni took Lucus as his lover and greatly was he aroused and delighted when that boy revealed to him his uncovered form and made no show of pretended modesty when he did so but displayed his slender, smooth perfection instead with eagerness, his member, as he had promised, hard and wanting to be used.
"Master Francisci wished me thus," Lucus said, aware of the eyes that seemed to devour his nakedness and thinking this was caused by there being no hair growing where boys of his age had hair. "He said that hair there spoiled the perfect lines of my beauty, but perhaps you like it not."
"Master Francisci was an artist," Giovanni said with breath only, so entranced was he by the sight he saw, "And I, a mere magistrate, will not argue with an artist on matters of beauty."
"You like me thus?" a happy Lucus smiled, and being a boy he said next a boy's words, "I like it much. Sir, greatly does it make better the delights of sodomy to me, and often did he kiss me there and take me in his mouth, my balls also, and this I know he would not have done had hair been permitted to grow there. Much did I like to be treated so."
"Greatly I like you thus," Giovanni smiled, "So that I cannot tear my eyes from gazing at you."
"Then always will I keep myself so for you, sir," Lucus laughed with delight, "And if your eyes like to gaze upon me, then never will I cover myself except at your command."
"And that command given only when we must step abroad," Giovanni confirmed, "I fear I will be a most demanding lover."
"Fear not that," Lucus giggled, "But rather fear that you may discover I have great liking for sodomy and am not easily satisfied."
"Then must I order soft cushion be placed on every chair and stool," Giovanni grinned, "That you be able to sit with some comfort."
So it was the Lucus became the lover of Magistrate Baptista, and that man not lover only but mentor also to the boy, and in time Lucus, being quick of mind, was tutored to be investigator for the Office of Justice and rose, in time, to become the Chief of those secret Officers who wore no resplendent uniforms but wandered the streets of the city and took care in particular for the safety of boys.
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