The Wolf Esprit: Lykanos Chronicles 3

Duccio sensed my agitation the moment we returned to Palazzo Palatino. He appeared in the main hall as if searching to find me, his eyes imploring for an answer to the cause of my state.

The other men had left us at the front door, but Guccia’s bodyguards entered the house. Signore Vitelle arrived soon after to receive them but withdrew when Duccio raised his palm to dismiss his man.

“Don Palatino, I have news,” Guccia smiled when Vitelle had withdrawn.

She looked at her bravos, and they receded to give us space.

“Everything is all right, then?”

Duccio asked this of Guccia, but I felt he was speaking to me.

“I settled a matter of the past,” she replied. “Agnello Zorzi has withdrawn his claim on my hand. Or rather, your patrician colleague no longer has a voice with which to speak.”

Duccio’s brow tensed in confusion, and he looked at me to make sense of her words. He needn’t have pushed—my mind drew him in desperation. The church, the archbishop, his wolves, and the blood draining from Zorzi’s throat—I unleashed all of it for Duccio to witness in stark clarity.

His eyes widened with outrage as the whole grisly exchange played in fragments, each image drenched by my unsettled anxiety.

“What have you done?” Duccio asked Guccia, his dark eyes upon her now.

“I have carried out my father’s will,” she smiled.

“His will? Did he send you to destroy one of his subjects? A patrician of his Serenissima?” Duccio’s voice rose only a little, but enough for my senses to tighten.

“Yes, his will,” she answered. “He promised you my hand, and Zorzi contested that decision.”

“Contested?” Duccio exhaled with impatience. “The man raised the matter with his sovereign. Is that not his right?”

“It was not his right to continue his campaign after Father answered his points,” she returned. “It was not his right to challenge and denounce you in chambers. It wasn’t his right to call you out. This is not some country village ruled by simple but ruffians.”

“You stand there and pretend you don’t know what you’ve done,” Duccio said, lowering his voice to a growl. “He challenged me in front of the Serenissima. It was not your place—

“This is the Veneto,” she interrupted him without fear, “and we stand at the heart of her crown. If I were not a princess, if it were not my duty, someone else would have carried it out. But it would’ve happened according to our customs, regardless. Zorzi was given ample chances to recant his offense, to withdraw his claims. But he refused.”

“And for this, he’s dead?” Duccio moved around her as if stalking prey, and I stepped back from the two of them.

“He’s dead because when his punishment was to be delivered, he could not contain his cowardice,” she answered, unfazed in the slightest by his demeanor. “He threatened me—he threatened to kill us all—but to the point, he threatened the Prince. And for this, I ordered—

Duccio’s hand flew at Guccia’s face with such power that she lost her balance and fell to the tile floor.

I moved forward to assist her, taking her by the shoulders to help her stand, but she only stared at the ground, her hand on her face. Peering up at Duccio in shock, I felt my hands tremble.

He turned to Guccia’s bravos, who advanced upon him with frenzied shouts of warning. But Duccio stood against them.

“Take one more step toward me in my house, and it will be your last,” he said, his voice resolved as he glared at them.

I thought he would call his wolf, but both men stopped in their tracks. Whether by the force of his Duccio’s mind or because they recognized the enormity of their situation, the bravos advanced no further.

“My lord, it’s our duty to protect the Princess from harm. I implore you to restrain yourself,” the senior man said, his voice struggling to say the words. “Allow us to escort her home, and we will bother you no more.”

Duccio didn’t answer but turned his glare on Guccia.

“I have tolerated your whims, child,” he growled, “but understand this much: you are not a man, and you will never answer a man on my behalf.”

Guccia met his eyes without emotion. She said nothing in response to his words. She peered up like a lifeless doll staring into the horizon of his glare.

“The Princess is tired,” Duccio said. “See her home.”

Breaking his gaze, Duccio walked away, leaving us in possession of the foyer.

Signore Vitelle arrived, distressed at the scene he found but seemingly helpless to account for the state of affairs.

I tightened my grasp on Guccia’s shoulders and helped her to her feet, fawning in a half daze while I adjusted and smoothed her cape. I didn’t know what to say. If Guccia had words to comment on the mad moment, she kept them to herself.

Silently, she reached for my hand and squeezed it, her eyes never finding mine, then left the house without a word.

At first light, a messenger arrived at the palazzo door with word from Prince Adelchi, who summoned Duccio and me to his office.

We hadn’t discussed Duccio’s violence the previous night. I’d become so outraged by his striking Guccia that I never left the ground floor in the aftermath. I took to my viol for not ten minutes of frustrated attempts to make music before I returned the instrument to its case and left the palazzo to stalk the city. If Duccio had wanted my answer to his unforgivable action, the required pace to keep up with my flight would’ve been no minor accomplishment for his heels.

I stalked the city all night, stopping only to observe the black pulse of the canals. Somewhere beneath those chilly waters, my resolve to never leave Guccia behind begged for reprieve.

I’d returned to Palazzo Palatino only five minutes before the bell sounded with the Prince’s message. I relied on Signore Vitelle to deliver the summons upstairs and waited on a sofa in the foyer until Duccio appeared. He gave me a nod but otherwise said nothing, not even with his mind.

I followed him onto the street and kept pace as he walked northeast through the city. Upon finding ourselves in Saint Mark’s Square, we slipped into the Doge’s palace, where we waited only moments in the Doge’s reception hall before Adelchi appeared.

The Prince wore his usual scarlet robes trimmed in spotted fur and approached us with a burdened expression on his weathered brow.

Duccio took his hand and brought it to his lips. I did the same, whispering, “Padrino,” before I released him.

“Word has come to me,” Adelchi began. “A second-hand memory that has startled me to my core.”

Duccio gave no response, keeping his eyes on the Prince. Duccio kept the emotion locked within his mind if he feared anything, as I did.

“A sentry,” Adelchi continued, “a wolf of Duke Sforza’s army shared an account of the night you visited your father as his representative.”

The Prince stopped as if he struggled to say more, but in a flash, his resolve returned.

“This shared memory was of you and Sempronio, that it was your hand that drove the sword into his chest,” Adelchi said to Duccio. “It was you who took your father’s head; you who corrupted his remains and left his body for the birds to devour.”

I thought I would lose my footing. I tried everything I could to close my mind, but the Prince shared the memory with startling clarity, and my breathing threatened to overtake my control.

Duccio trembled. His hands reached for each other to keep them still. He turned with anger to walk away from the Prince and me both.

When he returned, there were tears in his eyes, but his face was a horrid mask of malice.

“I will destroy him,” Duccio hissed.

“Look at me, child—

“No, I will rip Sforza’s voice out of his throat with my bare hands! It is he who sent this lie, he who fears nothing, not even the Devil in Hell! By God, I will not sleep until his lungs can no longer draw breath! Send me now, my lord. Send me this minute that I may avenge my father! Do not make me wait another day! I will go alone if I must! I will run naked across the peninsula until I crush him between my hands!”

Duccio fell apart in the madness of his sorrow, falling to his knees, unable to catch his breath.

Adelchi moved to Duccio and took him in his arms, holding him for a moment before Duccio’s strength returned. He placed his arms around the Prince and wailed, striking the man’s back with uncontrollable fury until he fell helpless into the man’s embrace.

“It’s not my wish to insult you,” Adelchi whispered, holding Duccio like a child. “But I felt you should know your enemies are speaking of this. I did not believe a word of it. I didn’t need to feel the enormity of your suffering to know the truth of this lie.”

Duccio shivered in his wail, unable to catch his breath. I stood paralyzed for the second day in a row, unable to fathom what I had witnessed. If the Prince could feel my conflict, the chaos of Duccio’s anger surrounded it.

“But I will not release you to throw your life away,” Adelchi continued. “Il Maestro would never forgive me for permitting such a thing, not even to avenge himself. You will wait until the Spring, as we have planned. You will go there as my son with an army of hundreds at your back to reclaim Palatino. Only then, when you’ve restored his legacy, when you’ve undone the evil that’s befallen your house, will I give you leave to enact your vengeance.”

Duccio squeezed the Prince in agony, holding onto him with trembling arms.

“When that day comes,” Adelchi whispered in his ear, “I will stand by your side. And together, we will see the Duke answer for his treachery.”