A chill, sharper than any mountain breeze, settled between Niccolò and Lorenzo. Since the bruising scene in the Bellini antechamber, the Duke’s son ceased even the pretense of civility. His disdain now hung in the air, a visible miasma whenever their paths crossed. No longer did Lorenzo’s gaze linger, even in contempt; it simply sliced through Niccolò, dismissing him entirely.
Beside Lorenzo, Vittoria Bellini became a constant fixture. Her delicate frame, often clad in silks that seemed to mock her pallor, was ever at his elbow. Her eyes, shadowed and watchful, rarely met Niccolò’s. Lorenzo’s hand, a possessive anchor, frequently rested on her arm, a silent claim.
Niccolò might mask his true feelings with a cartographer’s precision, but he was no fool. He could not, would not, endure such public slight with feigned indifference. The shame festered, a quiet rot in his chest. He would not be seen as a pathetic creature, clinging to a bygone attachment. Yet, the courage to speak casually to Lorenzo, to pretend an unbroken camaraderie, eluded him entirely.
Days blurred into a monotonous cycle of melancholy, punctuated by flashes of dull resentment. Sometimes, a petty urge for vengeance flickered, brief as a candle flame. Always, he crushed it down, endured. It was the only way to retain a semblance of dignity.
Lorenzo, that volatile, untamed beast, simmered with an envy and resentment as childish as it was fierce. Its root was clear: Vittoria. Though she was never Niccolò’s to claim, the thought gnawed at him. Not only had she drawn Lorenzo away, but she had twisted his affection into hatred. She was a viper, he concluded, a vicious catalyst.
Intent or not, it made no difference. Feelings rarely obeyed logic. Blaming Vittoria offered a perverse comfort, a scapegoat to bear the burden of his misery.
Still, Niccolò clung to rational thought. Vittoria was merely caught in Lorenzo’s cruel currents, a fragile leaf swept by a storm. He never once allowed hostility to cloud his interactions with her, maintaining a distant, polite mien.
Part of it was a profound embarrassment, a refusal to expose the raw, ugly jealousy within. Part of it was prudence. An outburst against Vittoria would only solidify his image as a fool. Lorenzo’s scorn would deepen. Volterra’s whispers would brand him with an even darker stigma, something unnatural, unmanly, obsessed.
“This… this is a torment,” he murmured, the words rasping in his throat. He hated it. Hated the entire sordid mess. More than Lorenzo’s hatred, he hated his own complicity, his own lingering ache.
Seraphina Rossi’s face floated unbidden into his mind. Why her? Perhaps because her irreverent presence had become a peculiar constant. What would she say, if she could see the twisted knot of his heart? Something cutting, undoubtedly. Perhaps, ‘So, Niccolò, it seems you harbor quite the unseemly affections, eh?’
The image of Seraphina’s mocking grin, her eyes sharp with disdain, made his hands clench. The thought sent a violent shudder through him. No, never. No one must ever know.
Friendships, he discovered, were fragile constructs. With Lorenzo’s open animosity, the loyalty of his retinue splintered. The ties to that inner circle frayed, then snapped. Curiously, Marco, a junior member of Lorenzo’s group, a quiet, almost invisible youth, sought him out yesterday.
“Niccolò, Seraphina was asking for you.”
“Oh? Why?”
“She didn’t say, just asked.”
A shrug, a brief, awkward silence. Their conversations were always like this: disjointed, purposeless. Already, the shift was evident. People began to associate Niccolò more with Seraphina’s independent circle than with Lorenzo’s established one.
Of course, not all bridges were burned. Occasionally, in the fencing yard or during an early morning stroll in the ducal gardens, polite greetings were exchanged. Mostly, this fell to Marco.
“Hail, Niccolò! A good morning to you.”
“...Good morning, Marco.”
Once, after such an exchange, Marco’s voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
‘Lorenzo… he’s changed, hasn’t he? His treatment of the Bellini girl, it’s… unnerving.’
Niccolò must have worn a grimace, for Marco seemed to take it as agreement. He continued, speaking of Lorenzo’s tight grip on Vittoria’s arm, his insistence that she sit beside him, his refusal to let her stray. The words tasted like ash in Niccolò’s mouth. He clenched his jaw, forcing a cold indifference.
‘I have no interest in such sordid affairs, Marco. None at all.’
Marco’s mouth snapped shut, the tentative offer of intimacy recoiling. He was, Niccolò realized, subtly distancing himself from Lorenzo, seeking a new patron, a new alignment. His confidences were likely a bid for favor, a quiet testing of new waters.
Today, as often lately, only Seraphina and Niccolò remained in the Palazzo’s study hall, after the others had dispersed for the afternoon’s lessons. Seraphina leaned against a tall bookshelf, idly flicking the pages of a slim volume. Her gaze, indifferent or appraising, settled on him. Annoyed, Niccolò averted his eyes, mimicking her detachment.
“Niccolò.”
“What is it, Seraphina?”
“Let’s find some candied fruits after lessons. The candied oranges from the market last week were particularly good.”
She ignored his icy tone, her voice light, almost melodic. As she spoke, she tossed a small, carved wooden sphere into the air, catching it with practiced ease. The sphere danced, threatening to strike an ancient globe, but no one dared admonish her. She held no reverence for decorum, for atmosphere. She was unapologetically, charmingly, selfish. Niccolò watched the sphere, his frown deepening. His irritation at her brazen disregard for his mood sharpened his reply.
“You mean the ones you devoured alone, Seraphina? You purchased them for your own indulgence, did you not?”
“Well, I enjoy the citrus. And you never specified a preference.”
“So my opinion held no weight in your consideration?”
“How was I to know your thoughts? You kept them to yourself.”
The wooden sphere rolled to a stop by a student meticulously copying a manuscript. The young man hesitated, then awkwardly retrieved it, placing it in Seraphina’s outstretched hand. Seraphina gave it a casual shake, then called to the retreating student,
“My thanks, little scholar.”
Her casual dismissal, the lack of real appreciation, was typical. ‘Little scholar this, dullard that.’ Every word could grate, yet she spoke them with such natural indifference, it was disarming.
It struck Niccolò as strange, this unusual alliance. Seraphina, with her irreverent charm and noble lineage, could easily seek the company of Lorenzo’s glittering circle. Yet, she ate with him, sat with him in lessons, sought him out. Lorenzo might be aloof, but a message, an arranged rendezvous, was easily achieved.
“Why do you not seek Lorenzo’s company these days?” Niccolò asked, the question escaping him before he could consider it. Seraphina, in the midst of bouncing the wooden sphere off a marble pillar, froze. She turned, a puzzled expression on her face.
“You quarreled with him,” she stated.
“I did?”
“Yes. You and Lorenzo.”
“I am aware. I was the one who suffered his wrath. But how does that concern you?”
“You truly utter the strangest things. Because you are my friend.”
Seraphina’s gaze lingered, unusually direct, studying him. Feeling a flicker of discomfort, Niccolò looked away.
“You are also a friend to Lorenzo,” he countered.
“Oh, Niccolò. You are quite amusing. Are you suggesting you are not my friend?” Her tone was incredulous, a finger pointing playfully at him.
“No, I am your friend. But you numbered Lorenzo among your friends as well. Why do you side with me?”
“Well, I have known you longer.”
“What nonsense are you speaking? Our acquaintance began because of Lorenzo, did it not?”
“Hah! What a rascal you are. We were quite close in our first year, Niccolò!”
“When was this?”
“Truly, you are an infuriating man. Back in the Palatine Hall, our eyes met across the tables countless times!”
“Ah… those instances.” Niccolò recalled their early days, a series of unspoken observations, shared, almost conspiratorial, glances across crowded rooms. He had interpreted them as intellectual sparring, a silent challenge of wits, not as nascent friendship.
“So, I was the sole one who considered us friends? A charlatan, you are. Why else would I have sought you out first when we found ourselves in the same studies? And you dismiss it so readily? Unbelievable. I am disappointed.”
“Oh.”
“Truly, Niccolò. You wound me.”
“Very well, I apologize. My sincerest apologies, Seraphina.”
He mumbled the words quickly, a faint memory stirring of those oddly frequent, if silent, encounters from their first year. So *that* was within her definition of friendship. He felt oddly swindled. Those stares had been filled with a kind of intellectual rivalry, not warmth. And had she truly initiated their lunch conversations, not Lorenzo?
The realization struck him, a jarring, unsettling note. It was disquieting. Yet, he had no desire to unravel the thread further. He merely nodded, feigning comprehension.
“Alright, alright. I understand. My apologies, truly.”
“I was deeply aggrieved just now, you know.” Seraphina gave him a brief, intense glare. Her mind, he often felt, was a labyrinth with paths known only to her.
“And besides,” she continued, “Lorenzo is behaving in a most peculiar manner.”
Niccolò remained silent.
“The man is utterly consumed by some madness. He always possessed a certain wildness, but this… this goes beyond.”
She caught the wooden sphere with four fingers, lazily spinning it around her temple with an index finger. The gesture reminded Niccolò of Marco, and the other classmates who had cautiously approached him with veiled concerns about Lorenzo.
From that alone, one truth became clear: Lorenzo Moretti’s reputation, once unblemished, now teetered on the brink.
“Unnatural,” Niccolò thought. The word, a damning whisper in Volterra’s rigid society, sent a cold dread through him. His body shivered, an involuntary spasm. Yet, a sliver of relief pierced the dread—relief that his own unspoken secrets remained hidden. Did that relief mean he valued his own peace above Lorenzo’s downfall?
He met Seraphina’s eyes, a blasphemous priest concealing a forbidden devotion before his confessor. “Indeed,” he murmured, the word a strange blend of fear and bitter irony.
He let out a short, mirthless laugh. To others, he was now Seraphina’s closest companion. In truth, he was no different from a branded criminal, bearing an unholy stigma of secret longing. Only months ago, he had been Lorenzo’s confidant. Now, he merely hid within a fragile, makeshift refuge, barely having escaped a trap of his own making.
He had only evaded capture. That was all.
---
It was the deep hours before dawn. A message from an unknown hand arrived, a sudden intrusion into the pre-daylight quiet. A summons at four in the morning. Half-asleep, Niccolò momentarily wondered if his waking life was a dream. Even as he had assiduously avoided seeking Lorenzo, his heart had leapt at the thought that the message might be from him, a desperate plea for reconciliation.
He rubbed his eyes, the rough fabric of his tunic scratching his skin, and checked the sender once more. His feelings were a conflicted jumble. Part of him wished it were simply one of the crude broadsheets offering illicit services or loans. But as he read the words, he knew it was not from Lorenzo.
“Nico, I beg your pardon for disturbing you at this hour. Could you come to your garden gate for a moment? I am truly sorry. So very sorry.”
“Just this once. Please, just this once.”
Lorenzo would never issue such an apology, never humble himself so. Among Niccolò’s peers, only two addressed him by that familiar diminutive. Of those two, only one was so utterly desperate. How had Vittoria Bellini even known where he resided? The moment he saw her name, his face twisted into a scowl. He wanted no part of her presence—never did. She was a constant, unsettling reminder of his own shame.
Despite the surge of revulsion, he rose from his bed. He buttoned his dressing gown, a dark wool affair, and stood. He walked to his chamber door, but paused before stepping through, resting his forehead against the cool frame. A deep sigh escaped him.
“Damn it all.”
The weight of it was suffocating, a knot in his stomach. That was the only phrase that came close to describing it. He clutched his chest. He had always prided himself on his vast vocabulary, gleaned from countless texts, but no words could capture this intricate, tangled mess of emotions. It was simply… complicated.
His simmering hatred for Vittoria, the memory of her bruised, mottled face from that day, the desperate, calculated distance he had tried to establish between them all swirled together, a bitter maelstrom. Biting his lip, he fumbled with the cold metal of the doorknob. Then, closing his eyes, he turned it with a decisive twist.
In the garden, the chill morning dew clung to the air, heralding autumn’s advance. To avoid the wet grass, he stepped carefully onto the cool marble flagstones, his slipper-clad feet treading softly. The dawn’s biting cold made him pull his gown tighter. His exposed toes, peeking from the front of his slippers, carried him to the front gate.
He paused there, clicking his tongue softly against his teeth, then grasped the handle. The hinge creaked, a thin, lonely sound in the silence. He flinched, then opened the gate even more slowly.
Beyond the wrought iron, illuminated by the solitary streetlamp on the cobblestones, stood Vittoria Bellini. Her school uniform seemed too thin for the cold. Her head hung low, and she idly traced unseen patterns on the ground with the tip of her shoe.
“...Vittoria Bellini.”
At his voice, Vittoria’s head snapped up, quick as lightning.
“Nico, Niccolò!”
“What is it, V…” The familiar name died on his tongue. What fresh hell had brought her to his gate at such an hour?