Page 105
I was greeted by the owners of the house with great fanfare. They knew of me. I must come in. I could have whatever I wanted under their roof. Just beyond the door lay paradise. Listen to the laughter, and the singing.
"What do you desire, Master?" a pleasant-voiced man asked of me. "You can tell me. We have no secrets here. "
I stood listening. How reticent I must have seemed¡ªthis tall, blond-haired man with such a chilly manner, who cocked his head to one side and looked away with his thoughtful blue eyes.
I tried to see the boy, but I could not. The boy was locked away where no one saw him. How would I proceed? Ask to see all of the boys of the house? That would not do it, for this one was in a chamber of punishment, cold and quite alone.
Then suddenly the answer came to me as though angels had spoken it, or was it the Devil? It came swiftly and completely.
"To purchase, you understand," I said, "with gold of course, and now, a boy you want to be rid of. One recently arrived here who will not do as he's told-"
In a flash I saw the boy in the man's eyes. Only it could not be true. I could not have such luck. For this boy had beauty as bountiful as Bianca's. I did not count upon it.
"Recently come from Istanbul," I said. "Yes, I think that is correct, for the boy was no doubt brought from Russian climes. "
I need say no more words. Everyone was scurrying about. Someone had put a goblet of wine into my hands. I smelled the lovely scent of it, and set it down on the table. It seemed a flood of rose petals descended. Indeed there was everywhere the perfume of flowers. A chair was brought for me. I did not sit on it.
Suddenly the man who had greeted me returned to the room.
"You don't want that one," he said quickly. He was greatly agitated. And once again, I saw a clear image of the boy lying on a stone floor.
And I heard the boy's prayers: "Deliver me. " And I saw the Face of Christ in gleaming egg tempera. I saw the jewels set into the halo. I saw the egg and pigment mixing. "Deliver me. "
"Can't you understand me?" I asked. "I told you what I wanted. I want that boy, the one who won't do what you try to force him to do. "
Then I realized it.
The brothel keeper thought the boy was dying. He was afraid of the law. He stood before me in terror.
"Take me to him," I said. I pressed him with the Mind Gift. "Do it now. I know of him and won't leave here without him. Besides, I'll pay you. I don't care if he's sick and dying. Do you hear me? I'll take him away with me. You'll never have to worry about him again. "
It was a cruel small chamber in which they'd locked him, and into that chamber the light of a lamp flooded upon the child.
And there I saw beauty, beauty which has always been my downfall, beauty as in Pandora, as in Avicus, as in Zenobia, as in Bianca, beauty in a new and celestial form.
Heaven had cast down upon this stone floor an abandoned angel, of auburn curls and perfectly formed limbs, of fair and mysterious face.
I reached down to take him by the arms and I lifted him, and I looked into his half-opened eyes. His soft reddish hair was loose and tangled. His flesh was pale and the bones of his face only faintly sharpened by his Slavic blood.
"Amadeo," I said, the name springing to my lips as though the angels willed it, the very angels whom he resembled in his purity and in his seeming innocence, starved as he was.
His eyes grew wide as he stared at me. In majesty and golden light, I saw again in his mind those ikons which he had painted. Desperately he struggled to remember. Ikons. The Christ he had painted. With long hair and burning eyes, I resembled the Christ.
He tried to speak, but the language had left him. He tried to find the name of his Lord.
"I'm not the Christ, my child," I said, speaking to that part of him deep within the mind of which he knew nothing. "But one who comes with his own salvation. Amadeo, come into my arms. "
Chapter 19
19
I LOVED HIM INSTANTLY and impossibly. He was fifteen years old at the most when I took him out of the brothel that night and brought him to live in the palazzo with my boys.
As I held him close to me in the gondola, I knew him certainly to have been doomed¡ªindeed, snatched at the last moment from an inconsequential death.
Though the firmness of my arms comforted him, the beat of his heart was barely sufficient to drive the images which I received from him as he lay against my chest.
Reaching the palazzo, I refused Vincenzo's assistance, sending him off for food for the child, and I took my Amadeo into my bedchamber alone.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105 (Reading here)
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203