The Dark Heart of Florence Tasha Alexander (novels for beginners .TXT) 📖

lunged forward, reaching the tree before I’d made it very high. My limbs were shaking and I wasn’t sure I could keep myself from falling. If I did fall, one of two things would happen: Either I would land directly on his head and somehow that would incapacitate him, or I would come crashing down and incapacitate myself, which would make it all the easier for the beast to eat me.

Do boars eat ladies? I wasn’t sure. If they did, it couldn’t be pleasant. Lucretius was right when he said we had nothing to fear from death. It would come as a relief, particularly if one met it at the hands—tusks?—of a wild boar. I started to laugh. What else could I do in such a ridiculous situation?

Then, all at once, the boar dropped, a spear piercing its side. A man stepped forward, dagger in hand, checked that the beast was dead—he was—and then looked up at me.

“Were you laughing?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I was,” I said. “Absurd, I know.”

He held his arms up and told me to let myself fall into them. I did as ordered, and he caught me with no apparent effort. “I noticed you were having trouble keeping up with the group and then realized you’d disappeared, so I thought I ought to backtrack and try to find you. Are you hurt?”

“I fell off my horse but injured nothing aside from the overly lofty opinion I hold of myself.”

“Climbing the tree was clever,” he said, carrying me away from the boar’s corpse and setting me down.

“I didn’t think the cudgel would prove an adequate weapon. At least not in my hands.”

“Most likely not in anyone’s.” He whistled and my horse came to him. He tied the reins around a tree. “We’ll leave him here while we get mine, which is nearby. We’ll walk to get him. You might want another moment or two to settle before you ride.” He held out his gloved hand. I took it. It was warm and made me feel safe.

We’d soon collected his horse and returned to the small clearing where mine stood patiently waiting. Once my rescuer was persuaded I was suffering from no meaningful injury, he strung a rope through the boar’s rear legs, just above his hooves, flung one end over a sturdy tree branch, and pulled until the animal was hanging above the ground. Then, he made an incision with his dagger and removed the gory mass of the beast’s innards from his body.

“It’s not pretty, I know, but I hate to waste the meat.” When the blood had finished draining, he brought my horse over to the tree, lowered the carcass, and draped it over the steed’s back, using more rope to secure it. He tied another length around his horse’s neck and then knotted the other end around my horse’s tail. That done, he helped me onto his horse and finally, in a swift, fluid motion, leapt onto it behind me, and we set off for the villa.

He kept one arm around my waist to steady me. I needed the assistance, but the gesture felt oddly intimate. “I’m mortified, sir, but after all you’ve done for me, I owe you the truth. I can’t remember your name.”

He laughed. “Cristofano Corsini. Do not feel bad. In your state, after nearly being attacked by a vicious boar, I would not be able to recall my own name, let alone that of someone I’ve only just met. You are Mina Portinari. I have long admired your grandfather.”

“You know him?” I asked.

“Only from a distance. I see him at the occasional dinner but am not fortunate enough to count myself among his friends. Tell me something. Why were you laughing when I found you?”

“I was in a tree trying to escape unwelcome attention from a boar. The situation was so inane, what else was there to do? Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum, / quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur.”

“Therefore death to us / Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least, / Since nature of mind is mortal evermore. That must be Lucretius.”

“You’re an educated man.”

“I’m a Florentine. Would a badly educated man be tolerated in our city?” I couldn’t see his face, but it felt as if he were smiling. “Did your grandfather teach you Latin?”

“He did, but I also studied with my brothers and their tutors.”

“I believe il Magnifico’s mother did the same with her daughters. A wise decision, I always thought. Who wants a dolt for a wife?”

My whole body tensed. Much as I was enjoying our conversation, I was not looking for a husband. Then I realized I had no idea whether Signore Corsini was already married. “So you chose an educated wife?”

“I will, eventually,” he said, “but see no need to rush, so if you want me to propose, I’m afraid you’re destined for disappointment.”

“Signore Corsini, a proposal is the last thing I would ever want, from you or anyone else.”

“I’m most relieved. It’s a dangerous business, rescuing ladies and them expecting you to marry them.”

“You’ve nothing to fear from me on that count,” I said. “But I am curious. How many ladies have you rescued?”

We had reached the villa. He stopped the horses, dismounted, and helped me down. “You’re my first, but I’ve heard stories.”

I hadn’t taken much notice of his appearance until then. He wasn’t all that handsome. His nose was a bit long and his mouth a bit thin. His eyes, hazel, were unremarkable, but something about them drew me to him. They danced. He called for a groom to tend to the horses and see to the boar and then led me inside. The maid who greeted us looked shocked and bustled me off for a bath. I hadn’t realized just how filthy I was.

My dress, streaked with mud and ripped in several places, was deemed unwearable. A substitute was produced, borrowed from our hostess. The others had not yet returned when I made my way