Free The King's Agent by Donna Russo Morin

follow the horde of brilliantly attired guests, a helpless fish in a fast-running, overpopulated stream. He paid keen attention to his whereabouts, drawing a red line on the image of the palace’s layout etched indelibly into his mind as he made his way through arched entries and barrel-vaulted corridors.
    No smile touched his face, no greeting passed his lips; Battista walked with his shoulders slumped in an attempt to mitigate his height, refusing interaction with any of the other guests, to keep himself as unnoticed as possible. More than a few women—women of all ages—turned admiring glances his way, and more than a few men appraised him with a mixture of admiration and envy, but he ignored them all.
    He arrived in the massive ballroom, his teeth grinding together as he struggled to keep from gaping at the intense beauty of his surroundings. Clearly meant, by size and style, as a main chamber for entertainments, it served as well as a shrine to one of the Gonzaga family’s greatest loves ... horses.
    With almost-dimensional rendering, the regal beasts appeared set against the lush landscape background, six of them in all, as if they jutted out into the living space. Alternating with the majestic beasts, statues of classical deities stood in alcoves designed in the Corinthian order. Above each horse, the six ordeals of Hercules were painted in a manner to imitate bronze bas-reliefs. Above them, a sumptuous frieze of acanthus leaf volutes accentuated by the golden Gonzaga eagles in each corner.
    With justifiable veneration, Battista took himself off to the far back corner with almost leaping strides, taking himself out of the milling horde and their crush to see and be seen.
    In this dimly lit, almost forgotten place, he became a part of the scenery, blending in as inconspicuously as he might. If curious eyes assailed him, he ignored them; if any greetings came to him, he responded with almost-rude dismissal. He hovered on the fringes of the gathering, waiting.
    Long ago Battista had learned that in every situation an opportunity always presented itself; the stronger his belief, the more it became truth. Tonight would not be the occasion to change that conviction.
    But tonight, conviction seemed incapable enough to hurry events along. He busied himself, sipping watered wine and avoiding any interaction, but the tedium became annoying.
    Battista paced the room as time vanished, lost intangibly forever. He strode about with purpose, as if aiming for a destination rather than dispelling impatience.
    A bevy of bashful beauties approached from the left. Battista smiled thinly, holding up a finger in the other direction, as if hailing someone on the far side of the room, and took himself off—away from the crestfallen lovelies—losing himself in the miasma of the milling crowd.
    But his concern clung to him like the scent of a pinewood fire; to stay too long in a place he meant to pillage was folly. He could not divest himself of Frado’s image, sitting at the base of the western wall, bottle in hand as he played the part of an inebriated villager, watching the sliver of the moon shift in the sky and growing more fearful with every inch it moved.
    The last notion settled Battista’s mind; he would have to make his move, diversion or no. Grabbing a small tumbler of grappa from a passing tray, he tossed back the rough liquid, felt it burn a path down his gullet, and aimed for the door.
    The sudden blare of the heralds’ horns frightened him; one foot faltered, the other skidded. As each anxious gaze looked beyond him, Battista shook his head at the irony, the quirks of fate that forever brought him what he needed, but not necessarily in the form he imagined. With elegance and splendor, the marquess of Mantua made his entrance, his beautiful mistress on his arm, a gaggle of equally splendid followers trailing behind.
    In the distraction of the grand arrival—in the hubbub of the blaring trumpets, the marquess’s rousing