Free The King's Agent by Donna Russo Morin Page B

flicked at each one, sending them dropping into a waiting palm, placing them quietly on the floor at his knees. With two hands, he hefted open the heavy domed cover and looked in.
    “What the devil ... ?”
    Battista’s clipped words echoed in the almost-empty trunk, one large enough to hold two men. He sat back on his haunches, hands on his thighs, as he studied the one item within with ill-disguised disgust.
    At the bottom of the otherwise empty chest lay a scroll, a curled and beribboned length of golden parchment no larger than his hand. He shook his head as if to deny its very existence, leaned forward as if to chastise it, but stopped—squinted and held. Lengthwise along the outside of the parchment had been inscribed two words, Giotto’s Triptych.
    This scroll was not the triptych, he groused silently with a petulant purse of his lips. It was, however, most assuredly some piece of the escalating conundrum surrounding the painting. Raising himself up, Battista tipped his head into the cavernous box. With a scrunch of his nose, he sniffed ... then sniffed again. It smelled caustic, as though the wood had been recently painted, but with a most toxic-smelling lacquer.
    He brushed away the worry of the stench. He had to leave; he had pushed all boundaries of safety having stayed as long as he had. He was quite sure Frado neared panic, as the moment of Battista’s agreed time to retreat must surely be upon them.
    In the same movement that brought him to his feet, Battista bent over and snatched the parchment from the bottom of the chest.
    Less than a second passed, less than one step away did he take, when the sharp click rang out.
    From beneath the trunk it came, the grating noise disturbing in its own right.
    Battista swiveled back. Before his eyes, the impossible happened.
    As if released by the detraction of the parchment, the bottom of the trunk fell away, splashing into some sort of liquid-filled basin waiting the few inches below, visible only when he bent all the way over, cheek skimming the floor as he spied the container hidden behind the stubby claw footing of the chest. Instantly smoke belched up and out, great funnels of dark gray vapors streaming out of the chest and filling the room.
    Battista jumped up and back as if to avoid it, but the rancid billow enveloped him, as it did the chamber. His eyes watered; his throat closed against the harsh air. He staggered around trying to regain his bearings, one thought louder than any other.
    A trap.
    He had known deep in his being that accessibility had been far too easy. He cursed himself for his stupidity. The Gonzaga family had been powerful for centuries; they did not do so by being naïve. He had to get out—he had to escape before the smoke escaped from beneath the crack of the door, before the noxious odor and thick gray fumes alerted the guards to his nefarious actions.
    Battista spied the door. Stashing the scroll safely in his satchel, he stepped toward it.
    And then things grew worse ... much worse.
    The flames ignited and swooshed through the room as if to devour it with one lick of their destructive tongue. The propulsion of heat tossed Battista against the wall. He held his hands to his ears as if to prevent the ringing from bursting in his head.
    But the explosion did not clang, but a bell ... three bells in fact. One hidden within each sconce on the wall behind the chest, each sent into motion by the waves of heat-propelled air. The riotous clash was as loud as the bells atop Florence’s churches, those that filled the entire city when calling the faithful to service.
    Move! The thought seared his brain as the flames seared the wooden floor. Finding nothing to grasp upon the stone walls, it spread its destruction along the planks beneath his feet. If he didn’t move now he would surely fall through, to the guard and the prison waiting, no doubt, on the floor below.
    Battista jumped through the door, slamming it closed behind him, hoping to keep