Free A Name in Blood by Matt Rees

so that the man seemed to be sucking fire. When he lowered the wineskin, the wrestler shook his head and his sweat sprayed into the crowd. His next opponent
climbed into the ring and flexed his chest, swinging his arms and loosening his neck. Wagers circulated in the crowd.
    ‘I’ll put my money on the new fellow. He’s fresh,’ Prospero said.
    A short man in a green doublet took him by the hand. ‘You’re crazy. You’d bet against that monster there?’
    ‘Who the hell is he, anyway?’
    ‘He works in the stables of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese. The new fighter’s a Colonna water-carrier. Two scudi on the Farnese man.’
    Prospero still had the man’s hand, though his enthusiasm appeared to have diminished now that he knew the families for which the men fought. ‘We have a bet.’
    The fighters circled each other.
    ‘Why can’t people just have a good old scrap?’ Prospero muttered. ‘Why does this have to be Colonna against Farnese?’
    ‘Better this than a real war,’ Caravaggio said.
    ‘The loser will start a war on the streets tonight. If the Farnese man wins, right here in front of the Colonna palace, your friends up on that balcony will have to strike back.
There’ll be pride and politics at stake. It isn’t just two sweaty bruisers in that ring.’
    Caravaggio watched the nobles above them. ‘They’re not my friends.’
    Costanza’s glance caught him. Shame seemed to overcome an attempt at shrewdness in her face, like a wealthy market shopper forced to haggle over a few baiocchi . He felt an unease he
had known before. She had looked at him that way long ago. When he was fourteen, he had been watching artisans repair a fresco in her hall. The foreman had shown him how to trace over the cartoon,
pushing pinholes into the wet plaster to make a stencil. Michele had coloured a leaf with such pleasure that Costanza had asked him if he would like to be apprenticed to a painter. When he went to
study in Milan, her expression had displayed a motherly sorrow at his departure. But he had also detected the calculation of a woman whose plan was accomplished. She wanted me gone . For
the sake of peace in her house.
    The Farnese man found a hold on his opponent’s waistband and lifted him. He dropped the flailing fighter on his back and drove his shoulder into his ribs. The Colonna man retched. The
crowd sucked in a breath, as though it felt the impact of that blow, then all set to calling for their favourite once more.
    The Colonna man’s body was dark and hairless. He reached for the other’s beard, gripped it, held it secure as a target. With a powerful contraction of his stomach muscles, he butted
the Farnese fighter on the nose. Blood sprayed into the crowd as the Farnese groom shook his beard free. There was rage in his eyes. He flattened his palm over the Colonna man’s face.
    ‘He’s gouging him,’ Prospero shouted. ‘Stop him.’
    ‘It’s no holds barred, cazzo. ’ The man who had bet against him laughed.
    The Colonna fighter squirmed. He might have conceded, but his hands were pinned; he could make no signal. When his eyeball came free, he screamed, and the herald grabbed at his tormentor to end
the bout. The winner raised his fist. Blood ran down his forearm, tracking the protruding veins as though his lust for the fight had opened him up and laid bare the inner workings of his murderous
physique. The herald knelt beside the losing Colonna man. He covered his mouth with his hand. His face turned a pale green. Even the torches glowed less richly, as though blanching in horror. The
winner faced the Colonnas on their balcony and bellowed over the roar of the crowd. ‘Farnese, Farnese.’
    The faces of the aristocrats on the balcony soured in fury that a brutish groom should exult in his victory on behalf of an enemy as eternal as the stones across the way in the Imperial Forum.
They hurried inside, until Costanza was the only one left.
    The tips of her fingers tapped the balustrade