The Master of Verona Read Free Page A

Trevisian Mark. Technically this means he is the overlord of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso. The Trevisians and Paduans disagreed, naturally. But Vicenza is ruled by Cangrande's friend and brother-in-law, Bailardino Nogarola, who had no trouble swearing allegiance to his wife's brother."
    "Then how is the war about Vicenza?" asked Pietro.
    "Vicenza was controlled by Padua until they threw off the yoke and joined Verona. Two years ago Padua decided it wanted Vicenza back." Pietro's father shook his head. "I wonder if they realize how badly they erred. They gave Cangrande an excuse for war, a just cause, and they might lose more than Vicenza in the bargain."
    "What about the Trevisians, the Venetians?"
    "The Trevisians are biding their time, hoping Padua wears down Cangrande's armies or wins outright. The Venetians? They're an odd lot. Protected in their lagoon, neither fish nor fowl, Guelph nor Ghibelline, they don't care much about their neighbour's politics unless it affects their trade. But if Cangrande wins his rights, he'll have their trade in a stranglehold. Then they'll intervene. Though after Ferrara, I imagine the Venetians won't desire land anytime soon," he added, laughing.
    "Maybe we'll see a battle!" Fourteen, Jacopo didn't care about politics. Ever since joining them in Lucca, he had treated his brother to a litany of dreams involving serving under some mercenary condottiero until he was proven so brave he'd be knighted by whatever king or lord was handy. Then, Jacopo always said, came the money, leisure, comfort.
    Pietro wanted to want such a life. It seemed like the right kind of existence, leading to the right kind of death. Women, wealth, maybe a heroic scar or two. And comfort! That was a dream he and his siblings held in the way only a once wealthy, now ruined family can. Dante's exile from Florence had beggared his children, and his wife had only saved their house by using her dowry.
    But Pietro couldn't imagine himself as a soldier. At seventeen he'd hardly been in a friendly scuffle, let alone a battle. He'd had a lesson in Paris, one quick tutorial that basically told him which end of the sword was for stabbing. The only other combat moves he knew he'd copied from fightbooks.
    As the second son he'd been intended for a monastic life. Books, prayers, and perhaps gardening. Some politics. Lots of money. That was the life Pietro was brought up for, and he'd never really questioned it. He'd lived in a kind of distant awe of the old poet.
    Not that father is old . Thirty-five at the turn of the century, the years since Dante had found himself ' Midway though the journey of our life' had been darker than the wood he'd written of. Denied fire and water, his property confiscated, he was declared hostis to his friends and family — a family whittled down from a healthy seven children to three. Alighiero, the brother nearest Pietro's age, had died at twelve when a pestilence swept through the city. The same plague had claimed the baby of the family, little Elisio, aged eight. Dante had never even seen his youngest child, born three months after his exile.
    The mostly deeply felt loss was Dante's eldest son, Giovanni. A few years older than Pietro, he'd had the duties and rights of the firstborn. Just nine when the poet was exiled, Giovanni had joined his father traveling through northern Italy for his next nine years. Then, as Dante prepared to visit the University of Paris, Giovanni was drowned in a river mishap. The city of Florence refused Dante the right to return and bury his son, so Dante's firstborn now lay in a tomb in Pisa.
    That tragedy had altered Pietro's life. Nearly sixteen, he was suddenly elevated to the role of heir, summoned to follow his ever-wandering father in his brother's stead. His two remaining siblings, Jacopo and Antonia, had remained in Florence until last year, when the city leaders started making noise about executing all male heirs of exiles. Dante's wife had quickly sent her