Oh, but who was he? What was he? I knew the memories, the images, the horrors, the prayers, but not the voice! And something tormented me savagely, even in my avowed certainty. Did I not love this child too much to do what I planned to do?
The following night a splendid surprise awaited me.
There was my Amadeo at supper gorgeously turned out in blue velvet, as splendidly clothed as the other boys!
They had hastened to complete the tailoring of his clothes to make me happy and indeed I was, almost to the point of being stunned.
As he knelt to kiss my ring, I was speechless, and with both my hands I bid him rise, and I embraced him, kissing him quickly on both cheeks.
He was still weak from his ordeals, I could see it, but the other boys as well as Vincenzo had gone a long way to put some color into his face.
As we sat down to supper, Riccardo explained that Amadeo could paint nothing. Indeed, Amadeo was afraid of the brushes and the pots of paint. And that he knew no language but he was picking up with amazing quickness our own tongue.
The beautiful boy with the auburn hair who was Amadeo gazed at me calmly as Riccardo spoke. And once again he said in the soft Russian tongue: Master, which the other boys did not hear.
You are for me. That was my answer for him. The soft words in Russian that I gave to him through the Mind Gift. Remember. Who were you before you came here? Before they hurt you? Go back. Go back to the ikon. Go back to the Face of Christ if need be.
A look of fear passed over him. Riccardo, not dreaming of the reason why, quickly took his hand. Riccardo began to name the simple objects of the supper table for him. And Amadeo as if waking from a nightmare smiled at Riccardo and repeated the words.
How sharp and fine his voice. How sure the pronunciation. How quick the look of his brown eyes.
"Teach him everything," I said to Riccardo and to the teachers assembled. "See to it that he studies dancing, fencing, and most of all painting. Show him every picture in the house, and every sculpture. Take him everywhere. See that he learns all there is to know about Venice. "
Then I retired to the painting room alone.
Quickly I mixed up the tempera, and I painted a small portrait of Amadeo as I'd seen him at supper, in his fine tunic of blue velvet with his hair shining and combed.
I was weak from the heat of my own miserable thoughts. The fact was, my conviction had left me.
How could I take from this boy the cup he'd barely tasted? He was a dead creature brought back to life. I had robbed myself of my own Child of the Blood by my own splendid designs.
From that moment afterwards for months to come, Amadeo belonged to daylight. Yes, he must have every chance in the daylight to make of himself whatever he would!
Yet in his mind, unbeknownst to the others in any material way, Amadeo perceived himself, at my behest, as secretly and completely belonging to me.
It was for me a great and terrible contradiction.
I relinquished my claim upon the child. I couldn't condemn him to the Dark Blood, no matter how great my loneliness or how great his former misery had been. He must have his chance now among the apprentices and scholars of my household, and should he prove to be a princeling as I fully expected from his immediate brightness, he should have his chance to move on to the University of Padua or the
University of Bologna where my students were now going one after the other as my myriad plans came to fruition beneath my all-encompassing roof.
Yet in the late evenings, when the lessons had ceased and the little boys had been put to bed, and the older boys were finishing tasks in my studio, I couldn't stop myself from taking Amadeo into my bedroom study, and there I visited on him my carnal kisses, my sweet and bloodless kisses, my kisses of need, and he gave himself to me without reserve.
My beauty charmed him. Is it pride to say so? I had no doubt of it. I need not work the Mind Gift to render him spellbound. He adored me. And though my paintings terrified him, something in his deep soul allowed him to worship my seeming talent¡ªthe deftness of my composition, my vibrant colors, my graceful speed.
Of course he never spoke of this to the others. And they, the boys, who surely must have known that we spent hours together in the bedroom, never dared think of what happened between us. As for Vincenzo, he knew better than to acknowledge this strange relationship in any respect.
Meanwhile, Amadeo recovered nothing of his memory. He could not paint, he could not touch the brushes. It was as if the colors, when raw, burnt his eyes.
But his wit was as sharp as any among the other boys. He learnt Greek and Latin quickly, he was a wonder at dancing, he loved his lessons with the rapier. He absorbed readily the lectures of the brighter teachers. He was soon writing Latin in a clear and steady hand.
In the evening he read aloud his verses to me. He sang to me, softly accompanying himself on the lute.
I sat at my desk, leaning upon my elbow, listening to his low and measured voice.
His hair was always beautifully combed, his clothes elegant and immaculate, his fingers, like mine, covered in rings.
Didn't everyone know he was the boy I kept? My minion, my lover, my secret treasure? Even in old Rome, amid a wilderness of vices, there would have been whispers, low laughter, some bit of mockery.