Coppo pulled a chair next to Luca and sat down. He put on his half-moon spectacles and examined the work. "Outstanding." Coppo smiled. "I want to keep you at the Opificio. Not for the restoration work but for creation. Commission work for governments all over the world. What do you say?"

Luca reciprocated Coppo's smile.

In the afternoon everybody gathered at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. The apprentices, the parents and friends. Tristano's parents had come as well as Vittorio, who had a day off. Luca's parents were present as well as Dante, Marcello and Rosso. Just Giano had to stay in Pisa, writing an exam.

The final examination works were presented and Luca received the first prize. Niccolò beamed over his whole face, Clarissa was close to tears. Rosso whooped and clapped his hands. It could have been the happiest day in Luca Montori's life so far if Alessandro had been there. Instead of that Raffaele joined the group when the celebration was almost over. Uninhibited he kissed Luca in front of all eyes, and yet Luca didn't feel too embarrassed. Not even when his eyes met Dante's. His brother came up to him and for a moment the old fear boiled up in his stomach. But Dante's face was calm, his eyes tried to be friendly.

Marcello appeared behind Dante's back. "Congratulations from me too", he said and Luca saw honesty in his face.

Luca felt he had to say something, but he didn't know what exactly. Instead a warm feeling was streaming through his body.

Luca had a sharp retort on his lips but he restrained himself. He didn't want to spoil the fragile flower of reconciliation growing between him and his brothers. "I still wait for him." In his thoughts he clutched the Gondi-cross around his neck.





Alessandro dropped his bag and stood still. He tipped his head back and watched the sky. Violet blue. Billowing clouds. He stood there and breathed. Freedom. Slowly he lifted his arms and turned himself around. Freedom.

Arms folded in front of his chest, Mario stood in the door frame and watched Alessandro di Gondi-Lucertola leaving the place.

Neither Luca nor any of his friends and family knew that Alessandro had been released early. Alessandro couldn't quite explain why he never told anyone, he just had a distinct feeling that this was the right way to do it. He needed time for himself. Feeling freedom. Leaving all this behind. Alone. Sort out his feelings. Sort out his ideas. Washing away dirt, harassment, loneliness. Luca couldn't help. When he returned to him he had to be another guy. Not the boy who was known in Florence as the prince of the lilies and not the boy he was known as in jail. He was now a man.

Taking the bus and train he traveled straight to Pisa, and booked a flight to New Zealand with his credit card. He knew that uncle Arrigo would know instantly that money had been withdrawn from his account, but that was all right. After a stop-over in Bangkok he stepped out forty eight hours later at the airport of Auckland.

It was close to Spring on the other side of the world.





"Luca? You've got post", Clarissa said when Luca came home from a visit to Rosso's. She gave him a letter that read 'air mail' and had a stamp from New Zealand showing a kiwi-bird. Luca turned it onto all sides but it didn't have a sender. He ripped it open and unfolded the thin sheets. Then he gasped.


"Gioia,

Auckland is heaven. Imagine, they still show the Lord of the Rings-trilogy that was made here and so I had the pleasure to watch all of it finally. I missed so much while I was in prison.

Ok. I have to hold my breath and tell you what happened. I've been released, not fled as you might feared. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I couldn't. I need time for myself. I don't want to see Florence and return to the old life I had. To me the farthest place from home is just far enough. In this case the other side of the world suited me just fine. I've found a job with a sheepshearer. This country is all nature - a good place for a guy who has had prison walls surrounding him with nothing except for the few patches of vegetable beds I used to care for. Perhaps this will now be to my fortune.

I have no plan. Life is rural and the people are friendly though a bit - strange ;-) Rural and everything that means.

I will return, but I can't say when. Raffaele will look after you, I'm sure. Give me a couple of months please. We'll stay in contact. Please don't write me back for I travel throughout the country. I carry your ring.

All my love,

Alessandro"


Luca sunk upon his bed. For ten minutes long he felt unbelievable disappointment. If it wasn't Sandro's utmost wish to return to Luca's arms what future had their love then? Why did he have to sort it out all alone by himself? Why wouldn't he seek help from Luca and his friends?

After another ten minutes he felt sadness. Then reason won the upper hand. Perhaps it was right what Sandro was doing. He needed distance. To return healed. Getting rid off the prison walls he carried with him.

The next thing Luca received was a parcel with a huge, strange formed sea shell, wrapped in a sheep's fleece. Other parcels followed with dream catchers, feathers, sand from the beach filled plastic bags, stones and shepherd's flutes.

Luca kept all these things at Palazzo Gondi and slowly they filled Alessandro's old room. He hung the fleece on the wall and the dream catcher next to the bed. Raffaele eyed them jealously. "You still wait for him? He'll never return."

One day a postcard arrived from Hawaii.

He is back. The prince of the lilies, returned as a man. The king of the lilies. He unwraps his scarf and pulls out a chain he wears around his neck. The lapis lazuli blue ring dangles from it. Slowly he opens the clasp and slips his middle finger through the ring. "It's time to wear it", he says.

Raffaele slips into my mind. He's gone. I haven't seen him for a while, except when I have heard from Tristano who met him on the dance floors of Florence, hunting for the next boy he can bewitch with his smile.

Alessandro is so much more. He has grown up without losing his charm. Without losing the enigmatic wildness, shimmering in his eyes. He has seen so many things. And we have gone through so many things.

He stretches out his hand and I take it.


Palazzo Gondi has changed. Sandro walks from wall to wall, looking at the stuff gathered here, his shells, the furs, the flutes, the stones, the dried and pressed flowers while I remove the ashes in the fire and stir the embers. "Tomorrow I want to go to the Opificio to look at your work, maestro", he says with a mocking tone in his voice. His smile enchants me like it did the first day we met.

Here, at the end of all, I sense we have done the right thing. He needed to find himself back. And it was worth the wait.


EPILOGUE

Blackbirds announced the dawn. Alessandro opened his eyes and for a brief moment didn't know where he was. Jet lag pinned him to the bed. It was a long ride from the other side of the world. Then he heard breathing beside him and stirred. Propping his elbow he looked into Luca's face. He had grown up. Become a man. The blond hair was a shade darker than he remembered, but the skin was soft and clean. A very slight shade of a morning beard surrounded his chin. His shoulders were broader and lithe muscles stood out beneath the skin.

Alessandro traced a finger down the chest and encircled his navel. Moist peach. Luca's skin reacted in his sleep. He was still ticklish, Alessandro thought. A grin appeared on his face. He vanished under the bed cover and did what he had dreamt of for so many years. Hearing Luca's familiar, pearly laughter he was sent back into the time when their relationship was at the beginning. Luca disheveled Alessandro's hair as he pulled back the cover, and gave a disappointed moan when Alessandro stopped, slid up over Luca's body and looked straight into his face. It was easy. Alessandro felt as light as a bird, enjoying the warmth of Luca's body. "Principe del mio cuore", he said again.

Luca blinked. Alessandro played with his erection. Had he ever been away? Had he feared Sandro's return could lead to more disaster and sadness? To loneliness and abandonment? His fears were all wrong. Alessandro wasn't the same, but he was a new man to him, yet familiar in the core. The angle had shifted a tiny, but significant bit.

Something loosened up within Luca's being. He pulled Alessandro's head closer, embraced his lips with his mouth, knocked him over on to his back and lay between Alessandro's widely spread legs. "I never allowed Mario to enter me", Alessandro whispered huskily.

Luca smiled sardonically.





"Hungry?" Alessandro asked. "I'm starving. Let's celebrate later. For years you made my mouth water with Tristano's cooking skills. What about a meeting with the Naked Chef junior, eh?"

Luca laughed and pushed Alessandro from his body. Tristano, he thought lovingly. He couldn't imagine him being happier with Vito than Luca was right now. He would bring them all together: Rosso, still happy with Carolina, and Giano, working at his doctorate and waiting for Tino to return from the Sudan. Franco of course and Claudio who had both finished their study in Pisa. Franco had returned to Venice and had become engaged straight away in one of the museums where he sorted broken mosaic-stones. Surely he had to start from the bottom to make a career. He could even invite Sergio and Alfredo, the ex-callboys; the contact with them had never been broken off, Tris felt too obliged. It would be a party that would shake the old walls of Palazzo Gondi.

Luca sensed Sandro's waiting eyes. With a little sigh he fell into his arms, resting his head upon Alessandro's collarbone, feeling his hands stroking over his arms and back. He was amazed that these familiar feelings returned as if the distance of almost four years had never happened. Or was there a slight unease? A little, unknown spot on Sandro's soul, waiting for Luca to explore? Of course they never could go on from where they had left off.

Luca rose and looked straight and seriously into Alessandro's blue eyes. The expression in there had changed. Deepened. A focus of the events. "You're a challenge, you know", Luca said. "Tonight it was as if you'd never been away. Despite your different look", he winked.

Luca grinned. "Sure you do." It wasn't easy to meet as men when you had parted as boys. "But there's something special for me to explore." Cautiously he tapped on Alessandro's chest. His eyes followed his hand. The chest had broadened and the waist was smaller; Luca sensed muscles below the deep tanned skin. It felt so right, so exciting, so new.

"You've grown up as well, carino", he heard Alessandro whispering into his ear and felt his hand roaming over his body, stroking his butt cheeks, touching his penis lightly, cupping his balls. "I dreamt every night of you down under, but I had to clear up something with myself."

Luca nodded and gave himself to Alessandro's hands. Then he decided to skip his day at work. Coppo would be all too understanding. Luca hesitated to move; he didn't want to break the magic of their closeness. Alessandro was a new man, that was for sure. Gone was the all too cocky, willful, noble boy who looked down on others. Gone was the wildness in his eyes, but Luca couldn't be sure if he was just a tamed lion sitting behind the bars of his cage. In slow motion Luca lifted his arm and stroked over Alessandro's face, felt the unfamiliar, light stubble on his cheeks, down his neckline to his shoulder, gripping the upper arm. Alessandro seemed to enjoy the touch. "You aren't curious what I had to clear with myself?" he asked, lifting Luca's chin, locking eyes with his.

Alessandro laughed relieved. "I'm happy you aren't cross with me." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "There was this extraordinarily sexy shepherd's boy, you know..." He winked.

Luca conjured up pictures of a hay stable in his inner eye, a coupling pair in the prickling hay, watched by a flock of sheep. He had to grin. "The shepherd's flute there, is that from him?"

Alessandro nodded, eyeing the exhibits hanging on the wall. "A Farewell gift."

Luca looked down at Alessandro's expanding length. "I bet your shepherd's boy was more than satisfied", he said. "Why not satisfy me too..?" He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Alessandro pushed him out of the bathroom into bed again.





At nine the first tourist's groups gathered in front of the Battistero, looking at Ghiberti's bronze and gilt entrance doors. The guides pretended cheerfulness they never felt. Too often they had repeated the same words. Alessandro valued them no look. He would become better. Not on the streets though. Alessandro had watched tourists too often, to not feel, with the knowledge he had, that this was just the proverbial throwing pearls in front of swines.

He took Luca's hand and passed the people speaking with so many languages. "Do you remember when Masolino visited Donatello's workshop, creating the "Habakkuk"?" Alessandro asked.

Luca raised his brows. "Indeed? I didn't know that. Where are the original plates then?" He looked at the tourists, partly solemnly, partly bored looking at the masterpiece of art.

Alessandro took his hands and pressed them. "I'm so happy for you. We have to celebrate by all means. And we have to think what to do first with my money. Holiday at the sea side?"

Luca stood and watched him. "Forte dei Marmi. All right. And then Rome. We have to catch up on so many things."

Luca eyed him warily. "Don't tell me you've had him."

Alessandro placed a kiss on Luca's nose. "Do you know how many Raffaele's live in Florence? And actually I was at ease to know you were in good hands with him. Sshht!, no objections, please", he said, stretching out his hand when Luca went to say something.

Luca shook his head. "You're something", he mumbled.

Alessandro looked ponderously. Briefly the blue sparkle in his eyes were overshadowed with heaps of burdens he had hoped to destroy. He succeeded in many things, but not in every one. He had experienced humiliation for what he was. They had made him feel dirty about the things he loved, because he was different to the mass of humans. He had needed months to feel free and feel good about who he was: a young man who loved the things he did, the things he saw, and the human he was. It took him more than the love of a shepherd's boy to regain his very being. But it had worked out. In one point he'd succeeded: he loved to love. He loved to have sex and he couldn't hold on any longer without Luca.

Slowly he said, "About Leoni and the kid, I'd like to get a divorce, but little Matteo will still be officially my son and the heir of the Gondi-wealth in the end. Nonetheless I thought about the money and reasonable things to spend it on."

Alessandro stepped closer. "Gioia, what would I do with twenty million Euros for heaven's sake?"

Alessandro nodded vehemently. Arrigo wouldn't see a cent of it. He had money enough himself. But Alessandro could spent it for important things. He could even make peace with Dante and Marcello. Perhaps they would play a role in his plans, giving AIDS patients a home. Two docs were in the family already.

A dove had taken its place upon the head of the monument for Giovanni delle Bande Nere - mercenary leader and family member of the Medici's. Merchants set up their market stands and were filling them with their display of handbags, girdles, shoes, t-shirts and caps. Chattering welled up. Tourist groups tried not to lose their members and gathered in front of the entrance to the Medici graves and chapels. On this junction Luca and Alessandro stood, washed around by starting traffic and rushing people. Old women swinging their black handbags, doing a detour to the early morning Mass. Later they would look for a cheap piece of meat at Florence' market hall.

Their lips met in a furtive kiss, becoming passionate and tongue consuming and both lay all of their hearts in there until Luca struggled for breath and with embarrassment.