The Florentine Poet by WILLIAM BERNHARDT

Author:WILLIAM BERNHARDT
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: poet, poetry, fable, fairy tale, princess bride, goldman, Tuscany, Italy, Renaissance, love
Publisher: Babylon Books
Published: 2023-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Captain Neu rushed Pietro, shoving him against the bulkhead, pressing his cutlass to Pietro’s throat. “It seems my poem was a success.”

His eyes lowered. “Well...the meter is a bit off in the fifth stanza.”

“You dare defile my lady?”

“There was very little defiling. I mean, none really.”

“And you use my own words to accomplish your foul deed!”

“I didn’t mean—I didn’t want to go in there in the first place. I only went because you would not.”

“And that is your excuse for deflowering the sweetest baroness who ever walked the face of the earth?”

“I did nothing! She attacked me!”

“You expect me to believe you were attacked by that gentle woman? Those lips that never before felt a man’s touch?”

“I am not altogether sure about that.”

“And you used my poem to accomplish your insidious goal!”

The blade pressed against Pietro’s windpipe, making it difficult to breathe, much less speak. “I told her you wrote the poem. She did not believe me.”

“Because, I suppose, I am such an uneducated meathead that no one would ever believe I wrote a poem.”

“Well...”

Neu pulled away from Pietro as suddenly as he had attacked, his head drooping. “And now I am lost. Even if I throw you to the sharks, as well I should, it would not bring my lady back to me. My one chance to win her has passed.”

“Perhaps if you wrote another poem.”

“She would think it came from you.”

“Perhaps if you read it yourself.”

“She would still think it came from you.”

“Perhaps if you composed it while she watched.”

“She would think you wrote it and I memorized it. No, it is impossible. I will never win her affection.”

Pietro rubbed his sore throat. “Did you ever consider just...wooing her?”

“Wooing? What is wooing?”

“You know. Calling on her. Asking her out. Following the rules of courtship and etiquette.”

“I am a pirate, not some simpering whimpering wooer!”

“I have read that women like being wooed.”

“I have lived many lives on many shores of many nations. And in none of them did I ever woo.”

“But you were willing to try poetry. Why not wooing? If you wooed, you might learn new and private details about her. Then you could incorporate this knowledge into a poem while she watched. And then she would know it could only have been composed by you.”

“This is foolishness. I do not think I have another poem in me. I am not some hack who churns out words every day. I only write from inspiration. The inspiration is gone.” He inflated his chest. “And a pirate captain does not woo.”

Pietro shrugged. “Then I guess you’re right. The Baroness is lost.”

Neu fell silent. His eyes smoldered. His fists balled up. He shook with rage.

And then, at last, he placed his cutlass back in its scabbard. “How is it done, this wooing?”

Pietro knew precious little about it himself. He and Sophia had loved one another almost immediately, and that had not turned out well, so he could hardly call himself an expert. But he had spent his entire life reading poetry, roughly four-fifths of which concerned love.

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