The Phoenix of Florence

by Philip Kazan

  I think he saw me. His head turned, at least. I looked into his eyes, but there was nothing there.

  No, I must tell the truth. There was something: pain, and terror. The grin was a rictus. If Augusto was thinking anything at all, it would have been about the hand’s breadth of space between him and the wall behind him, that contained the rest of his life.

  ‘Augusto Ellebori!’ I shouted, forcing his name out through the scars in my throat, through all the scars and unhealed wounds I still carried, that he had put in me. My voice cracked, and the end of his name came out as empty air, as nothing. De Tranzano raised his pistol and shot him through the chest.

  Augusto toppled forward over the table. Another man leant over and fired his pistol into the back of his head. The man from Pietrodoro cursed and thrust his sword into Augusto’s side. Men were pushing past one another to stab the corpse. I stood, my own pistol hanging limp in my hand, my breath coming in short, painful gasps.

  I could have shot him as he stood there. I’d had his face in my sights. But I’d seen his fear and I’d known it for what it was. What he had seen in my eyes that night, when I’d still been someone who could feel joy, who loved, whose body had been made for so many things other than concealment: that was what I’d seen in his. For the last moments of his life, Augusto had become my mirror.

  ‘His son.’ I looked up. ‘I think that’s the lot.’ De Tranzano was prodding something with his foot. The corpse of a young man, very young, was lying on his face half under a writing desk. ‘In at the kill. Wasn’t that what you said?’ I nodded blankly. ‘So you can report to your masters on an endeavour well executed.’

  ‘That’s so,’ I said. I gently uncocked the pistol and put it back in my belt. I thought I might be sick: the smell of blood and gunpowder in the airless room was overwhelming. Strange that it should bother me now. I needed to leave. There was nothing more important than getting away from this place. Then the crash and thud of a door being kicked open came from upstairs, and a long, piercing shriek.

  ‘Oh, dio stronzo,’ de Tranzano spat. ‘What now?’

  One of the cavalrymen, bandy-legged, in landsknecht hose and a mail shirt, came cursing into the room. He was dragging two young girls by the collars of their dresses, pulling them along heedless of the way they twisted in his grasp, or of the fact that his spurs had slashed one of them, the smaller one, across her stockinged shin. ‘Two little pigeons, hiding in the tower,’ he said.

  ‘Daughters?’ De Tranzano shook his head in exasperation. ‘Menno! Did Ellebori have daughters?’

  The wounded man, whose arm was being bandaged by one of his comrades, glanced over. ‘Aye. Two of them.’

  ‘Fuck.’ The officer shrugged. ‘Oh, well.’ He drew his sword and tapped the nearest girl on the arm with the flat of the blade, like a schoolmaster with his stick. ‘Over there, please.’ He gestured with the point towards the open space in front of the fireplace. The older girl screamed again. She had seen her brother’s body.

  ‘Sir!’ I said. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I was ordered not to leave a single one of this cursed family alive, signore.’

  ‘You’re going to kill them? Here?’

  ‘Where else, signore? Do you think your Secretary Ruspi will care where we do it? Did he give you instructions, like a playwright?’

  The man in the mail shirt was already twisting his fists around the delicate grey organza of the children’s matching dresses. One was nine, perhaps, and the other ten, both very alike, with Smeralda’s curved nose, huge grey eyes, delicate ears that stuck out below their tightly coiffed hair. They were both as white as though their throats had already been cut. The younger girl was whimpering slightly, her upper lip quivering; her older sister was staring at the ceiling, mouth open, breathing in tiny gasps. I could see the vein in her neck pulsing. If I put my hand there, I thought suddenly, it would feel like a kitten’s heart beating.

  ‘You cannot,’ I said to de Tranzano.

  ‘Ach. You didn’t strike me as being delicate, signore. But then you are a Florentine.’ He gestured again, and the man started to drag the girls out into the room.

  ‘Delicate …’ I said. ‘Yes, I am delicate, sir.’ I stepped between de Tranzano and the girls. ‘You!’ I said. ‘Let them go!’ The man in the mail shirt gave a start at the tone of command and opened his hands. The girls stumbled forward.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ De Tranzano put his left hand on his hip. ‘You are wasting time.’

  ‘You will not kill them,’ I said, and put my hand on the hilt of my sword.

  ‘I will, sir!’ he said. ‘If you get in the way, I’ll give them to the men first, and you may watch the fruits of your meddling.’

  ‘My orders, sir, my orders …’ My voice was drying up. It couldn’t fail me now, though. ‘My orders are as specific as yours. They are to take, to whit: two girls, the female offspring of said Augusto Ellebori, and convey them to a convent in Rome. This is at the command of my Grand Duke, who has considered the pleas of the girls’ uncle, Cardinal Federigo Ellebori.’

  ‘A cardinal? I don’t believe you. Get out of my way, little fellow.’ He put his fist on his hip and lifted the tip of his sword. I stepped back and drew my own, darting my eyes around the room. There were eight men here, and at least another twelve downstairs. I had no chance at all. But I’d make them suffer. But then … I pictured my corpse, and one of these brutes backing the girls into a corner at the point of a sword, or a knife. Behind us was an open window. I remembered that the palazzo was built right at the very edge of the cliff, and that there was nothing but air below these windows for three hundred feet.

  I slid my sword back into its sheath. ‘Take my hands, girls,’ I said. ‘You’re safe now.’ Not taking my eyes off de Tranzano, I put down my arms and gently wiggled my fingers. A cold, damp hand crept into one of mine, and then into the other. I squeezed, and felt the warmth of my flesh pass into theirs. I began to back towards the window. ‘You haven’t been abandoned, little ones,’ I said. ‘I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you.’

  ‘Enough of this!’ De Tranzano took a high guard, the guard of the unicorn, and came forward. I stepped back, and back, the girls walking too, backwards into something better, into safety. I could already feel my arms slipping around their waists, holding them as tight as I could, as tightly as a mother holds her frightened children. I could imagine taking one more step backwards until my back touched the window ledge and I took them out and into the air. Three ravens, above a field of blood.

  ‘Wait, Capo. There is a cardinal.’ It was Menno, who was born in Pietrodoro. In a minute you’ll have seen an Ormani die twice, I thought, and almost laughed. ‘No, there is,’ Menno went on. He wasn’t even looking at us. ‘The story is that he was in love with one of the Ormani children. This bastard’ – he prodded Augusto’s corpse with his boot – ‘found out and went mad. Slaughtered the Ormanis. The brother was so heartbroken that he joined the Church. Now he’s supposed to be good friends with Duke Francesco’s brother – you know: Cardinal Ferdinando.’

  ‘Cardinal Ferdinando. Damn it.’ De Tranzano stepped back and sheathed his sword. ‘You have no papers, signore? Nothing to prove this?’

  It took me a moment to understand that he was talking to me. There was nothing in my mind beyond the touch of the little hands in mine. ‘Papers?’ I said. ‘No papers.’

  ‘Then how do I know—’

  ‘You do not know!’ My voice seemed to knit itself together. ‘This is none of your business, Signor de Tranzano. It is between His Highness and Cardinal Ellebori. These children will disappear. You never saw them. Neither did I. But they will disappear into a convent, not into a grave. Now let us go. Take your trophy and do not speak of this to anyone. Duke Francesco is a man full of strange humours, and he cares very little for the world, but I can tell you that he finds a special relish in revenge.’

  ‘The devil take you all,’ said de Tranzano, and turned his back on us.
I walked, slowly at first, then faster, towards the door.

  ‘We’ll go now,’ I whispered to the girls. ‘Shall we say a prayer? Do you ever pray to Santa Celava?’

  ‘My name is Clara,’ whispered the older girl, glancing in terror at the soldiers in the corridor. ‘I’m named for the saint in our church.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘Don’t look.’ I led us around the body of the priest. We were at the stairs now. ‘And you, little heart?’ I squeezed the younger girl’s hand. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Ismeralda,’ she whispered, and began to weep silently. We went carefully, slowly down the stairs, one step at a time. At the bottom, the girls began to sob again at the sight of the dead bodies in the hallway.

  ‘Can you ride, girls? Do you have your own horses?’

  ‘We … we’re not allowed to,’ said Clara.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You can get up on my horse. Would you like that? His name’s Sultan. He’s very gentle.’

  ‘But I’ll be scared,’ said little Ismeralda. We were outside now, in the piazza, which was full of men holding horses, and women drawing water from the well as if nothing was any different. The keep of the Rocca loomed over everything, the tongues of soot that lapped up from every window making it seem as though it was still ablaze with invisible fire.

  ‘Yes, you will,’ I said. ‘For a while. And then you’ll find that nothing will ever frighten you again.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Clara, but she held on tightly to my hand.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I said. ‘But it’s true.’

  We went out through the charred gateway, passing through the smoke and out onto the old paved track between the trees. Ismeralda in front, Clara behind, both held snugly in the saddle. I led Sultan across the ridge and along the road that led down to the valley. None of us looked back. When Pietrodoro was out of sight I found a trail that led up onto the mountain. We climbed up through the chestnuts until the dappled shade and the sharp green scent of Amiata had calmed the girls’ breathing, and they began to look about them. I could sense that their fear was leaving them, but not their horror, nor their grief. That would take longer. It might take the rest of their lives.

  Amiata was in shadow by the time we reached Celava’s spring. I lifted them down and tied Sultan to a tree nearby. I unbuckled my sword belt and hung it from the saddle. The pistol I took by its barrel and threw out over the trees, and the girls watched it tumble end over end until it crashed into the branches far below us. Then I unbuttoned my doublet and took it off. If the girls saw me change from a man into a woman, they showed no sign of it. I sat down on one of the flat rocks next to the spring. It was still warm from the sun. I stretched out my arms to Clara and Ismeralda.

  ‘Come,’ I said. ‘We’ll have a rest, and we won’t think of any bad things.’

  They hesitated at first, but then they knelt on the rock and slowly, timidly, settled down against me. I put my arms around them, and we lay there, the girls with their great, terrified eyes tight shut.

  After a long while, Ismeralda nestled closer to me and laid her head on my breast.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  I looked across the valley, over the patterns made by people on the land below, the shadow of Amiata moving over them remorselessly, sweeping time before it. The mountains in the distance were beginning to turn clear, luminous gold, and the curve of the world held it all. The sadness and the loss. The wounds. Like the embrace of the mother, the pietà, lowering the whole of Creation into the grave of night. But after the pietà, the light comes back. The arms must let go so that everything may return, may be gathered in again.

  ‘My name is Onoria,’ I said.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’m hugely grateful to Susie Dunlop at Allison & Busby for her energetic support. When we both said ‘Donatello’s statue of David!’ at the same time I knew the book was in safe hands. As ever I have relied on the warmth and friendship of Christopher Little and Emma Schlesinger to steer me through the storms and doldrums of the writing life. And I wouldn’t – and probably couldn’t – have done anything at all without Tara, who knows me better than I know myself.

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  About the Author

  PHILIP KAZAN was born in London and grew up in Devon. His first novel for Allison & Busby, The Black Earth, was a commercial and critical success and he is also the author of two previous novels set in fifteenth-century Florence. He lives on the edge of Dartmoor with his family.

  philipkazan.wordpress.com

  @pipkazan

  By Philip Kazan

  The Black Earth

  The Phoenix of Florence

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  11 Wardour Mews

  London W1F 8AN

  allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2019.

  This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 by PHILIP KAZAN

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–2218–1