Zo

by Leanne Owens

  Once she was gone, Lorenzo reached under the covers for the twist of paper that contained the powder Savonarola had left for him. This was his end of the bargain, and he believed that Girolamo would honour the agreement and leave Elli in peace. He took the powder and tipped it into his mouth before his friends returned to his room. It would take some minutes to stop his heart and fulfil Giro’s prophecy of his death.

  As each man received the last embrace from their beloved Lorenzo, he whispered to several to take care of Elli. They stood weeping, realising this was his goodbye. The sun set on Italy as Lorenzo closed his eyes for the last time. The last word to pass his lips before the darkness claimed him was Elli’s name.

  Elli cantered her horse up a hill far from the villa, the fading colours from the sunset in the west and the three-quarter moon providing adequate light to see the way to the de’Cioni villa. Antonio rode several lengths behind her, his face pinched with grief.

  At the crest of the hill, she heard the bells start to toll. From the Medici villa and spreading to the churches, the bells sung of Lorenzo’s passing. The sounds of their pealing wrung a cry from her as she realised what they meant. Pulling her horse to a halt, she stared back at the villa, her heart breaking. Leaning over the front of the saddle, she gasped for breath as her insides tore into pieces. He was gone. He was gone.

  She looked at Antonio who had halted his horse next to her. There was immense sadness in his expression as he looked back at the villa, tears streaming from his eyes, as he murmured the name of the man he adored.

  Forcing control over her ragged breathing, she asked him, ‘He knew he would die while we were out, didn’t he?’

  Antonio nodded, unable to speak.

  ‘Let us go back, then,’ she said, her tears running freely but she would not sob, not in front of Antonio. Zo had always told her to be brave in front of others as they needed leaders who mastered their emotions.

  ‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Lorenzo made me promise that if we heard the bells toll, we would continue for the gift from Giorgio. It was important to him.’

  ‘I need to be with him,’ she said firmly.

  Antonio reached out and placed a hand on her arm, his voice sorrowful, ‘He organised this with me yesterday. He did not want you there for this. It was his wish that I take you to Giorgio, and then accompany you back to Florence. His family and friends and the priests will take over his body,’ Antonio paused to draw in a deep breath, overcome with the thought of his friend being only a body. Once he had control of his emotions, he continued, ‘He asked me to tell you that he was yours in life, and he wants you to remember the life, not the death.’

  At his words, the overwhelming pain of loss almost overcame her resolve to appear brave. She looked up at the moon and clenched her hands into fists on the front of her saddle, digging her nails into the palms. Every part of her longed to race back to him and fling herself on his body. She wanted to be with him, to die alongside him. Life without him was unimaginable.

  ‘Come, Elli,’ Antonio said gently, battling with his own heartache. ‘We will do as Lorenzo wished. We go to Giorgio, and, tomorrow, we return to Florence. He has organised for Nicco Machiavelli to stay with you during this time since Leonardo is in Milan. He does not want you to be alone.’

  Nodding, Elli turned her horse away from the villa where her love lay, and continued the trip he planned for her. The bells continued to toll, spreading out across the Tuscan landscape as news of Lorenzo’s passing rang over the land he loved.

  At the de’Cioni villa, Giorgio rushed out to meet them, waving for stablehands to take their horses and encompassing Antonio in hug. He was a short, stout man in his sixties, with grey hair and wildly expanding eyebrows.

  ‘The bells?’ he asked, looking up at the taller man. ‘Do they mean what we all fear?’

  Antonio nodded, and Giorgio clasped at his heart and wailed about the passing of the greatest man who ever lived, and how it marked the end of days.

  Elli remained several steps back, as Giorgio was not privy to her role in Lorenzo’s life, or the fact that she was a woman, and she did not want the effusive Giorgio to extend his hug to her.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ he waved them in, pausing to look at Elli’s downturned face trying to remember if he’d met the young man before.

  ‘One of Lorenzo’s young artists,’ explained Antonio, extending a hand towards her. ‘Elli. He is very distressed by this evening’s events.’

  ‘I understand,’ Giorgio muttered wretchedly, holding his hands to his heart, and shaking his head dramatically. ‘We have seen a golden age under Il Magnifico. He gave us greatness, he brokered peace, and he protected us from those in the north and the east. Who among us is not struck down with grief as the bells call out this most tragic of news?’

  Silence met his question.

  He ushered them into a reception hall where a fire burned and lamps provided ample light. No one else was present, though portraits of family members lined the walls, so eyes watched them from all sides. Giorgio walked across the room and picked up an object that resembled a small jewellery chest from a table. The base of the chest was small enough to cover his open hand without much overhang. It was silver, decorated all around with intricate gold pomegranates, lutes, and bunches of grapes. A tiny painting covered most of the top panel, depicting red and pink carnations, a sprig of lavender, and blue cornflowers next to an hourglass, an open book, and two rings locked together in a halo of light.

  Elli stared at the chest, her heart thudding heavily. It was a message from Zo. Pomegranates for desire and immortality, grapes for Bacchus and the days and nights they drank wine and found truth in the wine. The lutes for romantic love and the songs he wrote for her. The red carnations for love, pink for marriage, lavender for desire and in recognition of her eye colour, and blue cornflowers for heaven and goodness. The hourglass was their time together, the open book their knowledge, and the two rings were their souls married in the light of heaven. It was a declaration of love that would last through all the ages.

  Giorgio handed the chest to Antonio. ‘Il Magnifico’s messenger said to give this to you when the bells rang. I thought he had meant the bells for the service. I did not know…’ his voice stopped in a ragged breath and he wiped his hands over his eyes. ‘It is the end of Florence. What do we do without him?’

  With great care, Antonio gave the chest to Elli, his expression filled with compassion as he read the message in the symbols. ‘Will you hold this, my friend?’ His voice was gentle as he saw her fighting to contain the avalanche of grief that needed to fall. ‘Giorgio, are there rooms for us tonight?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the older man motioned towards one of the doors. ‘I was told to have two rooms ready for travellers who would be leaving early the next morning for Florence. Come.’

  He led the way out of the room and down a corridor to guest rooms. Antonio followed close behind while Ellie moved slowly, clasping the silver and gold chest to her heart.

  ‘In here,’ Giorgio opened two doors. ‘We will be dining shortly if…’

  ‘We will eat in our rooms,’ Antonio interrupted him, ‘if that is no inconvenience. We will mourn in private.’

  ‘Of course,’ Giorgio sighed and made sorrowful sounds. ‘There will be many tears shed at our table this evening. I will send food, wine and water for you shortly.’

  ‘Your kindness is most appreciated,’ said Antonio, waiting until Giorgio shuffled off before ushering Elli into her room.

  ‘Sit,’ he said softly, guiding her to the bed. ‘I will leave you alone so that you can open the chest and…’

  ‘Stay,’ she cut him off, her lavender eyes awash with the loss that crept through her being. ‘I don’t want to be alone. I need to know if it is real. If he’s gone. Is it true, Antonio? Has he left me?’

  Placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, he stood over her protectively, undertaking the task that Lorenzo had asked of him.

  ‘She is the
most precious part of my life,’ he had told Antonio several days earlier. ‘I have kept her existence a secret in order to keep her safe from my enemies, and this must continue. When I ask you to take her to Giorgio’s, you must watch over her for me. Take her to Florence and settle her into the apartment my mother gave her. Nicco will be there for her. You must convince her to stay there and avoid my funeral and public gatherings. When I am no longer there to protect her, she must stay far from my family and the troubles that are coming. Safety lies in anonymity and with trusted friends, and very few are trustworthy. You, Nicco, Leo, Michel, and others who have not turned to Fra Savonarola, but few others. Keep her safe, my friend.’

  He would carry out Lorenzo’s wishes.

  ‘He has left us all, Elli,’ he nodded, tears wetting his cheeks once again. ‘He was in great pain and now he has peace.’

  ‘We do not have peace,’ her voice was small.

  ‘No, we do not,’ he agreed. ‘We who are left behind have the wretchedness of living without the man who was the sun in our lives. But we live, Elli, we live for him because he can no longer be here.’

  Looking at the chest on her lap, she decided to open it. It was locked. Her hand went to the chain around her neck. Several days earlier, Zo had given her a small key on a chain, telling her it was the key to his love. Taking the chain over her neck, she put the key into the lock and turned. It opened.

  Inside lay a letter. She picked it up and a silver ring slid out onto the gold silk lining of the chest. A poesy ring – the sort often given as a wedding ring that had a message engraved on it. Holding it up to the lamplight, she turned it slowly to read the Latin inscription on the outside, te amo in aeternum - ‘I love you forever’. The inside surface held their initials and the words, amor aeternus – ‘eternal love’. It was the wedding ring he could not give her in life.

  Sliding it onto her finger, she stared at it for a full minute before opening the letter. She began to read. Antonio stood next to her, his hand still on her shoulder, his face turned away to give her privacy. As she read, her shoulders began to tremble. He tightened his grip to offer support. By the time she had finished Lorenzo’s words, she was sobbing. It was his goodbye. All the words he did not say to her when he lived. He did not have to say them, she knew them without him having to utter the syllables. To read them now drove the reality of his death into her mind, and the sorrow overwhelmed her.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders hunched, crying uncontrollably. Unaware of Antonio’s actions as he carefully took the letter from her hands, folded it, and placed it back in the chest, she continued to sob. The avalanche of grief was crashing down around her, and she could no longer fight it.

  Quietly, he used her key to lock the chest, putting it on the table next to the bed. He put the chain with the key back around her neck. Taking off her shoes, he loosened her clothes so that she would be more comfortable, and lay her down on the bed, drawing a blanket over her.

  Elli lay, her knees drawn up, her arms crossed in front of her chest, her head bent over, and she wept. Antonio sat on a chair next to her, patting her back. He had no words that could ease her despair – he knew there were none to help him.

  ***

  ‘The next morning,’ Ally’s voice was soft with the heartache of losing Zo, ‘we left early for Florence. Someone had moved my possessions from the Medici Palace to my apartment, and Nicco was waiting for me. He was not quite twenty-three at the time, and, as I said, was like a son to me. He protected me and stayed with me while Florence mourned Lorenzo.

  ‘Three months after Zo’s death, Giro Savonarola’s predictions of Pope Innocent the Eighth’s death came to fruition, aided by poison. His death caused Elli to think harder about Zo’s illness – it had been more than gout. He had dreadful stomach pains that were consistent with mild arsenic poisoning. Elli suspected Lorenzo’s trusted friend Pico della Mirandola and Pico’s lover Angelo Poliziano of poisoning him. They had become devotees of Giro. Two years after Zo died, they both passed away.’

  ‘Elli killed them?’ Andrew asked, curious about the events five hundred years ago.

  ‘It was assumed that Lorenzo’s son, Piero, had something to do with their deaths, but, yes, Elli was the one who visited them and put arsenic in their wine. In many respects, it was a shame, as the men, though misguided in regards to Savonarola, were geniuses. I know Lorenzo loved them both dearly, and they may have had so much more to offer the world, but Elli wanted them to pay for siding with Giro. Two men trusted by Zo’s brother led him to his death and stabbed him in the name of their belief in the Pope, and two men trusted by Zo prepared him for death because of their belief in a religious zealot opposed to the Pope.’

  Lynette thought about the ways religion had harmed Elli’s life, and said, ‘It goes a long way to explaining why you had little time for religion in this life.’

  ‘None of that had taken place when we were young,’ explained Ally, ‘but I told you how the priest in Elli’s childhood liked boys and how he enjoyed beating Elli when Giro tattled to him about her. That seemed to set my attitude towards religion, which was why I had little respect for the nuns and priests who were mongrels to you at the orphanage.’

  ‘And I appreciated your attitude,’ Lynette smiled warmly at her.

  ‘After Zo died,’ Sandra frowned as she tried to make sense of the timeline, ‘did you continue to visit Elli in Florence? Are you still visiting her?’

  Ally nodded. ‘For Elli, it’s been twenty-two years since Zo died. If I visit her tonight, when you are all asleep and I’m lying in bed wondering about Florence, I will be there with her in 1514, still grieving the loss of Zo and wandering the streets of Florence. She is nearly sixty, like me. Leonardo is in Rome, working for Zo’s youngest son, Giuliano, so she doesn’t see him very often. Nicco, his wife, and children have moved out of the city centre. He’s busy writing The Prince. Elli occasionally visits him and they talk about politics, world events, and Zo. Michelangelo has finished the Sistine Chapel and is designing a building for Pope Leo the Tenth, who is Lorenzo’s son, Giovanni – the one who was the thirteen-year-old Cardinal.’

  ‘And Giro?’ asked Lynette.

  ‘By 1514, he’d been dead for sixteen years. He burned so many treasures, and he became drunk on his own beliefs, rather like a tv evangelist. He started saying he could perform miracles, so another preacher challenged him to a test of fire. It was rained out, but the men involved, including Giro, were arrested and charged as heretics. They were hung and burned, and their ashes thrown in the River Arno.’

  ‘Once Lorenzo died,’ Andrew pursed his lips, thinking about Ally and her Renaissance counterpart, ‘there doesn’t seem much tying you to Florence, yet you continued to go back?’

  ‘I couldn’t stop,’ admitted Ally. ‘I desperately tried to go back to a time when Zo was alive, but it didn’t work that way. I’ve spent the last twenty-two years hoping to go back to a time before he died. I tried, but when I arrive, it’s always further on in time than the last visit. When I visited some weeks ago, before Peter found me, she had been unwell. Arthritis was causing problems in her hands and she had taken the poesy ring from Lorenzo off and placed it back in that silver and gold casket, along with his letter and one she wrote. Curiously, her letter is one thing that has been out of sequence. She wrote it in 1514, but I knew of it for almost all my life. I knew the words when I was thirteen and she was still living at home with her parents. I knew every word in her letter when I was eighteen and she first made love to Zo, more than forty years before she wrote it. Elli didn’t know about it, but I did. I don’t know why that is, I can only assume that its importance goes beyond time.’

  ‘Can you remember what was in it?’ asked Sandra.

  ‘Every word,’ Ally looked at her fondly, ‘and I gave each of you a part of it when I gave you my goodbye letters before I went into hiding. In 1514, she placed it in a box, along with some drawings, Zo’s letter, and his ring, and she buried it in
the basement of her apartment.’

  ‘Really?’ Sandra was excited by the thought of finding evidence to prove Ally’s story. ‘Could you go to Florence where she was living, and find it now?’

  ‘Probably,’ she shrugged, ‘but I looked at the address on Google Earth, and there looks to be construction there, at least, there was a year or so ago when the image was taken. When I Googled the actual address, there was information about the construction, which has been going on for several years now, but there’s no news about a silver and gold casket found on the site. I would think it would be newsworthy if it was found.’

  ‘It must be important for some reason,’ mused Lynette.

  ‘I have to say,’ Nick stirred from where he’d been reposing on the blanket on the lawn, appearing asleep but listening intently, ‘that I am immensely grateful that I gave Lynette a lift to Australia. Listening to the story of Elli and Lorenzo has been one of the most entertaining, informative, and enjoyable few days of my life.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Marcus. ‘I feel like you opened a door to Renaissance Italy, Ally, and you gave us the opportunity to walk through with you and experience it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ally sighed. It had been good to shine the light of the twenty-first century onto the secrets she had hidden most of her life. At last, Elli was out in the open, a subject of discussion and conjecture. Her friends would remember Elli. Whether they believed she existed in Italy five hundred years ago, or thought she was a creation of Ally’s mind, they now knew her.

  ‘Before I began,’ Ally met the gaze of each of her friends in turn, ‘I knew you all thought my recollections were the product of a mental disorder, and yet, being the friends you are, you listened. When we were younger, you tried to cure me, but now that so many years have passed, you are content to listen without feeling the need to fix me. In our youth, I was desperate to have you believe in the reality of Elli, but it didn’t happen. We were young. We had a belief in how people should be rather than accepting them as they are, imperfections and all. Strangely, after spending all these hours sharing the memories, I’m seeing that we have swapped roles. You have belief in your faces, while I’m beginning to consider the possibility of mental illness.’