The Orphan of Florence

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  And then there was the throbbing ache in my upper arm, the dreadful burn from Stout’s pincers. I looked down at it. Interestingly enough, someone had bandaged it beneath my scorched sleeve. There’d been a fair amount of poppy in Stout’s wine, no doubt, or the pain would have been much worse.

  I closed my mouth and lowered my head to look about.

  “I hear you have a bone to pick with me,” someone said.

  I turned my head toward the man sitting next to me—sharing the same blanket, in fact, the two of us so close together, facing the same way in a two-seater carriage, that our hips were less than two fingers’ breadth apart. I could have easily throttled him, but he was strong and would have been the winner.

  There he was, first citizen of Florence, his great twisted nose barely noticeable given the intensity in his dark eyes and the grim set of his lips. He had not yet reached middle age, but any sign of youth in his face, in his expression, had died when his younger brother had been murdered six months ago. The gravity of his presence—like that of a king, a pope, a god—the horrific weight upon his shoulders, the burning determination to get revenge on those who had killed his beloved Giuliano—all of that had left him a physically young man with ancient, ravaged eyes. The day I had seen him with his mother, Donna Lucrezia, had found him irritable and distracted. He hadn’t wanted to be bothered with me.

  But now, I was his sole focus, and the barely contained rage and contempt behind those powerful, fearless eyes terrified me into breathlessness, made me shrink. But only for a moment—until the image of Ser Abramo bleeding in the street reminded me that Lorenzo was not the only one who had lost someone to murder, not the only one consumed by the desire for revenge. I straightened and ran a cold hand across my forehead wiping all fears away and staring back with the same cold contempt.

  “You say you have a bone to pick with me,” Lorenzo repeated.

  “Yes,” I said, but before I could say more, he interrupted, his tone icier than my hand, and dark.

  “You say you have a bone to pick, yet my best man is dead because you manipulated him into taking your place in a dangerous situation. Worse, you stole his gold—and with incredible brazenness, tried to exchange it with one of my most loyal protégés. Worst of all—Abramo trusted you enough to make you my agent, yet you betrayed him and me by flinging a sorely needed item into the Arno and stealing an incredibly invaluable item, an item that in the wrong hands could destroy years of careful work and put Florence in grave danger!”

  I tried to interrupt, angry with him and furious with myself for feeling intimidated, but he raised his voice and lifted his gloved hand for silence.

  “And these are not the least of your crimes—you murdered one of my agents and tried your best to kill a second one. So explain to me why we should not travel together to the Bargello this very instant, where I shall personally see you hanged from the highest window.”

  I stepped in the second he paused to take a breath and countered angrily, “I would never betray Ser Abramo! Never! I didn’t force him to take my place—he wanted to. I tried to stop him. I tried to…” I trailed off at the sound of increasing anguish in my voice.

  “Why would he feel moved to do that?” Lorenzo demanded. “He knew his life was more valuable to me than any item under discussion. He was irreplaceable.” He lowered his voice. “He was my friend.”

  I looked into that regal, homely face, with its jutting chin and twisted nose. His eyes were a soft brown, but try as he might, he could not quite hide the hard calculation that lurked behind his feigned sadness. His words were designed to make me think he shared my grief, to soften me up so that I would tell the truth.

  I wouldn’t say, Because he was my father. Lorenzo already knew that and was apparently testing me to see whether I knew it, too. I shrugged. “Search his estate. The reason is there, written in his own hand, the very reason I would never cause him harm.”

  His Magnificence paused at that.

  Uncanny, Donna Lucrezia had whispered as she’d studied my face. And Lorenzo replied, in the most scathing of tones, An instant of patriotism doesn’t mean he can be trusted. His point had been that even if I had been Ser Abramo’s child, I was still a criminal fresh off the streets. They’d probably thought then, all of them, that I was a son Abramo hadn’t known about.

  Ser Lorenzo knew that I was Abramo’s child the moment he looked into my eyes. Yet he had been willing to sacrifice me. Abramo hadn’t.

  “It doesn’t explain why you killed one of my men,” he said suddenly.

  “How many times must I say I didn’t kill Ser Abramo? The only man I tried to kill was his murderer.”

  “The evidence says”—he began, then abruptly caught himself, in a way that made me think he’d just realized he’d said too much. “The evidence says you’re a murderer. There was a body on the estate—a very mangled, bloody body.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I blurted. “Why are you even bothering to question a cur like me? Why not simply hang me, if you really believe I’m guilty of all these crimes?”

  “You killed a man. A man who pursued you onto the estate.”

  “I didn’t kill the man. I wish I had—he was a damned Roman spy, the one who finished the job Niccolo started. He made sure Ser Abramo was dead.”

  “Then pray tell who killed him.”

  “Leo.”

  “Who?”

  “The mastiff. The dog. He was trying to protect me. You only need look at the body. Why are you asking me? These are things your people can report to you. And, as for trying to kill Niccolo—Niccolo deserves killing, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to finish the job. He’s your spy, not me. He’s with the Romans, he’s only pretending to work for you. I saw him with a gang of men with Roman accents. He stabbed Ser Abramo. He hurt him and was going to run off, but one of the spies with him came back and…”

  My voice broke. Ser Lorenzo was motionless, listening. I recovered myself and added, “Made sure that he was dead. If you’re looking for murderers—look to Niccolo. Ask him questions.”

  “What makes you think they were spies?” Lorenzo leaned forward, putting his face so close to mine I could feel his breath, warm against my icy cheeks.

  “The … the cipher wheel. The talisman. I decoded it…” My outrage flared in earnest. “It said that you were leaving for France!”

  “Indeed?” His tone was flat. “So you are every bit as clever as they say, then.”

  I couldn’t keep my own tone from rising. “Clever enough to know that Ser Abramo worked for you and that you failed to protect him! Clever enough to know that you’re going to abandon your native city, flee to France, and leave us all at the mercy of the Romans. Coward!”

  He eased back against his seat; his brows lifted high, and an odd light came into his eyes. I braced myself for another burst of rage, but instead, he laughed softly. It wasn’t a happy sound.

  “And this,” he said finally, “is why you decided it would be best to throw the talisman and wheel into the river.”

  “Why I was willing to jump into the river with it,” I corrected him harshly. My arm began to hurt and I scratched it unconsciously and winced at the resulting agony. “The gold would have pulled me down. No one could get to it. Not you, not the Romans.”

  “You jumped to the conclusion I was a traitor.” His voice was calm, but his lips grew tauter; his eyes grew hard and unreadable. “Because the talisman said I was going to France. You assumed I would not return.”

  “There’s no help for us in France. The king supports the pope. What else would you be doing?”

  He turned his head away to stare straight ahead, at the curtain of wool that separated us from the driver and the gazes of passersby. “You need to trust me,” he said, as the carriage encountered a pothole and we were jostled together. “I would never desert Florence.”

  “Why do I need to trust you? Just kill me and be done with it.”

  “No,” he said. “I need you now. My cryptog
rapher has been murdered. The wheel, however, has been recovered and is safe. No enemy knows of our method of communication.”

  “I doubt that, seeing as how Niccolo came to the estate every day,” I countered. “And I won’t work for you.”

  “You will,” he said as he turned toward me again, his expression frighteningly intense. “Because in return for your services, I will keep … oh, what are their names? Your friends.”

  Aghast, I stared at him. I dared not speak.

  “Tommaso, yes? The little boy. And the baby girl, Ginevra. And your friend—don’t tell me. Cecilia, yes, a lovely and admirably loyal young woman. In return, I will keep Tommaso and Ginevra and Cecilia safe from harm.” Solemnly, steadily, he held my gaze. “They’re all quite worried about you. God knows what would happen to them if they fell into the wrong hands.”

  * * *

  I would have been happier if they’d taken me to a proper prison, with darkness and rats and iron bars, so that my surroundings matched my insides, an appropriate place for a thief to die.

  Instead, an hour after the carriage ride, I found myself inside the bedchamber I’d slept in the previous night—a thousand years ago, a lifetime ago, in a different era. There was the hearth, still carefully tended by an invisible charwoman, and the large, soft luxurious bed with its feather mattress and fur coverlets.

  I’d known where I was by the smells even before they removed my hood and bolted me inside the chamber: Leo’s earthy animal scent, Ser Abramo’s faint haunting trail of rosemary. I would have struggled, fought, and tried to make them kill me because I could not bear to be there, of all places on earth.

  When they pushed me into my old bedchamber and bolted the door from the outside, I couldn’t bring myself to lie in the cloud-soft bed, couldn’t bear to sit upon it; instead, I settled cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace. The poker had been removed—I suppose so that I couldn’t kill myself, but it did occur to me that I could easily have destroyed the place by setting the bedding on fire.

  But I couldn’t do even that, for Tommaso and Cecilia’s sakes, even though I had failed them and Ser Abramo abysmally, even though I wanted desperately to die and be done with suffering. Their lives depended on mine now in a new and terrible way.

  There came the sound of the bolt sliding in the door, and a burly golden-haired man appeared alongside a tall, wiry Nubian lad who set a tray of food with a flagon of wine on my bed. The lad was no ordinary kitchen servant; he wore a baldric with the hilt of a fighting-sized dagger emerging from the sleeve, like his pale fellow, who was dressed in black. The latter was one of the men who had pursued me the day before—and, I decided, had also come rushing out of the guardhouse to whisk Ser Abramo’s body away.

  Still on the floor, I glanced up at them but did not rise, instead turning my hopeless gaze to the fire. I could smell the stew and the fresh-baked bread, but the thought of eating made my throat tighten with sadness; the food seemed an affront, a sign of disrespect to Ser Abramo. When it became clear I was going to leave it untouched on the bed, the golden guard drew his dagger.

  “You must eat,” he said.

  I shook my head without looking at him. He wouldn’t kill me, after all. His master needed me now that the Magician was gone.

  The Nubian squatted beside me and said, in a voice like velvet, “At least drink the wine. It has poppy in it. You’re in pain. And you must rest if you’re to work.”

  I looked at him, into his heavy-lidded dark eyes and saw something surprisingly like sympathy in them. I nodded in revelation—yes, I was still in physical pain from the terrible burn, but it had paled in the presence of a different sort of suffering. It seemed wrong not to suffer, but the coward in me wanted nothing more than to blot out memory and truth.

  Rather than drag me to the wine he brought it to me, squatting down again and handing me the glass with long, delicate fingers.

  “Drink,” he said firmly, but not unkindly, and I drank. It was fine wine, not the swill proffered by Stout. He waited for a moment to be sure I’d taken enough sips, then he rose.

  “Finish it,” he said, and he and his companion left and bolted the door from the outside.

  I left the food untouched upon the bed and sat drinking in my glamorous prison, until at last I sank sideways onto the floor, numb and staring at the glittering flames.

  Day turned to night and at some point the flames ebbed and in their place appeared the face of the Magician, uncloaked and looking very much as he had when I had last seen him alive, before he disappeared into his magical dungeon with my silver talisman.

  I am the Magician, he said, and I will never die nor forsake you. It was only a play, after all. It was all ever only a play.

  His voice still fresh in my ears, I awoke with a start and deep joy at the knowledge that Ser Abramo was alive—a joy that turned quickly to despair at the realization that I’d been dreaming.

  The sound of the bolt being slid had wakened me and the golden-haired guard, his beard glinting as it caught the light from the fading embers, took hold of my arm and lifted me to my feet. He urged me to attend to my toilet—I found the chamber pot under the bed, used it, and washed my face with the ewer and bowl provided while he stood with his back to me, confirming that mine was a prison for fine ladies and gentlemen. Ragged and exhausted as I was, I neither spoke nor resisted as he, equally silent, led me by my arm, adjusting his grip only when I yelped when he inadvertently touched the small burn left by Stout’s pincers.

  He took me to the open hatch leading down to the magical dungeon and indicated that I should crawl down ahead of him. The memory of the weapons propped against the wall near the magical tent returned to me. If I were fast enough, I could be waiting for him with a scimitar. But my hopes were dashed when I discovered that the Nubian, an oil lamp in one hand and a drawn short sword in the other, waited at the bottom for me.

  The curtains were pulled back and the arched doorway opened. The lad gestured for me to walk ahead of him. My destination was clear: Past the narrow apothecary’s cabinet, past the shelves of books and scrolls, and the furnace built into the ground, a lamp burned on the worktable next to an ink well and quill and a stack of blank paper. The wooden cipher wheel had been set upon it, alongside a letter.

  The silent Nubian sat in an armchair off to one side, watching solemnly as I sat on the stool—too low for me, so that the edge of the table hit just under my breasts—and read the message. It was written in a careful, definitely feminine hand.

  Four talismans of appropriate but inexpensive metal, made in the following order:

  One shall hold the new key.

  One shall say: 4 Dec sunset, arriving Livorno 16 Dec dawn, (signed) the Fool.

  One shall say: 9 Dec dawn, arriving Ancona 19 Dec sunset, (signed) the Fool.

  One shall say: 30 Nov sunset, arriving Grosetto 4 Dec midday.

  All with the insignia. All appropriately magically charged to ensure the message and its wearer arrive without mishap at their destination.

  Three days, without fail.

  Livorno, Ancona, Grosetto. These were all small towns, hardly refuges, as it would be hard for a man like Lorenzo to go unrecognized for very long, and all close enough to the fighting that they were poor choices for an indefinite stay. Nor were they good choices for someone trying to escape by land; anyone headed south or north would eventually run into a Roman or Neapolitan army.

  But they were all on the coast—good places to meet a ship and sail off to a safer destination.

  France, I thought at first, and then stopped myself. Lorenzo was highly devious, if nothing else. Had the talisman that Ser Abramo left behind included Lorenzo’s real destination? Or had it been left there to confound me, in case I was a Roman spy?

  Very clever, all of it. And even if the Romans learned that the talismans held code, and managed to decipher them all, no one except Lorenzo and his inner circle knew his ultimate destination, or even the person he was communicating with.
>
  Of course, Lorenzo couldn’t be in all these different places at once. Only one message was true, which meant that even if I, the cryptographer, were captured and interrogated, I could give only contradictory information.

  But three days …

  I scowled up at my captor, who was watching me with a benignly curious expression, his long fine hands steepled beneath his chin, the lamp on the ground beside him, painting him half in light, half in shadow, sculpting his flawless skin, neither dark nor pale, but the light ash brown of a walnut’s shell.

  “It’s impossible!” I said. “It says I’m to make four talismans in three days!”

  “I know what it says,” he responded agreeably. “I can read.”

  “But I’ll need help! I can’t do this alone in three days!”

  “I’m not your assistant,” he said, just as pleasantly. “I’m not a slave. I’m as Tuscan as you are, here of my own volition—while you are not. I suggest you do as you’re instructed.”

  “They trust a guard enough to let him read this?”

  His lips curved slightly upward; he lowered his hands. “They would if he was a Medici, raised in the same household as the one who wrote this. I have a great interest in making sure that you do exactly as you’ve been ordered to.”

  I looked down at the message again and swore softly. And then I thought of Tommaso and Cecilia and got right to work.

  One shall hold a new key.

  I studied the cipher wheel. The inner wheels had shifted a bit during the run, so that the L no longer lined up with the symbol for Air. I could easily have set it back, but obviously, the great Lorenzo and his mother were being cautious. So I thought a bit: Lorenzo was represented by aleph, 0, air, the Hebrew and alchemical symbols for The Fool. I did something extremely simple: I shifted the L on the cipher wheel until it lined up not with air, but with the symbol for aleph.