The Medici Seal

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘I do not want to go to France,’ I told him firmly.

  ‘Nor I,’ he agreed. ‘But I do like soldiering. In some way it makes me feel close to my father.’

  ‘Then listen to me.’ I had already thought out what I might say to Paolo. ‘The republic of Florence has its own citizen army,’ I told him, ‘as conceived by Niccolò Machiavelli. You might offer your services to them. It would suit you well and Elisabetta lives there. I will come with you,’ I added. And I told Paolo that I hoped I might attend the house of Eleanora’s uncle and offer a marriage settlement.

  But I had no money to do this. Nor the means of obtaining any.

  Save the one thing of value that I owned.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  ALONE IN THE small barraca where Paolo and I slept at night, I unwrapped the seal. The shape of it fitted neatly within my palm and the gold shone dully in the lamplight. The balls of the Medici coat of arms sat proud of the surface, with the shield contained by the wording inside the rim.

  MEDICI . . .

  How much was it worth?

  If a man had some money, it might be possible . . .

  Lucrezia Borgia herself had said it.

  Eleanora’s uncle saw her as a piece of business to be taken care of. The money I would get from selling the seal would give me enough wealth to convince him of my good intentions.

  Eleanora left Ferrara for her uncle’s house the next day.

  So I began to investigate the traders in Ferrara with a view to choosing one who might be interested in buying such an object as the Medici Seal. It took me several days of careful research before I finally selected a suitable goldsmith. Early one morning I went into a shop near the Ponte d’Oro, took the Medici Seal from the bag around my neck and placed it on the counter.

  The shopkeeper’s eyes stretched wide as he examined it. First he weighed it, then he took a tiny goldsmith’s tool and scratched the outer edge.

  ‘This looks genuine.’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘And I warn you. Do not trifle with me for I have no time to haggle. Make me a decent offer, or I leave and go elsewhere.’

  He raised an eyebrow, pursed his lips and then mentioned a sizeable sum of money.

  ‘Double that,’ I said, ‘and give me it in gold and you can have the seal now.’

  He spread his hands. ‘I don’t keep that amount in my shop. Come back tomorrow.’

  ‘This evening,’ I told him. I drew my dagger and placed the blade along his neck. ‘And if you speak of this to anyone I will cut your throat.’

  Paolo and I used the rest of the day to prepare for our departure. We packed a few things on our two best horses and rode them to a spot outside the city walls. I told Paolo that I had a debt to collect, and that I would go and do this while he waited there with both animals. Then we would set out for Florence.

  I went to the shop an hour before the appointed time. I waited in an alleyway and watched the door, but the business of the street was as normal. As there was nothing untoward happening, at the appointed time I stepped out from my cover, crossed the street and slipped into the shop.

  As soon as he saw me the goldsmith drew aside the curtain that screened his workshop at the back. ‘Come through here,’ he said.

  I put my hand to my sword.

  He clicked his tongue. ‘There is no one waiting to rob you,’ he said. He pulled the curtain wider and I saw that his little cubicle was indeed empty. ‘It’s only that I want us to be private from anyone looking in from the street.’

  We both went inside and he let the curtain fall behind us.

  At that moment we heard the outside door opening.

  My dagger was in my hand even before the goldsmith whispered, ‘I have not betrayed you. I am as keen to acquire the seal as you are to sell it. Let me go and get rid of whoever this is.’

  He pushed my arm away and went out through the curtain, greeting his new customer effusively.

  A man’s voice spoke. ‘The Great Seal of the Medici family has been brought to this shop. I want it.’

  ‘The Great Seal of the Medici?’ The shopkeeper expressed astonishment. ‘I have never even heard of such a thing.’

  ‘Don’t hinder me in this.’ The man’s tone was impatient and menacing. ‘I have searched a long time for the Medici Seal. My spies reported that you borrowed money today, naming it as surety for your loan. Therefore you have knowledge of its whereabouts. I rode many miles to get here, and I am prepared to pay well for that information.’

  There was a noise, as if a bag of coins had been thrown onto the table.

  ‘Here is what I will give you.’

  ‘It is a goodly sum,’ the shopkeeper said slowly. ‘For that amount of gold I will try very hard to obtain the seal for you.’

  ‘Where is the young man who brought it to you?’

  ‘If I give you the seal, why do you want him?’

  ‘I have my reasons.’

  ‘Why punish him?’ The shopkeeper’s voice was strained almost pleading. He was anxious to avoid bloodshed in his shop. ‘Why take revenge upon this youth if you recover what you want?’

  ‘That is my business,’ the man said stubbornly. ‘Look, you may keep that bag of gold and I will bring you another the same weight if you lead me to the boy.’

  There was a second of silence. The time it took for the goldsmith to fix the price on my head.

  He would only need to roll his eyes in the direction of the curtain and my enemy could run me through without even seeing my face.

  I heard the intake of the man’s breath, and at that instant I knew the goldsmith had betrayed me.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  I RAN.

  Lowering my head, I propelled myself out from behind the curtain and through the shop. Hands grabbed at me, my tunic tore, but I wrenched away from them in a frenzy.

  ‘Stop!’ the stranger’s voice shouted after me. ‘Stop!’

  Then I was in the street, with them pursuing.

  ‘Thief!’ The goldsmith’s cry got more attention. ‘Thief!’

  People hurried to their windows and shop doors.

  ‘Thief!’ They took up the cry. ‘Thief! Thief!’

  There were those who skipped out of my way and urged me on – urchin lads and young men, glad of any opportunity to flout authority. Others flung rubbish or pieces of vegetables and fruit. A variety of objects hailed after me as I charged down towards the river.

  I was on the bridge. If I could gain the other side I might lose them among the vennels in the wharves.

  ‘A reward!’ I heard the stranger shout. ‘Ten gold pieces to the one who catches him!’

  A man ran from a shop on the other side of the bridge. A burly butcher with a cleaver in his hand.

  ‘Don’t harm him!’ The stranger was now closer behind me. ‘I want him whole. Anyone who hurts him will be flayed alive!’

  The butcher threw down his cleaver and spread his arms to prevent me passing.

  I glanced back.

  The stranger, who had left the goldsmith behind in the chase, was advancing towards me. He stopped as I faced him. It was the man from the woods near Kestra, the one who had tracked me to Eleanora’s convent.

  Jacopo de’ Medici.

  He saw I recognized him, and he smiled. It was a smile without pity. He was studying me, his eyes flickering over my body, then back to my face. He could see the dagger at my belt and the sword at my side. But he had his sword in his hand.

  I looked at his weapon in fear.

  ‘I—’ he began.

  There was a sound behind me. I whipped round. The butcher had taken advantage to creep closer. But in so doing he had moved to the central, wider part of the bridge. Still, I doubted I would get past him. He was a broad man. Yet as he was so broad, he would be slow on his feet. And I knew that I was nimble. If I could not gain the far side of the bridge, there was still another way I could go.

  ‘No!’ Jacopo de’ Medici flung down his sword and leaped to c
atch me.

  But I had jumped onto the parapet, vaulted over and plummeted down into the river.

  I tried to dive deep.

  But although it was summer the water was cold. The shock of my fall and the cold hit me together and blunted my dive. And once in the water I could not recover myself, for more than the cold, the current claimed me. Thick and fast it broiled around my legs and body and drew me down. I could not breathe. My lungs were straining for air, my head bursting, and my limbs would not obey my will. I was under the waterfall again but this time there was no rescue. I would not survive this.

  I felt my body go limp. The light above me was grey, the water around me also grey. As grey as the paint on the Maestro’s ruined fresco, as grey as Rossana’s face as she lay dying. The grey of the tomb. And I thought of her, Rossana, and wondered if I would see her again after death. And I thought of her sister Elisabetta, and then of Eleanora. And as I thought of Eleanora I tried so desperately hard to kick out, to flail my arms to the surface.

  The current that had almost killed me served to save me. For it brought me so far and so fast downstream that my pursuers could not follow, and at the first bend where the force of the water slackened, I caught hold of an overhanging tree branch. There were men with torches searching both sides of the bank. I could see the fire from their flares and hear them calling to each other. But I crawled away from them as fast as I could and went to the place where I had arranged to join Paolo with the horses.

  It was hours past our meeting time but he was there, waiting faithfully for me. When he saw that I was dishevelled and soaking wet he laughed and said, ‘I think perhaps you did not collect the money that was owed to you, Matteo?’

  ‘I did not,’ I said. ‘Not only that, I am pursued. We would do well to be long gone from Ferrara before daylight arrives.’

  Chapter Eighty

  WE MOUNTED AND rode.

  My clothes dried, for it was a warm summer night and our pace was fast. We were going by side ways and tracks that we both knew from having ridden out in the countryside so frequently when training our men. A few miles beyond Bologna, when it was time to turn towards the mountains and Florence, Paolo said, ‘There is a shorter way. When you were in Kestra and Milan helping Elisabetta, I went riding with Charles all around this area. There is path through the hills here past the Castel Barta.

  Castel Barta.

  Why did my mind stir at the sound of that name?

  Castel Barta. I repeated the words. It was as if the wind had moved and then the world held still, in the way it does prior to a storm.

  We rested in the darkest part of the night.

  Paolo fell asleep as soon as he lay down. But no sooner did I start to drowse than I had a nightmare. I had fallen into a great lake. The water was bubbling into my mouth, and I began to choke. There were flashing lights before my eyes, but then these changed into the torches of men hunting me, and then into candlelight, and there was the sound of music in the background. And the water was gone and I was on a hard floor made with Moorish patterned tiles and these were cool to my touch. But then I could no longer hear the music and suddenly I was under water struggling, and I could see myself from a great height and I knew that I was dying. And, very close to my ear, someone spoke a name.

  I awoke with a shout.

  ‘Who is there?’

  Paolo muttered, ‘Go to sleep, Matteo. Rest a little while more.’

  But the name I’d heard was not my own. It was the name of a place. The place my grandmother had been anxious to reach before she had died. Castel Barta.

  When Paolo woke up I said to him, ‘I must go to this place, Castel Barta.’

  ‘It’s not far from the road,’ he said, ‘but it is a ruin.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ I said, ‘I must see it for myself and perhaps find out what caused its ruin.’

  I claimed it to be a kind of pilgrimage in memory of my grandmother, and Paolo agreed to wait on the road while I went to look at it. So that I would make better speed I unbuckled my sword and left my horse behind.

  ‘Don’t delay,’ Paolo called after me. ‘We should try to reach Florence before nightfall.’

  I made my way up a mountain track to the small hunting lodge set on the cliff top. It was in ruins as Paolo had said. This place had suffered the same fate as Perela. As I climbed a rock was displaced from the cliff above me. I looked up and saw a small opening. I waited, expecting a rabbit to run out, or a to bird fly up. But nothing moved. I had long cast aside the belief that disturbances of the earth were made by creatures known as Cyclops, who made the fires for the god named Vulcan. The Maestro had told me that the earth heaves and trembles sometimes, according to the forces of Nature.

  I entered the courtyard and looked around. There were few walls left intact. As for Paolo at Perela there was nothing for me here. Yet I had to see for myself. I walked over and went inside what would have been the main hall. The heels of my boots sounded out on the tiled floor. I glanced down.

  The tiles below my feet had a pattern of the Moorish fashion.

  I stood still.

  The early sunlight showed the pattern clearly. I crouched down and stretched out my hand to touch them.

  And then in front of me a shadow moved.

  I looked up.

  Sandino stood before me.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  ‘SANDINO!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘It is I.’

  Neither of us moved. I was unable to, my blood and bowels turned to water. He was poised, watching me. His arms hung loose by his side. I saw his fingers with their yellowed thumbnails, long and curved and hideous.

  ‘When I picked up your trail and found out that you were back in this area I knew that finally you would come this way, boy. I only had to wait long enough.’

  I put my hand on the corded pouch at my neck. ‘Here, take this cursed Medici Seal.’

  ‘I have no interest in the seal now,’ Sandino replied. ‘You are my prize and I have waited a long time to claim it.’

  He made a move, just a slight easing of his body forward, but enough to let me see that he had a long knife concealed in one hand.

  ‘You seek vendetta on me.’ I stood up carefully, keeping my gaze fixed on his knife. ‘But you will not find me easy to kill.’

  ‘Why would I want you dead?’ He shifted himself so that he was between me and the door. ‘You are worth more to me alive.’

  ‘You are working for the Medici?’

  ‘I work for whoever pays the most. At present it’s the Medici. They have offered a reward to anyone who brings you to them.’

  I snatched my own dagger from my belt but in the second that it took me to do so he was upon me. For a stocky man he was agile, and as he pounced he slashed at my weapon arm with his long knife.

  I spun away from him and smashed my fist into his face.

  Sandino reeled back. He had not been expecting that. It was a parry I’d learned from the Ferrarese: according to them a man, when armed, thinks only of his enemy’s weapon and forgets he has another hand to use.

  But Sandino was a brigand and had not lived so long by being careless or weak. He launched himself forwards again. I flung myself at his feet and tripped him and then rolled away along the floor. He had fallen heavily over me and his knife dropped from his grasp and slid away across the tiles. We both scrambled to get to it. I reached it first, but before I grasped it he had pinioned me, his arms clutching at my legs and dragging me back. We struggled together. He loosened his hold on my legs and I kicked out. I heard the clatter as his knife was booted to the other side of the room.

  But now he had his arms around my chest, locked like a vice. I stabbed at him with my own dagger but he was gripping me from behind and I could not reach any vital point. He gasped as I kicked at him but he was much stronger than I, and did not let go. I felt my ribcage bend under the pressure. He was squeezing the life from me. As I weakened he inched his arms up my body. His grip was across my
throat. I could not breathe.

  I slumped down on the floor.

  Now his fingers seized my skull with such force that I thought he would crush it. He pressed his fingertips hard onto my eyelids. Then he manoeuvred round so that he was in front of me.

  ‘He said he wanted you captured whole,’ Sandino grunted. He hooked his thumbnails into my eye sockets. ‘He did not say he needed you with eyes.’

  I let out a wail of terror.

  I heard him grunt again.

  A great fountain of warm liquid spouted onto my face.

  It was blood. I could smell it.

  He had gouged out my eyes!

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  BLOOD WAS POURING down my face, over my nose, into my mouth.

  I was drowning in my own blood.

  My eyes! I could see nothing. I put my hands to my face. I could feel the deep scratches his nails had made on my skin. I was sobbing with fear. My eyes were open yet I could see nothing. My face was wet. It was blood. I knew it yet I could not see it.

  I was blinded. He had taken away my eyes.

  There was a scuttling sound on the tiles beside me. He was coming at me again. But there was no need. With that amount of blood loss I was dead or soon would be.

  I fell down upon my knees, crying and beating my fists upon the tiled floor. I was blinded. Eleanora would not love me now. How could I bear to live?

  I raised my fingers to my face. I felt my eyeballs, the orbs in their sockets. What had happened? And why had he stopped attacking me? I could hear him still grunting and groaning.

  A hand was on my back.

  ‘Rise up, Matteo,’ a voice said.

  It was Paolo.

  I began to cry even more wildly and shout out, ‘I am done for! There is a brigand here who set about me! Take care, Paolo! Save yourself!’

  ‘I have done for him,’ Paolo said.

  He came close and spoke to me in a calm voice.

  ‘When you did not return I came to look for you. I saw this man attacking you and drew my dagger and stabbed him in the neck.’

  ‘He is dead?’

  ‘He is dead.’