The Medici Seal

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Most certainly. He lies in a great welter of his own blood and does not breathe. I killed him. He is dead.’

  I moaned quietly. The thing I had wished for all my life had come to pass and I could not rejoice. Sandino was dead but I was blind.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Paolo. ‘I will use my helmet and get some water from the stream.’

  He came back in a few moments. ‘Here, drink, and I will bathe your eyes.’

  ‘Paolo,’ I whispered, ‘I cannot see.’

  ‘This doesn’t surprise me,’ he said. ‘He has pressed your eyes so viciously that they are scored and scarred with blood. But given time you may regain some of your sight.’

  As the cool liquid splashed about my face a rainbow shot across my vision, dazzling and burning like fire.

  ‘Can you see nothing?’ Paolo asked.

  I rolled my eyes. The coloured lights had gone. I shook my head. Then I felt for Paolo’s hand.

  ‘We should go,’ he said. ‘I will put rocks upon this man’s body so that buzzards will not come and attract others to the place. It may be he is one of a band and they’ll look for him.’

  But Sandino had been alone. However he was paid and however he acted, it was for his own gain.

  I made a bandage for my own eyes to protect them against the sun. Paolo took me to our horses and helped me into the saddle. We went slowly now, with him leading my horse by the rein, but we did not stop at any point in the day during that ride. At sunset he bathed my eyes again, and we lay down for the few hours of darkness of a summer night.

  The next morning Paolo shook me awake. I sat up and his face blurred before me. I reached out my hands and touched his mouth and eyes. ‘It is you,’ I said. His features were grainy and unclear but I could recognize him as Paolo. I burst into tears.

  We hugged each other.

  ‘Once again you have saved my life, Paolo dell’Orte.’

  ‘We are brothers,’ he replied. ‘What else should I do?’

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  BY THE TIME we reached the outskirts of Florence I had good sight in one eye and partial in the other. But my face was so torn and bruised that I was in no fit state to present myself at the house of Eleanora’s uncle.

  ‘Better not to enter by the front door anyway,’ Paolo counselled me. ‘Even though Eleanora was at the court of Ferrara you can’t be sure where her uncle’s sympathies lie. If he is for Pope Julius and realizes that you have fought with the French he might have you arrested. In any case’ – he laughed – ‘at the moment you have the appearance of a robber, so his porter will not let you through the gate.’

  We had made the steep and difficult ascent to the area where Eleanora’s uncle lived in the hills to the north of the city, and had now halted our horses some way off and were looking at the d’Alciato villa.

  ‘I must see Eleanora,’ I said. I was anxious lest she agree to the signing of a marriage contract before I had at least a chance to speak to her. ‘I will watch the house and seek some way to gain entry.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave you and go on to Prato,’ said Paolo. ‘The closer I am to meeting Elisabetta the more I realize how much I have missed my sister over this last year or so.’

  ‘I will find you after I have spoken to Eleanora,’ I promised him.

  We embraced and he ruffled my hair, the way an older brother might do to a younger sibling.

  ‘Have a care, Matteo,’ he said.

  I left my horse tethered among some trees and went forward between the vines and olive groves to where the house stood behind a high wall.

  The d’Alciato estate was simpler to enter than the convent where I had first met Eleanora. It had been constructed neither to keep people in nor out in any serious way. I found a small door that led through the side wall of the property. Although it was locked I easily gained entry. Once inside I looked around. There was a kitchen garden laid out near the back of the main building but much of the rest was quite wild and overgrown in parts: clumps of flowers, plants, trees and bushes with paths leading in and out. On a patch of grass was a large tree in full leaf. From its height I should be able to see the back door and the windows of the house which gave onto the garden. I picked up some small stones from the ground and put them inside my shirt. Then I climbed up and concealed myself among the branches to await any opportunity that might present itself to me. As I waited I thought of the Medici who sought me. He had told the butcher in Ferrara not to kill me, and Sandino also had those instructions. It was August, but I shivered. Jacopo de’ Medici did not just want me dead, he wanted to torture me. Eleanora had said that, by reputation, he was the cruellest of the Medici. He must need to make an example of anyone who stole from him, to show to others what would befall those that flout his power.

  In the afternoon a woman came from the house, a nurse by her dress. She shepherded a clutch of little girls in front of her. There were four of them – Eleanora’s cousins.

  Then I saw her. Eleanora. She was walking behind them, a book held in one hand. Her hair was unbound and hung around her shoulders, dark, as her face was fair. Her dress was plain burgundy with white lace at her throat, the sleeves wide at the shoulder and closed tight at the cuff.

  ‘Anna’ – I heard Eleanora address the nurse – ‘you may go and rest. I will mind the children for a while.’ She laid her book down on a stone bench that stood on the grass not far from the tree in which I hid, and devoted herself to amusing the children.

  For an hour or more they played as girls do, making believe they were at a great ball and dancing with imaginary lords and ladies. Using the flowers from the garden, they made garlands for their hair, Eleanora helping the littlest one. They strung the bells of the foxglove around their necks and used the little slippers from the fuchsia bush to place upon their fingernails to make them appear painted purple. I felt an ache as I watched them, and I knew the pain I felt was for the times at Perela, when Rossana and Elisabetta had enjoyed their girlhood with such innocent games.

  The sun was lower in the sky when the nurse came back and called to the girls.

  ‘It’s time to wash and change. Are you coming in now, Eleanora?’

  I held my breath.

  ‘I will wait and read for a little while,’ she replied.

  The girls skipped after the nurse into the house. Eleanora sat down on the bench. She looked around her and sighed. Then she opened her book.

  I took one of my pebbles and threw it down to land at her feet.

  She stood up.

  ‘Who is there?’ she said.

  I dropped from the tree onto the grass.

  ‘Ah!’ She put her hand to her breast.

  I made a bow to her.

  ‘Once again you fall out of the sky, Messer Matteo.’

  She attempted to say this calmly but her voice was not steady.

  I backed into the overgrown bushes and beckoned her to me.

  She walked slowly. Then she was in my arms and we clung to each other.

  ‘I thought I might never see you again,’ she whispered.

  ‘I followed you as soon as I could,’ I said. ‘I would follow you to the ends of the earth.’

  I buried my face in her hair and I hugged her tightly and I felt the softness of her against me. We kissed. And kissed again. There was a wildness in our embrace, a thrilling, frightening passion. Her heartbeat resonated with mine in an unsteady rhythm. She drew away a little, but returned to put her mouth on mine. She took the fleshy part of my bottom lip between her teeth and bit it softly.

  I took her in my arms again, and this time I was master of the kiss and she submitted to me.

  When we broke apart she put her hands to my face and touched my scars. ‘What ill times have befallen you?’

  ‘My journey here has not been uneventful,’ I said. ‘But a longtime enemy of mine is dead and I am much easier in my person’ – I covered her hands with my own – ‘although a little battered by the experienc
e.’

  She told me how she had fared since we had last seen each other. Next year her uncle’s eldest girl would be of marriageable age. He wanted to have Eleanora married before then. If this did not happen, her chances of a good match would be lost once the rest of his girls came of age.

  ‘My uncle summoned me and, although the Duchess Lucrezia was sympathetic, the duke declared that I must go. My uncle is only trying to do what he thinks is best for me,’ she explained.

  ‘Has he contracted you in a marriage?’ I asked.

  ‘It was about to be done, but with things now in such a state here the papers are not signed.’

  ‘What state do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ She looked at me in surprise. ‘Florence is in turmoil. The French are in full retreat through the Alps. There has been a conference at Mantua, a meeting of the members of the Holy League to share out Italy among the victors. It has been decided. The Sforza family are to rule in Milan, and Florence will have the Medici.’

  ‘But how can this be achieved?’ I asked her. ‘Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici is in the hands of the French. They captured him at Ravenna and brought him to Ferrara. I saw him there myself. He was well treated but he is still their prisoner. And the French intended to take him with them when they left Ferrara on their way north.’

  ‘They did, but he was rescued during the journey and managed to escape to Mantua,’ said Eleanora. ‘The Pope has promised him an army to help him regain Florence.’

  I wondered how Pier Soderini and the City Council would greet this news. Did they believe that Niccolò Machiavelli’s militiamen would be able to defend them? The Pope had the Spanish on his side, with their skilled soldiers and many pieces of ordnance. I remembered Ravenna, and their wily commander, Ramón de Cardona. He had cannon that was almost equal to that of Duke Alfonso. And I had seen what happened to a city that was taken after siege – Bologna and Ravenna, the casual killing, the wanton destruction of beautiful things. What would these troops do to Florence, the jewel of Tuscany?

  I tried to put myself in their heads. Which way would they approach? I imagined the terrain around Florence, the hills that surrounded her seat in the valley of the Arno. I’d had sight of the city from the mountains when I came from Melte, from the hill at Fiesole when I was there with the Maestro, from the pass by Castel Barta through the hills, and now from Eleanora’s uncle’s villa. Which way was open to an army approaching with soldiers and cannon to capture the city? I remembered pacing the streets of Imola with Leonardo da Vinci as he measured out each footstep and drew the houses and streets: the angle of every turn, the alignment of the corners. The outcome of his map as if he were a bird looking down upon the land below. If I were to view the terrain in such a way, which route would I choose?

  And then I saw something else quite clearly. The Medici believed they owned Florence. They would not see it ruined by siege or sword. They would capture some other place close by and destroy it, and thus make an example to show the Florentines what fate awaited them and their city, should they continue to resist.

  ‘I know what they will do.’ I spoke aloud. ‘They will attack Prato.’

  I turned to Eleanora. I kissed her face, her neck, eyelids.

  ‘I have friends in Prato. I must go and warn them.’

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Matteo, don’t put yourself in danger again.’

  She put her arms around my neck and I felt my sense of duty weakening. But then I spoke to her, and although she was beginning to cry she listened to me. ‘I am bound to go to Prato,’ I said. ‘If our positions were reversed, Paolo would come and rescue me. It is due to his quick thinking and bravery that I am here in this garden with you now, not lying dead on a mountain pass.’

  ‘I will lose you.’ She was crying now in earnest. ‘You will be killed. And then I too will die.’

  ‘Hush, hush.’ I tried to dry her tears. ‘I will come back, but there is something you must think on about our situation. I have no income.’

  ‘Why do you tell me this?’

  ‘It affects how things can be between us,’ I said.

  ‘What makes you think I would be concerned with the amount of money a man can lay claim to?’ she asked.

  ‘It is useful to have it.’ I smiled. ‘The obtaining of bread to eat is facilitated by its ownership.’

  ‘Don’t mock me!’ Her eyes blazed.

  ‘I did not mean to mock you. I intended only to relieve the situation with humour.’

  ‘Humour! Being a man and having the means to control your way in life means that you may jest about such matters. But women cannot.’

  ‘I am sorry for having offended you.’ I tried to draw her to me, but she resisted. I let her go then and spoke seriously. ‘Eleanora, I must go to Prato immediately and help my bond-brother Paolo and his sister Elisabetta. Forgive me for having offended you and let us not part here with a quarrel.’ I went to her and kissed her lightly on the mouth. ‘As soon as Paolo and Elisabetta are safe, I will return here and I will speak to you and your uncle. You may wish to consider if you would accept an offer of marriage from a penniless condottieri lieutenant.’

  I went out through the garden door quickly lest I should falter in my resolve. But at the foot of the hill I could not resist turning one more time to look at her.

  It is a memory I have of her, standing there, quietly weeping. Then I went on to find my horse, more slowly now, for my own eyes were filled with tears.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  IT WAS PAST midnight when I reached the house in Prato where Elisabetta was lodged.

  I thought I might have trouble getting into the town, but Paolo had already spoken to the garrison commander so they were expecting me and I was allowed free passage.

  Elisabetta and Paolo were sitting close together in the garden, talking quietly. Elisabetta got up to greet me and offer me food.

  ‘I have no time for that,’ I said after we embraced. ‘We must leave now. The Medici are set to retake Florence.’

  ‘We have heard the news, Matteo.’

  ‘There will be a battle here very soon,’ I said urgently.

  ‘We know this,’ Paolo said. ‘Machiavelli is mustering the militia and I have decided to stay and fight for Florence.’

  I turned to Elisabetta. ‘You cannot remain here.’

  ‘I cannot leave,’ she replied.

  ‘Elisabetta’ – I took her hand – ‘listen to me. I have been at the sieges of towns, on both sides. I have seen what happens to the citizens. You must leave.’

  ‘I will not leave,’ she said firmly. ‘Donna Cosma, who lives in this house, is too ill to be moved. She and her husband took me in when I had nothing and cared for me. Her husband has since died and I will not abandon her in her hour of need.’

  ‘Paolo,’ I appealed to him. ‘Tell your sister to go while there is still time to get away.’

  ‘I have argued with her these several hours,’ Paolo replied, ‘and have been unable to make her change her mind.’

  ‘The days when I did what my brother ordered are gone long since.’ Elisabetta laughed. ‘Will you eat something now, Matteo?’

  We ate and then lay down to rest, fearful of what the next day would bring.

  Paolo and I made up beds for ourselves on the ground floor. Paolo still carried his father’s sword and slept with it by his side. We did not fall asleep at once but lay awake talking, remembering the nights before all the other battles we had fought together. But tomorrow’s battle would be the final outcome. We both knew that. If Prato fell then Florence would no longer be a republic: the Medici would be installed to rule the city.

  After a time we were quiet, each with our own thoughts and fears. My mind returned to the fight with Sandino. The relief of his death had ebbed away and I was now left with an unsolved puzzle. How was it that I knew of the hunting lodge at Castel Barta? Why did I recognize the pattern of the tiles on the floor there? It was from some deep memory but I could not dredge it up
from wherever it lay inside my head. And then I thought of Eleanora, and how we had kissed in her uncle’s garden, and my heart lifted with a hope that I might win through and see her again.

  Paolo must have drifted into sleep for he suddenly cried out, ‘Dario!’

  ‘Hush!’ I said. ‘You will wake the women folk.’

  ‘He is here,’ he said, sitting up on his mattress.

  The shutter was open for the heat of the night, and I could see by the light of the moon that we were alone. But Paolo was so agitated that I rose up and went to him.

  ‘There is no one here but us,’ I said.

  He held out his hand before him as if to take the arm of someone who stood there. Then he woke properly, and stared at me as I knelt by his bed. He tried to laugh it off but he was shaking. I fetched some wine and we went outside.

  The stars were bright. The moon, lying on the horizon, full and mystical in the night sky. Was it covered with water, as my master believed it to be? Was that silvery sheen the surface of large lakes reflecting their translucent glow back to Earth? Or was there something else there, another world of silver and light? And what lay beyond that celestial body? The Kingdom of Heaven?

  ‘I remember when my brother Dario was born,’ Paolo said suddenly. ‘I was only nine or ten. Previous to his birth my mother had lost some children, one that was born dead and another two that lived for only a few days. So my father was anxious when she was carrying this last child, and I was old enough to know why.

  ‘Then Dario was born, and he was so lusty and strong they wept for joy. And I stood at the door of the room and watched them, and suddenly they saw me watching them, and they worried that I would be jealous of another brother. But when I saw Dario I loved him at once. I would go to his crib every day to look at him. I wanted him to grow more quickly. I wanted to teach him all the things I knew, all the things a boy needs to know, about what is right and what is not, and the proper way to behave.

  ‘And then he was no longer a baby. He began to walk and speak, and it was coming to pass that I could share my knowledge with him. He would follow me from morning until darkness, pulling away from my mother’s skins as soon as he caught sight of me. And she would laugh and pretend to complain, and say, “I have lost my baby. Dario now loves Paolo more than me.”’