by Edale Lane
“Antonio has joined the army,” she cried, “because of me. He might die, and my heart would perish with him.”
This time Daniella put her arm around her daughter and hugged her close. “Why because of you?”
“I told him we must never see each other again, because Father forbid it. I was scared for him, Mother, I still am!”
“You did the right thing, child. It was not you who drove him away; it was the man that rules our lives. But,” she added raising her tone to one of optimism. “It might be a good thing. He will come back a mature, fully grown man, with skills and experience in combat, with confidence and determination.” Excitement grew in her voice. “He may challenge Benetto to a duel and slay the beast.”
“Mother!” Agnese lifted her head and stared dumbfounded at Daniella. She couldn’t recall her mother speaking so openly with animosity toward her father. The woman was usually so subservient and docile. Conceivably it was these thoughts of her imminent death that made her so bold.
Roused from the rebuke, Daniella resumed her quiet demeanor. “What were we talking about? Oh, yes, Antonio. Do you love him?”
“I do, Mother; God help me, but I do. What can I do besides pray for him?”
A shiver ran through her mother’s frame and then she shook her head. “That is all that I know, Vita Mia. I had no choice in my marriage and you will likely have no say in yours. I am sorry, but that is the way of it. We are women; we don’t get to make choices.”
Then a thought occurred to Agnese. “There is one choice I might make, and father could not stop me.” Her mother looked at her with a puzzled expression. “I could move to the convent and take the vows of a nun. I could become married to the Church.”
Daniella shuddered. “That is a hard life from what I understand. No comforts, long days, taking orders from bitter old abbesses and prioresses, never being able to bear a child of your own.” She shook her head. “Hold that as a last resort, Agnese, a last resort.” Daniella patted the hair on her wig and handed Agnese back the handkerchief, now damp, and changed the subject abruptly. “I don’t want you to dye your hair any longer.”
Agnese was confused. “But Mother, you said it was the fashion, that golden hair was more desirable than my mousy brown and I should do everything possible to be attractive to men so I can entice a good match.”
“I know what I told you, but I may have been wrong. I noticed that many women my age who dyed their hair in the past now are wearing wigs as I do. It may possibly be something in the dye that caused my hair to fall out, or it could have been the same malady that causes my other symptoms.” Her eyes bore upon Agnese’s face. “And don’t use too much powder. I understand whitening your face is the thing to do, but I wonder…” She reached a hand up and stroked Agnese’s cheek. “How can one improve on God’s workmanship? You are beautiful just the way you are, without enhancements.”
“Oh, Mother,” she sighed and held her in a tight embrace. “I love you. Things will get better, you’ll see. Keep taking your tonic and try not to dwell on unpleasantries.” And I shall do the same.
Maddie had not been looking forward to Friday morning. She stood with Portia and Alessandro in their entry hall. Florentina was upstairs with her children and her niece and nephew were off to their respective classes.
Ally lifted his travel bag and looped the strap over his shoulder. “I will only be gone for a week,” he promised with a smile. “Madelena can look after the business and you, Tesoro, can administer the household.”
“But we haven’t even acquired a new chief butler yet to replace Iseppo,” she pouted as she secured a belt around his overcoat.
“Then promote another member of the staff, at least temporarily. You know my client in Bern is a very important one.”
“But that is in the Swiss Confederation,” Madelena pointed out, “and you will need to cross the Alps.”
“Which is why I am leaving now, before the snows get too deep. You two women behave as if I’m a lad taking his first trip away from home,” he laughed. “I’ll be safe, you will behave, and all shall be well.”
He hugged them both, kissed his wife, and struck out before they could put up even more of a fuss. But Maddie had reason to be apprehensive; the last time she sent a man of the house out on a journey he didn’t return alive. However, she did not voice her concerns to Portia. “Oh, he’ll be as safe as treasure on the moon,” she said dismissively. “We women are perfectly capable of running things for a week.”
“You know,” Portia mused placing a hand to her narrow chin, “every year about this time he has to travel somewhere far away on business. Last year it was Napoli, and before that Vienna. Do you remember a few years ago he traveled to Paris and brought us each back such lovely parasols?”
“Yes, I remember,” Maddie said with a smile. “That’s what happens when you are married to the most successful merchant in the city known around the world for its merchants. I’m surprised he hasn’t voyaged as far as the Orient!”
“Shush,” Portia demanded as she drew in her lips. “Don’t even think such a thing!”
Maddie tried not to worry. She was confident Ally could handle himself and she knew there were men she may call on in a pinch just down the street at the production house. Alessandro had asked the friendly watchman, Salvador Sfondrati, to look in on them daily. Still, unease needled the back of her mind.
Chapter 18
Florentina had planned Saturday’s strike by the Night Flyer with precision. It was the afternoon of the city’s big Calcio championship, the last game of the season. It would draw thousands of spectators to the sandy playing field surrounded by rows of seating for the audience which was fortuitously situated near the eastern gate through which Benetto’s men should be entering sometime around dusk. Unless he had changed his schedule–in which case the whole mission was for naught–a large shipment of goods was being sent to Venice and those returning with the profits were expected back at that time. They should be passing through the gate around the same time a throng of rowdy football fans would be pouring into the streets in that part of town, an obstacle better than a fallen log.
Her father had taken her to see the sport played once, but he had not cared for it. While originating in Florence and being widely popular there, Milan had adapted their own version which had soon attracted a wide following. Florentina found Calcio rather barbaric, but she could understand its appeal to the masses. Two teams of musclebound athletes, competing without shirts–a more modest version of the ancient Olympic Games while still allowing athletes to show off their physiques–each tried to get a ball to the other end of the field. They could throw, kick, or run with the ball, but those were basically the only rules. Fighting was not only allowed, but expected; therefore it was quite a blood sport, enjoyed by men for that reason, and by women who gushed over the physical attributes of the players.
Milan boasted four official teams, one from each quadrant of the city. While many youths threw together unofficial bouts in any large empty space they might find, the recognized teams could only draw their competitors from the ranks of the upper class and nobility. As Florentina recalled, Giovanni Sacchi’s son Pietro was a star player on the Minotaurs, the team representing the southern district. Anyway, the sport was of no import to her plan, but the huge event was crucial; everyone was talking about it and the streets would be jammed with people.
The Night Flyer, in full gear, crouched above the eastern gate watching and waiting. The city walls were made of thick stones and spread twenty feet wide with an avenue atop it. The walkway was only accessible to soldiers and city guards and sported four and five foot high battlements along its length. But the war Spain and France fought over the Duchy was being played out far away posing no military threat to Milan, thus all the soldiers had been sent to the front. The guards were gathered over a hundred yards away observing the sporting event from their free perch.
But Florentina’s focus was set outside the metropolis w
here lay fields of grain, pastures of grazing livestock, and the highway from Venice. The time spent waiting was used to review the order and elements of her plan as well as to contrive contingencies for every eventuality. The other Night Flyer attacks, besides at the warehouse, had been away from town; therefore, Florentina suspected that once the city was in view, the caravan would relax assuming the danger was passed. After all, who would attempt to carry out so daring a robbery with thousands of people to witness it and with constables near at hand? Yes, they would let their guard down, feel safe, and then she would strike.
She double checked her equipment; everything was where it should be, including a new addition. Because her backpack was occupied by her flying device, she had purchased and modified a black leather bag to wear strapped across her chest into which to deposit the coin bags she would collect. She also considered they may change how they transport the money after the coach robbery, but she speculated that Stefano would be closest to the cache.
The Night Flyer heard the roar of the crowd from the stadium nearby as the sun sank low in the sky. The game must be almost over by now, she thought as her eyes studied the road. There had been little traffic through the gate, but at last she spied some riders approaching. She heightened her senses and held a spyglass to her right eye, turning the adjuster to gain the correct focus. There were no wagons or carriages, but ten men on horseback riding in twos. That is definitely a purposeful formation, she considered. I don’t see a banner but they are wearing Viscardi colors. Ah ha! Stefano! Her heartbeat accelerated and she sensed energy shoot through her body.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” The sound of the deep booming voice had her momentarily stunned. She swallowed hard forcing her brain to remember what to do if discovered.
Don’t panic. You planned for this possibility.
Leonardo had devoted much of his time and genius to the field of anatomy and medicine. That is how she had learned about the ingredients to mix in her gas cloud potion. Additionally, he had kept many books copied from ancient writers lying about and her knowledge of Latin made it easy for her to soak up as much information as possible. Two of the medical books she had read were by the Roman scholar Aulus Cornelius Celsus and the Greek surgeon Galen. They had written about a technique to administer ointments and liquids in a manner similar to how a snake injected its venom, by filling a tiny glass vial with the appropriate substance and pushing it into the body of the patient through a needle at one end. Modern physicians did not employ the technique because they didn’t know enough about it and had sworn by the words of Hippocrates to first do no harm.
Florentina didn’t want to kill people if avoidable; after all, this watchman hadn’t murdered her father. But she did need to employ techniques that required minimal physical strength and would create a result as quickly as possible. Therefore, she had fashioned a few of these needle vials and filled them with opium, an Oriental drug made from the poppy plant. Leonardo said that opium was once used to induce sleep for surgeries, but that its use was discontinued because patients kept wanting more of the opiate long after their ailments were healed. Florentina was not worried about the guard developing an addiction as he would have no idea what drug was used on him.
She took a deep breath and carefully removed the wrapped vial from a pouch on her belt. “Just wanted to watch the game,” she said knowing that she was on the wrong part of the wall for that. It was a ploy to buy time. In an instant she swung her arm and torso around, stabbed the needle into the man’s leg, and pushed the plunger.
“Hey!” he cried and stepped back before she could withdraw it. He reached down and swatted at the vial protruding from his calf breaking the needle off in his muscle.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the Night Flyer said as she remained in her crouch. “It’s going to put you to sleep. Don’t you feel sleepy?”
A strange smile crossed his face as his eyes became unfocused. “I feel, I feel good,” he mused and slid down the battlement to sit on the stone walkway a few feet from her, his legs splayed out in front of him. “I feel… wow,” he added dreamily. Knowing that the drug was doing its work, the Night Flyer returned to the mission. Viscardi’s men were beginning to pass through the gate. It was time.
Stefano rode in the middle of the line beside some brutish looking bearded man who was heavily armed. Both riders had bulging brown leather saddle bags hanging across their mounts’ hind quarters. How would she collect all the coins?
Florentina’s mind raced as she secured her grappling hook around one of the stone battlements a few yards to the left of the open gateway arch. She had drawn and measured the arc she would need to create on paper back in her room while designing the plan. If she could maintain her speed she should be able to complete the arc twice, thus allowing her to collect both saddlebags. If it didn’t work, she could always run like hell! One more glance down to estimate the distance: the wall was twenty feet high, add five feet for the battlement, subtract five feet for the height of the horse’s back, and she stepped off eighteen feet of rope, wrapped it around her wrist gripping tightly with her gloved hand, and looked down again. Stefano and his companion had just cleared the gate; she jumped.
Phase one was to catch one foot in the cord so that her head and outstretched arm were facing downward. She had practiced this move with her rope tied to a tree branch, so it went rather smoothly. Part two, grab Stefano’s saddle bag without interrupting the flow of her arc. Yes! It was heavy, but that only added to her momentum as her swing brought her up toward the top of the wall on the other side of the gate. As she saw herself almost level with the top, she threw the bags with the thrust of her swing and they landed on the rampart.
Having reached the peak of the sweep, the Night Flyer started to descend, her motion carrying her back along the same path she had just taken, much like the pendulum on a clock. With her right hand secured in the cord, she reached with her left to snatch the other saddle bag but was met by the edge of Zuane’s blade. It scraped across her arm but because of the speed of her motion did not cut too deeply to prevent her from grasping her prize. Up, up, the rise of her arc took her, and she tossed the sack over onto the top of the wall.
The next step was to launch herself onto the wall, which was the more difficult part. Having made two sweeps already, her momentum was waning, so to add more thrust she unwound her foot from the cord, slipped right side upwards, and kicked off the stone fortification. This threw her arc outward over the crowd and away from Viscardi’s men. Now clinging to the rope by both hands, she readied her feet to strike the side as she sped toward it. Success! Now just run up the stones a few steps and there! She tumbled over the wall in a heap.
There was not a moment to waste. The entire heist took less than one minute but it had attracted a great deal of attention. The Night Flyer scrambled to her feet, scooped up the first saddle bag and ran away from the group of guards toward her grappling hook and the other bag. Pausing to untie the hook and cord from the battlement, she glanced back at the pursuing watchmen. There was about a dozen of them, most with swords or pikes and a few attempting to arm their arabesques. She wasn’t worried about those. Leonardo had drawn plans for improvements, but the novel firearms were notoriously off target. The lead balls they shot were not made to precise sizes and often rattled around in the barrels exiting with a bizarre spin. Additionally, the barrels themselves if not cleaned regularly would contain particles that threw off the shot. Add to this the fact that the shooters were moving as they fired and she was not concerned about those weapons. But it was essential that she be off the wall before the armed men reached her position.
She stuffed the grappling hook into her belt and then raced to the other saddlebags. Kneeling down, and keeping one eye on the advancing guards, she transferred sack after sack of coins into the bag she had strapped to her chest. It was soon apparent they would not all fit, so she made an instantaneous decision.
The streets below were jam-packed with the
crowd leaving the ball field and she could hear Stefano shouting obscenities at her. But Viscardi’s men on horseback were surrounded by a sea of Calcio fans and may as well have been stuck in a tar pit. However, a few of them did have crossbows which would be a problem once she stood up. So before doing so, she lifted out four coin pouches that she had no room for and began heaving them over the wall as far into the crowd as her feminine muscles could manage.
Immediately, young, old, poor, rich, middle-class, male, female, and even clergymen descended upon the spilt bags of coins like ants onto a drop of honey. She grinned from an opening between the battlements, then saw the troop closing in on her. It was awkward running with the heavy pack bouncing against her core. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be with child? her mind conjured. As she neared a bend in the wall, she pulled the handle that deployed her gliding wings just as the sound of an arabesque rang out. She leaped off the side and began soaring over the city.
Excited voices sounded from below and people started pointing at her. She couldn’t hear any individual, only a wild cacophony. Once she steered herself over one of the busy streets, she released the left handle and began pulling out coin pouches and dropping them amongst the excitement below. The crowd, with all eyes toward the sky, parted as each bag fell, then pounced like ravenous vultures as it burst onto the cobblestones. She needed to do this as quickly as possible as the excess weight caused her to descend faster than usual.
She maneuvered over the shopping district and managed to land safely on a rooftop in an area where the buildings were all crammed close together. Then she pulled in her wings and bounded across terra-cotta tiles, tossing out all but one of the coin bags. Now, time to disappear.
