The Medici Letters: The Secret Origins of the Renaissance

by Taylor Buck

  He didn’t know where the voice was coming from or who was saying it, but he heard it echoing over and over in his mind.

  Beware the mythical beast…

  “Chester—?”

  He lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER 28

  FLORENCE

  1469

  THE WIND WAS BLUSTERING, blowing across the Piazza Santa Croce and causing the banners to flap noisily. The blast of trumpets resounded through the courtyard as Lorenzo made a grand entrance. He appeared sitting high and proud on his steed, lavishly decorated in an ornate livery of the guest to whom he had dedicated today’s events. On his head he wore a helmet with a crest of sky-blue feathers along with a half-surcoat of the same color. His breastplate was sky-blue and decorated with golden fleurs-du-lys to match the double bards draped across his muscular black steed. In his right hand he held a standard, a painted sign that displayed publicly to whom he was dedicating his battle. It showed a beautiful painting crafted by his friend Verrocchio, depicting a female figure dressed in a sky-blue dress and seated in a green meadow of flowers. She was picking from a laurel bush and weaving together a crown to give to her beloved knight. Her hair was long and dark, her eyes as green as the hills. It was the stunning portrait of the woman seated in the main balcony at the center of the ring… Lucrezia Donati.

  This day, an equestrian contest was held in her honor—a joust in which Lorenzo was allowed to pledge himself to her. A common event among noble parties, the joust was ingrained in true humanistic fashion. Men of Lorenzo’s rank were allowed to display platonic love for a woman (even a married one) so long as it was deemed solely for chivalric muse. Arrangements of spectacular fashion such as this hearkened back to the ancient age wherein the hero fought bravely for his lady. Helen of Troy was indeed a truly exemplary icon. Lorenzo’s mentor, Marsilio Ficino supported this exhibition of chivalry because it fortified humanist idealism and encouraged men to fight bravely and honorably. Contrary to common perception, it wasn’t just a show of masculinity. It also endorsed femininity and maintained a high regard for women—honoring them for what they were, delicate flora. The winning participant of the joust was to be rewarded with a prize (usually armor) and a kiss from the flora, symbolizing both love and war. Lorenzo had wished to arrange the event sooner, but matters of family, business and politics were in the way, forcing the events to take place in the heart of winter. The weather wasn’t ideal for games, but it was the last time in which Lorenzo was available to divulge in the blithe ways of a bachelor...

  Come June, he was to be married.

  Lorenzo parted from his retinue and trotted stoically to the main stage. Holding the standard up high, he used his free hand to place a garland of violets around his neck. Lucrezia smiled favorably as her knight displayed the gift she had given him only days before. After making his pledges to her and acknowledging his mother and father on stage, Lorenzo rode to his squire in order to ready himself for competition. He checked his armor for strength, tugging at his harness and tightened his caparison. Lastly he received the lance as he lined up opposite his opponent, Giovanni Ubaldini, the captain-general of the league’s army sent by Frederico da Montefeltro. Lorenzo’s lineup of competitors included many worthy adversaries from the far reaches of Tuscany. This only made the match more exciting and provided an opportunity to reveal Lorenzo’s confidence in his own physical abilities. Most noble dignitaries would select opponents with a mediocre skill level to make themselves appear more adept. Lorenzo hadn’t thought to do so. He wanted the competition to be authentic… he wanted a challenge worthy of a public allegrezza (spectacle).

  The riders positioned themselves directly across from one another with only a narrow wooden tilt between them. Lorenzo breathed out slowly and prepared for the signal to come. The crowd’s cheering grew quiet as they anticipated the ensuing mêlée. The flag fell and a cry rang out as the riders shot forward. The cadence of galloping hooves echoed throughout the piazza as the men drew closer. Lorenzo steered his lance inward and leaned in close to the flowing mane of his prized steed. He focused on the red lion carved into Ubaldini’s shield and locked it into his sights. The horses charged forward steadily. Lorenzo kept his eyes on the shield, concentrating intently until the collision occurred.

  A loud report echoed off the surrounding stone houses as wood shattered and splintered into the air. A horse neighed in protest as its rider slung backward and was nearly swept under its sharp hooves. The crowd gasped in concern as the rider hung limply from his steed. Ubaldini’s retinue rushed down from their seats to attend to their master, but it was Lorenzo who was first to help. He dismounted and pulled Ubaldini free of his saddle while using his own body as a barrier to keep the horse pinned close to the tilt for long enough to clear Ubaldini. The crowd watched silently as it took a moment for Ubaldini to gain his senses, but when he came to, he waved to the crowd gallantly and slapped Lorenzo appreciatively on the back. The crowd erupted in a cheer for not only Lorenzo’s heroics, but also the mercy he showed in aiding his adversary.

  The wind continued to blow across the piazza, stirring up dust and increasing its force. Lorenzo battled two more opponents successfully—Carlo de Forme and Piero da Trani. He had successfully won the crowd and the heart of Lucrezia who watched on proudly. His efforts had already earned him the premier ranking position in the games, but he still had one final joust to perform. His opponent was a notable member of an esteemed family with which Lorenzo’s father had bank dealings. His name was Francesco de’Pazzi.

  The riders took their positions. The signal sounded and the horses burst forth from their lines. Lorenzo could feel Morello di Vento alter course slightly as the strong wind blew fiercely against horse and rider. Lorenzo quickly corrected and steadied his lance. Francesco closed in quickly; the wind at his back pressed him forward with speed and force. Lorenzo clenched the reins tightly and dug his heels in. Before the two men converged, a gust of wind forced Lorenzo’s lance off its mark, causing him to strike high on Francesco’s shield. It mattered not, as Francesco’s blow came low and hard, delivering a massive strike to the bottom of Lorenzo’s shield. The force of the blow sent a shattering report through the stadium as Francesco’s lance splintered apart and buried beneath Lorenzo’s saddle. Morello di Vento instantly collapsing to the ground. Lorenzo reacted quickly and released the reins. He rolled sideways off his horse as it tumbled violently in a cloud of dust and came to a stop beside the wooden tilt. The crowd gasped and quickly fell silent. The wind continued to blow ferociously. Lucrezia jumped to her feet and rushed the banister to get a better view. Lorenzo picked himself up, threw aside his helmet and sprinted to his horse. The black steed lie on his side, breathing shallowly and gently whinnying in pain. Lorenzo stroked the thick dark mane and whispered words of comfort to his dying companion. He was instantly flooded with boyhood memories. The breaths grew shorter until the horse’s large barrel chest ceased to move at all. Death came nobly and quickly.

  Francesco de’Pazzi trotted up behind Lorenzo, blocking out the sun. “Is the beast dead?”

  Lorenzo took a moment, then nodded.

  “Then I offer my apologies, Lorenzo. Surely you know it was not my intent to… the wind…I—”

  “It is finished, Francesco. The joust is over. I shall remove my steed from the grounds now.”

  “If your beast was a prized asset, then I shall replace him. You can have your pick from my select stable.” Francesco remained atop his horse. “I have the finest breeds of warmblood chargers in Tuscany. I’m certain you will find a worthy substitute.”

  Lorenzo said nothing. There was no sense trying to articulate sentiment, the finest horse in the land was no replacement for such a steed as Morello di Vento.

  “Nevertheless, I offer my congratulations to you,” Francesco said, “Surely my inadvertent action will disqualify me from ranking, so to you I offer my salute.” He reached his arm forth and flattened his palm. The motion hailed Lorenzo as victor. The crowd, wait
ing in anticipation, welcomed the gesture with raucous praise that filled the piazza.

  The games ended and the ceremony ensued. Lucrezia summoned the ranking contestants to the stage. Lorenzo, his friend Carlo Borromeo, and Lorenzo’s cousin, Braccio, all took position at the center of the piazza. The second and third ranked contestants received a kiss from Lucrezia, which instigated shouts of both praise and jest from the crowd. Then it was Lorenzo’s turn. Lucrezia leaned in close and whispered in Lorenzo’s ear, then she pressed her lips to his and remained there long enough for shouts of admiration and whoops of joy to flow wildly.

  Piero’s servants helped him out of his chair. His health had failed to the point where he required to be carried everywhere. No longer an attendee of public events, it was a rare occurrence when Piero even left the villa. Today was special, though. He wasn’t going to miss his eldest son’s allegrezza.

  Piero held out the customary prize to his son—a helmet worked in silver and gold bearing a crest of Mars standing on his own star, a spear in one hand and a crown of laurel in the other. Lorenzo bowed and received it appreciatively. The city cheered and the celebrations began. It would be another night worth remembering.

  Below, from the shadows of the center stage, Francesco de’Pazzi watched as Lorenzo was hailed victor. The people looked to him adoringly, as if he were their king. They began to shout claims of praise over and over until the whole of Florence was chanting in unison.

  Lorenzo, il magnifico… Lorenzo il magnifico.

  Francesco’s eyes narrowed, his fist clenched tightly. A sensation spurred inside him… one he couldn’t suppress if he tried. It overtook him, igniting a fire of hatred, retribution and borderline lunacy—but most concerning was the malicious spore growing deep inside him, a dark longing for social significance that conceived an idea so black and wicked that the notion itself made him cringe… The more he pondered, the more he accepted it as conceivable. He reveled in it, was guided by it and ultimately became a historical symbol of it…

  Invidia… Francesco da’Pazzi utterly seethed with envy.

  CHAPTER 29

  SIENA, ITALY

  SEPTEMBER 10

  JACK FELT LIKE HE was inside a cement mixer—rolling, tumbling and falling—his head slamming against the hard walls over and over again.

  “Jack?”

  He opened his eyes and stared up at the colored plaster ceiling—eggshell white. Medical equipment hung all around him while the beep of the electrocardiographic heart monitor paced rhythmically somewhere close by. The room in which he awoke had no window. Why? Where was the window? He remembered Kat’s room having a large window... industrial blinds.

  “Kat…” he whispered.

  “Jack.” Chester’s voice woke Jack from his drowsy state.

  “Where…?”

  “You’re in a local hospital, in Siena. Policlinico Le Scotte. You lost consciousness. I had to bring you here.”

  Jack looked around the room, grasping for frames of cognizance. He found Chester sitting in a white chair across from him.

  “What happened?” Jack mumbled.

  “You were drugged. The doctor said you ingested an airborne toxin in powder form.”

  “Powder?”

  “Yes. The doctors weren’t sure what it was, so I looked into it,” Chester said. “It’s an ancient defense tactic known as metsubishi, which in Japanese, means sight remover.”

  “Japanese?”

  “Yes. In fact, ninja’s used them. Forms of metsubishi were also westernized and used in medieval comba—”

  “Hold on, Chester… Ninjas?” Jack groaned, quelling the pressing urge to add a cynical comment. He would have if it weren’t for the throbbing headache.

  Chester leaned forward in his chair with a concerned frown. “Jack, you nearly died last night. Do you remember being poisoned?”

  Jack had to dig deep. He tried to access the scrambled mess of events in his mind, however doing so greatly increased the throbbing pulsation between his temples. The events that surfaced were a cloudy heap of bizarre memories. “Not really,” he said. “How was I poisoned?”

  “It could’ve happened a number of ways. It’s usually thrown in pouches. Like a puff of smoke.”

  Jack shook his head. “What was in it, exactly?”

  “Yours was a concoction. The doctor pulled traces from your nostrils and eyebrows. He found some bizarre stuff…stinging nettle hairs, cayenne pepper and traces of dimethyltryptamine.”

  “Dime-tha-what?”

  “DMT. It’s a potent psychedelic and hallucinogen pulled from plants. You probably saw some crazy stuff, yeah?”

  Jack tried to recall the events, he remembered some sort of incident with animals in the alley. The yellow face of a giraffe flashed through his memory. “You have no idea,” he said glancing at his watch. It was one o’clock. The night had turned out exhausting.

  “It’s one?”

  “Yes. Thursday,” Chester informed.

  “Wait, it’s one… in the afternoon?” Jack realized he had stayed the entire night and half of the following day in the hospital.

  “Yes, Jack,” said Chester. “You’ve been out for twelve hours. You obviously needed the rest.”

  Jack kicked his feet over the side of the hospital bed and searched for his clothes. His found his white t-shirt, black hoody, khakis and boots, laundered and neatly placed beside the bed.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Chester.

  “I’m fine,” he said putting his pants on. “We have to go. We can’t let Forbes get to those locations first.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Chester standing up from his chair. “Oh, I did some research while you were sleeping and found out what the areas were that were circled on the map.”

  Jack spun around. “You did?”

  “Of course. The areas that were circled on the map indicate the locations of the Medici villas.”

  “The villas…” Jack said aloud. “Of course it’s the villas.”

  It made perfect sense. In fact, Jack was annoyed with himself for not pursuing his gut earlier. The Medici villas were spread throughout Florence as hunting lodges and family getaways. It would be the perfect spot to hide a treasure. The problem, it seemed, would be locating the right one as there were upwards of thirty.

  “Our fantasma took the maps,” Jack said. “Which leads me to believe that he’s not working directly with Forbes. That means there are at least 3 players searching for the same thing…Forbes, this ninja-guy and us. And all of us are going to the same locations.”

  “That is… if Forbes is actually correct in determining the villas as the location of the treasure,” Chester said.

  “Regardless, if the man who attacked my wife is going there, I’m going there. I possibly blew my only opportunity to reveal my wife’s attacker, and I’m not going to lose out on a second chance.”

  Jack zipped up his hoody and began to walk across the room. Suddenly, the walls began to warp as if they were collapsing inward. Jack felt the blood rapidly drain from his head. He caught himself from falling by grabbing the bed frame.

  “Easy Jack,” Chester said scooping him up by the arm. “You’re probably still weak from the toxin. You shouldn’t move too quickly.”

  Jack shook off the wooziness. “We’ve got to get to Florence right away. The longer we—”

  “Take it easy,” interrupted Chester. “It’s already arranged, Jack. I’ve got tickets for the two o’clock train to Florence. I was just waiting on you.”

  Jack managed a weak smile. “Thanks Chester. We’re starting to make a good team, you and I.”

  “Yes,” agreed Chester. “As long as you’re the one pursuing enemies on horseback and not me.” He escorted Jack out of the room by his arm.

  Jack paused suddenly and wrinkled his brow. He looked at Chester.

  “…a horse?”

  CHAPTER 30

  FLORENCE, ITALY

  SEPTEMBER 10

  JACK AND
CHESTER LEFT the train station, Santa Maria Novella, and walked onto the street. They had returned to Florence, but this time, instead of hailing a taxi they were greeted by a more familiar face.

  “Signore Valente,” Jack called out as he waved him over. Valente pulled his black metallic Alpha Romeo model 159 to the curb and stepped out of the vehicle.

  “Buon giorno,” he said in his deep voice as he walked around to greet them. “I’m very glad you called, Mr. Cullen. As I said on the phone, I have a feeling that you will be quite intrigued with what Massimo and I discovered.”

  Just prior to arriving in Florence, Jack had received a very endearing message from Valente. He offered to fly Jack’s daughters out to Switzerland, put them all up in an inn and even cover the living expenses while Kathleen was on the mend. It seemed the contribution that Kathleen had provided to the MPS was significant enough for Valente to respond quite generously. He had explained that during Kathleen’s time leading the dig she had been most generous and receptive to the Medici Preservation Society’s involvement. “Because of Kathleen’s persuasiveness,” he said, “we were able to assume control of the dig from the city of Florence—something that would have never happened had she not been involved.”

  Jack thought intently on the offer. He wanted to do what was best for his family, but he wasn’t convinced bringing them to Lucerne was the right thing. In all honesty, he had become much more involved with investigating the accident than he intended, risking his life on a few occasions—scaling buildings, chasing an assailant on horseback…not to mention he’d also been poisoned. He was being careless. He had to think about his daughters—they were depending on him. There were also others depending on Jack as well, including Forlino. Both he and Valente now relied on him to continue safely excavating articles belonging to the Medici—a family, Valente reiterated, they had spent their lifetime attempting to preserve. Valente gave Kathleen all of the credit and said that they were forever indebted to her. What impressed Jack most was his comment about family. “A father needs to be with his daughters in a time like this,” he said.