by Robyn Young
Moments later, an old man entered. He was small and wizened, like a grape left too long in the sun. The pleated cape he wore over his black robes only partially disguised the hunch that crooked his back, causing him to walk with a stiff-legged limp. As he removed his cap, releasing a shock of white hair, and bowed to Lorenzo, Jack saw a tonsure marked him as a man of God.
‘Signore,’ the man began, then halted, noticing Jack with a questioning frown.
‘This is James Wynter,’ Lorenzo explained, maintaining his Latin for Jack’s benefit.
‘Sir Thomas Vaughan’s son?’ murmured the priest, revealing to Jack that they had spoken about him.
‘Master James, this is Fra Marsilio Ficino.’
Jack went to rise to greet the priest, but Marsilio had already turned away and was addressing Lorenzo in the Tuscan dialect. He sat still, watching the two of them converse, Lorenzo gesturing occasionally, the priest nodding thoughtfully then replying. All the while their eyes darted to him, telling him he was the subject.
Finally, the priest inclined his head to Lorenzo, then, with a last glance at Jack, turned towards the door. As he replaced the cap, Jack caught a flash of gold and saw that a familiar ring engraved with a caduceus – the staff of Hermes – graced his wrinkled hand. Marsilio Ficino, like Amaury and his father, was a member of Lorenzo’s Academy. He touched his own finger, marked with the pale trace of a band.
‘The hour grows late,’ observed Lorenzo, rising when Marsilio had gone. ‘I have other matters I must now attend to.’
Jack stood with him. Was that it? Was he about to be dismissed again? He fought for something to say, but Lorenzo beat him to it.
‘Fra Marsilio believes there is merit to your suggestion the girl be used to identify this man.’
‘Yes?’ ventured Jack, chest tightening in anticipation.
‘If there is, indeed, an enemy within my household they must be rooted out. Besides which, Amaury is not only a friend, he is also privy to a great deal of knowledge, which I cannot allow to be used against me. But I must think upon how best to orchestrate this. I will grant you a stipend to cover lodgings for the month, but I expect you to keep the girl in the city.’
Jack felt the headway he’d made slipping from him. In his keenness to use what Amelot had seen to his advantage he’d made her the indispensable one. What was he now but her guardian? And what might he command as a reward for the service of a mute girl? Little, he suspected, of what he’d travelled here for. Even if Amelot spied the suspect again, once she had pointed him out there would be nothing stopping Lorenzo from dismissing him. His mind raced as Lorenzo motioned him to the door, searching for something to turn the man’s attention back to him, make himself of value. ‘What if I were to join them?’
‘Join them?’
They were almost at the door. Beyond, the hall led to the inner courtyard and the doors to the street. ‘You say the Court of Wolves was established by men of war? I trained under my father, served King Edward in battle. I have the qualifications.’
‘And, as I also said, it now favours young men of the noble classes. Those with money and influence. Those with the right – pedigree.’
Jack’s blood stirred. ‘My father was one of England’s highest ranking officials. I may be his bastard, signore, but I have lived in his world. I know it well.’
‘Florence is not England. More than just miles separate our nations.’
‘I learn quickly.’ Jack pressed in, seeing Lorenzo hesitate. ‘No one in the city knows me. If I was accepted into their company I could hunt down those involved in taking Amaury, yes, but I could also perhaps discover whether or not you have reason to be troubled by them. Why they refused entry to you and your son? What do you have to lose by this course?’
Lorenzo’s dark eyes glittered. ‘The real question you want answered, Master James, is what do you have to gain?’
Jack nodded after a pause, holding his gaze.
‘Money,’ Lorenzo said. ‘For you and your men?’
‘And answers, signore. The answers my father promised I would find here. The only legacy he left me.’
* * *
‘He has told you nothing? Nothing at all?’
‘We have tried everything to make him talk, monsignore, I assure you.’
‘And I can assure you, sir, that His Holiness will be extremely displeased by your feeble attempts.’ Battista di Salvi held the knight’s gaze in his steel glare. ‘Why did you not send word to Rome, the moment the prisoner was taken?’
‘We hoped to find and return him to our custody before it was necessary.’
‘A failure on all counts, then. Well, you can inform your Grand Master the agreement will not now be honoured.’
‘Monsignore, I—’
‘You wish to offend His Holiness further?’
The knight bowed, chin dropping towards the splayed white cross that emblazoned his black surcoat.
‘I thought not. Now, let us see if we can draw something of use from the wretch.’ Battista peered into the cell, his grey eyes narrowing. ‘My companion may be an abomination of nature, but he is well versed in such matters.’ He glanced round at the figure, waiting on the fringes of the guttering torchlight. ‘Are you not, my hideous friend?’
Goro stepped forward, out of the shadows of the dank passage. As he did so, he noticed the knight move back, giving him more room than he needed, the man’s eyes lingering on his face. Inured to such intimate stares, Goro ignored him and focused instead on the cell, the door of which was hanging open, a foetid smell seeping from within. For a moment, he felt as though he were somewhere else: in the stinking bowels of another dungeon, a chorus of cries and whimpers stinging his ears, a young man before him, drenched in blood and smiling like the devil.
‘Well? What are you waiting for?’ Battista’s voice bit at his back.
Clenching his jaw against the vision, Goro ducked his huge body through the door and entered the cell. The man inside, chained to the wall, naked but for a pair of torn and filthy hose, lay crumpled in a pool of his own urine. The acrid stink permeated the cramped, lightless chamber, spiking Goro’s nose. A beard straggled from the man’s chin and his hair was matted with blood. His face, arms and torso were a mess of bruises, old and new, his skin waxy between the livid wounds, oily with sweat in the sickly light of a single torch burning on the wall. His eyes were wide, fixed on Goro as he entered, his giant form almost filling the cell. The man’s breaths came in shallow bursts, his sunken chest heaving.
Slowly, allowing the man to take in every movement, Goro reached for his belt and drew a stiletto dagger from its sheath. The blade was long and thin, the handle decorated with three crosses of milky mother-of-pearl. A gift from Carlo di Fante, it was Goro’s most prized possession: the last thing he had left of his beloved master, killed by the English whoreson in that alley.
He turned it in the light so the chained man could see its length and keenness. The man blinked rapidly, breaths quickening, but he made no sound – none of the usual pleas for mercy or promises to do or give anything Goro had heard over the years. He wasn’t surprised. Despite the monsignore’s barbed criticism, he knew the Knights of St John would be more than capable of drawing a confession out of most captives. This man, clearly, was a professional, although that much was evident from the knights’ description of the company he’d been part of, liberating the prisoner in a daring dawn raid on the castle. It seemed the knights had been fortunate to even take this man alive, his comrades leaving him for dead in the prison tower, where he’d been found barely conscious, bleeding from a head wound.
Goro heard Battista’s voice come from further down the passage, the two men leaving him alone to work. He caught his name and guessed the monsignore was talking to the knight about him. The voice nipped at him, that salty tone now all too familiar. He pushed the cell door closed, blocking it out. Turning to the chained man, his hand tightened around the dagger. He would relish this task today.
First things first, though. The captive had clearly seen many fists and blades during his incarceration here. It was time to give him something new to be frightened of. Slowly, Goro reached up and unhooked the mask – white leather over moulded steel – that covered half his face. As he pulled it away, he watched horror leap into the man’s eyes.
When he was done, hours and screams later, Goro ducked out of the cell and shambled down the passage, head bent beneath the rough-hewn ceiling, a smell like warm copper coming off his sticky hands. He found Battista talking to the knight in the guards’ room.
The monsignore rose as he appeared, the large gold cross he wore around his neck inlaid with green jewels glinting in the lantern light. His grey eyes took in the blood on Goro’s clothes. ‘Well?’
‘He and the others were paid to take the prisoner. He was never told by whom. But he said where his company was from.’
‘Where?’
‘Florence, monsignore. They came from Florence.’
7
The walled garden was haloed with light. Candles, trapped in glass and strung from the branches of trees, glittered like stars. The evening air, fragrant with herbs, was still warm from the day, the sky, framed by the high walls of the palazzo, peacock blue. Over the splashing of fountains came the murmur of conversation, punctuated by the clink of glass as servants ladled wine into goblets.
Stepping out among the first guests, Jack accepted a vessel a servant handed to him, twisting his head as the stiff collar of his shirt scratched his neck. He felt constricted, self-conscious in his new clothes. Each button on the doublet of sky-blue damask that matched his hose was a pearl inset in a shell of gold. He suspected, if he sold the garment, he could live like a lord for a year.
Earlier, in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s private suite on the palazzo’s opulent first floor, he had stood before a mirror while Papi, the elderly servant who’d been with the signore since boyhood, fussed over his attire. By the time Papi had finished, Jack hardly recognised himself. The man in the glass looked nothing like the vagabond who arrived in Florence five months ago. Now, he was clean-shaven, his dark hair trimmed and combed, sleek with perfumed oil. The hollows of his cheeks had filled out, as had the muscles of his chest and arms from his dawn duels with Ned on the banks of the Arno, and his skin was darkened by the June sun. With the fog of secrets that had risen to shroud his father, he’d been unable to guess whether Thomas Vaughan, had he lived, would have made good on his promise to see him knighted. But standing there in the magnificence of Lorenzo’s chambers, staring at his noble twin, Jack could dream he had.
Hearing raised voices, he glanced back through the doors that led into the inner courtyard. More guests were arriving, men greeting one another effusively, embracing and kissing cheeks and lips. No English reserve here. Guards met them in turn, taking daggers, servants stepping in with goblets of sweet wine to ease the transfer of arms. One of the things Jack had learned in his moments with Lorenzo over the past few months was that the man did not give his trust easily and, then, only if he had some exchange of power in return.
Over them all towered the bronze statue of David. It was an odd thing, David’s naked body almost womanly in its proportions, coquettishly poised with a sword in his hand and a foot perched on Goliath’s head. Two boys were chasing one another around its base – Lorenzo’s sons, Piero and Giovanni, dressed in doublets of rose-gold damask, their laughter high. A handsome young man stepped in to chide them with an indulgent smile, grasping Giovanni, the younger and chubbier, playfully by the shoulders. Yesterday, in the guise of his new persona, Jack had been introduced to him – Angelo Poliziano, Giovanni’s private tutor, close friend of Lorenzo and member of the Academy.
As the newcomers spilled out around him, Jack moved deeper into the gardens down paths lined with marble statues, some pristine, others ancient, in search of familiar faces. He found his men loitering in the shadows near the back of the courtyard, looking as awkward as him in their new attire as they gulped their drinks and eyed the flamboyant guests. Moths tilted at candles in the trees above them.
‘Prince Jack is it now then?’ remarked Valentine Holt, looking him up and down. ‘Don’t fret,’ he grunted at Jack’s warning stare. ‘We know our parts, Sir James.’
They looked at least, he thought, neat and well groomed, as would be expected of the men of an affluent knight abroad on business. While Valentine and Adam, clad in tunics of oil-stiffened leather, were masquerading as his bodyguards, Ned and David were his clerks, in robes of blue wool with hats to match, all loaned by Lorenzo. David had kept his beard, but the grey tangle had been shorn close to his jaw and a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles completed the scholarly look. His hair, clipped in a low line along his eyebrows, hid the brand on his forehead. Ned, with his imposing height and build, still looked intimidating, but if that made people more wary, less likely to question him, that was no bad thing. All of them were well versed in Jack’s story, but with their knowledge of the language still limited he didn’t want any mistakes.
‘You must move around,’ Jack advised, switching into French for Amelot, who was tugging at a thread on the hem of her new tunic. ‘Get a good look at everyone.’
She was dressed as his page, her brown hair cut short around her ears, but these past months she had changed from the wild thing he’d found in Paris. Despite all her efforts to appear as a boy nature was starting to make that more difficult. The blade-sharp contours of her face had softened and keen eyes would surely soon notice those buds at her chest, however tight she bound the lengths of dampened linen to hide them. She made Jack think of the bronze David in the entrance hall: a figure caught somewhere between two sexes, neither one nor the other. He wondered sometimes what had made her turn from her womanhood – an act both strange and forbidden – but since Amaury had told him almost nothing about his mute companion he doubted that unless they found the priest he would ever know.
‘If she spies her man do we tell you, or Signor Lorenzo?’ David wanted to know, his blue eyes large behind the curved glass of the spectacles.
‘Tell me. Don’t draw any attention.’ Jack glanced at Ned as he spoke, eyes shifting meaningfully to Amelot. He had no idea how she might react if, as hoped, she spotted the man she’d seen at Carnival, but with the undertaking he’d been tasked with this evening they couldn’t afford to make a scene.
Ned placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘I’ll keep her with me.’ His gaze shifted as more people flowed out into the gardens, voices rising. ‘Go. Do what you need to do. We’re with you.’
Seeing the others nod, Jack felt himself settle. It had taken time to convince all of them this charade was worth abandoning their plan to head for Spain, at least for now, but in the end the potential reward offered by Lorenzo had convinced them. Now, he just needed to make good on his promise he could make this work.
With a fortifying sip of wine, he moved into the swelling crowds. Lorenzo had told him he would make the introduction this evening, but that didn’t stop Jack’s eyes flicking over mantles and doublets in search of badges. Over the buzz of conversation delicate notes drifted from the plucked strings of lutes. He glimpsed Lorenzo’s wan-faced wife, Clarice, talking with a group of women dressed in richly embellished gowns and jewelled caps, the gems that adorned their necks and fingers flashing with every movement.
Her eldest daughters, Lucrezia and Maddalena, were perched on the stone lip of a fountain. An older girl he didn’t recognise was seated between them, framed by the glittering cascade of water. Her hair, thick and dark, was plaited neatly around her head, bound in place by silver braid. Several coiled ringlets had been teased free to frame a delicate face with high cheekbones and a sharp nose. She wore a dress of grey samite, embroidered with black falcons. It was pulled in tight at the bodice, accentuating the swell of her breasts. Her eyes narrowed as she caught his stare and she tossed her head, the ringlets dancing. As Jack moved on, he heard a peal of girlish laughter behind him.
Th
ere, where the crowds were starting to congregate, was Lorenzo, regal in a blood-scarlet mantle, clasping hands and smiling as men jostled one another to greet him at this, the first party of the summer season. During his time in the city, Jack had seen how deeply ingrained Lorenzo was in all aspects of the republic. He shaped and led the Signoria, entrenched his followers within the guilds, enlisted his sons in the confraternities, decided how churches would benefit from funds, and governed the affairs of the grand families – Florence’s elite – agreeing marriage contracts and business mergers, who would or wouldn’t be elected to public office, who could punish a rival and how. A large number of notaries and secretaries, many of them lower-class men from the Santa Maria Novella quarter – one of the city’s four districts, dominated by the Medici – who had grown up in awe of their powerful patron, were employed to keep ears and eyes open, bringing him word from every corner of the city. Bees carrying pollen back to the hive. Only the Court of Wolves, it seemed, remained out of his long reach.
Marsilio Ficino was close by, talking to Angelo Poliziano, his white hair sprouting wild from beneath a cap, the lines that carved his face deepened by shadows. Jack had only met the stoop-backed priest a few times, but Fra Vito – a monk and a friend of Lorenzo’s, who’d been teaching him Tuscan at the nearby monastery of San Marco – had told him all about the renowned scholar, astrologer and philosopher. Along with Lorenzo’s grandfather, Cosimo de’ Medici, Marsilio had promoted and encouraged the spread of humanism: a philosophy that viewed the world through the eyes of ancient Greece and Rome, shaped by newly discovered writings of Plato, Cicero and Aristotle, which had travelled west some thirty-three years ago with scholars and priests fleeing the Turks advancing on Constantinople. Marsilio had translated many of these texts. As Fra Vito put it: if Cosimo was one of the fathers of humanism, Marsilio Ficino was its midwife.
