by Robyn Young
Jack heard Amaury’s rasping voice.
We believe something else lies between Christendom and the shores of Cathay and Cipangu. Between Occident and Orient. Plato called it Atlantis. We call it New Eden.
Ned shrugged in his silence. ‘I just wonder if we’re seeking our fortunes in the wrong place?’ He held up his hand as Jack went to argue. ‘I’m with you. I’m just saying, if getting in with Marco and this company goes nowhere, we might find ourselves something even greater out there?’ He gestured in a vague westerly direction.
Jack thought of the glint in Ned’s eyes as he had traced the contours of that inked coastline in the candlelit gloom of the Ferryman’s Arms; the hoarded shells he’d seen his friend – one arm crooked behind his head – turning in his fingers at night sometimes. Lodestones to adventure. Since he’d known him, the man had talked of travel and distant lands – always wondering what was over the next horizon, feet tapping to be off. Jack envied him. If he could walk free now, out of this city, looking forward, never back, he would. ‘You know who you are, don’t you, Ned?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know where you come from, who you were born to and what you were born into.’
‘I suppose,’ Ned agreed dubiously. ‘I’m just me.’
‘I’ve never known who I’m supposed to be. I was born thinking my father was an innkeeper in Lewes. That he died before my birth. It wasn’t until I was older that I heard the rumours. People said James Wynter was a drunk and a cripple, who’d hanged himself when he caught my mother—’ Jack bit back the words. ‘That he wasn’t my blood at all.’ His eyes narrowed with memories: fists pummelling him down into the dirt, the taunts and kicks, laughter sharper than blades.
Bad-blood! Low-born! Bastard!
‘When I discovered Thomas Vaughan was my father, I thought I knew why I didn’t belong. I was meant for something else – another life entirely. When he took me into his command to serve with you and the others, I thought I’d found my place.’
Ned was nodding. ‘But then he was called to Ludlow, to raise the king’s son.’
‘And his own – a brother I never knew – who grew up hating me. All those years, my father kept me close yet separate, as if at a window, able to see the life I could have, but never able to touch it. When he came to me with the map I believed, at last, he would let me in. Then he was gone. Strung up on Gloucester’s orders. I still don’t know who he really was. What he believed in. Did he knowingly put my mother in danger? Allow her to be sacrificed? Did he use me too?’
‘By my faith, Jack, I cannot believe that. Whatever secrets he held in his heart, Thomas Vaughan was a good man. He could not know what would happen to your mother.’
‘He never even knew she’d died. Nor her him. His last will came when she was already gone.’ Jack blew through his teeth. ‘It’s as though I’m at sea, no land in sight. I know whatever Lorenzo tells me will not bring my family back. That it won’t change the past. But maybe those answers will let me see a shore to swim to? Until then, I cannot know what direction to travel.’
After a moment, Ned nodded. ‘Then we’ll swim together. Not that I can,’ he added with a crooked grin. ‘I’ll have to hold on to Titan. Walk with me to the river, Jack?’
‘You go.’ Jack motioned to the market. ‘I need food.’
As Ned headed off, Titan trotting beside him, Jack was turning towards the roasting spits when a cool voice sounded at his back.
‘I thought your name was James?’
Jack started round to see a young woman staring questioningly at him. It was her – the woman he’d followed the night of Lorenzo’s party. Up close she seemed even younger than he’d first thought. Sixteen? Seventeen at most. There was a smattering of dark freckles over the bridge of her nose and the high bones of her olive-skinned cheeks, which most women of standing – which clearly she was by her clothes – would have whitened with lead. Her hair was swept back beneath a gauzy blue veil, held in place by silver braids. A silver pendant, fashioned in the shape of a bird, hung on a chain around her neck. Tiny holes needled artful patterns along its back. He caught a trace of orange blossom; a whisper of sweetness among the market’s reek. ‘Signora?’
‘Your clerk,’ she said, eyes following Ned. ‘He called you Jack?’
How long had she been watching him? More importantly, how much English might she know? Had he given himself away? ‘It’s a nickname,’ he told her, switching back into Tuscan, smiling politely to cover his concern. ‘But you have me at a disadvantage, signora. I do not know your name?’
‘Laora.’
He repeated it, making sure he’d heard her correctly over the clamour of the market. ‘Are you Maddalena’s governess?’
She laughed lightly. ‘No. My father used to work with Signor Lorenzo. I grew up with Lucrezia and Maddalena. They are as sisters to me.’
‘So you are a friend of the family?’ he questioned, remembering that night, the glimmer of her gown disappearing above him. Had he been right in his suspicion – that Lorenzo might have more than one mistress beyond his wife? As he studied her, thinking how young she seemed, an image came to his mind of Lorenzo – sallow-faced and squash-nosed – drawing her to him.
Laora stiffened at his close attention. ‘Yes, a friend,’ she said briskly. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I saw you,’ he said, relieved the focus of the conversation was now on her and determined to keep it there. If she was Lorenzo’s lover, she might know more about the signore than anyone. His secrets. His plans. ‘The night of the party? Going upstairs alone?’
Her poise cracked and she looked suddenly frightened. Then, she straightened with a toss of her head. ‘I was going to Maddalena’s room. She was upset.’
Was that a lie in her flushed face? Before Jack could press her, a grizzled woman wrapped in rags approached – one of the miserabiles who haunted the streets here, many of them widowed or abandoned. Laora turned from him to dig in her purse, but Jack caught the slight tremble in her hand as she placed a coin in the woman’s outstretched bowl.
‘Signor Lorenzo has been in negotiations for Maddalena’s marriage,’ Laora continued, returning her attention to him as the woman shuffled off. ‘To the son of Pope Innocent. He’s more than twice her age and Lorenzino di’ Pierfrancesco says he’s a perpetual drunk.’
‘The pope has a son?’ Jack’s surprise eclipsed his suspicion. He swiped a trickle of sweat from his cheek. The heat was growing heavier. Flies buzzed him.
‘A bastard. Franceschetto Cybo. Only the Holy Father proclaims he is his nephew.’ As a group of people pressed in around them to reach a fruit stall where the trader was carving watermelons into juicy pink smiles, Laora moved on.
As Jack followed her, he noticed that the material of her gown, although exquisite, was faded in places. Now he thought about it, he realised it was highly unusual to see a lady of her standing on her own in the streets, especially in the mercato. Any noble women he’d seen here were always accompanied by a flock of attendants. ‘Do your father and mother not mind you being out alone?’
‘My father is away on business.’ There was a bite to her tone. Laora paused at a stall selling old clothes, the musty odour of them clagging the air.
‘Your mother?’
‘She is dead.’
Jack felt the weight of those words, but before he could say anything Laora pulled a patterned headscarf from a ratty pile on the trestle.
‘How much for this, Pia?’
The woman behind the stall, sleeves rolled up to show slim arms covered with a down of black hair, glanced over with a smile. ‘For you, signora, two denari.’
‘I come here all the time,’ Laora told him, stuffing the scarf into her purse and handing the young woman the coins. She gave a small smile as she looked around her. ‘All these people. So many stories. So much life.’
She reminded him a little of Grace; that same self-assured poise. But she also reminded him of Amelot. Some old echo of
pain in those hazel eyes.
Laora had paused in the shadow of the column that marked the centre of the market, a voluptuous statue of Abundance atop it, holding aloft her cornucopia overflowing with flowers and fruit of stone. The base of the column was slung with chains. Jack had heard an unlucky sodomite might occasionally be shackled there for a vicious flogging by the Officials of the Night, who oversaw public decency and were keen to show citizens that the laws would be enforced, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Laora squinted up with a sigh. ‘It is so hot!’ She was turning to him, about to say something more, when the air filled with a piercing shriek of birds.
Black clouds of them rose into the sky from roofs, domes and spires; from everywhere at once. Dogs began barking. Chickens flapped and squawked in their cages. All around people stopped mid-barter, mid-rummage, staring at each other in confusion.
‘What—’ Jack sensed a tremor in the ground beneath his feet. He’d felt something similar once before, on the field of battle, braced behind his father and Ned and the others, the Lancastrians’ heavy cavalry thundering towards them. He turned, searching for horsemen.
The bells of nearby churches were beginning to ring, but not with their normal clanging: more as if the tremor was running up the walls to shudder through them. The quaking intensified. Stalls juddered, goblets and candlesticks toppling. Shutters on buildings clattered madly in their frames, as though the houses were being shaken by some enormous invisible force. People were shouting, traders grabbing at falling wares.
A stall selling pans collapsed with a crash, the iron pots rolling off in all directions. It sparked a panic among some of the crowd, several of them running for the nearby church, as if for sanctuary. A heavy-set man knocked into Laora, sending her flying. Jack, stumbling across the trembling ground, went to help her. As he took her hand he heard a sharp crack behind him, like the report of a gun. Someone screamed. Whipping round, Jack saw a thin fissure snaking its way up the column, which was swaying on its base, the chains rattling wildly. Hauling Laora to her feet, he pulled her away as the horn in the hand of Abundance broke off, chunks of stone smashing down.
A moment later and the quaking began to lessen, rolling away beneath the city, until it had gone completely. For a second there was nothing but eerie silence, then the dogs all began barking again and people starting shouting, helping one another up, calling for friends and misplaced children.
‘Are you hurt?’ Jack said, turning from the pile of stones at the foot of the cracked column to look at Laora. He realised he still had hold of her hand, so tight he was probably crushing it. He let go.
Her veil had snagged in the fall and was hanging from its braids. She reached up and tugged it free, shaking her dark hair loose. ‘That was worse than last time!’ She let out a stilted laugh, but her hands were shaking.
‘This has happened before?’
‘A few times. Fra Girolamo Savonarola has proclaimed it is God showing His displeasure at the sin here.’
Fra Vito had spoken to Jack of Savonarola, a Dominican friar who had built a reputation for forceful sermons, haranguing citizens and their leaders for the vices in their city. He thought of Pico and Poliziano. As Laora turned to brush the dust and straw from her skirts, he saw her gown had slipped from her shoulder. There was a large bruise darkening her skin; reddish purple outlines that might have been made by pinching fingers. Had he done it? No, the bruise looked older, fading to green at the edges. ‘You are hurt?’
Following his gaze, she pulled her gown up quickly. ‘No. I’m fine.’ She turned to one of the alleys leading out of the market. ‘But I must get home.’
‘I’ll walk with you.’
Passing out of the crowd, they entered the alley, several skinny street children racing ahead of them, whooping as they held aloft spoils snatched from the chaos: a candlestick, a leather shoe, a cooking pot. Jack thought of Ned and the others, but none of the buildings he could see looked damaged and he guessed they would have escaped unharmed.
They were halfway down, Laora hitching her skirts out of the muck of night soil and refuse, when Jack heard it – a chanting somewhere high above them. He stopped, cocking his head to listen. He didn’t recognise the language, but the sound was familiar. After a moment, he realised where he’d heard it before. It was the same as that strange singing he’d heard coming from the depths of Lorenzo’s private study the night of the party: an off-key chant, half spoken, half sung.
Laora looked back at him. ‘What is it?’
‘That singing?’ Jack stared up at the building it seemed to be coming from. It was unremarkable among its neighbours: cracked stucco, peeling paint on the shutters, a precarious-looking balcony tilting towards the one opposite, almost blocking out the sky. At the top, a set of shutters hung open.
She followed his gaze. ‘The Muslim prayer?’
‘What?’
‘A slave, I would imagine. My father used to keep several in his household. He forbade them from praying, but I used to hear them in their room sometimes.’ Laora closed her eyes, angling her head back as the notes of the chant climbed and tumbled. ‘Strange, is it not? How beautiful the language of the infidel is?’
‘Beautiful?’ murmured Jack, the word utterly at odds with everything he knew of the enemies of Christendom.
Laora flinched as a spot of rain dashed her cheek. It was followed by another, then another. Huge droplets that promised a deluge. She turned to him. ‘I will leave you here, Sir James. Our paths are not the same.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Thank you for . . .’ Her eyes flicked back towards the market. ‘Thank you.’
Before he could say anything, Laora turned and hastened away. Jack stayed there, listening to the chanting of the Muslim prayer, faint above the rush of rain and curses of people hurrying past him, pulling up hoods.
After Constantinople fell to the Turks, their armies had spread through the islands of the Aegean, to Bosnia, Kaffa, Albania. They made it all the way to Venice, but were turned back from Rhodes by the Knights of St John. A truce was finally agreed, at a heavy price, and when Sultan Mehmet, the Conqueror of Constantinople, had died five years ago, Christendom had breathed a sigh of relief. But even on the crossing from Aigues-Mortes, Jack heard one of the crew, who’d lost an eye in an attack by a Turkish ship, talking to Ned of the armies of Islam, gathered at the doors to the east, watching the kingdoms of the west war among themselves, waiting like carrion crows around a dying citadel; scenting blood on the air.
Lorenzo had slaves, most of them female, two of them black, like those he’d seen in the markets in Seville. He didn’t know if any were Muslim, but he supposed they could be. Still, that didn’t explain what a slave would be doing in Lorenzo’s inner sanctum, where only a few men – Marsilio, Papi and Bertoldo – were permitted. Praying, no less?
More people were streaming from the market, pushing past him. Jack entered the tide, the rain soaking him as he wound his way through the labyrinth.
It was morning. The thin blade of light that carved a white line across the cellar floor told him so. He stirred slowly, joints creaking painfully, each breath drawing a rattling wheeze from deep within his lungs. As he sat up on the pallet, the coarse blanket slipping from him, he was taken by a fit of hacking, the coughs exploding in his chest. A graveyard cough, his father would have called it.
Not long now, son. Not long now.
It was strange how many people from his past had returned to speak to him. Some came in memories or dreams, but others seemed to be here with him, conversing about his situation, offering unhelpful suggestions or telling him morosely he would die down here. It was his father, who died when he was a boy – how many lifetimes ago? – and King Louis of France, for whom he’d worked for some years as a translator, who were the most talkative.
He combed his hand roughly through his white hair, his tonsure long grown out and a wispy beard sprouting from his chin, then rose slowly, stretching with a wince. After relieving himself i
n the bucket, he set off through the dusty shadows, using the damp walls and stone pillars to steady himself.
The expansive cellar was stacked with barrels, most of which were empty. There were some old crates and broken chests in one corner, also empty, and sacks of mouldy grain that lured the rats. There were hundreds of them down here in the dark, scuttling from his limping walk. Sometimes, on colder nights, he would wake to find himself crawling with them, drawn by his warmth. After his initial revulsion, he had come to enjoy their company. He had even named a few of them. One had a missing front paw that reminded him of himself.
‘Hello, old boy,’ he would say whenever he spotted him. ‘Off on another hunt? Perhaps you might find me a manuscript?’
Then he would find himself giggling uncontrollably, with no idea of why he’d started laughing in the first place.
Memory, he had discovered, was a fluid, changeable thing. Sometimes he forgot how he had come to be down here and it might be hours before he remembered – the door of his lodgings bursting inwards, men pouring in, him pushing the girl towards the window.
Go! Flee!
Then the long, painful journey, most of it spent huddled in a wagon, only snatches of the changing world beyond the monotony of the hooves: misty forests and brown fields, rising hills and snow-crowned mountains, winter’s breath freezing his bones.
After his initial interrogations, at the hands of the man with the wolf badge free with his fists, his captors had grown surly and silent. Then, when he’d been bundled out of the wagon – a glimpse of sand-coloured buildings, one grand one in the centre, castle-like, gardens stretching into vineyards and forested hills – the questions had begun anew. Mostly it was the Wolf Man, as he’d named the one with the badge, who asked them. So many questions, coming in endless loops – usually in French, although he understood their native tongue – until they became a song that played constantly in his mind.
The map you wrote to Lorenzo de’ Medici about – where is it now?
Who was the man you sent to retrieve it?
