Court of Wolves

by Robyn Young

  ‘We’re to be in Venice by the Christ Mass,’ Valentine answered. ‘If we is to join this company. You in, boy?’

  ‘Not until I’ve done what I came here for.’

  ‘Then it’s us, lads,’ said Valentine, scanning the others. ‘Time to look to our own fortunes. We was agreed.’

  Adam nodded curtly, while Ned stuck his thumbs in his belt, shifted awkwardly. Jack looked between them, feeling desperate. ‘Ned,’ he began, wishing he’d confided in the man more. In all of them. If he had trusted them – shared his growing doubts about Lorenzo, his discovery of the Muslim in the hidden room and Martelli’s vendetta, Amerigo’s words about the sailor and his own emerging thoughts of a journey west – might they have stayed? Or would they have gone months ago? He caught David’s meaningful stare. Give us reason to stay. ‘What about the money Lorenzo promised us? Surely that’s worth waiting for? Just a while longer?’

  ‘For how long, Jack?’ Adam challenged. ‘Months? Years?’ He flung a hand at the chamber. ‘Us stuck in this fleapit, waiting on you to bring us some scrap of news from that palace you seem so settled in? And why not?’ His stool clattered back as he stood to face him. ‘A feather bed and fine clothes? Wine and meat for your table, and servants at your call? I would not blame you, but for the fact that in living this lie you’ve left us here to rot!’

  ‘I couldn’t have entered the company any sooner. Could not make Marco accept me. But now I might!’ Jack looked to Ned for support. ‘You said you’d keep watch with Amelot.’

  ‘Then what?’ Valentine demanded before Ned could respond. ‘You think if you point out one man Lorenzo will give up the prize? He’s not kept you in luxury for one poxy victory, boy. You agreed to enter their company, see if he has anything to fear. This goes beyond what happened to the priest. Once you is in, he’ll want you stay.’

  ‘He promised to—’

  ‘And what are his promises worth?’ Adam cut across him.

  ‘They were worth something to my father – to the man you all followed and swore your oaths to. Worth enough for him to risk his life.’ Jack ignored the little voice in his head that reminded him he still did not know if this allegiance was good or bad. ‘That should mean something.’

  ‘Our master’s been in the ground near four years,’ Adam responded. ‘It’s time to take off the black. You’ve mourned him long enough.’

  Jack, seeing he would not win with Adam or Valentine, turned again to Ned. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said, the day of the quake – about us following the map? Amerigo Vespucci, the clerk to the signore’s cousins, spoke to me of a sailor in Spain, who is seeking funds for a westward voyage. Maybe, with enough gold, we might look to do the same?’

  Ned’s face filled with interest at this, but Adam spoke before he could answer.

  ‘No! No more of your claims!’

  Adam was over a foot shorter than Ned, but the spark of anger that lit his blue eyes gave him an air of menace. Jack realised he’d underestimated the depth of the man’s frustrations.

  ‘We came to you in honour of your father, stood beside you, fought for you, followed you into exile. Hugh Pyke lost his life. We lost our kingdom. We’ll lose no more, by God!’

  Jack saw that another part of his life, perhaps the last part that meant anything, was about to be stripped from him. What would be left when his companions were gone but the lie he was now living? A lie that at some point – whether he failed or succeeded in his task here – would simply dissolve. ‘I think I know who’s been spying on Lorenzo,’ he said, as Adam turned away. ‘The one who intercepted Amaury’s letter. Maybe even ordered Amaury’s abduction.’

  ‘What?’ Adam demanded, turning back. ‘Who?’

  ‘Franco Martelli. The man I went to meet.’ Jack hadn’t told them what had transpired at the palazzo, just that Martelli had been interested in his business. ‘What I don’t know is whether he’s been working with the knowledge of the Court of Wolves, or acting alone.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us sooner?’ Ned asked, surprised, wounded.

  ‘It’s complicated. A meeting I just had gave me more understanding, but I still don’t–’

  ‘Have you told the signore?’ David wanted to know.

  ‘No.’

  Adam let out a frustrated sound. ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘I wanted to wait for the gathering. I thought I might be able to shed more light upon my suspicions if Amelot saw the man she recognised.’

  Ned stepped forward. ‘Jack, what more light do you need? If you have cause to believe Martelli is the traitor then tell the signore. It could be the best chance we have to get our reward. Then we can leave here together. All of us. Go to Venice. Or Spain?’ he added, glancing at the others.

  ‘I think Martelli involved his daughter. Against her will.’ Jack met his friend’s gaze meaningfully.

  ‘Laora?’ said Ned, frowning. ‘This woman you’ve taken a fancy to?’

  Jack flushed, annoyed Ned hadn’t taken the meaning to be implicit. He had confessed his attraction in private last week, after one too many cups of ale. ‘If I tell the signore and he moves on Martelli, she could be in danger.’

  ‘Blood and thunder!’ Adam spat. ‘I’ll be damned if your cock will be our compass here!’ He stepped forward, thrust a finger at Jack, shrugging away David’s hand as his brother tried to calm him. ‘You’ll go to your signore now.’ Adam’s voice was low, but his tone was implacable. ‘You’ll tell him you have what he wants – that you’ll give him the name of his enemy when he hands us what he promised. You owe us, Jack. On your father’s grave, we’ll not give that up for some God damn whore.’

  25

  Jack caught Papi on the stairs as the old man was huffing his way

  up, rolls of paper bundled in his hands. ‘Is the signore in his

  chambers?’

  ‘He’s meeting with Fra Marsilio.’ The servant’s tone was wary. ‘Why, sir?’

  ‘I need to speak to him. It’s important.’

  ‘Very well. I will ask if he will see you.’

  Papi led the way up the stairs, but before they reached the top their path was barred by Clarice de’ Medici, appearing above them like a colourful bird, her voluminous dress puffed out around her, headdress decorated with a cluster of feathers.

  ‘There you are, Papi.’

  As she glanced at Jack her face tightened. She rarely acknowledged his presence here, treating him like another of the many servants, slaves and secretaries who thronged these halls, although clearly he was an oddity that fitted none of their roles. He had wondered what Lorenzo had told her about him.

  ‘You have the accounts?’

  ‘Yes, signora.’ Papi lifted the papers he was clutching in evidence. As he did so, one slipped through his fingers.

  Jack tried to grab it, but the roll went bouncing down the stairs.

  Clarice tutted irritably. ‘Gather yourself, Papi, I will meet you in the salon.’ With that she swept down the stairs, her skirts gliding obediently after her.

  The old man looked uncertainly from her retreating form to Jack, who nodded. ‘I know my way.’ Before Papi could respond, Jack was hastening up the steps, heading for the Sala Grande.

  When no one answered his knock, Jack entered the bedchamber. At the far end of the room, the study door was slightly ajar. Making his way towards it, feet soft on the rugs, he heard voices within. As he moved closer, they separated into Lorenzo’s nasal tones and Marsilio’s rasp. Jack’s feet slowed. Didn’t this provide the perfect excuse – the signore too busy to see him? But he dismissed the fleeting thought. The pretext wouldn’t hold for long before his companions demanded their answer.

  Frustration gripped him as he thought of Adam’s ultimatum. Ned, following him into the street as he’d fumed out of the tavern, had vowed to keep the others in the city, while Jack took his suspicions to Lorenzo and pressed the man for their price. But that was only part of the problem. He felt torn, pulled in two directions. He
knew his men were right in their demand – was desperate for what Lorenzo had promised himself – but he also knew the moment he revealed his belief that Martelli was the spy, Lorenzo’s suspicion would fall upon Laora too. Could her friendship with Maddalena protect her? No, he guessed, with all he knew of the signore.

  An image flitted through his mind: he and his companions leaving the city, carts laden with their promised fortune, Laora behind him on a horse, saved from that tomb of a palace and the brute inside it, her thankful arms around his waist. The thought settled into decision as he reached the study door. When he was done here, he would go to her and warn her.

  Marsilio’s voice came through the door. ‘Then hide him in Careggi, signore. Or Fiesole? Cafaggiolo would have been perfect, of course.’

  Jack faltered, fist poised to knock.

  ‘No. I want to keep him close.’

  Him? The prisoner?

  ‘Until after the betrothal feast, then. The risk is too great.’

  Jack stepped back from the door, eyes roving to the mezzanine level where Papi slept. Moving swiftly, he climbed the steep steps, wincing at every creak. Up in the rafters, hidden from view, he peered down at the door, but now he could only hear the men’s conversation as a series of mumbles. He looked to the far end of the mezzanine, where the wall adjoined the study. Slipping around stacks of chests and items of furniture, passing the pallet where Papi slept, blanket and pillow smoothed neat, he found his way barred by rows of cloaks and gowns hanging from perches. Crouching, he crawled through them, furs brushing across his back, his nose filling with musty smells of cloth and leather.

  The wall loomed ahead, a grey cliff of plaster. Jack could hear Lorenzo and Marsilio through it, but muted, as though they were talking underwater. He got in closer, pressed his ear to it. As he did so, his knee dislodged something which fell back against him. At the same time, a pinpoint of light appeared. Looking down, he saw a panel of wood – it looked like part of an old floorboard – had been resting against the wall. Where it had fallen he could see a hole. Carefully placing the panel on the floor, he slid on to his stomach, put his eye to it.

  There was a moment’s dizziness as he found himself looking down over the dusty tops of shelves, into Lorenzo’s study. The signore was facing him, leaning against one of the two desks, dressed in a high-necked scarlet robe. Marsilio was standing before him in his black habit, the tonsured circle of his scalp surrounded by a white fuzz of hair. Withdrawing, Jack inspected the hole. Too high up for a mouse, it was clearly man-made. His first thought was Papi, but surely the old man had no need for a spy hole when he was one of the only men permitted in the signore’s inner sanctum?

  Lorenzo was speaking. ‘Cybo will only come to the palazzo for the feast.’

  Franceschetto Cybo. The pope’s bastard and, soon to be, Lorenzo’s son-in-law.

  ‘I will lodge him in the city. Somewhere he can enjoy his vices. He’ll spend his time distracted by drink and dice. I tell you, Marsilio, there is no danger of this fool discovering anything.’

  Jack’s eyes followed Lorenzo’s hand as he gestured to the thick gold curtain. He thought of the bolted door behind it, the man chained beyond. Those dark eyes widening. Free me!

  Marsilio stepped forward, drawing Lorenzo’s attention. ‘I say again, signore, if His Holiness discovers you are the one who has taken his prize it will not only be your dream of securing your son’s place in the Vatican that will suffer. It is not so long ago that you were in conflict with the Holy See. Florence cannot afford another war with Rome.’ Marsilio raised his hands imploringly. ‘And what of these murders? A fifth now?’

  ‘The captains of the watch have doubled the guard. They assure me they will hunt the killer down.’

  ‘But what if there is a connection? The last victim was the brother of one of those you sent to take him. What if the pope’s men have trailed him here?’

  ‘Pope Innocent is not Sixtus,’ Lorenzo retorted. ‘For all his flaws, can you imagine him employing such a monster?’

  ‘The Turks then. We know they have men hunting him. The Knights of St John had to move him to France for fear of the sultan’s assassins.’

  ‘I have planned too long and risked too much to quail now.’ Lorenzo’s voice lowered, Jack straining to hear him. ‘I have lost a great deal these past years. My brother to the blades of my enemies. My influence in the world with the collapse of our banks and changes of regime in England, France and Bruges. You more than most, Marsilio, understand the weight of the legacy upon my shoulders. I will be damned if I fail my grandfather. My family.’ His gaze went again to the curtain. ‘That man is the key to our future. To securing our power in this world. The key to everything the Academy was founded upon. I will not let him out of my sight. Not until I am certain the alliance will stand.’

  Jack flinched at the knock that jolted through the wall as someone rapped on the study door below him.

  Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Signore?’ came Bertoldo’s voice. The door opened. ‘The priors have arrived for the meeting.’

  ‘Tell them I will be with them shortly.’ Lorenzo fixed on Marsilio, his broad face adamant. ‘We are done here.’

  Back in the safety of his room, Jack closed the door and leaned against it. Memories crowded his mind: his father handing him the map and ordering him to take it to Seville; Carlo di Fante in that alley begging him not to give it to the Academy; Prince Edward’s words outside the hunting lodge; Amaury’s talk of lost lands and paths to darkness; his mother held in the flames by a monster in a mask; his father’s last testament. Meaning everything. Meaning nothing.

  I pray you have found the answers I could not give you.

  That the Needle has pointed the way.

  Each thread had led him deeper into the labyrinth. He had believed, on his journey to this city, that whatever he found here would bring him peace, a way forward, out of the grief and the uncertainty. But now he felt only danger, waiting in the heart of the maze.

  Who was the prisoner – this enemy of Christendom? A prize for the pope? Hunted by assassins? Key to Lorenzo’s power? Jack felt as though he’d been looking for a hole and had stumbled over the edge of an abyss. What if there was something worse than no answers? What if those answers could destroy him?

  Goro stared down at the naked form before him: pale arms and legs splayed like a butterfly’s wings, ropes twisting ankles and wrists to the table. Blood continued its steady drip, drip on to the floor. The youth’s eyes, clear as glass, were open. So, too his stomach, from sternum to groin; split like fruit to show the seeds and tissues, all the secrets within. All those inner workings. A map of life.

  Carlo had once shown him the inside of a clock: an intricate series of teeth and barrels, wheels grinding round. But although his master had been able to tell him how the device worked, he’d never been able to explain – beyond that it was the will of God – how a living man worked and moved.

  The youth’s bound hands had clenched into such tight fists in the final stages of the cutting that his nails had entered his palms. Goro had prised them open to find livid, crescent-shaped wounds. Soon, his skin would tighten, turn hard like cooling wax, as the warmth of life faded and the rigor set in.

  He had found the boy late last night, in the alleys of Oltrarno. It was a good place for victims, the young and the desperate, waiting in shadows for the rich in their silks and velvets to come satisfy their appetites; the thrust of a coin in a hot hand, the clink of a belt buckle. He touched the tips of the youth’s fingers, one by one, noting the blue tinge in the sickly glow of the lantern. Carlo would have abhorred this place. Would have called it a Babylon. A wretched, stinking whore of a city.

  Hearing the clang of the cathedral bell, four tolls for the hour, Goro shuffled to the window, careful to avoid the creeping slick of blood that was following the slope of the floor. Its metal tang filled the room with the acerbic odour of bile: a meaty perfume. Outside, beyond the rooftops, t
he sky was tinged grey. He had dallied too long. The monsignore would be furious if he found him gone when he woke for prayers. He had no excuse for being out alone in the city at night. No good one, at least.

  Goro looked back at the body, pale and red and shining. Of all the lives he’d taken since they left the castle of the Knights of St John, this was now the third that was for him alone. He had been able to take longer with them, to relish each incredible moment of the uncovering, no need to keep removing the gag to ask the questions Battista di Salvi wanted answers to, no need to wait until the victim regained consciousness for the demands and torture to begin again.

  He knew it was dangerous. Beyond foolish. Their hunt had brought them, on the wings of the confession in the cell of the Knights of St John, closer to the object of their quest. Close enough, from the final agonised moments of their last victim, to know with near certainty that Lorenzo de’ Medici had what His Holiness wanted. The monsignore was now considering how they could pinpoint the man’s location and make their move. Goro had been ordered to lie low, the presence of watchmen greatly increased across the city. But he’d not been able to bear it, trapped in their lodgings day and night, the very air poisoned by Battista’s contempt. These moments, out in the city alone, were the only thing that gave him release.

  Goro looked at the dagger in his hand. Gore slimed the blade and spattered the mother-of-pearl crosses on the hilt. He remembered the swell of pride he’d felt when Carlo handed him the princely gift. He had done such bloody works as this for his beloved master too, but they had always been executed with purpose – a higher purpose. What were these deeds he did now, alone and unbidden? Works of the devil, came the reply as he glanced from the blade to the body.

  Works of the devil in that long-ago dungeon, where rats nipped at torn flesh and men and women prayed and screamed; a wretched choir singing a song of pain for the young man with hell in his eyes. The man who had made monsters of them all: Galeazzo Sforza, the Duke of Milan, whose very name meant force.