by Robyn Young
Son of a famous condottiero, who, in alliance with Cosimo de’ Medici, had taken control of the dukedom, Galeazzo had inherited all his father’s bloodlust, but had channelled it not towards enemies on fields of war, but towards his own people in the dungeons beneath his castle. Not for punishment, but for sport.
Goro had been a labourer on the castle. Big and strong, he had worked hard and lived a humble but decent life. One day, he spilled some mortar that had ruined the passing duke’s silk shoe. Moments later, the duke spitting venom at his incompetence, Goro found himself seized by guards and taken down into that place from which it was rumoured no one returned. He didn’t know how long he had spent down there. All he remembered was the savage, searing pain and the duke’s smile as he carved and sliced.
It was Carlo who saved him, on the day Galeazzo Sforza was stabbed to death by local noblemen, who conspired to end his tyranny. Carlo di Fante. His light. His world.
Goro’s fist tightened around the stiletto’s bloody hilt as he thought of the man – James Wynter – who had taken his saviour from him in that foetid Southwark alley. All those months searching London for the wretch had come to nothing and Goro’s hope of vengeance had wilted.
In the end he had returned to Rome, aimless and destitute, to find Sixtus dead and a new pope on the throne of St Peter. Innocent had taken him in, treated him like a man, fed him warm meat and good wine while Goro spoke of the map and their mission to find it for his predecessor, lest the Academy use it to unleash their evil upon the world. Under Innocent, he had found purpose, but his new master, the monsignore, had been cruel and, more often than not these days, he found himself caught in that old hell Carlo once saved him from. A hell, he now knew, had never left him, but had become part of him.
Hearing laughter from the street, Goro turned back to the window. In the dirty glass he saw himself, a man with half a face. He raised his hand, ran his fingers over the cracked leather of the mask that hid the peeled horror beneath. The metal plate was showing; splinters of steel, like stars trapped in his skin.
Turning, he moved away. Pausing to wipe the blade on the dead boy’s discarded tunic, he left the miserable room alone, his shadow following him down the wall of the passage, hunched and huge. A monster, always at his side.
26
Ned Draper peered over the lip of the roof. The world spun precipitously away, plunging to the street far below. He clutched the chimney tighter, holding himself against the angle of the roof they’d positioned themselves on, speckled grey with bird droppings.
He glanced at Amelot, perched on the edge, her short hair tousled by the wind that rippled through her thin tunic. It looked as though a gust could snatch her off at any moment; send her small body wheeling, smashing to the ground. At a fresh wave of dizziness, Ned concentrated his gaze forward, across the closely packed rooftops around Santo Spirito, over which hung a dirty smear of wood-smoke. The sky in the west above the hills was a dull burnt red, but darkness was coming quickly from the east, shadows pooling in the alleys as watch-fires flickered to life along the city walls.
The street they were overlooking was one of the widest in Oltrarno, otherwise a chaos of muddy alleys, tight market squares and frenetic inns. Winding alongside the river, which flowed at their back, it was flanked by tall tenements and cramped workshops, interspersed with churches and the odd palazzo, one of the grandest of which stood opposite. There was a sense of space beyond the imposing building, tips of trees pointing to the sky. Gardens, Ned guessed.
The street, which earlier had been busy with workers returning home from their day’s labour, was quietening down. Ned saw two men in the colours of the quarter’s watch moving along it, lighting lanterns. ‘It’s getting dark. Will you still see them from up here?’ Looking back to where Amelot was perched, Ned realised she had vanished. Half rising, clutching at the chimney, he scanned the roof. The girl had moved without his notice to the other side. She was staring out across the river, where the Ponte Vecchio spanned its murky waters. ‘Amelot!’ He frowned as she turned. ‘You’ll not see anyone from there.’
After a pause, she slipped back to her position, surefooted as a goat along the blade-thin edge of the building.
She seemed distracted, more silent than he would have thought a mute girl could be. What was on her mind was anyone’s guess, but this was the best hope they’d had for her to spot the man she had seen all those months ago and Ned wasn’t about to let her ruin the chance. ‘You want to find your master, don’t you?’
Her tawny eyes flicked to him. After a moment, she settled, fixing once again on the entrance to the palazzo.
The clop of hooves announced the arrival of four more guests. Guards and servants emerged from the arched doors to meet the men, taking the reins of their horses, which they tethered alongside the others to iron rings attached to the wall of the palazzo. Ned forced his hand from the solidity of the chimney, crawled a few paces on sweaty palms. ‘What about them?’ he murmured, eyes on the men as they accepted goblets from the servants, voices and laughter drifting up on the wind’s cold currents. ‘Isn’t that Marco Valori?’
Amelot nodded.
‘And the others?’ At the shake of her head, he sighed. ‘That’s over two score now.’ He studied her pinched features, her furtive, darting eyes. Had she really seen one of the men who had taken the priest that day at Carnival? They had all wondered it in the months since. But the wolf badge – she had been right about that. ‘Maybe we should go down. Pretend we’re beggars? Sit near the doors for when they leave?’ But even as he suggested it he knew it was risky. Valori, at least, might recognise them.
As the men disappeared inside, Ned inched his way back to the chimney. The red in the western sky had dimmed to black and there was a mist of rain in the air. The cathedral bells rang out, joined by others, a clanging conversation. Ned found his gaze drifting past the city walls, to where the hills marched steeply towards the battlements of mountains.
The question of what lay beyond had itched in him since they first arrived. It was the same itch he’d had as a boy, standing on the banks of the stream outside the hovel he’d been born in, watching the currents carry away the sticks he tossed in, and, later, as a man, plucking shells from the mud of the Thames, its great grey waters crowded with ships that came and went to places he knew only as names, strange and exotic on his tongue, overheard in taverns on the docksides along with snatches of stories that suggested something more, something better might lie beyond the flowing tide.
He had thought this itch – his need to be off – would be relieved in part by their move to Venice. But when Jack had spoken of the sailor in Spain, Ned’s imaginings had once again shifted west, his memory caught in the moment he had stood in the Ferryman’s Arms with Jack and Hugh Pyke looking down on that map, islands and coastlines spidering away; new worlds falling off the margins.
It was why he had fought Jack’s corner in the days since the young man had admitted his suspicions about Martelli, Ned convincing the others to stay in the city until Jack managed to report to Lorenzo and press the man for their reward. He had told the others what Jack had told him – that he’d requested an audience with the signore, but Lorenzo had been too busy to see him. Even as he relayed this news to Adam and the others, Ned had wondered at the truth of it. He had known Jack since the young man was a boy; felt he knew a lie when he saw one. But he had kept this suspicion to himself, comforting his unease with the memory of that map and Jack’s intimation that he might now be willing to search for what it showed.
Amelot whipped round, eyes fixing on something behind him.
Ned jolted round to see a figure clambering over the edge of the roof behind them. ‘Christ!’ he hissed, as David slid his way across the tiles, face sheened with sweat from the climb. ‘Don’t start a man! Not this high!’
‘Has Adam been up here?’
Ned frowned at his troubled expression. ‘No. Why?’
‘He left over two hours ago to get
food.’
‘Maybe he’s off drinking?’ Ned had pulled Adam out of many a tavern these past months, his mouth and fists all too ready for a fight. It was another reason they needed to move on. Men of war should not sit idle. Thomas Vaughan had told him that. For a soldier in idleness, Ned, there is only fat for the body and demons for the soul.
David shook his head. Reaching for his belt, he held up a worn leather pouch, hanging beside his own. Ned recognised it as Adam’s.
‘I found this in the alley outside the Fig. Something’s happened to my brother.’
A sharp rapping on the tiles turned their focus to Amelot, who was pointing into the street. This time, Ned saw only one figure, approaching from the east. It was Jack.
Light rain veiled the air as Jack followed the guard through a maze of hedges towards a large round structure in the grounds beyond the palazzo. Torches, staked in the earth, formed a snaking path of gusting lights. A brittle crust of leaves crunched beneath his boots. He gripped the goblet of wine a servant had handed to him back in the marble entrance hall, where wreaths of ivy and a candlelit model of the Nativity signalled the approach of Christmas, less than a week away.
As he neared the structure, Jack heard the hum of voices. Through a wide set of doors he saw figures, silhouetted in the fitful glow of torchlight. The anticipation he’d been feeling through the day pulled taut inside him like stretched wire.
Entering at the guard’s gesture, he found himself in a circular space, sand covering the ground. The place had a warm, animal odour to it. Seeing whips and bridles hanging from hooks Jack guessed it was a horse-training paddock. It reminded him of a smaller version of the bullring in Seville. The place was filled with men, sixty or so, standing at the edges, talking and drinking. Most wore sumptuous cloaks and mantles trimmed with sable and ermine, each with a silver badge pinned to his garments. A Court of Wolves. At his entrance many eyes swivelled to him, voices dying to a hush.
Jack felt the tension twist in his gut. These weren’t the courteous, curious or even mildly dismissive looks that had greeted him at the game of calcio. This was something else. He scanned them, seeking a friendly face, and when Marco Valori emerged from the crowd he felt a wash of relief. ‘Signore?’
Marco nodded in greeting, but the young man had no easy smile for him today. There was a coolness to his manner, steel in his eyes.
A voice sounded in Jack’s mind. They’ve found you out! They know who you are! ‘What is this?’
‘As I told you when we last met, Sir James, your suitability would need to be tested. It is something we require all prospective members to face. An initiation, if you will, to gauge your commitment before we consider accepting you into our company.’
Jack looked over Marco’s shoulder to the space the men had left, the circle of sand ruddy in the torch glow. ‘A fight?’
‘We are a duelling company,’ Marco reminded him.
‘I don’t have my sword.’
‘We have what you need.’ Marco studied him. ‘You missed your friends, you told me. Your comrades-in-arms. You wanted to find men you could trust here? Allies to watch your back? You can have that, Sir James, within our circle. If you are willing to prove yourself.’
Jack nodded slowly. His heart was pounding, but now he knew what was coming a heavy calm was settling over him. The duels with Ned by the river, those months in Diego’s arena, the fields of war under his father’s command: he’d spent half his life in training for this. ‘Who will be my opponent?’ he asked, eyeing the silent gathering.
Turning, Valori gestured. The crowd parted and Jack saw a figure being led out by two guards. He was hooded, hands bound behind his back, head twisting this way and that as he was hauled into the centre. His hands were freed with a slash of a dagger. The blind was ripped off and there, blinking in the light, his grey hair wild from the hood, stood Adam Foxley.
Jack’s poise shattered. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ He turned on Marco. ‘Why do you have my guard?’
‘I think it’s clear he’s more than just a guard. That brand on his forehead. He is a criminal, yes?’
‘It doesn’t matter what he is.’ Jack met Adam’s gaze. The soldier was breathing hard, eyes fixed on him. ‘I’ll not fight my own man. Choose another.’
‘The test isn’t just about skill. It is about loyalty. Loyalty to us over any other.’
Jack guessed, by the way Marco said this, that he meant Lorenzo. They wanted him to prove that his interest in their company and his misgivings about the signore were genuine. That he would do anything they asked.
‘I can assure you, Sir James,’ Marco continued in his silence, ‘every man here has faced a similar trial.’
Jack caught something in Marco’s tone, some suggestion of doubt, falsehood even. As the man’s gaze flicked towards the crowd, Jack followed it to see Franco Martelli standing there. In the torchlight, his craggy face was unusually animated. Jack knew then, whatever other men had faced to enter this company, this test had been designed specifically for him; a punishment for his interference at Martelli’s palazzo. Laora’s warning, her hand on his arm. He will not forget a slight. He knew, too, that if he didn’t go through with it, this opportunity would be gone for good.
For days after the conversation he’d overheard between Lorenzo and Marsilio, he had thought again about abandoning this tortuous quest – of leaving with his men for Venice. But the questions, strong enough a year ago to draw him all the miles to this city, were now so bound around him, so much a part of him, that he could not simply shrug them away. He had followed his father’s footsteps into darkness and was lost in the maze. Only the truth could guide him out – even if that truth was abhorrent, even if it meant his worst fears about his father were confirmed. He had to see this through. He had to believe, despite his concerns, that Lorenzo would keep his word if he succeeded here.
Jack met Adam’s gaze across the sand. The older man’s confusion had settled into grim acceptance, his fists flexing at his sides. Jack tried to communicate with his eyes what he intended – that Adam should play along, work with him until this was done – but he couldn’t tell from Adam’s rigid expression whether his friend understood. A fresh bruise on his cheek suggested he’d come here fighting.
As Jack shrugged off his cloak and handed it to Marco, a ripple of excitement passed through the watching men. The lean-faced Luigi Donati, one of those he remembered from the game of calcio, approached with another man, bearing between them a sword, a shield and a leather brigandine, studded with silver-tipped nails. Jack removed his doublet and slid his arms into the brigandine, which Marco helped him buckle, the steel plates pressing against his torso. Adam was being similarly clad.
The shields that were handed to each of them were bucklers, small and oval, with a boss protruding from the centre and a hook at the top for snagging and deflecting. Jack pushed his fingers through the strap on the back and curled them tight, the shield becoming an extension of his fist. The sword was shorter than the war blades he was used to, with a sturdy hilt, the grip bound with leather. The edges weren’t blunted. A misjudged blow could maim. Kill even. As he swung the weapon, checking its balance, the blade catching the torch-fire, he thought of Estevan Carrillo in the olive grove.
‘To first blood?’ he asked, glancing at Marco, then at Adam.
‘No.’ It was Martelli who answered. ‘Until we say.’
Moving into position, Jack noticed a few of the men exchanging coins with eager murmurs, eyes flicking between him and Adam. He moved towards his friend slowly, swinging the sword back and forth to loosen his muscles. He was used to fighting Ned, but this was different. This wasn’t about disarming an opponent and scoring points. These men wanted blood for their sport here tonight. Blood and proof. How far would they make them go for that?
His mind filled with memories as he circled the older man. A younger Adam, black still threading his hair, seated beside him at a campfire showing him how to whet a blade. Later, crouch
ed beside him, reaching out to gently reposition the crossbow he held, both their eyes on the deer through the trees. Adam, soaked in sweat, in the foggy dawn of that field at Barnet, the crossbow in his own hands, standing side by side with David, the two of them shooting in unison, one click and hiss after another, as the cannons thundered and Warwick’s men hurtled towards them. In the aftermath, himself bent over, vomiting into the mud, dagger slick in his fist, christened with the blood of his first kill, the stink of death and bile and sulphur in his mouth and nose, Adam’s hand on his back.
Nodding to his friend, Jack stepped forward. His blade flicked out in a teasing stroke, which Adam batted aside easily. Adam parried, a neat slice towards his side, which Jack cuffed away with his shield, the sound echoing like a bell around the circular space. A few more soft lunges, wide blows and comfortable side-steps the watching men allowed, but soon they became impatient. Martelli’s was the first jeer to sting their ears, quickly followed by others.
Adam glanced at them, then back at Jack, his blue eyes narrowing. Now, he struck out, hard and fast, a jab that could have pierced Jack’s brigandine had he not moved swiftly, catching Adam’s sword with his own and turning it away. The men’s jeers turned to shouts of approval. Jack, expecting another lull, was surprised when Adam came at him again, a bold series of strikes that had him stepping backwards with each defence, sparks spitting off their blades. What was he doing?
‘The guard has guts!’ shouted Luigi. ‘My money’s on him!’
The cheers reminded Jack of the kick-game, where their allegiances had shifted from one player to another depending on his performance. His face grew hot, not just from the rise in effort. In their eyes he was a knight – a knight being bested by his own man. Cursing Adam for forcing the issue, he lunged. Ducking a cunning swipe at his head, he thrust at Adam’s thigh while his defences were open. Adam dodged away, but the blade just caught him, slicing a line through his hose that quickly bloomed red. Now, the men were shouting all at once, hands digging into jewelled pouches for fistfuls of coins. The fight had just become real.
