by Robyn Young
‘You will be invited to our meetings. Get to know our members.’ Marco spoke lightly, but there was something beneath his smile: evasiveness, or guardedness. ‘Find new opportunities for business. Friendships.’
‘Is that all?’ Jack knew he was walking an edge here, but he was wearying of all these façades; false faces and half-truths, secrets behind locked doors. ‘I am not so naïve that I haven’t noticed your interest in my closeness with the signore. In what I might be able to discover for you about his affairs.’
Marco’s dark blue eyes glinted at him through the mask. ‘That is a road that travels both ways, is it not? Let us say, we are as interested in the signore’s affairs as he is in ours. There are some within our ranks concerned that your enthusiasm for joining us is a ruse – that he is looking to gain access to us through you. Those doubts were assuaged by your performance the other week, but it will take time for true confidence to be built.’ Marco looked as though he was going to say something more, but a voice called out.
‘Signor Marco?’
A figure in a splendid gold and turquoise doublet had appeared in the archway, jewelled goblet in hand. A gold mask covered half his face, exposing a full, sensuous mouth. ‘My brother is looking for you.’ The man’s eyes flicked to Jack. He seemed to hesitate, then returned his gaze to Marco. ‘There are some people he wants you to meet.’
‘Then I will not keep him waiting.’
As the figure turned on his heel, Jack recognised the cinnamon curls pinned beneath the mask strap. It was Lorenzo’s cousin, Giovanni di’ Pierfrancesco.
Marco rose and inclined his head. ‘We will talk again soon, Sir James.’
When he had gone, Jack turned the badge in his fingers. He thought of Amelot’s crude drawing, wondered if he was a step closer to those who had taken her master. The girl had been missing since the fight. Jack had no idea where she was or what had made her vanish that night, but he knew she was still alive for her cloak and blanket had disappeared from his room a few days afterwards and, since then, he’d noticed scraps of food gone from his meal trays before the servants cleared them and, once, a set of small muddy footprints leading away across the terrace.
Stowing the badge in his pouch, Jack returned to the frenetic heat inside, hunting for Laora. It was even more crowded now and he kept his mask perched on his head as he moved through the crush, hoping she might spot him.
‘Sir James!’
A figure emerged through the press in front of him – a young woman with a blue mask on a stick strung with bells. She slipped it aside with a silvery jingle to show her smiling face. It was Maddalena de’ Medici.
‘Signora,’ he greeted keenly, raising his voice over the clamour.
‘Now, where has my sister gone?’ Rising on her toes, Maddalena peered around her. ‘Lucrezia!’
Her dark-eyed sister appeared at her side after a few moments. Her stomach, swollen with child, bulged from the folds of her fur-trimmed mantle. Jack noticed that the young woman appraised him coolly.
‘Where is Laora?’ Maddalena craned her neck. ‘She was just with you.’
‘She needed some air.’ Lucrezia said this a little too quickly, her tone forced.
Jack frowned. Glancing over the young woman’s shoulder, he glimpsed a figure in a gold gown threading swiftly through the crowd towards the doors. He recognised that dress. Laora had worn it to the banquet at Fiesole.
‘She doesn’t want to see you, Sir James,’ warned Lucrezia, as he moved to go after her.
‘Sister?’ questioned Maddalena, clearly confused.
But Jack was gone, hastening through the crowd in Laora’s wake. Knocking into a thickset man with a bald head wearing a wolf mask, he pushed on through, ignoring the man’s call at his back.
Out in the street, surrounded by a knot of masked revellers, he turned in a circle, searching. There – a flash of gold, burnished by a lantern’s glow. As Laora disappeared down an alley, he followed. She wasn’t far ahead, a ghostly figure slipping through the darkness, slippered feet pattering over the cobbles.
‘Laora!’
At her name, she faltered, footsteps slowing. She turned on him as he caught up with her, her face just visible in the ochre gleam of firelight seeping through a window above. A black velvet mask followed the prominent contours of her cheeks. Her dark hair was pinned at the sides, but left loose at the back to tumble around her shoulders, lustrous with oil. ‘What do you want from me?’
Jack was surprised by the force in her voice. Of all the scenarios he’d imagined for their meeting, this had not been one. He had come tonight to confront her, meaning to tell her he knew she had lied about going to Maddalena the night of the party. Had intended to persuade her to tell him the truth about her father and what she did for him; get a confession he could take to the signore in return for that reward for his men – more pressing now than ever. But this was not the only reason he had wanted to see her. Now that kiss, which had both warmed him and burned in him these past miserable weeks, felt as though it had never even happened at all. ‘Why did you run?’
‘Maddalena said she had a surprise for me tonight. I did not know it would be you.’ Laora’s eyes were dark pools, glimmering from the depths of the mask. ‘When she told me you had come to her, asking questions of me, I knew.’ She shook her head, her shoulders slumping. ‘Did the signore send you? Does he know I am the one who took it?’
‘Took it?’
‘The chalice.’ She pulled off the mask and stared up at him. ‘Is that not why you came to my father’s house? Why you were asking Maddalena about me?’
Jack hid his confusion. ‘I just want the truth, signora.’
She was still staring at him, but her expression had changed slightly. ‘You’re hurt?’ She reached out as if to touch his face, but stayed her hand. ‘When you questioned me in the market, before the tremor – said you’d seen me that night, going upstairs – I thought you must have suspected me. But then you were so kind, I convinced myself that maybe I was wrong. That you didn’t know what I had done.’ She looked down at the mask in her hands. ‘I didn’t want to take it. But my father insisted. Said its value was beyond the telling. Ten thousand florins or more.’
Jack was stunned by the sum, more than even the most well paid men in Florence – lawyers and professors – would make in twenty years.
‘But it is worth more than gold to the signore,’ Laora continued, her voice smaller now. ‘I used to play with Maddalena and Lucrezia in his study. We knew where Papi kept a key. We spent hours in there with his treasures, trying on diadems, playing at kings and queens. But the chalice – that we never touched. Lucrezia told me Signor Lorenzo’s grandfather had given it to him. That it was important to him and his Academy.’
A memory crept into Jack’s mind: Lorenzo in the chaos of the move to Fiesole. Look again, Bertoldo. I will want it for the meeting. ‘Your father acted as a distraction that night? Allowed you to go unnoticed to Lorenzo’s study?’
She nodded. ‘Papi kept the key in the same place he always had. Under his pillow.’
Jack thought of the hush in the hall, the scent of blossom lingering.
‘Why did you invite me to your room? If you were worried I knew?’
‘I wanted to be certain. But then . . .’ She put a hand to her lips, averted her eyes.
He thought of those lips on his. Had the kiss been just another distraction? Had he been a fool to think it sincere? To fantasise about another – and more? ‘Has your father asked you to do anything else? To spy on the signore? Read his letters?’
‘No.’ She sounded startled, despite her admission of guilt. ‘Of course not.’
‘You’ve not heard of a man named Amaury de la Croix? A priest, from Paris?’
Her brow furrowed with what appeared to be genuine thought, an uncertain shake of her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘The antechamber off Lorenzo’s study? Did you ever see inside when you played there?’
S
he was looking confused now, anxious. ‘The storage room? With all the chests?’
So, the Muslim was a recent occupant? ‘What about the Court of Wolves. You know your father is a member?’ At her nod, he pressed on. ‘Do they know about this? About what you took?’
‘No! No one does. If the signore found out . . .’ Laora wrapped her arms around her. ‘Does he know, Sir James? I beg you, just tell me that.’
‘No. Or, at least, I haven’t told him.’
She stared at him, searching his face. Seeing she was shivering, he unpinned his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. She tensed at first, then settled, nestling into his warmth, trapped in the garment. She exhaled, nodding tightly. ‘Then I have time to leave.’
‘Leave?’
‘If the family knew I had stolen from them? I couldn’t bear it.’ Her eyes were bright in the dark. ‘I did it because I was frightened of what my father would do if I disobeyed him, but I did it for me too. I hoped it might change him, if some of what he lost – his fortune – could be returned?’ She sagged against the alley wall. ‘But he is worse than ever.’
‘Where will you go?’ He had wondered this himself, meaning to help her if he could.
She laughed helplessly. ‘I have no idea.’ A loud bang made her start upright. Sparks glittered red in the slice of sky above the alley. Hoots of laughter echoed.
Jack thought. ‘Does your father still have the chalice?’
She nodded. ‘I think he is biding his time until he can sell it without suspicion falling on him.’
‘What if I was to return it to the signore’s study, without his knowledge? He would just think he had misplaced it. No one need ever know.’
‘You would do that?’ Hope burned in her eyes. ‘But how would we return it?’
‘You could take it from your father’s—’
She was shaking her head wildly before he’d finished. ‘No. No! I will not take it from him!’ All her poise, the façade of strength she hid behind, was gone. She was just a terrified girl, tears in her eyes. ‘You saw what he is like! I told you – what he did to my mother!’
He reached out to take her shoulders, trying to calm her. ‘There are other ways. You do not have to do it.’
After a pause, she leaned in against him, resting her head on his chest. He smelled her perfume, so familiar now it was comforting.
‘Please, help me. Tell me what I should do.’
The plea was faint, more breath than words, but he heard it clearly. More than that – he felt it – an urge to protect her rose in him, despite the voice that warned him. Sliding his arms around her, he drew her closer, but even as he felt her relax against him, his mind filled with questions. If everything Laora had told him was the truth, then it pointed towards Martelli as simply an agent of vengeance – a man using his daughter’s closeness to the Medici to regain some of his lost fortune. But if that was Martelli’s sole aim, then someone else must be the traitor? Someone else, who had read Amaury’s letter and hunted the priest to Paris? Made that hole through which to spy on Lorenzo?
Jack thought of the badge in his purse, the eyes of the wolf slit with cunning. Felt his hope for that reward – answers to his past and gold for his men, and the future he’d begun to dream of, shimmering on a distant horizon – slipping away from him, back into darkness, until only Laora remained, solid and warm in his arms.
Moonlight slanted through the arcade, the shadows of pillars marching down the flagstoned floor like a ladder. In the shelter of the passage, a man was waiting, seated on one of the stone benches that looked out over the lawns, cast in ghost-blue light. His black robes were drawn tight about him and his breaths misted the air, still sour with sulphur from Twelfth Night’s revelry. Beside him was a bag, the leather warm beneath his grip. Hearing footsteps, the man rose to see a figure approaching, the hood of his fur-trimmed robe pulled low.
The two men embraced as they met.
‘I came as soon as I received your message,’ murmured the figure in the cloak, pushing back his hood. ‘You have news?’ His tone was taut with anticipation.
In answer, the man reached into the bag. He pulled out a book.
‘What is this?’ asked the figure, taking it from him. The book was newly bound, the boards stiff, the leather as yet uncreased.
‘I believe it could turn your fortune.’ The man paused as the bell in the tower above them clanged the hour, shattering the hush. Even after it had silenced, its echo seemed to hang in the air around them, a low hum. ‘I think you may be able to use it to contest the signore’s new alliance with Rome. Curtail his growing power. Once his son is in the Vatican, your chance to challenge him will fade.’
The man opened the first page, squinting to read the text. There was a name inscribed there.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
28
‘If you please, Your Holiness.’
At the gentle touch of Rinaldo’s callused fingertips on his chin, Giovanni Battista Cybo – who, on his election to the Holy See, had taken the name Innocent VIII – leaned back his head. As his scalp sank into cloud-like softness, he realised the barber’s attendant must have slipped in while his eyes were closed to place a cushion behind his head. He caught the scent of rose petals seeping from its feathered innards. The perfume mingled with the incense that burned in censers around the palatial chamber and the sweetness of the myriad concoctions on Rinaldo’s table: scented waters in glass bottles, perfumed balls of soap in tall, cylindrical jars, ointments and powders in ceramic pots.
Innocent usually enjoyed the weekly ritual, the old barber’s skilful hands soothing him into drowsy reveries, the scrape of the razor across his skin, the cool sting of perfumed oils. Afterwards, his face clean-shaven, nostrils plucked, skin pumiced and teeth cleaned with cuttlebones and dragon’s blood, he always felt like a man reborn, cleansed and pure. Today, however, he was finding it hard to settle, his thoughts lingering on the unexpected visitor who had come yesterday afternoon.
His eyes opened, fixing on the intricate bosses that encrusted the chamber’s ceiling, every inch of which, like all the private apartments in the Apostolic Palace, was painted and gilded, cherubim dancing, plump and pink, across it. His impatience rose as he wondered what was taking Franceschetto so long. He had expected his son to have arrived hours ago.
As Rinaldo massaged the soap into his jowls, filling his nose with smells of olive oil, honey and lavender, Innocent’s eyes swivelled to the marble table by the window. The book lay on its surface. Such a small, innocuous object it looked. Yet, perhaps, it offered so much more than the sum of its pages. Most of last night, ensconced in the curtained privacy of his bed, he had lain awake reading it, turning it over in his hands while he pondered how best to use it to his advantage. After Mass that morning he had come to a decision. Now, he was impatient to set his plan in motion.
His attention flicked across the chamber as one of his attendants opened the embellished gold doors, but he was disappointed to see it was just a slave, bearing the wine he had asked for. The slim, dark-skinned youth – one of almost two score moros sent to him by the monarchs of Spain after the fall of Ronda – crossed the chamber to place the tray on a table near the grand, canopied bed. After filling the gem-crusted goblet, the youth approached, eyes downcast.
As Innocent took it, a stray drop of wine dripped from the base to bloom red on his voluminous white robes. ‘You have to wipe it,’ he admonished the youth. ‘How many times must I tell you? Rinaldo . . .’
The barber was there in an instant, taking the goblet and giving it a swipe with one of his towels before returning it to his grasp. At a dismissive flick of Innocent’s hand, the slave hastened for the doors.
‘They are not much of a gift, are they?’ Innocent remarked. ‘When you have to train them to do the slightest thing?’
‘No, Your Holiness,’ agreed Rinaldo, letting him take a sip of wine before continuing to gently knead the soap into the folds of flesh at his chin. ‘
More a burden than a gift I should say?’
‘Indeed,’ sighed Innocent, tempered by the barber’s sympathy.
One of the first proclamations he had made on attaining the papal crown was to call for a new holy war – his great ambition to be the pope who wrested Jerusalem from the infidel and delivered it back to the righteous. But the papal coffers, diminished by his recent predecessors in their pursuit of the lavish restoration of the Eternal City, would not go far to fund such a dream and even though, in the two and a half years since that proclamation, he’d acquired some wealth by selling church benefices to certain rich individuals, it was still nowhere near enough for such a massive undertaking as a crusade and he’d been left to watch while Isabella and Ferdinand won the praise and gratitude of Christendom for their battle against the great evil of Islam.
A solution – a way to both flood his barren coffers and raise the spectre of war in the face of the mighty and arrogant Ottomans who had had a hand squeezed around the throat of Christendom for the past thirty-four years – had presented itself two years ago, but his plan had faltered with the failure of the Knights of St John to deliver what they promised. The scant news that had trickled to him in the time since from his agents, sent to search for his missing prize, had been a source of increasing frustration. But perhaps, he mused, eyes straying to the book, Fortune’s wheel had finally begun to spin in his favour?
It wasn’t until Rinaldo had finished shaving him and was patting him dry with herb-scented towels, that there was another knock on the door and one of the papal attendants opened it to his son.
‘Your Holiness,’ greeted Franceschetto, going down on one knee before him and taking his proffered hand, ornamented with rings, to kiss.
Innocent had sired the boy when he was only seventeen, but knew his fifty-five years hung heavier on him than his son’s thirty-eight summers. His hair, carved into a neat tonsure by Rinaldo, was ashy grey and his body had ballooned these past few years with his rich and expansive diet, making him look, to his chagrin, like a pregnant woman, while his chins had sagged, leaving his only well-defined feature his beak-like nose. Franceschetto, with his strong face, coal-black eyes and sun-dark leanness, had taken after his mother, a rare beauty from the court in Naples, daughter of a friend of his father, the viceroy. It was, Innocent had discovered, a discomforting thing to be jealous of one’s offspring. This was one of the reasons he’d distanced himself from the youth in his early years. But with all that free rein the young man had virtually strangled himself.
