by Robyn Young
The monsignore cut across him, his voice a blade, laced with scorn.
‘Carlo!’ she heard Goro bellow in return, followed by an incoherent tirade. He raised his clenched hands, which he then opened in an imploring gesture. ‘Monsignore!’
The two men were both shouting now, throwing their words at one another, so loud surely those in the rooms around them would soon awaken. In the torrent, Amelot caught a name that almost made her lose her grip.
James Wynter.
It was Goro who roared it, his hands balling into fists again. He shouted something about the Palazzo Medici, then something about guards. An arrest?
Amelot tightened her hold on the beam as the monsignore shook his head, unmoved by Goro’s angst. The man was turning back to the papers on the table, muttering to himself, when Goro lunged, swinging a balled fist into his side.
The monsignore staggered away, his face a mask of surprise and pain, but before he had time to react, Goro was punching out again, this time connecting with his jaw. The man’s head snapped back, but rather than let him fall, Goro grabbed him by his hair and, with a howl of pure rage, slammed his head down on the desk. He continued to roar as he did this again, and again.
The skin of the monsignore’s forehead split open. His nose broke. Then, his front teeth, crunching loose as his face struck the wood again, spattering the papers with blood and spit. He had screamed at the first strike. Now, he was just making a high, keening noise. Still, Goro continued to smash his head down, until the monsignore’s face was a shattered vase of skin and blood and bone.
Weak with horror, Amelot pulled herself back on to the balcony and dropped over the rail, crouching against the wall as the sickening thuds continued. She felt each one resonate through her, shooting her back to another time and place, as the monsters who had come out of the darkness around her family’s camp set upon her father and the other men of the troupe. The shrieks and cries. The screams of the women that had continued long after the men were silenced. Screams that, for her, had gone on longer still, until there was no more screaming to be done. As the thuds went on, joined by shutters banging open, voices calling in alarm, Amelot squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands over her ears.
Jack tried the door again, even though he knew it wouldn’t open. Finally, he kicked it and turned away. He paced the few steps to the back of the storeroom, which was lined with shelves. He’d scoured them when Rigo first locked him in here, but had found only folded napkins and towels, bed covers and lambswool blankets; nothing he could use to try to prise open the door or fiddle the lock.
The only light came from under the door. Earlier, as it had grown stronger, illuminating the shelves, the passage outside had filled with noise: the chatter of servants, the stomp of boots, the squeak of wheels and the rumble of things passing; chests, he guessed, being taken to the wagons. He had shouted and banged on the door, but no one had let him out. After a time, the noises had faded, until the only sounds were his own breaths. Eventually, the light had begun to dim as evening came on. Now, it was almost pitch black, just a feeble shimmer that told him a candle was burning somewhere down the hall.
Jack knew that, along with the betrothal festivities in Rome, Clarice de’ Medici planned to visit her family estates near the city, which meant he could be held here for weeks. Would they even think to feed him? He had shouted at Rigo and the other guards that he was a knight – that they could not do this to him – but whatever anyone else thought of his treatment, Lorenzo knew the truth. Knew it meant nothing to lock up some ignoble bastard in a cupboard for as long as he pleased.
His mind tormented him with the story he’d once heard Piero tell Giovanni, of the servant who’d been shut in here and forgotten, and visions of the dark-skinned man held in chains all these months at Lorenzo’s pleasure. But mostly, he was haunted by two questions: who had told Lorenzo of Franco Martelli’s treachery and, presumably, his own knowledge of it? And what would become of Laora, now waiting for him to return? The first had provoked an uneasy answer, for the only people he’d told about his suspicions of Martelli were his own men and, the more he thought on it, the more he felt certain he’d been betrayed.
His breaths quickened with his rising agitation. He couldn’t be shut up in here much longer. For weeks? He’d go mad. He lunged at the door, hammering his fists on it. ‘God damn it, Rigo! Let me out!’ Jack kept on pounding, assaulting the quiet. He’d wake the whole damn palace staff – what was left of it.
After a time, his voice hoarse, fists bruised, he saw a disturbance in the amber gleam coming through the door, the shadow of feet blocking the light. Jack heard the metal jitter of keys in the lock. He stepped back, but kept his hands balled into fists. He’d fight his way out if he had to. There were more rattles in the lock, as if the person were trying different keys. Finally, a resolute clunk. The door opened and he sprang out. A wide-eyed, whip-thin figure in a ratty tunic staggered back from his fists.
‘Amelot!’
In one hand the girl gripped a ring of keys. In the other, a crumpled roll of paper.
‘Where did you get those? How did you know I was here?’
She nodded to the door.
Jack, touching his sore fist, shook his head. Of all the people he’d thought he’d summon by his din? ‘Where have you been?’ This was a pointless question right now. ‘Never mind. Are the guards nearby? Did they see you enter? Good,’ Jack murmured, at the shake of her head.
She thrust the roll of paper towards him. In the shadows, she looked as feral as when he’d found her in Paris, her face streaked with dirt, brown hair hanging in her eyes; two large, troubled orbs. Where the hell had she been all these weeks?
‘Come, we must go.’ The palazzo was silent, but Jack feared his banging would have surely disturbed others.
Amelot stood her ground, still holding out the paper. Murmuring a curse, Jack took it. Unfurling it, he saw it was a drawing – a large square, with many smaller boxes and tracks of lines within it. There was some dark substance spattered across the paper. Ink? Several of the boxes had writing in them, but only a few of the letters were visible through the stains. He held it close, struggling to see in the shadows.
Madd . . .
. . . anni.
Pi . . . o
. . . enzo
Names, he realised, as he followed the boxes that marched around the square. Maddalena. Giovanni. Piero. Lorenzo. He was looking at a plan of the first floor of the Palazzo Medici. There were the children’s rooms, the dining room and Lorenzo’s private suites: grand hall, bedchamber, study. And there, mostly clear of spatters, the hidden room, with a cross marked upon it. ‘Where did you get this?’
In answer she raised her hand, placed it over one half of her face.
Jack shook his head, not understanding. He went to question her, then stiffened, hearing the creak of the stairs that led up to the upper storeys. The sound surprised him. There shouldn’t be anyone on the floors above, not with most of Lorenzo’s household gone. A patrolling guard perhaps? If he knew the direction the footsteps were taking, he could decide which way they might slip out unnoticed. Holding his hand up to halt Amelot, Jack stole down the passage and peered around the corner.
There, away down the corridor, five – no six – men, were descending the stairs. Their voices were hushed, but in the grave-deep silence of the palace, Jack could just make them out. The men were speaking a different dialect to Tuscan, but many of the words were familiar enough for him to understand. In the dark folds of their cloaks, he caught the gleam of weapons.
‘Which way?’
‘We should have waited for Battista. He had the map!’
‘We waited long enough. We’ll split up, try each room until . . .’
Jack didn’t catch the last words, but he didn’t need to. It was clear what they had come for; Lorenzo summoned to Rome, the palazzo emptied, the plan in his hands, the hidden room marked. He sensed the connections, but there was scant time for thought. Sl
ipping back to where Amelot was waiting, Jack grabbed her hand and pulled the startled girl down the passage towards the Sala Grande. As they passed the candle, guttering in a sconce on the wall, he saw the spatters across the map of the palace were not ink, but blood.
They ran the length of the grand hall, Amelot light as a feather on her feet, his own footsteps echoing painfully. The bedchamber was locked, but one of the keys on the ring opened it. Frail moonlight bled through the shutters, casting the chamber in grey twilight, blocky shapes of furniture and the unsettling figures of statues looming all around. Jack reached the study door. The keys jingled in his fumbling fingers. None of them worked. Laora’s voice echoed in his mind.
Papi kept the key in the same place he always had. Under his pillow.
Thrusting the keys and map at Amelot, Jack darted for the steps of the mezzanine. He bit back a grunt of pain as he cracked his hip on the daybed and hastened up the steep stairs. Feeling around in the dark, bumping into chests, fur-lined cloaks wisping across his face, Jack found Papi’s bed more by memory than sight. He shoved a hand under the pillow, slid it around; breathed a prayer for the old man as his fingers found metal.
As the key turned in the study’s lock, the door groaned open into black. Not pausing to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the new depth of gloom, Jack entered, hands out before him. Sliding around the first desk, he headed for the wall where he knew the curtain was. As his fingers grasped hold of the thick silk, he tugged it back. He felt for the bolts, snapped them across. The door, heavy, reinforced, opened inwards.
The chamber beyond was lit by a candle burning on the table, illuminating a pile of books and the remains of a meal. Jack wondered who Lorenzo had left in charge of the prisoner’s care. Bertoldo? The light gilded the room, bright to his eyes. He fixed on the large bed, where a figure lay swaddled in blankets. He approached cautiously, heading round to wake the sleeper. He was moving in, bending over the prone form, when a hand shot up and grabbed him by the throat.
‘Release me,’ came a hiss of Tuscan. ‘Or I’ll snap your neck!’
Jack, choking at the tightness of the man’s grip, dug his fingers into the prisoner’s wrist, where he’d glimpsed that knotted scar. The man cried out in pain and relinquished his hold, enough for Jack to pull himself free. ‘Men are coming for you. Wait for them, or come with me.’
There was a brief pause as the man weighed his options. He sat up, swinging his legs over the bed. His dark eyes smouldered like coals in the candlelight. ‘My bonds,’ he said, picking up the chain, attached to a manacle around his ankle.
‘The key?’
The prisoner shook his head.
‘Damn it!’ Jack had forgotten about the chain. He followed it to the wall, where it joined a thick ring on an iron plate. He pulled at it.
‘I have tried many times,’ said the man, behind him. ‘It will not yield.’
‘With two of us it might.’ Jack sat on the floor, wedging his feet against the wall, either side of the iron ring. He took the chain in both hands.
The prisoner stood behind him, taking up the slack. Together, they heaved. Jack wrenched on it until his muscles were screaming. But the ring and the plate remained fixed. He glanced up at the prisoner, both of them staring at one another; strangers, united in frustration.
The prisoner whipped round as a figure darted into the chamber.
‘It’s all right,’ Jack assured him, eyes on Amelot, who was brandishing something.
Ignoring them, she ducked down at the prisoner’s feet. As the object she held caught the candlelight, Jack realised it was a stiletto dagger, the blade long and thin enough to pierce mail and the gaps in plate armour. He guessed she’d found it in Lorenzo’s study. Amelot inched the point into the lock on the manacle, both men watching her as she twisted it this way and that, face taut with concentration. After a few moments, there was a solid click. The manacle fell open. Beyond, in the hall, came a whisper of voices and footsteps padding closer.
‘There!’
At the murmur from one of his men, Orhan looked up. His dark eyes picked out three figures moving across the roof of the building adjacent to the palazzo; ghosts in the moonlight.
Ordering two of his men to keep watch on the main entrance, Orhan gestured the other three to follow. Emerging from the alley, he led them down the deserted street. A rat scuttled across their path as they moved in silence. Orhan didn’t take his eyes off the roof. As the figures disappeared over the ridge, he ducked down an alley between the buildings, drawing his blade as he went.
On the other side, he was rewarded with the sight of the three, making their way slowly down a building, using window ledges as hand- and footholds. The one descending first, sure and nimble, was a skinny youth. The next was a tall, well-built man with long dark hair, who wore only a nightshirt, his bare feet slipping and scrabbling at the stone. The last, also tall and athletic of build, with cropped dark hair, had a bag slung over his shoulder and seemed an incongruous contrast to the other two in his silk doublet and hose.
‘It isn’t them?’ murmured one of his companions in confusion, as Orhan motioned them into the mouth of an alley close to where the figures were descending.
‘No,’ agreed Orhan. ‘Not Innocent’s men.’ His eyes lingered on the one in the nightshirt, who jumped the last few feet and stood back for the third man.
Voices sounded, somewhere close. Orhan turned to see firelight on the buildings further along the street, shadows of men looming across the façades. Guards, he guessed. They had seen many patrols on their way through the city, following the pope’s men to the palazzo. As he looked back, he saw the third man drop to the ground. The one in the nightshirt now turned in the direction of the approaching guards. Even in the shadows, Orhan knew his face.
‘By Allah’s grace,’ he whispered.
‘It’s him!’ breathed one of his companions, reaching for the crossbow that was slung across his back.
‘No,’ Orhan said, halting his hand and glancing at the watchmen, coming closer. ‘Not here. Get the others.’
31
After talking his way past the bleary-eyed innkeeper, Jack led them up to the top floor of the Fig. As he banged on the door, there was a volley of barks beyond.
‘Get gone!’ came a rough shout.
‘It’s me, Valentine.’
The door opened and the gunner’s slab of a face appeared. ‘It’s the devil’s hour!’ Valentine took in Amelot and the stranger beyond, dressed in only a nightshirt. He stood aside, allowing Jack to enter, eyes narrowing on the dark-skinned man. ‘Who’s this?’
Jack didn’t answer. Around the gloomy chamber, lit by tallow candles sputtering on the table, the others were stirring: David and Adam sitting up on their pallet, Ned rising, clicking his tongue to hush Titan’s barks.
As Valentine closed the door, Jack took his bag from his shoulder and slung it on Ned’s bed. It was filled with a few items of clothing, the wolf badge and his father’s Book of Hours, snatched from his room in the flight from the palazzo, following Amelot out from the terrace and across the rooftops, then a perilous climb down. ‘Who told him?’
‘Jack—’ Ned began.
‘Which of you told Lorenzo I suspected Franco Martelli?’ Jack cut across him, scanning them in turn. For a moment, none of them reacted and he faltered, wondering if he was wrong. Then, a voice broke the silence.
‘I did.’
All eyes turned to Adam, who stood facing Jack. His shirt and hose were crumpled and his grey hair hung lank around his face, still marked from their fight: a red scar across his forehead, a kink in his nose, two teeth gone and a third chipped in half. But despite his dishevelled appearance, his blue eyes were clear, and he met Jack’s gaze without compunction.
‘Brother?’ David gripped Adam’s shoulder when the man didn’t answer. ‘You did this?’
‘He lied to us,’ said Adam, eyes not leaving Jack’s. ‘You told us you tried to speak to Lorenzo, said he wouldn’t
see you. But you never even went to him, did you? He knew nothing of it when I spoke to him.’
‘I wanted to make sure I was right in my suspicion,’ Jack replied, voice low with anger. ‘Wanted to be certain Martelli was the spy. And good that I waited – since I don’t believe he was.’ Feeling a pull on his sleeve, he saw Amelot had moved in beside him and was staring intently at him, but Adam was speaking again.
‘What makes you so sure? Let me guess – his daughter told you?’ Adam shook his head when Jack didn’t answer. ‘And you believed her?’
‘Jack, what in Christ’s name is going on?’ Ned questioned, stepping in. His eyes went to the stranger, standing between Valentine and the door, watching the exchange in silence, Titan sniffing curiously around his bare feet. ‘And who is he?’
‘Why did you do it, brother?’ David asked Adam before Jack could answer. ‘If Lorenzo knows Jack kept his suspicions about Martelli from him, surely none of us will now see that reward?’
Adam crouched and pulled out a bag from beneath his pallet. ‘We already have.’
‘He paid you for your betrayal?’ murmured Jack.
‘Fifty florins,’ Adam retorted. ‘Enough to see us to Venice. More than enough, with the weapons we’ve bought, to join the company as we planned. I was going to tell you,’ he added to Ned and Valentine, who had both turned to him.
‘When?’ asked Ned.
‘Fifty florins?’ Jack gave a rough laugh. ‘I’ve drunk wine from goblets worth more! Enough to get to Venice? Lorenzo promised us enough for life! If only you’d waited. Let me finish what I started.’ Jack felt Amelot tug his sleeve again, but he shrugged her off. ‘Lorenzo used you. Took you for a fool!’
‘As he’s been using you? Or as you’ve been using us?’ Adam’s voice rose. ‘You God damn near killed me, you son of a bitch!’
‘I wouldn’t have had to if you’d stayed down!’ Jack felt anger swell, a beast awakening. ‘What was it, Adam? Pride? Couldn’t bear to be beaten by your master’s son?’
