Immortal

by Traci L. Slatton

  “I didn’t know if you’d come,” he whispered.

  “I’ll leave if we’re playing cat and mouse,” I said. That made him laugh.

  “We’ve had a grand game of it, haven’t we, Bastardo?” Lorenzo said.

  “I don’t much like games.”

  “That’s true, you’ve always been a bit humorless.” He sighed. He rolled his swollen, distorted, pale face away, then looked back at me. “Do you remember when we first met?”

  “Here, your grandfather was ill.” I sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Yes. I’ve thought of that day often,” Lorenzo said. “You showed up looking like a young god, exactly as you do now, and my grandfather was thrilled to see you. I was so jealous.”

  “You were his grandson. I may have amused him, but you were the light of his heart.”

  “You did more than amuse Cosimo de’ Medici. He was devoted to you. Is it true you were with him in Venice when he was exiled there as a young man?” Lorenzo asked, his ugly face twisted with pain and illness. I nodded. He said, as if with afterthought, “You’ll never forgive me, will you?” I shook my head.

  “I’ve done wrong by you, Luca Bastardo. But you’ll have the last word. You know I’m dying, don’t you? I won’t recover from this illness. There are omens. Two of Florence’s lions died in a fight in their cage. She-wolves howl in the night. Strange colored lights flicker in the sky. A woman in Santa Maria Novella was seized by a divine madness and ran around during Mass, screaming about a bull with flaming horns that was tearing down the church. Worst of all”—he wiped his hand across his face—“one of the marble palle, one of the balls, from the lantern on the Duomo fell toward my house. The palle fell, the Medici palle. It’s a sign.”

  “Signs are what you read in them. Mostly they’re God’s jokes.”

  Lorenzo laughed, but more weakly. His face was ravaged with pain. “You worship comedy, and here I’ve always considered you humorless.”

  “What do you want from me, Lorenzo?” I asked, but not unkindly.

  “Just before he died, Nonno told me that you had a marvelous power in your hands. You touched him, and it soothed his heart. It helped him. He said it gave him extra days to live!”

  “It’s not power. It’s the opposite. It’s what happens when you relinquish power.”

  “Can you touch me thus?” he whispered. I stared at his ugly face with its fierce, glittering black eyes. Despite the suffering there, I could not imagine letting my heart open for him, as the consolamentum required. The sack of Volterra, the years of controlling me through my fear of the Silvano clan, the way he used people like pawns for his own goals…I did not trust him. I went to look out the window at the leafy poplar trees Cosimo had planted.

  “What did you do with the letter you obtained from the Silvanos, about my origins?”

  “I kept it. I made a copy which I gave back to the Silvanos a few years ago.”

  “There’s a monk who’s heard about it,” I said grimly. “It doesn’t bode well for me or my family. And you want me to give you the consolamentum?”

  Lorenzo laughed wheezily. “I understand, Bastardo, it’s impossible for you. That letter is just the latest round in those games you don’t like, starting with that calcio game a few weeks before Nonno died. At least we won. We’ve had our victories, even if death wins ultimately.”

  “I could try to give you the consolamentum,” I said, grudgingly. Lorenzo was Cosimo’s grandson, and Cosimo had been a true friend.

  “But would you be trying for my sake or for his?” Lorenzo whispered, reading my mind in his canny way. “I don’t want Cosimo’s leftovers! I never have!”

  “Then what can I do for you?”

  “You can bear witness,” he said, licking his dry lips. “Remember the glory of what I’ve done. Your youth seems to have no end. Perhaps your life won’t, either. You’re like one of the ancient patriarchs of whom the Bible speaks, who lived for hundreds of years. Perhaps your father and mother were such people, and that’s why those mysterious Cathars attended them. Ficino translated a document which seems to indicate this.”

  “Lorenzo, what document? And how do you know so much about my parents? Only from that letter?”

  “I had to know everything about you. I tracked your movements, paid your agents to reveal to me what they did for you, and what they discovered. I was jealous, jealous of Nonno’s affection for you and of your service to him. I wanted you to love me as you loved him.”

  “You cannot manipulate affection from people. It must be freely given.”

  “I have been trusted with the governance of the greatest city on earth. I had no time to waste worrying about other men’s freedom when the security of Florence demanded everything!” he barked, then panted from the exertion. “I answer to history, not to individuals! That’s why Volterra had to be sacrificed. If I did not act with ruthless authority, everything my grandfather and his father had worked to create here in Florence, all the art and letters, all the learning from the Platonic Academy, everything noble we’ve achieved, it would all have been uprooted and denied to future generations! What is freedom when compared to that?”

  “Freedom is everything, it’s what created the art and letters and learning you’re so proud of. Individual lives matter.” I turned away, feeling nauseated. “I would have liked to have had that letter. And I’d like to read Ficino’s document. You’ve interfered with the destinies of other men, Lorenzo. How can you expect love to be given you when you do that?”

  “I have been more concerned with allegiance than with love,” he admitted. “But it has been my gift to guide the destinies of other men! It has been my gift to create history, to shape the future. Your gift is longevity. Since you can’t give me the consolamentum, I want you to use your gift in witness to my gifts. My gifts to Florence.”

  “You may have a reversal of your illness and be back on your feet in the Signoria, commanding the city,” I said. “The consolamentum may be unnecessary.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want to hear; you’ve never done that, and it doesn’t suit you!”

  “Because I didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear about Volterra, you recalled the Silvanos sworn to kill me!” I snapped.

  “You’re the one who left my service over Volterra!” Lorenzo replied. “Why are you still so angry? Isn’t that where you first met your lovely Maddalena? I heard rumors to that effect! Would you have met her and come to love her if it weren’t for the sack of Volterra?”

  “Innocent people were hurt! Innocent people died!”

  “There are no innocent people!” he flung back at me. “Being born into this life sets us all up for suffering! And we don’t ever know what joy will come out of suffering!”

  “And that’s what makes God laugh,” I said with more ferocity than any other living man would have dared direct at Lorenzo de’ Medici.

  “If God laughs, it’s at me, who am dying! You’ve been given God’s embrace: Cosimo’s respect and love, unending youth, and the beauty of Apollo!” Lorenzo spat back. We regarded each other with fury which slowly softened to pain. We each had suffered. Each saw it in the other. No words were said, but we came to an understanding. I still would not give him the consolamentum because of what he’d done to me and Volterra, but I no longer hated him. I have wondered since then, in light of all that’s happened, how time and events would have passed if I had just placed my hands on him, without thought or judgment, in that moment of understanding. Would the consolamentum have poured forth and saved him, as it had resurrected Rinaldo Rucellai? If the consolamentum had healed him, could I have averted the tragedies, personal and civic, that came to pass after Lorenzo the Magnificent died? Was I partly responsible for the events that have rendered me willing to die, not just because I chose love and death in a vision, but also because I did not alter the course of history when I had the chance, by killing Nicolo Silvano and Savonarola or by saving Lorenzo de’ Medici? Could I have changed fate if I had chos
en love over anger, over fear, as Lorenzo de’ Medici, the flawed protector of Florence and all things Florentine, lay dying? Or was the wheel just turning?

  “Listen then, Luca Bastardo who pins his hopes of salvation on God’s laughter. Listen to what I have accomplished. I have guided Florence to glory in commerce, in letters, and in the arts. I have sat with Popes and I have been excommunicated. Most important, I maintained a balance among the states,” Lorenzo recounted in a dreamy voice.

  “This was my greatest feat. I kept Milano and Napoli from war, kept the balance with Venezia and Roma. My peace kept the peninsula of Italia strong. This strength allowed Tuscan culture to flourish. It gave our nobles and merchants money to sponsor art, so that artists could paint and sculpt and create. It allowed educated men to promote education, the study of the past, philosophy, and science. The fruits of this period of peace will feed mankind for a thousand generations! Don’t you see that, Luca?”

  I was quiet for a moment. Then I nodded. “There’s truth to what you say.”

  His old pleasure in victory flashed over Lorenzo. It was quickly followed by an expression of sorrow. “But the strength and peace of Italia won’t outlive me. The Frankish monarch will march into our land. The Italian states lack strength of unity, and he’s united the Frankish states under him. There’s one France, but not one Italia. He’ll march through the peninsula. One city-state after another will fall to his armies. Even if all of the peninsula doesn’t surrender, he’ll siphon away the might of Florence. You’ll see. I love my son Piero, but he will not maintain the balance. Perhaps, if I could live ten more years, he’d mature into something worthy of the Medici name. But now he’s too young. Foolish and fearful. Weak.”

  “You were young when your father left the guidance of Florence to you,” I pointed out, sitting again on the edge of his bed, where I’d sat to speak with the ailing Cosimo so long ago.

  “Too young.” Lorenzo sighed. “Strong enough. But I’ve made mistakes.”

  “I never thought I’d hear you confess that!”

  “There are people I’ve invited back to Florence who should not be here.”

  “The Silvanos.”

  He laughed weakly, closing his eyes against pain. “Others, too. But I am sorry about the return of that family, Luca Bastardo. Truly. I was happy for you when you and Maddalena were married. I knew you loved her when I saw you sitting next to her at dinner that night at Rucellai’s. Did you receive the wedding gift I sent?”

  “Several casks of fine wine,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “I had them all tested for poison.”

  Lorenzo laughed again, this time until he coughed. His high-pitched, nasal voice sounded almost cheerful when he spoke next. “So I was right in my judgment of you, after all, Luca Bastardo. It consoles me. You are humorless. Killing you would have ruined the game, ended it too quickly. Don’t you understand yet?”

  “It’s more diverting to watch me squirm.”

  Lorenzo nodded slowly. “It’s not the Silvano family I would worry most about, if I were you. You’ve avoided them successfully for a long time…a hundred fifty years? More?” He paused, gazing at me, but I didn’t answer. He sighed deeply. “Two years ago I invited back to Florence someone I shouldn’t have. He’ll cause trouble. A Dominican preacher born in Ferrara.”

  “My wife likes the eloquent Augustinian monk Fra Mariano.”

  “So do all the upper classes, but the popolo minuto, the little people, have different tastes,” said Lorenzo. “They like to hear about wickedness. They like to hear the vanity of the upper classes denounced. They can’t afford vanity, the very vanity that has fueled Florence to greatness, so they want to hear it condemned.”

  I narrowed my eyes, considering. “You’re speaking of the idiot monk who preaches against good art and Plato’s philosophy and threatens everyone with the world ending if we don’t reform our ways instantly? I’ve never seen him, just heard about him.”

  “He’s not an idiot, though he’s even uglier than I am. He claims that God speaks through him, and his sermons have become so popular that San Marco can’t hold his congregants. He’s moved to Santa Maria del Fiore. The friar criticizes us Medici continually. He wants Florence to frame a new constitution, based on the Venetian constitution, without the office of the Doge!”

  I shrugged. “I’m not worried. We Florentines are who we are: pleasure-and-money-and food-loving folk who produce great artists, thinkers, and bankers. No monk, no matter how fiery, can reform the basic nature of Florence and her people.”

  “Not in the long run,” Lorenzo whispered. “But he’s fired the imagination of the people, so he’ll wreak havoc for a few years, watch and see. I know how people are. I know what people want. He’ll seize on the Frankish advance to remake Florence in his own mold. He’ll cast out the Medici. His sermons will reach into the Church to shake it; he’s already called the Church a prostitute; he’ll bring the wrath of Roma onto Florence. He wants reform, in the Church and in our city. Between him and the Frankish, Florence will lose her power. She’ll never again be the fifth element, the greatest city on earth. If I were to live, I would exile this monk, or, better yet, have him murdered in his sleep. Watch him and beware, Luca. You possess a singular gift, and when a Silvano calls his attention to it, Savonarola will suspect you of demonism. Fear him, Luca. If I were you, I would fear for you and yours.”

  “I already know about fearing people who call me a witch,” I said dryly.

  Lorenzo lifted his head up. “It’s not demonism, though, Luca. I know that. You asked me before how I know about your family and I told you about a document that Ficino translated. It’s called the Last Apocalypse of Seth, and it’s a forbidden gospel, a Cathar holy book. It speaks of a secret race of men fathered by Adam’s son Seth. These people have lives of fantastic longevity, but not because they’re evil. It’s because they hid themselves and kept their blood pure.”

  “Pure blood won’t endear anyone to the Church,” I said.

  “No, it won’t.” Lorenzo shook his head. “The story is that these pure-blooded people have been persecuted and killed throughout history, especially by the Pope’s armies. They’re living proof of a history the Church doesn’t want revealed. But, Luca, the real threat to the Church is greater than you, and this is my gift to you.” He paused and I watched him carefully, wondering what he was going to reveal. He smiled. “You’re not the only one of these people left. There was a recent note written on the manuscript that Ficino translated. It says a large group of them have a community hidden in distant mountains. They’re waiting until their numbers grow strong, then they’ll reveal themselves. Your family will come for you, Luca. Avoid trouble if you can, and you’ll be reunited with your own kind.”

  Chapter 23

  LORENZO DIED A WEEK LATER. I did not attend the funeral, though I did send a letter expressing my condolences and asking for a copy of Ficino’s translation of the Last Apocalypse of Seth. I received a curt response that Lorenzo had left explicit instructions that the only thing to be given to me upon his death was an old saddle, which was duly delivered to my home. It was, of course, the same saddle he had given me decades earlier, which I had returned to him after the sack of Volterra. I was left with the uneasy knowledge that Lorenzo had known more about my origins than I did, which did not bode well for me, and that he was still playing games with me from whatever purgatory had received him.

  And Lorenzo’s words to me from his deathbed ripened into fact. After Lorenzo’s death, Savonarola’s sermons grew more intense and apocalyptic. The friar was determined to stamp out the immorality and corruption in Florence that he claimed was encouraged by the Medici. He prophesied doom and the scourge of war. In 1492, Savonarola predicted that Lorenzo and Pope Innocent VIII would die, and when they did, he was emboldened. He thundered from the pulpit of the Duomo: Florence would be cleansed at the hands of the Frankish army. As he predicted, and as Lorenzo had told me would happen, in 1494, King Charles led a vast Frankish arm
y into the peninsula. The army crossed the Alps bearing white silk banners that read Voluntas Dei. Lodovico Sforza, the ruler of Milano, saw a means to realize his own ambitions and welcomed them, despite Milano’s alliance with Florence.

  The army marched south and Piero de’ Medici, Lorenzo’s son, tried to make peace with Charles by handing him Pisa and some other fortresses on the Tyrrhenian coast. Florence, which prided itself on its dominion over Pisa, was outraged by this craven behavior. Lorenzo de’ Medici would never have permitted such a thing. The Signoria closed the doors on Piero and expelled the Medici. Mobs broke into the fabulously appointed Medici palazzo on Via Larga and looted it. Savonarola used his influence with the masses to form a new republic. He outlawed gambling, horse racing, obscene songs, profanity, excessive finery, and vice of any kind. He instituted severe penalties: tongue-piercing for blasphemers, castration for sodomites. The monk then welcomed the Frankish army as liberators. On Florence’s behalf, he pleaded with King Charles to stay outside of the city’s strong stone walls. But on November 17, 1494, Savonarola’s persuasion proved unconvincing; King Charles marched twelve thousand troops into Florence.

  Maddalena and I stood together on the balcony of our palazzo, watching. Stamping hooves and footsteps reverberated through the city as a vast army entered into its narrow winding stone streets. King Charles rode at the head.

  “Look at him in his steel armor, a tiny little man astride a war horse so big it makes him look like a girlchild’s doll,” I commented. I put my arm around Maddalena and discovered that she was shivering. “Carissima mia, are you cold?” I pulled my mantello off and wrapped it around her, tucking it up around her pretty chin to protect her from the wind and chill.