The Medici secret

by Michael White

  Chapter 29

  Ragusa, June 1410 By the time sunlight had begun to leach across the eastern sky, Cosimo's party had left the monastery many miles behind. Three days later, they had reached the coastal city of Ragusa.

  It had felt good returning to civilisation, and they did not dwell on the hardships they had faced. By the time they reached a tavern situated in the midst of Ragusa's thriving harbour, the sun was setting, casting a warm, golden glow across the shimmering water of the bay. Sailors were cleaning the decks of their boats and stallholders scrambled to sell off cheap their remaining stock of fish and vegetables. Laughing children played around the ropes holding fast the boats to the quay and chased each other round the nets and crates as the adults talked and drank.

  Cosimo was in buoyant mood. The adventure had been extremely risky, but worthwhile. The haul from the monastery was truly astonishing, including as it did a collection of essays by Martial, a commentary on Homer and a wondrous text that appeared to be a very early copy of a Platonic discourse. He had also managed to save a chunk of an original Aristotle text, and, most prized of all, an almost complete original work called Histories by the great Herodotus. They all slept like logs that night, their first in a good bed since the night before the raid on the monastery. Cosimo knocked on the door. He banged again, harder this time. Still no reply. 'Ambrogio… Ambrogio,' he called.

  Contessina and Niccoli waited in the corridor behind him. They turned as the innkeeper approached swinging a large set of keys.

  'You are concerned for your friend? Perhaps he drank a little too much last night.' The man chuckled and rubbed the bristle on his chin. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. Ambrogio lay sprawled on the bed.

  'Hah! I'll leave you to help him with his headache,' the innkeeper said merrily.

  Contessina held Tommasini's hand. 'Ambrogio,' she whispered. He twitched when she called him again, and his eyes flicked open. 'You look terrible,' Cosimo said. 'Thought you could hold your drink a bit better than that!'

  He stopped suddenly at the corner of Tommasini's bed. The floor was smeared with blood and a foul-looking yellow liquid. Lying on its back, fangs drawn back, was a large brown rat. A huge tumour, almost the size of its cranium had sprouted on its head. Its eyes were still open, and tracks of dried blood ran down its fur. 'Ambrogio, are you sick?' Contessina cried.

  Tommasini tried to sit up. Wincing, he grabbed his forehead. His eyes were ringed in black, lips dried and cracked, skin deathly pale. 'I, I couldn't sleep.' His voice sounded brittle.

  'What on earth's this?' Cosimo said, pointing to the floor. Tommasini looked down at the floor and turned away quickly. 'My God! Poison?' he croaked. 'I hope it's just that… I really do.' Silver stars punctured the ebony of night as Cosimo leaned on the rail of the ship and looked out at the inky calm of the ocean. The Zadar, the trade ship they had boarded at Ragusa was fast, but no vessel could be fast enough for him. All he wanted was to be home, to walk the streets of Florence and to have time to study the great treasures they had saved from the barbaric Stasanor.

  A voyage of seven days hugging the coast north then bearing west and south would bring them to Ancona, which meant giving Venice a wide berth. It would be a two-day ride before they reached home. Feeling suddenly cold, Cosimo pulled tight a rough woollen blanket he had draped across his shoulders. Cosimo was awoken by a shrill scream. Pulling on his breeches in the dark, he nearly lost his footing. Emerging on to the deck, he saw Niccoli and Contessina appear from the stern. They looked bleary-eyed in the cold grey of early morning. A young crewman came rushing towards them, his eyes black with shock. Cosimo was about to grab him when he heard the captain's voice.

  Captain Davonik was a big man with a long, pepper and salt beard, dark brown eyes and weather-beaten cheeks. He had followed this route to Ancona a thousand times and people claimed he had brine for blood. 'What is it, Kulin? You look like you've seen a ghost'

  The young boy was shaking and could barely form words. The captain gripped Kulin's upper arms. 'Calm yourself

  The boy pointed mutely to the railings on the port side. All around the ship, as far as the eye could see, the surface of the water was a mass of dead fish. They were of all shapes and sizes and species. They bobbed in the water, a thousand eyes staring blankly at the leaden sky. It was nearly sunset and Cosimo was alone in the hold sitting at an upturned crate that served as a table. Thoughts jostled for his attention, each one madder than the last. It was dark here save for a flickering circle of yellow produced by a single candle perched on the upturned box. He was surrounded by boxes of spices and exotic foods from Turkey, Persia and beyond. There were baskets filled with fabrics of many textures and a rainbow of colours. Soon these would be transformed into the latest fashions and sold to the wealthy of Naples and Genoa, Venice and Florence. There could even be in this very shipment, he mused, the silk for his beloved's wedding gown.

  In front of him lay an opened book, a volume which would have been considered the greatest prize in any library in any city in the world. It was a tract by a Greek historian named Thucydides, who, almost a thousand years earlier, had composed a funeral oration for the famed Athenian politician, Pericles. Cosimo read the words aloud to himself: '"And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses. There are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages."' Contessina appeared in the doorway. She was carrying a flagon of wine and a large bowl of bread and fruit. 'Sit, Cosi,' she said and smiled gently. 'I swear I've not seen you eat since we came aboard.' 'You think I need fattening up?' 'Definitely.'

  Contessina placed the wine and food on the makeshift table and sat down next to Cosimo. 'I'm not at all hungry,' he said. 'Nor me. But we should eat.'

  Cosimo poured some wine. The ruby liquid, rough and potent, came from vineyards close to Ragusa. 'Has Captain Davonik offered any kind of explanation for what happened this morning?' he asked wearily.

  Contessina shook her head. 'None whatsoever. He told me he has been working the Adriatic for over thirty years. He was younger than the boy Kulin on his first voyage, and he has never experienced anything like this. He's completely mystified.'

  'If I allowed my sense of reason to falter for a moment, I'd say this was the Devil's work.'

  Niccoli entered the room. 'I need to talk to you about Ambrogio,' he said.

  Contessina offered him some wine. He refused, but sat down at the table.

  'It must have been two hours before dawn. I could not sleep. I kept thinking about that rat in Ambrogio's room. Eventually I got up, and went on deck.

  'The night was unusually calm. I could see the island of Lastova a long way off to starboard. And then I noticed a basket had been lowered over the side of the ship. And there, lying flat on his belly, was Ambrogio, with his hands in the water. I saw a flash of green. It came and went so quickly, I couldn't be sure.' 'The vial,' Contessina said. 'Why didn't he tell us?' From the deck came loud shouts.

  Cosimo was first to the ladder. He held out a restraining hand to Contessina when he reached the top.

  Ambrogio Tommasini was almost naked. A filthy vest and ragged undergarments clung to his wet body. He was crouching like a wild animal, face and arms covered in huge sores and swellings that seeped a yellowy liquid. His eyes were wild. Blood dripped from his nose and mouth. His hair, once a beautiful mop of blond curls, had fallen out, except for a few stringy wet patches plastered to his bloodied scalp.

  The captain and the ship's mate were standing a few feet in front of him, staring, petrified.

  'Get back!' Tommasini screamed. 'Get back. Don't touch me. I am cursed.' Then he spotted Cosimo and the others. 'Cosi… Cosi.' Tears tumbled down his cheeks merging with the blood. It began to rain. 'Ambrogio, what have you done?' Tommasini looked puzzled. 'Why did you keep this thing a secret? Why didn't you…?'

  Tommasini took two stumbling steps towards them. A crazed expression broke through the grotesque distortions of his face.

  'Cos
imo, oh noble, virtuous Cosimo. You should hear yourself. Perhaps then you would realise why you make so many people want to puke.'

  The rain was now coming down in earnest. 'What did you hope to do, Ambrogio?' 'I had my instructions, Cosimo.' 'What do you mean?'

  'Surely you don't imagine you and the Humanist League are the only ones interested in the findings of men like Valiani, do you?' He coughed and retched. Blood splattered the deck. When he lifted his head again, he looked like a ghoul from Hell. 'And Valiani,' he gasped. 'Well, he hasn't exactly been secretive about his travels, has he? The Holy Father knew of Golem Korab before any of us.' 'The Holy Father? What are you talking about?'

  'You have a short memory, Cosimo. You forget. My father was chief theologian to Cardinal Baldassare Cossa, as His Holiness was once known. I grew up in the household of the future pope.' Tommasini tried to smile, but the result was a horrible gargoyle's grin. 'You're telling me Pope John knew of this vial?'

  'He, he knew the old monastery held secrets. An emissary from Macedonia mentioned the place, years ago and then…' Tommasini looked to the sky, his face contorted in agony. 'The Holy Father learned that Valiani and others were on the trail. I was called to Rome to speak with His Holiness. He knew of my links with you. I was well placed to pass on any information I might stumble upon.' He grimaced again and clutched his side. 'Then, when Valiani turned up out of the blue, I felt as though I had been handed it all on a plate. I admit I did not relish the prospect of a journey into the Macedonian mountains but, well, it was for the most noble of causes.' 'Oh?'

  'Yes, Cosimo, believe it or not, other people do have different ideals. My master, Pope John has enemies bearing down on him from all sides. He is a military man as well as a spiritual leader… He, he…' Tommasini's legs began to buckle under him. He fell to his knees. 'The Pope… hoped there would be some… something of great value in the library of Golem Korab…'

  Tommasini's eyes burned with profound self-loathing. 'Oh God, Cosimo, my friend, my loyal friend… I'm so sorry… I, I… opened the vial…'

  His lips continued moving, but now nothing was coming out. With a low groan, he lurched forward like a half-empty sack of flour. They had all gathered on the deck of the Zadar, the captain and crew, Cosimo, Contessina and Niccolo Niccoli. Ambrogio Tommasini's body lay in a makeshift shroud perched on the edge of the ship's railing. Spots of rain hit the deck creating dark brown smudges the size of ducats.

  Cosimo could not stop himself thinking of those who had died, lost in exchange for what? Ideas, a few scraps of paper, words, words left by long-dead men. The pain was almost too much to bear. He looked up to the sky and let the droplets of rain spatter on his face, let them run down his cheeks, impostors for the tears he still could not shed.

  Had the Pope known of the vial all along? Cosimo could only think the worst and must act accordingly. The vial must be hidden away and never be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Lifting his head he said, 'Dear Lord, take my friend Ambrogio who was cut down so cruelly and so young. Ambrogio fell into temptation, a temptation that destroyed him. He has suffered terribly for his sins. I pray his soul may rest in eternal peace, for he was a good man, a true and loyal friend, a man, weak like us all. I forgive him and I pray that in your infinite wisdom you, Lord, may forgive him too.'

  He nodded to the captain and the shrouded body of Ambrogio Tommasini slid into the sea.

  Chapter 30

  Macedonia, present day As the heli-jet came in low over Skopje airport, Jeff could see the city below, a low-rise mass of white buildings skirted by green mottled mountains. An hour later, they were through customs and being driven across the city in a black Toyota Landcruiser Sahara. Their driver and guide took them out on to the freeway heading west. The road climbed slowly as the landscape grew more mountainous. It was late afternoon by the time they reached the foothills of Golem Korab, the tallest mountain in Macedonia and the site of an ancient, now-ruined monastery. This stood beside a wide stretch of water, Lake Angja. Using a software package called Google Earth that enabled them to zoom in to within a few metres of any spot on the surface of the planet, they had checked over the site and were able to pinpoint a large stone cube, a featureless building on a small island close to the centre of the lake. There was no information available about the building but, from the slightly blurred images on Google Earth, it looked like some sort of marble mausoleum. Crucially, it was the same shape as the outline of the building etched into the key.

  The main road soon petered out and the four-wheel drive Toyota turned off on to a steep dirt track. After about thirty minutes, they reached a hikers' base, called Refuge Karadjek. From here, the guide had told them, a leisurely climb would bring them to the ruins.

  Jeff and Edie pressed on up the mountain alone. They each had a rucksack, torches, food, and walkie-talkies because there was no signal here for their phones. They had also packed a lighter, emergency flares and a change of clothing. Jeff was also carrying an inflatable kayak made from ultra-light carbon fibre.

  It was freezing cold, but stunningly beautiful, a hard and brittle beauty, like a cubist-era Picasso or a woman past her prime but radiant still with cheekbones chiselled from ice. It reminded Edie of childhood holidays in Scotland, walking through the Grampians. She hadn't then appreciated the spectacular skyscrapers of rock and the long spindly lakes squeezed almost into oblivion by the pincer movement of ancient stone; but now she could see the wonder of it all.

  The monastery reared up like the remains of a fossilised wood, great columns of stone soaring into the sky, jagged and irregular. Looking at it now, Jeff could visualise how once, long ago, it had been a magnificent sight, a monument both to the ingenuity of man and to his piety, for this had been a place of worship as much as a sanctuary where hardy souls had vowed to dedicate their lives to their God. And there, immediately behind it, perhaps a hundred feet down the other side of the hill, Lake Angja. It lay in the shadow of the mountains. Shafts of evening sun broke through the clouds and cast pools of brilliance on the hills close to the water. But the lake had the appearance of black glass, utterly still and forbidding, almost alien.

  'Can I see the printout?' Jeff asked. The wind had come up and they had both pulled on their fur-lined hoods. Jeff compared the Google Earth image with the copy they had made of the schematic etched into the key. 'The island must be just around that promontory,' he said, pointing vaguely north-east.

  Passing close to the remains of the towers, they found a rough path between the rocks that took them down to the edge of the lake. A small island was visible about a hundred metres across the still black water. Trees obscured much of the shoreline but they could just make out the sides of a squat building, its walls straight and unadorned.

  They dumped their rucksacks and Jeff slipped the protective cover from the kayak and let it unfurl on the shingle. He pushed a small lever on the side and a canister of gas opened, inflating the kayak. Together they pushed the boat into the water and clambered in.

  There was no current, so the crossing was easy. As they stepped on to a rocky outcrop of the island, they were struck by the stillness, and the almost complete silence all around them. The building dominated the island, a giant marble slab, featureless and foreboding. The walls were smooth, immaculately crafted to the point of complete blandness, leaving only the grain of the stone to offer texture or to break its uniformity. It reminded them of something Albert Speer would have dreamed up for Adolf Hitler's fantasy of the Third Reich.

  They circumvented the building twice before finding the door. It was a narrow marble rectangle made from the same piece of stone as the wall. The grain flowed from the door across the seam to the wall. The door would have been almost invisible when closed, but now it was slightly ajar. The lock had been tampered with recently, and there was still the residue of some lubricating oil. Jeff felt a tingle of excitement shoot down his spine.

  'You don't have to go any further, Edie,' he said, pulling a torch from his bag. 'Don'
t be bloody ridiculous.'

  'Perhaps one of us should stay here anyway, just incase.'

  'Oh sod off, Jeff. In case of what? Don't you think it's a bit late for that sort of thinking?'

  'OK,' he said, ducking under the lintel and flicking on his torch.

  Their feet echoed on the marble floor of a narrow corridor. Their torch beams cut spectral tubes of illumination through the darkness and they could just make out the far wall, another featureless stone barrier. But as their eyes adjusted to the void they could see a faint patch of light and the blankness of empty space gave way to an outline, a rectangular opening and a corridor beyond.

  The distant light was just enough to see by and they flicked off their torches. The stone walls were as smooth and plain as the rest of the mausoleum: cold, soulless marble that glistened very faintly. Instinctively, they moved to the edge of the corridor, clinging to the wall and slowing their pace. As they approached the end of the passageway they could see another rectangular opening cut into the stone. A vast metal door opened into another corridor, and through the opening on to a high-ceilinged chamber. The walls were splashed with orange light that danced and shimmered over the stone. Edie slid around the stone and leaned into the room as far as she dared.

  It was vast, a circular chamber with a domed roof, almost a hemisphere, but pinched at the centre like the domes of St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. The walls and the floor were constructed from the purest white stone. In the centre stood a massive block of black marble.

  At first, Edie couldn't understand how the room was lit. There were no torches on the walls. But a channel, perhaps two feet wide cut into the floor, ran around the perimeter of the room and flames licked the air with their roots in a viscous black liquid. Someone had obviously been here very recently.

  This does not bode well, thought Jeff. But it was too late to turn back now.

  They left their rucksacks by the entrance, and walked over to the black object, which lay directly beneath the apex of the ceiling. Along one edge were three deep steps. They took them slowly. Reaching the top, Edie gasped and almost lost her footing. 'My God!' she exclaimed. Beneath a glass canopy, two large caskets lay side by side. One casket contained the body of a woman who was wearing what looked like a wedding dress, except it was cream and laced in pale blue. A gossamer veil covered her face. The man in the other casket wore a long gown of royal blue velvet with gold brocade. Their faces had crumbled, the skin frayed along the chin and across the cheeks. Their hands lay on cream silk, the flesh all gone, which made their identical rings of white gold and amethyst look many sizes too big. Beside the nearest casket stood two marble columns. Upon the left pedestal sat a plain rectangular wooden box, about a foot long. On the column to the right was a gold plaque with words in Latin etched into it. All they could understand immediately were the words: COSIMO ET CONTESSINA DE' MEDICI. 'Quite spectacular, is it not?' The voice came from the entrance. They spun round.