The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series)

by Alana White

  “When have you not?” Amerigo said, and drew the intended laughter.

  It had been a difficult day, disappointing, shocking, exhilarating, and tiring by turn. Thank God for family and home, especially tonight, Guid'Antonio thought, shrugging off his crimson cloak and tossing it onto one of several pegs near the door. Tapers set in iron sconces suffused the saletta with light, making it cozy and intimate. The cooking fire in the hearth illuminated the marbled ochre walls and the red and gold hues in the intricately patterned tile floor.

  “Brother Giorgio, Nastagio,” he said, greeting Amerigo and Antonio's uncle and father in turn. Both men smiled; neither stood.

  Antonio patted the wooden stool between him and Amerigo, and Guid'Antonio sank onto it, safely anchored at last, fanning his loose linen shirt: the kitchen was warm, his underarms wet.

  “Look at you, Guid'Antonio,” Brother Giorgio Vespucci said. “Is that a halo you're wearing? Or, no, only a trace more silver threaded through your black hair.”

  “Brother, I wouldn't talk if I were you,” Guid'Antonio shot back. “The brown fringe that once ringed your head appears to have gone white as a dove since last I saw you.” Beneath his clerical robes, Brother Giorgio's torso appeared round and stout as ever.

  Not so, that of Nastagio Vespucci! Rising shakily from the table, Amerigo and Antonio's fifty-four-year-old father offered Guid'Antonio a weak embrace. Appalling, Guid'Antonio thought, sinking back down onto his stool. Was this his friend, the merry Nastagio Vespucci, a man whose reputation spoke of his fondness for food, company and drink? In the last two years, Nastagio Vespucci, who was not only Guid'Antonio's kinsman but also one of his closest friends, had turned desperately pale and thin. Antonio's letters to France had said nothing of this. Or so Guid'Antonio supposed; come to think of it, who knew what Antonio Vespucci might have written in private to his brother, Amerigo?

  “Try this new wine,” Amerigo suggested. “Cesare and Gaspare are bringing our salads.”

  “I'm floating in wine already,” Guid'Antonio said.

  Amerigo grinned, shrugging. “Italy was baptized in it.”

  Guid'Antonio accepted the dark ruby liquid. “Ummm. Nutty and velvety, with a slight sting on the tongue.” A Chianti tipico, or Chianti-type wine. “From our grapes?”

  “Of course,” Antonio said. “It suits?”

  “Absolutely.” Guid'Antonio observed Antonio with a fond smile. People often mistook Antonio for Amerigo, and vice versa. Three years apart in age, both young men were slender and pleasant-faced, with glossy chestnut hair falling past their shoulders. As the Vespucci family's eldest son, Antonio it was who had been sent to Pisa for a university education, rather than Amerigo. Today, like his father and grandfather before him, Antonio was a notary. Thus, in addition to assisting with the family business, in itself a ball-breaking task with both Guid'Antonio and Amerigo absent from home these last two years, Antonio spent grueling hours in City Hall certifying the authenticity of signatures and documents, work as hard on the brain and the back as it was eye-opening.

  Was that why behind his naturally cheerful manner, Antonio had acquired a new look of watchfulness?

  As for Amerigo, Guid'Antonio doubted employment as his secretary and traveling companion would satisfy Amerigo much longer. Then what?

  A small, robust woman blew in from the kitchen with Cesare, Guid'Antonio's willowy manservant, in her wake. Cheeks rosy with heat, Domenica Ridolfi hurried to Guid'Antonio with a pottery mug in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other. “It's about time you showed your handsome face in my kitchen!”

  Delighted to see her, Guid'Antonio scooted back his stool and hastily stood with arms outstretched. “Domenica, at last.”

  Under the cover of his mother's pleased laughter, Cesare said, “Messer Guid'Antonio, you survived City Hall?”

  Guid'Antonio's mind slid back to Palazzo della Signoria and Palazzo Medici and forward to the Virgin weeping in Ognissanti. “So far, Cesare. That and more.”

  Cesare's eyebrows quivered with pride. “Bravo.” With a flourish, he set the table, placing dishes on the linen cloth just so, turning knife blades precisely toward majolica plates, lest anyone feel threatened by his neighbor.

  Guid'Antonio kissed Domenica's warm cheeks. The woman who had cooked for the Vespucci family since Guid'Antonio was a boy smelled of garlic, olives, and plum wine, the latter sloshing dangerously near the rim of her cup. She hugged him with a strength that would have surprised him had he not been accustomed to it. “Domenica, I beg you, watch the cleaver.”

  “The only man I'd set this against is the one who would harm you,” Domenica said. For all her fifty-six years, the plain headscarf tied loosely at the back of her neck revealed curls more richly black than silver.

  “Domenica, pork loin, my favorite dish. You're a saint.”

  “What did you expect, with you just home from”—she waved her hand—“up Lombardy way.” Turning to the sideboard, she sliced a chunk of meat from the roast and offered it to him on the tip of the cleaver. “Is it true the French eat squashed lark?”

  “Domenica,” Amerigo broke in, laughing. “ ‘Squashed lark’? And actually, France is farther north of us.”

  Domenica skewered him with her eyes. “All that matters is the general direction.”

  “Not,” Amerigo said, “when you're traveling.”

  Guid'Antonio inhaled the fragrance of the tender pork loin. “Not squashed, Domenica. It's called pâté. Buena sera, Gaspare,” he added, acknowledging the cook's brother, the lightweight old fellow who had just come in from the kitchen, and who seemed in danger of toppling to the tile floor if anyone sneezed in his direction. Gaspare Ridolfi was older than Domenica by a decade and showing all the bone-bent wear of it. He coughed, recovered, and carefully placed a portion of salad greens on each plate.

  “Now you've graced us with your presence, I can fry the ravioli. Gaspare! Cesare!” Domenica waved Guid'Antonio back toward the trestle table, where his kinsmen sat watching him, grinning, then sailed into the kitchen with her feather-footed son and her stooped, elderly brother in her wake.

  “Are all servants as bold as ours?” Nastagio complained.

  Antonio said lightly, “Without a doubt,” but his quick glance at his father showed he had heard the truculent note in his father's voice.

  Guid'Antonio drizzled olive oil and vinegar onto the wild salad greens gracing his plate and thought back to Olimpia Pasquale. There was bold personified. He poured himself more wine. “How's this one selling?”

  Nastagio stirred restlessly. “Well enough to the few who can still afford it.”

  “Apparently, that's true of everything.” Entering the garden off Borg'Ognissanti just now, glancing at the wine-window open to the street, Guid'Antonio had noted the lack of customers who usually appeared at dusk to fill their jugs for a nominal fee.

  Cesare, gliding back in from the kitchen, passed the meat on a platter while his mother served the fried ravioli, and Gaspare puttered along behind her, sprinkling the pasta with grated cheese from Parma.

  “God,” Guid'Antonio groaned, savoring the fine aroma. “I've died and gone to heaven.”

  “No,” Antonio said. “You've come home to Italy.”

  Brother Giorgio's mouth formed a smile as round and red as a ripe cherry. “It takes more to usher a man into heaven than Domenica's arista and fried ravioli, Guid'Antonio.”

  “That's your opinion,” Cesare inserted neatly.

  Guid'Antonio smiled, blowing on the steaming ravioli on the end of his fork to cool it. The cutlery was new. Silver, with ornate finials in the form of le vespe, or wasps, according to the Vespucci family name. “Brother Giorgio, at this particular moment, I'm all content on earth.”

  Amerigo sopped his bread in olive oil, his face glowing with wine and pleasure. “Me, too. But you saw Lorenzo this afternoon. What did he have to say?”

  At the sideboard, the meat platter slipped in Cesare's fingers. He sat the platter down with care
and cut his eyes toward Amerigo with marked disapproval.

  Nastagio slapped the table. “Amerigo! What does it matter what Lorenzo the Magnificent says? More importantly, what does he do? Or not do, according to his own selfish nature?”

  There was an awkward silence. Amerigo stared at his father. In the quiet, Gaspare crept forward to refill Guid'Antonio's goblet. “No, grazie.” Guid'Antonio placed his hand lightly over the rim, his gaze fixed on Nastagio, who, it seemed, was as ill-humored as he was unwell. Nastagio Vespucci, a brave supporter of the Medici family, speaking of Lorenzo with such . . . disrespect? What spurred the man? A lingering illness? A raging fever?

  Antonio shifted on his stool. “Uncle Guid'Antonio, Amerigo said Alessandra del Vigna is ill.”

  “Yes. Maria's with her at her house.”

  “Christ be with the lady,” Brother Giorgio intoned, and crossed himself.

  Guid'Antonio glanced around and settled on the tried-and-true Amerigo. “Did you get a lot done this afternoon?”

  “I did. Uncle Giorgio and I rode to Careggi to visit Marsilio, who welcomed us with open arms and a host of new manuscripts.” Marsilio Ficino, the diminutive doctor-philosopher who—having produced the first translations of Plato's dialogues from the original Greek into Latin for Lorenzo's grandfather, amongst many other writings—now kept an oil lamp burning before a marble bust of Plato in his villa foyer and dabbled in magic.

  Guid'Antonio frowned. “I meant what did you accomplish here at home, Amerigo. Perhaps tomorrow I should tie you down in the scrittoio, where surely there's a mountain of paperwork waiting, else you'll be sitting with your uncle Giorgio at Toscanelli's feet, charmed by that old man's ramblings on geography and the limits of the seas.”

  Spots of pink color bloomed on Amerigo's cheeks. He glanced at Brother Giorgio before speaking. “Scholars come from all over Europe to the University of Florence to attend Marsilio Ficino's lectures. For us, it's just a short ride to his villa. And, yes, as you've surmised, we're meeting at Paolo Toscanelli's tomorrow. Paolo may be in his eighties and his theories bold but, as you well know, his belief we may reach the Orient by sailing west across the sea has people wondering if it may be so. Moreover, having been gone for almost two years, I naturally assumed a few hours in the presence of others would be amenable to us both.”

  Guid'Antonio was feeling ill-tempered, and he knew it. “I'm sorry,” he said. “Today's been a bear. When you come home tomorrow, you, Antonio, and I will review our ledgers.”

  “I'll be here,” Antonio said, sighing deeply.

  “That reminds me,” Brother Giorgio said, brushing crumbs from the lap of his robe as Cesare whisked around the trestle table, collecting dinner plates, “have we paid Sandro's commission for Ognissanti? Antonio?”

  “Haven't we! You'd think he was Masaccio and had painted the glorious frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, given his price. Higher than a cat's ass, and since he lives just around the corner, I couldn't put him off. He was here at noon today, having just this morning given our new Saint Augustine his final brush-stroke.”

  Put Sandro off? Guid'Antonio frowned. Why would Antonio wish to do that?

  “Sandro Botticelli's the best painter in town,” Brother Giorgio said. “In all Italy, perhaps.”

  “Particularly since Masaccio's long dead and buried,” Cesare said, adding the last plate to the stack on the sideboard. As the others laughed, with a quick hand he plucked a chunk of meat from the pork roast and slid it into the leather pouch at his waist, a maneuver Guid'Antonio watched with interest. Cesare had no need to purloin food. For whatever reason Cesare desired the leftover meat, why not just take it from the cupboard later this evening? Because Domenica might see Cesare and ask what he was about. What mischief now? Cesare held his spine straight as he made a smooth retreat into the kitchen.

  Guid'Antonio reined in his scattered thoughts. “What about the Pollaiuolo brothers? Or Leonardo? When it comes to talented craftsmen.”

  “Da Vinci? Hands down not dependable.” Brother Giorgio brushed another good measure of breadcrumbs from the front of his capacious monk's robe. “It was I who suggested Saint Augustine as Sandro's subject for our fresco. Ghirlandaio completed the Saint Jerome on the near wall. It became quite the competition. I imagine you've yet to see either painting.”

  “No,” Guid'Antonio said. “Nor have I seen our weeping Virgin Mary.”

  Nastagio barked a sharp, shrill laugh. “Ha! Rest easy on that score, Guid'Antonio! With Lorenzo balking at his chance to save the Republic, in the coming days you'll have plenty of opportunity to see the Virgin's tears and witness more trouble to boot!”

  “Father,” Amerigo said, frowning, “Lorenzo already saved us once. He did it risking his neck in Naples to secure a peace treaty with the king. Still—” Amerigo glanced at Guid'Antonio. “In City Hall everyone's question is the same. Will Lorenzo now travel to Rome to appease the Pope?”

  “No. Florence shouldn't be seen as submissive to Sixtus IV.”

  Brother Giorgio regarded Guid'Antonio with shrewd brown eyes. “However much her people wish to be submissive to the Church?”

  “Umph!” Nastagio grunted. “Lorenzo was happy to go to Naples and content to linger there indefinitely. Who knows? He might find a whore's legs open to him in Rome, too.”

  The color in Antonio's cheeks deepened to dark plum. “Careful, Father, I beg you.”

  Guid'Antonio's concern for Nastagio mounted. What in God's name was his old friend saying? “Nastagio,” he said, “Lorenzo went to Naples to end the war and bring peace to Italy. And did.” He felt as if he were addressing a child.

  “Peace?” Nastagio hooted. “He went to Naples to salvage his reputation in Florence.”

  “A not unreasonable motive, Father,” Antonio said, measuring out each word, “since Lorenzo and Florence are one and the same. You would do well to remember that.”

  Nastagio swung his arm out with such vehemence he knocked the wine pitcher from the table's edge, spilling its deep red contents across the floor. “My quibble is our imposter prince stole money from the State treasury to do it!”

  “Father!” Antonio said. “Go gently lest you wish us all to hang!”

  Guid'Antonio shifted his eyes around the table, silently watching and waiting to see how this would play out.

  Exasperated, Amerigo said, “Of course Lorenzo used State money to fund the war. It was a State matter done to end our conflict with Sixtus and the king.”

  “Our conflict?” Nastagio's eyes darkened dangerously. “Lucifer's, you mean!”

  Amerigo banged both fists on the table. Yes, Nastagio was his father. Yes, he was a respectful son. But he was also twenty-six and Italian. “Lorenzo mortgaged his land in the Mugello Valley to finance his mission to Naples. We were beaten in the field! Our so-called commanders were fighting amongst themselves. Chancellor Scala wrote us saying if what we needed was sluggards to win, we would have been victorious everywhere.” He sat back, his chest heaving.

  Nastagio did not cuff his youngest son; instead, he stared at him, confusion clouding his face.

  You're the ambassador, Guid'Antonio thought. A peacemaker, it is believed. “Nastagio,” he said. “Given the history of the place, Lorenzo could have been murdered in Naples. If it weren't for King Ferrante's admiration—”

  “Admiration?” Nastagio laughed shrilly. “If it weren't for the king's daughter-in-law, you mean!” Nastagio lewdly jiggled one forefinger in and out of a circle he made with his other hand.

  Brother Giorgio drew back, appalled, one hand clasping the front of his robe.

  Guid'Antonio snapped his attention to Antonio. “What is your father saying?”

  “Ah—” Antonio cleared his throat, his face bright scarlet. “There were—are—rumors that while Lorenzo was in Naples, he courted Prince Alfonso's wife. Since Alfonso was away in Siena, conducting the war against us here in Tuscany.”

  A torrent of heat flashed up Guid'Antonio's spine. Ippolita Sforza and L
orenzo de' Medici had met in 1465 when Lorenzo rode north to the Milanese court as Florence's representative at Ippolita's marriage to Prince Alfonso of Naples. Ippolita was twenty that May, Lorenzo a youth of sixteen being groomed to take his father's place as head of the Medici family.

  Calmly, he said, “Lorenzo and Ippolita have been devoted friends for fifteen years.”

  “Sì,” agreed Nastagio, and smacked his lips.

  A lighter tone, perhaps. “Nastagio,” Guid'Antonio said, “do you mean to say that in this enlightened age a man and woman can't be friends?” Guid'Antonio had a female friend himself. Friend. And wasn't that a laugh and an enormous falsehood, too? Her name was Francesca Vernacci, and she was the “medica di casa,” the doctor of the house, at Spedale dei Vespucci, a short walk from where he now sat. No one other than police chief Palla Palmieri and Lorenzo knew much about Guid'Antonio and Maestra Francesca's past love affair. Theirs was a tortured history that had begun a good twelve years ago, when, after Taddea's untimely death, he had fallen deeply in love with Francesca and had shown her just how deeply time and time again, night after night, and some days, too, worshipping her in her bed. Those days were long gone, buried in the past, but not forgotten, by him, at least. Now, since marrying Maria, he saw Francesca only when she assisted him with his private investigations, say, to establish the time of death in an instance of suspected murder or to identify a particular poison, like Death Cap. Friend? He still craved Francesca, loved her deep within his soul, despite the rational explanation she had given him why they could not marry. She was married to the hospital (his hospital, he had wanted to shout, but choked back the words), Guid'Antonio must have an heir, and, as she pointed out, she was already in her mid-twenties. He was a Medici man, his was a world of power and politics, hers one of bandages and late hours, of sickness and foul-smelling medicines. “I'm only sorry I couldn't save Taddea and the baby for you,” she had said, for Francesca it was who had ministered to Taddea in the end.

  Over time, his longing for Francesca Vernacci had become a thirst he could slake by just standing near her, breathing in her scent when they met in her rooms to speak of a case, but it was one he could not entirely quench.