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

by Alana White

  It flashed across Guid'Antonio's mind to wonder about baby Giulio's mother, who had borne Giuliano his by-blow, another precious Medici heir. Who was she? And where? Lorenzo had not said. Ah, well. What did it matter, truly?

  “Lorenzino understands marriage,” Guid'Antonio said. “His alliance with Semiramide helps bind the Piombino family with us against the Pope. No doubt you'll hear exactly how Lorenzino feels about the young lady when you ride off to visit him.”

  “If I ever do. Who knows what may happen next?” Amerigo hesitated. “Uncle Guid'Antonio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lorenzo must have noticed you didn't offer an open answer when he mentioned making a change in our government. I don't believe he liked your lack of enthusiasm.”

  “Nor do I like being manipulated,” Guid'Antonio said.

  That night, a hot, airless Wednesday in mid-July, as Guid'Antonio thrashed in bed dreaming of lush, sweet lips brushing his, someone painted Lorenzo de' Medici hanging from a gallows on the wall of the Medici Palace, directly across the street from San Lorenzo, the oldest Christian basilica in Florence and, for well over one hundred years, the Medici family church. On the stone bench beneath the crude drawing, the malefactor had deposited a set of horns butchered from a cow and above them had written: SEE HERE THE HORNS OF THE DEVIL LORENZO DE' MEDICI WHO RESIDES WITHIN!

  Large and heavy-fisted. In a dark liquid very much resembling blood.

  NINETEEN

  1470

  Via Saturnia, Florence

  Magnificent Lorenzo, to whom Heaven has given charge of the city and the State; first citizen of Florence, doubly crowned with bays for the victory in Santa Croce, amid the acclamations of the people, and for poetry, on account of the sweetness of your verses, give ear to me who, drinking at Greek sources, am striving to get Homer into Latin metre. This second book, which I have translated (you know we have the first by Messer Carlo d' Arezzo), timidly crosses your threshold. If you welcome it, I propose to offer you all the Iliad. It rests with you, who can, to help the poet. I desire no other muse or other gods but only you; by your help I can do that of which the ancients would not have been ashamed. May it please you therefore at your leisure to give audience to Homer. . . .

  Your servant,

  Angelo Poliziano

  By your help.

  Well situated in Mantua in the summer of 1480, Angelo Poliziano was not isolated, having been given an appointment in the court of Federigo Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua. Yet in his heart, where it mattered most, Angelo existed in a cold world, abandoned and alone. Never mind that in the sun-baked garden beneath his villa window, the hot perfume of crimson and butter-colored roses scented the air beneath the high, hot sun, and that in the distant fields tan-faced contadini wore their sweat-soaked sleeves rolled up as they toiled. Since hastily packing his bags and riding out from Florence eight months ago, Angelo had roamed homeless through northern Italy, drifting from Bologna to Mantua, Verona, Padua, and Venice, wandering through libraries and visiting other scholars, before finally settling in this city commanded by the Gonzaga lords: soldiers, scholars, patrons of the arts.

  On Angelo's writing desk there resided a bowl of golden pears the likes of which the field workers never would see, let alone taste. He consumed the plumpest of the speckled fruits, searching his mind for any means of mending his rift with Lorenzo de' Medici—he might just as well have thrown his conciliatory letters to Lorenzo into a black pit—and returned in thought to last December. He could no longer avoid the realization Lorenzo had indeed expected him to accompany Lorenzo's emergency delegation to Naples, where King Ferrante's cellars hid the skulls of rotting men. Unlike Lorenzo the Magnificent, Angelo was no brave heart. He was no soldier or politician. He was a defenseless poet.

  Yes, Angelo's translation of the Iliad from Greek into Latin had ushered him across the threshold of the Medici Palace ten years ago, when Angelo was just sixteen. Needy, his cloak threadbare, his shoes hand-me-downs, living with his uncle and a family of rowdy stonemasons on one of the Oltr'Arno's poorest backstreets. Angelo's face burned when he recalled that thin, ungainly lost boy. But he had found Lorenzo, and in him had found his savior. Lorenzo possessed a superb mind and the green freshness of youth, and by mid-January 1470, he was the twenty-one-year-old prince of the city, his father having died just one month earlier. Lorenzo lauded Angelo's translation, took him into his home, gave him decent clothes and rooms on Via Larga, and provided him with the best tutors in Italy: Latin under Cristoforo Landino, translator of Aristotle and commentator on Dante; Greek under Andronicus Kallistos and Argyropoulos; and Platonic philosophy under Marsilio Ficino, all at Studio Fiorentino, Florence's acclaimed university.

  Lorenzo had given him a home, finding in him a close companion who shared his interests in poetry and scholarship; Lorenzo had given him respect and friendship, even supporting Angelo during the thunderstorm with Clarice Orsini, Lorenzo's pathetic little Roman wife, and had allowed him to embark upon the ruling passion of his starved soul—the collection and translation of the manuscripts in the Medici library and the study of ancient coins and inscriptions.

  But Naples, for God's sake?

  Angelo abhorred violence. Just the thought of it made him sweat and fall into a panic. Two years ago, he had stood gasping for breath with Lorenzo and a few other friends in the Cathedral's north sacristy where they had eluded Lorenzo's attackers and bolted the heavy bronze doors even as men, women and children fled the church, convinced Brunelleschi's dome was about to collapse on their heads. Rioters had filled the streets, armed with bricks, rocks, and spears. “Down with the Pazzi family! Medici, Medici! Palle, palle!” they had screamed till their throats were raw and they could scream no more.

  At the palace later that day, the sight of Giuliano's body wretchedly fouled with the blood of so many knife wounds, nineteen in all, it had been said, had made him vomit Easter Sunday's blood and bread. Later, with hands trembling, he had written not about woodland groves, fauns, nymphs, and Simonetta Vespucci, but about greed and slaughter. This he had done, although it had meant stepping back in time to when he was a boy. This he had done, although it meant revisiting himself as an awkward child of nine, watching, horrified, as thugs threw his father to the ground, thrust their pikes into his body, slit his throat, and rode from the hill town of Montepulciano, laughing and congratulating themselves for murdering the man who had sent one of their lousy relatives to jail. Angelo had ripped the scab off that putrid wound and penned his commentary on the Pazzi Conspiracy, Della Congiura dei Pazzi: this he had done as a gift to Lorenzo, to Florence, and to all future generations. Did no one appreciate how the effort had wrenched his soul? Wasn't that bravery enough?

  I am not a coward, he told himself. Men react to violence in different ways. His face smarted with heat. He had heard the gossip on every Florentine's lips: Angelo Poliziano backed away when the whole city was in danger and Lorenzo ready to place his life in the hands of the Neapolitan king.

  The sound of a squirrel chattering in the garden brought him back to the Mantuan countryside. On these long afternoons, he usually tossed the little animal a bit of food to eat. The squirrel stared up at him now, white paws placed together in supplication, as if even it knew how to pray. “There's your handout,” Angelo said gloomily, tossing down the pear's fleshy white core. Anything rather than quit his rooms and thereby risk an encounter with the Gonzaga court painter, Andrea Mantegna, a crusty, short-tempered, querulous old snot of a man. Although, admittedly, talented with a brush.

  All Angelo wanted to do was write, teach, and share his ideas with a company of good men in the City of Flowers, where Italy's best and brightest dwelled. Mantua was a court rather than a meeting place of friends. In Florence, there was the Medici library. His heart sank when he thought of the disarray Lorenzo's priceless manuscripts must have fallen into during his absence these past eight months. He felt his anger flare. Lorenzo simply did not understand that handing precious writings over t
o every beggar who wanted to borrow them was a serious mistake. Who was keeping those records today? Who was protecting the written records Angelo had painstakingly created and kept a quick eye on every single day, no matter that he had students knocking and poems and letters beckoning him to his studiolo tucked in the heart of the Medici Palace?

  His sharp brown gaze fell on the latest correspondence from Alessandra Scala. One of Florentine Chancellor Bartolomeo Scala's five daughters, Alessandra was Angelo's dear, devoted student and friend. You remain much out of favor and it is useless for you to return here. My hope, Angelo, is that you will write, write, and write, for your own illumination and the comfort of your soul.

  Useless, Alessandra said. Alessandra, whose blazing intelligence matched her incomparable beauty, was not one to mince words. A sad smile touched Angelo's full, pouting lips. Write, Alessandra said, the pupil instructing the master. Wasn't that what he always had done? Poor, he may once have been, but his mind was not impoverished. Nor was it today, no matter how his heart ached when he remembered he would celebrate—no, merely observe—his twenty-sixth birthday two days hence in a foreign city situated between Venice and Milan. Not Florence. Although to the town of Mantua's credit, Virgil had been born near here, and S. Andrea, a former Benedictine monastery church, did possess the Preziosissimo Sangue, a vial of blood from Christ's wounded side.

  Along with the letter, Alessandra Scala had sent Angelo a birthday gift, a tiny pebble she had picked up in front of the Medici Palace, a small piece of home. Eyes closed, he pressed the stone to his lips. Alessandra had written of turmoil in the streets and of the tramontano blowing toward Lorenzo with such force, it threatened to topple him and his supporters. She had written of a missing girl and of the Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta weeping in Ognissanti Church.

  Bone Deus! Could it be that with Giuliano de Medici's death, the golden days of Florence were gone with the wind? No. Angelo refused to believe it. He would not believe it! In the last few months, he had composed epigrams and verses. Now, he had in mind a different sort of composition for Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, a secular play with musical accompaniment, perhaps even singing voices. Composed in Italian rather than Latin, that the play's spectators might better understand the words. Lorenzo, who from the days of his youth, had encouraged Florence's poets to write in Italian, to bring poetry back down to earth and the common people, would like that.

  Nothing like this proposed play, one with singing parts, had been done in recent memory. Why not throw caution to the wind? What did he stand to lose? Ten years ago, his translation of the Iliad had taken him inside the Medici Palace's hallowed doors. Perhaps Orfeo would take him back. It must, for then and only then would the fullness of the fallen angel's dreams rise and walk again.

  TWENTY

  “Whoever attacks Lorenzo attacks every last man of us.” Lord Prior Pierfilippo Pandolfini cast a grave look around Lorenzo's sala, his dark eyes blazing with fury.

  “ ‘Attacks’? There's a strong word,” Piero di Nasi said. “Revelers may have put the horns on the bench. Bravos, carousing.”

  “Then it's a dangerous joke,” Lorenzo said, his voice cold and commanding.

  In a nervous flurry of robes and papers, Bartolomeo Scala burst into the chamber. “Maddalena's in bed with fever and chills. She's four months along. I fear—” The Chancellor's satchel slipped from his hands; pens spilled over the floor.

  “God bless her and keep her well,” Lorenzo said.

  He'd like to break the table with his fist, Guid'Antonio thought. His eyes shifted to the other Medici men seated around the table. A good many of Lorenzo's partisans were in attendance, along with the Priors, transforming the chamber into a sea of red.

  “The drawing may have been made by some of the Pazzi family,” Piero di Nasi said. “Not all are in jail.”

  “They are now,” Lorenzo said.

  Antonio Capponi slid unceremoniously into a chair. “As always, bringing up the rear,” Pierfilippo Pandolfini said.

  “Have it how you will,” Antonio shot back. “Lorenzo, now your palace is sparkling clean again, why are we here?” Very early this morning Lorenzo had sent messages to the men of the Medici faction, telling them about the blood-spattered effigy and requesting their presence here this evening. Not exactly a summons, but still.

  A muscle jumped in Lorenzo's jaw. “We're here because I'm the target of men who mean to destroy me.”

  Piero di Nasi drew back. “We won't know anything firm until Palla imposes a curfew and loosens a few tongues.”

  “Curfew?” Pierfilippo Pandolfini snorted. “That'll show them.”

  “Violence against me is violence against you,” Lorenzo said.

  Tommaso Soderini drew his robe closer around his shoulders. “Other than drawing and quartering every man, woman, and child in the Golden Lion district, what do you suggest we do?”

  “Reform the government,” Lorenzo said.

  Silence hummed in the room, thoughts scattering, tumbling here and there. Ah, thought Guid'Antonio. Carefully, he said, “Reform it how? Do you mean you want the Lord Priors, many of whom are now present, to call for a balìa?” A balìa was a special commission created in times of extreme crisis and war. Dictatorial, it could suspend the Florentine constitution and override the law. It could name Lorenzo de' Medici duke or king and place Florence in the hands of one man for the first time in the city's history.

  “I do,” Lorenzo said.

  “Because of a crude effigy?” Antonio Capponi said. “Sweet Jesus, what have we come to?”

  Lorenzo jumped up and knifed forward, as if he meant to grab Antonio by the throat. “My effigy, Antonio! My house! Next time, you go to Naples, and I'll stay home! You watch your brother die for the Republic and wake every morning wondering if today's the day a madman will stick a knife in you.”

  Lorenzo slung himself back into his chair, still watching Antonio Capponi, who slunk down, his pale skin scorched with heat. There was a minute silence. “Our city and government,” Lorenzo said, and in his voice there remained an undercurrent of fury. “We're mired in debt. War, weeping paintings. Who can blame people for wanting to tear off our heads? We've become a place of curving streets and dead ends in more ways than one.”

  Pierfilippo Pandolfini's brown eyes darted around the faces of the other men. “I agree. It's time for reform. For change.”

  “What shape would that change take? Exactly,” Guid'Antonio said.

  A smile played on Tommaso Soderini's colorless lips. Bravo, Guid'Antonio. Dig your own grave.

  “Whatever it takes to establish a stronger government,” Lorenzo said.

  “But a balìa?” Tommaso said. “However would we manage it? People are suspicious of us as it is. They would think we're up to no good.” He smirked. “Imagine that.”

  “What is this? You know how it works. We wouldn't manage anything. We have a Republic, remember?” Lorenzo arranged two small bowls of olive oil and a large plate of bread and cheese in front of him in a straight line, setting the single large plate slightly apart. “The first bowl of oil is the nine Lord Priors, the second bowl, our other legislative councils. First, a majority of the nine would have to agree to ask the other councils to consider the appointment of the special commission, the balìa.”

  He tapped the second bowl of oil. “If, and only if, those councils agreed would the commission be appointed.” He touched the plate. “In turn, that commission, whose members would consist of a great body of men, would determine what reforms should be set in place.

  Exactly, I mean,” he said, his brown eyes fixed on Guid'Antonio. “Even if a majority of the nine agreed to initiate the proposal—” Reaching over, Guid'Antonio slid the first bowl of oil away from the other small bowl and the plate. “What makes you think the other legislative councils would vote for the creation of an emergency committee? They might not agree we have an extreme crisis on our hands.”

  He moved the second bowl away from the plate. “And
as Tommaso says, God help us if the popolo minuto get the wrong idea. If they think we mean to seize the government, they'll hang us all, no questions asked.”

  The sala was quiet and tense. Bartolomeo Scala looked up from his notes and put down his pen. Like Guid'Antonio, he was here only as a member of the Medici party's inner circle. And like the rest of the men present, he was willing to let Guid'Antonio butt heads with Lorenzo the Magnificent.

  Lorenzo drew his hands back through his hair, holding it away from his face. “I woke to blood on my walls. Who's next? You, Guid'Antonio? Your family? All I am saying is the Lord Priors should consider moving forward. All I hope to do is to strengthen the government, not for me, but for the people.”

  He sopped a piece of bread in the first bowl of oil and chewed it a while. “Every Prior currently in office would sit on the final commission. Along with a good number of other qualified men. Many of whom are sitting here now.”

  Of course, yes: it was the law. Lorenzo surveyed the meeting table. “You, Capponi. You, too, Di Nasi.” Lorenzo gazed at his uncle. “You, Tommaso Soderini.” His eyes locked on Guid'Antonio. “And you, as well as everyone present and many of our closest friends.”

  “As qualified men,” Guid'Antonio said.

  Lorenzo's lips quirked in a smile. “Yes.”

  Tommaso turned the plate, the emergency commission, the balìa, in a circle with the tips of his fingers. “No harm in thinking about it, surely.”

  No harm, Guid'Antonio thought, since we will be the men who benefit most from any changes made in the Republic.

  “The quieter we proceed, the better,” Tommaso said. “If we are to consider our necks.”