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

by Alana White

  “Those who go will need a strong recommendation from Lorenzo. You could whisper my name in his ear.”

  “I could,” Guid'Antonio said.

  “You'll tell no one else what I'm about to say? For I have no wish to bring trouble to Brother Martino or any of ours in Ognissanti.”

  “Of course I won't.”

  “Peretola,” Sandro said.

  “Peretola?” Guid'Antonio stiffened. “That's the Vespucci family seat.”

  “I know. And Peretola was the last word I heard on Brother Martin's lips.”

  “Yes, I know Martino Leone,” Niccolò Vespucci said.

  Guid'Antonio and Amerigo were in Niccolò's tavern in Peretola a short distance from Florence, having hastily saddled Flora and Bucephalus and ridden hard through the Prato Gate. “I know the boy's family, at least. The Leones keep a farm nearby. Their son, this Martino Leone, came home, oh, a good two weeks ago now. Left the church, probably in disgrace, but his family took him back willingly. Not every son makes a monk.”

  Two weeks. Guid'Antonio smiled to himself. Two weeks ago was when Martino bumped into him in the street.

  “Thank God for that,” Amerigo said. “I would not want to enter the church myself, though I believe Uncle Giorgio hoped I might.” He fanned himself, his face dripping sweat, then gulped the Chianti his uncle Niccolò Vespucci had poured for him and his kinsman, Guid'Antonio. Seated at one of the tavern's many tables, with a plate of cheese and fruit alongside a plate of zucchini fritti, eggplant fried in olive oil then sprinkled with parsley, spread before them, Guid'Antonio wiped his hands on his pants and casually said, “Do you think Martino's still there? At the Leone farm, I mean?” Please, God, please.

  “Where else would he go?” Niccolò poured more wine from the carafe.

  “Did—does he have a young woman with him?” Amerigo said.

  “A young woman?” Niccolò fluttered his hand. “What family would allow such indecency as that?”

  “None, surely,” Amerigo said.

  They asked for directions to the Leone farm; Niccolò Vespucci told them the way; and then as quickly as they had come, Guid'Antonio and Amerigo were off and gone yet again.

  In the fields, the apple and pear trees dripped with maturing fruit. Bees buzzed beneath the sun, buried themselves in wild flowers, and returned to their hives with pollen. Crickets sang ceaselessly. A wooden cart rattled along the road, its load a basket of ripe cherries. The old man pushing the cart waved as Guid'Antonio and Amerigo rode by. “Can things be looking up?” Amerigo said, waving back. “All seems well here.”

  “We can hope.” In a few weeks, the sun would scorch the green meadows stretching out on either side of them, bleaching the grass into the thin yellow shade of straw.

  They found Martino Leone gathering root vegetables in the narrow terraces surrounding the Leone farmhouse. A young girl walking down the road with a string of dead pigeons in her hand had directed them here. Roasted, the birds' meat would fill several bellies. Crushed, their bones would yield a hearty soup stock.

  Martino started when he saw the two riders approaching. He glanced toward the stone house. The windows were open and empty. The mutt lounging in the door didn't lift its head. Everything in Martino's manner shouted, “Run!”

  “No,” Guid'Antonio said, sliding from the saddle. “We want only to talk. You've nothing to fear.” For now.

  Martino hesitated and approached them heavily, as if his feet were weighed down with stones. He held out his hands, crossed at the wrists, waiting to have them bound. “Take me to the Stinche. Or to Abbot Ughi. Whoever sent you, I'm your prisoner now.”

  Guid'Antonio gave Martino an appraising look: glossy black hair, a remarkably beautiful face, a face that might have been drawn by Botticelli himself. He said, “For what crime, pray tell?”

  “Murder. Cowardice.”

  Guid'Antonio took in the trembling, slender hands, newly calloused and raw. When had they ever toiled? Not in Ognissanti, certainly. Not at hard labor, at any rate. He said, “No one sent me. I'm neither the church nor the police.”

  “You are both,” Martino said. “I know who you are. I defiled Ognissanti. Your place of worship.”

  “Defiled it how? Why did you leave there?”

  “Because they killed her. Camilla,” Martino said, her name soft on his lips.

  Guid'Antonio's heart picked up a pace. “They?” he said.

  “The Turkish Infidels. Because of me! And caused the Virgin Mary painting to weep, all, all because of me.” Hot tears streaked Martino's dusty cheeks.

  “Holy hell,” Amerigo said, “you take a lot on yourself.”

  “I repeat, Martin Leone: how? And why?” Guid'Antonio said.

  “Because of our sins. Me, a monk, and her, a married lady. We couldn't help ourselves. We were in love. I love her still.”

  Amerigo gave Guid'Antonio a look from beneath half-lowered lids: I knew it.

  “And this in Ognissanti?” Guid'Antonio said.

  Martino swiped at the tears on his cheeks. “Yes, in one chapel after another when she came to say her prayers.”

  “And had them answered,” Amerigo said.

  “Where is everyone?” Guid'Antonio said, glancing around. Deserted road, empty meadows and fields.

  “The market fair a short way down from here. Vegetables, fruit.”

  “And you didn't go?”

  “I told you I'm a coward. I neither want to see anyone nor to be seen.”

  “Nor to be caught. You're out of luck today,” Amerigo said.

  Guid'Antonio indicated the stone steps leading into the house. “Let's sit down.”

  This they did, the old dog shuffling to the narrow shade of a plane tree. “You left Ognissanti a few days after word came the Turks had kidnapped Camilla and the painting began to weep.”

  Martino covered his face with his hands, sobbing. “Yes. Why did God punish her instead of me? I've asked it over and over, but have no answer. But this—” He thumped his chest. “The pain in my heart is my eternal punishment. Camilla's sweet and good. But I—I had lust in my heart. God is punishing me. He's leveling his righteous fury on all Tuscany because of me.”

  His gaze slid to Guid'Antonio. “The interdict still stands?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Mary!”

  “You believe Camilla's dead?” Guid'Antonio said.

  “Naturally. Her nurse came back to Florence and said—”

  “We know what her nurse said. Have you any news at all from town?”

  “Why should I? I don't care what happens there anymore.”

  Guid'Antonio narrowed his eyes, watching him closely. “You might care about this: Castruccio Senso is dead.”

  Martino whipped around on the step. “Camilla's husband? Dead? Good. How?”

  “Murdered,” Guid'Antonio said.

  “Murdered?” Martino gasped, licking his lips, blinking rapidly. “Don't look at me for this. I despised Castruccio Senso, but I never would kill him. But had I done that early on, we could have—”

  His voice sharp, Guid'Antonio said, “You could have done nothing.” Beyond the hot passions released in the murky shadows of the church, Martino Leone and Camilla Rossi da Vinci had had no choices open to them. As Martino had said, they were a monk and a married lady. Where would they go? How would they live once they arrived there?

  “How did Castruccio die?” Martino said, his words a dry whisper in his mouth.

  “A burglary. In his house,” Guid'Antonio said vaguely.

  “Then may he burn in the hottest corner of hell. Surely, I'll see him there.” Martino shook his head in wonder. “If it had happened differently, him killed and her not going to the baths, then we—”

  They left Martin Leone like that, on the stone step alone, building an airy castle of maybes and what-ifs, Guid'Antonio content to let him do so if it eased the fellow's tortured soul. He thought about the baths, the nonexistent reservation, Castruccio Senso's murder, and the ill-star
red lovers, and in his heart he still resisted the notion God decided everything.

  They rode home in the early evening through an atmosphere perfumed with the ripe, hot scent of fig trees and fennel, and on through the Prato Gate. In the Vespucci garden, Maria ran to him, her smile markedly brighter than he had seen it in the five days since her mother's burial. “Oh!” She stepped back, pretending to shudder. “You're all sweaty.”

  “Enjoy,” he said, smiling back at her.

  “Guid'Antonio!”

  “I thought you liked me this way.”

  “I do, but people can hear you. Where have you been all day?”

  “Buena sera,” Amerigo said to Maria, grinning, and went on into the kitchen for a late supper.

  To Verrocchio and Company. To Ognissanti Church. To Sandro's bottega just around the corner. “To Peretola,” Guid'Antonio said. Turks, he thought. A missing girl. A weeping painting. A husband murdered.

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Some.” She looked young and pretty in the twilight, even in her mourning gown and veils, black, and even more black silk enveloping her all around. How did she breathe?

  She glanced toward the fountain where Luigi, Giovanni, and Olimpia were playing cards. Nearby sat Cesare on a stool brushing Dog's coat with a silver brush. I have lost control of our house, Guid'Antonio thought. Obviously, Dog had been the victim of another bath. Olimpia, her eyes adoring, watched Cesare work the bristles through the cur's lustrous fawn coat.

  Here was a pretty scene. Why did it make him uneasy? Dog, having spotted him, grinned and struggled to rise from his haunches. “He doesn't want you,” Cesare reminded the animal, pressing its rear end down. “Stay.”

  “The boys do get along,” Maria was saying. “Can we keep him? Luigi, I mean.”

  “He's not a pet, Maria,” Guid'Antonio said, drawing his eyes back to her.

  “I know that,” she said with considerable heat. “I mean to care for Luigi, as we do all our family.”

  The Vespuccis didn't own any slaves, though most wealthy families in Florence counted several in their households. Lorenzo de' Medici's grandfather, Cosimo, had a son by a slave girl; his name was Carlo de' Medici. Again, there was Lorenzo's half sister born of Lorenzo's father, Piero, under the same circumstances. “I don't know, Maria,” Guid'Antonio said. “Castruccio Senso seems not to have heirs, but if someone does eventually come forward, they'll claim the boy. Luigi is valuable on the market. We'll have to wait and see.” Buy the boy? Luigi. Not his true name, of course. “If we should take him in, we'll free him when he comes of age.”

  “Good.” She kissed him there in front of everyone. Long. Hard.

  His blood stirred. “Let's go upstairs.”

  A smile curved Maria's lips. “Olimpia, watch the boys.”

  Dog, released from his grooming, followed Guid'Antonio with yearning eyes as they crossed the garden, while Cesare caught Giovanni up and swung him around, causing the boy to giggle, and Luigi stood back, his face filled with longing.

  What might a man do if he believes his wife is cuckolding him?

  Guid'Antonio trailed his fingers down Maria's belly, his eyes on her face, drinking her in. Beat her? Beat him? Send her on vacation to remove her from the other man? Murder her, having already collected the balance of her dowry? And all this, or some part of it, swirling around Lorenzo and the weeping Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta in All Saints Church. Guid'Antonio shook his head to clear it, damning himself for the direction of his thoughts here in his bed.

  “You're thinking about him and all his troubles,” Maria whispered, her lips soft against the hairs on his chest.

  “I just want to forget him for now,” he said.

  “I will if you will,” she said and drew him down to her, her mouth hungry, seeking his.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “No wonder Leonardo's so good. Who couldn't draw if he was born with this view?” Amerigo said.

  “Me.” Guid'Antonio lifted a spoonful of ribollita to his lips.

  The view from the village inn Leonardo da Vinci's family owned in the hilltop town of Vinci was a panorama of dark green cypresses, ancient olive trees, flowering almonds, and sparkling, darting streams. Guid'Antonio wondered if in the last few hours Leonardo had had any luck with making paintings weep. So far, Luca Landucci had sent Guid'Antonio only two notes, the second one as vague as the first: Luca's attempts continued apace. Guid'Antonio sighed, sipping wine. At least Luca and Leonardo were trying. He had an image of them slipping into Ognissanti under the cover of night and bumping into one another—no matter that he had cautioned Luca about going there—one tall, slender, and fair, the other olive-skinned and stocky, the picture of the successful, honest druggist whom no one would ever suspect of prowling the streets with a pig's bladder secreted beneath his cloak.

  “What are you hoping to find at Jacopo Rossi's farm?” Amerigo said. “Don't forget Palla was there and came away with nothing.”

  “I'm not Palla,” Guid'Antonio said, sopping up the bits of beans and carrot in his bowl. Palla hadn't found a clue in Castruccio Senso's account books, either. Yet another dead end. Well. Jacopo Rossi's homestead was not far from the center of this small town. Pray the man was there.

  He said, “I just want any little hint.” His voice trailed off. Along with Jacopo Rossi da Vinci, he wanted to speak with Margherita Whoever-She-Was, the old nurse who had accompanied Camilla and Luigi on their ill-fated ride toward the baths at Morba one month ago, now. Despite Martino's protestations to the contrary, had Martino and Camilla concocted a plan to flee to some faraway town and convinced Margherita and Luigi to go along with it, conjuring up Turks, a kidnapping, and so on?

  No. In that case, Martino would have known what had actually happened on the road. He would be with Camilla, for God's sake. Instead, he had remained in Florence the whole while, wrapped in a cloak of misery, till escaping to the Leone family homestead.

  “I just recalled something odd Francesco da Vinci mentioned while we were talking recently,” Amerigo said. “I saw him in the marketplace.”

  “Leonardo's uncle? In Florence? Odd? How?”

  “He mentioned Camilla's ghost to me.”

  Guid'Antonio, who had pushed back from the table, intending to retrieve a few coins from his scrip for the tavern keeper hovering near the service counter, sat back down, hard. “What are you saying?”

  “He spoke of Camilla's, ah, ghost wandering around Vinci.” Amerigo gestured toward the town beyond the tavern door. “So outrageous, I didn't think—” He pulled a face. “You know how superstitious these villagers are.”

  “Villagers? Villagers, my ass,” Guid'Antonio said brusquely. “Superstitious? Have you forgotten all the talk of miracles in Florence, and why we're here?” He called the taverner over to them. This was Giovan, a friendly, red-faced fellow cast from the hearty and talkative tavern owner's mold. “My nephew tells me Vinci has a ghost.” Guid'Antonio's own manner had undergone a rapid change, become effusive, gossipy.

  “We do. We did.” Giovan poured more Chianti into their jug and placed both hands on the table, towering over them. “I saw the specter myself. None other than Camilla Rossi, wandering through the town at midnight, wailing as if her heart might break.”

  Guid'Antonio inhaled a sharp breath. “Ah. You're certain it was she?”

  “Never a doubt. Pretty a girl as a man ever did see, but now her black hair gone all wild, and her under gown—” Giovan had the grace to redden beneath his already rosy coloring. “Her under gown clinging—well . . . but her dead and all, you see. Never did you witness such—”

  “Would that I had,” Amerigo said.

  “Giovan, had you seen this apparition before? Have you since?” Guid'Antonio said.

  “No, 'twas only that once. Right after she was violated and murdered.” Giovan crossed himself. “God rest her soul and bring her peace and send the Ottomans to hell.”

  “Did anyone else see her?” Guid'Antonio pressed. />
  Giovan shook his head. “The hour was late, and I was closing up the place. I yelled, and in a flash, she evaporated.” He snapped his fingers and shivered, though the tavern was hot and close.

  “So, Amerigo,” Guid'Antonio said, when they were riding out from Vinci, “what make you of that?”

  Amerigo turned slightly in the saddle. “I'm not sure, Uncle.”

  Guid'Antonio laughed dismissively. “You're a help.”

  Amerigo flared. “What I mean is this: obviously either Camilla is or was here in Vinci in the flesh after her disappearance, or the taverner has been imagining things.”

  Guid'Antonio nudged Flora into a canter. “The question is, which is which. Far be it for me to discount visions.”

  A cockerel crowed and strutted near the front door of the Rossi homestead, decrying the arrival of the two riders on horseback. Jacopo Rossi da Vinci's stone house was commodious, with two levels, and shutters propped open to allow air within. The farm sat on the edge of a deep woodland. West of the house, a vineyard stretched far as the eye could see. All in all, exactly what Guid'Antonio would expect for a prosperous winegrower. One who could provide his daughter a pretty dowry, he reminded himself, dismounting.

  “By what authority will we say we've come?”

  “Authority?” Guid'Antonio laughed. “Ah, darling nephew.”

  Near the south side of the house, there was a stable. Amerigo made short work of leading Flora and Bucephalus to the trough to drink before dropping their reins to the ground. “Uncle,” he said, turning.

  “Yes. I see.”

  Jacopo Rossi had come outside, sour-faced, his visage dark, smoldering with raw fury. His eyes narrowed on Guid'Antonio, who flinched inwardly, feeling a jolt much like the one he had experienced when he and this same Jacopo locked eyes in Orsanmichele.

  “What do you want, Messer Vespucci?” Jacopo said, the surname a snarl on his lips.

  “To inquire about your daughter.” Never mind how it is you know my name.