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

by Alana White

  “Here's your answer: she's dead.”

  Guid'Antonio's eyebrows rose. “That's coldly said.”

  “The truth is cold. You're a Medici man. You know about death better than most.”

  “Listen—” Amerigo said.

  “And after all, Jacopo,” Guid'Antonio cut in, “Camilla disappeared four weeks ago. Plenty enough time to mourn her, no matter who stole her life.”

  Jacopo's eyes flickered, but he held his tongue.

  “Fetch the girl's nurse. I want to speak with her,” Guid'Antonio said.

  “Gone,” Jacopo said, snapping his fingers.

  “There's a surprise. Where?”

  “To tend her sick son.”

  “Amazing, how everyone concerned with this business disappears.”

  “What's that to do with me?”

  Looking past Jacopo, Guid'Antonio saw a girl of about four years peek around the doorjamb. “There's the matter of the dowry,” he said. “Apparently, Castruccio Senso had no relatives. If none come forward, it could revert to you. You do know he's dead?”

  “No!” Jacopo gasped, stepping back. “And you think what? That I murdered and robbed him?” A smile widened Jacopo's mouth.

  “No one mentioned murder and robbery.”

  Purple color crept into Jacopo's face. His quick words could hang him.

  Guid'Antonio said, “Did you know someone sent your daughter's horse into the city two weeks ago with its saddle bloodied?”

  Jacopo recovered quickly. “Odd, isn't it, the Turks would do that? And I do mean to have Tesoro back. The horse is valuable.”

  “You'll have to find it first,” Amerigo said.

  “Keep Tesoro from me, and I'll—”

  “You'll what?” Amerigo said, advancing a step.

  And Guid'Antonio said, “You'll do nothing, Jacopo. Tell me what you know about the weeping painting. The Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta.”

  “What I know is that when Mary comes to Florence, she has every reason to weep,” Jacopo said. Jacopo's challenge to Guid'Antonio was strong: You can't figure this out and you know it.

  Watch me.

  “Is this another daughter?” Guid'Antonio said, glancing past the man.

  Jacopo jerked around. “Isotta! Get back inside. I told you.”

  Isotta Rossi da Vinci flinched, standing just a foot behind her father, clutching a doll to her chest. “Isotta,” Guid'Antonio said, “there's a pretty name.” He smiled down at the child. And started, glancing quickly at Amerigo, who looked back at him questioningly.

  Calming himself, Guid'Antonio knelt down. “What a pretty doll, Isotta. Will you show it to me, please?”

  “Isotta Rossi!” Jacopo roared. “Do as I say!”

  Guid'Antonio looked up at him. “What is it to you?”

  Jacopo clenched his teeth. If he had any notion of challenging Guid'Antonio, he saw Amerigo's fingers tracing the hilt of his dagger and abandoned it.

  Isotta, all dimples and curly black hair and dressed in a light summer shift, glanced at her father, walked forward, and handed the doll to Guid'Antonio. His heart lurched in his chest. The doll's dress was sewn from the same fabric Luigi had found in Castruccio Senso's sala the morning after Castruccio was murdered. Clearly, the tiny dress had been made from the same material.

  “Isotta,” Guid'Antonio said, “what a lucky girl you are to have such a pretty doll. And such a pretty dress. Has she worn it long?”

  Isotta shook her head, the pride of ownership overcoming her shyness. “It's new. My—”

  “Isotta!” Jacopo bellowed. “Go now, or—”

  “Or what?” Amerigo said, stepping close to him.

  “Never mind, Amerigo.” Guid'Antonio regarded the child, who was trembling in the shadow of her father. “Thank you, Isotta. Now you'd better go inside as you're told.”

  “I know.”

  Jacopo, casting his interrogator a final black glare, took the child's hand, stalked inside the house, and slammed the door.

  “Well,” Amerigo said.

  “Well, indeed, Amerigo.”

  “ ‘You think what? That I murdered and robbed him?’ ” Amerigo said, softly mimicking Jacopo's words to Guid'Antonio. “Not for one moment did he think Castruccio Senso might have, oh, died in his sleep.”

  They started toward the horses. “And the fabric used to make a new doll's dress,” Guid'Antonio said. “Clearly, Camilla was here after the alleged abduction.”

  “But why? And where is she now? Dead? Though I do hate to say it.”

  “That's the crux.”

  “But we can't just leave.”

  “Jacopo would be a tough nut to crack if we took him in now, even for Palla's men. Anyway, I have another idea.” Guid'Antonio nodded toward the open kitchen window, where moments earlier he had seen a wrinkled face watching them from the shadows.

  Margherita, Camilla Rossi's nurse, he felt it in his bones. “You know, Amerigo,” he said, raising his voice as he swung into Flora's saddle, “we could with a little help bring Camilla's disappearance to a conclusion, given Castruccio Senso's murder.”

  A cry emanated from inside the kitchen. A woman's cry. Yes, Margherita's cry, Guid'Antonio knew this with certainty.

  “True,” Amerigo said. “And tonight we'll sleep at the inn in Vinci?”

  “True again, Nephew.”

  Chickens scattered from Bucephalus and Flora's path. Once again, the cockerel crowed, fussed, and scratched in the dirt. “Now what?” Amerigo said as he and Guid'Antonio turned onto the bumpy path back toward the village.

  “We take a room and wait.”

  And wait and wait and wait.

  Margherita did not venture into Vinci town that evening, and although Guid'Antonio was disappointed, he was not surprised. How could she, a domestic servant, escape Jacopo Rossi's piercing eyes? And so late July melted into the first day of August, and a lid of summer heat pressed down on Florence, turning the alleyways into ovens and the walls of shops and houses into burning umber and tan surfaces. In Ognissanti, the Virgin's eyes remained dry as sand. Still Camilla's nurse did not make contact.

  Guid'Antonio had lost at gambling before. He would give Margherita a few days more, and then ask Palla to bring Jacopo Rossi into Florence for questioning. He worried about Camilla. Was she still alive? Pray God, it was so.

  “You actually hoped the old nurse would come to you?” Lorenzo said. They were in the Medici kitchen, where Il Magnifico stood bent over the sink, rinsing soap from his lengthy brown hair.

  “Or send me a note,” Guid'Antonio said.

  Lorenzo grabbed a towel. “Why not just bring Jacopo Rossi in now? Today? Why go through the old woman?”

  “I wondered if in doing that we would get the whole story.”

  “Aren't you afraid for the girl? And the nurse? Isn't time of the essence?”

  “Yes.”

  Tossing aside the towel, Lorenzo sat at the kitchen table, anchoring his hair behind his ears. “Jacopo Rossi da Vinci. What could he possibly have to do with the weeping Virgin? And with me? Strange.” He tapped his fingers on the table's wooden surface. “I hear Maddalena Scala's worse. Bleeding now, along with the fever and chills.”

  Guid'Antonio felt a wave of regret for the Scala family, for Chancellor Bartolomeo Scala and his daughters, but particularly for Maddalena and her unborn baby. “May Christ help her.” He crossed himself.

  “We had twins who died,” Lorenzo said. “Clarice and I.”

  Guid'Antonio nodded, thinking of Taddea and their baby, both gone these ten years and more.

  Amerigo said, “You did?”

  “When we first married,” Lorenzo said. “After our little Lucrezia was born. Boys. Stillborn. Praise God, all our other children are thriving. Though Giovanni lives to eat. I do need to get him outside, playing ball. Wouldn't that be something, though? Me with twin boys as my heirs.”

  “The mind staggers,” Guid'Antonio said.

  From Palazzo Medici, Guid'Antonio and A
merigo walked in separate directions, Amerigo down Via Larga to visit young Lorenzino de' Medici, who was in town, having ridden in from Careggi, and Guid'Antonio to Borg'Ognissanti, Maria, and Giovanni. That night, after climbing quietly from bed, he slipped back into his pants and shirt and was about to put pen to paper when Cesare tiptoed in.

  “Cesare, sometimes you do startle me,” Guid'Antonio said, glancing at Maria sleeping soundly in their bed, oblivious to Cesare's presence in the chamber.

  “And you me,” Cesare said, looking pointedly down at Guid'Antonio's hand, idly scratching the top of Dog's head.

  “Christ,” Guid'Antonio said, but made no move to banish the dog grinning up at him. When in Hades had the creature slipped in the door? The dog and now Cesare. “What is it?” he said.

  “Not what—who,” Cesare said, sparkling with excitement.

  “Who, then,” Guid'Antonio said.

  “Leonardo.”

  “Da Vinci?”

  “The same. My God, he's tall.”

  Within the instant Guid'Antonio was on his feet. Maria stirred in the bed. “Where is he? What does he want?” Guid'Antonio said softly.

  “He has news for you,” Cesare said. And explained how Leonardo had come to the Vespucci Palace in the middle of the night bearing a message, not about the mechanics behind the weeping Virgin—here, Cesare didn't even bother to lift an eyebrow—but concerning Camilla Rossi da Vinci, whose nurse, Margherita, was at that moment waiting for Guid'Antonio before the altar in Ognissanti Church.

  Shadows appeared and disappeared in the dark spaces of the sanctuary, robes rustled and slipped over the stone floor. A woman dressed in black knelt before the Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta. Leonardo was close by, kneeling, his reddish-blond hair shimmering like gold in the light of the votive candles. With them at the rail there was another man: Leonardo's uncle, Francesco da Vinci. Guid'Antonio glanced at Cesare. “How did Margherita get here?”

  “Francesco brought her from his farm. Margherita sought him there.”

  They walked forward through the church, past the Vespucci family chapel, past Domenico Ghirlandaio's Saint Jerome and Sandro Botticelli's Saint Augustine, the only sounds Guid'Antonio and Cesare's breathing and the soft fall of their footsteps. Francesco and Leonardo looked around and nodded, acknowledging their presence.

  Guid'Antonio made a quiet prayer and lifted his eyes to the altar, where the Virgin Mary had begun weeping again, translucent tears wetting her pale, painted cheeks.

  In the church garden a short while later, they situated the nurse on a bench and sat with her in silence, waiting for her to speak. Is there truly a woman in there? Guid'Antonio wondered, drinking in Margherita's black cloak and the hood falling forward over her head and face.

  At last, she spoke. She had, after all, sought him for this purpose; once she began, the story spilled out, with little prompting from him.

  “It started the day we—I, my lady, and the boy—started for the baths. Those the wealthy do frequent at Morba. A hot, sunny day it was, my lady wrapped in a mantello over her gown, sweltering, but she laughed in her lilting way. She was filled with happiness to be free of her husband for even a short while. We hadn't been gone long from Florence when she removed the cloak and made it into a bundle and fixed it behind her on Tesoro's back. How she loved that horse. I told her they were a pretty pair, both with hair so shiny, those black curls. At San Gimignano we spent the night in the church and started back on the road the next day. And then—” Margherita faltered.

  “Is she—?” Francesco da Vinci said.

  “Go easy, Nonna,” Guid'Antonio said, shooting a quelling glance at the other man. “We're your friends.”

  Margherita gulped in air. With great care, Leonardo covered her hands with his. Cesare, standing behind them, touched Leonardo's shoulder.

  “A rider descended on us, screaming. A demon from hell, yelling gibberish, waving fantastic scarves and bangles, screaming he was a Turk. He grabbed my lady and attempted to wrench her from her horse. Tesoro shrieked, shying away. My lady grappled with her attacker and tore the scarf from his face.”

  All four men leaned in closer to catch Margherita's next words.

  “Horrible!” she said. “A terrible scar slashed along his cheek.”

  Guid'Antonio drank this in, his thoughts retreating to Salvestro Aboati arguing with Castruccio Senso in the Red Lion. Yes, yes, the Neapolitan with the jagged red weal on his face.

  “My lady screamed. The fiend screamed back, saying he would kill her for revealing his face. I wept. He looked at us with eyes both pained and evil. He threatened us, saying our lives were worth less than a rabbit's. He would cut us up and fry us in oil should we ever describe him to anyone. Who would I describe him to? Poor little Luigi. The boy quaked with fear, his color washed out beneath his skin. Our abductor herded us—” Margherita wept again.

  Guid'Antonio wanted to shake her. “Herded you where?”

  “I couldn't credit it. Neither could my lady. This madman, instead of butchering us or taking us for slaves, arrived with us at our home place. Messer Vespucci, you say her husband, Castruccio Senso, is dead. Given that, Camilla could be free. Instead, her father has locked her away. But little Luigi, where is he?” she snuffled, looking around.

  “He's safe,” Guid'Antonio said. “Jacopo locked her where?”

  Sobs of relief wracked the woman's body. “Please,” Guid'Antonio said, hastening to quiet her as much as was possible. Surely, ears were listening, Brother Bellincioni and who else? But he wanted her to talk. Parts of the puzzle were sliding into place, but not all of them. Slowly, slowly, he cautioned himself. “Margherita, it was Jacopo who had Camilla kidnapped? Her own father?”

  She sniffed. “Who else?”

  Who else, indeed? “But why?” he said. Where, where? his mind ranted. Surely, Camilla was safe, for now, at least.

  “For her terrible sin.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Daring to love, Messer Vespucci.”

  “Cesare,” Guid'Antonio said, glancing around, but Cesare had already posted his supple figure at the garden gate and was standing beside Amerigo, who had slipped in a few moments earlier, both now listening for any little sound. It would not do for anyone on Borg' Ognissanti to overhear this conversation.

  “Love,” Guid'Antonio said, thinking, Brother Martino. Yes.

  Margherita lowered her voice. “She met a young man here, and he was smitten with her at once, as what man wouldn't be? But he—he—”

  “He was a monk.”

  “Yes. Kind and gentle, my lady said. And her hungry for such. Ser Senso used to beat her.” Margherita said this with such hatred, Guid'Antonio flinched.

  “And Jacopo knew about this,” he said. “About the monk and Castruccio's beatings.”

  “Yes on both counts. Jacopo saw her bruises once when he visited us here in Florence. Ser Jacopo and Castruccio Senso had a terrible fight over it. Ser Castruccio Senso told Jacopo he suspected my lady of cuckolding him. At first, Jacopo didn't believe it. His pious daughter? No! But then, he did. He may have had her watched. Shortly thereafter is when he sent us off to Morba. Ser Castruccio Senso, I mean. And now Ser Jacopo means to bundle her off to some cloistered nuns who will lock her in darkness forever. They'll silence her tongue, chop off her hair.”

  Margherita's voice broke. “That's why I had to come to you, to save my sweet Camilla, whilst I still can.”

  A relieved sigh escaped Amerigo's lips. “She is safe, then.”

  “Margherita,” Guid'Antonio said. “What happened to Camilla's horse once Salvestro Aboati delivered you to Jacopo?”

  “The mare was home at first, then vanished. Like my lady.”

  “You do know where Camilla is being held?”

  “Yes. Locked in a stone tower in the woods near her father's house. She escaped him early on and wandered, dazed out of her wits, she was so frightened, into Vinci town. Jacopo couldn't have that. People might see her and ta
lk. He caught her and took her back home. But she's well enough, Signore. Jacopo put her in my care, and I've done my best for my sweet girl. As much as I could with her heart broken.”

  Leonardo's hand went to his breast. “When is Jacopo sending her to the nunnery?” he said. “Where is it?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Margherita answered softly. “All I know is, it's far, far away. I had to seek you now. Before I left, I filched the tower key.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  In a scatter of dust and stones, they reined in before Jacopo Rossi da Vinci's farmhouse. “Go, Amerigo!”

  Quickly, Amerigo turned Bucephalus toward the woods to release Camilla from the woodland tower, while Guid'Antonio paced the foreyard and Palla and his men subdued the girl's father. Not that Jacopo Rossi da Vinci wanted subduing.

  Before Palla reached the farmhouse door, Jacopo strode outside, his face a mask of impotent fury, yet acknowledging when he was beaten. With an air of expertise that was handmaiden to years of experience, Palla tied the other man's hands behind his back for the ride to Florence, where he would be interrogated at police headquarters.

  “What will you do with my daughters?” Jacopo asked as they set off from the farm accompanied by armed guards.

  “Better ask what we'll do with you,” Palla said. “Keep silent or I'll cut out your tongue.”

  Guid'Antonio turned in the saddle, glancing over his shoulder. With Camilla's arms around his waist, Amerigo had ridden from the woods to the house, there to fetch the girl, Isotta, and hasten them to Peretola, where they would remain at Niccolò Vespucci's inn till matters concerning them were resolved. And, yes, Camilla Rossi was a vision of loveliness, with cascading black hair and startlingly pale blue eyes that would make many a fellow forget his vows, be he monk or married man. Camilla's eyes met Guid'Antonio's probing gaze, and they shared a slight smile of acknowledgment before he turned Flora toward home.

  In bed with Guid'Antonio a few nights later, Maria said, “What happened with our secret lovers? I've never been so curious.”

  Guid'Antonio smiled. “Yes, you have.” Two days had passed since Amerigo had freed Camilla Rossi from the tower. Satisfying days if hot, dusty, and long. He fingered Maria's hair, his palm caressing her belly, but then contented himself for the moment with kissing her mouth and settling alongside her with his arm over her waist. “You know today Amerigo, Lorenzo and I rode to Peretola. Camilla and Isotta have been staying there with Amerigo's uncle, Niccolò Vespucci, and his family.”