Portrait of a Conspiracy

by Donna Russo Morin

  At the corner of the stairs, Patrizio pulled the two women out of the fray, pulled them against the stone of the Duomo.

  “It will be hard going.” He took his wife’s face in his hands, his words, his glare, cutting through her mania. “We must hold tight and fast, yes?”

  Fiammetta, mouth finally closed, quietly nodded, as did Viviana, dropping her forehead in her hand; she could bear to see no more, yet more came.

  At her feet, a young boy crouched in the small, shadowy corner where stairs met wall. Huddled into a tight ball, he looked no more than eight or nine years old, was barely visible except from her vantage point. He showed no fear; his black eyes bulged wide with eager curiosity.

  “Do not look, child,” she berated softly. It sickened her to see him seeing.

  Her words brought Patrizio’s attention to the child.

  “Niccolo, to your home,” Patrizio spoke unkindly, a man already overburdened.

  “No, signore, I must see.”

  Patrizio swiped his hands together twice, switching one across the other, and raised them in the air in washed surrender. “At least stay out of the way.” Taking each woman once more by the hand, he pulled them forward, head bent as if walking into a storm.

  Viviana hesitated, fighting the tug of her escort. “Is he an urchin?”

  Orphaned boys lived on the streets of Florence in droves, stealing their way through life. The conte shook his head, kept them running. “No, the Machiavellis live just over the Ponte Vecchio, in Santo Spirito. His father is a fine consigliore.”

  Viviana steeled a look back at the boy, at the shining, gruesome curiosity on his young face. A shiver of fear ran up her back. “We must—”

  “We must get you home.” The conte yelled above the screaming crowds. “You must return to your husband. He will be worried for your well-being.”

  Even as Patrizio compelled her, two men pushed him roughly, unconscionably, rushing away. As they whirled past, Viviana knew them for the devils who had brought evil upon her world, knew them as Bernardo Bandini and Francesco de’ Pazzi.

  Mouth agape, she watched Francesco hobbling as fast as he could, leaning on Bandini’s arms, wounded thigh dropping scarlet circles of blood in their wake. Her blood surged, her heart pounded in her ears.

  She grabbed her skirts, lifted them, and shot out after the fleeing murderers.

  The yank on her arm snapped her head back like a whip.

  “They will kill you without thought,” Patrizio hissed, his lips so close his spittle splashed cold on her hot skin.

  Heaving with anger, she stared at her friend, hearing the cries of his wife, the annoying bleat of a sheep in the field. Viviana knew Patrizio was right, but it did little to curb her craving for retribution. She had never known the feeling called blood lust…till now.

  “Orfeo, Viviana. You must go to Orfeo.”

  Patrizio’s words caught her up sharply; in the tumult of this inhuman moment, the truth almost slipped from her soul. She shook her head, denying it. “Yes, of course. To my husband I must go.”

  Chapter Five

  “Saving and sacrifice; without the one the other cannot be done.”

  Lapaccia could not bear the waiting. A pernicious knowing burned in her throat, raw from the coughing, sweat beading on her creased brow. She whirled from the window, the decision made.

  Placing a veil upon her pinned locks and donning a simple, light camlet upon her shoulders, Lapaccia rushed from home.

  She escaped her own palazzo, sight unseen by any servant. The triumph of the moment fled with its reality. She had never walked a street without someone—family member, friend, or servant—by her side. She felt so small even as each step struck the stones harder.

  Turning west, it touched her…the malice crackling in the air like lightning. Lapaccia berated herself for such a notion; it was only because of Andreano’s absence, as was the nausea she felt.

  Passing the corner of her home, she lowered her head, not wanting any member of the other palazzo on the block to see her, one belonging to the Pucci family. They possessed a genealogy as revered as her own; they would be scandalized to see her out and about alone.

  Lapaccia turned the corner onto the Via Martelli with gratitude. The street here, as it headed crookedly south, was much narrowed and far less occupied. It would lead her past the back of the Duomo and into the heart of the city, to the Palazzo della Signoria. Surely someone at the government center may know where her Andreano was; perhaps he was on assignment as one of the newer council members. Or perhaps she would find some of his most favored companions; they would know something of him.

  As she approached the cathedral, expecting to find the tranquil oasis that surrounds a church in the midst of Mass, she found bedlam.

  This back passage was flooded as people ran in all directions. Lapaccia’s already churning gut clenched at the sight of unrecognizable wraiths…white-faced, mouths agape.

  Lapaccia became one of them; she ran.

  • • •

  The stream running through the Via Calzaiuoli moved in two directions: the curious headed south; the frightened rushed north in escape. Snippets of words found Lapaccia, but she longed to toss them away—words of assassins and the Medici, words of brutality and death. But every time her brocade slippers slapped upon the road, her son’s name yelped in her mind.

  Lapaccia froze at the lane’s mouth, near the opening to the piazza, at the back of the Church of Saint Cecilia. Before her was a sight she had never imagined in her darkest of thoughts.

  “This is what hell looks like,” she muttered to herself, but the man rushing past heard.

  “Take yourself away, signora. It is the end of the world.”

  His ominous declaration jolted her. “What do y—”

  The man was gone, lost in the stream roiling away.

  The Piazza della Signoria could not be seen; it was there, she knew, marked by the towering rough-hewn stone campanile of the palazzo. Yet filled with such a frenzied crowd, the grandest courtyard of Florence was unrecognizable.

  There! Her pale gray eyes latched upon the figure. Russet, wavy locks falling to his shoulders, slim but muscular figure cut nicely in a doublet of navy—her son’s favorite color. It must be him, running toward and into the government palace.

  She picked up her skirts, lifted one foot, and—

  The horse and rider bolted straight toward her. Though still in the middle of the square, its aim was like an arrow. A girl of no more than five stood frozen in front of Lapaccia, sobbing, her plain muslin gown tattered and torn.

  “Run!” Lapaccia screamed at the child. “Run!” Lapaccia screamed again, this time to herself.

  She ran without thought, without care. Like converging armies, she and the horse and rider trod a collision course, only the small body between them.

  The churning crowd slowed the horse’s stampede; adrenaline fired Lapaccia faster. The throng parted. Her arms opened. The clamor of beating hooves pounded upon stone. The child’s cry hitched for air. Lapaccia’s arm reached out. The rider saw nothing as Lapaccia captured the child in her embrace, whisked her off her feet, and threw them both to the left, out of the path of the charging animal and his mount, into the relative safety of the moiling mob.

  She fell then, not in a stumble but in relief, and the child plopped herself upon Lapaccia’s stomach as if it were a chair.

  With an oomph of air, Lapaccia raised her head and almost laughed to see the little girl upon her. Sitting up, she wrapped her arms around the child, an embrace of gratitude. Pushing back the long, untethered strands of black hair falling about the pixie face, Lapaccia wiped the tears and dirt from the child’s eyes, her own squinting in recognition.

  “I know you, little one, don’t I?” Lapaccia asked with a smile.

  The child’s black eyes popped out as she jumped up.

  “S—sorry, madonna.” The child squeaked. Without lifting her skirt as she should, the small girl attempted a curtsey and
Lapaccia’s heart ached with the dearness of the sad endeavor.

  “Have no fear, little one, you have done nothing wrong.” Standing, Lapaccia leaned down and took the child by the hand. “Your family owns a shop, yes? Here on the piazza?”

  Lapaccia scanned the circumference of the square, hoping for a glimpse of recognition connecting this child to her home, but it was impossible in the turmoil.

  “Where is your madre?” she finally asked.

  Freed from fright by the presence of the noblewoman, the child turned and whirled, looking now at people where before there lurked only monsters. Pulling upon Lapaccia’s skirts, the girl spun her toward the southern corner.

  “Mammina,” she peeped, a dimpled finger pointing to a woman pacing in the doorway of a Venetian glass shop, one Lapaccia had frequented on many occasions. From here, Lapaccia and her ward could see the woman’s mouth opening and closing, but could not hear her cry.

  Lapaccia squatted beside the child, “Go while I watch. Do not leave again.”

  The child nodded with fearful, enthusiastic obedience.

  “Promise me,” Lapaccia did not release the child’s hand. “Promise me, piccolo cara mia, you will stay by your mother’s side.”

  Did she speak to this child or her own, the missing son she still called her “dear little one,” even though he now stood head and shoulders above her.

  The little girl nodded again. Then away, away she ran.

  Lapaccia disappeared then, swallowed by the gaping mouth of the Palazzo della Signoria, noticed by no one but a child and her grateful mother.

  • • •

  “The palazzo is under attack! Salviati fights the Gonfaloniere! Perugians fight our militia!” The shrieks rushed by her like gale winds as Viviana made her way through the palazzo and into the side streets. The squall brought the sounds of metal clanging hard against metal.

  Viviana covered her ears, still running, but could not drown out the scream, the worst yet.

  “Popolo! Liberti!”

  She knew that voice, that of the great patriarch Jacopo de’ Pazzi; she knew the cry of revolt, “People! Liberty!” How many times had such a cry brought upheaval, and how many lives had ended in response? But she heard no answer from the people, no agreement to take up arms against the Medici. What she heard instead gave her the strength to continue.

  The countering yells began, sparsely at first, like the thin fluttering waves of the tide turning in. Soon they swelled to crashing breakers.

  “Palle! Palle!” It was the rallying cry of the Medici, a reference to the balls upon the family’s crest, a cry declaring, “I am for the Medici!”

  Sobbing now, with joy and pride for her people, with the shock of the lifetime she had lived in a few hours, Viviana turned the last corner, tripping on her skirts. With a cry, she thrust out her arms as the ground rose up to meet her. But it never did…he caught her.

  Viviana looked up into the green eyes, those that haunted her, those forever hovering on the outskirts of her thoughts since the moment she had seen them almost two years prior.

  He held her for an instant, held her head against his chest, and with a frown sent her on her way.

  “Go!” he commanded, the first words spoken between them since that night. “Go. I will watch your back. Always.”

  She knew so little of him, had seen him but a handful of times since the first, but, somehow, she trusted him, believed him.

  Denying all she felt, Viviana turned and ran.

  Chapter Six

  “The tide turns slowly but inexorably,

  And none in Heaven or on Earth can stop it.”

  “Orfeo!” Viviana cried his name even before she pushed open the heavy paneled door, rattling the brass anchor of the Marrone family crest. He must have received word of the nightmare overtaking their city by now, must have realized his wife could be trapped in the heart of it. Worry is a catalyst powerful enough to warm the coldest of hearts, surely it was.

  “Orfeo!”

  Viviana twirled about in the small foyer, unsure if her husband was still abed or elsewhere in the modest home.

  “Mona Viviana!”

  The distraught squeak came from behind, and Viviana whirled about to find Jemma rushing toward her, a small bundle of energy and emotion.

  Her lady’s maid’s dark, round eyes bulged at the sight of her blood-covered mistress; her mouth emptied at the appalling apparition.

  “My husband, where is—”

  “Are you hurt? Are you injured?” Jemma grabbed Viviana’s bloodied hands, turning them about, grabbing Viviana by the shoulders, searching her mistress’s body for a wound.

  Viviana denied the question with a shake of her head. “No, I am not. I must—”

  “What has happened to you? Out there?” Jemma thrust an accusing finger at the door. “We have only heard rumors…and…and the sounds.”

  Viviana had no time to explain, she needed to see her husband, to tell him, to be comforted by him. Grabbing Jemma by the shoulders, she gave the girl a gentle shake.

  “Where…is…my…husband?”

  Jemma stared at her mistress as if she had never seen her in her life. The girl pointed to the set of rooms off the right of the foyer. Viviana released the girl, grabbed her skirts, and ran.

  Around the short gallery, one hand upon the rail, Viviana dashed to the master’s chamber. There, she saw him through the open door standing before his wardrobe, buttoning his finest doublet, and she flung herself across the threshold.

  “Orfeo, thank God.” Viviana rushed to his side.

  With a jutting elbow, he pushed her off.

  She stumbled backward, astonished but not to be deterred.

  “Orfeo, I must tell you what happened…what I have seen—”

  “You need tell me nothing.” Her husband spared her a dismissive look over his shoulder as he finished the arrangement of his attire, pulling down upon the frayed edge of his doublet as if doing so allowed his scrawny physique to grow muscles. “A messenger came from Friar di Carlo. I am on my way to the Palazzo della Signoria this very moment.”

  “You cannot…” Viviana’s protest dried upon her tongue at a sudden realization.

  He knew! As she thought, her husband did know what had happened, where it happened, knew she was there. Yet he uttered not one word of concern, even as she stood before him with a dead man’s blood upon her person; it was as if he stabbed her…the sharpest ignominy.

  “Why did you not send word?” The snide accusation slipped from between his teeth. “I expected you would hurry to tell me yourself, rather than letting me find out by an acquaintance.”

  “Why did I not…?” Viviana threw hands to her temples, to her ears; it was not condemnation she heard, it could not be. “You know where I was. If you know what happened, you know I was in the thick of it. I barely made it through the streets. I could have been killed. Have you given that any thought?”

  She heard it, the deep, dark anger in her plunging voice, the unfamiliar inner self who had been born by such treatment as this. It burned her and she shook with ire. “I have seen things no human should ever see. The face of the devil was no more than inches from me. I held the dying body of Giuliano de’ Medici in my arms.”

  “Good,” Orfeo decreed flatly, smoothing the pathetic wires of straggly hair down upon his round pate, applying the pungent goose grease in an attempt to stick it there and hide the advancing baldness. “Perhaps Il Magnifico will award us for your actions.”

  “A—award us?” She grabbed his shoulder and spun him round. “The world has gone mad, Orfeo. The man’s family has been attacked. The government is under attack. Are you truly foolish enough to care about award in this upheaval?”

  With a whirling hand, he threw off her hold, and she stumbled backward. She saw him then; the man who had alienated himself from any political or financial ally, the man who had squandered her inheritance, and the man who blamed everyone save himself for his troubles.

 
“I am no fool,” he hissed, snarling, trying to stand tall enough to loom over her; he was too small a man in every sense. “A man who can make himself useful in a crisis is a man valued. This could be my chance.”

  Viviana almost gagged; she longed to spit in the face of such self-absorption, of such disregard for others’ devastation. In her husband’s black eyes, she saw the same lunacy as in Francesco de’ Pazzi’s.

  She said nothing—did nothing—to keep him there for a moment longer.

  Her silence worked and Viviana knew, in Orfeo’s delusional mind, he took it as a victory. She cared not a whit.

  With one last glance in the cloudy looking glass, Orfeo quit the room without another word or gesture.

  Viviana listened as he thumped down the stairs, threw open the door, and slammed it behind him. She ran from the virulent man’s room to her sitting room through the adjoining door, one she had dreamed of barring more times than she could count.

  Even here, among her lovely things, among her silly trifles and frothy covered pillows and colorful chairs and settees, she found no solace. Viviana paced the room—from her sofa to her table to the window and back, a triangular path taking her nowhere. Confusion and uncertainty plagued her; she could not reconcile all she had seen to the Florence she had always known.

  “Marcello, Rudolfo.” Without conscious thought, the names of her sons slipped from her tongue. They were all that mattered now…her children, her friends, and their secret work.

  Viviana found herself by her settee once more and there she dropped hard to her knees.

  “Please dear God, powers of Divinity, please watch over my sons.” She dropped her head into her hands, her hands upon the pale sage silk. Both her boys—young men in the prime of life—were staunch supporters of the Medici, she knew they would put themselves in danger for the powerful family; it could both protect them and put them in harm’s way.

  “Protect my sisterhood, dear Lord, for they are worthy of your care; without them I am of little consequence.” Viviana had no way of knowing where the other members of her secret group were in the miasma outside her door, she hoped only for their safety. They had saved her life, though they didn’t know it; the women, their work, and the guild of secret artists they created had given her a renewed jest for life when she had begun to almost long for its end.