The Thief Of Peace

by Jess Whitecroft

  The little balding man was staring at him again. Once more, his gaze seemed to linger on the gold hoop in Nicci’s ear. His eyes were large and slightly protuberant and his chin was weak, and the overall cast of his features reminded Nicci of someone, but he couldn’t say who. Finally, after another long bout of staring, he sidled up to Nicci and started picking at the sleeve of his doublet.

  “Get off,” said Nicci.

  “Just looking,” said the man, holding up both hands. “Nice bit of stuff, that. What is it? Taffeta?”

  “Could you be more obvious that you were planning on stealing it?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Nice of you,” said Nicci. He retreated to the corner and sat gingerly on an upturned bucket. Where the hell was Teo? Perhaps right now Vicini was trying to talk him out of getting Nicci out of the Bargello. It was a petty and ridiculous thought, he knew, coloured by his own dislike of the man, but wasn’t it convenient that Nicci suddenly ended up getting arrested after he had questioned Vicini’s judgement?

  My influence is no longer needed. I did what was required, got the heir out of the monastery, and now I’m just a nuisance and a potential source of scandal.

  “So,” said the little man. “What are you in for?”

  “Nothing I care to talk about.”

  “Ooh. Hoity toity, aren’t we?”

  Nicci shook his head and sighed, in no mood for conversation. He was still trying to work out how a day that had begun like Heaven – with Teo and his art and a confession of love – had suddenly plunged him headlong into Hell. And Teo hadn’t said it. He hadn’t had time, or opportunity. After all, no sooner had the words ‘I love you’ left Nicci’s lips, those damned officers had started banging on the window. No time. No place.

  “Let me see,” said the man, who also seemed to have no sense of time or place. “Not a thief, I think. You didn’t steal those fancy clothes. They fit you too well. But the gold in your ear is old, which makes me think you’re old money.”

  Nicci glared at him. “I’m sorry. Is this what you do for fun?”

  “Well, there’s precious little of it around here, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Nicci sighed again. “Fine. Amuse yourself. See if I care.”

  “Not old money, though,” said the man, moving closer once more. “Not with that accent. Country boy, I think. Been in Florence a while, but let’s see. Say something else.”

  “Fuck off,” said Nicci.

  The little man’s pale eyes gleamed in the scant light from the high, small windows. “I know,” he said. “You have something of wine country about you.”

  “And you have something of the madhouse about you. Are you sure you’re in the right lock up?”

  He moved closer still and sniffed, like some sort of goblin. “Chianti, I think,” he said. “Radda in Chianti, perhaps?” He appeared to consider this for a moment, and Nicci realised where he’d seen such a face before. Weak chin, wide mouth, colourless eyes. He’d seen it in the drawings of Florentine artists as they attempted to flatter one of their own, Caterina de Medici. Not a particularly beautiful face, but a shrewd one. Big eyes that didn’t miss a thing.

  “Volterra, perhaps,” said the man. “No.” He held up a finger and looked pleased with himself. “Volpaia, isn’t it?”

  In spite of himself, Nicci stared. “Who are you?”

  The man bowed. “Beppe Tornato. You won’t have heard of me.”

  “Accurate so far,” said Nicci, his attention beginning to wander again as he heard the footsteps of a guard coming down the hallway. “What are you in for?”

  Beppe Tornato sighed. “For my social status,” he said. “My accent. My lack of influence. The poor beginnings of my humble life.”

  The guard, who had just opened the door, raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that and your chronic case of sticky fingers,” he said, and addressed himself to Nicci. “Watch yourself. This one’ll steal your breath while you sleep.”

  “This is an outrage,” said Tornato. “I didn’t commit these crimes alone, you know.”

  “So you keep saying,” said the guard, taking a fresh set of shackles and advancing on him. “Sing a new song, jailbird. Your old one is getting boring.”

  “Typical. Just typical. This is what happens when you turn your back on the Republic and start letting dukes run the show. Dukes are for Milan, that’s what my father always said. Leave it to those barbarians. They’re not for Florence. Rich boys with influence, shitting on people like me.”

  “Bo-ring.” The guard snapped the shackles into place.

  “They hired me to steal, so I stole. They’re accomplices, damn you,” said Tornato, as the guard poked him through the cell door. “You’ll arrest me for stealing a dagger, but not the men who planted that dagger in a man’s back.”

  “Wait, what?” said Nicci, something sparking back to life in his worry-fogged brain. “Where are you taking him?”

  “Somewhere quiet,” said the guard, and nudged Tornato off down the corridor.

  “Wait,” said Nicci, again, but the guard was grumbling and Beppe Tornato had launched into an old Republican song from the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent. “Shit,” said Nicci. A stolen dagger planted in a man’s back. It couldn’t be, could it? Knowing his luck it probably was, and the next unsettling gurgling sound he heard issuing from the gallows was going to come from Tornato’s throat, literally strangling yet another piece of this enormous, sprawling puzzle that seemed to have grown up around himself and Teo.

  He was alone only for a few more moments. He heard the jangle of keys and then Teo came in, closely followed by a sheepish looking Giancarlo.

  “Oh no,” said Teo, when he saw the cell and the none-too-clean straw. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right? I’m going to get you out of here as soon as I can, I promise.”

  “I’m fine,” said Nicci. “All in one piece, at least for now. What’s he doing here?”

  “It’s the Ribisi brothers,” said Giancarlo. “They threatened me.” He pointed to Teo. “They made me tell them where he was.”

  “You told them Teo was at the monastery?”

  “He told them everything,” said Teo. “Every hour of my day. Including the time I went to feed the pigs.”

  “Oh my God,” said Nicci. “You were right. They killed Armando by mistake.”

  “Looks like it, doesn’t it? I thought it was retribution, but it looks more like it was some absurd old family feud, and as far as I can tell the Ribisi are hand in glove with the regent.”

  Nicci felt as though his head was spinning. “Where’s the duke?”

  “Gone back to Poggia.” Teo sighed in frustration. “Oh, this is a disaster. I need proof.”

  “Have you spoken to Vicini? What does he say?”

  “Pfft. Vicini. He’s been a great help. Thinned his lips and muttered about your reputation.”

  “Fucker,” said Nicci.

  “Listen, I’m coming back,” said Teo. “I don’t think I can get you out of here tonight, but I’m going to ride to San Bendetto at first light.”

  “Why? What’s at San Bendetto?”

  “I don’t know,” said Teo. “Maybe nothing, but it’s the best place I can think of to look for proof that they killed Armando.” He turned his head to glare at Giancarlo. “If you’d only spoken up…”

  “I’m sorry,” said Giancarlo. “I couldn’t help it. I just froze up. I was standing in the Salone dei Cinquecento in front of the Medici, for God’s sake. And then Ribisi appeared…”

  “You were there?” said Nicci. “In the Salone? What was it like? The frescoes…”

  “Oh, divine beyond words. And you should have seen what they’re doing with the courtyard—”

  “—fuck the courtyard,” said Teo, to the surprise of both of them. “Giancarlo, could you give us a moment, please?”

  Giancarlo retreated to the outer arches, and Teo glared after him.

  “Don’t be angry with him,” Nicci sai
d.

  “Why shouldn’t I be? A man is dead because he opened his mouth, and when I need him to open his mouth, he doesn’t. Why aren’t you furious?”

  Nicci shrugged. “Would it help if I was?”

  “No. No, I suppose not.”

  “Right now I have too many thoughts in my head to have room for anger. I can’t stop thinking about del Campo’s dagger in your brother’s back.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” asked Teo.

  “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. I have this terrible habit of getting obsessed with details. I’ve given up on entire paintings just because the big toe didn’t look right to me.”

  Teo leaned closer to the bars. He could have easily reached through and touched him, but he knew that wouldn’t help Nicci’s case right now. “I’m so confused.”

  “I know. Every single answer—”

  “—poses a thousand more questions. Yes.” Teo sighed again. “I will get you out of here. I swear to God. I’m only sorry I couldn’t do it tonight.”

  Tonight. They couldn’t touch, but they could look, and he knew from the light in Teo’s eyes that he was thinking the same thing. They’d come so close, yet again. And so far. Tonight he would have asked, and Teo would have said yes, and Nicci would have been free to worship with his hands and tongue and flesh.

  The guard wasn’t looking. Nicci reached out and their hands touched through the bars. “My angel,” he said, under his breath.

  Teo shot a quick, furtive glance at the guard and turned back to Nicci, his eyes wet and bright. I love you, he mouthed, just as the guard turned.

  Nicci released Teo’s hand. “I know,” he said.

  “I’ll be back.”

  Nicci smiled. His ribs seemed to ache with the effort of containing a heart suddenly grown huge and hot. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  14

  Giancarlo spent the night. He did so because Teo managed to convince him that it would be the only place he would be safe, but his presence added an extra layer of discomfort to a night already made painful by Nicci’s incarceration.

  That night Teo lay alone in bed, grappling with unworthy emotions – lust, envy, wrath. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew it was more likely than not: Nicci had done the things Giancarlo had accused him of, and Teo – with his endless thirst for self-flagellation – had last night extracted the very truths that he knew would hurt him the most.

  “What did you tell them?” he had asked. “What did you accuse him of? And spare no details.”

  “I said that he put his penis in my mouth,” Giancarlo said, his eyes downcast. “And that he induced me to do the same. With his. And that he…he penetrated me with his fingers, and then…then violated me on several occasions.”

  “Violated?”

  “Do you think I would admit to doing those things willingly?”

  “You little liar. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “Yes. And I’m sorry. Truly. In truth he never took from me anything that I didn’t wholeheartedly offer.”

  Teo retreated to bed. Sleep would not come. All he could think about was that red hair between Giancarlo’s legs and Nicci’s fingers combing through it. Nicci’s hands on Giancarlo’s body. Jealousy flared hot and sour as bile, making Teo writhe in self-disgust. He envied them things he knew to be perversions, and yet he desired those perversions so completely that he could no longer hear the voice of God.

  He had left the discipline behind in San Bendetto. Perhaps it still lay beneath his hard, narrow bed where he had left it. In the dark he could just make out the shapes of the embroidery on the silk bed hangings, and his back burned with shame at the luxury of it all. He craved the whip almost as much as a lover. So much easier to think clearly when there was pain to concentrate the mind. Perhaps he could carve at his skin with a knife, but the thought stopped him in his tracks, arrested by the memory of that shameful bundle of bloody rags he’d found in the hole in the wall.

  Had that been how it had started with old Brother Sandro? Perhaps it had been a form of mortification to him, only one day it had got out of hand, because someone had seen the clotted blood in his palm, and then it had become the lie that kept the roof over his head, at an age where he was in danger of outliving his usefulness in the abbey community.

  No, that was the end of my innocence, thought Teo. The moment when he’d found the lye and the bloody knife. Not the moment when he woke up in Nicci’s arms, with every nerve moaning his name.

  He was supposed to be here. This should have been the first night they spent together as lovers, and Teo no longer gave a damn how many had come before him. Dozens. Hundreds. He didn’t care, just so long as he could have Nicci to himself now.

  Teo didn’t get much sleep. As soon as there was enough light he saddled the horses and woke Giancarlo, not trusting him not to run the moment he had the opportunity.

  “You can’t drag me around forever, you know,” said Giancarlo. “I don’t know what you expect of me.”

  “I expect you to take back your slander,” said Teo. “And what will you do without me? Hm? You’re vulnerable as long as you’re alone.”

  “I know that. Believe me, I’ve thought of little else. If a person isn’t safe from them in a monastery…”

  They were silent as they rode the five miles to San Bendetto, each one of them stewing in his own unpleasant thoughts. When he first glimpsed the abbey spire, Teo felt a pang of loss, but more for himself than poor Armando. Final proof that he’d never belonged there: he simply didn’t have the goodness to be a monk. He was too self-centred, too venal, too greedy and too eager to work his will on the world. In short, he was an Albani.

  There was still a small city of tents outside San Bendetto. Evidently a murder hadn’t dented anyone’s appetite for miracles. “Do you think the incorruptible is still there?” said Giancarlo. “I’d dearly love to see him.”

  “It’s nonsense,” said Teo. “Nothing is incorruptible. Perhaps it was the lye in his veins that preserved his corpse, but there was no miracle that I could see.”

  “The lye?”

  “Sandro faked his stigmata,” said Teo. “He dug at the wounds with a knife, and burned the edges with lye. Without them he was just an old man whose fingers were too bent for useful work, but with them he was a saint. And now it seems he’s still a sideshow.”

  The first brother he saw was Francesco, sweeping the gatehouse with a broom that was more stick than bristles. The morning light was behind Teo, making Francesco squint, but as Teo moved into the shadow of the gate he saw recognition dawn on the monk’s face. Francesco stared at him in slow horror and then hurried away, muttering prayers.

  “Wait for me,” Teo told Giancarlo, as he dismounted his horse. “Find someone to water the horses.”

  A larger group of monks had gathered to whisper and stare. Many times Teo had heard it said that if a brother left San Bendetto, it was as bad as if that brother had died. So it was no wonder that they were looking at him as though they’d all seen a ghost. He was shocked by how poor they looked to him, and how fast he had become accustomed to his own inherited wealth. As he moved through the crowd he felt fingers brush his silk sleeves. Until now he had coddled a fading fantasy that one day he might be able to come back here, but now he saw that it was impossible. He reeked of the outside world, of money and power and luxury, and his very presence would be a corruption, a constant reminder of things that the brothers had taught themselves not to want.

  The abbot stood behind the crowd. When he saw Teo his watery blue eyes turned to ice. “You have some nerve,” he said. “Coming back here.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Teo. “Can we talk?”

  The abbot nodded and led the way to his study. There was a second chest now, next to the first one. Nothing had changed, then. “I was sorry to hear of the death of your father,” said the abbot, closing the door.

  “Thank you. So many things have happened since I left this place
.”

  “And yet Brother Armando remains dead.”

  Teo swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he said, again. “I’m here because I think I know what happened.”

  The abbot raised his pale grey eyebrows. “So do I,” he said. “But let’s pretend I’m interested in hearing your side of the story.”

  “Do you remember the day Armando was killed?” said Teo. “Cardinal Gatti was here, and you introduced me to him using my father’s name. I was angry with you and we argued, and I went to my room.”

  “Yes. I recall.”

  “I stayed there. For hours. Thinking. Crying. Then Armando came to me after Vespers and asked me if there was anything I needed. I asked him if he would feed the pigs for me.” Teo tried to gauge the expression in the abbot’s eyes, but they remained cold. “He went in my place to feed the pigs. And that’s why he’s dead. I believe someone who wished harm upon my family mistook him for me.”

  The abbot’s lips narrowed. “Or you killed him.”

  Teo’s stomach turned over. Deep down he’d known that his former brothers would come to this conclusion. Why wouldn’t they? Armando died and Teo vanished, all in the same night. It was obvious. All the same, hearing it said out loud was hard. “Father, please. Ask yourself. Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “He wouldn’t be the first man you’ve killed,” said the abbot. “And don’t tell me to ask myself, as though I haven’t already. I’ve asked myself a thousand times why you would visit this horror upon us, the people who sheltered you, cared for you, loved you—”

  “—Father—”

  “—perhaps that love wasn’t enough for you. Perhaps Armando wouldn’t consent to unnatural acts. Or perhaps he did and threatened to tell.” The abbot scoffed at Teo’s expression. “Don’t take me for a fool, Teodoro. We all knew where your desires lay. Every time that perfumed Volpaia creature turned up, you followed him around and made sheep’s eyes at him. When he wasn’t here you sighed like a girl lonely for her lover.”