The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) (21 page)

He stirred in the stiff leather chair by Lorenzo's desk as Lorenzo paced the little
studiolo
. “How much do you know?” Guid'Antonio said.

“Not enough. Only hearsay from a servant early this morning. The horse, the Virgin Mary, and still no sign of Camilla Rossi da Vinci. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Comb his fingers through his hair as often he might, Lorenzo could not prevent it from falling in dark wings around his face.

“Palla hasn't been here?”

“No.”

“He meant to put his sergeants on Via Larga.”

Lorenzo whipped around. “At my gate? What message would that send? That I'm a coward? No!”

Guid'Antonio swallowed a protest. Lorenzo's constant public exposure troubled him. In the streets. In Florence Cathedral, when Lorenzo had a will. Guid'Antonio whisked his thoughts away from that vast place. If Lorenzo de' Medici refused police protection, there was little he could do about it. Rather than pursue the issue, he explained in detail how the terrified mare had galloped inside the Prato Gate and how Camilla's husband, Castruccio Senso, had immediately ordered the stable keep to groom the horse and scrub her bloodied tack clean.

“And he did?”

“Naturally.”

“Imbecile!” Lorenzo swiped his hand through the air. “That was Castruccio Senso's reaction? To erase all evidence?”

“He wanted no visible reminders of his wife's disappearance or her possible death.
Supposedly,
” Amerigo said, dragging his attention from a copy of Pliny the Elder's
Natural History.

“
Ignare!
Fool! This grows stranger by the hour.” Lorenzo's shadow loomed large on the wall as he paced. “I've been writing letters all morning. Kings, priests. Nothing new there.” He massaged his hands as if they ached and wanted comforting. “I had thought Camilla content somewhere. Like you, Guid'Antonio. But given the bloody saddle, how content may she be? Although the blood could have come from any forest creature, rabbit, fox, squirrel. What I
know
is she wouldn't part gently from that fine treasure.”

Guid'Antonio feigned calm, as if his heartbeat had not picked up a pace. “You know the horse by name?”

“Tesoro? Naturally. There's no other like that one in this town. Nor like the girl, either.” Lorenzo shot him a smiling glance.

Guid'Antonio weighed Lorenzo's words and tucked them away. “So,” he said, “whether or not the blood was hers, the lady may have been parted forcibly from her steed.”

“Dashing the notion of a scheme betwixt her and a lover,” Amerigo said. “No man would be so foolish as that. Part a lady from her pet bird or kitten and draw back a nub. Who, though?” He plucked the
Natural History
from the shelf.

Lorenzo chuckled. “If we knew the answer to that, we'd have an end to this tale.”

“The husband?” Guid'Antonio wished Lorenzo would sit down. “Spurred by jealousy? A cuckold. And him, one of your employees.”

Lorenzo looked at him, hard. “We've been over this. Yes. Castruccio Senso's a wine dealer. From time to time, he handles our oil and wine, as he does yours, too, no doubt. And
no
. Never Castruccio Senso for any reason. He hasn't the balls.”

Guid'Antonio remembered Lorenzo's coat of arms: six
palle
, or balls, five of scarlet and one of sapphire blue emblazoned with three golden
fleurs-de-lis
on a gold field whose design graced everything from the covers of Lorenzo's illuminated manuscripts to his horses' gilded tournament trappings, exactly as his father and grandfather's arms marked the walls of the Medici Palace and countless other buildings they had constructed or rescued and renovated in Florence. Balls, indeed.

He felt as if they were talking in circles and had done so all along. “Who, then?”

“The monks,” Amerigo said. “They have balls aplenty.”

Lorenzo laughed. “But do they have the brains? And anyway, so elaborate a plot for so few coins? In that case, I'll match them ducat for ducat, if they'll cease this madness.”

“If they're our culprits, it's not only for coins, but also for their loyalty to the Pope,” Guid'Antonio said.

Lorenzo gazed at him, eyes and mouth stern. “Hang the Pope. And the monks in Ognissanti.”

Guid'Antonio closed his eyes a moment, praying for direction. “After things calm down, I mean to return to the church and speak to Abbot Ughi.”

“Why not just inspect the painting? See what—who—is causing the Virgin's tears, now they're flowing again.”

Guid'Antonio laughed. “And be exposed by the monks, who surely would pounce on me and ridicule me in the street? I don't think so.” Besides, he had already inspected the painting and learned nothing, or so it seemed to him.

Lorenzo paced. “Do you really believe Abbot Ughi, that old lecher, will share anything with you other than how pretty his boys are?”

Guid'Antonio's stubborn nature flared. “Perhaps inadvertently.” There was not one puzzle here, but two, at least. “Who besides the husband knew Camilla was traveling from the city the week she disappeared?” Sweet Jesus, he was beginning to feel as if he knew this girl. Perhaps he should have inspected Tesoro's mane and tail for some identifying bit of brush or herb when he had occasion to do so at the Hoof and Hay. For some sneaky little leaf growing far out in the
contado
. But he was no gardener or monkish herbalist. And anyway, too late. The dutiful, damned stable keep had groomed the horse.

“Who didn't?” Lorenzo included the world in one flip of his hand. “When Palla interrogated Castruccio Senso after Camilla's disappearance, Castruccio admitted telling anyone who would listen that his wife was off to the baths. Fool.”

Guid'Antonio gaped at Lorenzo's broad back moving away from him. “Baths? Which baths do you mean?”

Lorenzo turned, staring. “Ours at Morba.”

Here was the detail niggling Guid'Antonio these past three days. The lady was from Vinci, yet people had said she was traveling to Morba. Both Luca Landucci and Lorenzo had told him as much on Monday, but neither had mentioned Morba's baths and its healing waters. He had assumed Camilla was on a family visit, and he had not remarked her destination overmuch. Why Morba? Why to any bathing place?

And who owned the resort at Bagno a Morba, but Lucrezia Tornabuoni de' Medici, that gentle and enterprising lady who, three years ago, had leased the baths, doubled the water supply, added a hotel and rented the sparkling new accommodations to visitors, and her no less a personage than Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici's
mother
. Admired, like her son and his castoff friend, Angelo Poliziano, as one of Italy's foremost poets.
Circles
, Guid'Antonio thought.
Chains.

“Was Camilla ill?” he asked, a man surfacing from a warm, murky lake.

“Not that I know of. But then I wouldn't, would I?” Lorenzo's manner was completely natural.

A young woman off to the Morba Baths, off anywhere, without her husband? Strange. “How odd she traveled alone,” Guid'Antonio said.

“Not alone,” Amerigo said. “With her nurse and the Moorish slave boy.”

“Just so.” Guid'Antonio thought about all this and wondered. “Lorenzo, have you had any dealings with Camilla's father, Jacopo? Since he's a winegrower?”

“Pray God, no!” Amerigo cut in. “There's an ill-tempered madman.
Il Magnifico
, yesterday afternoon in Orsanmichele, Jacopo caused such a commotion—”

“No need to digress,” Guid'Antonio said, lightly slapping Amerigo on the side of his leg with the back of his hand.

“Jacopo Rossi da Vinci?” Lorenzo said. “You saw him here in Florence? What did he say regarding his daughter?”

“He left Orsanmichele before we could catch up with him,” Guid'Antonio said.

“ ‘Left’?”
Amerigo stared at Guid'Antonio. “He practically—”

“Never
mind
,” Guid'Antonio said.

Lorenzo's eyes traveled from Guid'Antonio to Amerigo and back again. “I don't know Jacopo. My business associates handle these matters. Our silk shops along with the olives and wine, and everything else we own. You do know Palla questioned him. In Vinci town, where Jacopo lives.”

“Yes. And?” Guid'Antonio said.

Lorenzo shrugged. “Apparently, Jacopo Rossi da Vinci was quiet as a clam.”

Lorenzo's reply was unsatisfying at best, since from what Guid'Antonio had witnessed in the marketplace, Jacopo, with his razor stare, was not a man he would ever call quiet. If, on the other hand, Palla Palmieri had ridden all the way to Vinci a week or so ago and declared Jacopo a dead end, he supposed that should satisfy him. It did not.

“You just came from Ognissanti,” Lorenzo said.

“You know we did.”

“And?”

“Emotions are high, people scared and angry, the seeds sown for terrible violence.”

“Mary!” Lorenzo swore beneath his breath. “I knew as much. We've got to calm Florence down.”

“We will. Find the culprit—”

“Yes!” Lorenzo said. “But here's the thing: we've got to gain lost ground in the city and within our circle, as well.”

Amerigo lifted his brow and looked at Guid'Antonio, who shook his head.
I don't know where this is going, Amerigo. Stay quiet.

Lorenzo turned the chair opposite Guid'Antonio around and straddled it, facing him across the desk. “I'll speak bluntly,” he said.

“You almost always do.”

A little color spread over the high bones in Lorenzo's cheeks. “Who knows how far some of our
friends
will go while we're weak, and they have this chance to seize power? With the arrogant Pazzi family, we saw how far pride extends.” He picked up a bronze medal displayed in a wooden case on his desk and played his fingers over it.

It was the medal Lorenzo had commissioned to commemorate the attack on him and Giuliano in the Cathedral. Small but intricate and swirling with detail, on one side Lorenzo fought off his attackers. On the other, Francesco de' Pazzi raised his knife high over Giuliano, who already lay lifeless on the church floor.

Guid'Antonio pulled back in his chair, straightening his shoulders. He felt surrounded by all things Medici, with no means of escaping his memories.

“Listen,” Lorenzo said, “before I left for Naples, there was grumbling in the streets because of the war. While I was there, our detractors whispered I might meet my death at King Ferrante's hands. Yet here I am. I compromised myself by going to Ferrante and suing for peace, since it meant identifying my house so closely with the city's continuing problems. I know that, and don't regret it a whit, since I did it in the name of peace. I certainly didn't expect to have my efforts come back and bite me in the ass.”

Amerigo laughed, then fell quiet as Guid'Antonio said, “You believe the rumblings within our ranks pose a genuine threat to the regime?”

Lorenzo bent toward him, his cheeks unusually thin, almost sunken, in the candlelight. “As dangerous as when ruthless men tried to replace my father and grandfather as the leaders of our city. And more recently, me.”

“They failed miserably,” Guid'Antonio said. The Albizzi, the Pitti, the Pazzi families.

“Not without tremendous cost. I live with the death of my brother every day.”

So do I
, Guid'Antonio thought.
And you know it very well.

Lorenzo pressed the medal to his lips before returning it to its case with Giuliano's image face up. “This is no time to drag our feet.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Not quite yet”—Lorenzo looked away—“only a few ideas involving change.”

Guid'Antonio's thoughts were worn, wooly threads seeking some design or pattern. “Find Camilla, expose the painting—”

“I'm speaking of our government and our party,” Lorenzo snapped. “About our lives and the lives of our families. About our impending ruin. When the time comes to make a move, I'll need you with me.” A smile slipped across his full lips. “You're my voice of reason.”

By “change,” what, exactly, did Lorenzo mean?

Resistance crept up Guid'Antonio's legs and settled in his chest beneath the ties of his sweat-soaked tunic. Magnificent to behold, suddenly the windowless little study felt hot as the flames of hell. He sat thinking while moments marched past, his gaze on the wall in the shadows at Lorenzo's back. There on a shelf sat small sculptures and vases and a blue and white onyx cameo in a frame:
Noah and His Family Emerging from the Ark
. His eyes traveled to the painted chest on the floor. On the wooden chest lay a velvet cloak. The cloak was familiar. Inky black with bands of crimson satin sewn along the sleeves. The same scarlet made the hood an inner lining. Folded back, in the dark light of Lorenzo's
studiolo
, its contents were transformed into a flowing river of blood.

Guid'Antonio felt off balance. How often had he seen Giuliano with that same cloak slung over his shoulders as he strolled the streets of Florence with his young bloods or rode with the hunt, his arrow whistling into the stout heart of a wild boar or a magnificent stag? The last time, as Giuliano lay dead on the Duomo floor. Guid'Antonio swallowed hard. He did not need to see the familiar cape to be reminded of Giuliano's limp body, his skull split in two halves. The image of Giuliano's corpse was seared into Guid'Antonio's blood, guts, and bones.

“I want to show you something.”

Guid'Antonio flinched, startled by the sound of Lorenzo's harsh voice breaking into his thoughts.

Lorenzo blew out all the candles save one and beckoned to his guests.

Lorenzo opened a door panel hidden in the
studiolo'
s back wall and led them along a narrow passage before beckoning them down a twisting stone stairway. When they reached an oaken door with cast-iron fittings, he extinguished the candle and added it to others within an iron container attached to the wall. “The outside exit is here.” The iron inner bolt screeched like a wounded bird when Lorenzo pulled it back. Heat and a slab of daylight poured in the door.

On the street, while Lorenzo locked the door behind him with a key, Guid'Antonio glanced around to get his bearings. Red-gowned men on foot hurried past, and a horseman clattered by, almost trampling a miller whose donkey was laden with a precious half sack of flour. Shops with barred doors and shuttered windows outnumbered those doing business.