The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) (33 page)

“Your brother's wrong,” Lorenzo said, exasperated now. “It's almost never wrong to pray. Although it depends on what you're praying for. The Pope is using that kind of language to batter us down.”

In the distance a dog or wolf howled, and Guid'Antonio thought of the loyal, if lumpy,
cane corso Italiano
back home in Florence. Where did the animal spend his nights? At the garden gate, alert and remembering, with one ear cocked toward the Vespucci Palace?

“I think it's time we called it a night,” Lorenzo said. “Past time, in fact. Falcone, see the fire's extinguished, will you?”

After lighting torches to illuminate the night, Guid'Antonio and Lorenzo escorted the boys to their
camera
and put them to bed, and to Guid'Antonio, how odd it felt. Afterwards, deep into the night the three men leaned forward with their elbows resting on the rough kitchen table, playing cards and consuming musky red wine while the boys tossed and turned in a largely empty room flooded with moonlight and phantom Turks who flew in through the open windows wielding bloody bayonets.

Now, Lorenzo strode languorously toward Guid'Antonio and Amerigo across the sun-baked field, swiping the sweat from his eyes with his forearm. He removed a towel from the trestle table and dried his muscled torso. “So, friends, how are you this morning?”

“Bene,”
Guid'Antonio said. He had not slept a moment last night. Thinking, reconsidering, and turning inside out all the events of the last twelve days. Leaning first one way, then the other. Indecisive? No. Yes. Weighing all the options, not just for himself, but for his family for generations to come as well. This morning, after seeing to the horses (both Flora and Bucephalus, since Amerigo was a layabout), he had begun reading Simplicius' commentary to Aristotle's
Physics
, but couldn't concentrate for the nattering in the farthest reaches of his mind. In the last few days, the Lord Priors had not moved one foot closer to proposing a
balìa
to the other councils. They had been far too busy bickering about it amongst themselves. What would become of those government changes Lorenzo wanted? Something? Nothing?

“I expected Sangallo to arrive by now,” Lorenzo said, and cast a glance toward the road as if hoping his master architect, Giuliano da Sangallo, would ride toward them through the hazy morning light. “We agreed on Friday morning.”

“It's almost noon,” Guid'Antonio said. “Perhaps he started late.”

“I could ride out for him.” Amerigo let the suggestion hang.

“Don't worry yet. Thanks.” Lorenzo poured well water over his face and chest. “Where're the children?”

“Taking turns riding in the donkey cart,” Guid'Antonio said.

“All three of them?”

“No, Piero's catching butterflies with a net.”

Lorenzo sighed, shaking his head. “Let's hope he enjoys the sport of it and releases them soon.”

After a light meal of cheese and bread, they accompanied the boys to the stables, where Lorenzo instructed everyone to wait outside till he came back out. Moments later, he returned leading a horse whose chestnut coat shone in the light of the afternoon sun.

“There's a magnificent animal,” Amerigo said. “What, about sixteen hands?”

“On the mark,” Lorenzo said. “Not too close, boys, she's restless.” The mare shifted her hooves, tail switching, as if to prove the point.

“Eeeeee!” The two Giovanni's jumped back, squealing. Piero shied away, intimidated by the size and presence of the horse.

“She's a secret,” Lorenzo said.

“What kind of secret?” Piero said.

“She's our horse in the
palio
next year.”

Next year?
Guid'Antonio pursed his lips.

“A mare?” Amerigo snickered.

Lorenzo smiled. “I'll put her up against two of your studs anytime.”

“What's her name?” Giovanni Vespucci said.

“La Lucciola.”
Firefly.

“Why?”

“Because when she races, she's quick as a lightning bug.”

“Piero says you never lose the
palio
. Do you?” Giovanni Vespucci said.

“What do you mean ‘next year’?” Guid'Antonio said.

“I mean
La Lucciola'
s not going to Florence till then, and I'm running a different horse in the
palio
finals next month. Giovanni, in answer to your question, no, I don't.”

The three men were in a grassy meadow later that afternoon, armed with bows and arrows, when a rider crested the hill and galloped down the sloping hill toward them. He rode with his body bent forward and one hand clamped on his feathered cap to prevent it from blowing off his head.

Amerigo shaded his eyes. “Who in Hades? Not your architect, surely.”

Lorenzo dropped his bow and wiped sweat from his eyes. “Sangallo? No. A courier from Florence, I think.”

The fellow slid from the saddle.
“Il Magnifico! Buon giorno.”
He bowed. “I've two messages. “First—” He caught his breath. “Maestro Giuliano da Sangallo sends word he's ill and won't be here this weekend. He regrets the inconvenience and will speak with you in town.”

Lorenzo grunted his disappointment. “What else?”

“Is Messer Guid'Antonio Vespucci here?”

Guid'Antonio started. “I am.”

The courier handed him a sealed note. Impressed in the red wax seal were the initials LTM.
Lucrezia Tornabuoni de' Medici.

Lorenzo raised his brow as Guid'Antonio broke the seal and scanned the words penned in Lucrezia's small, firm script.
Grazie Madonna
. Slowly, Guid'Antonio smiled.

“Good news?” Lorenzo said.

“Yes. What was lost has been found.” Guid'Antonio told them about the missing reservation book, not truly missing after all, but misplaced. Before revealing more, he glanced at Lorenzo, who sent the exhausted courier to the kitchen, where Falcone, having returned there with the boys after a visit with
Belfiore
, would put out bread and wine for the fellow's repast.

“I asked your mother if Camilla Rossi da Vinci had a reservation at Bagno a Morba the week she disappeared. And, no, she did not. The lady's name does not appear anywhere in the reservation book.”

Amerigo scratched his head. “Mona Lucrezia sent word all the way out here to tell you that?”

“It is of the utmost importance,” Guid'Antonio said. And explained how the lack of a reservation implied Castruccio Senso knew his wife would never reach the baths.

“
Mon Dieu!
That old toad had her killed?”

“Perhaps,” Guid'Antonio said. “But he can come up with all kinds of stories.”

By common consent, they moved to the shaded table. “Castruccio didn't think to make false arrangements?” Lorenzo said, eyes glowing. “There's stupidity personified. It could go far in proving he knew his wife never would arrive at Morba.”

“You said yourself, Castruccio Senso's not a bright man,” Guid'Antonio said. “He can, and no doubt will, say he forgot to make arrangements before sending her on her way. Given his reputation as a fool, the court may believe him. And, yes, I do mean to have Palla arrest him straightaway.”

“But why harm his wife? And use Turks as the culprits? There's a colorful touch,” Lorenzo said. “There remain the nurse and boy, as well. Surely, they didn't go along with Castruccio's villainy.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Guid'Antonio said. “As for why, Amerigo has suggested a new dowry as motive.”

“Or there could be another woman involved,” Lorenzo said. “Think, though: that doesn't require killing your wife.”

Guid'Antonio thought,
Love? Please. Lust?
And what, if anything, did any of this have to do with the painting of the
Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta
in Ognissanti?

“Now what?” Amerigo said.

“I want to question that little man as soon as possible,” Guid'Antonio said. “In the morning, we'll ride straight to Florence.” This meant returning home Saturday rather than Sunday, as they had originally planned to do. But something told him he must get to Castruccio Senso immediately.

“In the meanwhile,” Lorenzo said, “I'll dispatch the courier with a note to Palla. He'll know what to do. Apply pressure with the rope, and Castruccio Senso will squeal like a pig.”

Guid'Antonio pictured the corpulent little wine merchant stripped to the waist and hoisted toward the ceiling by his wrists. Till Castruccio confessed to something, Palla's men would give the cord a hard jerk, a
strappado.

“I want to interrogate him myself,” he said.

“Both you and Palla, then. We'll all leave at first light tomorrow. A departure by you and Amerigo alone would leave the three boys and me traveling the road solo. I agree you must question Castruccio at once.”

That evening, after looking in on Giovanni and bidding Amerigo good night, Guid'Antonio stepped out into the side yard off the kitchen and found Lorenzo sitting alone at the trestle table beneath a glittering canopy of stars, gazing toward the distant hills. Guid'Antonio sank onto the wooden bench beside him, feeling curiously calm.

Lorenzo said, “I'd like to go six months to some place where Italian affairs were never mentioned. Even here in the country it's hard to forget about Girolamo Riario and the Pope. And so many other things.”

Crickets chirped and fireflies lit the grounds, their starry pulse fading across the meadows. On the table a solitary candle burned with a pale yellow flame. Not scented beeswax, but plain cheap tallow.

Lorenzo went on, “Do you honestly believe Castruccio Senso had Camilla killed? Whoever heard of such a thing? Not often, anyway.”

“I believe it's far more complicated than that,” Guid'Antonio said. “I hope our young courier doesn't run afoul of thieves tonight.”

“Given the florin I promised the lad to hurry, not even
La Lucciola
could catch up with him. Why wouldn't Camilla be suspicious when Castruccio Senso told her he was sending her to Morba? In my experience, Castruccio isn't a generous man.”

Guid'Antonio tucked away Lorenzo's “experience” of a man who, only recently, he had professed not to know beyond a casual acquaintance. “What choice would she have but to go?”

“True.”

In the farmhouse there was muffled laughter: the two Giovannis. “They get along,” Lorenzo said, nudging Guid'Antonio, smiling. “Like you and me.”

“They do,” Guid'Antonio said.
And I will do anything to protect them.

“In Florence, I'd like them to visit often. I think yours is good for mine.” Lorenzo mock-grimaced. “Maybe your Giovanni will rub off on my Piero.”

“My Giovanni? Good? How?”

Lorenzo laughed down in his throat. “Are you that surprised? He's quick. And generous to a fault. He gave, well, loaned, Piero his seashell tonight, so Piero could listen to it before falling asleep.”

“It's Giovanni's prized possession,” Guid'Antonio said. “Such a little thing.” Not the painted wood puzzle he had brought Giovanni from Paris and not the marionette he had bought the boy in Piazza Santa Croce.

“I'm glad he likes the shell,” Lorenzo said. “I brought it back from Naples.”

Guid'Antonio sat rooted to the spot. Seashells and beeswax candles beset with cloves, with jasmine and lemon verbena. “You are generous to a fault,
Il Magnifico
.”

Lorenzo's mouth quirked in a smile. “I enjoy sharing.”

“As do I. Depending what it is.”

In the gathering darkness, Guid'Antonio saw Lorenzo's smile widen. “Guid'Antonio, I brought back a trunk full of gifts, something for the families of my most trusted friends. Quite a small trunk, I might add.”

Guid'Antonio let it go at that. He was a Medici man. More than that, he was an Italian, as married to the soil and stones of Tuscany as he was to his wife and family. He said, “I'll speak with Capponi and Di Nasi and the others when we're back in Florence. See if I can persuade them to vote for making a call to the other councils for your
balìa
.”

Lorenzo sat up straight, staring at him. “Mary and all the saints. I thought—”

“I may have some influence, since I've been one of them,” Guid'Antonio said.

“And will be again. But that's not what I meant. Why change your mind now?”

“I want Florence in the best hands. Yours. And mine.”

“We will make all the decisions, Guid'Antonio,” Lorenzo said earnestly.

“I know.”

“You know, too, I have no desire to be a lord. Everything I want is here: this farm, a peaceful night, time with my family and friends.”

“In the end, that's all any of us want,” Guid'Antonio said.

Now the words were spoken, there was no turning back, this he knew with absolute certainty. His destiny was tied to the Medici; it had been from the time of his birth and his baptism a few days later in the Baptistery in Piazza San Giovanni a few feet from the Cathedral doors in the Golden Lion district of Florence. The Baptistery that Florentines could not, or should not, now darken with their newborn babes because of the Pope's feud with Lorenzo.

Whatever the circumstances, Florence, Lorenzo, and Guid'Antonio, the Medicis and the Vespuccis, were one and the same. Wasn't that what he had worked for his entire life? To defend one was to defend the other. He had fallen down once; he would not do so again.

They sat in silence for what seemed to Guid'Antonio a long time, watching the fireflies, listening to the frogs croak in the yard. “It's late,” Lorenzo said at last, yawning. “Dawn will break early in the morning.”

“I'll stay a moment longer.”

Lorenzo turned to go.

“One more thing,” Guid'Antonio said.

Lorenzo swung back. For an instant in the pale light of the solitary candle, he appeared exhausted, his eyes glazed with fatigue. “Yes?”

“If not
La Lucciola
, which horse will you run in the
palio
next month?” In late August, when Luca Landucci's brother, Gostanzo, would race astride his dragon through Florence's crowded streets, from the starting point in the meadow near Ognissanti Church to the finish line at San Piero Maggiore.

“Since when did you take an interest in horse racing?” Lorenzo said, tilting his head slightly.

“Since I was born a Florentine.”