The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) (35 page)

“Those are my lady's initials,” Luigi said, appearing about to faint. “Camilla Rossi da Vinci.” Anything to say her name.

“Well, well,” Palla said. “Show me exactly where you found it. Then—” Taking Luigi by the hand, glancing at Guid'Antonio, he escorted the boy into the house.

“Then
what?
” Amerigo's stare at Luigi's retreating back said it all: What about that boy, now he has neither master, nor home, nor anywhere to live? To the foundling hospital in Piazza Annunziata to grow up as an orphaned slave boy? Luigi was far too valuable for that. Someone would take him, perhaps in trade. He was twelve, fatten him up, and he might live and toil for a long time, a strong, healthy slave.

“Senso's relatives?” Guid'Antonio said.

Palla, having returned to the garden with his charge, used his handkerchief to wipe dried tears from the boy's face with water from the fountain. “Castruccio Senso has no family,” Palla said. “I found that much out when
I
was actively investigating Camilla's—” He glanced down at Luigi. “Departure,” Palla said.

“Where did Luigi find the fabric?” Guid'Antonio said.

Palla grinned. “Beside the body, of course.”

Amerigo said, “He'll be in grave danger should Castruccio Senso's killers realize Luigi was listening from the safety of the fireplace during the night. He might recognize their voices if ever he hears them again. They'll figure that out.”

Luigi looked surprised, and his sobs filled the garden, louder and louder.

A starving dog and now a mistreated boy. Guid'Antonio frowned unhappily. “Amerigo, take him home and tell Domenica to get some food in his stomach. Give him a clean pallet. Tell everyone to keep quiet about him. We don't want anyone to know his whereabouts. Certainly not Castruccio Senso's killers.”

Palla arched his brow. “Not that you asked, but I agree. For now.”

The gate closed on Amerigo and Luigi with a soft click. After a moment, from Piazza Santa Maria del Carmine there came the fading sound of Amerigo talking to his charge. Palla plucked a twig of rosemary from a nearby bush and sniffed it thoughtfully. “Our little slave knows something.”

“Yes.” From inside the Senso household there came the sounds of the
beccamorti
cursing as they heaved Senso's corpse onto the litter.

“Now what?” Palla said.

Later, I'm going to have Luigi tell me exactly what happened on the road to Morba
, Guid'Antonio thought. He said, “I think we should go to church.”

“Excellent idea,” Palla said.

After giving instructions for his sergeants to stand watch over the crime scene, with a graceful wave of his arm, Palla swung open Castruccio Senso's gate.

They stood together in Santa Maria del Carmine Church, gazing up at
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise
painted fifty or so years earlier in Cappella Brancacci, Eve with her head thrown back in a howl, her face wracked with anguish. Overcome by shame and grief, she covered her naked breasts and nether region with her hands. Gone forever were the days of flat renderings of angels and saints.

“I know how she feels,” Guid'Antonio said, and immediately regretted expressing his feelings to anyone, flippantly or no.

Palla's laugh echoed softly in the chapel. “Masaccio would be proud,” he said, and let it go at that, chewing the rosemary twig reflectively. “Luigi claims he heard voices besides Castruccio Senso's. Could be he knows them. Could be he was in league with them.”

“All ten or twenty?” Guid'Antonio said skeptically. “He also claims Turks kidnapped his lady.”

“That's my point.”

Guid'Antonio waved his hand. “Much as I dislike eliminating any possibility, I don't think Luigi's one of them, however many there were. Were they some of Castruccio Senso's disgruntled clients? If so, in the past Luigi would have been around them enough to distinguish one voice from the other. But why not finger them? Because he's afraid they'll get to him?” he said, half to himself.

“My money's on Salvestro Aboati,” Palla said.

“The Neapolitan you tailed after the argument at the Red Lion. Maybe.” They moved to the right toward
The Tribute Money
frescoed on the church wall.

“I left Salvestro Aboati when his path turned opposite Castruccio's,” Palla said. “I'll have my men search the taverns and inns for him again. By the way, they scoured the countryside for evidence of where Camilla's horse might have been held captive these last weeks and found nothing.”

“That would have been too good to be true,” Guid'Antonio said. “Why bother looking for the Neapolitan? If he was involved in Castruccio's death, he's long gone by now. Along with whoever might have assisted him.”

“I'll leave no stone unturned,” Palla said.

“What of the account sheets torn from the ledger?” Guid'Antonio said. “Find Salvestro Aboati's name there and—”

“I'll sift through the papers,” Palla said, “though surely if any of them incriminated Aboati or anyone else, they've been destroyed. There's the motive, perhaps.”

Somewhere in the chapel, a door opened. Skirts swished across the nave; in a far corner, a door closed. Quietly, Palla said, “Killing a man's one thing. The scene in Senso's house is quite another.”

True. There had been more than avarice in Castruccio Senso's household last night. There had been malice and extreme cruelty, the likes of which Guid'Antonio had witnessed only once before. For an instant, he saw Giuliano's knees buckle as he sank to the Cathedral floor, saw Francesco de' Pazzi stab him relentlessly, ten, twenty times, and more. . . .

“What do you think about the fabric?” Palla said.

“Countless possibilities,” Guid'Antonio said, swallowing hard.

Palla turned his shrewd dark eyes him. “But what do you
think
about it, since thinking is our
modus operandi?
”

Palla would press him. So while good Saint Peter poured water over the head of a muscular, barely clothed young man in Tommaso Masaccio's
Saint Peter Baptizing the Converts
, and a viper tempted the naked and unashamed couple in the Garden of Eden in Masolino's gentle
Temptation of Adam and Eve
, Guid'Antonio removed the monogrammed fabric from his scrip. “The cloth is smoothly cut and in a rectangular form. Done with scissors, not ripped. Deliberate, then. The fabric is good quality, albeit not fine. Still, any decent clothing is precious to its owner. Not many people would cut up a woman's shift.” He slid the small piece of cloth back into his purse.

Palla smiled. “I will want that back. Cut by Castruccio Senso himself, mayhap? Why?”

“Or someone else and why, again?”

“If he had her killed, why keep the fabric? There's a macabre souvenir.”

“But remember the blood on it is fresh,” Guid'Antonio said. “This bit of nightgown has been recently soiled, while the girl's been missing almost three weeks now.”

By silent agreement they turned and strode down the single nave enclosed by a barrel vault. Despite the rough stone face Santa Maria del Carmine showed the world, its interior was rich with frescoes lit by candles and natural light provided by ten large arched windows. Turning to Palla, Guid'Antonio said, “What did the elusive nurse Margherita state when you questioned her in Vinci?”

“Nothing. 'Cept she, Camilla, and the boy were beset by Turks, and you know the rest.”

“No, I do not,” Guid'Antonio said. Luigi: He would go softly when questioning the boy or risk losing him completely. Patience, patience. But look what patience and procrastination had cost him already. It sickened him.

“By the by,” Palla said. “She's doing well.”

“Who is?” Guid'Antonio said.

“The doctor of the house.”

Guid'Antonio felt hot color rise in his cheeks. “Ah,” he said.

“You haven't spoken with her about this case.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No need,” Guid'Antonio said.

Palla made a light, laughing sound down in his throat. “Need comes in many guises, my friend.”

“How well I know,” Guid'Antonio said.

Casually, Palla said, “She is that rarest of Florentine women. Beautiful, unmarried, and dependent on no man.”

Still not married, then. Guid'Antonio sought and failed to find the slightest comfort in that.

They stepped into the piazza, shading their eyes with their hands. “What are you going to do next?” Palla said.

“Keep thinking.” Turks. How in God's name had Margherita and Luigi come up with that outrageous tale? And Margherita had told the boy to keep quiet.

Why?

“Castruccio Senso, murdered? So much for that louse as our culprit regarding Camilla Rossi da Vinci,” Lorenzo said, storming up and down the
sala
in his house.

“Not necessarily. I believe Castruccio was involved in whatever happened on the road that day.” From Santa Maria del Carmine, Guid'Antonio had ridden Flora across Ponte Trinita to the north bank and straight to the Medici Palace.

“So? With Castruccio's death, we've lost the chance to question him about the reservations, about everything.” Lorenzo whipped around, glowering, his eyes black points of light. “Tell me now Mary isn't weeping for that miserable little wine merchant!”

“No. The streets are quiet.” The painting hadn't wept since Camilla's horse, Tesoro, had galloped into town, thank God in all His radiant glory. “No one has taken advantage of this latest turn. Yet,” Guid'Antonio said.

“Senso was robbed as well as having his head bashed in?”

“Maybe only as an extra dividend,” Guid'Antonio said. “Or to throw us off the killer's actual motive.”

“What actual motive? A
vendetta?
” Lorenzo said, twirling one finger in the air.

A family seeking revenge on Castruccio's house for some slight, whether real or imagined? Camilla's husband was a man well disliked, and the murder seemed a personal one. Still, it had been an ugly kill. “If a
vendetta
, we'd know by now. His killers would make sure of it.”

“Killers?”

“Two, at least.”

“Why can't we catch these morons who keep committing crimes beneath our noses? Missing girls, paintings weeping when they have a will,” Lorenzo said, scowling.

“Castruccio was only
just
murdered,” Guid'Antonio reminded him. “And Palla's fast on it.” He couldn't resist adding, “Morons, they may be but, so far, they're getting away with it.”

“What will you do now?”

Make a list of the people asking me that same question
, Guid'Antonio thought darkly to himself. “I'll go home to the wife I haven't seen since Thursday. I'll study our accounts. I'll visit Verrocchio's workshop.” Another item on his list he had yet failed to do.

“Verrocchio's?” On Lorenzo's lips, the word was an explosion. “Is this truly the time to be thinking about commissioning a sculpture or painting?”

Did he have a life of his own? Apparently, not. “I aim to question his apprentice, Leonardo da Vinci.”

Lorenzo whirled around, facing him again. “Leonardo? Why, for God's sake?”

“One never knows where one might find a connection,” Guid'Antonio said and refused to elaborate.

“Leonardo's no longer with Verrocchio,” Lorenzo said, frowning. “He opened his own shop while you were gone off to France.” He resumed pacing, his dark eyes darting here and there. “You know people will accuse me of having a hand in this, if not of actually wielding the candlestick, of causing Castruccio Senso's death in some secret way. Never mind I had no reason to destroy the little man. Just the opposite. A murder in our town. It sickens me.”

But it was not Castruccio Senso's violent death for which the populace blamed Lorenzo de' Medici. Rather, it was the alarming news from southern Italy delivered to City Hall by a courier on horseback later in the day. After reconnoitering Rhodes, Mehmed the Conqueror's Turkish army had encamped on the island. For more than a week now, enemy soldiers had been firing messages into the fort held by the Christian Knights of Saint John. “They say the Turkish admiral has seventy thousand soldiers backed by an armada of one hundred ships, and the Knights a force of only six hundred men,” the courier said, wiping tears from his eyes with his fist.

“They say the assault is imminent. Against them, our good Knights haven't
any
chance.”

“Seventy thousand against six hundred.” Imagine cheeks going pale as Tommaso Soderini repeats the news in Palazzo della Signoria: the Turks say the Knights of Rhodes are on the verge of such bitter fighting as they have never witnessed nor imagined in their wildest dreams. The Turks say that at the end of the day, they will fly their black flag high atop the fort tower, sack the city, and slaughter or enslave its Christian men, women, and children.

Imagine Lorenzo's powerful body bent over a parchment map unfurled and its corners weighed down with pebbles on the meeting table. “Here's Italy's southern tip with King Ferrante on the Bay of Naples. Moving south-southeast across the Mediterranean, here's the island of Rhodes, her battlements blown open by Admiral Mesih Pasha's artillery.”

No one present in the hall needs this geography lesson; we all know exactly where Rhodes is located. We know its defeat will give Mehmed II naval command of the Mediterranean along Italy's eastern shore. We know Mehmed wants to create a new world Islamic Empire.

Lorenzo's presence in City Hall as the unofficial ruler of the Florentine Republic is remarkable and yet undisputed. All eyes follow his ringed finger up the map. “After devouring Rhodes, the Turks will take Naples, then march north to Rome.”

“My God,” Pierfilippo Pandolfini gasps, and Bartolomeo Scala rubs his temples hard. Just the thought of Turks on Italian soil gives our Lord Chancellor a roaring headache.

Lorenzo's finger taps the parchment. “Overland travel from Rome north to Tuscany takes less than two weeks. By ship and horseback, it is at most four days.”

Piero di Nasi laughs shrilly. “Boats off the coast of Naples? Then Rome and Tuscany besieged? What happened to ‘There are no Turks in Italy’?”