The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) (7 page)

Tommaso slathered fresh cream cheese on a thick slice of bread. “King Ferrante wants his son within pissing distance of us. Should opportunity knock, I suppose. Lorenzo agreed to it to bring home the treaty.”

“You know our ways,” Bartolomeo Scala said, frowning. “Lorenzo gave us peace. Now we gripe about terms. Reason has little to do with it.”

Antonio Capponi blew a stray blond hair from his cheek. “The point is, when you add Prince Alfonso's continuing presence to the Turks beating at our door and the Pope's constant interdict, you have a city on the verge of exploding like the cart in Piazza del Duomo on Easter Sunday. But, of course, that's meant to be festive.”

He clapped his hands: “Bang!”

Beside Guid'Antonio, Amerigo jumped. “There are no Turks in Italy,” Guid'Antonio said.

“Not for a long time,” Piero di Nasi agreed. “But their ships have been sighted off the coast of Rhodes in the Mediterranean Sea.”

Amerigo made a squeak of distress. “That's the last home of the Christian crusaders! Against Mehmed the Conqueror's legions, they wouldn't stand the chance of a flea in Hell—” The nine men of the Signoria, along with Chancellor Bartolomeo Scala and his assistant, Alessandro Braccesi, stared at Guid'Antonio's nephew, who had one role to perform in this official government meeting: that of
giovane
, secretary to his uncle.

“We know the island fortress is there,” Piero di Nasi said gently. “It has been more than a century.”

“People are always seeing Turks,” Guid'Antonio said.

“That's because they know Mehmed II still has his eye on the West,” Tommaso Soderini said.

“Perhaps, but the Turks in Tuscany are not real.”

“Rather like the tears of your weeping painting,” Antonio Capponi said, grinning. “They're false—or so we hope,” he added, crossing himself.

“My what?” Guid'Antonio said.

“He means the painted image called the
Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta
brought down from her village and placed on the altar of Ognissanti Church for the spring celebrations,” Piero di Nasi said. “Last Wednesday, tears coursed down the Virgin's face.”

Stunned, Guid'Antonio said, “Are you sure?”

“There's a question with at least a thousand answers,” Tommaso said.

In my church
, Guid'Antonio thought.
Ognissanti
. “Amerigo,” he said, “remind me—how cold and rainy was France?” This garnered a few wry smiles; one man laughed, shrill and nervy.

Beyond the chamber windows, the sun blazed on course across the sky. One raven, then another, cawed. Guid'Antonio sat very still. The Vespuccis had moved from the village of Peretola to the Unicorn district in the Santa Maria Novella quarter of Florence almost one hundred years ago. Since then, they and the Benedictine monks of the Lombard Order of the Humiliati had dominated the neighborhood. In the late 1380s, Guid'Antonio's distant kinsman, silk merchant Simone Vespucci, had built the local hospital, Spedale dei Vespucci, a few steps from the Vespucci Palace. All these years, Vespucci money had decorated the church. Four generations of Vespuccis lay sleeping in its dim stone chapels, Guid'Antonio's mother, his father, his precious first wife, and their baby.

And now a painting of the Virgin was weeping there.

He looked around at the men gathered at the table. “And so—?”

“And so, Guid'Antonio,” Tommaso Soderini said, stone-faced, “these tears in your church have people believing Mary is weeping for their lost souls. They believe God is in a high hot temper because of our defiance of the Pope. Whether by the hand of Mehmed the Conqueror, the prince of Naples, Count Girolamo Riario, or all three, they believe God means to see Florence destroyed and her people roasting in hell like pigs on a spit. And who do they blame?”

Guid'Antonio half-expected the Lord Priors to sing the name out in a loud chorus. Instead, it whispered, unspoken, around the room:
Lorenzo, Lorenzo, Lorenzo.

Bartolomeo Scala said, “You're a Medici man, Guid'Antonio. So are we all. And you saw how it went against you in the street. It grows worse by the hour.”

With a linen cloth, Tommaso wiped crumbs from his mouth. “The time has come for us to satisfy heaven.”

“Satisfy Sixtus IV and his nephew, you mean,” Guid'Antonio said, his voice grim. “How? By serving them Lorenzo's head on a platter.”

Tommaso laughed sourly. “If anyone's head is served on a platter, I doubt it will be my nephew's. He's far too cunn—” Tommaso smiled deliberately. “Far too sharp-witted for that. Whereas if something isn't done to prevent a civil war in our streets, our own heads will land there.”

In Tommaso's flat gaze, Guid'Antonio saw fifty years of relentless service to the Florentine Republic and the bitter frustration that must come with Tommaso's role as Lorenzo de' Medici's second. With more legitimate authority than his thirty-one-year-old nephew, certainly. Christ, but for Bartolomeo's secretary, Alessandro Braccesi, and Amerigo, every man in this room wielded more official power than Lorenzo, for all the good it did them. Lorenzo might be uncrowned, but he was the prince of the city, the green grass springing up beneath the feet of everyone who supported the Medici family. Hadn't they—largely, the men in this room—placed the mantle of leadership on Lorenzo's shoulders almost a dozen years ago, when his father died of crippling gout? In December 1469, Lorenzo had been twenty, a strapping youth more interested in poetry and horses than politics. Now they must reckon with the fact power fit him like a second skin.

“Alternatively,” Tommaso droned on, “we may find ourselves in exile, with new men as our replacements.”

“Exile?” Amerigo went deathly pale. The Vespuccis, the Soderinis, the Medicis and Pandolfinis, stripped of wealth and power and run from the city?

This time, the others ignored Amerigo's intrusion into the conversation. “You might as well tie blocks of stone to our necks and drown us in the Arno,” Pierfilippo Pandolfini said.

“Or heave us from yon windows into Piazza della Signoria,” Antonio Capponi cut in. “Exactly as we did Francesco and the archbishop of Pisa two years ago.”

The
vacca
, the great bell of Arnolfo di Cambio's bell tower, mooed the noonday hour, marking with exact precision the chill quiet pervading the Great Hall.
Exile
. Who could imagine any worse fate? No: even death paled by comparison.

With an impressive air of grace, Tommaso gathered his coat lightly about his shoulders, and rose. “No wonder to me the Virgin was seen weeping. Even I am weary of my nephew's conflict with Pope Sixtus IV.”

The old man's brown eyes sought Guid'Antonio. “I must say, former Ambassador Vespucci, I do enjoy your reports. For all the rest of it, if my nephew doesn't want to go to Rome, we can't force him to do it.” For an instant, he paused, eyebrows raised. “Or can we?”

Guid'Antonio was donning his cloak when Pierfilippo Pandolfini hurried over. The younger man embraced him, smiling, though his eyes were dark and troubled. “Guid'Antonio, I'm glad to have you home.” In an undertone, Pierfilippo said, “Admire my jewelry, quickly!”

“There's a beautifully crafted ring. Who's the maker? Andrea, by the look,” Guid'Antonio said.

“Yes, or one of the boys in his shop, though I paid Verrocchio's own price.” Pierfilippo lowered his voice. “It's true the current turns against us with all swiftness. But appease Sixtus, my ass! Lorenzo's four months in Naples gave his uncle freedom of action he otherwise never could have managed. A cunning man may accomplish everything in less time. What better opportunity to begin taking the upper hand, which everyone knows Tommaso has always wanted? Missing ladies, miraculous paintings, and civil unrest in our streets. Miraculous
timing
, don't you think?”

Raising his voice, Pierfilippo finished, smiling broadly, “God be with you, friend. We'll get together, have some wine.” With that, he took hasty leave.

Guid'Antonio's eyes traveled to the messenger who had entered the chamber and stood speaking with Bartolomeo Scala. He frowned to himself, mulling over Pierfilippo's words while Amerigo slid his writing instruments into his satchel and secured the straps. Could Tommaso Soderini be stirring up trouble on the Pope's coattails in hopes of ruining Lorenzo? If so, who were Tommaso's accomplices? Were the other families who supported Lorenzo in danger? Guid'Antonio rubbed his neck to ease the muscle ache holding him in its grip. With Amerigo at his side, he approached the door.

“Guid'Antonio,” Bartolomeo said, beaming, “here's a message from Via Larga.”

All eyes shifted their way. Tommaso turned and locked Guid'Antonio in his silver gaze. “And?” Guid'Antonio said.

Bartolomeo smiled his confusion. “From Lorenzo. He needs you there.”

“When?”

Bartolomeo hesitated, glancing at the courier, who bowed, murmuring, “
Il Magnifico
didn't say.”

“No.
Il Magnifico
wouldn't need to, would he?” Guid'Antonio said.

And so he and Amerigo went back out into Piazza della Signoria, each with his own private thoughts, Amerigo pondering the whys and wherefores of Turks and virgins, holy or otherwise, while Guid'Antonio considered the complex nature of power, desire, and truth. A brief farewell, and Amerigo struck out toward home, whistling tunelessly to himself, and Guid'Antonio strode north toward the Medici Palace in the Golden Lion district of the San Giovanni quarter of the walled city, acutely aware of the battered animal keeping a safe distance behind the heels of his fine leather boots.

Lorenzo, standing at the windows of his ground floor palazzo apartment, looked around with relief and a smile of recognition when Guid'Antonio walked into the room. “So,” he said, his brown eyes dark and shining. “Shall I take myself to Rome?”

“No,”
Guid'Antonio said. They clasped one another, and embraced another moment, Lorenzo every bit as solid and strong as Guid'Antonio remembered him to be. Roused by Guid'Antonio's entrance, the sleek greyhound snoozing before the cold, man-size hearth raised his head before breathing a deep, shuddering sigh and lowering his nose back onto outstretched paws.
I remember you.

“Guid'Antonio, thank you for coming,” Lorenzo said. “So quickly, too. How are you, my friend?”

“Stunned.”

“Yes!” Lorenzo said. “The
Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta
is weeping in Ognissanti—your family church—and there's a hue and cry in the streets, while I'm blamed for
everything
. Or am, at least, made the solution.”

He pulled his thick, dark chestnut hair from his face, holding it aloft before letting it brush back onto his shoulders. Never handsome, but in no respect ill-looking, Lorenzo de' Medici's hair framed dark, irregular features. He wore short boots, ash gray leggings, and a loosely belted tunic of white linen whose plain round collar stopped short at the jagged scar visible at his neck. Well above middle height and light of foot, at the first swipe of the knife-brandishing priest who meant to kill him that bloody April Sunday morning in the Cathedral, he had drawn his sword, fought off his attackers, vaulted the altar railing, and found safety in the sacristy, where he and three friends had bolted the door against the men scampering after them.

“But I've jumped straight into the fray,” he said. “Are you hungry?” He grinned. “I doubt you ate much locked in Palazzo della Signoria with our nine Lord Priors.”

“Not a bite,” Guid'Antonio said, glancing toward the walnut sideboard against one wall, noting the refreshments on silver trays, pottery bowls of mixed olives, fresh oil, bright green melon slices,
prosciutto, salame
, bread seasoned with herbs in the Medici Palace kitchen, and cheese ripe from Lorenzo's dairy farm at Poggio a Caiano. All ready and waiting for Lorenzo's friend and right-hand man, Guid'Antonio Vespucci.

“Grazie.”
He poured water over his fingers and dried them with a linen towel.
Delicious
, he thought, biting into a thick slice of rosemary bread slathered with creamy pale pecorino. And a far cry from the rancid cheese the farmer had palmed off on him in the marketplace today. A farther cry from the old woman's burned crow tart.

“Poggio's up and running?” he said. Lorenzo had begun acquiring property in the countryside between Florence and Pistoia several years ago, only to have the death of his brother and the resulting war bring the farm's progress to a grinding halt.

“By some miracle, it is. Or nearly.”

The brindle greyhound eyed Guid'Antonio's bread and stretched up onto his hindquarters. “Mind your manners, Leporarius,” Lorenzo said. “You'll have your turn.” Lids closed to slits, the hound eased down onto the cool hearthstone.
Hare hunter
. Incredibly swift and spare. “Good dog. Thank you.” Lorenzo turned to Guid'Antonio, grimacing. “I haven't seen Poggio in six months, four spent in wretched Naples courting the king. But God's eyes, Guid'Antonio, what right have I to complain? You've been in France a year.”

“Almost two,” Guid'Antonio said.

A look of embarrassment suffused Lorenzo's face. “Of course. Forgive me.”

A light-fisted knock, the apartment door opened, and Bartolomeo Scala's assistant, Alessandro Braccesi, poked in his head. “From the Chancellor.” Alessandro handed Lorenzo the official government notes he had taken during the Lord Priors' meeting. “Messer Vespucci,” he said, acknowledging Guid'Antonio, who nodded a greeting, thinking,
Put wings on his heels and call him Mercury. Our own special messenger to the god here in Via Larga.

“Alessandro, have some of the Brolio. It's excellent,” Lorenzo said, his eyes already scanning the papers in his hands.

“
Grazie
. By the way, some boys were tormenting a half-dead mutt at the main gate. I put it out of its misery.”

Around Guid'Antonio, the light in the apartment wavered. “Did you?” he said. Lorenzo glanced up, considering him a moment before lowering his gaze back down again.

“All it took was a blow to the head,” Alessandro said. “With a sharp piece of sandstone. Probably the stone tumbled from some mason's cart. Here—” He leaned toward Lorenzo to decipher a passage splotched with ink.