The Phoenix of Florence

by Philip Kazan

  ‘Is he here now?’

  The steward shook his head.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Two weeks ago.’

  ‘You have an address for him?’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Then how did you keep in touch?’

  ‘Through his bank. There’s an agent there …’

  ‘And when did you tell him that Donna Zanobia was sleeping with Pietro Vennini?’

  ‘My God, sir!’

  ‘Oh, come off it. Do you think I don’t know how these arrangements work? The lady was a possession; her servants were her keepers. Keepers, and spies.’

  ‘It wasn’t me! I was fond of Donna Zanobia. She was kind. And she wasn’t vulgar. Not like one of those courtesans.’

  ‘Who, then?’ I snapped my fingers in front of his face.

  ‘I … Probably Riccio the cook or Lisabetta the lady’s maid,’ he said hurriedly.

  It had been Riccio. He wasn’t in the slightest bit shy about admitting it, either. ‘That’s what Don Bartolomeo pays me for,’ he said.

  ‘A jealous fellow, is he?’ I asked.

  The cook was a nondescript man on the borders of old age, with a heavy Prato accent and few teeth. ‘Prudent, that’s all. You know what women are like.’ He sucked air wetly across an expanse of mottled gums.

  ‘So you tipped him off, knowing full well what would happen to your mistress,’ I went on. I had arranged myself casually against the kitchen table, but my hands were gripping the edge hard enough for my nails to dig into the scrubbed wood.

  ‘Straight away! A man’s honour was at stake!’ The cook raised a dandruff-flecked eyebrow at me in puzzlement.

  ‘How much did he pay you?’

  ‘Four lire a month. There’ll be a bonus for me now, though.’ He smacked his lips happily.

  I left him to his cooking: a pot of ribollita was plip-plipping over a low fire and there was a basket of carp ready for the knife. There would be a lot of excited mouths to feed today. I was looking for the lady’s maid when a twittering broke out on the floor above me, and four black-robed men in tall, pointed hoods came around the bend in the staircase, carrying a stretcher between them. They manoeuvred their burden expertly down the last of the stairs. I looked at the body on the stretcher; it looked smaller than the dead woman I had seen upstairs, wrapped in the sheet I had draped over her, which had now been tied at the head and feet.

  ‘Comandante.’ One of the hooded men nodded at me. I recognised the voice: a lawyer from the parish of Santa Croce. I knew most of the brothers of the Misericordia, but you didn’t get familiar with them while they were at work.

  ‘Good morning, brother,’ I said. ‘Where are you taking her?’

  ‘She has no relations here in Florence,’ said the man. ‘We’re taking her to the Bigallo. If no one comes forward to pay for a funeral, we will have to bury her in the common grave outside Porta San Francesco tonight.’ I held the door open for the men and watched as a fifth hooded figure greeted them with a grave bow and led them off down the street, ringing a large hand-bell that tolled out a loud but flat note. There was quite a crowd outside, and they all crossed themselves busily and craned their necks to get a good eyeful of the corpse. One of the sbirri, an old soldier called Colino, was on guard by the front step.

  ‘Make sure no one leaves this place with anything that doesn’t belong to them,’ I said. ‘Which means anything at all. I’ll send you some help. When they get here, clear the place and seal it in the name of the Otto.’ I went back inside and found the steward, who was helping himself to his mistress’s good wine.

  ‘Where is the strongbox?’ I asked. He got to his feet rather unsteadily and led me back upstairs. There was a small room furnished as a chapel next to the bedroom, and against the wall stood an iron-bound chest.

  ‘Key,’ I said, waggling my fingers at him.

  The steward produced a large key from inside his doublet and rattled it into the lock. There wasn’t much inside the chest: some silver candlesticks and trenchers in a velvet bag, and several pouches of coin. I lifted one up: gold.

  ‘There should be more here. Where’s your mistress’s jewellery?’ I demanded.

  ‘The murderers took it all,’ he said.

  ‘So it was a robbery?’

  ‘No, no. They said they were reclaiming their master’s goods,’ the steward said. ‘Though …’ He frowned into the chest, reached in and released a catch. A hidden lid sprung open, revealing a coil of pearls and some fine golden earrings. ‘These are her own things,’ he said, ‘but there should be more. A pendant that she treasured. A ring – no, the ring was given to her by Don Bartolomeo, but she loved it so much that she kept it here. Perhaps she was wearing them when they came for her.’

  His face fell, and he looked away towards the door. ‘I tried to stop them,’ he said quietly. ‘But they were the kind of men …’ He looked at me and lifted his hands weakly. To my surprise, I found myself believing him. ‘You know what kind of men they were, Comandante.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I don’t think Don Bartolomeo trusted me,’ he went on. ‘Because I worked for Donna Zanobia, not for him, and I … I …’ Without warning he buried his face in his hands and began to sob. ‘She didn’t deserve it,’ he said, his voice wet and muffled. ‘I would never have stolen from her. I wanted to get away in case Don Bartolomeo thought I’d been part of it. Her affair with Don Pietro. As if I’d been her pimp! Oh, Jesus …’

  ‘Don’t worry, Simone,’ I said. I upended the bag, counted the coins and handed two of them to the steward. ‘There’s two scudi here. Buy your mistress a proper funeral.’

  ‘Two scudi?’ The steward’s tear-streaked face brightened. ‘That will pay for candles! A feast! We’ll bury her here, in San Biagio!’

  ‘Donna Zanobia will be at the Bigallo,’ I said. ‘Give the money to the brothers.’ I held up a finger. ‘They’ll give me a full accounting, master steward.’ I dropped the bag into the chest and locked it. ‘This goes to the magistrates.’

  ‘Of course, of course!’ He actually grinned. ‘You are a good man, Comandante.’

  ‘You sound surprised,’ I said, turning to leave.

  ‘If I find out anything about Don Bartolomeo, I’ll come straight to you,’ he called after me. I lifted my hand in acknowledgement.

  I didn’t go straight back to the Bargello. Instead I walked through the crowds around the fish market, across the Piazza Signoria and into the Palazzo Vecchio. The office where the state tax records were kept was a long, dingy room at the back of the palace that smelt of mildew. The river had got inside during the flood of 1557, and the place had never been properly redecorated. It was all due to be moved into Messer Vasari’s new office building around the corner, but the packing had only just begun. I looked around for the head clerk and found him kneeling in front of an ancient-looking document chest.

  ‘Comandante Celavini,’ he said unenthusiastically. The sbirri tended to put a lot of enquiries in the way of the tax office, but niggling, time-consuming ones that the clerks seemed to find even more onerous than the paralysingly dull work of their day-to-day. ‘How can I help our oh-so-diligent police today?’

  ‘Two names,’ I said. ‘I don’t need you to calculate anything; I just want information.’

  ‘Two names.’ The clerk, whose name was Boschi, raised his eyebrows sceptically.

  ‘Zanobia Linucci and Bartolomeo Ormani.’

  ‘And what information do you want?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Can you give me a little more to go on?’

  ‘One’s dead.’ I paused. ‘And the other …’

  ‘Ormani, you say? That’s an old, old name.’ Boschi hunched his shoulders and frowned. ‘No Ormani has paid tax in Florence for a very long time. It’s a name from before this palace was built. In fact, the tower used to be theirs: the palace was built around it. They were called the Foraboschi then, of course.’ He stalked over to a h
uge stack of shelves holding vast ledgers, their damp-puckered leather spines secured by rusting chains. ‘I expect there are Ormanis somewhere else in Italy, maybe even in Tuscany. I can have a look if you really need me to.’

  ‘Thank you. The only thing I know about Zanobia Linucci is that she was possibly from Pitigliano, and she was a widow, so Linucci may be her husband’s name.’

  ‘Pitigliano is outside the State of Tuscany,’ said Boschi peevishly. ‘It’s a fief of the Orsinis.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I said possibly from, Signor Boschi. But she was from south of here.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘She was murdered this morning.’

  ‘Ah. She was that Vennini fellow’s lover.’

  ‘Dear God.’ I shook my head in amazement. Even this half-fossilised tax official had caught the latest gossip. ‘Yes, that’s her. Do what you can, please. You have a friend in the chancery, don’t you? Ask him too. Your reward will be that if Donna Zanobia has died intestate, the state now owns a very nice house in Chiasso Cornino.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Boschi, folding his arms.

  ‘Our usual arrangement will apply,’ I assured him.

  ‘Good. I will send word when – if – I find anything of interest,’ he said, and turned his back on me.

  I had the sudden need to be outside again and made my way back to the piazza. I looked up at the clock in the tower that had once belonged to an extinct family called Ormani. There were still three hours to go until noon. I walked to the Mercato Vecchio and threaded my way through the stalls, through crowds of merchants and shoppers, clouds of flies and wasps, flocks of sparrows, strutting gangs of pigeons and pickpockets, until I came to a stall stacked with an extraordinary arrangement of cheese. Ash-rubbed rinds, hay-wrapped wheels, some new and golden, some aged underground until they were almost black. Bottle-shaped caciotta cheeses hung from the cross-bar. A wiry little man in a greasy apron was arguing loudly and blasphemously with a cook who, I knew, worked in one of the nearby inns that doubled as brothels. I waited until the cook had reluctantly parted with a handful of coins for two cheeses from Pienza, then strolled up to the stall.

  ‘Good morning, Umberto,’ I said.

  ‘Comandante! Are you buying today?’

  ‘I need your very best,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll like this,’ he said, and, picking up a knife with a handle made from a goat’s horn, he cut a thin wedge from a cheese with a rind the colour of tarnished brass and held it out to me. I wasn’t hungry; in fact, my stomach had been jumping with nerves ever since I had left the house of the murdered woman. But to be polite I nibbled an edge, and it was, indeed, excellent: creamy, a little sour, a hint of the sheep who had given the milk.

  ‘It’s a Marzolino from Monte Amiata,’ he said. I closed my eyes and, despite my mood, took another bite and found myself imagining the rustle of chestnut leaves and the artless clank of sheep bells.

  ‘Delicious. Yes, I’ll buy one of those,’ I said.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘A caciotta with peppercorns. And I want to know if any wounded men were treated in the city last night or this morning. Sword wounds.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Umberto stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled twice. As he was unhooking one of the hanging cheeses, three young men appeared behind him. They were dressed in clothes that, a few owners ago, had belonged to rich and stylish gentlemen but were now shabby, though still rakish. Umberto and his sons had been my most useful informers for several years. I turned a blind eye to a few of their schemes, mostly procuring and gambling, and in return for this, and a judicious distribution of lire, they supplied me with detailed information on the Mercato Vecchio’s comings and goings, dirty dealing, fraud, the activities of their rivals (several of whom were also in my pocket) and the sort of gossip that didn’t make it to the ears of tax clerks in the Palazzo Vecchio. The sons grinned toothily at me, nodded their heads at their father’s instructions and drifted off into the crowd.

  ‘The lads will tell me if anyone so much as stubbed their toe,’ Umberto told me as I counted out three times the value of the cheeses I had bought into his hand.

  ‘Have these sent around to my house,’ I said. ‘And, Umberto, do you know anything about a woman called Zanobia Linucci?’

  ‘Aha! So it’s about that rumpus, is it? Thought so,’ Umberto said, rocking back on his heels. ‘As it happens, I know her cook. Riccio from Empoli. He’s an arsehole.’

  ‘So he is,’ I agreed. ‘He was the one who betrayed the poor woman. Do you know anything about her? Or about her patron?’

  ‘As a matter of fact …’ Umberto turned and called to a chubby teenager with bad impetigo who was sitting on a barrel behind the stall, throwing gravel at the pigeons. He was delegated to mind the business, and then Umberto led me across the square and into one of the alleys that led off the west side.

  We were behind the church of Santa Maria in Campidoglio, one of the seediest parts of the city. ‘Just step in here,’ he said, unlocking a door in a damp, mossy wall. The houses around here were so old that some of them looked like candles melting into the ground. Beyond the door was a dim but cluttered space. I trusted Umberto within the confines of our business arrangement, but I kept my hand near the pommel of my dagger as I walked past him into a small warehouse that smelt strongly of sheep. Cheeses were stacked on rough pinewood shelves, and huge wicker-bound glass flasks of wine and oil stood between them. Plaster was coming away from the walls in sheets. A large ginger and white cat with only one ear glared at us from his perch on the sill of a high, barred window.

  The cheese-seller shut the door behind us, bolted it, and brushed past me. ‘Your pardon,’ he muttered. ‘Now then …’

  He extracted a key from inside his hose, opened a rather fine old cabinet that was leaning against one wall, kept off the damp floor with bricks, and began to rummage inside. ‘Here it is.’ He locked the cabinet again, tucked the key back between his legs, and held something out to me.

  It was a pendant on a gold chain. I took it over to where a beam of sunlight shone past the cat onto a patch of drying olive oil on the tiled floor and held it up. ‘Jesus,’ I muttered.

  The heart of the pendant was a cameo of a woman in profile, in brown and cream agate, which was obviously Roman, framed by curlicues of gold enamelled in red and green. Four baroque pearls, embellished with gold to resemble tritons, were fixed to the frame. At the top, two little gold mermaids flanked an enamelled shield, into which the pendant’s ring was fixed. The shield, though tiny, was so detailed that I could make out the coat of arms on it. A white field was divided by a gold stripe. Below, angled red stripes, and above, a tiny red rose.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked Umberto.

  ‘That arsehole cook,’ he replied. ‘You know I have a bit of a sideline as a fence, Comandante. Just a dabbler, that’s me. A dabbler, and no rubbish either. Anyway, that Riccio came looking for me, which I take as a compliment to my reputation …’

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ I reminded him.

  ‘No, no and indeed, no.’ Umberto held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘As I said, Riccio sought me out, asking if I’d be interested in some choice pieces. I said I might. You know, Comandante, can’t be too careful. A couple of days later he brings me this. And, Mary’s tits! What a beauty, eh?’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A few days ago.’

  ‘And he just stole it from under her nose?’

  ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? A little shit like that, pulls off something a master thief would count as the pinnacle of his career.’

  ‘Did he say how?’

  ‘Just that the lady was distracted. Distracted! I ask you. Meanwhile, he said there would be more. The next day, he said.’

  ‘And was there?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Umberto,’ I said reprovingly.

  ‘You’re too sharp, Comandante,’ he muttered, fishing behind his codpiece again for the key.
This time he opened his hand like a bored conjuror and presented me with a ring. I plucked it from his palm, holding the pendant out of his reach when he tried to take it.

  ‘I’m taking these,’ I said, putting them both in the pouch that hung from my belt.

  ‘Comandante!’

  ‘I’m saving you a lot of bother, Umberto. A lot. The men who killed Zanobia Linucci took the rest of her jewels. They belonged to the fellow who kept her as his mistress. And no, I don’t mean Pietro Vennini. Someone who paid to have Vennini cut to pieces and his own mistress almost beheaded. I don’t think you want him or his bravos after you.’

  ‘If you put it like that, Comandante.’ Umberto bit his lip, then gave a mirthless smile. He gave no sign of being angry, but I knew the man, and his cheery varnish hid a dangerous soul. But he was no fool either. The mirth returned. ‘I heard all about Vennini. No, I’ve no wish to end up as bistecca.’

  ‘I’ll put something your way,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘As if I would, Comandante. Now, shall we? I don’t like leaving Cadere in charge of the stall for too long. His face doesn’t encourage the buying of fine cheese.’

  I left Umberto to lock up his warehouse after he’d promised to send one of his sons to me as soon as he had any information, and walked slowly back to the Bargello, so deep in thought that I was almost trampled by a pack horse on Via Calimala.

  Captain Scarfa was waiting for me. ‘My report, Don Onorio?’ he said, as soon as I walked into the office.

  ‘That’s going to take a while,’ I said.

  ‘Hmph. A while, you say.’

  ‘It’s turning into a difficult one,’ I said, carefully. ‘You know how we hadn’t heard of Zanobia Linucci? Well, the man whose mistress she was is from outside Florence, and he seems to have used a false name.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ Scarfa made two fists and banged them together, hard enough for the bony knocking to carry around the office. ‘That bastard Vennini. I knew he’d leave us with a bloody mess to clean up, sooner or later. So what can you tell me?’