Or, and this was the most troubling thought of all, what I’d do if I couldn’t find Tommaso and Cecilia once I got free.
I sat in the circle of feeble light surrounded by gloom, staring fixedly at Albrecht and the way his lips puckered and blew gusts of air at slowly increasing intervals.
I’m not here as your jailor, the Nubian had said. I’m here to protect you.
Trust Lorenzo, the Magician had said, and you and yours will come to no harm.
No problem.
Keep silent regarding Niccolo.
Oh, I’d keep silent, all right. But now that I knew, thanks to the Magician, that Tommaso and Cecilia would be well looked after if anything happened to me, nothing could stop me from having my revenge.
* * *
The time came. I broke the plaster mold as quietly as possible and left the talisman on the worktable without charging it. Leaving one courier magically unprotected was surely a small price to pay compared to justice for Ser Abramo—and a chance to see Tommaso and Cecilia safe before that justice was administered.
Albrecht’s round head was thrown back against the top of the chair, and his uptilted mouth wide agape. His snores, now infrequent as the poppy weighed on his lungs, were so loud I feared it might alert anyone upstairs.
I took up the lamp and stealthily made my way to the magical tent. Once inside, I set the lamp down in a far corner, close enough so that its spherical glow encompassed the altar. I had decided in advance to leave the lamp behind and brave whatever I found in darkness, as Albrecht might wake—in which case, he would see the lamp in the tent and be loath to investigate.
I stood flush against the low altar and pushed against it with my hips, my hands clutching the smooth right and left sides as best I could. It slid backward with a muted hiss over the fine Persian carpet, then a duller scraping sound as it found earth. I flung the edge of the carpet back to reveal the wood and pulled on the thick leather handle with both hands, praying that the wooden hatch’s undoubtedly loud groan would not disturb my captor.
It made only the slightest creak. I carefully swung it open and set the wooden door softly down upon the furled carpet.
I stared disappointed at what looked to be nothing more than a shallow pit, the width of two men and the height of one. But appearances can deceive, so I sat down upon the edge of the pit and pushed off with my hands. I landed feet-first in the pit, which smelled moldy and dank, and then, beyond the light’s scope, I patted the invisible soft earthen walls surrounding me. With palms and fingers, I discovered the short wooden ladder that would have allowed me to climb down rather than jump, and after a short search, came upon a low crawlspace tunneling east, headed directly beneath the altar.
I dropped to my hands and knees and had just stuck my head into the opening when I heard men’s voices and froze. My worst fear had just materialized: Albrecht’s replacement had come. For an instant I considered crawling to my escape, but I had no idea where the tunnel led or if indeed it led anywhere at all.
I quickly crawled up the ladder and replaced the carpet and altar. As I did, a piece of paper fell from the altar to the floor—a message that had not been there before.
My weary heart quickened its beat; my breath escaped me and for a few seconds, would not return. I squatted on the floor and unfolded the note.
Should trouble come, go at once to Lorenzo, the invisible Magician said.
I felt drunk, wondering whether the note was real, whether I was dreaming. I hid the magical message inside the waist of my undergarment and rose. Outside the tent, male voices began to rise in volume—to be expected, since Albrecht had been sleeping on the job, and his stupor would be attributed to drink, at least by the other guard. A new one, judging from his voice, which was familiar. I took up the lamp.
But as I opened the velvet flap to emerge, the heated exchange escalated to shouting of a dangerous kind. I hung back and lowered the velvet to watch through a sliver.
The replacement was not the Nubian, but a decidedly corpulent man of average height whose back was turned to me. In his raised hand was a long sword, and Albrecht—slow and sluggish, his red face and straw curls visible—held the same.
An impasse, one that boded ill. I blew out the lamp, hoping the stranger hadn’t noticed that the light had been lit when he’d entered.
“Is it money you want?” the intruder growled. “I got money. Stand back, shut up, and you live. Otherwise…” He swiped his blade in the air.
Albrecht shouted something incomprehensible and lunged clumsily with his own sword, stumbling in the process. The stranger was obliged to catch him before he fell and dropped his sword, as a result turning his pink, puffy, vaguely familiar profile toward me.
It was the man I’d come to think of as Stout, the one who’d questioned me about my loyalty to Lorenzo by tricking me into believing he was a Roman spy. I drew back instinctively and narrowed the slit I was peering through.
Stout, graceful in motion, wrapped one strong arm around Albrecht’s shoulders and pressed the German’s back against his, Stout’s, chest, supporting him on his feet while causing his head to loll back. As a skilled musician would draw a bow across a stringed instrument, so Stout drew the edge of his sword smoothly, deeply across the tender flesh beneath Albrecht’s left ear to his right, renewing his grip on his victim when Albrecht struggled, with only a slight staccato when the blade found the windpipe. A rush of burgundy cascaded from the dying man’s wound; vermilion spewed straight up from the slit, spraying Stout’s face and clothes and the very air with a bright red mist. My gasp proved inaudible against the splash of blood spilling to earth, of the horrid gurgling as Albrecht drowned, red foam bubbling at his neck, as he struggled to draw a final breath.
All of which explained, in vivid, gruesome terms, why Stout had earlier convinced me of his dedication to Pope Sixtus, of his loyalty to Rome.
I meant to step back. I meant to crawl into the tunnel and run away. Instead, I dropped to all fours and retched, as quietly as possible, while Stout dropped Albrecht’s motionless form, still gushing, to the floor.
“Bloody ’eretic,” he said, giving the body a kick, and headed to the worktable in the light from Albrecht’s still-burning lamp on the floor by the chair, his portly shadow a dark looming giant behind him.
I got to my unsteady feet and wiped my mouth and streaming eyes while Stout squinted down at the items scattered on the table. All but one of the talismans were gone, delivered dutifully to other hands by the guards once they were magically charged. Stout showed no interest whatsoever in the remaining one. I held my breath as he peered at the cipher wheel, but he skipped over it just as he did the talisman, apparently thinking it strictly related to magic. He snubbed the ink and quill, the engraving tools, the smudges of unused plaster hardening on the wood, and instead put his thick hands upon the stack of papers set aside to one corner. His lips curved in grim satisfaction. He took the papers, glanced at them in illiterate confusion, and stuffed them inside his cloak. Then he stepped into his own shadow, to the shelves behind him, and began to examine their contents.
I moved toward the tunnel to flee.
But then my dulled mind realized that the dates and locations for Lorenzo’s supposed departures were all written—unencrypted, for any educated eye to decipher—on one of the pages in Stout’s cloak. I turned back toward the flap.
It didn’t matter, I reassured myself. Lorenzo could change the times and dates. The important thing was that the Romans would still be unable to break the Medici’s ingenious code.
Drawn suddenly by an invisible force, Stout turned away from the shelves and moved back to the cipher wheel.
And tucked it beneath his arm.
A good thief would have run away. A good thief would have said, Lorenzo and Florence be damned and would have fled north with her cronies.
Apparently, I was not the consummate professional I believed myself to be.
Apparently, I was an idiot extraordinaire, because
I slipped crouching from the tent and—grimacing and careful not to slip on Albrecht’s faintly steaming blood—took up his wet sword.
There’s no way this tiny creature can lift a proper-sized weapon, Niccolo had said long ago, but I was bound to try. And don’t hold it underhanded, like a girl. It’s not your pathetic little razor.
I changed my grip to overhand.
Still crouching, the tip of the blade preceding me, I moved quickly toward Stout, who had turned back toward the shelves for a final look. His position was providential—I could easily have run him through. But my exhaustion caused me to misjudge the distance. I lurched forward with Albrecht’s bloodied sword and plunged it as far as I could into his thick cloak, aiming for his left kidney. The cipher wheel tucked beneath his left arm clattered to the floor.
But while I felt the tip pierce flesh, I was half a step too far from my target, and the wound was less than lethal. Not even crippling: Stout wheeled about roaring, fumbling for his weapon. I used all my strength to hold on to mine as he turned, my blade slicing through the side of his cloak and biting into the belt beneath. The pocket was slit, along with the papers it held; pieces of them fluttered to earth.
It’s all about the feet, Niccolo said. Left foot forward, knees bent, all the weight on your back foot. You’re less likely to fall from a blow. Once you lose your footing, you’re dead.
In a heartbeat, I shifted my feet into position. A strong position.
“You little bastard!” he snarled. He hefted his short sword overhead and brought it down hard, going for my head as if to split it.
I blocked him with the flat of Albrecht’s sword, but my strength was no match for Stout’s. The momentum caused my flat to strike my crown with deafening force. The pain was breathtaking, the force enough to knock me from my feet but for Niccolo’s timely advice. I managed to block another blow and launch one of my own, directed at Stout’s ample gut. It landed and he howled, but his girth protected him from a mortal wound. He struck again, I defended and struck again, and suddenly saw Niccolo standing in my opponent’s place.
He was dressed in the same garb as when we’d practiced in Ser Abramo’s weapons room. He was half smiling, far too cheerful given the circumstance.
“I’ve gone insane,” I said aloud. Either that, or I was dead, and this was someone’s idea of my perfect hell.
You’ve always been, Niccolo retorted. Are you still hell-bent on murdering me?
“No time to argue. He’s going to kill me,” I said earnestly of Stout. “You’re right, I can’t heft a man’s sword very well.”
So the time has come, said Niccolo, with smug relish, when you need more than knowing the simplest way to block a dagger and to fall.
“Hurry,” I begged. Stout should have killed me a thousand times over by then. Or maybe this was magic, all happening outside time.
Niccolo shook his unreal head, mocking my desperation. Why do you think I showed you an extra move, one that could save you in a time of trouble? Because I wanted to hurt you? And if I didn’t want to hurt you—and God knows, a little thief like you deserves hurting—why in heaven’s name would I ever hurt Abramo?
“I don’t know,” I said.
He lifted a brow archly. Ironic, don’t you think, that I should save your life when your greatest aim is to end mine?
“I was mistaken,” I said desperately. At that point, I would have told him I loved him if it made him save my life. Or maybe I believed what I was saying; I couldn’t be sure. “I was wrong.”
Apology accepted, he said, mollified. Come at me, then. Remember? Sidewise to me. A giant step so you’re standing outside of my right leg.
“He’s too big,” I said, panicked, but I did it.
Now your bend your right leg and slip it behind my left one. Good. Now watch what happens when you straighten your leg.
Niccolo vanished, replaced by Stout—so close I could smell his sweat and the iron tang of Albrecht’s blood. Thick arms flailing for balance, he fell back against the supply shelf, hitting it so hard that it gave a great shudder before toppling forward. I ran in the opposite direction, the top shelf grazing my shoulder as it came down. The center of the great shelf struck the worktable with a deafening thud, a thousand clatters, and an enveloping cloud of thick white plaster dust.
I closed my eyes, turned my head, and held my breath as the plume of white slowly settled. When the soft rain of dust upon my cheeks stopped, I drew a sleeve across my eyes and dared to open them again.
The midpoint of the shelf had slammed against the worktable, so that its upper levels hung over the latter’s surface; the bottom levels had lifted up slightly over the ground beneath table and shelf. Heavy lead and gold bars on the bottom shelves had fallen forward in a heap on the ground; the middle and upper shelves had loosed quills, pots of ink, metal files, engraving tools, honey-colored slabs of beeswax, and paper notes onto the table, between the rungs.
Somewhere beneath the powdery mess, beneath bright silver and pink copper and heavy wood, Stout’s portly form had been pinned facedown against the worktable’s surface. So had his weapon. Through some miracle, I had managed to hold on to my own; I used my sword to push away the detritus, enough to reveal the location of his head and cloak-covered torso.
“Who sent you?” I said, meaning to sound harsh and disappointed that my voice was weak and shaking. Between a pair of shelves, I found the damp spot where I had dealt him a shallow wound, and I pressed the tip of my blade there.
“Who sent you?” I said, trying to imitate Stout’s growl.
No answer came. I pushed against his body with the flat of my weapon: no movement. I decided he was dead, or at the very least, so wounded as to no longer present a danger. I dropped down to my knees and scrabbled about through the debris on the floor, clawing at it until I found, with a relief that brought me near tears, the cipher wheel. Its surface bore a few shallow dents, but it was otherwise intact.
The remaining talisman, however, was trapped beneath the shelves and table somewhere with Stout—and the papers with the dates of Lorenzo’s rendezvous were still inside his cloak pockets. Unfortunately, his heavy motionless torso rested upon those pockets, and the shelves that held his body fast in place were too heavy for me to lift.
I took my cloak off the peg and pushed the cipher wheel—it barely fit—into one pocket, then I headed to the ladder leading up to the ground floor. I meant to call upstairs, hoping that the Nubian or the chambermaid would be nearby, but Stout had closed the hatch behind him.
I crawled up the ladder, calling the entire way, and when I pulled myself up into the storage room, I found it curiously empty, as there had always been a second guard posted there.
I was calling for the Nubian when I found him in the adjacent map room. He lay on his back, large dark eyes wide, mouth slack and open, run through at the level of his heart. A bloody pool had spread out on the floor beneath him, extending from each shoulder like dark wings. I turned my face away as quickly as I could, in the vain hope that I could avoid remembering the sight.
The body of an aproned woman—the one who had lit the fire in my hearth the night of my arrival—lay near the kitchen hearth, and the body of an armed man lay just inside the side entrance. I did not stop to examine them, but stepped outside into cold bracing air and blinding sunlight.
Sightless, I stumbled out into the day, in search of Lorenzo.
Fifteen
I crossed the Old Bridge and loped northeast along the city’s cobblestone streets, squinting beneath the unoccluded sun. Florence was a blur of endless orange tile roofs against whitewashed stone, of horses, carts and asses, of men and women, nuns and monks, clad and veiled and hatted in dark blues, greens, reds, browns, and black. Florence was a cacophony of neighs and brays and clattering wheels, of human chatter, of shouts and street vendors’ songs, all scented with roasting meat, yeasty rising dough, dung, and sweat. The Duomo tolled a dirge, its bells so loud my teeth vibrated.
It was a
warmer day than most, and every cheerful citizen, it seemed, had surged forth into the streets, streaming shoulder to shoulder past me in a mighty tide. I pushed exhausted against the current, not just of human flesh but of the intermittent visions that eclipsed the world around me: Albrecht’s blood a geyser in midair, the Nubian’s blank stare. Again and again, Ser Abramo’s sightless bicolored gaze toward heaven.
I gasped in cool air and drew myself anew into reality: I had trotted so fast and so far that I had covered the many braccia between the Oltrarno and the western end of the Via Larga, lined with the palaces of the city’s oldest and wealthiest clans. None of Rome’s ostentation here: these were solemn, earnest structures of stone—rusticated or smooth, decorated at most with plaster family crests—all, like most homes in Florence, three stories high with flat roofs. Even so, the Medici palazzo was a monolith, so deep and wide it consumed an entire city block. On one less frantic visit to the neighborhood, Tommaso and I had counted the windows on the second floor: sixteen across, just on the north side facing the Via Larga.
One corner of the palazzo’s ground floor was an open loggia, its wide stone arches admitting the Medici bank’s many customers. Businessmen in fine wools and silks swarmed the loggia like a hive, and the queues in front of the bankers’ desks reached all the way out into the street. Haggardly, I elbowed my way inside. Even though I was dressed quite respectably, my thief’s skill at sidling swiftly through a crowd made the gentlemen recoil and blatantly clutch their purses lest I nick them. Ignoring the chorus of tsks and the withering glances, I made my way to the front of one line.
Apparently, a lot of gentlemen were armed these days; a half dozen of them emerged from nowhere, pushing their mantles aside to reveal short swords and daggers in their hilts. And then I realized: Those were not customers, but guards.
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