In the meantime, Tommaso was beside himself. “Leave her alone!” he yelled. He ran to Niccolo and started beating on his legs and hips. “Put that down! I thought you were nice!”
Niccolo set down the cleaver in order to seize Tommaso by the arms. Ser Andrea did a doubletake. Donato held on to me fiercely.
“Her?” Ser Andrea marveled. “Her?” He looked over at me and grinned, shaking his head with amazement. “Isn’t this just like sinful Florence? Men in love with men, and young ladies with unnatural intelligence dressing as men, the whole of it forbidden by Scripture. I daresay the Holy Father’s excommunication of you all was redundant.” He paused. “But maybe fat old Girolamo was right about one thing: the boy being your weak spot. Was he speaking of a mother’s love for her child?”
Through it all, Tommaso was still squalling at Niccolo. “How can you be so mean? I thought you were nice, bringing us all those gifts from Giuli—and now you’re hurting her!”
Ser Andrea recoiled in surprise again, his chin half disappearing into his luxurious fur collar. This time his expression held no amusement at the revelation. He bent down with the agility of a trained swordsman, not a pampered rich man, and pulled a dagger from his handsome gleaming boot. He would have stabbed Niccolo with it had Niccolo not caught hold of Tommaso and pulled him away toward the river wall.
Niccolo drew his own dagger—training it not on Ser Andrea, nor on Donato, but on Tommaso’s tender little neck. “I had to befriend the boy to get to her! Go ahead, kill me, and chop off her fingers while you’re at it—you won’t make her talk. Threaten her, and she’ll die before she betrays Florence. But she loves the boy! This”—he waved the dagger in front of Tommaso’s throat—“this is the only way you’ll get her to talk!”
For more than two years, I had spoken only in my low boy’s voice until it had become habit, but at that moment I shrieked in a breaking little girl’s voice. “I don’t love him! I don’t! I don’t love anyone at all!”
“But Giuliano,” Tommaso wailed, his little mouth a rictus, “I love you!”
I broke. The sleeplessness, the physical exertion, the shock and the grief finally had their way. Reality fled, leaving in its place Ser Abramo’s shadowy cellar, and the flickering light that illumined the page in my trembling hand.
You are my daughter; it was indeed my hand that cast the silver talisman for you.
I am indeed the Magician, and death cannot separate us.
My knees against the cobblestone, Abramo’s face horribly slack, his eyes staring sightless at the Florentine sky.
Tommaso in the darkness, sobbing in my arms.
Oh, I’d been such a liar for so, so long, and I my worst victim.
Niccolo had visited them, taken care of them when I could not. His blade was at Tommaso’s throat now, but all I could hear was the Magician whispering into my ear.
Trust him. Love him.
I can’t, I answered Abramo silently, my imaginary voice coming out as gasps, a little girl on the verge of crying. I’ll get hurt again.
But I couldn’t help it: I trusted him despite myself.
It all happened with impossible, magical speed—Niccolo’s grabbing Tommaso, Andrea’s reaction, Niccolo’s shouts and mine, and the visitation of the moments that had broken my weary heart.
And that instant, that ever-so-fleeting instant when Donato twisted his upper torso in surprise to gaze at Tommaso and Niccolo behind him, that instant when the Magician whispered, Now.
Donato lunged at Niccolo with the cleaver meant for my trembling fingers, trying at the same time to keep one hand on me, but his grip loosened just enough for me to pull away. To take up the nearest butcher’s knife in reach—the long knife that the butcher had been sharpening against the whetstone, the great long knife used to split open the poor ewe—and, whirling, to direct myself at Ser Andrea’s exposed back and swing the great knife’s blade at the backs of his knees. Tendons snapped. Ser Andrea went down screaming.
His fall gave me clear view of what was happening in front of me: Niccolo, flinging Tommaso past the hairless monster Donato, toward me; Donato swiping at Niccolo with the huge cleaver. Niccolo was dancing like I’ve never seen, weaving toward and away from the cleaver’s bite. He made a lunge at Donato with the dagger, but the giant, though heavier on his feet, was also well-trained and caught the dagger’s tip with the flat of the cleaver with a crashing clang. Niccolo and I both watched as half his blade flew away.
The distraction was enough for Donato to lunge at Niccolo, force him down on his back, and straddle him. I pushed Tommaso out of the way and ran up to see Donato bearing down on Niccolo with the great cleaver, while Niccolo reached up and—overhand, with his left hand, as we’d done so many times in practice—clutched the inside of Donato’s forearm. I’d never been able to push past that hold with Niccolo and stab him with my wooden dagger in practice, but if anyone could break a grip, it was the mighty Donato.
Niccolo’s teeth were bared; his arm was shaking violently. Sensing victory, Donato bared his own teeth in a smile.
I saw the massive cleaver hovering over Niccolo’s head and everything that had been so murky before now seemed so clear: There were people worth living and dying for.
And people worth killing for. I was already going to hell, after all.
I stood over Donato’s broad back, which strained beneath his black mantello as he pinned Niccolo down, as the cleaver gradually closed in on Niccolo’s beautiful face.
It was easy, really, now that I was clear about everything.
I poised the tip of the long knife at the level of Donato’s kidney, and I pushed down hard with both hands, rising on tiptoe so that I could bring the full weight of my body down on the weapon. Even then, the blade didn’t sink easily, but required my extended effort.
Niccolo squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away as Donato dropped the cleaver, which struck Niccolo—whether with the flat or the blade, I couldn’t see because Donato pushed himself up on his arms.
Niccolo wriggled away on the ground until his head touched the river wall, his face bright red but thankfully unbloodied.
“Mother of God!” Niccolo yelped indignantly. “Be careful with that!”
He was yelling at me, and that’s when I saw, as Donato stood swaying, that the long blade had sunk deep. His mantle was twisted, revealing his tunic and his scabbard and baldric—beneath which the front half of the blade protruded a hand’s length.
Niccolo had pushed himself up to sitting, revealing a slowly growing red spot on the hip of his green tunic. The butcher’s blade had actually pierced him, but his clear lack of concern about it boded well for him. He scrabbled after the cleaver lying on the bricks where his head had so recently been.
Donato dropped like a stone to his knees and then forward onto his elbows. The tip of the blade scraped the bricks as he started crawling in confusion toward the butcher’s bench and his keening employer. I pushed him down with my foot and pulled out the blade. It was work, but it finally came out with a mighty sucking sound. I fell backward as it came out, but I pushed myself up in time to see Niccolo use the side of his boot to push Donato onto his back, to see if he was still alive.
I doubted he was. His eyes were open, but they didn’t seem to see any of us. His mouth was open, too, but he made no sound. Peeking out from the slit in his gut was what looked to be a loop of bloodied red sausage.
Oddly, the sight was accompanied by something slammed against my skull, causing my teeth to strike each other so hard I feared them shattering, my ears to throb so loudly I feared their bursting.
It was the stone ground. I must have fainted from the shock and exhaustion, because at some point I found myself watching a very animated discussion between Ser Abramo—who appeared quite human, not ghostly—and Niccolo and Cecilia and Tommaso.
“I’ve seen this before,” Abramo said sadly.
Cecilia nodded knowingly. “It comes from the streets. Bad things happened to her, I think.
She won’t talk about it, but there was one night when she came home and she was hurt. Badly.”
Niccolo spoke softly, almost a whisper. “She doesn’t even know she cares.”
Tommaso looked down at me wistfully. “She loves me. I know she does.”
Someone else knelt beside me and let me settle against them for support. I opened my eyes.
“I’m right here,” Abramo said. He looked deeply relieved. “I’m right here.”
He kept saying it until his face metamorphosed into Niccolo’s. I was resting in his lap. His cool ungloved hand was upon my forehead. Beyond him was sunlit sky, fading to afternoon, and Tommaso’s sweet, frightened face. There were two little tears trickling down Tommaso’s cheeks, one on each side, and they weren’t the bratty, manipulative ones that he could spew at will, but the little ones that slid down when he was truly frightened.
“Are you okay, Giuliano?” He tried to stifle a sob and failed. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said softly. “Don’t cry, Tommaso. Please don’t cry.”
Niccolo’s arms were around my shoulders, my head cradled against him, a pietà with me as Christ and him as the Virgin.
I blinked up at him and said with sudden urgency, “Lorenzo.”
Eighteen
The Via de’ Gori runs east to west. One flank of the Medici Palazzo sits on its northern side; the Church of San Lorenzo sits on its south on a diagonal to the estate, lying slightly east of the palazzo. Like the great Duomo, the basilica bears the shape of a Roman cross, or tau, with the altar positioned at the crux of the T. The long leg of the T runs lengthwise to the street, ending in the public entrance and the plaza in front of the church, the end closest to the Medici home. Like most buildings in Florence, San Lorenzo has a roof that is almost flat, with only a slight crest in the center—flat enough to allow men to sit or stand atop it with little fear of accidentally rolling off.
The two buildings—the family palace and the church where Lorenzo’s brother, father, and grandfather are entombed—sit only a short walking distance apart. On a quiet night, a man shouting on one roof could be heard on the other.
The streets were emptying quickly in the wake of sunset. As Niccolo steered Stout’s careening wagon off the Via Larga, which the palazzo faced, onto the narrower de’ Gori, I clutched Tommaso with one hand and, with the other, shaded my eyes against the blood orange disc in the sky, against the rays that streamed unobstructed down the length of the street. Niccolo tugged on the reins, bringing the wagon to a rocking halt alongside the great stone bulk of the Medici compound. Beyond us, at the end of the block, lay the back corner of the compound, and just beyond it, San Lorenzo’s basilica.
I squinted into the light. Backlit everything looked black against an incandescent backdrop. A pair of monks hurried from the street into the church’s plaza so as not to be late for vespers, but otherwise, the area was quiet and blessedly absent any sign of a Medici caravan—and, more blessedly still, any archers on San Lorenzo’s distant roof.
“Take Tommaso and go to the front Via Larga entrance,” Niccolo said quietly, as if he’d been in charge. His grim gaze was focused further down the street as he hopped off the donkey and Tommaso steadied me as I clumsily half jumped, half climbed down from the wagon. “Make them tell the archers stationed on their roof to look for those on San Lorenzo’s. I’ll stop them from leaving on this side.”
Without waiting for my response, he began strolling down the street with a remarkably casual air. I was relieved to learn that Lorenzo and his own were capably defended, but not at all happy with Niccolo’s plan.
“You’ll get yourself shot,” I hissed, but he was already out of earshot. I turned to Tommaso and said with all the firmness I could muster in my deranged state, “You heard him. Go to the front door. It’s very important that you tell them Giuliana, not Giuliano, sent you. Got it? Giuliana. The girl’s name. You tell them that Guiliana says there are archers on the church roof who are planning to kill Ser Lorenzo. Go.”
I gave him a push. The momentum forced him to take a few staggering steps away from me, but then he balked and turned.
“Where are you going?” he demanded, glowering at me. I didn’t say a word, since he already knew the answer. “You just said Niccolo was going to get shot!”
I growled in frustration. “Just do as I say!”
His lips twisted, trembling. “You’re not my mother!” he said, not as much with anger as with regret. But he finally turned and ran off, crying, to the door, I think because he knew it was important.
I trotted after Niccolo—slowly, as if I’d had an afterthought and wanted to convey it to a departing friend. I tried to keep my face pointed straight ahead at Niccolo and not tilt my chin up or crane my neck to reveal that my gaze was actually locked on the roof of the sanctuary beyond him.
The sun left me half blinded and uncertain as to whether the swift and sudden motion of what looked like a black insect against orange tiles was actually an archer atop the church or a trick of the shifting light or my tired eyes.
Niccolo immediately started whistling a bawdy tavern song. I slowed my pace and hung back, uncertain.
As I did, the dark profile of a horse and rider emerged from behind the wall at the rear corner of the palazzo. Amazingly, Niccolo continued his pace and his whistling without a break in either, not even when a second horse and rider immediately followed. Both turned to their left, north, toward us, with their backs to the church.
I heard the creaking wheels before I saw the carriage emerge. Colors had already begun to fade to varying shades of gray, but the tarp covering the carriage was still red, the flap fastened shut to ensure the privacy of the riders, just as when I had ridden with Lorenzo.
Four more horsemen emerged in rapid succession and took their places, two on either side of the carriage.
Niccolo ran to the middle of the street and raised his hands for them to stop, prompting the first two horsemen to draw swords. I ran, too, but didn’t stop alongside Niccolo. I loped past him, eluding the outer guards on their whinnying charges and coming alongside the carriage. My gait was clumsy, almost staggering. I must have looked a drunk.
“Take cover!” I shouted. “Ser Lorenzo, take cover!” Like Niccolo, I raised my arms at the driver to stop, at a second emerging wagon not to follow, waving them back, back. I ran directly up to the outer pair of riders flanking the carriage. Unlike their forward counterparts, they drew no weapons; I looked up at one of them and dreamed I saw the face of Ser Abramo half hidden by his cowled mantello. I turned to the other, and saw Lorenzo, scowling not in anger but concern.
“Shield yourselves!” Niccolo echoed in the near distance. “Take cover!”
An arrow split the air between us, so close I felt its breeze upon my face, its whistling song vibrate in my ear. Was it from the enemy aiming at Lorenzo or Lorenzo’s archers aiming at me? It scarcely mattered. I threw myself upon the nervous stallion and yanked Lorenzo’s lower leg from the stirrup, downward and hard, so that he fell sideways from his mount. He recovered enough to keep his footing upon landing.
“Get down!” I shouted. “Get down!”
I caught him by the shoulders and tried to pull him to the ground, but he was strong and shook me off with a single move. I lost sight of him as the second arrow shrieked past and grazed the horse’s shoulder. More terrified than injured, the animal cried out and reared. One of its hooves found the side of my head and I fell hard against the cobblestones.
There I lay, unable to breathe, unable to move, able only to watch the wild dance of shadows made of circling human, equine, and wooden bodies, to listen to the chaotic song of men and horses and a hundred loosed arrows all screaming, of wood and hooves and boot heels crashing against stone, the whole infused with light born of an incandescent bouquet of marigold, rose, and lilac. It was the worst of dreams, in which powerlessness always prevails.
I could not gauge time. I could not understand all the shouting voices, altho
ugh I recognized Lorenzo’s, Niccolo’s, the disobedient Tommaso’s, and, in my stupor, Ser Abramo’s. I may have fallen into a faint. My awareness faded along with the maelstrom, gradually, and returned abruptly when I realized the street was in near silence and the whirling motion around me had ceased. I opened my eyes to the fiery sun and was instantly blinded, but I could sense the bodies kneeling around me and could hear the voices clearly, gently calling my name.
Giuli.
Giuliano.
Giuliana …
The bright blot in the center of my sight went black; the blackness gradually faded to gray. Three faces loomed above me, blotting out the sun, their features softened by the dying light.
Giuli … Niccolo’s cheeks were wet with tears—not fresh ones on my account, which I wouldn’t have expected anyway, but drying ones. The sight of them brought a sudden sting of fear: Had Lorenzo been killed? Donna Lucrezia? Both? Had we failed them? But the concern on his handsome face was real enough.
Giuliano … Tommaso was all eyes and a tight, solemn little mouth, too scared even to cry.
Giuliana …
Giuliana, forgive me.
My third petitioner was penitent, his cowl thrown carelessly back despite the cold to reveal a shaven, noble skull; his worried brows knitted a thick black slash beneath a deep vertical furrow. His eyes, an indeterminate color in the failing light, were large and heavy-lidded and liquid with heartbreak.
“Forgive me, Giuliana.”
Ser Abramo’s ghost had never looked so alive, so solid, so human. I felt the press of his strong hand against my limp one. I supposed I was dying, then, or already dead, to find his touch so warm.
“Breathe, Giuliana,” the Magician begged. “Please breathe.”
Nineteen
I breathed.
Is she all right? a male voice asked.
She’s sleeping, another replied.
When she wakes, she’s going to hate you, the first said, just like I did. It’s a cruel thing you did to both of us, you know.
The Orphan of Florence Page 28