The Wolves of St. Peter's

by Gina Buonaguro

  “And returned it before she was killed? She would have had to ‘borrow’ it, as you so nicely put it, and then return it sometime between showing it off and getting herself murdered. And if she returned it, why would her killer have cut off her finger if not to get the ring?”

  “One of the servants then?” Imperia ventured.

  “He borrowed the ring, gave it to Calendula, telling her he was going to make her a lady, then killed her and took it back?” The Turk’s skepticism was evident. If he is guilty, Francesco thought, wouldn’t he go along with any theory that didn’t point to him? For that matter, why not just say there were many rings like his own belonging to all sorts of murderous types? “And I suppose you think the servant took her body too,” The Turk volunteered sarcastically.

  “I don’t know,” Imperia cried. “But where is her body? Where can it be?”

  “I wish I knew the answer to that. I’ll make some inquiries. But one thing I can assure you: Calendula’s body is not on my ship!”

  Francesco decided now would be the time to ask about something else that was bothering him. “What were Cardinal Asino and Paride di Grassi doing on your ship today?”

  “What? You think they had something to do with Calendula? And how do you know they were on my ship today?” Francesco started to say he was there looking for Marcus, but The Turk interrupted him with an impatient wave of his bejeweled hand. “Let me answer before you think they had something to do with Calendula. Quite the contrary. They were there to buy slaves. Boys. No girls. Just boys. They like them very young and very pretty, if you catch my meaning.” He lowered his voice and chuckled a little malevolently. “Just like His Holiness himself likes them.”

  “His Holiness? Pope Julius?” Francesco echoed, feeling ill. Christ, was he the only one not to have figured that out? That golden-haired boy he took everywhere. What an irony—the Christ Child in The Marigold Madonna. What had Michelangelo said to him? Rome would be wise to remember the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah …

  Francesco looked at The Turk. “And you sell …”

  “A man’s got to make a living, and better they get buggered by Christians than by heathens. Not that anyone will be making me a saint.” He laughed. “Anyhow, they didn’t take them. Too old, they said, though the eldest is ten. Now I have twenty pretty young boys with no higher prospects than breaking rocks in the quarries. Unless you have need of one?”

  Francesco shook his head vigorously.

  “You have a lot to learn, boy. But you can see that Asino and di Grassi would have no interest in Calendula.”

  Francesco cast a sideways glance at Raphael and was satisfied to see that he, too, looked taken aback by The Turk’s cheerful confession.

  Imperia, on the other hand, did not seem shocked. No doubt she’d been aware of this all along. “Please, please,” she begged. “I don’t want to talk of your business. I want to know where Calendula is.”

  “I promise I’ll give this my full attention first thing tomorrow,” The Turk answered. “It might help to know what exactly you were told at the mortuary.”

  Imperia took a deep breath. “That a fat man had already been there and paid handsomely for the privilege of taking a dead whore off their hands. The policeman asked him if he’d like another for the same price. He thought himself very amusing.”

  The Turk, who seemed to find almost everything amusing, looked like he wanted to laugh. “Are you sure I’m the only fat man Calendula fancied?”

  Imperia was stony-faced. “I could think of no one else.”

  “I’ll pay a visit to the mortuary tomorrow and see if a bigger bribe will elicit further details.”

  “I thank you, but I doubt the fat man would have left his name.”

  “It is very possible too,” Raphael suggested, “that the fat man was working for someone else.”

  “Yes,” The Turk said, nodding and sending his chins dancing. “Indeed, the man we really need to find could be tall and thin, sending the fat man only to distract us. Did Calendula know any tall, thin men?” The Turk now seemed to be enjoying himself, as if this were a puzzle or game rather than the death of someone he professed to care about.

  “I’m beginning to believe we’ll never know what happened,” Imperia said with a sigh.

  “Don’t despair, my dear. A substantial bribe may work wonders. But perhaps tonight you might introduce me to the girl I saw on the way in. The one with the red hair. Such an unusual shade and such lovely curls.” He bowed to Raphael and Francesco. “I trust, gentlemen, we will meet again.”

  They bowed in return. Imperia took The Turk’s arm, but as she led him toward the music room, The Turk stopped to address Francesco. “You must come back to my villa, boy. I’ll show you my collection of ancient and medieval weaponry. The largest in all of Italy. I have Mark Antony’s breastplate, the one he was wearing in Egypt when he plunged his sword through his own heart. If you look closely enough, it still bears traces of his blood and, I like to think, Cleopatra’s kisses.” They could hear his laughter even after the door had closed behind him.

  “And there goes the most cheerfully evil man I hope I ever meet,” Raphael said.

  “Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Francesco asked.

  “Absolutely. Though why do I think he is in the music room right now charming his next victim?”

  “The one with red curls. He does like women with unusual hair.”

  “And he does like to own things no one else has.”

  “I wondered if he’d had Calendula’s body preserved, to add to his collection.”

  “I would laugh if I did not believe it possible. I would believe almost anything of that old toad.”

  “I was thinking he looked like a bullfrog. Did you know about the Pope’s boy?”

  “No. I thought His Holiness was being kind to an orphan. I certainly did not believe what The Turk suggests. Perhaps it is to our credit that we do not think of such things?”

  “Perhaps it’s only because we have recently arrived in Rome and are, as the French say, naive. And yet I feel little better that those boys on the ship will be breaking rocks in a quarry. How many years will they live? One or two, before beatings or falling rocks end their lives?”

  “I doubt even that long. I know I will be kinder to Alfeo tomorrow.”

  “Nonsense. I fear I now speak with experience on this matter. No boy could have a better or more generous master.”

  “I had hoped,” said Raphael, “this evening would be spent with a fine cup of wine and the new volume by Erasmus. I now only want to close my eyes and sleep.”

  Francesco looked at the glass case. “Erasmus will wait for us. That is one of the marvelous things about books.” He had a brief fantasy of being home again, sitting by the fire and reading Erasmus aloud to Calendula … No, not Calendula! It was Juliet he meant. Juliet. He imagined what it would be like to sit with Juliet. He shook his head; he, too, must be tired.

  “Will you come to my apartments tomorrow?” Raphael said, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Thank you. Perhaps then you can tell me how Marc Antony plunged his sword into his heart while still wearing his breastplate.”

  Raphael laughed. “You will have to ask The Turk. I am sure he would be happy to explain.”

  Raphael went to bid Imperia a good night, and one of the giants provided Francesco with a torch. Halfway across the square, he realized someone was behind him and turned to see Dante. “What are you doing, Dante?

  “It’s dark out,” he said sadly as he shielded his eyes against the torch’s light. “Bats go out at night.”

  Francesco put his arm around the man’s shoulders and turned him back in the direction of the brothel. What spirits haunted and tortured this poor soul? “Not tonight, Dante,” he said. “You need to rest. Go back to Imperia’s for the night. Have some wine and something to eat.” Dante started to protest, but Francesco remained firm. “No, man. Not tonight. Do as I say and go back to Imperia’s.” Finally Dante
agreed and started back across the square.

  Francesco waited until the door had closed behind Dante before resuming his own path home. The moon, still close to full, struggled to find a break in the heavy cloud cover. And while it had not rained all day, it started to spit now, a drop sizzling in the flame of his torch.

  From beyond St. Peter’s, past the port and The Turk’s, he heard the wolves. Were there more of them now? The other night, their calls had seemed lonesome, single wolves calling out to each other. But now they called and answered each other as a chorus, dozens at a time. He thought of the refugees from the flood huddled up on the hills, listening to the wolves growing in number and wondering just how big a fire one needed to keep the hungry animals at bay. If emboldened by hunger, would the wolves raid the camps as they had the farmers’ barns, swooping in and tearing apart the closest man, woman, or child before running back through the city walls?

  His horrible imaginings made him walk faster, and he reached Susanna’s gate in no time. Grateful the scarf was no longer there, he went in, only to find her already asleep, her arms around the prized bolt of cloth, holding it as tenderly as a mother holds a child.

  He was turning to leave when the torchlight revealed a piece of paper on the table. Susanna couldn’t read, but she had taken to bringing home notices she found nailed up in the squares. Whether they were announcing a new law or simply a festival, it impressed her enormously that Francesco could decipher what to her were meaningless scrawls. He would read the notice for her in the morning, he thought as he closed her door quietly behind him.

  Inside Michelangelo’s house, the wolves’ cries were faint and distant. Michelangelo snored serenely while the chicken watched over him like a guardian angel from its perch on the headboard. Through what used to be the front door, the soap-maker and his wife’s nightly quarrel was hushed and sleepy. Francesco held the pillow to the light of the dying fire and was pleased to find it clean. He took off his boots, pulled the blankets up under his chin, and closed his eyes. He heard the soap-maker’s wife giggle.

  Sometimes it was good enough in life just to have a warm bed. But when his thoughts turned to those young boys huddled together on the ship, he felt guilty. He imagined them frightened and cold, not knowing they had escaped one terrible fate only to suffer another. The Turk must have bought them in a slave market in the East. Should Francesco attempt to free them? He could not overpower the guards, but could Raphael provide the means to bribe them? But what then? He imagined them running from the ship through the icy rain, their dark skin never having known anything but the sun, up over the hills to where the wolves waited in the shadows of the trees. A wolf for every boy. And if they were so lucky as to survive the ones with four legs, there were still plenty of the two-legged variety with evil on their minds.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RICHMOND PALACE, AUTUMN 1508

  My Dearest and Only Brother—

  Let me begin by saying this letter comes with a thousand kisses. How long it has been since we have been parted, and how I yearn for the days when we played together! This past Tuesday marked the anniversary of Mother’s death. How I do miss her. I can only believe you feel the same way.

  Father has written to me of your troubles—you are to be punished for your sin of arrogance, he said. If Father is being unduly harsh with you, he is also harsh with himself, feeling he is being punished for his own sins. I will tell him you acted if not wisely, then of your own free will, the consequences of which were the predictable results of your actions and not brought about by a divine being in order to punish him. Did he not teach us to think so?

  Oh, dear Brother, how difficult this time must be for you! To be denied everything you hold dear: your books, the conversation of the court, and Florence itself, with the hills we both cherish so much.

  And does it still give you pain to be away from the source of your troubles, Juliet?

  As there is no gentle way to tell the truth, I shall speak frankly and boldly, dear Brother, as I can with no other man. If I should cause you further pain now, it is only of your ultimate happiness I think when relating this.

  I know you, Brother. For all your learning, you have a trusting heart. And what man would not have been tempted by her beauty? Perhaps that was Father’s sin: not fully preparing us for the outside world. For I fear that, for all her outward sweetness, Juliet is capable of treachery.

  While you were at the university in Padua and I was a maid in the court of Guido del Mare, Juliet and I often sat at the embroidery frame together. It is no secret that Guido often takes his pleasure among her maids, and it was only his respect for our father that saved me from his bed, if not from his glances. Juliet knew this and asked me who visited his bed at night, chastising me when I feigned not to know. But soon she saw my reticence as an asset, and she confessed to me her hatred for her husband. She found him distasteful, which is perhaps not surprising given he is more than thirty years her elder.

  Before long I became her chaperone on her weekly rides. On these excursions she fulfilled her charitable duties as a rich noblewoman, delivering food to poor nobles, widows mostly, who live in the countryside. Her guards would wait outside, and I would enter with her. We would be greeted by the lady of the house and offered refreshment. It was the same at all houses but one, the cottage of a blind widow. Always her son would be there. He was a musician at court. Whenever he and Juliet were at court together, not so much as a glance passed between them. But for that hour at the cottage, I would sit with the widow and Juliet would be drawn into another room.

  As you know, while the Church might look away for men, it does not for their wives. Men marry for money, connections, legitimate heirs, taking their pleasure whenever they please. But women, too, have desires. And so if that were all, I would have kept it in my confidence, as I had promised my lady that autumn.

  But in winter, Guido’s sister arrived at court, and that same musician fell in love with her and she with him. Juliet was jealous and confided in me that she’d told Guido of his sister’s indiscretions.

  I do not know if Juliet realized how heavy the price would be for her revelation, for Guido refused his sister and the musician permission to marry. When they would not obey him, he had the young musician killed. His sister was to be sent to a convent, but she instead threw herself from her tower window into the stone courtyard.

  Juliet confined herself to her room and dismissed me. You arrived home in Florence just as I was leaving for England, and thus you and I were parted.

  Had I known you were to fall in love with Juliet, I would have told you this before, though I do not know if it would have prevented your downfall. Reason is indeed weak in the face of love. I am sorry, my Brother.

  I know you will want to learn of my life here, and I shall send news soon. But be assured I am well and my maidenhood safe from the young Henry, Duke of York, soon to be King Henry VIII. His father, the elder Henry, is not well and coughs up blood. I have received word from Adriana in Holland, who is also well and sends her love to you.

  I ask you, Brother, for our safety, to burn this letter without delay. I also ask your forgiveness if its contents have brought you more pain. I will continue to petition our father on your behalf and hope he will soon find in his heart the ability to forgive you, if only for the love of our dear mother.

  Your ever-loving sister, Angelina

  He didn’t know who had delivered the letter from his sister, only that it was there when he awakened. On going to bed, his fever had returned, and after a fitful night of tossing and turning, he had slept well into the morning.

  Angelina had written in French, perhaps for additional safety, and he read the letter once again to commit it to memory before laying it on the fire as she requested. Je suis desolée, mon frère … she’d written. For taking away the reason you live she might just as well have added. He watched the edges curl and blacken and, after wondering if this was becoming a metaphor for his love for Juliet, gave the lette
r a vicious jab with the poker. A plume of ash and smoke evaded the chimney and poured into the room.

  Eyes stinging, he threw the poker back onto the hearth. The chicken, observing him impassively from the table, gave one of its funny hops, coming to rest on top of Michelangelo’s drawings, still surprisingly untainted.

  “You shit on my pillow yet leave his drawings alone.” Francesco pushed the chicken aside and flipped through pages densely packed with muscular figures, but there was no sign of the bird’s likeness. Francesco pictured Michelangelo at work on the ceiling, a giant portrait of a three-legged chicken holding the place of honor in the center of the vault.

  Wrapping himself in a blanket from the bed, he poured what was left of the drinking water into what was left of the wine. After gulping it down, he sat at the table and tried to think. There was no reason to doubt his sister. He knew the whole story except for this part about Juliet’s involvement. Surely Juliet had known Guido would react with violence. Guido was loyal to his friends but ruthless with his enemies and those who betrayed him. And Guido had intended a far more lucrative match for his sister than a simple musician.

  Francesco realized now he had his father’s learning but not his wisdom. After completing his studies in Padua, Francesco had arrived at the del Mare court with his head full of Petrarch. Law, math, and languages too, but Petrarch especially. Juliet will be my Laura, he thought the moment he laid eyes on Guido’s wife. Her golden hair, her downcast blue eyes. And he would be Petrarch, in love with a married woman who could never love him in return.

  And so it was for over two years, until she came to him, cornering him in his offices one afternoon this past spring. You’re a lawyer, Juliet had said. You must help me get away from Guido. Help me obtain an annulment, for then I will be free and Guido will have to return my dowry.