The Wolves of St. Peter's

by Gina Buonaguro

  Soon, over the edge of the grave, Francesco could see lights making their way up the hill toward them. He was momentarily confused. Fireflies. Fireflies on a summer night in Florence. Chasing them with his sisters. No, not fireflies. Torches. Not many at first, a few lone torches from beyond the villa. No, from all directions. Men and women bearing torches, converging on the grave, lighting up the night. He put his shovel into the ground and lifted more wet earth.

  They gathered around the grave. Two, three, four, five, six, seven … An English rhyme his mother knew … All good children go to Heaven … Another spade of earth, another torch at the graveside.

  Someone passed a torch down to Dante, and he planted it in the ground between them. They were up to their shoulders now, every shovelful of dirt needing to be lifted higher. Francesco’s arms screamed for mercy.

  Above them in the torchlight, the ice on the tree branches glowed like fine crystal. And still they kept coming. He recognized some of them as the men and women who had danced and laughed in the Colosseum. A time to be born. A time to die. A time to dance. A time to mourn.

  Beyond the walls the wolves howled, but no one flinched. The crowd stood silently, holding their torches high.

  When it seemed he would dig ever deeper until it was his own grave, Calendula broke the silence. “It’s deep enough.”

  “No,” he said, speaking for the first time since his shovel had bit into the earth. “The wolves …”

  “She’s right, man,” Dante said. “It’s deep enough.”

  Francesco allowed Dante to take the shovel from his blistered hands. He ran his sleeve over his forehead and felt the grit and dirt, his hair slick with sleet and mud and sweat. Francesco reached up and an unknown hand took his arm and pulled him out of the grave and back to earth.

  Around him, the crowd parted. Calendula was not among them. How many people were there? Twenty? No, thirty. Forty. Fifty. Simple folk, their clothes wet, but they didn’t shiver. They didn’t speak, either, only looked at him with the knowledge that one day this was their destiny too.

  Susanna’s hair and clothes were soaked through from the sleet, but it had washed the blood from her face. He folded the cloth over her body, her skin cold to his touch. After holding her close one last time, he carried her over to the grave and, kneeling on the ground, handed her down to Dante, careful not to snag the cloth on the rough sides of the hole.

  Someone had gone for a priest, who now said the Mass for the Dead: “Grant her eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.” People silently crossed themselves. Francesco had not prayed for a long time, but he knew they did it out of respect and was grateful to them.

  Dante set her down gently, taking a moment to smooth the blue silk. He removed the torch and handed it up to Francesco, who, with his muscles close to failing, pulled Dante back above ground.

  Again they took up their shovels. Francesco tried to drop the first shovelful softly, but winced as the dirt hit the silk shroud. He had no sense of how long it took them to finish, only that it was so deep into the night that dawn could only be an hour or two away. They smoothed the last of the soil. Slowly, one by one, the men and women passed by the grave before making their way back down the hill, a fading trail of light like the tail of a passing comet.

  There’s nothing left now, he thought, but to return to the house in the square. Susanna’s house or Michelangelo’s—whichever he could face. He could feel exhaustion weighing him down, and he wondered for a moment if he would lie there on the mound of freshly turned earth, never to wake again. Where was that fever that had haunted him these past days? If only it would come back now and take him away.

  “Come on, man,” Dante said. “It’s time for you to go home.”

  Dante handed him one of the remaining torches, and they walked together down the hill. He could just make out the hulk of the villa in the darkness when he heard Calendula calling from a window.

  “Francesco, you will bring me Agnello?”

  Dante came to a halt beside him, but Francesco gave him a push and kept walking.

  “I know you’ll bring him,” continued the disembodied voice. “I’ll wait here. And when I have my son, I will leave.”

  “I haven’t been well,” Dante said as if he’d heard nothing. “I don’t know why. I remember so little. It’s all so confused.”

  Francesco didn’t know how to answer, and he lacked the strength to do so. But Dante didn’t seem to need an answer, and as they walked toward the bridge, Francesco wondered if he should tell Dante to keep what he’d seen quiet.

  “I loved her, but what would she want with a poor wood-carver?” Dante said, shaking his head. “I think I’ll leave Rome and go back to my father’s in Urbino. Will you go back to your father now?”

  “No,” Francesco said, telling the truth, although it had nothing to do with confronting his father and ending his exile. To return to Florence now was to follow Calendula. With Pollo Grosso’s help, she might succeed in impersonating Juliet for a while, maybe a long while, but sooner or later she’d be found out, and he didn’t want to be there when it happened.

  They parted at the other side of the bridge just as the first light of dawn was forcing its way through the clouds. The sleet had stopped. Knowing this to be the last time they’d meet, they embraced each other. “Wash your face before you go,” Francesco said, managing a faint smile. In the cold dawn air, his breath was like puffs of white smoke. “It’s so dirty your mother won’t recognize you.”

  “Nor yours you.”

  “Sadly, I have no mother to return to. You’re fortunate, Dante.”

  Dante nodded, then asked, “Will you go to the authorities?”

  “No. It won’t change anything.”

  “But you’ll take her the boy?” he asked quietly.

  About that Francesco didn’t know, but he gave Dante the answer he knew Dante wanted to hear, and after a final embrace they parted.

  Francesco turned toward the Piazza Rusticucci, imagining Dante in his shop, gathering his few tools before finding his way back to Urbino, where rest and the good air would make him feel like a man again. He had less hope for himself.

  He took the alley to the back gates. He knew it was irrational, but somehow he thought he might see Susanna waiting for him there, as she’d waited the morning Calendula—no, Juliet—had died. She’d been watching the three-legged chicken and wondering if it was there to bring them bad luck or good. But of course she wasn’t there. Deciding that opening her gate was more than he could bear, he opened Michelangelo’s instead. He stumbled around the blocks of marble and puddles before finally pushing open the door.

  Michelangelo was already awake, rolling up one of the drawings on the table while the three-legged chicken watched from the back of the chair. The only light in the room was the weak dawn seeping through the dirty window, but even that was enough to reveal Francesco’s face and hair caked with mud from Susanna’s grave, his clothes soaked with her blood. If Michelangelo makes some remark about her being just another whore, Francesco thought, I’ll kill him.

  But that wasn’t what happened. Michelangelo let go of the paper, and it slowly uncurled. “My God,” he exclaimed, his voice filled with genuine concern. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Susanna is dead,” Francesco said, choking on the words.

  “Oh no,” Michelangelo said gently. “I am so sorry. How?”

  Francesco opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He stammered for a moment longer, and then he couldn’t help it. He went to Michelangelo, laid his head on the man’s shoulder, and started to cry. Cried like he hadn’t cried since his mother had died and his father had held him in his arms and made all the pointless reassurances a father makes when comforting his son.

  Just like Michelangelo was doing now.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FRANCESCO WOKE WITH A START, CONVINCED HE’D BEEN ASLEEP for hours, but the bells in the square told him otherwise. It had only
been an hour since Michelangelo had built him a fire, given him a soothing balm for his blistered hands, and left him to sleep.

  He shifted in the bed, and every muscle, sinew, and bone in his body screamed out for him to lie still. Yet while this pain would pass, he wasn’t so sure about the ache in his heart.

  He turned his head. The fire wasn’t dead, but it was far from roaring. He couldn’t expect Michelangelo to break completely from his stingy ways. He knew, too, that when he saw Michelangelo next, the man would treat him more disdainfully than ever out of embarrassment for having shown a more generous side.

  Francesco raised his hands and studied them in the room’s dim light. Greasy with Michelangelo’s balm, they looked as if the skin had been flayed from them. But as much as they hurt, he knew he’d still be digging that grave had Dante not taken away his shovel.

  He forced himself into a sitting position, and the room swam in front of his eyes before going momentarily black. His head rolled forward onto his chest, then he recovered with a jerk, finding, to his surprise, that he was dressed only in his chemise. Gradually it came back to him that Michelangelo had insisted he remove his clothes before getting into bed, and he had meekly complied, handing over one blood- and mud-encrusted garment after another.

  Even his chemise had not stayed clean, and he touched a dark, coin-sized stain he knew to be Susanna’s blood. At the foot of the bed, Michelangelo had left out some of his own clothes: a shirt of dubious cleanliness, his extra hose and breeches, and the jacket of fine brocade Francesco had seen in Michelangelo’s trunk the day he had searched for the missing letter.

  Francesco’s dirty clothes were soaking in one of the cauldrons they used to collect the rain that dripped through the ceiling. He threw in his chemise, knowing he wouldn’t come back to wash or retrieve any of them. He imagined them sitting in there until Michelangelo needed the cauldron again, when they’d be thrown out into the yard and trampled into the mud.

  He bade the chicken a final farewell. As he closed the door behind him, he couldn’t help but think it looked sorry to see him go. He paused for a moment under the eaves, remembering how he’d stood here with Susanna and pointed out the autumn constellations, all the while wishing it was Juliet at his side. The memory gave him pause. How was it he’d given Juliet’s death so little thought?

  He left the shelter of the eaves, recalling as he unlocked the gate his disappointment at seeing Susanna’s scarf wrapped around it. As he walked through the muddy yard to the door, Francesco wondered what the silversmith would think when he returned and found her gone. Would he miss her too?

  Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door, which creaked inward on its leather hinges. His mind was on her final words to him: My money is behind the first stone from the wall, over the mantle. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember his last words to her. But he knew they’d been angry and impatient. And why had she told him about the money? She must have known she might not return.

  Leaving the door open to let in more light, he heard the scrambling of little feet as a scruffy rat scooted across the floor and under the bed. The pewter box was still on the table, a rock weighing down the lid. He opened it. The honey cakes were still there. He put the lid back on. He knew he’d take them in the end. He would need them, but if he were to eat one now, he’d choke on it.

  First stone from the wall, over the mantle. The hearth was still cold. He looked at the stones, seemingly secure in their mortar. He ran his finger around the one just above the mantle, but there was no indication it could be freed without a chisel. Surely she hadn’t mortared it in? He imagined her pulling it out and adding a tiny coin, the kind of tiny coins that, in the days of working for Guido, he wouldn’t have picked up in the street and, had they been in his purse, would have tossed to beggars.

  He looked at the stone adjacent to it and the one above it before dragging the chair over to the wall. No wonder Bastiano hadn’t found anything. It was, as she’d said, the first stone from the wall, but it was high enough it could be reached only with a chair. A small space on either side of the stone was the only indication it was loose. Francesco inserted a finger on either side and slid it toward him. It was a good eight inches square and felt quite heavy, especially given the state of his arms. Francesco set it down on the mantle before reaching into the dark hole.

  His fingers touched something smooth, and he pulled it out. It was a pewter box not unlike the one on the table, but smaller. It sat easily in his hand. It didn’t weigh much, and he gave it a shake, listening to the coins rattle against its sides. Poor girl, he thought. He set it down on the mantle and was about to step down from the chair when something made him reach into the hole again. Another box. As he slid this one out, he was shocked to find it weighed more than the last box—in fact, it was heavier than the stone behind which it was hidden. He felt something strange in the pit of his stomach as he set it down.

  He carried both boxes over to the table. He started with the lighter of the two, and it contained, as he expected, a few dozen coins, though a few were gold and of a substantial size. Any one of them represented several months’ wages to a housekeeper like Susanna.

  He turned a couple of the coins over in his fingers before opening the other, much heavier box. Why did he feel such sadness?

  It was completely full of coins. How could Susanna have amassed so much money? He poured the coins onto the table and started to pick through them. Coins in silver and gold from Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, Sicily, France. He counted them, separating them into little stacks according to their value. He completed a stack that equaled the wages of a craftsman for a year, and then another that matched the amount Michelangelo had been advanced for the chapel. He kept making stacks. This was what he’d pay for a small villa in Florence, and this for a larger one.

  She’d gone to her father’s the other day, and he’d wondered if it was to ask him about the state of her dowry. Francesco had considered taking her home with the excuse that his father had done the same—lived with a woman who had brought not so much as a sheep into the family. Susanna would have been saving for a dowry suited to a farmer or a craftsman, and here she had a dowry The Turk wouldn’t have scoffed at. Why, then, did she take the bolt of cloth to trade with Juliet? He remembered watching her count on her fingers and wondering how she didn’t get cheated at the market. Yet she had all this. All this wealth that could have saved her a life of drudgery—and possibly saved her life—and she didn’t know it. As for where it had come from, that was a mystery she had taken to the grave.

  Angrily he scooped up the coins and dropped them, clanging, into the boxes. When they were full, he slammed on the lids and replaced the boxes in the chimney. Then, changing his mind, he removed them again and took out several ducats. He might need these. He would be back for the rest.

  FRANCESCO made his first stop Raphael’s. His friend opened the door and expressed horror at his appearance. “What can I do for you first? Give you some breakfast or take you to the baths? You could use some clothes that fit too.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Raphael raised an eyebrow under his beret. “Then it is serious, indeed. And I am not making light of whatever it is that pains you.” He led Francesco up the stairs to his studio, where the morning light filtered through the glass and lit the painting on the easel, a portrait of Julius in his fur-trimmed red robes. Francesco studied it as Raphael went in search of clean clothes.

  “Everything I have is at your disposal,” Raphael said emphatically when he returned with a cloak of black velvet and other garments. “Do you need money?”

  Francesco took a deep breath, willing himself not to cry at his friend’s kindness. “No. That’s the least of my worries. But thank you. You are a good friend. I’m not quite sure where to start, but do you remember the other night when you asked me if it was possible Juliet was using me for her own gain?”

  “I am sorry.”

  “No, you were right. Although,
in the end, it’s Calendula who got what Juliet wanted.”

  Raphael shook his head in bewilderment. And so Francesco told him everything. Calendula’s plot, Susanna’s death, everything but what was yet to come.

  “There’s more,” he said. “I’ll be leaving Rome shortly, and I think you’ll soon know why. I don’t know where I’m going, but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. I don’t want you hauled over a beam by the Pope’s men in an attempt to extract my whereabouts.”

  “The Pope’s men? You know what you are doing?”

  “I think so,” Francesco said with more confidence than he felt. In truth he had no plan. Or maybe he did. The kind of insane plan only someone who really didn’t care whether he lived or died would concoct. As for leaving Rome, it could very well be facedown on the currents of the Tiber.

  “You are not to worry about me,” Raphael said. “His Holiness is as determined that I finish the rooms in the Vatican as he is that Michelangelo complete the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I think you need not worry on either of our accounts.”

  “I would rather err on the side of caution. And speaking of caution, I think it would be wise to send Alfeo back to his family in the country.”

  “Why? He is under the protection of Imperia’s father.”

  “I don’t think he is the most suitable guardian. Should the Pope or any of the wolves in his employ set their sights on him, no one could keep him safe.”

  Raphael nodded slowly. “This is connected, I am sure, to what you have not told me. I will take him home immediately. He will be disappointed, as he loves to sing, but perhaps I can be of some assistance in finding him a safer post.”

  “And now,” Francesco said, willing some levity into his voice, “let me take you up on the offer of a trip to the baths. I don’t know when I’ll have the comfort of another.”

  Raphael gave him an encouraging smile. “If the revival of Roman culture has accomplished nothing other than making bathing fashionable again, it is enough for me,” he said, putting on his cape. “Soap truly must be one of the greatest wonders of civilization.”