by Robyn Young
Marsilio glanced in his direction. As he locked eyes with Jack his furrowed face hardened. The only one of Lorenzo’s household other than Papi who’d been apprised of the plan, the priest had been candid in his misgivings about whether he was up to the task. Lorenzo had dismissed the older man’s doubts, but he hadn’t let Jack forget the confidence he was investing in him, telling him the trust Sir Thomas Vaughan and Amaury de la Croix clearly had in him was the basis of his faith, while warning him not to take it lightly.
Turning from Marsilio, Jack felt his nerves tighten. That afternoon, watching servants roll wine barrels up from the cellar, smells of spice-rubbed meat drifting from the kitchens, he’d felt eager for the evening to come. All these months shut away for the most part in San Marco or in the lodgings in the Fig, a tavern near the mercato Lorenzo had installed him and his men in, he had been preparing for this. Now, he just felt daunted by the prospect of what he’d agreed to. Lorenzo’s voice echoed in his mind.
Keep to your story, whomever you speak to. Become the lie. You are the bait on the hook. If it is to be taken, no fish in this pool can see the ruse.
Holding out his goblet for a servant to refill, Jack steeled himself, thinking of what he had been promised in the bargain. Gold – enough of it for him and his men to start new lives wherever they wished; Ned already musing about travel and adventures, David trying to convince Adam to buy a tavern with him, Valentine enthusing about Italian guns. For him, though, money came second to the answers Lorenzo had agreed to give him. No coin could buy back what he’d lost, but maybe – released from the questions that kept him tethered to the past – he could look to the future and what his place in this world might now be?
More servants were drifting through the crowds, passing around silver plates piled with what looked to Jack like the chrysalises he used to find in his mother’s herb garden.
‘Sir?’ said one, proffering the platter.
He took one of the orange cocoons warily. It was warm, full of something that oozed out over his fingers. Seeing other people stuffing them into their mouths, he followed suit. The pod was filled with some sort of minced meat, laced with flavours he couldn’t place. He took another before the servant could take the tray away.
‘Delicious, aren’t they?’
Jack found himself faced with a stocky man with a craggy face and intense dark eyes. He guessed him to be only a few years older than himself, perhaps over the cusp of thirty, but too young certainly for the hair loss that had stripped his head bare. His scalp, bald as a baby’s, glistened with sweat. Jack had to swallow the cocoon almost whole to answer. ‘They are.’ He smiled guiltily, holding up the other.
‘Lorenzo’s cook is famous for his zucchini flowers. I believe half the grand families of Florence have tried to bribe him for his recipe. Without success.’
Jack nodded, picking out the key words to understand the gist of what the man was saying. Although Tuscan’s roots were Latin, its flowers were distinctly different. After four months of intensive study, he knew the language broadly, but its nuances would take a lot longer. It had been a year in Seville before he’d felt confident understanding Castilian.
‘By your accent I take it you are Lorenzo’s guest? The Englishman?’
Jack inclined his head. ‘Sir Ja— James Wynter.’ Although he was growing accustomed to calling himself by this name, he still sometimes faltered. He’d given himself the alias Jack as a boy – named after a young robber in Lewes who’d escaped the gallows – in a vain rebellion on learning the lie of his parentage. He had begun using it again in Seville and, after more than four years, it was discomforting to be known again by his birth name, the sound of it quick to conjure thoughts of his mother. ‘Word travels fast here.’
‘Fast as rumour in a hive,’ answered the man wryly, accepting his grip. ‘I am Amerigo Vespucci.’
Jack snatched the name from the personal histories of notable guests Lorenzo had coached him on. A Florentine by birth, son of a rich lawyer, Amerigo had worked for some years as a clerk in the Medici household, but was now employed by Lorenzo’s younger cousins, who resided in the adjacent palazzo.
‘I was hoping we would meet. I’m always pleased to make new acquaintances from abroad. My masters’ – Amerigo gestured to two young men standing close to Lorenzo –‘Lorenzino and Giovanni di’ Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, have begun looking to expand their interests overseas.’
Jack had been told the two brothers had been taken in by Lorenzo when they were children after the death of their father, head of a secondary branch of the extensive Medici family. Lorenzino, the older of the two, with a round, sallow-hued face and rather bulbous, froglike eyes, had hold of his brother’s arm and was whispering in his ear. Giovanni, still in adolescence, with curly hair the colour of cinnamon and an arrogant tilt to his head, was scowling, trying to pull from his brother’s grip.
‘So, Sir James,’ Amerigo continued with a smile, ‘you have come here to learn the Florentine way of life?’
‘Indeed. My father believes such knowledge will be beneficial for when I inherit his business. The signore has had dealings with my family and was generous enough to invite me to stay.’
‘Your business is wool, so I am told? I hear your father is favoured by your new king, Henry Tudor? That he has secured preferential rates for exportation?’
Jack stuffed the second zucchini flower in his mouth to avoid an immediate answer. Lorenzo had invented these details about a noble father with affiliation to Tudor and a business in the wool trade – the lifeblood of Florence, which had nourished many of its grand families, including the Medici – as a reason to explain his honoured status here and to attract the men whose interest they hoped to entice, but he hadn’t expected to be interrogated quite so soon on the ins and outs of this fiction.
When he nodded, mouth still full, Amerigo smiled. ‘Well, there is no better place to understand Florence than in the court of il Magnifico.’
Jack was thinking how to steer the conversation away from himself when a man with white-grey hair and dressed in the sober black of the Dominican’s habit approached. For a moment, he thought it was Marsilio, then realised his mistake. This man was younger, with an upright bearing and a composed, thoughtful face.
‘Ah!’ Amerigo smiled. ‘Sir James, allow me to introduce my uncle, Fra Giorgio Antonio Vespucci.’
Looking closer, Jack realised he’d seen the man before, glimpsed through the window of Fra Vito’s cell in San Marco, into which he slipped most mornings while it was still dark and the monks were at prayer. Fra Giorgio, from what he’d been told, had worked for Cosimo de’ Medici as a scribe, translating manuscripts for the Academy. Later, after Lorenzo took in his cousins, the friar had become their private tutor.
‘Amerigo, I believe Master Giovanni could benefit from your presence.’
Jack saw that the curly-haired adolescent had relinquished his older brother’s grip and was talking to Lorenzo, gesturing animatedly at his cousin. Jack caught a few raised words – spoken too fast for him to catch the meaning – but it was clear Giovanni was irate.
‘A little too much sun and wine,’ observed the friar with a smile at Jack, although his pale blue eyes were tight beneath the neat fringe of his tonsure.
‘Excuse me, Sir James,’ said Amerigo. ‘We will speak again.’
Grateful for the distraction, Jack downed his wine, watching as Amerigo cut in with a nod to Lorenzo and circled an arm around Giovanni’s shoulders, drawing the younger man away. Jack saw Lorenzo’s expression harden, but the look was gone in an instant and he was smiling at the next guest who stepped in to fill the gap. Clearly, everyone wanted their moment with il Magnifico.
Taking more wine from a passing servant, Jack was scanning the shadows for Ned and Amelot when an arm slipped through his and a voice sounded in his ear.
‘A little drama for our entertainment.’
Starting in surprise, Jack spilled wine down the front of his doublet.
As he cursed, a slender young man with laughing grey eyes and wavy hair the colour of honey stepped in with a gasp of concern. ‘Oh! Excuse me!’ Pulling a silk cloth from the sleeve of his russet doublet, over which he wore an exquisite cape of pleated gold, the man went to dab at the spreading stain.
‘It’s all right,’ Jack said, pushing his hand away and shaking wine from his fingers.
The man dangled the cloth for him to take, then snatched it aside. ‘You can have it if you talk to me in your own tongue,’ he said in English. ‘You are, Sir James, yes?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘It has been so long. You must teach it to me. I fear I’ve forgotten every word!’
The lie was plain to them both, the man’s speech perfect.
Most of the people Jack had met in Florence didn’t like to speak anything other than Tuscan. Lorenzo was particularly proud of his language and vocal in his dislike of Latin, which he claimed was rigid and pompous, neither fit for love nor poetry. ‘You’ve been to England?’ he asked, accepting the cloth as the man pressed it into his palm.
‘Oh, once,’ the man replied airily. He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Or was it twice?’
As he waved a dismissive hand, Jack caught a flash of gold. There – on one finger – a gold disc engraved with two serpents. Another man of the Academy. For a moment, out of sight and earshot of Lorenzo, Jack had an urge to ask if he had known his father. Would this man speak of Thomas Vaughan’s secrets? Maybe he could learn everything he wanted, right here and now? No need to play this role he’d offered himself up for to get what he wanted from Lorenzo.
‘Well, who can remember such things?’ said the young man, breaking the moment. He grinned at Jack, arching an eyebrow. ‘It is the girls I recall. Are the – what do they call them – the stews? Are they still there on Bankside? The Rose? The Swan?’
‘They are.’
The young man shook his head, half closing his eyes. ‘There was a woman in the Rose. Fortune, she called herself. I tell you, Sir James, she had a tongue that could—’
‘Pico!’
Leaping round at the voice, the young man clapped to see Angelo Poliziano approaching, holding two goblets. ‘Ah! You come just in time!’ With a wink at Jack, he plucked the goblets from Poliziano’s grip, handed one to Jack and kept the other for himself. ‘Oh, don’t look at me that way, my dear. You know me well enough by now. This is Sir James. I spilled his wine.’
‘We’ve met.’
Jack nodded as Poliziano turned his gaze on him, the sudden switch back to Tuscan throwing him.
‘Isn’t he charming, Poliziano?’ The young man stroked Jack’s arm, smiling.
‘I doubt he has even introduced himself, has he?’ Poliziano addressed the question to Jack, but kept his eyes on the young man.
The man let out a merry burst of laughter. ‘Indeed, I have not! Sir James, forgive my rudeness. My name is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.’ He gave a theatrical bow. ‘And I am at your service.’
Jack doubted his sincerity, for now he had a name he knew the young man was Italian nobility – the son of a lord. Lorenzo counted him among his closest friends, but from all Jack had been told of him – that he’d studied at the universities of Padua, Paris and Florence, was a master of philosophy and a formidable orator who apparently spoke twenty languages – he had expected someone in the winter of his life. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, with his angelic face and cleft chin, appeared barely out of adolescence.
‘Now, do excuse us, Poliziano.’ The young man slid his arm through Jack’s insistently. ‘There are many people Sir James must meet.’ As he led Jack away, he grinned. ‘Goodness, he will make me pay later!’
Jack glanced back to see Poliziano thrust a hand through his hair, before turning on his heel and vanishing down one of the paths. ‘Giovanni, I—’
‘Please, call me Pico.’
For the next hour, unable to extract himself from Pico’s tight hold, Jack found himself swept up in a whirl of faces, names and conversations with artists and poets, heads of families, men of government, lawyers and silk merchants.
The garden was now packed with people. More food was being passed around – spiced sweetmeats and sugared almonds, saffron biscuits and balls of dyed red marzipan on golden shields, in imitation of the Medici coat of arms. Jugglers performed tricks with knives and fire, and music competed with voices that grew louder as the wine flowed.
At one point on his way through the tumult, Jack saw Ned and Amelot moving among the throng, an incongruous couple. He arched a questioning brow at his friend, who shook his head, telling him the girl hadn’t yet seen the man from Carnival. Then, Pico was presenting him to another artist – Jack caught the name Sandro – whose works apparently graced most of the palazzi in the city.
The young man seemed to delight in introducing people in Tuscan, then gabbling away to Jack in English in front of them, telling him all their bad habits – the illicit affairs they were engaged in, the fortunes they’d lost in gambling, the telltale rash of pox he’d glimpsed in the bathhouse – while the poor souls smiled along in polite ignorance. If Lorenzo was magnetic, drawing men in, Pico was the opposite – a blazing star or a crackling fire. Something wild, uncontrollable.
Among the crowd, Jack glimpsed more caduceus rings and many other symbols besides – falcons and lions, keys and crosses – stitched on tunics, engraved in badges and embossed on pouches. In many ways, the gathering was reminiscent of the royal banquets and parties he’d attended as a page with his father in England. But, here, he had to remind himself that, with the exception of a few men like Pico, these weren’t kings and lords, but bankers and merchants, descendants of men who had worked their way up from nothing, building empires out of wool and spices. To be among them, to see their status, conferred not by title or blood, but by their own endeavour, stirred something in him. Florence, perhaps, was a place where the indignity of his birth – a fact that had dogged him all his life – might be irrelevant.
He was starting to enjoy himself – the cool sweet wine, the flattery and attention, all these eminent men and beautiful women calling him sir, the glimpses of himself in mirrors, looking like a lord in his new silks – when a harsh voice sounded behind him.
‘Sir James.’
Turning, dizzy from the wine and Pico’s incessant chatter, Jack saw Lorenzo. Beside him stood a man with short black hair and a neat beard framing an angular jaw.
‘If I may tear you from Pico’s company, allow me to introduce Signor Marco Valori.’
‘A pleasure to meet you, Sir James.’
As the man held out his hand, his cloak parted and Jack caught a flash of silver. There, pinned to the man’s doublet, was a badge. It was fashioned in the head of a wolf.
8
Jack grasped the young man’s hand, noting the telltale calluses along the ridge of Marco Valori’s palm from the chafing of a sword hilt,
the strength in his grip. ‘I am pleased to meet you,’ he murmured, feeling the intensity of Lorenzo’s gaze lingering on him.
‘Our host tells me you are from London?’ said Marco, as Lorenzo departed, taking the effervescent Pico with him.
Jack nodded, eyes on that badge, winking in the flame-light. ‘I am.’ Gathering himself, he set his wine down on the edge of a fountain, from which rose a bronze Old Testament Judith, dragging back the hair of Holofernes to bare his neck for her sword. There was an inscription around the base:
Kingdoms fall through luxury, cities rise through virtues.
Behold the neck of pride, severed by the hand of humility.
‘Signor Lorenzo mentioned that your family, like mine, is in the wool trade?’
‘Cloth, to be precise,’ Marco corrected. ‘My family are members of the Calimala, not the Lana.’
‘Calimala. Yes.’ Jack kicked himself. He’d been told this – and that the cloth importers and wool-weavers were rivals, each proud of their different trades and their place within the city. Of Florence’s twenty-one guilds, the Ar
te della Calimala claimed to be the oldest, but the Arte della Lana, the guild of the wool-weavers, had risen to vie for position as one of the most powerful. ‘My apologies.’
Marco smiled, a cleft appearing in his cheek, making him look boyish. ‘The Calimala, the Lana, the Arte della Seta, the Vaiai e Pellicciai. Four guilds, all involved in the same business. And we wonder why visitors to our city become confused.’
Jack smiled along with him, but glanced across the milling crowds, searching for Ned and Amelot.
‘I am told you are here to learn more about the trade?’
‘Yes, in preparation for when I take on my family’s business.’
Marco nodded sympathetically. ‘I know my time will come too. But for now I am content to enjoy my freedom. Tell me, Sir James, are you able to take pleasure in sport? With your friends?’ The dimpled smile was back. ‘With women?’ Marco sipped his wine. ‘Or do you wear a husband’s chains?’
‘My wife died, bearing a child.’ The lie came easily, all part of his new history. Lorenzo had said these men, well travelled and worldly-wise, would know it unusual for an Englishman of his age and status to be unmarried. By contrast, he’d been told, while it was common in Florence for girls to marry young, men would shirk the bond for as long as possible, content to live at home, playing at boys deep into adulthood. Jack thought he had detected wistfulness in Lorenzo’s tone, since he himself had been pressed into marriage with Clarice in adolescence.
‘My apologies,’ Marco said solemnly. ‘Forgive me.’
‘It was some time ago. Another life.’ Jack thought of Grace – her hand slipping from his. He had turned one last time on the road out of Lewes to see her still standing there, watching him go. Did she think of him or had her father married her to another man twice her age and half her worth?