by Robyn Young
He returned to the present as Marco asked him how England fared under its new king. He seemed genuinely interested, but less obviously eager than Amerigo Vespucci, less willing, perhaps, to step on to Lorenzo’s territory. Jack answered his questions as best he could, but his mind felt foggy from the wine and he couldn’t take his gaze off that wolf’s head, watching him through slanted eyes, Lorenzo’s voice in his mind.
I will open the door. But you must walk through it.
As Marco broke from his questioning to take a fresh goblet from a servant, Jack seized his chance. ‘That is an interesting badge. Your family’s crest?’
Marco glanced down. ‘No. The symbol of a company I belong to.’
‘A guild?’
‘More a fraternity.’ Marco smiled, then drank. ‘I must commend you on your aptitude with our language, Sir James. How long have you been in the city?’
‘My father insisted I learn, back in London.’ Jack nodded to the badge, determined to keep the conversation on track. ‘In England we consider wolves a bane. Ill luck and trouble.’
‘Not so for Romulus and Remus.’
Jack thought of the story: the twins, cast into the Tiber by a member of their own family, found and nurtured by the wolf. ‘I suppose so,’ he admitted.
‘By suckling the she-wolf the brothers survived to become the founders of Rome.’
Marco cocked his head. ‘And do wolves not possess other commendable qualities? The unity of the pack. Strength. Fearlessness.’
‘You are soldiers, then?’ Jack knew the answer, but he needed to get Marco to open up – show him a way in.
‘Not all of us have served in war. But, yes, we are adept in arms.’
‘I fought in my father’s command. In the wars between York and Lancaster.’
There was interest in Marco’s eyes at this, but just then someone in the crowd hailed him. He raised his goblet with a nod.
Jack plunged in, not wanting to lose his attention. ‘I should like to hear more about this company of yours. Tell me, can any man join?’
Marco’s smile remained, but the interest vanished from his eyes. Jack knew he’d lost him.
‘Sir James, it has been a pleasure. Please excuse me.’ With that he was gone, slipping into the press.
Jack seized his goblet and went to drink, then tossed the dregs into the fountain, cursing his incompetence.
‘He isn’t the one.’
Jack turned to see Ned had emerged from the crowd. ‘He isn’t?’
Ned shook his head. ‘Amelot doesn’t recognise him.’
‘Lorenzo said the company has many members. More, he suspects, than he even knows of. The chance of him being one of those who took Amaury was slim.’
‘How did you fare?’ Ned asked, studying his expression.
‘It was a start,’ Jack said shortly, not wanting to admit he’d made a mess of the introduction. Was there a way back? Might he try again?
He scanned the throng of people, seeking Valori, but fixed instead on Lorenzo, who was talking intently to a man with an extravagant mane of grey hair and a hard, rugged face. The man was shaking his head, his flushed face stormy. His voice was loud, thick-tongued with drink. People were turning to stare, others moving to get a better look. Someone stepped in, tried to soothe the man, but he shrugged them off, stumbling as he did so. Lorenzo seemed calm, holding up a hand to halt his bodyguard, Black Martin, and the others who had appeared, but Jack noted the tension in his shoulders and his wide-footed stance – the stance of a man who expected to have to defend himself.
‘Did you arrange another meeting? Are you in?’
Jack glanced at Ned, still looking at him expectantly. ‘Wait here,’ he told his friend, not wanting his scrutiny right now.
‘Where are you going?’
Jack didn’t answer, heading for the arched doors that led into the palace. He needed to get away from the whirl of voices and faces, clear his head, think how best to approach Valori again. Ahead, in the archway, was a young woman in a silvery-grey gown. He had seen her earlier, sitting with Lorenzo’s daughters at the fountain. Her eyes were fixed in Lorenzo’s direction. After a moment, she broke her stare to glance quickly around her, then slipped in through the doors and disappeared.
Excusing himself through a press of men, all craning their heads towards Lorenzo and the man now arguing with him, Jack entered the archway in her wake. The inner courtyard was cool and dark, David rising into shadow. Just a few servants moved between the pillars, ghosts in their featureless woollen robes, empty trays stacked in their arms. Outside, through the main entrance, Jack saw grooms standing talking, waiting with horses for the wealthier guests to leave. Heading for the wide marble staircase, he caught a shimmer of silver and saw the young woman disappearing up the first flight. There was a sweet smell lingering in the air, a scent that took Jack back unexpectedly to a warm winter’s day in Seville. Orange blossom.
After a pause, he began to climb. The woman wasn’t a member of Lorenzo’s immediate family, all of whom had been pointed out to him, and her fine clothes told him she wasn’t a servant. A governess perhaps, or a friend of the family.
On the first floor, a passageway stretched in either direction. One way led past the dining room to the bedrooms of Lorenzo’s children and the chambers of household officials, the other to Lorenzo’s private set of rooms where he had changed for the party. Jack moved on, climbing the stairs that ascended past the kitchens, stores and servants’ quarters on the third floor, then up to the fourth. Earlier in the week, Lorenzo had installed him and Amelot up here in a small chamber, which opened on to a terrace, affording a breathtaking view over the rooftops of Florence that inspired a rare smile of joy in the mute girl, who’d made herself a nest in the chamber’s empty storeroom.
Exploring the palazzo over the past few days, Jack had found himself in a bewildering maze of interconnecting suites and antechambers, shadowy mezzanine levels, grand corridors lined with statues, dusty stores and a private chapel where Lorenzo prayed daily, displaying a genuine piety, despite the Academy’s unorthodox ideas. While the first three floors were devoted to opulent reception rooms and living quarters, most of the top floor was occupied by an enormous armoury, siege engines and weapons gathering dust in the gloom, and the Medici Library, which he’d not yet been permitted to glimpse, but which he guessed would be filled with the thousands of books and manuscripts Cosimo and Lorenzo had collected over the years – their Gathering of the knowledge of the world, scattered in the time of the Flood.
By the time he reached his room, through the hushed dark of the palazzo, the noise of the party fading behind him, his head was already clearer. After splashing his face with water from a jug left by a servant, he felt positively fresh, but the question of how best to recapture Marco Valori’s interest remained.
He was making his way back down, lost in thought, when he saw the doors to Lorenzo’s private rooms were ajar. Pausing in the passage Jack heard faint footfalls within. Papi? Or Lorenzo himself? Perhaps the signore would have some advice as to how he should proceed? Turning from the stairs, Jack knocked. No servant opened the doors and he guessed they were all downstairs, attending to the guests. Tentatively, he entered the Sala Grande.
The hall was lined with benches built into the walls, backed with walnut panelling. Paintings were hung the length of the room, many of Hercules: battling a snarling lion, striking writhing heads from the Hydra, shooting his bow at a storm of monstrous birds. It was lit by a feeble glow filtering through the windows on the courtyard side. The hum of the party came muted through the shutters. At the far end, the door to Lorenzo’s bedchamber stood open, the buttery glow of candlelight spilling out.
‘Signore?’
The creak of a floorboard was the only answer.
Entering, Jack scanned the magnificent bedchamber, eyes moving over the gilded mirror where earlier he’d watched his visage change as Papi dressed him; across gilt-framed paintings and marble busts, an imposin
g canopied bed heaped with silks and perfumed pillows and a daybed draped in glossy pelts, the set of wooden steps that climbed to a mezzanine level obscured by shadows where Papi slept. He could see no one, although the candles fluttered as if disturbed, sparking off countless crystal pitchers, jade goblets and gemstone ornaments displayed in cupboards, shelves and alcoves that made the chamber look like a mine seamed with precious veins. At the far end, another door led into Lorenzo’s private study, which only a handful of men seemed permitted to enter. Jack hadn’t seen inside.
The door was closed. As Jack approached, he heard a noise come muffled through the door. It sounded like someone singing. But the song was strange, the words rising and falling over one another, sometimes off-key. More a chant than a song. He didn’t recognise the language. It sounded like a man, but was too faint for him to be sure. He moved closer, curiosity drawing him.
‘What are you doing in here?’
Jack whipped round to see Marsilio Ficino behind him. ‘I – I thought I heard Signor Lorenzo,’ he blurted, his face warming under the priest’s baleful stare. ‘I was hoping to speak to him about Marco Valori.’
‘Signor Marco has left,’ said Marsilio, glancing at the closed door to the study, eyes narrowing.
‘Left?’ Jack’s heart sank.
‘The party is coming to a close. The signore is downstairs, saying goodbye to his guests. But,’ added the priest gruffly, ‘I am sure he will be keen to hear how you fared in your conversation.’
‘Of course,’ murmured Jack, following the priest out into the Sala Grande.
Before they reached the double doors, he caught a whiff of something sweet and realised he could smell orange blossom, faint in the air of the chamber.
9
Passing through the shade of a gatehouse tower, the company re-emerged in the sun’s white glare. Ahead, the bridge Harry had glimpsed on their approach to Córdoba stretched before them, its massive piers butting into the broad expanse of the Guadalquivir, whose course they had followed from Seville. Mills churned along the banks, spray glinting from the wheels like sparks from whetstones.
Don Garcia, the official who had met them on the road that morning with six royal guards, turned with a smile for Harry, spreading his hand to the bridge. ‘Built by Romans,’ he called, clenching his fist. ‘Very mighty.’
Ahead, beyond another fortified gate, the city walls reared, encircling a forest of spires and towers, beyond which rose a ridge of hills, simmering in the heat.
‘Which is the palace?’ Harry asked Rodrigo, riding beside him on a piebald courser.
‘There,’ his travelling companion answered, pointing to an imposing group of sand-coloured buildings looming behind crenellated battlements, just along the river. ‘The Alcázar.’
Harry fixed on the buildings with a surge of anticipation. He had been waiting four months for this. After celebrating the birth of their sixth child, a daughter, Princess Katherine of Aragon, the monarchs had been remarkably itinerant in their courtly affairs. Harry had sent a message to Henry Tudor, informing the king of his arrival in Seville, but with Rodrigo gone for several weeks attending to business in Jaén there had been little for Harry to do but linger in his host’s house; hiding from the scorched heat of the days, wandering the streets in the airless evenings, trailing from the din of the docks to the hush of the alleys that wound through the former Jewish Quarter, whose inhabitants had been given the choice to convert to Christianity or leave the city. Any conversos – those accused of returning to their faith in secret – were now subject to the public ordeal of the auto-da-fé and the purifying fires of the Inquisition.
Bored, restless, he had occupied himself with food, gorging on dates, salt-sweet meats, sugared almonds and spiced wines. Peter had had to find a tailor to let out his doublets and lengthen the laces of his hose. He’d even taken to dipping his morning bread in the piquant olive oils he found in the market, until Rodrigo returned and chastised him for the habit, warning him only Moors and Jews ate the oil, which was used by the Spanish for soap, and that the Inquisitors were always on the lookout for telltale signs of the enemies of Christianity that lurked among them.
Harry dug his heels into Nieve, the placid white mare Rodrigo had loaned him, eager to be about his business at last and calm the worries that had nipped at him in the wait. King Henry’s orders had never strayed far from his thoughts. Neither had the unpalatable prospect of failing the man.
Ahead, at the city gate, guards were shouting at people to move aside, nodding in respect to Don Garcia and his party. Harry smiled to himself as he saw merchants dragging braying mules out of the way and men and women hastening left and right to let their company pass. This was more what he’d been expecting from his new role.
Once through, they turned left, following the Alcázar’s walls, until they entered another gateway, guarded by men in red and black livery with gold-pommelled swords. The carts – one loaded with the chests that had accompanied Harry from London, two others filled with the belongings of Rodrigo and his men – trundled in behind, wheels rattling on the flagstones. In a sandy courtyard, Don Garcia invited them to dismount, calling for grooms to see to their horses and servants to bring refreshments.
Leaving his secretary, Peter, to deal with the chests, Harry stepped into a patch of shade, taking a goblet that was proffered. There was a damp, perfumed cloth, too, to wipe the dust and sweat from his sun-stinged face. Around him voices rose, streams of Castilian out of which he could pick only a few words. Peter had been teaching him, but Harry had never settled easily into schooling and had cut short most of the lessons, irritated by Peter’s patience, which he took for condescension.
‘Sir Harry,’ Don Garcia called, motioning him through the crowd. ‘Don Rodrigo.’
Draining the wine, Harry thrust the empty goblet at a servant. Rodrigo moved in at his side, a keen spring in his own step. The hidalgo was not here merely to introduce Harry to his mistress, the queen, but to commit himself to the war in the Kingdom of Granada now the new season of campaigning had begun. It was said King Ferdinand had already marched east into the Nasrid emirate in the early spring. To this end, Rodrigo had brought weapons, armour and the ten men: three knights, caballeros they were called, four infantrymen, two servants and a groom, who would accompany him to the front line.
They followed Don Garcia into another sun-dazzled courtyard, this one filled with orange trees, trilling birds flickering in and out of their green depths. A channel of water cut between colourful mosaics, leading to a bubbling fountain. An arcaded passageway beyond brought them into the palace proper, its cool stone hallways a blessed relief. They passed officials, well dressed and imperious, hurrying servants and a few dour-faced men in black robes Harry recognised as Inquisitors. He had seen processions of them in Seville, leading condemned men and women in the painted robes and pointed hoods of heretics from their austere castle across the river to the auto-da-fé. The black stains of Islam and Judaism, that ever threatened to seep into the blessed shroud of Christianity, could only be cleansed by those fires.
At the end of a vaulted passage, the ceiling painted with intricate configurations of stars and crescent moons, was a set of doors studded with iron. Outside, two guards stood sentry, eyeing them as they approached. There was a bench along one wall, where Don Garcia gestured Harry and Rodrigo to sit while he spoke to the guards. He returned after a moment with a relaxed smile which Harry, who’d remained standing, found instantly irritating.
‘Please, sir, rest your feet. Her Highness has been engaged all morning with visitors. They have been crowding in to see her since her arrival here. You will be summoned when she is finished with her guest. I will have your gifts brought here.’
Harry sat reluctantly, watching Don Garcia head off. Hadn’t he been kept waiting long enough? Rodrigo, already seated, was brushing horse dust from his doublet. Harry glanced towards the studded doors, hearing a raised voice on the other side. After a pause, he stood and paced, stre
tching his saddle-stiff muscles. The guards followed him with their eyes.
The raised voice behind the doors belonged to a man, the tone hard, grating out the words. The language was Castilian, but although the speaker was slower, more deliberate with his words – as if it weren’t his first tongue – Harry still only caught the odd phrase. Something about time? Something taking too long? A female voice cut in. Now, the words were fast, a forceful torrent. When she’d finished the man spoke again, his voice lower, as if he’d been chastised. There followed other voices, mumblings and murmurs, then the thud of footsteps approaching. The doors opened and a man strode through.
He was an arresting figure, well over six feet tall and brawny as an ox, with a ruddy, sun-worn face and a messy crop of white-blond hair. The man met his gaze, his ice-blue eyes narrowing, before he marched away down the passage.
‘He looks as mad as he sounds, does he not?’ murmured Rodrigo, appearing at Harry’s side.
‘Who is he?’
‘The one I told your king about. The sailor with the dream.’ Rodrigo smirked. ‘Or, as we call him, Cristóbal Colón el Loco.’
Harry turned quickly, but the man had gone. In his place, Peter had appeared with Don Garcia, leading a train of servants bearing the chests. God damn! Why hadn’t he taken the time to study Castilian? He might have just learned something useful. He realised he would have to start paying more attention to Peter if he was to accomplish his task here. The thought that he’d wasted so much time doing nothing but filling his stomach and had fallen foul at the first opportunity made his palms sweat.
‘Sir Harry Vaughan? Don Rodrigo?’
A man in a fur-trimmed robe and jewelled collar was standing expectantly in the doorway. Forcing his attention from the passage Christopher Columbus had vanished down, Harry stepped forward, steeling himself.
The chamber was shadowed and airy, a cool haven. Patterned tiles decorated the floor and parts of the walls, while at the borders of the ceiling bands of pale stone had been carved into complex whorls and knots. Harry had seen similar work on many of the buildings in Seville, a legacy, he’d been told, from the time when the Moors had ruled over their vast caliphate of al-Andalus. Over the last four hundred years that territory had been steadily eroded by the forces of the Reconquista, until now only the Kingdom of Granada remained. Other than this decoration, the room itself was surprisingly bare, certainly in comparison to the Painted Chamber back in Westminster Palace. There were no tapestries or gilt-framed paintings, no grand bed or statues. It made Harry think of a shell, beautiful, but empty.