by Robyn Young
Jack circled his opponent, heart thrumming. Adam had looked surprised at the strike, but it didn’t deter him. Coming in again, he jabbed at Jack’s stomach. As Jack was smacking away his blade, Adam struck out with his shield. Jack threw his head to the side, but the shield cuffed him, making his ear ring. Dazed, he stumbled backwards. His cheek throbbed and at the trickle down his face he guessed the hook on Adam’s shield had cut him.
Martelli’s voice rang out. ‘Sir James, has your man been guarding your back, or eyeing it?’
Laughter echoed. It stung Jack’s ears, sent him barrelling forward to batter at Adam, no longer pulling the blows. The clash of steel resounded. The two of them stamped across the circle, swords wheeling, arcing, smashing. Sparks flew; red-hot slivers of metal that died in the sands. The watching men were hushed, transfixed. Adam, blood now soaking his hose, fought Jack fiercely, but his skill was with the crossbow, not the sword. With every lunge he was weakening and Jack was getting his measure, seeing which way the man tended to feint, his favoured moves.
Jack hadn’t fought like this in an age. He felt alive, his body humming, each concussive impact sending a rush of pain through his arm. That pain was fuel, pushing him faster, harder. He was forgetting himself. Forgetting what he’d come here for. His vision was narrowing, focusing in on the win.
Adam lurched away from a series of brutal attacks, his sword flung wide with the last, mighty stroke. Jack drove into the opening to punch him in the face with his shield. The man’s head rocked back and he fell into the sand, sword skittering from his grip.
Jack went down on top of him, arm shoved up against Adam’s throat, holding him there. He bent forward, so close he could smell the drink, sour on his friend’s breath. He thought of David, some nights, sliding the tankard away from his brother, seeing that look that sometimes clouded Adam’s eyes when he’d had too much. He saw the same look there now. ‘Stay down!’ he hissed in his ear.
After a moment, Jack felt Adam go limp. He pushed himself up, swiping away the sweat that was burning his eyes. He was looking to Marco, about to tell him they were done here, when he heard a scattering of applause. The men’s expressions were changing from resigned agreement to anticipation. Turning, Jack saw Adam had risen. As he watched, his friend spat blood into the sand and bent to pick up his sword.
‘He has the balls of an ox!’ Luigi Donati shouted, grinning.
Franco Martelli joined in the rising applause, face savage with glee. ‘Perhaps we have picked the wrong candidate, Signor Marco?’
Jack looked to Adam. What the hell was he thinking? Then, seeing the taut lines his friend’s face had drawn into, the tight hunch of his shoulders, his white-knuckled grip on the sword, he knew Adam didn’t care any more about why they were here in this arena – about his role or Jack’s. The soldier was raging. Jack wondered, heart thudding as he faced him, how much of the fury he saw in the man’s eyes was caused by the humiliation he’d just inflicted and how much had been there all along, growing and festering these past months.
Blood was oozing from Adam’s nose and mouth. Sweat dripped from his chin and strands of grey hair were stuck to his face. He came at Jack head-on. Switching away at the last moment, Adam spun to deliver a vicious kick to the back of Jack’s leg, buckling him to one knee. Jack hefted his sword, just in time. It caught and crossed with Adam’s. Adam had the stronger position, bearing down on him, lips peeled back, blood spitting between his teeth. Forced to yield, Jack rolled away, his blade sliding with a screech out from Adam’s, causing the other man to stumble forward.
Up on his feet, sand gritty in his mouth, Jack charged him. This time, as Adam drove his sword towards him, Jack dodged and swung his shield down on the blade, snagging it with the hook. A fierce twist of his wrist and the sword was pulled from Adam’s grasp. The blade went skidding across the sand, disappearing among the feet of the men.
‘Well done!’ Marco shouted, clapping approvingly.
‘It’s not over,’ Martelli cut across the younger man. He took up Marco’s clap, but his was slow, like a drum or a heartbeat. Others joined in, the sound reverberating around the space.
Adam’s sword was gone. Jack, breathing hard, tossed aside his own, eliciting surprised murmurs from some of the watching men. Now, he would end this. Flexing his hand around the shield’s strap, tightening his grip, he stormed towards the older man, meaning to put him down. But Adam came just as strongly to meet him. They boxed and cuffed, smacked and ducked. Jack raised his arm to block one blow, missed another and caught the concussive impact in his temple. Two more blows landed on him in quick succession, one catching him square in the midriff, winding him even through the brigandine.
The men’s slow clapping stung his ears, filling his brain like a maddening chant. He felt rage, pulsing through him. He rushed at Adam, snarling as he pummelled him with his free fist, catching him on the cheek, then backhanding him with the shield. Adam launched himself at him in retaliation, but he was tiring and the move was clumsy. Jack batted Adam’s arms aside and head-butted him in the face. The painful crack of bone against his own forehead was satisfying.
As Adam went down, Jack fell on him. This time, he wasn’t going to let him up. He was done here. Done with all of this. Men using him. Pulling his strings. Goading him. Tearing off the shield, Jack threw it aside to tackle Adam with his bare fists. With every punch, the beast inside him roared its approval. With every wet thud that split the skin of his knuckles, he felt the satisfaction of its release.
Adam wasn’t Adam any longer. He was the boys in Lewes holding him down while they kicked him, called him a bastard and his mother a whore. He was Harry Vaughan setting those flames around him and the man in the mask, who’d murdered his mother. He was his father’s broken word and Lorenzo’s endless promises. Blood spattered him. He felt the impacts of skull and jaw, the soft yield of nose and lip. Somewhere, someone was shouting. He felt his arm caught mid-strike, held fast.
‘Enough!’
Jack’s vision cleared. It was Marco who had caught him. He hung there panting, sweat pouring off him. Beneath him, skewed in the sand, lay Adam. All at once Jack’s rage vanished, the beast slipping away now it had had its fill, leaving him wretched at the damage his own hands had wrought. Adam’s face was a dark mess. As he turned his head weakly, spitting blood, sand crusted his torn skin.
‘We will see to him,’ Marco said, reaching in. ‘Luigi! Have your steward fetch a physician!’
‘No!’ Jack pushed him aside. ‘I will do it.’ Grasping Adam’s hands, he hauled the dazed man to his feet, slinging his friend’s arm over his shoulder and holding him around the waist. He turned to Marco. ‘Was that enough sport for you?’
Marco said nothing, but he nodded.
The ring of men was silent, watching as Jack helped Adam towards the doors.
Before they reached them, Franco Martelli stepped in front of them, face split in a tight rictus of a smile. ‘Impressive, Sir James.’ The smile vanished. ‘Now, stay away from my daughter.’
They made it out of the palazzo and on to the street before Adam collapsed.
Jack, exhausted, his muscles trembling, couldn’t hold him up any longer. He bent to help him, rain soaking them both. ‘Adam, please, we can’t stay here.’
‘Get away from me, you son of a bitch,’ Adam groaned, pushing feebly at him.
‘God damn it! Why did you fight me?’ Jack turned, hearing running footsteps, to see Ned and David emerging from the shadows of an alley. He rose at the sight of them, but his relief died as soon as they saw Adam’s crumpled form at his feet. A fresh wave of shame flooded him.
‘Christ alive!’ Ned shouted as they reached them. ‘What happened?’
David crouched beside his injured brother, checking him with his hands, talking quickly and quietly to him.
Ned caught Jack by the shoulder as he staggered. ‘Where did you find Adam?’
‘You did this?’ exclaimed David, looking up suddenly from where he
was bent over his brother. He went to rise, then stopped as Adam groaned thickly again.
Ned looked between them in confusion. His eyes took in the unfamiliar brigandine and Jack’s ripped knuckles. ‘Jack?’
‘Where’s Amelot?’ Jack looked past him, scanning the street. ‘Did she recognise any of them?’ His voice, a dry croak, sounded as desperate as he felt. Dear God, let this at least have been worth it. ‘Did she see the man?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ned was shaking his head. ‘She didn’t see them all.’
‘Why not?’
‘One moment she was with us. The next she wasn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She left us, Jack. Amelot’s gone.’
27
All through the city they moved, masked and hooded; an army of revellers, adorned with bells and feathered wings, gem-dazzled headdresses and horned helms. Women teetered on heeled shoes, arms interlinked, ignoring the whistles and calls from the bands of young men questing through the mist-wreathed darkness in search of merriment and wine-soaked adventures in dingy taverns and stifling gambling dens, gilded palazzi and squalid whorehouses. The glacial air was filled with rough shouts and laughter, bawdy songs and the clatter of clogs. The flames of oil lanterns outside inns fluttered in glass; trapped butterflies of light.
Earlier, the feast of Epiphany had been celebrated in solemn dignity, Lorenzo de’ Medici leading the heads of the elite families, the lords of the Signoria and members of the Company of the Magi to the Christmas Cradle in San Marco, where a host of friars dressed as angels were waiting to say the prayers and pass around the statue of Christ to be adored. But now the hymns and rituals were done, and Twelfth Night had been taken by the young.
Leaving the Palazzo Medici, Jack stepped into the street. A group of youths charged past him, whooping. The cracks and bangs he’d been hearing all evening echoed sharply off the buildings as men shot burning tubes filled with black powder into the sky. Heading along the Via Larga, he made his way to the adjacent palace of Lorenzino and Giovanni di’ Pierfrancesco, where the balconies were garlanded with black and white ribbons and firelight shimmered like a promise in the windows.
The entrance to the palazzo was thronged with people, friends greeting one another, guests waving invitations at the guards, beggars trying to persuade a coin or two from the affluent gathering. Jack held out the stiff roll of paper, slipped under his door last week. One of the sentries inspected its gilded writing, then gestured him through. Beyond was an inner courtyard, a mirror of the Palazzo Medici, only less ostentatious in decoration; a stately younger brother, prince to a king. Torches were set around the walls, the plumes of flame illuminating the painted faces of men and women gliding through the space, hailing people and plucking goblets from the trays carried by servants who moved like shades among them. A spirited tune, all drums and clapping, sounded from an arched opening leading off, through which Jack saw a whirl of limbs and cloaks. Through another doorway were gardens, where fountains sparkled among trees festooned with lights.
All the guests wore masks. Some had antlers or horns protruding, were crested with feathers or covered with fur, fashioned in the slant-eyed images of birds, foxes and wolves. Some were held in place by silk ribbons, others by a bit clasped between the teeth. The women seemed to favour half-masks of plain black velvet, which covered only their eyes, leaving tantalisingly rouged cheeks and lips on show. Gowns plunged and bare throats were ornamented with pearls and diamonds. Jack guessed most of the gathering was made up of the sons and daughters of Florence’s elite. Medici and Donati, Strozzi and Bardi.
He pulled down the mask he’d bought in the mercato. Made of papier mâché and painted black with slitted holes for his eyes, it was fastened around his head with a leather strap. Epiphany. He could hardly believe he’d been in this city for a year. Time, the great trickster, had both crawled and flown.
Moving through the crowd, he searched for sign of Laora: dark hair piled up, narrow waist, chiselled cheeks. Now this night had finally come, the need to see her burned in him, forcing him through the hot jostle of raucous, faceless celebrants. She was all he had been able to think about this past fortnight – the one hope he had left of recovering anything of what he’d come to this city seeking.
Following the music, Jack headed through the arched opening into a magnificent chamber, lit by many-branched candelabras and strung with mirrors. Their surfaces, dazzled with candlelight, were alive with movement, men and women dancing across them as they twirled down the room to the pulse of drums. As he scanned the chaos, he caught sight of himself in one of the mirrors; black velvet cloak swinging from his shoulders, the mask staring back at him, its blank expression hiding all. Beneath it was another mask and maybe another behind that. So many he hardly knew who he was any more.
Jack saw a figure in a red half-mask appear behind him, felt the hand as it reached out and grasped his shoulder.
‘Sir James?’
Turning, he saw Marco Valori, his neat dark beard framing his angular jaw.
The cleft in the young man’s cheek appeared with his smile. ‘I was told you might be here tonight.’
Jack’s surprise faded quickly. He should have expected Marco and maybe others from the Court of Wolves would be in attendance; sons of some of the city’s richest families. The sight of the young man struck something in him that sent a low note of anger humming through his blood. He’d not seen him since the night of the fight.
The day after, Rigo had knocked on his door, eyes on the bruises that clouded Jack’s face as he handed him a parcel that had been left for him. Inside, Jack had found his cloak, forgotten in the furore, and a brief note from Marco, telling him he would be in contact. That had been two weeks ago and his knuckles were still scabbed and raw.
‘Come. We have things to discuss.’
Jack hesitated, fearful of missing Laora. But he wanted to know what Marco had to say.
The young man led him towards the gardens, taking two goblets from a servant as he pressed his way through the crowds. Outside, the air was flint-sharp, the lights in the trees pale phantoms in the mist. As Marco leaned against the stone lip of a fountain and handed him one of the goblets, Jack recalled the night he’d first met him, seven months ago, in a garden like this one, just beyond the high wall, trailed dark with ivy, which separated the two palazzi.
Marco raised his goblet. ‘Blessings of the season.’ When Jack didn’t follow suit, Marco lowered the glass, his expression sobering. ‘How is your man?’
‘He’ll heal,’ Jack replied tightly. It was over a week now since he’d seen Adam, but the sight of his friend had stayed with him: Adam’s face swollen beyond recognition, one eye bloody, the other crusted shut, two teeth missing, a lump swelling one side of his head, four fingers broken where he’d held up his hands to stop the blows.
Jack had tried to do what he could – told Adam he would ask Lorenzo if his personal physician would see him, bought healing salves from an apothecary and wine for the pain – but Adam rejected his offers of help. David wouldn’t even speak to him. Ned, quiet, subdued, had taken him aside, suggested he leave them be for a while. Their planned journey to Venice had been delayed, Adam in no state to travel. In the reprieve, Jack had privately vowed to do whatever he could to get them their reward. Make amends. It was why he’d come tonight, hoping Laora would help him.
Marco was studying him. ‘I imagine you feel resentment, for what we asked of you? But I assure you all members of our company were tested martially before they were permitted to join our circle.’
Jack took a drink. The wine was warm and spiced. ‘But it was Franco Martelli who devised that test for me?’
‘Yes. He said you had gone to his home to talk business? Something happened, I presume. He wouldn’t say what.’
Jack thought of Laora, sprawled on the floor, hands held up. He pushed the mask on to his head, the cold air stinging his cheeks. As Marco’s eyes skimmed his face, he guessed the man
was taking in the cuts and bruises that still mottled his skin. ‘We didn’t see eye to eye.’
‘Signor Franco isn’t the most genial of men,’ Marco agreed. ‘But he is popular, with some.’
‘How long has he been a member?’
‘Around two years.’
Jack recalled Martelli’s tirade at the dinner table. Two years? When his rift with Lorenzo had begun? If he joined at that time did it mean Martelli saw the company as natural enemies of the man who had ruined him? Had he known something Lorenzo didn’t?
‘I want you to know, Sir James, I vouched for you. But it was felt, given your allegiance, that a true assessment of your potential commitment was needed.’
‘Allegiance? To the signore?’
Marco sipped from his goblet. ‘In Florence a man may have many loyalties – to father and household, guild and fraternity. Such is the spirit of a republic. But there will always be one that steers his heart. One he will fight and strive for above all others.’
‘And yours is the company?’
They glanced towards the doors as three men spilled into the gardens, laughing. One wore a white mask fashioned like a skull. Jack’s eyes caught on it, his gut coiling.
‘I have something for you.’ Setting his goblet on the edge of the fountain, Marco reached into a black velvet pouch at his belt. He reached out, placed something small and cold in Jack’s palm. It was a silver wolf’s head. ‘Welcome to the Court of Wolves, Sir James.’
Jack stared at the badge, slant-eyed and winking at him in the lantern light. He had waited months for this, but the victory felt hollow. When he’d first gone to Lorenzo after Carnival, offered to infiltrate the company, he hadn’t expected it might come at the sacrifice of his friendships. Back then, he had thought only of gain, not of loss. Still, this was what the signore had wanted. If Laora couldn’t – or wouldn’t – help him, he now had this to bargain with. He closed his fist over the badge, ignoring Valentine’s words in the Fig. Once you is in, he’ll want you to stay. ‘What happens now?’