Court of Wolves

by Robyn Young

  Lorenzino di’ Pierfrancesco came to stand before him, blocking Jack’s view of her. The young man’s sallow face was hard in the shifting firelight, his glassy eyes pensive. ‘The priest will not get far.’ He nodded as Jack’s jaw tightened. ‘Your only chance to leave here alive is to tell us what we want.’

  ‘This is between you and your cousin,’ Jack told him. ‘It has nothing to do with me. Or her,’ he added.

  ‘Nothing to do with you?’ Giovanni stepped forward beside his brother, mouth twisting. ‘You, who pledged yourself to us falsely? Spied on us for the signore, seeking to undermine us? This has everything to do with you, you duplicitous bastard!’ He stepped forward, tugging a dagger from his belt, but was halted by his brother’s hand, planted firmly on his chest.

  ‘You’ll talk, Sir James,’ continued Lorenzino calmly. ‘Or there will be consequences.’ His eyes darted meaningfully to Laora.

  ‘She’s the daughter of one of your own,’ Jack reminded him.

  ‘Franco Martelli betrayed us the moment he spoke to you in the Stinche.’ Lorenzino came forward, crouched before him. ‘Jack. May I call you that? I know you are used to dealing with my cousin – to half-truths and false promises, veiled threats and outright lies. My brother and I, we are not of the same mould. What we say, we mean.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘What do you owe the signore, anyway?’

  Jack’s mind filled with Amaury’s last words. It wouldn’t just be Lorenzo’s dream he would tear down. It was the priest’s dream. His father’s too. He tried to think of how he might lie, tell them something, anything other than the truth, but his head was fogged with pain and he couldn’t keep his thoughts straight. ‘How do I know you’ll let us live?’

  ‘Enough of this,’ snapped Giovanni, who had stepped back at his brother’s command, but had been pacing behind him, still clutching the dagger. Pushing Marco aside, he seized Laora by her hair and forced her to her knees. She gave a strangled scream as he yanked her head back and held the blade to her neck. ‘Talk, or I’ll slit her!’

  ‘All right!’ Jack shouted. He was shaking – shaking with fury, wanting to tear free of his bonds and rip Giovanni’s throat out with his bare hands, but with fear, too. He wouldn’t – couldn’t lose Laora.

  And so he spoke, answering Lorenzino’s questions, telling the young men what they wanted to hear, giving away as little as he could, but forced at times – Lorenzino’s shrewd eyes not leaving his face – to expand on his words, prompted by Giovanni’s threats, Laora petrified in the young man’s grip, a bloody nick on her neck where he’d started to cut when Jack had been reticent with details.

  He told them about the map from the Trinity and the lost island of Atlantis Lorenzo believed it showed; told them this map was gone, taken by Harry Vaughan. He told them about Prince Djem, who they knew of from their pact with the pope – which seemed to have ended after the unsuccessful attempt to take the Turk – and he told them about Lorenzo’s plan for peace.

  ‘Peace?’ Giovanni had spat, his face creasing with scorn. ‘He wants peace with the infidel? That is his grand plan?’

  ‘And trade, I would imagine,’ ventured Lorenzino, glancing at his brother. ‘Money is our cousin’s first mistress, after all.’ He looked back at Jack. ‘This map – you saw it for yourself? This land it showed.’

  ‘Yes, but as I said, the map is gone.’

  After a few more questions, Lorenzino rose. Gesturing for his brother and Marco to follow, he left the room. Giovanni lingered a moment longer, eyes on Jack, then relinquished his hold on Laora, leaving her sagged on her knees, sobbing silently at the feet of the guard.

  Jack tried to catch her eye. ‘Laora?’

  ‘Quiet,’ warned the second guard, standing sentry by the fireplace.

  Jack ignored him. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘I said quiet!’ repeated the guard, stepping from his place.

  Laora looked up, nodding in reassurance at Jack. I’m all right, her face told him, although her eyes were glazed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Time dragged on; murmured voices in the passage, footsteps coming and going. At one point, Jack glimpsed the bald head and thickset frame of Amerigo Vespucci, the man’s dark eyes flicking towards him while Lorenzino spoke quickly, quietly at his side. When Amerigo vanished and more hoofbeats drummed outside, Jack presumed something he’d said had roused them to action, although what that – or his and Laora’s fates – might be, he could not guess.

  He tried to stay alert, as much for Laora as himself, but exhaustion was creeping up on him, tempting him to close his eyes and rest his aching body, slip into sleep. He spent the remainder of the night caught between drifting and jerking awake. Then, in the chill of dawn, cold blue light seeping in through the kitchen windows, the men returned. Hearing footfalls and voices, Jack snapped awake. The guards, one leaning on the hearth’s mantel, poking at the fire’s embers, the other sitting at the table, picking at a bit of cheese, stood to attention. Laora, curled in a ball on her cloak across from Jack, sat up, fear quickening in her red-rimmed eyes.

  Lorenzino and Giovanni entered with Marco and another man, short and slender with olive skin and black hair. Jack didn’t recognise him, but the newcomer seemed to have some knowledge of him as he came forward, eyes keen with question.

  ‘Your name is James Wynter?’

  One look at Giovanni’s narrowed eyes, his fingers hooked in his belt by his dagger, told Jack he had no choice but to submit. He nodded tightly.

  ‘Your brother is Harry Vaughan?’

  The man’s Tuscan was perfect, but his accent was hard to place. ‘Half-brother.’

  ‘This map, from the Trinity – Vaughan took it from you? Did he know what it was?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘But he gave it to King Henry of England?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘And you saw this map for yourself? Saw land in the Western Ocean?’

  Jack nodded, his unease growing. He glanced at Marco, who avoided his gaze, then at Laora, who was kneeling stiff and upright, anxiously watching the exchange.

  After a pause, the man turned to Lorenzino. Something passed between them and the men retreated once more into the passage to talk.

  ‘What is happening, Jack?’ murmured Laora.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He wanted to tell her it would be all right, that he would protect her, but the words wouldn’t come.

  Marco was the first to return, nodding to the guards. ‘Untie him.’

  ‘What now?’ Jack questioned, wincing as the guards slashed at the ropes that bound his ankles and wrists. They had to haul him to his feet, his body was so cramped with pain and cold, his limbs tingling like fire as the blood rushed into them. ‘Will you let us go?’ he demanded, when Marco didn’t answer, but gestured Laora to her feet. ‘I answered your questions!’

  ‘Signor Gianotto is taking you into his custody.’

  Jack guessed this was the stranger, but the news was bewildering. ‘What? Why?’

  Marco paused, glancing to the doorway. ‘He and my masters have entered into a partnership,’ he told Jack, his voice low. ‘A new business venture. Signor Gianotto believes you have information that could prove of use to its success.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Jack, but he is taking you with him. Both of you,’ he added, glancing at Laora, some flicker of remorse in his eyes.

  ‘Taking us where?’ Jack demanded. ‘God damn it, Marco! Where?’

  ‘To Spain.’

  Lorenzo stood in his study, his black robes draped with a mantle of purple velvet, lined with ermine. Earlier, opening the shutters of his bedchamber, he’d been greeted by a cold, clear dawn, the sky winter blue, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore blood-red in the rising sun. He had ordered the servants to bring fresh baskets of logs and Papi was now hunched by the hearth, banking up the fire.

  Reaching out, Lorenzo slid a hunting horn, decorated with gold, along the shelf to better fill the gap. There were spaces all over the grand
display. It had been four days since the quake, when he and his family had been caught in the piazza outside San Lorenzo, Black Adam and his bodyguards throwing themselves on top of him as the earth heaved and his children screamed. While many items survived the fall from the shelves, some had not and Bertoldo had spent hours searching through the wreckage of splintered glass and chipped marble, trying to salvage what he could.

  Still, Lorenzo reasoned, it could have been much worse, the palazzo sustaining only minor damage. His eyes alighted on his precious chalice, entwined with serpents and cradled with wings, safe behind the iron grille of the cupboard.

  ‘Signore, shall I bring food?’

  ‘Please, Papi. And summon Marsilio. And Rigo,’ he added.

  ‘Yes, signore.’

  As the old man shuffled out, brushing ashes from his hands, Lorenzo limped to his desk. His toe, when he’d risen, had been swollen, an augur of the gout that troubled him more and more these days. Reaching into the drawer, he pulled out the ivory box in which he kept his grandfather’s ring, a sapphire set in gold. The old man had suffered terribly from the affliction and his physician had recommended the healing properties of the jewel. Lorenzo slid his grandfather’s ring on to his finger.

  There was the usual pile of messages from his secretaries on the desk: requests for an assembly at the Signoria, invitations to banquets. Since Maddalena’s betrothal – the plans for the wedding now set – and the announcement of his son’s entry into the College of Cardinals, the messages had increased in volume and obsequiousness. He tried to focus on a few, but his eyes scanned the words without reading.

  ‘Signore?’

  Lorenzo looked up to see Rigo lingering on the threshold. His staff were used to being barred from this chamber and it was taking them time to adjust to his new openness, now Prince Djem had been moved. Wynter was still adamant that someone other than Franco Martelli and his daughter was responsible for the infiltration of his household and the collusion with Pope Innocent, but with Martelli in prison, Laora vanished, and no further sign of any attempts to interfere with his affairs, Lorenzo had begun to wonder if, as Adam Foxley had believed, Wynter had simply been blinded by love.

  He gestured impatiently to Rigo, who came to stand before him. ‘I take it there has been no word?’

  ‘From James Wynter? No, signore. Not since he was here four days ago.’

  ‘And you didn’t see him leave?’

  ‘No, signore, but . . .’ Rigo shook his head apologetically. ‘The quake. All was chaos.’

  Lorenzo nodded after a pause. ‘Get Black Adam for me.’

  As Rigo bowed and left the chamber, Lorenzo sat back, twisting the ring on his finger. When Wynter hadn’t shown up for their meeting, he had sent Black Adam to the safe house near San Marco. His bodyguard was the only man in his circle other than Marsilio who knew where he was hiding the Turk, although Poliziano, whom he’d grown close to again, now knew of the prince’s existence. Black Adam had returned with news that all was well, but Wynter’s men hadn’t seen him since the quake.

  As the sapphire glittered, catching the burgeoning fire, Lorenzo thought of his grandfather, sitting here behind this desk, wearing this very ring, while he stood at his side, half listening to his talk of the Signoria or his plans for the Academy, half revelling in being close to this man, the most powerful in the republic, perhaps even in Christendom itself.

  Pater Patriae.

  Dear God, but he had almost lost it all – the legacy that had been passed down to him. He couldn’t risk any more failures. He needed to concentrate on strengthening what he’d managed to retain: rebuild the reputation of the Medici Bank, make certain young Giovanni would have a voice in the Vatican, cement his alliance with Prince Djem and seek out New Eden, teach his son and heir, Piero, what his grandfather had taught him. Set the Medici name in the stone of history.

  Lorenzo looked up, hearing footfalls in the grand hall.

  Rigo appeared, hastening through the bedchamber towards him. ‘Signore! Wynter’s men have come!’

  ‘What?’ Lorenzo rose.

  ‘Something has happened and . . .’

  Not waiting for explanation, Lorenzo strode from his study, out through his suite and down the wide staircase to the inner courtyard, Rigo following.

  A small crowd of servants and guards had clustered beneath the bronze statue of David. Bertoldo was there, calling for water and cloths. In their midst were two figures. One, lying sprawled on the floor, was Ned Draper, the other, crouched beside him, was Valentine Holt. Both men were drenched in blood, although most of it seemed to be coming from Ned, pulsing out of a puncture wound in his shoulder, bright red spatters trailing across the marble floor from the doorway. A white dog was whimpering and yapping at his side. As Lorenzo descended, he scanned the rest of the crowd, but there was no sign of Djem. As Valentine Holt turned to him, Lorenzo knew – the prince was gone.

  40

  Harry Vaughan lounged in the shade of an orange tree, the wine he’d drunk with his food making him dozy. Autumn had tempered the Spanish sun, but the afternoons were still warm in the courtyard of the little house on the edges of the Jewish Quarter of Seville granted to him by King Ferdinand for his service in the fight for Málaga.

  The clatter of dishes sounded as his slave, a quiet-voiced girl with spice-brown skin, who bobbed her head in acquiescence to everything he asked, busied herself preparing the evening meal. Already, he could smell it: lamb stewed with saffron and cinnamon, felt his mouth water. The muscles he’d come home from the war with were softening again at his stomach, forcing him to loosen his belt a notch.

  Harry opened his eyes at the distant knock of the door. He sat up, hearing voices. Peter appeared, leading a visitor. It was Don Luys Carrillo. Harry rose eagerly to meet him. Carrillo had been in Córdoba with Queen Isabella for the past fortnight and he’d been awaiting the man’s return with mounting impatience.

  It was several months, now, since Harry had left the court, Ferdinand and Isabella travelling north after the fall of Málaga to take advantage of the temporary peace that had come with the city’s demise to attend to other business in their realm. They had agreed the continuation of the uneasy truce with the emir, Boabdil, but while they set about replenishing their war-drained coffers with the sale of slaves, rewarding supporters and agreeing ransoms for the eminent Moors in their custody, they were making their battle plans for the last bastion of the enemy – the city of Granada.

  Harry, worried the gains he’d made in the court might be affected by the monarchs’ absence, had been appeased by the gift of the house and by Ferdinand’s request that he make an enquiry to King Henry about the possibility of a future union between their daughter, Princess Katherine, and Henry’s infant son, Prince Arthur. But even with his position as ambassador clearly established, he still had a task that remained incomplete and a master in England no less keen for news.

  ‘Señor Luys,’ he greeted. ‘Peter, some wine.’

  Don Luys shook his head at the offer. ‘No, thank you. I’m heading on to my estates from here. I just wanted to inform you that the queen’s commission have given their verdict.’

  ‘And?’ urged Harry.

  ‘The commission have concluded that Cristóbal Colón’s proposal is unfeasible,’ said Carrillo. ‘Impossible, several of them went so far as to declare.’

  Harry bit back his triumph. As Peter stepped out to hand him the wine, he hid his glee in a gulp from the goblet. Already, in his mind, he was composing his message to King Henry. Of course, he would be sure to highlight his quick-witted thinking back at Málaga when questioned by Ferdinand, which had no doubt led to the commission’s final decision and the thwarting of Columbus’s plan. Henry would surely be delighted.

  Word from England over the past year had not been good. There had been a coup against Henry that had sought to set a Yorkist pretender – a boy named Lambert Simnel – on the throne of England. The rebellion had been crushed and the ringleaders imprisone
d, but Harry knew the king would welcome this news. In the last message he’d received, Henry had informed him that he’d replaced Thomas Croft, the Bristol customs official who had led the Trinity expeditions, with one of his own men; the first preparation for a voyage west.

  ‘No matter,’ Harry told Carrillo, with feigned disappointment. ‘The sailor’s notion was merely a passing interest of my lord’s.’

  ‘The sailor’s plan may be ailing, but it isn’t dead yet. More’s the pity.’

  Harry lowered his goblet. ‘What?’

  ‘Lady Isabella still believes it has potential, no matter the judgement of her commission, or the belief of her husband. She told Cristóbal Colón she will consider his proposal again, when the city of Granada has fallen.’

  ‘I see,’ said Harry, gritting his teeth.

  ‘Have you heard any word? From your king?’ Carrillo’s face tightened at the question.

  Harry shook his head. ‘My lord king has agents hunting for Wynter, that I can assure you. God willing, they will find him.’

  Carrillo studied his face, then nodded. ‘If you hear anything . . .?’

  ‘You will be the first to know.’ The lie came easily to Harry. Carrillo would never know he’d not written to Henry about this. Wynter was long gone and good riddance. He would turn over no stone in search of the bastard.

  ‘Well, I must be about my affairs. Good day to you, señor.’

  ‘Good day.’ Harry kept the smile on his face until Carrillo had gone, then cursed and poured himself another drink, wine sloshing over the rim.

  Telling Peter he would sleep until dinner, he made his way up to his room.

  As he pushed open the shutters, the chamber was flooded with the sun’s golden glow. Sitting on the window seat, he looked out over a jumble of red-tiled roofs, past the lofty bell-tower of the cathedral, the Giralda, to the Guadalquivir. He cursed again and drained his wine. Columbus seemed to be a stain that wouldn’t wash out.