Renaissance

by Oliver Bowden

  At last he saw a dim light ahead, and, moving more slowly now, advanced towards it. He stayed in the shadows as he came within earshot of the five men he could see ahead, silhouetted in the lamplight of a cramped, and very ancient, chapel.

  He recognized Francesco immediately – a small, wiry, intense creature who, as Ezio arrived, was bowed before two tonsured priests he did not recognize. The older of the two was giving the blessing in a clear, nasal voice: ‘Et benedictio Dei Omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et Spiritu Sancti descendat super vos et maneat semper…’ As his face caught the light, Ezio recognized him; he was Stefano da Bagnone, secretary to Francesco’s uncle Jacopo. Jacopo himself stood near him.

  ‘Thank you, padre,’ said Francesco when the blessing was concluded. He straightened himself and addressed a fourth man, who was standing beside the priests. ‘Bernardo, give us your report.’

  ‘Everything is in readiness. We have a full armoury of swords, staves, axes, bows and crossbows.’

  ‘A simple dagger would be best for the job,’ put in the younger of the two priests.

  ‘It depends on the circumstances, Antonio,’ said Francesco.

  ‘Or poison,’ continued the younger priest. ‘But it doesn’t matter, as long as he dies. I will not easily forgive him for bringing down Volterra, my birthplace and my only true home.’

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said the man called Bernardo. We all have motive enough. Now, thanks to Pope Sixtus, we also have the means.’

  ‘Indeed, Messer Baroncelli,’ replied Antonio. ‘But do we have his blessing?’

  A voice came from the deep shadows beyond the lamplight at the rear of the chapel, ‘He gives his blessing to our operation, “provided that nobody is killed”.’

  The owner of the voice emerged into the lamplight and Ezio drew in his breath as he recognized the cowled figure in crimson, though all of his face but the sneer on his lips was covered by the shadow of his hood. So this was the principal visitor from Rome: Rodrigo Borgia, il Spagnolo!

  The conspirators all shared his knowing smile. They all knew where the Pope’s loyalty lay, and that it was the cardinal who stood before them who controlled him. But naturally, the Supreme Pontiff could not openly condone the spilling of blood.

  ‘It’s good that the job can be done at last,’ said Francesco. ‘We’ve had enough setbacks. As it is, killing them in the cathedral will draw heavy criticism on us.’

  ‘It is our last and only option,’ said Rodrigo, with authority. ‘And as we are doing God’s work in ridding Florence of such scum, the setting is appropriate. Besides, once we control the city, let the people murmur against us – if they dare!’

  ‘Still, they keep changing their plans,’ said Bernardo Baroncelli. ‘I’m even going to have to have someone call on his younger brother Giuliano to make sure he’s up in time for High Mass.’

  All the men laughed at that, except Jacopo and the Spaniard, who had noticed his sober expression.

  ‘What is it, Jacopo?’ Rodrigo asked the older Pazzi. ‘Do you think they suspect something?’

  Before Jacopo could speak, his nephew waded in impatiently. ‘It’s impossible! The Medici are too arrogant or too stupid even to notice!’

  ‘Do not underestimate our enemies,’ Jacopo chided him. ‘Don’t you see that it was Medici money that funded the campaign against us at San Gimignano?’

  ‘There will be no such problems this time,’ snarled his nephew, bridling at having been corrected in front of his peers, and with the memory of his son Vieri’s death still green in his mind.

  In the silence that followed, Bernardo turned to Stefano de Bagnone. ‘I’ll need to borrow a set of your priestly robes for tomorrow morning, padre. The more they think they’re surrounded by clerics, the safer they’ll feel.’

  ‘Who will strike?’ asked Rodrigo.

  ‘I!’ said Francesco.

  ‘And I!’ chimed in Stefano, Antonio and Bernardo.

  ‘Good.’ Rodrigo paused. ‘I think on the whole daggers would be best. So much easier to conceal, and very handy when close work is involved. But it’s still good to have the Pope’s armoury as well – I don’t doubt but there’ll be a few loose ends to clear up once the Medici brothers are no more.’ He raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over his fellow conspirators. ‘Dominus vobiscum, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘And may the Father of Understanding guide us.’ He looked around. ‘Well, I think that concludes our business. You must forgive me if I take my leave of you now. There are several things I need to do before I return to Rome, and I must be on my way before dawn. It wouldn’t do at all for me to be seen in Florence on the day the House of Medici crumbled to dust.’

  Ezio waited, pressed against a wall in the shadows, until the six men had departed, leaving him in darkness. Only when he was quite sure that he was fully alone did he produce his own lamp and strike a tinder to its wick.

  He made his way back the way he had come. The Fox was waiting in the shadowy Rucellai chapel. Ezio, with a full heart, told him what he had heard.

  ‘… To murder Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici in the cathedral at High Mass tomorrow morning?’ said the Fox when Ezio had finished, and Ezio could see that for once the man was almost at a loss for words. ‘It is sacrilege! And it is worse than that – if Florence should fall to the Pazzi, then God help us all.’

  Ezio was lost in thought. ‘Can you get me a seat in the cathedral tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘Close to the altar. Near the Medici?’

  The Fox looked grave. ‘Hard, but perhaps not impossible.’ He looked at the young man. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Ezio, but this is something you cannot possibly pull off alone.’

  ‘I can try, and I have the element of surprise. And more than one stranger’s face among the aristocrazia near the front might arouse the Pazzis’ suspicions. But you must get me in there, Gilberto.’

  ‘Call me the Fox,’ Gilberto answered him, then grinning, ‘Only foxes can match me for cunning.’ He paused. ‘Meet me in front of the Duomo half an hour before High Mass.’ He looked Ezio in the eye with new respect. ‘I will help if I can, Messer Ezio. Your father would have been proud of you.’

  9

  Ezio arose before dawn the following day, Sunday 26 April, and made his way to the cathedral. Very few people were about, though a handful of monks and nuns were making their way to perform the rite of Lauds. Aware that he should avoid notice, he climbed arduously to the very top of the campanile and watched the sun rise over the city. Gradually, beneath him, the square began to fill with citizens of every description, families and couples, merchants and nobles, eager to attend the main service of the day, graced as it would be by the presence of the Duke and his younger brother and co-ruler. Ezio surveyed the people keenly, and when he saw the Fox arrive on the cathedral steps, he made his way to the side of the tower least in view and clambered down, agile as a monkey, to join him, remembering to keep his head low and to blend in as far as was possible with the crowd, using his fellow-citizens as cover. He had put on his best clothes for the occasion, and wore no weapon openly, though many of his male fellow citizens, of the wealthy merchant and banking class, had ceremonial swords at their waistbands. He could not resist keeping an eye out for Cristina, but he did not see her.

  ‘Here you are,’ said the Fox, as Ezio joined him. ‘All the arrangements have been made, and a place reserved for you on the aisle in the third row.’ As he spoke, the crowd on the steps parted, and a row of heralds raised trumpets to their lips and blew a fanfare. ‘They’re coming,’ he added.

  Entering the square from the Baptistry side, Lorenzo de’ Medici appeared first with his wife Clarice at his side. She held little Lucrezia, their oldest, by the hand, and five-year-old Piero marched proudly on his father’s right. Behind them, accompanied by her nurse, came three-year-old Maddalena, while baby Leo, swaddled in white satin, was carried by his. They were followed by Giuliano and his heavily pregnant mistress, Fioretta. The mass of people in the square bowed low as they
passed, to be met at the entrance to the Duomo by two of the attendant priests, whom Ezio recognized with a thrill of horror – Stefano da Bagnone and the one from Volterra, whose full name, as the Fox told him, was Antonio Maffei.

  The Medici family entered the cathedral, followed by the priests, and they were followed by the citizens of Florence, in order of rank. The Fox nudged Ezio and pointed. Among the throng he had spotted Francesco de’ Pazzi and his fellow conspirator, Bernardo Baroncelli, disguised as a deacon. ‘Go now,’ he hissed urgently to Ezio. ‘Keep close to them.’

  More and more people crowded into the cathedral until it could hold no more, so that those who had hoped for a place had to be content to remain outside. Ten thousand people had gathered in all, and the Fox had never seen such a great assembly in Florence in all his life. He prayed silently for Ezio’s success.

  Inside, the crowd settled in the stifling heat. Ezio had not been able to get as close to Francesco and the others as he had wished, but kept them under close eye, calculating what he would have to do to reach them as soon as they started their attack. The Bishop of Florence, meanwhile, had taken his place before the high altar, and the Mass began.

  It was at the point when the Bishop was blessing the bread and wine that Ezio noticed Francesco and Bernardo exchange glances. The Medici family was seated just in front of them. At the same moment, the priests Bagnone and Maffei, on the lower steps of the altar, and closest to Lorenzo and Giuliano, looked round surreptitiously. The bishop turned to face the congregation, raised aloft the golden goblet, and started to speak.

  ‘The Blood of Christ…’

  Then everything happened at once. Baroncelli sprang to his feet with a cry of ‘Creapa, traditore!’ and plunged a dagger into Giuliano’s neck from behind. A fountain of blood spewed from the wound, showering Fioretta, who fell screaming to her knees.

  ‘Let me finish the bastard!’ yelled Francesco, elbowing Baroncelli aside and throwing Giuliano, who was trying to staunch his wound with his hands, to the floor. Francesco knelt astride him and plunged his dagger over and over again into his victim’s body, in such a frenzy that once, without seeming to notice, he drove his weapon into his own thigh. Giuliano was long dead before Francesco had struck him the nineteenth, and last, blow.

  Meanwhile Lorenzo, with a cry of alarm, had spun round to face his brother’s attackers, while Clarice and the nurses bundled the children and Fioretta to safety. There was confusion everywhere. Lorenzo had spurned the idea of having his bodyguards close – a murderous attack in a church was a thing all but unheard of – but now they struggled to reach him through the mass of confused and panic-stricken worshippers, jostling and trampling each other in order to get away from the scene of butchery, but the situation was made far worse by the heat, and the fact that there was scarcely any room to move at all…

  Except for the area immediately in front of the altar. The Bishop and his attendant priests stood aghast, rooted to the spot, but Bagnone and Maffei, seeing Lorenzo’s back turned to them, seized their opportunity and, drawing daggers from their robes, fell on him from behind.

  Priests are rarely experienced killers, and however noble they believed their cause to be, the two managed only to give Lorenzo flesh wounds before he shook them off. But in the struggle they got the better of him again, and now Francesco, limping from his self-inflicted wound but empowered by all the hatred that was boiling within him, was closing in too, roaring imprecations as he came, raising his dagger. Bagnone and Maffei, unmanned by what they had done, turned and fled in the direction of the apse; but Lorenzo was staggering, blood pouring from him, and a cut high on the right shoulder had made his sword-arm useless.

  ‘Your day is done, Lorenzo!’ Francesco screamed. ‘Your entire misbegotten family dies by my sword!’

  ‘Infame!’ returned Lorenzo. ‘I’ll kill you now!’

  ‘With that arm?’ sneered Francesco, and raised his dagger to strike.

  As his fist plunged down, a strong hand caught his wrist and arrested its motion, before flinging him round. Francesco found himself looking into the face of another sworn enemy.

  ‘Ezio!’ he growled. ‘You! Here!’

  ‘It’s your day that is done, Francesco!’

  The crowd was clearing, and Lorenzo’s guards were pushing closer. Baroncelli had arrived at Francesco’s side. ‘Come, we must fly. It’s over!’ he shouted.

  ‘I’ll deal with these curs first,’ said Francesco, but his face was drawn. His own wound was bleeding hard.

  ‘No! We must retreat!’

  Francesco looked furious, but there was agreement in his face. ‘This isn’t over,’ he told Ezio.

  ‘No, it isn’t. Wherever you go, I will follow, Francesco, until I have cut you down.’

  Glaring, Francesco turned and followed Baroncelli, who was already vanishing behind the high altar. There had to be a door out of the cathedral in the apse. Ezio prepared to follow.

  ‘Wait!’ a broken voice behind him said. ‘Let them go. They won’t get far. I need you here. I need your help.’

  Ezio turned to see the Duke sprawled on the ground between two overturned chairs. Not far away, his family huddled and wept, Clarice, a look of horror on her face, embracing her two oldest children tightly. Fioretta was staring dully in the direction of Giuliano’s twisted and mangled corpse.

  Lorenzo’s guards had arrived. ‘Look after my family,’ he told them. ‘The city will be in uproar over this. Get them to the palazzo and bar the doors.’

  He turned to Ezio. ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘I did my duty! Now the Pazzi must pay the full price!’ Ezio helped Lorenzo up, and placed him gently on a chair. Looking up, he saw that the Bishop and the other priests were nowhere to be seen. Behind him, people were still pushing and shoving, clawing at each other, to get out of the cathedral by the main western doors. ‘I must go after Francesco!’ he said.

  ‘No!’ said Lorenzo. ‘I can’t make it to safety on my own. You must help me. Get me to San Lorenzo. I have friends there.’

  Ezio was torn, but he knew how much Lorenzo had done for his own family. He could not blame him for failing to prevent the deaths of his kinsmen, for how could anyone have predicted the suddenness of that attack? And now Lorenzo himself was the victim. He was still alive, too; but he would not be for long unless Ezio could get him to the nearest place where he could be treated. The church of San Lorenzo was only a short distance north-west of the Baptistry.

  He bound Lorenzo’s wounds as best he could, with strips torn from his own shirt. Then he lifted him gently to his feet. ‘Put your left arm round my shoulder. Good. Now, there must be a way out beyond the altar…’

  They hobbled in the direction their assailants had taken, and soon came to a small open door with bloodstains on its threshold. This was no doubt the way Francesco had gone. Might he be lying in wait? It would be hard for Ezio to release his spring-blade dagger, still less fight, while supporting Lorenzo on his right side. But he had his metal bracer strapped to his left forearm.

  They made their way into the square outside the north wall of the cathedral and were greeted with scenes of confusion and chaos. They made their way west along the side of the cathedral, after Ezio had paused to wrap his cape over Lorenzo’s shoulders in a makeshift attempt to disguise him. In the piazza between the cathedral and the Baptistry, groups of men wearing the liveries of the Pazzi and the Medici were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, so engrossed that Ezio was able to slink past them, but as they reached the street that led up to the Piazza San Lorenzo they were confronted by two men wearing the dolphin-and-crosses insignia. Both carried ugly-looking falchions.

  ‘Halt!’ one of the guards said. ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’

  ‘I must get this man to safety,’ said Ezio.

  ‘And who might you be?’ said the second guard, unpleasantly. He came forward and peered at Lorenzo’s face. Lorenzo, half-fainting, turned away, but as he did so the cape slipped, revealing the Medi
ci crest on his doublet.

  ‘Oho,’ said the second guard, turning to his friend. ‘Looks like we might have caught a very big fish here, Terzago!’

  Ezio’s brain raced. He couldn’t let go of Lorenzo, who was still losing blood. But if he didn’t, he couldn’t use his weapon. He raised his left foot quickly and gave the guard a shove in the arse. He fell, sprawling. In seconds, his mate came for them, falchion raised. As the blade came down, Ezio parried, and, using his wrist-guard, deflected the blow. As he did so, he swung his left arm, forcing the sword away, cutting at the man with the double-bladed dagger attached to the wrist-guard, though he could not get enough purchase to kill the man with it. And now the second guard was on his feet again, coming to the aid of his comrade, who in turn had staggered back, surprised that he had not cut Ezio’s forearm off.

  Ezio stopped the second blade in the same way, but this time he managed to run the wrist-guard down the cutting edge of the sword until it hit the hilt, bringing his hand in range of the man’s wrist. He seized and twisted it so rapidly and hard that the man let go of his weapon with a sharp cry of pain. Stooping quickly, Ezio grabbed the falchion almost before it had hit the ground. It was hard, working with his left hand and encumbered by Lorenzo’s weight, but he slashed it round and cut halfway through the guard’s neck before he could recover. The second guard was coming at him again now, bellowing with anger. Ezio parried with his falchion and he and the guard cut and thrust at each other several times. But the guard, unaware still of the concealed metal bracer on Ezio’s left arm, aimed blow after useless blow at it. Ezio’s arm ached and he could barely keep on his feet, but at last he saw an opportunity. The man’s helmet had worked loose, but the man was unaware of this and was looking down at Ezio’s forearm, preparing to aim another blow at it. Swiftly, Ezio flicked his own blade up, feinting as though he had missed, but actually he succeeded in knocking the helmet off the man’s head. Then, before he could react, Ezio slammed the heavy falchion down on the man’s skull and split it in two. The falchion stuck there and Ezio was unable to work it loose. The man stood stock still for a moment, his eyes still wide with surprise, before crumpling to the dust. Looking quickly around, Ezio hauled Lorenzo up the street.