by Mary Hoffman
‘It will be odd for me to live in the Palazzo Ducale again,’ she said to him.
‘It will be bliss,’ he said, smiling. ‘Just think, we never had the chance to live together as man and wife and we have been together more than twenty years and have a grown-up daughter.’
‘Don’t,’ said Silvia. ‘You’ll make me feel old.’
‘You are as beautiful now as when I first met you,’ said Rodolfo, tightening his hold on her. ‘And this time all the world will know that we are married and nothing shall ever separate us again.’
There were few women at that party, but Dethridge led Giuditta on to the floor and Raffaella stopped playing to dance with Sky. She was vividly beautiful and danced with the flamboyance of her people, which rather embarrassed him.
The friars found it highly amusing that one of their novices should have such an exotic dancing partner, even though most of them knew by now that Sky was not a real friar, but an important visitor in disguise. The liveliness of the music caused even Brother Tullio to take to the floor. He grabbed Brother Sandro by both hands and whirled him round, Brother Dog barking excitedly as they twirled round the refectory.
‘They look happy, don’t they?’ said Luciano.
‘Sandro and Tullio?’ asked Arianna.
‘Rodolfo and Silvia, silly,’ he said, smiling down at her.
‘Is it wrong to be so happy after so many people have died?’ she asked. ‘You and I have both killed someone and yet I feel better than I have for a long time.’
But before Luciano had time to answer, Gaetano burst into the refectory.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to break up the party, but Fabrizio has just issued his first arrest warrant. And it’s for Luciano.’
*
Franco the apprentice was driving a cart out of the city gate that opened on the road to Bellezza. He had a flagon of wine at his feet and a pretty girl beside him on the box. The guards had orders to stop all those leaving the city and search their vehicles for any signs of the traitorous Cavaliere Luciano of Bellezza who had killed the Grand Duke by foul means.
‘Good evening,’ said Franco politely to the largest of them, a man he recognised. Franco was well known for his exploits within and without the walls of the city and had a night territory the size of a tomcat’s.
‘Ah, Franco,’ said the guard. ‘What might your business be on the road so late?’
‘I am transporting a statue for my mistress,
Maestra Miele,’ said Franco honestly. ‘It is the statue she made of the beautiful young Duchessa of Bellezza. Perhaps word of it has reached you? Another masterpiece.’
‘Are you taking it to Bellezza?’ asked the guard.
‘Indeed,’ said Franco. ‘And you see I have found another little masterpiece to accompany me on the road.’
‘A masterpiece of the street, certainly,’ said the man, and his companions all joined in the coarse laughter. ‘You won’t mind if I take a look at the load?’
Franco jumped down and untied the canvas cover that had been roped over the cart. There was a massive packing case of light wood, packed in by blankets to stop it from being jolted.
‘Big girl, that Duchessa,’ joked one of the guards.
‘Like the woman who made her,’ said another. ‘Did you ever see the size of her? Keep a whole company of us warm, that one would.’
Franco wanted to punch him on the nose; he adored Giuditta. But he kept quiet. He was a man on a mission and had no desire to cause trouble.
‘I should get you to open her up,’ said the guard Franco knew. There was a crowbar in the cart for when the statue reached its destination.
Franco sighed. ‘You can’t believe how long it took us to pack her up,’ he said in the grumbling tones of apprentices the world over. ‘Sacking, straw, more sacking. That’s why I’m setting off so late. It took three hours to get the Duchessa in her box. Everything has to be done just so for Giuditta Miele.’
‘Otherwise you’re for it, I suppose?’ said one of the guards.
‘I wouldn’t mind if she wanted to spank me,’ said another.
More laughter. Franco had an idiotic grin fixed on his face.
‘Oh well, let be,’ said the chief guard. ‘I trust you. Look at that face,’ he told his men. ‘Can’t imagine an angel like that lying, can you?’
‘Can’t imagine an angel doing lots of things that one gets up to,’ said one of them, setting them off again.
Franco gritted his teeth behind his angelic smile.
‘I appreciate it,’ he said. ‘It’s a long way to Bellezza.’
At last the cart was through the gate and Franco was on his way.
Inside the wooden crate, Luciano sighed with relief. He had his arms round Arianna and, if she was cold and unresponsive, it was because she was only a statue.
*
After Gaetano had broken up the wedding party and the Bellezzans had all left, Sky had a long talk with Sulien before stravagating home. Georgia and Nicholas had been true to their new pact and not stravagated back to Giglia again. And Sky felt that his mission in the city was over. There was a sad autumnal feeling in the air, even though summer had not yet begun.
‘My father turned up,’ he said to Sulien, as they walked slowly round the Great Cloister.
The friar looked at him closely. ‘And how do you find him?’ he asked.
Sky shrugged. ‘He’s OK, I suppose. Generous with his money, anyway, trying to make up for lost time. But I don’t know him. I feel I know you better than I do him.’
‘But you have made a start,’ said Sulien. ‘Surely that is better than wondering about him?’
‘He wants me to visit him in America, where he lives,’ explained Sky. ‘And I’ve said I’ll go. It looks as if everything is going to be different from what I thought. My mother is getting together with my girlfriend’s father and it looks as if I’ll be able to study sculpture after all.’
‘Then you will be an apprentice of Giuditta’s, in a manner of speaking,’ said Sulien.
‘Maybe,’ said Sky. ‘But I won’t be able to come here and do it properly. I think perhaps I should stop visiting Giglia. I’ve felt torn in half for too long. At first I had no father and now I seem to have acquired two.’
Brother Sulien put his arm round Sky’s shoulder. ‘There will always be a third here for you if you need one,’ he said. ‘You have done whatever was asked of you here and we should do whatever we can for you.’
In the school cafeteria four friends sat together. Sky was telling the others about the wedding and the party after it. Alice was enjoying it; this was much more the sort of thing she liked – not duels and murders.
‘At least you got through one wedding in Talia without anyone getting stabbed then,’ she said.
Sky had just been going to tell them about Gaetano and the news of Luciano’s escape from the city hidden in Giuditta Miele’s cart. Then he noticed that Georgia and Nicholas were holding hands under the table. He decided not to mention Luciano.
Sky turned to Alice. ‘What do you think about your dad and my mum?’
‘It’s weird,’ said Alice. ‘Weird for us, I mean. But I think they make a great couple. She’s nice, your mum.’
‘Yes,’ said Sky. ‘She is, isn’t she?’
‘You’re supposed to say – “he’s nice, too”, Sky,’ said Alice.
‘Well, he is,’ said Sky. ‘I like him. But it would be a bit peculiar having him as a stepdad.’
‘Do you think it will come to that?’ said Georgia, seeing that Alice was dumbstruck.
‘What would that make you two?’ asked Nicholas. In spite of all that had happened he was feeling light-headed with happiness. He had accepted his fate. And Georgia was holding his hand.
‘Close relations,’ said Sky.
‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ said Alice shakily. ‘I think I could handle that.’
‘I don’t think it will happen till we’ve gone to university, anyway,�
�� said Sky. ‘I think they’ll wait till then to make it easier on us.’
‘Are you definitely going to take up your dad’s offer, then?’ asked Georgia.
‘Yes,’ said Sky. ‘And I’m going to do part of my degree in California and live with him and Loretta for a year. He’s offered to pay for that too and I think I owe him that much.’
‘You won’t be able to stravagate from there,’ said Nicholas.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Sky. ‘And I think I’m going to give it up. Hang up my talisman and my friar’s robes. I’d better concentrate on my exams if I want to get into university.’
At a staging post on the road between Giglia and Bellezza, some very grand carriages were drawn up at an inn. The Duchessa of Bellezza, her father the Regent and his new wife, and their many bodyguards and servants were all being entertained by a flustered landlord. The young Duchessa was restless, casting many looks out of the window.
At last she heard the rattle of cartwheels.
‘I am in need of a breath of air,’ she said. ‘I shall go and see how my cats are faring.’ Taking only one guard, she stepped out into the night. She headed for the stables, where a weary Franco jumped down from the box and started to unharness the horses, who objected to the presence of the African cats in the stall next to them. Franco’s young companion had been packed off back to Giglia at the last staging-post.
‘Good evening, your Grace,’ he said, bowing. ‘You see that your statue follows you safely to Bellezza.’
‘I am anxious to see if it is all right,’ said Arianna.
‘Certainly,’ said Franco. He pulled back the canvas and pried open the crate with the crowbar, quite easily, for he had opened it a few times already on this journey and the lid was tacked only lightly into place.
The bodyguard’s hand went to his sword when he saw a young man jump out, but the Duchessa laughed and Franco put out his hand to stop the guard drawing his weapon.
‘Let us give them some time alone, my friend,’ he said, taking the guard by the arm and leading him out of the stable. ‘The Duchessa is in no danger from that one. He would give his life for her – and very nearly did.’
‘Luciano!’ said Arianna. ‘I am so pleased to see you safe.’
He took her in his arms and kissed her. And, unlike the statue, she responded warmly.
‘Your hair is full of straw,’ she said, when they pulled apart.
‘I am altogether unworthy of your elegant and beautiful Grace,’ said Luciano, holding her at arm’s length. ‘Do take off your mask so I can see your expression.’
‘My guard will run you through if he catches you looking at my face,’ said Arianna, untying the mask.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Luciano. ‘I think it might be treason to kill a Duke.’
‘But you’re not a Duke,’ said Arianna.
‘I will be if you marry me,’ said Luciano and kissed her again. He could see her expression clearly now. ‘Won’t I? Duke Luciano of Bellezza, Consort of the beautiful Duchessa?’
‘Yes,’ said Arianna. ‘You would be.’
‘Would?’
‘If you asked me.’
‘I’m asking.’
‘And if I accepted.’
‘Do you?’
‘I do,’ said Arianna. ‘With all my heart.’
And she threw her mask away.
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A Note on the di Chimici and the Medici
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The history of the Medici is as tightly bound up with the city of Florence as that of the di Chimici is with Giglia. The Medici, or de’ Medici to give them their proper Italian name, were a family which might have had an ancestor who was a doctor (‘medico’). The six red balls on their family crest might represent pharmaceutical pills – or that might all be part of the family legend. What is certain is that, like the di Chimici, the Medici owed their fortune to banking.
The first Medici banker was Giovanni (1360–1429), roughly equivalent to the di Chimici ancestor Ferdinando. The Medici family benefited when King Edward III of England failed to pay back a gigantic loan to two other Florentine banking families, the Bardi and the Peruzzi. They never recovered. Cosimo the Elder (1389–1464), who married a Bardi, commissioned Brunelleschi (who built the church of San Lorenzo in Florence and the dome for the city’s huge cathedral) to design a palace for him on the Via Larga, or broad street.
The plans were considered too grand and Cosimo switched to Michelozzo Michelozzi, whose palazzo (Medici-Riccardi) can still be visited on the Via Cavour (the modem name of the Via Larga). I stayed one block up the road from it when starting to write City of Flowers. It houses the fabulous Benozzo Gozzoli fresco of the journey of the Magi in its chapel, which is supposed to include portraits of prominent Medici family members.
Piero de’ Medici (1416–1469), roughly equivalent to Fabrizio di Chimici, first Duke of Giglia, was best known for being the father of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He ruled for only five years, but his son Lorenzo (1449–1492), equivalent to Alfonso di Chimici, Niccolò’s father, was in power for twenty-three years.
Lorenzo de’ Medici, ‘il magnifico’, is the one that most people think of when they hear the name Medici. He was a great patron of the arts, a scholar, poet, philosopher and soldier, as well as a great womaniser, though a fond husband, a good friend and an implacable enemy.
I have bestowed the title of Duke much earlier in the di Chimici family, on Fabrizio (1425–1485). In fact it was Alessandro, the illegitimate son of Pope Clement VII, who first called himself Duke of Florence, in 1532. But the Medici then catch up, because Cosimo I, great-grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had himself made Grand Duke in 1569, ten years before Niccolò di Chimici had the same idea.
Several Medici were Popes, like Ferdinando di Chimici, Lenient VI, the first being Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici, 1475–1521), Lorenzo’s oldest son. Leo was as fond of eating and drinking as Ferdinando di Chimici, once serving a twenty-five course meal for six hundred guests.
As for enemies, the Medici had far more than the di Chimici! The Albizzi family, the Pitti, the Pazzi, the Strozzi . . . Florentine history is littered with them. The Pazzi conspiracy of 1478 was supposed to kill both Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. The younger brother was indeed stabbed to death, during Easter Mass in the cathedral, but Lorenzo was only wounded. All the Pazzi were killed, imprisoned or exiled as Lorenzo avenged his brother.
It wasn’t the first assassination attempt on a de’ Medici. The Pitti had engineered one on Piero in 1466, as a result of which they lost the grand palace being built for them on the far side of Arno, which bears their name to this day. Brunelleschi was their first architect, but building stopped for a hundred years. The restless Grand Duke Cosimo moved from the Medici palace on the Via Larga to the Palazzo Vecchio in 1539 and into the Pitti Palace nine years later, though that technically belonged to his wife Eleonora of Toledo. Grand Duke Niccolò made the equivalent moves in a few weeks.
Although his grandfather Alfonso is closest in dates to Lorenzo the Magnificent, Gaetano resembles the flower of the Medici family closely in being charming but ugly, courteous, learned and a lover of the arts, as well as a fine horseman and swordsman. (He will make a much more faithful husband, however.)
But there is no historical equivalent to Falco. He was invented by me, inspired by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s account of his solitary childhood wandering through the vast emptiness of his family’s palaces, and by my two distant cousins, William and Henry, devoted brothers, one of whom badly damaged his leg (though, being a twenty-first-century young man, not with such disastrous consequences as Falco). All the rest of the di Chimici are complete inventions.
The dukes and princes of the di Chimici gave all their sons and daughters the honorary titles of Principe (prince) and Principessa (princess). They soon became princes and dukes in their own right anyway, as the di Chimici acquired power in more city-states of Talia (see Dramatis Personae).
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Dramatis Personae
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Stravaganti
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William Dethridge, the Elizabethan who discovered the art of stravagation. Known in Talia as Guglielmo Crinamorte
Rodolfo Rossi, Regent of Bellezza
Luciano Crinamorte (formerly Lucien Mulholland), foster-son of William Dethridge and Leonora. First apprentice and then assistant to Rodolfo
Suliano Fabriano (Brother Sulien), pharmacist-friar at Saint-Mary-among-the-Vines
Giuditta Miele, sculptor in Giglia
Sky Meadows (Celestino Pascoli, or Brother Tino), sixth-former at Barnsbury Comprehensive
Georgia O’Grady, sixth-former at Barnsbury Comprehensive
Nicholas Duke (formerly Falco di Chimici), Year 10 student at Barnsbury Comprehensive
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di Chimici
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Niccolò, Duke of Giglia
Fabrizio, Niccolò’s eldest son
Carlo, Niccolò’s second son
Gaetano, Niccolò’s third son
Beatrice, Niccolò’s daughter
Ferdinando (Pope Lenient VI), Prince of Remora
Rinaldo, the Pope’s chaplain and nephew, formerly Reman Ambassador to Bellezza
Alfonso, Duke of Volana, Rinaldo’s older brother
Caterina of Volana, Rinaldo’s younger sister, engaged to be married to Prince Fabrizio
Isabella, dowager Duchess of Volana, their mother
Jacopo, Prince of Fortezza
Princess Carolina, his wife
Lucia, their older daughter, engaged to be married to Prince Carlo
Bianca, their younger daughter, engaged to be married to Duke Alfonso of Volana
Francesca of Bellona, engaged to be married to Prince Gaetano
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Nucci
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Matteo Nucci, a rich wool merchant
Graziella, his wife
Camillo, their eldest son
Filippo, their second son