Suicide Kings

by Christopher J. Ferguson

  Diana walked with her head down, thinking and ignoring the other pedestrians. She realized her boots were crunching new-fallen snow and looked up at the light gray sky while icy flakes fell onto her face. Snowing again, and looking like it would be a significant amount. Would this winter never end?

  It was curious, what Savonarola had said about potentially finding answers to her questions that she wouldn’t like. He had used that to lead into insinuations about her father. What troubled her now was that Savonarola hadn’t been the only one to warn her. If he knew something more, he appeared disinclined to tell her. The other had been the anchoress, Francesca di Lucca, who’d made the same warning as part of a prophesy. Perhaps the theatrics about divine inspiration had merely been that—theatrics. Or perhaps a girl foolish enough to barricade herself in a cold cell, would be impressionable enough to interpret a bit of overheard gossip as a holy prophesy. No doubt the anchoress overheard immeasurable amounts of tittle-tattle as townspeople came to her for prayers and intercessions. Maybe she’d even received a confession or partial confession that had influenced her. Anchoress or not, what she heard from others was not bound by the sanctity of priestly privilege. Whatever the girl knew, Diana would find some way to wrench it out of her.

  Determined, Diana turned to the South, across the Arno for the walk to the convent at Sant Cecilia. She crossed the Ponte Vecchio and headed up into the foothills, reaching the convent by midday. The grounds were quiet, only a few of the sisters out and these ignored her. She moved quickly to the little alcove of the anchoress, which she blessedly found free of other penitents. In fact, the stone shelter seemed so quiet she irrationally thought that the anchoress might have left the structure for some form of holiday.

  Peering in through the window, she found Francesca di Lucca resting on the simple cot within. To announce herself, Diana tapped her fingers against the stone wall. The sound was disappointing, but it sufficed to stir Francesca. The anchoress’ face lit up. “Diana Savrano, I am surprised to see you here again. It is a pleasure that you would visit me. How have you been?”

  Diana put her hands on the sill, startled by the cold stone. How could the poor foolish girl survive like this? “Things are a little unbalanced, as you might imagine.”

  “I’ve been thinking of you much since you came last. I hope I did not upset you greatly.”

  The forlorn expression on Francesca’s face touched Diana. “You didn’t upset me,” she assured her, struggling to place a smile on her face. “In fact I hoped to speak with you a bit about that day.” She found it hard to think of the words. At last she burst out with a little self-conscious laughter. “Oh my, you know I should have brought you something, some fresh bread or some good wine.”

  Francesca smiled. “I didn’t ask to be secluded behind these walls to be given offerings. I appreciate the thought. Have you come to pray with me?”

  Diana looked down. “Not exactly, I’m afraid. I’ve come to ask you about the other day when you gave me the…prophecy. You told me something to the effect that I would be troubled by what I might find.”

  Francesca watched her without saying a word.

  Diana continued on, “I’ve just met with Friar Savonarola and he told me much the same thing.”

  “Friar Savonarola,” Francesca repeated with raised eyebrows, although her thoughts were otherwise unfathomable.

  “Yes. Obviously it occurs to me that he might know something, although I have little means to persuade him to tell me anything he does not wish. As an alternative, I hoped perhaps the words you said to me might have been influenced by something you might have heard. People speak to you of many things, town gossip, confessions…”

  Francesca looked confused. “My words to you were influenced only by God.”

  Diana winced. How would she get what she wanted from the girl without offending her religious sensibilities, nonsense though they might be? “Yes, but sometimes God works in odd ways, does he not? Perhaps if you think back there might be something, a past meeting with a penitent that planted the seed of some suspicion.”

  Francesca shook her head after only a moment of thought. “Nothing I can recollect. Besides, even if someone had told me something, I’m not sure I would be allowed to repeat it to you. If it were said in confidence between them and God, that is.”

  A hot wellspring of frustration rose up in her. “You’re no priest,” she accused with unintended venom, “you do not intercede on behalf of God. What people say to you and you to them has no special meaning.”

  The words spent, Diana’s frustration eased, yet she immediately regretted her lack of tact. Francesca looked stunned, deeply wounded. The older girl’s eyes darted up and down as if in confusion.

  “Oh, Francesca,” Diana sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I only hoped you might be able to tell me something.”

  Like a snake, Francesca’s hands darted out and seized Diana’s from the windowsill. The older girl’s fingers seemed if anything, colder than the stone. They held Diana firm, like wires. Diana could only stare back in shock.

  “I know you need answers,” Francesca whispered, eyes like deep pools. Then she closed her eyes, and held Diana’s hands only tighter. “Dearest father, hear our prayers. We come to you with deepest humility and pray for your heavenly guidance…”

  A repeat of the previous prophecy, only this time Diana decided she had nothing to lose. Closing her eyes, she hoped something of value would come of this. After a moment of listening to Francesca’s prayers she became aware of feeling lightheaded. She opened her eyes, watching Francesca swaying back and forth in her holy ecstasy. Still her equilibrium seemed to fail her and increasingly she felt like she might collapse to one side. Her stomach began to rebel, nausea bubbling up from inside. She tried to pull away but Francesca held her firm.

  Francesca’s breath seemed ragged, coming in unpleasant spurts. Between those breaths, Francesca intoned, “As I will be tomorrow, so has Isabella been. Your face is above mine, and you look frightened. The moon above you frames your features as your hair falls downward onto my own face. You lean down to kiss me. I am so cold.” She sucked in a breath that quivered, sounding cold and terrified at once. “Later you sit alone in an unfamiliar place. On a bed, you sit and beside you a pistol loaded with your own hand. A great despondency washes over you, I cannot see what it is that has you so fractured, and…oh!” Francesca suddenly leaned over and wretched, great dry heaves wracking her frail body.

  Their connection cut, Diana’s hands no longer held in that crushing grip. Diana’s balance did not return and, no longer rooted to the anchoress’ room by Francesca’s grip, she slipped off to one side into a row of low bushes beside the convent walls. Splitting pains coursed through her skull and her vision swam as though a most horrible intoxication overtook her. She struggled to remain upright, a part of her brain thinking the safest thing would be simply to lie down until the feeling passed. Gravity decided the matter for her in the end, and the very ground seemed to rush up toward her. In the last moment she realized that her angle was bad, she was too close to the edge of the convent. Nothing to be done for it now though, not in her state. When her head collided with the impenetrable stone of the convent walls, it brought the blessed relief of darkness and oblivion.

  ****

  “Don’t try to sit up too quickly, or you’ll faint again.” The words pierced through a haze of confusion and pain. Diana’s eyes opened, but her vision blurred. Over her bent a form of black, long arms reaching toward her like those of the phantom who had thrown Sister Maria Innocentia to her death. She tried to sit up but, as promised by the voice, waves of nausea and lightheadedness quickly made such efforts perilous. Diana eased back down where she lay, having confidence that God would not have led her to her doom through the anchoress’ visions. Through even her corrupted sight she could tell she was in a cramped and dark room, walls of stone, few windows. She lay on a simple straw mattress. Probably the convent then, with the black figure
another of the nuns.

  “I’m fine,” Diana murmured, more from embarrassment than from any genuine sense of well-being.

  “Nonsense,” her savior insisted, the voice female and older, authoritative. A few blinks later and Diana could make out enough detail to see it was Sister Ophelia, the nun who’d shown her Sister Maria Innocentia’s room earlier. “Here is a cup of wine. It will make you feel better.”

  “Since when did wine help either dizziness or nausea?” Diana griped, though she still sipped from the proffered cup. The wine within was thin and bitter, barely better than the stuff they tried to grow in Spain. She felt her face pull into a horrified expression. “Ugh, you call this wine?”

  Laughter from the fuzzy image of Ophelia. “Well, you seem to be coming around well enough.”

  “How is Francesca…Sister Francesca?” Diana pushed herself back up into a sitting position. Her symptoms were slowly abating.

  “Sister Francesca is resting, but is otherwise fine. Her visions at times can be quite powerful. Tell me, did you share in them?”

  Diana rubbed her head. “Thankfully no, merely standing next to her sent me into apoplexy. If that is what the contemplative life offers, I can achieve much the same effect with good wine and still enjoy the company of men.” Grumpy and sore, she did not even care if she shocked the older nun.

  Ophelia, far from taking offense, chuckled at her comments. “It suits some and less so others. I take it that you are less than enamored with religion?”

  Diana raised an eyebrow, sipped at her cup of wine, each time hoping that the contents would miraculously improve in taste. “I have no quarrel with God; it is his representatives on Earth who manage to irk me.” She paused and looked up. “Please forget I said that.”

  “I’m not an instrument of the inquisition, Lady Diana. Within reason, you may speak your mind.”

  Gradually feeling more herself, Diana sat fully upright, no longer needing to support herself on one arm. “I don’t think there’s much else to say about it.” She shrugged.

  “And yet you sought out audience with our own Sister Francesca, who has nothing to her name but her close relationship with Christ. Tell me, did she manage to give you the succor that you sought?”

  Diana shook her head. “Not much more than gibberish. That is the secret to prophesies, isn’t it? Be sure that they’re vague enough they can be creatively made to fit any eventual outcome.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Ophelia responded with a tolerant smirk. “I’ve never been blessed with the gift of foresight. You must have believed in her to come seek her out.”

  Diana felt foolish at the implication she had come to have her future read. “I thought only that she might have known something about my mother’s death. I thought perhaps someone might have told her something that influenced her prophesies.”

  Ophelia frowned, looking skeptical. “Why would you think that?”

  “She basically told me, last time I came here, that I would regret investigating my mother’s death. Today I met with Savonarola and he told me much the same thing.”

  “Did he?”

  Some of Diana’s wits began to return to her. She was prattling on without much thought to someone she knew little enough about. She should keep her mouth closed, say less and listen more. So she only nodded in response and changed the topic. “Can you tell me if the figures Sister Maria Innocentia drew in her cell still remain?”

  “They were drawn in chalk, dear, and as you might imagine, we were not terribly eager for them to linger. We indulged her visions in life, but in death her cell must be prepared for a new novitiate.”

  Too bad, Diana thought. She would have liked a fresh look at them. The reversal of heaven into a demonic maw…those drawings were not merely the random musings of a disturbed mind, although Maria Innocentia had certainly been troubled. Something began to come together in Diana’s intellect. Maria Innocentia, former assassin by admission, surely had not come by happenstance on the secrets of her mother’s murder. Diana began to suspect the poor nun had been more intimately involved from the start. The drawings…heaven as a secret cover for a very real Hell ruled by a tyrant God, that image seemed consistent with the beliefs of the Sacred Council of Apostles as Savonarola described them to her. If he told her the truth—and of course that could hardly be taken for granted—might Maria Innocentia herself have been involved with the Council? Such a revelation cast troubling light on her own disclosures to Diana that night on the dome. Had she truly cast light on a sinister scheme or was she too, only part in a larger machination?

  “Oh dear,” Diana said at last, snapping out of her thoughts. “Do you know what hour it is?”

  “I’m afraid it’s near dark, dear,” Ophelia responded.

  “I must be going!” Diana stood, wobbled a bit at first, but decided she was on as sure a footing as could be hoped. She set down her near finished cup of poor wine.

  “Are you sure, dear?” Ophelia pressed. “You should not unduly strain yourself after such a spell. I could send a messenger to your family if you like, have them send a carriage for you.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” Diana insisted. “I’m feeling infinitely better. Thank you for your time, and I am sorry to have put you out.” Before Ophelia could attempt to stop her, Diana whisked herself out of the room, wrapping her coat tightly around her. She saw herself out, directing herself as best she could through the dark and senseless passageways of the convent.

  Outside the cold hit her like a cruel stone wall, yet it served also to restore her senses to their fullest capacity. The sun was low on the horizon, feebly resisting the onslaught of night. Before beginning the long walk home, she peeked in to Francesca’s little stone room. Little sunlight made its way in through the small windows and Diana could barely see. A form huddled motionless on the simple cot, wrapped tight in a blanket.

  “Francesca?” Diana whispered, but the form didn’t move. Sleeping, Diana decided, and didn’t want to wake the older girl. With a sense of regret, she turned and walked away.

  ****

  Sleep came harder and harder each night, Diana’s thoughts ruminating over each new encounter, puzzling over each new bit of information. She knew she needed to sleep, and tried to distract herself, but to no avail. Growing frustration over her insomnia only made things worse.

  So she tossed and turned and tossed some more. Even the moon seemed to go away, leaving her isolated in her sleepless misery. Yet it meant she was wide awake to hear as a pebble struck the glass of her window.

  Diana sat bolt upright. Could it be someone from the Sacred Council of Apostles come to do her harm? Immediately, Diana recognized that as an irrational thought. No assassin threw pebbles at the windows of their targets.

  She dashed to the window. Then only did she realize that the pebble could very well have been an assassin’s plot, for she must have made a striking target in her white nightgown standing in front of the window. She half expected to hear the shot of a harquebus at any moment. All she saw though was a cloaked figure standing in the street outside her family palazzo. The figure glanced furtively from side to side, no doubt keeping an eye out for the family guard. Apparently satisfied he was unwatched, the figure waved up at her window.

  Could it be Pietro? That would be awfully daring to show up at her palazzo once again, knowing that Niccolo must be keeping a watch on her. Then again, breaking into the palazzo and leaving a note on her pillow revealed he was nothing if not daring. She opened the window and recoiled from the blast of cold that struck her. She could feel flakes of snow against her skin. So it was still coming down. She peered down at the figure below, too far away for her to clearly recognize immediately.

  “Who are you?” she hissed, trying to whisper so she wouldn’t wake the household, yet be heard by the figure.

  The figure drew back the hood of his cape. “It is I, Bernardo Tornabuoni!” the young man proclaimed a little too loudly, as if it were the most natural thing he sho
uld appear outside her window in the middle of the night.

  Her heart skipped a beat upon recognizing his face. She must look ghastly. “What are you doing here?” she hissed back at him, hoping he might catch the hint to keep his voice down.

  “I’ve come to see you, of course,” he replied, still too loudly. His tone teased along the frigid air, “Can’t you come out and play?”

  She felt her cheeks burn, glad the distance would prevent him from noticing. “It’s the middle of the night. If my father finds you here, he’ll run you through.”

  “Then you should come down before he finds me!” Even from the distance she could see his smile, wide and bright. Damn him, it was like finding a small naïve dog on the threshold. She turned away, thinking. “Don’t force me to serenade you!” he called out.

  This kind of thing was not an unheard of gesture. At another time, she might have been deeply flattered by the effort. Bernardo clearly underestimated the likelihood of her father cutting him down in the street. Still, despite all she’d become involved in, she couldn’t deny a certain attraction toward Bernardo, at least from their first meeting. Fine, she’d meet with him. Perhaps the distraction would do her some good.

  “All right,” she called, motioning with her hand for silence. “If you’ll be quiet, I’ll come down. Give me a few moments.”

  Closing the window, she looked around for something appropriate to wear. She wouldn’t wake Siobhan to help her. That would take too long anyway. She found a rather simple red dress she could put on without assistance, then her boots and overcoat. Glancing in the mirror she found her hair in disarray, and did her best to put it in some kind of order. All in all, she looked precisely like someone who just leapt out of bed. Hopefully Bernardo wouldn’t be expecting too much.