Betrayed by His Kiss

by Amanda McCabe

  Over Caterina’s head, she watched the swirling pandemonium that turned the beautiful, soaring space into something ugly and terrifying. People were crashing into each other in their terror-filled rush to escape and the thick, metallic scent of blood drowned out the perfumes and the incense.

  Isabella suddenly caught a glimpse of Matteo’s bright hair. She opened her mouth to cry out to him—but the words strangled in her throat when Matteo drew his dagger and she saw who stood across from him. Orlando.

  Orlando, whose handsome god’s face was twisted with fury as he looked at her cousin. She barely recognized him, just as she didn’t recognize the world around her. Everything seemed to move slower, in a blurred haze, and she couldn’t even open her mouth to cry out. This was the moment of her worst nightmares, but it was much, much too real. And she was helpless to stop it.

  Then Orlando lunged towards Matteo, his dagger raised, and Isabella finally screamed. Once she began, she could not stop.

  * * *

  Orlando had planned his revenge, imagined it, for so long. Matteo Strozzi was always too protected, too surrounded by his bravo friends and their swords, and Orlando wanted to have time to make sure the villain knew for what crime he paid. Wanted to look into his eyes and make sure the bastard was penitent for what he did to Maria Lorenza. For how he had left little Maria alone in the world, buried in disgrace.

  Now, here in the chaos of a sudden riot in the cathedral, Orlando glimpsed his chance. Unlooked for. Matteo Strozzi was alone, his friends fled, twisting to every side as he brandished his dagger and searched frantically for a path to flee himself.

  Orlando drew his own dagger and moved stealthily towards Strozzi. He didn’t see the crowds who ran past him, screaming, didn’t feel them jostling him or smell the blood in the air. His fury was roused and all he could think of was Maria Lorenza and his vow to her.

  ‘Matteo Strozzi!’ he shouted. The man whirled around to face him, dagger raised. A terrible smile touched Strozzi’s sweat-streaked face, as if he was actually enjoying himself in the violence.

  ‘Orlando Landucci,’ he said with a strange laugh. ‘Are you part of this conspiracy? Your friends can never win against the Medici...’

  ‘Do you remember Maria Lorenza at all?’ Orlando said coldly.

  Something flickered behind Strozzi’s eyes and his smile widened. ‘The blonde whore, you mean? Why? Did I steal her from you? They say you had Lucretia, why would you want a whey-faced whelp like that girl?’

  Orlando’s fury froze. He had imagined this scene, planned it, for so long. But it did not feel as he thought it would. It felt evil, wrong. The man did not know his foulness and Orlando was only making himself capable of equal evil. ‘You caused her death.’

  Strozzi shrugged. ‘Such strumpets come and go. If she was too weak to know the ways of the world, ’twas no fault of mine. You, on the other hand—you I will gladly fight. I have been waiting for this a long time.’

  ‘She was no strumpet,’ Orlando said, strangely calm. ‘She was my sister.’

  That finally seemed to get through to Strozzi. Family honour—that was something even a deep-dyed villain could understand. Respond to.

  Strozzi lunged towards Orlando, his dagger flashing. Orlando saw in his eyes that Strozzi meant to kill. That killing gave him pleasure. His dagger was aimed right at Orlando’s heart.

  Orlando parried, his own blade flashing down to block the fatal advance. The two steel daggers clashed, steel scraping steel in a harsh clatter as they tangled, parted, parried again, the sound lost in the melee of the cathedral.

  Strozzi was a practised swordsman and he obviously delighted in the fight, in the blood around them. Orlando managed to stay ahead of him, his own instincts on edge, his long fury for Maria Lorenza driving him, but Strozzi was a strong opponent. His attacks mounted in speed, viciousness. The tip of his blade caught Orlando’s arm before he could spin away, drawing a thin line of blood.

  The air of the cathedral, once so cool and quiet, so full of the scent of incense, was thick with blood and the salty tang of steel, of panic.

  Orlando pushed Strozzi away, feeling his muscles tiring in the frantic fight. Both of them drew more blood. Enough to give pain, to distract, but not to kill. The bloody marble floor under their boots turned slick, making every step perilous. Matteo slipped and fell in it, and Orlando knew his revenge had come. Every moment lasted an eternity.

  And yet—yet something stayed Orlando’s blade as he raised it for one last blow. A flashing memory of Isabella’s smile, her dark eyes. This man was her cousin. He had done evil, but now Orlando had, as well. His soul had become as black as Strozzi’s and he was disgusted with himself for it. Disgusted for bringing Isabella into the ugliness of it all.

  He whirled around to try to fight his way through the panicked crowd, leaving Strozzi on the floor. He was done with it all.

  ‘Come back and fight me!’ Orlando whirled around at Strozzi’s words. Strozzi gave an impatient, incoherent shout as he loomed on to his feet in the blood and raised his blade for a lunging thrust to Orlando’s neck. Orlando ducked under the attack, raising his hand to deliver a counter-thrust. His dagger buried itself deep in Strozzi’s side, sending his opponent crashing to the hard stone floor. Yet still Strozzi fought onwards, his attacks rougher, more frantic.

  Strozzi launched himself at Orlando with a primitive shout. Orlando fell back, his dagger flashing up to meet Strozzi’s in a clash that reverberated up his arm, into his whole body. His blood ran hot again as he remembered Maria Lorenza. It made him go on the attack, meeting each vicious thrust with another, harder one. Until at last his blade went deep into Strozzi’s shoulder for the last time.

  The dagger slid in and out again in an instant, but it was enough to send him crashing to the floor at last. And this time he did not rise again. His life’s blood trickled out to mingle with the redness already on the marble. He stared up at Orlando, his eyes full of shock and fury, until they glazed over and went sightless.

  Maria Lorenza was avenged.

  Orlando stared at Strozzi’s body crumpled at his feet. He had his revenge, yet inside he felt only cold and hollow. Strozzi had attacked him; there was no remorse for a man like that. There was nothing at all. Now he was dead, just like Maria Lorenza, who had foolishly trusted in him. Just as Isabella had trusted in Orlando.

  Isabella. His angel, who was surely lost to him now.

  ‘Vivano le palle!’ a shout rang out over his head. ‘Rise up for the Medici! Defeat their enemies!’

  Orlando saw it was Sigismondo della Stuffe, a friend of Lorenzo de Medici, exhorting for battle from the choir loft overhead. The same loft where he had once stood with Isabella and thought the world could be new and hopeful.

  That was all gone now and he had to be away from the cathedral. His battle was done; he could not be caught in another.

  He dropped his bloodstained dagger atop Strozzi’s body and melted into the fleeing crowd. Little Maria needed him now and he knew he had to go to her.

  Yet his heart was cold, numb. He could still see Isabella in his mind, her smile, her touch, and he knew she was lost to him now. If he could make amends to her...

  But he had done the unthinkable. He had killed her cousin. And she was lost to him.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Palle! Palle! Vivano le palle!’

  The shouts rang out in the hot, thick air, piercing and sharp, cresting in an ever-growing wave of hysteria. It was a tide of bloodlust, sweeping through the calles and campi of Florence like an inexorable force that had been long suppressed, long hidden behind the facade of placid stone walls and screened balconies. It had been going on for two days and would be held back no longer.

  Isabella forced her way through the crowds, pushing past knots of red-faced men clutching pikes and swords, elbowing aside any wh
o dared stand in her way. The world was hazy and tinged with grey through her black veil, but she could smell the tang of blood on the hot breeze, the thick, coppery pong of it. It blended with the usual smells of the city—the sickly sweetness of the Arno; the fruits and fish of the Mercato Vecchio, rotting in the sun; the stench of offal in the gutters, growled over by stray dogs and feral beggar children. The honeyed perfumes of the nobles, the incense that escaped in curling silver ribbons from the churches.

  Today, that tinge of blood, of death, clung to everything, an inescapable cloud of doom.

  ‘Palle! Palle!’ echoed around her, the shouts soaring over the constant toll of church bells.

  Isabella finally reached a small clear space, a tiny, inset doorway that was not filled with the cacophony of voices and the martial clang of steel. She ducked inside, leaning against the rough stucco wall to catch her breath. She eased aside her veil, letting the cooler, shaded air wash over her hot cheeks, easing the sting of nausea and fear. Outside her niche, the crowd surged on, bent on their murderous errands, but their roar was muffled, as if they were in some distant nightmare, unconnected with her.

  A nightmare. That was what her life had become, since that horrible moment in the cathedral, when the Host was raised and all hell broke loose. The moment the Pazzi conspirators rose up to try to murder Lorenzo de Medici and his brother. Was it only yesterday? It seemed a lifetime, a century ago. And yet—it seemed it had only happened an instant ago. It kept happening, again and again, in her fevered mind. The sight of Orlando, her beautiful Orlando, and the horror he was a part of.

  Was he allied with the Pazzi? Had he been lying to her all along? She no longer knew and she was lost.

  She drew a handkerchief from her tight black-silk sleeve and dabbed at her aching brow. The clean scent of lemon verbena rose from the lawn folds, reviving her somewhat. She leaned back, letting the wall hold her up for a moment, fortifying herself for what she knew must come.

  This house, like most of the others in Florence, was shut up tightly, shutters locked, doors barred, silent and dark. Usually, in this holy season, when the deprivations of Lent were concluded and the promise of the risen Christ celebrated, there would be feasts and banquets, dancing and music. Merriment resounding from all the four quartieri. Instead, there was only the blood. Blood in the sacred cathedral, bodies hung from the windows of the Signoria, dragged through the streets in a macabre parade.

  Isabella pressed her handkerchief tightly to her lips, holding back a rough sob. What had become of this beautiful city, the centre of all that was civilized, all that she loved? It had vanished, all that art and learning and chivalry, swept away on a crimson tide of ancient barbarity. Barbarity Orlando had committed.

  And Isabella was alone, stranded in a tiny island set at the centre of that bloody river. Matteo was dead, Caterina ill and Orlando... Orlando had wreaked this havoc on them all. She had been a great fool. An idiot to ever kiss him, dream of him. Hope for him. There was so much death...

  But you are still here, her mind whispered. You are the only one who knows the truth. The only one who can make things right.

  That thought gave her a fresh strength. Yes—she was the only one left. She alone could bring herself peace now and she had to press onwards. To not give in to her womanly weakness. Not now.

  Isabella took in one more deep breath of the damp, clean air, and reached up to readjust the folds of her veil. Her fingers were streaked with pinkish paint, the nails crusted at their base with a darker burgundy. The paint would stay, no matter how much she scrubbed, how much of Caterina’s scented cream she rubbed into the skin. For an instant, it was as if she glimpsed the future—her hands stained with yet more blood.

  She shoved the ghastly thought away. There was no time for such fancies now. Carefully, she leaned out of the doorway, peering both ways down the narrow calle.

  The crowd was thinner now. Most of them had moved on, either to the courtyard of the Signoria to further defile the hanging corpses of the Pazzi, or to the traitors’ palazzi to join in the wild orgy of ransacking. She could still hear the shouts, though—‘Vivano le palle!’

  She stepped out of her tiny haven and hurried on her way, lifting the hem of her black skirts from the damp, slick cobblestones. She wore stout boots today, her fashionable velvet slippers left at home, along with all her cowering servants. This was a journey she had to make alone.

  It was a journey that usually took only minutes, a pleasant stroll from her cousins’ house to the church of San Lorenzo. But not today. Today, the voyage had taken almost an hour and at the end of it there would be no sanctuary.

  Isabella at last reached the church. There was another crowd gathered there, of course, but they were quieter than the roving mobs, sombre, grey-faced. The great bells of San Lorenzo tolled slowly, ponderously, drowning out the mutters and muffled curses. The clusters of black-clad men parted to let Isabella through, not jostling her or snatching at her veil as the others had. She hurried up the stone steps to the marble facade, her throat tight and painful.

  At the closed wooden doors stood two soldiers, clad in the livery of the Medici. Their crossed pikes barred the way to any who dared seek entrance to the sacred space.

  ‘Forgive us, madonna,’ one of the stern-faced guards said. She remembered him from the party on the Prato, a friend of Giuliano’s. ‘Our orders are that none are to have admittance this day.’

  Isabella swept aside her veil, revealing her face. ‘None, signor? Even a Strozzi?’

  ‘Signorina Spinola,’ the guard said, his voice tinged with surprise. ‘I do not know...’

  ‘Please, signor. I want only to see him before they carry him to the vault. I will cause no trouble. Surely Signor Lorenzo would give me that chance?’

  The two soldiers exchanged quick glances, finally drawing back their pikes after a long, heavy moment. ‘Of course, madonna.’

  ‘Grazie.’ Isabella edged through the small space between their pikes. As she pushed open one of the heavy doors, they crossed again behind her, a metallic clash barring all who would dare disturb the peace of the church.

  Isabella blinked at the sudden gloom, after the heavy heat of the day. She let her veil rest on her shoulders, baring her gaze to the dark, soaring space. A few candles flickered along the aisles, casting a pale, golden glow over the stone floors, the serene faces of the saints. The air was chilly, faintly touched with the sweetness of incense, the beeswax of the rich candles. And, underneath, something deeper. Darker.

  The smell of death. Of decay. Of unending grief.

  A single sob rose up, seemingly from nowhere, rising to the high patterns of the ceiling and hanging there, a single note of perfect despair, before dissipating like the incense smoke. Isabella shivered, that cry echoing inside of her, a mirror of her own fresh sorrow. For an instant, she longed to turn away, to run back down those violent streets to the safety of her own house. To hide away from all of this.

  But she knew she could not. It would chase her wherever she went, for ever. She could only go forward, slowly, painfully, one foot at a time. Orlando would always be there, haunting her.

  As he did now, in the church where once they had kissed. She walked carefully down the centre aisle, her footsteps echoing dully, an intrusion in that perfect silence. Before the high altar lay the body of Giuliano de Medici, surrounded by a ring of silently praying, black-cowled monks. Twenty-five years old, the ‘radiant sun’ of the Medici, cut down. And Caterina grief-stricken.

  Isabella crossed herself before his velvet-draped bier. His wounds were concealed beneath a rich, fur-edged robe, by the edges of the opaque shroud that waited to enclose him. His handsome face, framed by the tumble of his dark, glossy hair, was unmarked and he lay in pale peacefulness, a martyred saint. Though he hadn’t been the least bit saint-like in life.

  Isabella turned towards one of the
side chapels, the Sagrestia Nuova. Here, there were two biers, less grand than Giuliano’s, but still draped in velvets, surrounded by the glow of candles. Francesco Nori, Lorenzo de Medici’s great friend, lay on one.

  The other bier, set deeper in the shadows, bore Matteo.

  Isabella’s steps slowed and stilled as she peered deeper into the dim shadows of the chapel, her stomach tightening into a sour knot. Another wave of nausea rose up in her throat and she swallowed hard against the bitterness. She could not be sick, not now. She could not give in to her crazed emotions, the wild urge to scream, to sob, to tear at her hair. Not now.

  Oh, Blessed Mother, she prayed. Help me now!

  Clinging to that thought of the Virgin watching over her, guiding her with cool, blue serenity, Isabella narrowed her eyes and peered closer.

  She bit her lip to hold back a sudden cry as she at last looked down at Matteo’s familiar face and the truth struck her as never before. Not even when she saw him fall in the cathedral, saw that dagger plunge into his chest, had she known as she knew now. Her cousin was dead and Orlando had killed him.

  Slowly, Isabella sank to her knees on the floor beside the chapel entrance. She barely felt the hard chill of the marble beneath her legs, barely heard anything above the buzzing in her head, like a flock of demented bees.

  She clasped her hands tightly in prayer. ‘Remember me, Matteo, wherever you are,’ she whispered. ‘And rest in peace, knowing that you will not go unavenged.’

  She herself would avenge him, as family honour demanded. Even though to do so would destroy her own heart, a heart she had never known she possessed until she met him. Orlando. The man she had dared to dream of, to imagine might be her love.

  But why, why had he done that? He had never seemed to have any family alliances among the Pazzi. In fact, she remembered the look of faint derision he tossed them at the riverside party. Why, why? The question plagued her, would never let her alone. She needed answers.