Viviana leaned down slowly, placing her basket upon the cobbles, as if it carried the weight of her words.
“Men and their games of power will end this world someday.”
Mattea frowned; it was a look she might have given someone she didn’t know, for rarely did Viviana speak of such darkness of life, of such doom.
“Surely—”
The marching of feet rumbled like the pounding of drums; the clattering armor like the clashing of thunder. The quiet pall hanging over the city ripped at the seams.
The women swiveled their heads here and there.
“Help us, dear Lord,” the whisper escaped Viviana’s lips.
The red uniformed force of the Podestà, the highest criminal lawmen of the land, had surged into the square, turning right with regimental precision onto the Via Calzaiuoli.
The streets overflowed now with Florentine militia, men of power, frightening in their white and red uniforms, the colors bright in the harsh glare of a rising sun. With a purpose and strategy Viviana could only guess at, the men approached a house, seemingly at random but surely not, and without knock or preamble, broke the door open and rushed in. From within, the screams came, and here and there a clang of steel where a few were courageous enough to resist. By an arm, by a leg, even by their hair, the soldiers pulled the men from their homes, dragging them through the streets, the direction all the same, to the Palazzo della Signoria.
“Are they taking everyone?” Jemma’s haunted whisper came from behind.
“No, look.” Viviana jutted her chin down the road. “They do not enter every home. It is only this one, then another further down. They know something. There is some reason behind which men are taken and which are not.”
“But is it a good reason?” Jemma asked softly.
Like the others at market, the triumvirate of women followed timidly behind, unable not to as the enforcers burst into a modest if elegant palazzo just two doors down the street.
Clinging to each other, the women scrunched their shoulders up at the crashing of wood, at the screaming of women, and the debased begging and pleading of a man.
Other doors on the street burst open. Some cracked only enough for frightened eyes to cast about, seduced out by the sounds, gated in by fear.
As they wrenched the man of the house from his home, the street filled with people, relieved, for a brief moment, to find that the soldiers of red had not come for them.
With a clench upon her heart, Viviana realized she knew this man. He was a consigliar, a lawyer who created justice for those wholly underserving of it by the twisting of facts and words. The irony of his fate was not lost on her, though she worried for the twinge of satisfaction she found in it.
Apart and aside from the fleeting satisfaction, a thought seared her mind.
The horrors. They begin again.
Eyes forward, impervious to the man’s screams or struggles, the condottieri rosso dragged him on the cobbles, his body bouncing with each uneven stone, blood spurting from his mouth, a tooth left behind.
Close behind the perverted procession, his wife followed, heedless of her appearance—her nightshift and robe barely obliterated her curves; her hair, loose and disheveled, was the halo about her features, etched with fear. Her high-pitched pleas went unheard by the captors, but not by those of the city, and within moments a parade of onlookers formed behind her, stifled by the horror of what they witnessed, morbid in their craven need to see.
The man’s unrelenting wails carried them to the Piazza della Signoria, Viviana and her two companions as well, hands and arms entwined.
As soon as her feet touched the stones of the courtyard, Viviana dropped her chin, demanding that her gaze look only as first one then the other slippered foot peeked out from the folds of her wind-buffeted skirts; there had never been a more conscious, stabbing gaze.
And yet it failed.
Viviana looked up.
She had not the choice.
They hung just as Andreano had told her—the two bodies locked together hung from the same third-floor window. Archbishop Salviati’s teeth still remained sunk in the naked Francesco de’ Pazzi’s shoulder, the state he had been executed in, a death throe bite from one co-conspirator upon another, conjoined as they would be throughout eternity in Hell.
Only the more desperate cries of the condemned lawyer had the weight to pull her sight from the dead men, and the others similarly demised from other windows of the palace.
The soldiers dragged him through the growing crowd of the piazza and into the palazzo, the giant, carven doors slamming shut behind them with a booming crash, as if sucking the very air from the square.
The women and those around them stood, bewildered and frightened, unable to do anything for it.
Just as they made to turn, the black doors whooshed open once more, the throng flinching back. Gasps arose at the sight of the man on the threshold.
Robed and turbaned in black, the severity of attire heightened his pallor as well as the bindings splotched with small dollops of blood upon his neck. Nevertheless, Il Magnifico stood like a mighty statue in the door of the palazzo.
It took a thin moment for the astonishment to pass, for the chant to begin.
“Palle! Palle!”
The crescendo rose, Viviana’s voice within it. She knew he had survived—Andreano had told her so—but seeing him so, as one who had seen the attack, was a relief to her mind and spirit. She raised her face to the sky and those who watched over them, closing her eyes and nodding with a genuflection of gratitude for his life. The crowd grew, some falling to their knees in relief at the sight of Lorenzo de’ Medici, alive, well, and once more in charge of their city.
It was not a smile Il Magnifico greeted his people with, but a hard and stern countenance, a raised hand in both greeting and authority. From behind him, men brought out a sturdy box, and a soldier’s hand helped the Medici to climb upon it.
Upon this loft, all eyes in the piazza caught a glimpse of their revered, if unofficial, leader.
“My wounded heart is healed by your devotion.” Lorenzo’s gratitude echoed across the piazza, as it would in the days to come. “Good people of Florence, I am here to assure you that justice for the assault upon our most honored persons, upon our city, will be imposed.”
The simple pronouncement made, Lorenzo gave a look up and over his shoulder.
Every gaze in the square followed. There, in the middle window of the second floor of the palazzo, the consigliore stood, his weepy face a garish mask of the man he had once been. At the sight, his wife screamed and dropped to the piazza stones.
Lorenzo spared her not a glance. With a tick of his head, hands unseen pushed the man from the window. He swung for only a moment, for his neck snapped with the force of the throw, the breaking of the bones the crack of a whip, and his lifeless body came to a quick halt.
“I swear to you,” Lorenzo bellowed, the condemnation of a god high above. “I swear to you, all who have done this will suffer the same.”
His promise given, he stepped off his perch and into the palace where the swift closing of the door ensured his safety along with the five condottieri who took a post before it.
Viviana and Mattea held each other, ballasts in the storm, forcing their eyes away from the hanging man. “Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker,” Viviana’s voice quivered as she intoned the prayer, one no Christian or Catholic would speak except in solitude. “In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us.”
“Amen,” Mattea replied.
Raising their heads, the three women saw their fear writ harshly on the others’ faces. Until Mattea’s burst open—mouth, eyes—rupturing with surprise. Viviana followed her gaze and she too felt a moment’s respite. Rushing toward them strode Andreano Cavalcanti.
He pushed and pressed his way through the crowd, reaching out and grabbing Mattea’s hand.
“Any word
on your mother?” she asked.
Her question seemed to answer his; he shook his head as his chin dropped. “I had hoped you had.”
“We have heard nothing,” Mattea said, placing a soft and sympathetic hand on his arm.
“Return to your homes, dear ladies.” His amber gaze seared their faces. “Times only grow worse, I fear.”
“We are doing what we can,” Viviana said.
“No,” he snapped, taking a breath before speaking more kindly this time. “This madness is too big. It is too dangerous. I must attend council, then I will look some more.”
With a parting nod, a passing glance upon each face, he ran off for the palazzo, to disappear as the guards parted and the doors swallowed him up.
It took no more than a moment. Viviana knew what must be done.
Placing a hand upon her shoulder, she said to Mattea, “We must gather the league again and set to work, quickly. We cannot wait another day.”
The young woman seemed not to hear. Her eyes squinted with worry as they remained upon the door Andreano had vanished through.
“Mattea?” Viviana gave her a gentle, insistent shake.
“Sì, Viviana.” Mattea came round. “Yes, the group must know the latest. They must know the arrests grow and continue. We must set to our task.” Her gaze flitted back to the palazzo. “Poor Andreano.”
“I will ready the shrine this moment. We can meet tonight af—”
“Madonna,” it was no more than a whisper, from Jemma, “the curfew.”
“Yes, the curfew,” Viviana murmured, deep in thought.
The criers had announced its change all through the previous night, from Compline to Vespers, three hours earlier, to the time of the setting sun. On many a social occasion, Viviana had been out and about with her husband past the evening deadline and the streets had teemed, bursting with life as if to mock the very notion. She knew on this night and the many to follow, the curfew would be enforced.
“I will set it on my way home,” Mattea offered. “For two days hence. All the women should have found what we need by then.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Once craven comeuppance has begun, it is often hard to stop.”
As soon as they reached the kitchen on the upper floor of the medieval tower house, Jemma dumped the basket of meager goods on the table and flopped herself into a chair. Viviana followed, caring little that she sat at the servant’s table, too grateful to be in her own home and for them both to be safe.
The sun had still not appeared from behind the billows clinging to the city though the hour neared noon. The morning chill, brought into the house through the open loggia above, had not been chased from its corners. Instead, it reached out to them with the same eagerness that disaster gobbled up their city.
Rousing herself, Jemma struck at the flint, many a time, until at last a spark flew and a kindle ignited within the large hooded grate in the center of the interior wall. With Beatrice’s absence, the cooking fire had yet to be lit. Though it was late in the spring to light one for warmth, both women needed it.
Viviana filled the kettle with mulled wine and hung it from the spit above; it was not long before they sat in heavy silence, sipping the warm liquid.
“I should see if Orfeo has returned,” Viviana said with little enthusiasm.
Jemma’s chair scraped as she pushed away from the table, surveying the contents of the items still in the basket before her. “I will make something of this.”
Viviana’s small smile blessed her for the efforts, this child she loved as her own. With a parting hand upon Jemma’s arm, Viviana made for the lower level.
She wandered the rooms of the first floor, the family’s living quarters. How disappointed Orfeo’s grandparents would be if they saw the home they had built in such a state of neglect. In the Great Room, the wall above the fireplace showed the stain of too many years without new stucco. More than half of the fine paintings were gone; pale squares and rectangles of emptiness spoke of their former presence, ghosts left behind to haunt the family of declining fortune.
At least the marble has its sheen, Viviana thought as she stepped across it. Beatrice may not have come today, but she was a dedicated worker.
Viviana poked her head in the Sala dei Pappagalli, the family dining room. The frescoes of the parrots upon the walls, once so colorful, were almost as invisible as any sight of Orfeo.
She hurried on to the master chamber, to her sitting room, though he never stepped foot in her private place of refuge for he had no interest in what interested her. His study was as undisturbed as it had been yesterday.
With a silly flutter of hope, Viviana stuck her head in the room her sons had once shared. The beds remained for those nights they came to stay, though they came less and less frequently. Even their child’s cazzoni, filled with silly toys and small bronze soldier statues, she kept just as they were. She had not the heart to remove them, except perhaps, someday in the future, to make room for those of a grandchild.
Though she heard not a peep from the floor below, she knew she would not feel her search fully executed if she didn’t check the ground floor and the rooms serving as Orfeo’s business offices. As Viviana expected, these rooms were empty, as was the cavernous loggia below. The three mammoth doors set in arches—allowing for the entrance of horse-pulled carts—were shut tightly.
She scampered through the storage cavern and out into the courtyard. Even on this cloudy day, the table and chairs tucked into the small square fecund with flowering bushes and trees beckoned like an oasis, one she would deny. She had never more needed a lie down, and perhaps a cool cloth for her forehead.
• • •
“Signora del Marrone! Signora!”
Viviana jolted up from the settee. She heard the trampling of feet as they ran down the stairs, from the kitchen and servant floor the call and stampede came in search of her. Her rest had been no more than a quick respite.
Beatrice stood on the threshold, the much smaller Jemma almost hidden behind her back.
“Beatrice,” Viviana stood and took her by the hand, sat her in one of the small chairs, the woman’s ample posterior wiggling to fit in. “It is good to see you. I was worried so.”
“And I for you, madonna. Bernardo would not allow me out. I had to wait until he himself ventured about.” Gruff of manners as he may be, the woman’s husband of more than thirty years cared for her well, a reminder to Viviana that such men did exist.
“You really didn’t need to come. We would have managed, wouldn’t we, Jemma?”
The young girl nodded, barely.
“I had not planned to come, though I longed to know you were well. But then…then…oh, Dio mio.” With the lord’s name upon her lips, the large woman flung herself back in the chair and slapped a hand upon each round cheek.
“Get her some wine, Jemma, would you?”
The girl took off like an arrow shot, light footsteps returning as fast as they had retreated.
After a few sips, Beatrice seemed to have regained some, if not all, of her composure.
“What I have seen this day.”
“What, what have you seen?”
From just beyond Viviana’s shoulder, Jemma inched into the room and perched herself on the edge of the settee.
“Take your time, Beatrice,” Viviana said as she sat in her high-backed wing chair beside the housekeeper. “Tell us what has happened, but do not tax yourself.”
“They’ve found him. Jacopo de’ Pazzi. They have captured and killed him!”
Viviana longed to put her hands to her ears, to hear of no more horrors. She knew with certainty, horror still ran amok.
“Tell us, all. But quickly, please.”
“He was hiding in the hills, just to the north and east. The peasants themselves, those of Castagno di San Godenzo, found him, tied him up, threw him over a horse’s back, and brought him in.” Her black eyes bulged. “They almost didn’t let them in the gates. Messer de’ Pazzi’s o
wn screams disclosed his identity. Men of the Eight took him then, straight to the Palazzo. He offered them gold, it was whispered about among the crowd, a great deal of gold, to let him go. Not a one would hear a word of it. Ack, no.” She shook her head with abhorrence. “In the crowd, I stood outside waiting to see him swing from a window. Me!”
She said it with such amazement. “And did he…” Jemma prodded, “…did he swing?”
“Oh yes, but not at first, not right away, for he had much, too much, to say. I heard someone mutter he blamed Francesco, his own dead nephew. That he, Jacopo was innocent. It did him no good, no good at all.”
She stopped to quench her flapping tongue with a sip of wine, oblivious to the impatience of her audience.
“He would swing, oh indeed he would. Not until he screamed at the crowd.”
“He screamed at them?” Viviana balked. The audacity of the man! He had worn a cloak of arrogance all his life, one he would wear straight through eternity, straight to Hell.
“What did he say?” This from Jemma.
In the way of the people of Florence, Beatrice thrust her hands up and apart in a gesture of both disbelief and enormity.
“He stood upon the window casing wearing his purple gown and silk hose and that ridiculous white belt of his and he…he cursed Il Magnifico!”
“Santo cielo! He did not!” Viviana scoffed.
“He did,” Beatrice insisted with a hiss, leaning forward in her chair, bosom rising and falling fast. “He called him a traitor and commended his soul to the devil.” She threw her hands up once more. “Well, you can just imagine the outrage from those in the piazza who heard, which was everyone, of course. Everyone started screaming back at him. Some young men even tried to stone him.
“You could see the worry on the soldiers of the palazzo. They feared the crowd would riot again. They hung him then before he said any more. But the crowd…” she dropped her head, rolls forming beneath her chin, and shook it as if in shame, “…the crowd wanted more. They wanted his blood on their hands. They stood just below him, yelling for the guards to cut him down, though he was still alive and thrashing.”
Portrait of a Conspiracy Page 10