The King's Diamond

by Will Whitaker

Next morning when Martin came in to me he carried a letter. I took it with puzzlement. Not a soul knew I was here. But Martin told me it had come by carrier to the palazzo of the de’ Bardis, where he had gone that morning, as always, to check on the old man’s condition. I broke it open and read:

  While you are off chasing stones, what have you left behind? I warn you, another man has his finger in the pot. If you love anything other than your pebbles, you had better return. That is the advice of

  Your friend (who will be nameless) in Rome.

  I sat gazing at the paper. Then I pushed it across to Martin, and stood up. I was trembling with rage. Someone was daring to woo Hannah Cage in my absence. But who? I saw in my mind that night of the moccoli, Cellini sitting among the ruins with Hannah’s hand in his, and that smile of hers, the smile that belonged to me, directed instead at him. Hannah was still in Rome: that at least was plain. But better for her to be speeding back to England, still loving me, than this. I kicked the chair, as Martin let the paper fall.

  ‘The devil! I should have listened the first day to that goldsmith Lucagnolo. I should never have trusted Cellini for a moment. And when I think of that last night, before we left. She was waiting for me, Martin, waiting for me!’

  Not only that. I had left the finest of my stones with Benvenuto, a man who had nearly committed murder in Florence, a man no goldsmith in Rome would trust. I had grown so used to running risks, and always scraping through. But now: to think that, after all I had gone through, I had made such a fatal move. Hannah lost, my gems perhaps likewise, and myself trapped in a city under sentence of death.

  ‘Master, will you listen to advice? Your love of that diamond is feeding de’ Bardi. Keeping him alive. While you are here he will never part with it. Go back to Rome, master, and sort out your affairs there.’

  I had a strong urge to do as he said. But none of my other stones could satisfy me now. Only the diamond of the Old Rock could bring me a glory worthy of the woman I loved. And there it lay, just two streets away, clutched in a dying man’s hand.

  I said, ‘I have made my throw of the dice. We shall keep our stakes on the table a little longer.’

  Martin merely sighed, and nodded.

  That day de’ Bardi was very low. He drew his breaths with difficulty, while the doctors in their black gowns applied poultices of poisonous yellow orpiment to his sores, and wiped away the rotten humours with a sponge. The next day he was the same, and the next. The Imperial army still held its position: thirty thousand they numbered, ill-clothed and ill-shod, desperate men hungry for plunder. Opposed to them were the Venetians under their captain-general, the Duke of Urbino, who had moved round just to the south of the city, facing Bourbon. They numbered only ten thousand; a second allied force of French and Swiss to the north made a mere ten thousand more.

  ‘Urbino will not fight for Florence,’ said Alonso de’ Bardi, pouring us both wine. My pursuit of the diamond gave him great amusement, and he often asked me to eat with him after I came away from his father. I thought it wise policy to accept. ‘Not without a price. The Pope took away his dukedom. Very foolish treatment, towards a man who might be His Holiness’s only salvation. The Medici are caught like rats. Passerini will arm the people. He must.’

  That day and the next rumours flew round. Bourbon’s army was moving closer, and the Venetians, it was said, had moved back to be nearer the French. Still I kept at that bedside. On Friday the old man opened his eyes and whispered to me once more the tale of how he came by the diamond. He unclenched his hand, and allowed me to hold it. The stone teased me with its dullness and its quick flashes of fire, and the old man’s eyes took on a feverish light as he watched me. Then he held out shaking fingers to snatch the stone back again.

  ‘Master,’ urged Martin as we walked back through the streets. ‘If we leave now, we might still get away.’

  I thought of Hannah back in Rome, and what she might be doing, and I ground my teeth in fury. But still I replied to Martin, ‘One more day. Just one more day.’

  There were crowds out on the streets every day, milling about, snatching at news. Late on Friday word ran round that the Cardinal had at last recognised the danger to the city. The next morning, arms would be distributed to the people.

  I rose early. The city was already filled with turmoil, as the men of the sixteen gonfaloni into which Florence was divided headed each to a different church to assemble, ready to be led to the Palazzo della Signoria for weapons. Martin and I walked out through the streets, north past the Duomo and the Medici palace. The sight of an entire state mobilising for war both frightened and exhilarated me.

  As we came towards the city walls by the Gate of Faenza, the crowd suddenly swept back to let a procession of mounted men past. I saw Cardinal Passerini in his mule litter, with his scarlet banners, and after him Cardinals Cibo and Ridolfi, and the cortège of Ippolito de’ Medici too. They were bound for the Duke of Urbino’s camp, it was said, to offer him bribes in the Pope’s name to come and defend the city.

  ‘Farewell to the Medici!’ someone jeered.

  ‘Go with God!’

  The crowd laughed as the gate shut behind them. For a moment, they surged like an uneasy sea just before a storm, agitated and unsure. Then suddenly someone shouted out, ‘The People, the People!’ Another voice called, ‘Liberty!’ Then the voices came in a roar. In a single instant, every soul there knew what they had to do. The tyrants had left the city, and in an act of incredible folly they had chosen the very same moment to allow the citizens weapons. The crowd began to move. They swept south, and Martin and I with them. At every church more men poured out, the cries of ‘Liberty, liberty!’ were repeated and doubled. The standards of the sixteen gonfalonieri waved here and there above men’s heads. I saw young men, running, shouting; graver men with their gold chains and beards, walking with calm determination, all in the same direction. As we came out into the Piazza della Signoria, vast crowds were already gathered. Some of them, trooping up in order behind their standards, had not yet heard the call. Behind rose the palazzo, pale and elegant in the morning sun, with its corbelled battlements and soaring tower. Before it, rising over men’s heads, stood the wondrous white form of Michelangelo’s statue of King David. For some moments I stared at its beauty. David had been caught in the moment of resolution before he fought the giant Goliath: a piece of propaganda carved twenty years ago, meant to show Florence defying the world’s great powers. Today it stood for the Florentines in rebellion against their own masters.

  Around the gate of the palazzo I saw a group of the older citizens gathered round a number of the standard-bearers. Luigi Guiccardini, chief magistrate and standard-bearer of Florence, was arguing with some of the hotter young men, begging them to be calm. Suddenly there was the flash of a dagger, and one of the men darted towards him. Guiccardini staggered. The cry went up, ‘The standard-bearer is dead! He is dead!’ The crowd, which had been checked for a moment while it watched the argument outside the gate, pushed forward. The palace guards, a troop of men with harquebuses over their shoulders, scuttled quickly out of the way across the square. The crowd swarmed in at the gates, with cries of, ‘To arms, to arms!’ Among the first of them I saw the dark, determined face of Alonso de’ Bardi.

  Martin and I looked at each other. I said, ‘Back to the old man.’

  The crowd was thinning at the entry to the piazza, and we were able to push back against the tide and into the Via dei Calzaiuoli. Up in the sickroom, the din of the people came like a distant murmur through the veiled windows. Lorenzo lay with his eyes open, listening. He was alone. I stood still: I could not speak to him of what was happening. Suddenly we heard the sound of a harquebus being fired, and soon afterwards the booming of the great bell in the campanile of the Duomo: not the slow tolling for Mass, but the rapid strokes of men beating the bell with hammers as a blacksmith would an anvil, the signal of alarm. De’ Bardi turned his eyes on me. ‘And so it has come.’

  ‘Yes.’
r />   Still I did not mention his son. But I was spared the necessity. Old Marcello came hurrying in, and whispered in his master’s ear. Lorenzo’s breaths came quicker. ‘You must be wrong.’ To me he said, ‘Let us talk together of old times.’ And so began again the story, the trip to Venice, the music, the dancing, the nights of love: just as if I too had been alive in 1484, and had been there with him to share it. The shouts outside subsided, then flared up again. Marcello padded out and returned, bringing the doctor. All the while, Lorenzo caressed the stone in his hand.

  ‘Two and a half thousand,’ I whispered. ‘I beg you.’

  He smiled. ‘Money means nothing to me now. Talk to me, Englishman. Tell me of your King’s lady.’

  And so I talked. I described to him her hair, black as the wing of a raven, her laughing lips, her breasts which, when she was dressed for masquing, presented nipples as red as cherries. I spun lies without shame, and the day darkened towards evening, and the old man’s breaths grew shallow and slow. At times the pain must have come stronger, and his hand clenched on the stone. Marcello came back in, this time with a priest. He sat down in a corner. I was growing desperate. The notes of the bell had long ceased. Suddenly there came the sound of shrieks and running feet from outside. I sent Martin out to find what was happening, and a moment later a deafening crash of gunfire came from the direction of the square. Screams and shouts, further shots, and the roar of men running to the attack. Martin crept back in. The Medici were back in Florence, with the Venetians to help them: the rebels were trapped inside the palace. The old man coughed and choked, and both doctor and priest jumped forward. Then his breathing resumed.

  ‘My son,’ he murmured.

  ‘Your son,’ I began. But I could not poison his last moments. His lips moved weakly, and he drifted into a sleep. I sat back down in frustration. The room was almost dark. The shots and the repeated blows of the Venetians’ battering ram ceased. I too must have dozed, before we heard heavy steps in the passage, the door was thrown open, and in walked Alonso. He was out of breath. His clothes were dusty, he had no hat, and he carried a drawn sword in his hand. Lorenzo’s eyes flicked open. He stared at his son, his yellow eyes hideously wide in the skull-like face.

  Alonso threw himself down in a chair. ‘Devils, cowards and knaves. That is what Florentines are. Three hours ago we were masters. We were passing laws, we were a republic again, we had named Ippolito and Alessandro traitors, we had sent our own ambassadors out to the League. And now? They are back, and we are pardoned. Pardoned!’

  The old man still stared at him, not understanding. I was the one who questioned Alonso, and won from him the story. The young men had swarmed inside the palazzo and set up a rebel parliament there; for three hours they had talked and argued. No one had thought of manning the walls, or shutting the gates against the Cardinals’ return. No one had gone through the streets to mobilise the people. They had rung the great bell, but without leaders the Florentines did nothing. In the afternoon, the Medici marched back into Florence. They must have bribed Urbino well. His men cleared the piazza with a volley of shot and set about breaking into the palazzo. It was Alonso who found a store of building stone, which they dropped on the attackers from the battlements. That gave them enough time to enter into talks: not with the Medici, who would glibly swear out amnesties and pardons and then cut their throats in the night, but with the Venetians.

  ‘They are the ones who have promised us our safety. But the Pope’s agents know our names. When the League’s army is gone, we are dead.’

  Lorenzo’s face was a mask of horror and disbelief. ‘My son,’ he murmured. The doctor felt his pulse and nodded to the priest, who came forward, reached from his clothes a small, golden flask, and began murmuring in Latin.

  ‘Indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum deliquisti.’ May God forgive you the sins committed by sight. The priest scattered a few drops of oil over the old man’s eyes. Yes, he had looked on beautiful things, and lusted after them. The priest forgave the sins of smell, taste, touch, speech, the privy members, touching each organ in turn with the holy oil. Alonso stood up.

  ‘Good-bye, Father.’ He turned and walked out of the room. Lorenzo’s face slumped sideways so that it was staring into mine. The grip of his fingers loosened.

  ‘Take it,’ he whispered. ‘Take it.’

  I gazed in amazement at the stone, lying unprotected in the old man’s hand. I fumbled in my clothes for the bills.

  His voice came lower than ever. ‘No gold. Take it.’

  I lifted the diamond from his hand. As I did so, his body relaxed, as if all pain in that instant had left him. His head rolled back with a sigh. The priest, still murmuring, leant forward to close his staring eyes. The stone had released him. It was mine.

  18

  That very night we rode from Florence, west into the hills away from the armies. Then we doubled back, south and east. The next two days brought us to Cortona, and then over that windswept pass down into the lands of the Pope. The trees were coming into leaf in the hills, and over the plain lay a warm, blue haze. I could think of nothing but Hannah, and the traitor. I had pictured my triumph when Cellini saw the diamond. Now hatred curdled me when I thought of him. It was the first of May when we finally crossed the Tiber by the Milvian Bridge and reached Rome: I had been gone almost a month. A light mist hung in the air. A heavy guard manned the gate, but these were citizen troops, slow and unsoldierly. There was no sign of the Medici Black Bands, or the Swiss.

  My rage carried me to the old, familiar palace with its tawny stucco, and the twining paintings of ancient heroes that ran round above the barred windows. I hammered on the door. Two men opened it, strangers. They were carrying harquebuses. A new fear gripped me then: what if the Cages had finished their business and gone? But at the name Stephen Cage they nodded, and I went in. There were more armed men on the stairs, and a pair with halberds guarded the door to the sala. From inside came the sound of music and a man’s laugh. I was shown in. There, on a gilt chair by the fireplace, sat Benvenuto. Susan Cage was with him, and both had lutes on their laps. Benvenuto was a fine player. He plucked out a lively phrase, then waited for Susan to follow, her face puckered and frowning, her notes slower but delicate. Then he laughed, and set her a further challenge, and she muttered in mock dismay. I walked up to face them. If he was this free with Susan, I boiled to think how he had been behaving with Hannah. My sword leapt from my scabbard into my hand. Susan let out a gasp. Cellini nimbly put aside the lute, and in an instant he was facing me, sword drawn.

  I sprang at him. He answered my blows with ringing parries. His guard was good; but still he did not attack. Susan jumped up. ‘Oh, you are fools! Stop! Stop!’

  The doors flew open, and the two men with halberds ran in. I circled round to face them.

  ‘Leave us be,’ said Cellini. ‘This is a mere friendly bout.’

  The men doubtfully withdrew.

  ‘You do know,’ said Cellini, circling, ‘that I could simply ask my men to kill you. Those soldiers are mine.’

  I attacked again, and he dodged. ‘Yours?’

  ‘The Black Bands have gone. Oh, the Pope dismissed them. Their looting became an embarrassment. Besides that, they were costing him thirty thousand ducats a month.’ He struck at me, powerfully and without apparent effort. I was tired, I realised, from my ride, and my parries lacked strength.

  ‘And the soldiers?’

  ‘Each house looks to its own defences. My friends and I guarded Alessandro once before, when the Colonnas invaded Rome. Now he has asked us back. I live here, with these charming ladies.’

  ‘Traitor!’

  I deployed the punta, the long lunge. It was a deadly stroke. Cellini, however, slid his blade across in the iron gate, just in time.

  ‘Stop, please!’ Susan was laughing, even as she was almost crying. ‘You are too comical. Richard: you remember? “Another man has his finger in the pot.” You should be looking elsewhere than Benvenuto.’

>   I lowered my sword and looked at her. And so the letter was hers. At that moment the door to the loggia opened, and in walked Grace and Stephen. Behind them came John. At his side was Hannah, with her hand resting on his arm.

  ‘What! Swords!’ Stephen came hurrying towards us, waving his hand as you would to part fighting dogs. ‘Put them up, put them up.’

  ‘A mere friendly difference of view,’ said Cellini. He sheathed his blade. I was looking at John. My amazement and my rage had only a moment to build when Hannah detached herself from him and ran to my side. She hung on my shoulder, and the warmth and weight of her body changed all my feelings in an instant.

  ‘God be thanked!’ she sighed. ‘Everyone is talking of the uprising in Florence. You escaped before it?’

  ‘No, I was there.’ My sword was a sudden embarrassment: I slid it into its sheath. Hannah’s eyes shone. Her admiration, her concern and devotion: they were for me and me alone. I darted a glance at John. He strode easily forward and clasped my hand. ‘Old friend. We had almost given you up. But you are like me: you always win through.’

  ‘And you come in such good time for dinner.’ Mrs Grace smiled her cultured smile. She called for Fenton, and soon the old ritual was set in motion, the boards laid on their trestles, the cloth spread; the minstrels trooped in. The silver plates, the gilt candlesticks, the tapestries, all had seemingly been once more unpacked. We sat down. With Hannah’s eyes on me, and her breathless questions, the last of my anger drained away. Mr Stephen, too, treated me with grave respect, and wanted to hear every movement of the armies.

  ‘When I left,’ I told him, ‘the Spaniards and the lansquenets had drawn away. With the Venetians in Florence, they will find it a hard city to take.’

  Hannah broke in. ‘Oh! What is a – a lanskenay?’

  I turned to her, relishing her attention. ‘A lansquenet, my dear Mrs Hannah, is a demon that is bred in Germany, with a sword in his hand and Luther in his heart.’ She shivered with a delighted horror, and put her hand on my arm. I thrilled with glory. Still secret, wrapped inside my casket, lay the diamond of the Old Rock. But I promised myself I would not show it to Hannah yet. I would have it cut, and then I would amaze her. She would know then, for sure, how far I would rise when we returned home.