The Thief Of Peace

by Jess Whitecroft

  “Will that vinegar-mouthed servant be there?”

  “Vicini? No. Why?”

  “Something he said to the torturer while they were working on me,” she said. “He said ‘She’ll stay in here until she says what I need her to say.’ Need is a strong word, don’t you think?”

  “Very,” said Nicci. “Did he say anything else to elaborate?”

  “If he did, I didn’t hear it. I passed out at that point.”

  He nodded, looked down at her enamel nails and shuddered. Just when he thought he had a handle on the mystery, it turned yet another corner. And it was good to know he wasn’t the only one with a lurking distrust of Vicini. Still, right now he felt sure he had enough to nail the Ribisi brothers on something, even if it was just the murder of Giacamo degli Albani. Right now the only thing the victims had in common was that they had both been strangled and they were both – or at least their killers had thought they were – members of the Albani family. And there was a difference, too. A difference in tone somehow, if one could describe murders as having a tone. Giacamo’s killers had gone to a great deal of trouble to cover their tracks, whereas whoever had meant to kill Teo had also meant to send a clear and brutal message to the last of the Albani. A message rendered almost incomprehensible when they accidentally murdered the wrong monk.

  All of this and more was running through Nicci’s head as they walked through the streets to the palace. He was barely aware of the way people looked at them until Fiorina pointed it out. “Aren’t you concerned?” she said. “Walking out with a woman of my reputation?”

  Nicci gave a surprised snort. “Your reputation? Madonna, are you aware of mine? It’s considerably worse than yours.”

  Her lips curved in a smile. She wore no veil to screen her skin from the sun, but her complexion was naturally brown, unfashionably so. The Florentine ideal was fair haired, oval-faced, immortalised in the lovely features of Botticelli’s red-gold and green-eyed Venus. Fiorina’s colouring recalled the raven rather than the dove, but even with her olive skin and the dark dot of a mole on her cheek she was still considered a beauty, even though – or perhaps because – she was known to be trouble. “I’m a woman,” she said. “And you are a man. My reputation will always have the capacity to be a thousand times worse than yours, by the simple virtue – or vice – of my sex.”

  They found Teo outside the Palazzo Vecchio. And he wasn’t alone.

  “Giancarlo?” said Nicci. “What are you doing here? What happened to Naples?”

  Giancarlo shook his head, but whatever was going on it was clear it wasn’t good. Teo looked pale and shaken. “Beppe’s dead,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Executed. Last night. Someone must have known he was useful to us.”

  “Who?” said Nicci, reeling.

  “The lawyer I spoke to yesterday. Someone at the office of the podestà,” said Teo. “Who knows? Today I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that at least half of Florence are up to their necks in this thing, whatever this thing is.” He turned to Fiorina. “Madonna del Campo, thank you for coming. Please tell me you can identify the pickpocket from his likeness, at least?”

  Her reply got lost in a commotion as two horses, a black and a bay, crossed the piazza. Rafaele Ribisi was on the black, Francesco de Medici on the bay. A small crowd – of beggars, petitioners and entourage – followed in the horses’ footsteps. “It’s just a question of timing,” the regent was saying, as he dismounted. “As the days go by the old man gets more absorbed by his garden and his hawks and his art. Spends more time talking to Vasari about his offices than he does the consigliere…” He spotted Teo and sighed. “Oh. There’s a familiar face. Don’t suppose you have any evidence this time?”

  Teo bowed, unable to disguise his disappointment at being caught empty handed again. They had Fiorina. That was it. And a tenuous connection to the Ribisi.

  Nicci stepped forward, determined to make sense of all this, if only to himself. “Your Grace,” he said. “My name is Niccolò di Volpaia. I recently spent the night in the Bargello thanks to the machinations of the Ribisi.”

  Rafaele gave a dry, incredulous laugh, but the Medici just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine,” he said, leading the way inside. “Let’s hear it. Maybe this time will be the last time, although I suppose that’s too much to ask. I see you’ve brought the whole circus with you this time? That’s fun.”

  The regent liked puzzles, Nicci recalled. Teo had told him that Francesco de Medici was an amateur alchemist and mathematician, which was perhaps the only reason why they were getting this chance to explain. This, Nicci told himself, was no different to pitching to a patron. You don’t have the whole picture yet. You can’t show him the way the wall will look when the mural is complete, but you can seduce him with the details – the figures’ hands and feet, the detail of an angel’s wing. Show him what you can do.

  They passed through the courtyard into the shady forest of the columns that supported the vast salone above. As Medici walked through the palace people appeared at his elbows and handed him things – a cool cloth to wipe the sweat of riding from his neck, a cup of wine – and then, having handed him these things, the courtiers vanished, creeping away in backwards bows. Poor old Beppe Tornato. He hadn’t been wrong when he said this monarchy business was a slippery slope.

  “So you’re the infamous Niccolò di Volpaia, are you?” said the regent. “You don’t look much like the devil to me.”

  “A great deal of my reputation is only hearsay, your Grace,” said Nicci, with a levity he didn’t feel. “If I lived down to even half of it I’d be standing here with a much wider smile than I’m wearing right now.”

  Francesco de Medici laughed. A good sign. A great sign. Much better than Nicci could ever have dared to dream. Maybe he was getting the hang of this whole arse-kissing business at last. “Right,” said the regent, taking a swallow from his cup. “And you’re here to complain that Lele here and his brother put you in the Bargello. Am I correct?”

  “It’s true, your Grace,” said Giancarlo. “They threatened me. They made me testify against him.”

  The regent frowned, his smile swiftly collapsing. “You again?” he said. “Last time you said you testified because he wouldn’t give you a job in his studio. And the first time you claimed you’d been penetrated in every hole you have and some you haven’t.” He caught sight of Fiorina, who had been standing behind a column. “My apologies, madonna. I didn’t see you there.”

  She stepped out, dark and definite as ink on paper. “I don’t require an apology from you, your Grace,” she said, and pointed a bejewelled finger at Ribisi. “But this man? This man killed Giacamo degli Albani. He and his brother hired a pickpocket to steal my husband’s dagger from its sheath, and then they planted that dagger on Giacamo’s corpse. My husband hung for the murder they committed, and I demand justice.”

  Ribisi didn’t react, other than raising the already sardonic arch of his eyebrow a hair or two higher. Teo, who had never seen Fiorina in action the way that Nicci had at Prato, went wide-eyed. Medici gave him an annoyed, searching look, as if to ask why he’d come back and this time brought a whole band of yelling lunatics with him. “Right,” said the regent, rubbing the bridge of his nose again. “I don’t suppose any of you have any evidence of this, do you?”

  “Madonna del Campo can identify the pickpocket from a likeness,” said Nicci.

  “A likeness?”

  “The thief himself recently met a conveniently timed end at the bottom of a rope,” said Teo, glancing at Ribisi. “It would seem that somebody knew about the line of our recent enquiries.”

  Ribisi scoffed. “And how would I have known a thing like that, Albani? What did I do? Consult a fortune teller?”

  “Or an attorney,” said Teo.

  “Same difference,” said Ribisi. “Both make up stories and charge the earth.” He chuckled at his own joke and glanced at the regent for approval, but Medici’s s
mile was tight, tired and bored. That could have been useful to them, under different circumstances, if Beppe hadn’t been dead and their case had crumbled because of it. Logic, Teo had said, when Nicci had asked about Francesco. The young duke liked logic and proof. Pity they didn’t have any.

  Suddenly Medici was looking at something behind them. He dipped his head in a bow and they all turned to look and bow in their turn. It was Duke Cosimo.

  “Your Grace,” said Medici, kissing his father. “Forgive me. I had no idea you were here.”

  “Spur of the moment,” said the duke. “The air has turned foul in Poggia. They must be dunging the nearby fields. If I’m to be forced to breathe filth I may as well stay in Florence.” His large, hawkish eyes skimmed over the company, lingering a moment longer not on Fiorina, as Nicci might have expected, but on Rafaele Ribisi. “What in the world is going on here? Ribisi, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, your Grace.”

  The duke swept past him, grabbed the regent by the elbow and pulled his son away into an angry, hissing conversation. Nicci caught only a few words – consigliere, do as you please when I’m dead – but those words clearly meant something to Teo, because he lit up all at once. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “The consigliere. That’s what they were talking about at the funeral. He doesn’t want the Ribisi on the consigliere.”

  Four seats, one currently empty, vacated by the death of Teo’s father. Next to the Medici themselves, those seats were the four most powerful positions in all of Florence. And there, there it was, that motive that made sense of the whole, confusing picture. “Oh my God,” said Nicci, both delighted and frustrated by the simplicity that had eluded him until him. “We’re absolute fools.”

  “Well, that part’s not in dispute,” said Ribisi. Giancarlo glared, but the duke turned back to them, forcing him to compose his features back into a suitable mask of respect.

  “Leave this to me,” Nicci told Teo. His brain felt as though someone had opened a floodgate somewhere. A story as old as the world, of a son who clashed with the desires of his father.

  “Your Grace,” said Nicci. “May I ask you a question?”

  “You may,” said the duke.

  “Giacamo degli Albani – was there talk of him being appointed to the consigliere in the days before his murder?”

  The duke frowned. “There was, yes. Why?”

  Nicci smiled. It was like scratching an itch that had been bothering him forever. “And now we know why he died,” he said. “Two Albanis on the consigliere, father and son. Giovanni and Giacamo.” He glanced over at Ribisi, who already looked shaken. Yes, he was on the right track at last. “And you didn’t want that, did you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ribisi.

  “Oh, but you do,” said Nicci. “His Grace has always rewarded the loyalty of the Albani family for their role in the Pazzi Plot, and punished the Ribisi for theirs. But now there are two dukes in Florence, father and son.” He gestured to the Medici, unable to shake the strange, dreamlike feeling of being in front of faces painted by Allori and Bronzino. “His Grace the Regent perhaps has a desire to do things differently to His Grace the Duke. Rather than keeping old family enemies on the outside, perhaps he sees the wisdom in bringing them into the fold?”

  Ribisi snorted and appealed to the regent. “Your Grace, you’re not going to—”

  Francesco de Medici raised a hand. “—don’t tell me what I’m going to do or not do,” he said. “This is interesting. Carry on.”

  “Thank you, your Grace,” said Nicci. He wished his head was clearer, but hopefully he could think his way through this out loud. And – with a little luck – have it make some kind of sense. “The Ribisi family saw their opportunity. A new regime. A shot at sitting on those coveted seats in the consigliere, but when they saw that their opportunity was threatened by the appointment of yet another member of the Albani family, they reacted.”

  He looked over at Fiorina, who was watching with quiet, feline interest. “And it just so happened,” he said. “That Giacamo degli Albani was sleeping with a married woman, a woman whose husband was known to be jealous and possessive.” He turned back to Ribisi, smiling in the face of the man’s sneer. “Now, you could have whispered an anonymous word in the cuckold’s ear, I suppose, but Carlo del Campo was as equally likely to kill his wife as her lover, and that would have been no use to you. No, you needed more control over the situation than that, which was why you hired the thief Beppe Tornato to pick Carlo del Campo’s pocket and steal his dagger.” Nicci held up the drawing of Beppe. “Madonna, is this the man who bumped into you and your husband on the street on the day when your husband’s dagger went missing?”

  “It is,” said Fiorina.

  “This is nonsense,” said Ribisi, but this time the duke shushed him. Duke Cosimo looked amused. Entertained.

  “They found Giacamo in the Arno with del Campo’s dagger in his back,” said Nicci. “But del Campo was with his wife all of that night, and it seems that dagger in the back was purely…decorative. Giacamo actually died by strangulation. He was most likely dead when he was put in the river, but the point was that he was dead. Out of the way, his death conveniently blamed on del Campo. Now the only Albani on the consigliere was Giovanni, and he was getting on in years and the last of his line. When he was gone, the Ribisi would be free of the influence of their old rivals forever. No more Albanis whispering to the duke – or the regent – about why the Ribisi family still couldn’t be trusted. Without the Albani, and with the good will of the regent, the Ribisi family finally had a shot at the power and influence they had lost back when Jacopo Pazzi’s head was repurposed as a decorative door knocker.” Nicci turned on his heel and looked over at Teo, who was looking at him as though he had just hung the moon in the sky. “Except there was still one last Albani left. This one. Teodoro, the natural son, legitimised.

  “Now, this is the part I’m not completely clear about, but somehow, Ribisi, you knew that Giovanni was trying to make his only heir leave the monastery where he had lived for the last four years. And obviously you couldn’t have that. You also knew, because I was staying at the town house, that I was working for the Albani family, which is why you and your brother Fillipo threatened my assistant – Giancarlo here – with violence and blackmail, and forced him to spy for you. It was from him that you learned that the last remaining Albani son was at San Bendetto, and that every night after Compline he went to feed the pigs. Unfortunately, on the night you decided to strike, Teo was indisposed. Another brother, Armando, went to feed the pigs in his place. It was dark, and monks do tend to look alike, especially those who are close in height and age as Teo and Armando were.” He’d got him now. Ribisi was the colour of new milk.

  “You killed the wrong monk,” said Nicci. “Then – not realising your mistake until later – you cut off his balls and sent them to Giovanni degli Albani, causing the apoplexy that later took his life.”

  Francesco, apparently impressed, looked at Teo. “He’s a lot better at explaining this than you were,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Teo, with a pride that made Nicci’s racing heart swell. “I know.”

  “This is a fantasy from start to finish,” said Ribisi. “You don’t have a single witness.”

  “Ah, but we do,” said Teo. They did? It was news to Nicci. “You see, we monks keep very strange hours. It’s very hard to creep around unseen in a monastery. There’s always somebody up at any given hour of the night, especially when the monastery in question is also overflowing with pilgrims.”

  Nicci pressed his lips together and tried not to stare.

  “You’re lying,” said Ribisi.

  “He’s a monk,” said the regent.

  “Bring me the book,” said Teo, without so much a shiver of an eyelash. “I will swear on it. I know there is someone who can place you at San Bendetto that night.”

  Ribisi gave a dry, hollow laugh and shook his head. “You know, when your father b
rought his bastard back into the family fold, there were some who said you weren’t even his, but now I see they were mistaken. This is what you do. This is what your family has always done. You get away with everything by stuffing your tongues up the arses of the Medici…”

  Fiorina stifled a gasp of shock and delight. This was her kind of drama. The duke watched with arched eyebrows as Ribisi went on.

  “…you never face justice for your crimes.” He addressed himself to Francesco. “Don’t tell me you’re falling for their nonsense, your Grace? This…this partiality towards the Albani will be the death of Florence. I told you that when your father wanted to put Giacamo on the consigliere…” Damning stuff, now, but Ribisi didn’t seem to realise what he’d just said. “You’re marrying the emperor’s sister, for God’s sake. You can’t have relics like the Albani family taking up space. There are only four seats, after all.”

  “Young man,” said the duke. “Do not presume to tell the Dukes of Florence how to appoint their advisers.” He summoned a nearby guard to Ribisi’s side. “Perhaps you need some time to reflect on your poorly chosen words?”

  “Your Grace…please…”

  “Take him to the Bargello to cool off,” said the duke, waving the guard away. Nicci watched – both amazed and appalled at his own success – as Ribisi was hauled away through the forest of giant columns.

  “Well?” said the duke, turning to Teo. “Bring me your witness, Albani. Let’s hear what they have to say.”

  “Did you just lie to the duke?” Nicci said, when they were safely outside the palace.

  “Apparently,” said Teo. “Stop looking at me like that. There must be someone at San Bendetto who saw something. The place was swarming with pilgrims, for goodness’ sake. Can you draw me a likeness of the Ribisi brothers?”

  “Rafaele, maybe,” said Nicci. “I can’t remember Fillipo’s face that clearly.”

  “Then Rafaele will have to be enough. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and someone saw him there.” Teo glanced upwards and sighed. “And yes, Lord – I know it’s probably too much to ask for my lie to become true.”