1636- the Flight of the Nightingale

by David Carrico

  Roberto looked to Alessandro. “He’s right.”

  Alessandro shook his head. “Her son died a year or so ago.”

  “Plague?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. It was before she came back from Lucca.” Alessandro’s eyebrows raised. “Come to think of it, it was right before she came back from Lucca. That may be what caused the break with her dead husband’s family.”

  “And that may have been what started her thinking about leaving altogether.” Roberto crossed his arms on his chest, then took his chin between his right thumb and forefinger, stroking the dagger-pointed beard that was there. “But didn’t you say she had a daughter? What of her?”

  Alessandro shrugged. “I think I heard that she had been placed with a convent. In any event, I haven’t seen her around here for months, and I haven’t heard mention of her.”

  Roberto pointed a finger at Alessandro. “Find out what convent, and send to see if the girl is still there. What’s her name?”

  “Marcella, Marietta, Madalena…something like that.”

  “Find that out as well. Now. If the girl is still in the convent, she’s probably somewhere not too far away. If the girl is gone, she’s almost certainly with Maestra Caccini, and Dio only knows where they’re on the way to. Gagliardi,” the palace-major turned to his henchman, “you go with him, and as soon as you have the name and the convent, you go find out if the girl is there. Bring word back as soon as possible.

  “Falconieri,” he looked to the guard leader, “put the guards on alert. If they see anything, if they know anything, if they hear anything, no matter how silly or stupid it might seem, I want to know it.”

  “Right.”

  Roberto looked to the hall. “Ernani!” The servant popped into the room instantly. “You can go. But you keep your mouth shut about all of this. Not a word to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Got it?”

  Ernani said nothing, but his head pumped up and down several times.

  “Go.” Ernani vanished.

  “He won’t keep his mouth shut longer than two weeks,” Paolo said in a calculating tone, brow creased.

  “Do you think so?” Alessandro asked. “Myself, I think it will be three weeks at least.”

  Paolo looked at him from the corner of his eye. “Five soldi?”

  “Ten.”

  “Done.” Paolo looked at Falconieri. “You want in on this?” The guard chief shook his head. “Your loss.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Falconieri said with a laugh.

  Roberto sighed. “If you gentlemen are through placing your wagers, you have tasks to pursue. And I,” he stressed that last syllable, “must go inform the grand duke that his songbird has taken flight. I expect he will not be thrilled.”

  Chapter 8

  “Watch your step, Maestra,” the drover said as Francesca edged down the steps. If the wagon was stable, it would have been no problem to descend the steps, but the wagon was not stable. It was moving, and that made Francesca very nervous. The fact that Marco had skipped down the steps and alit on his feet with no problems was no comfort.

  He was walking beside the bottom step now, holding his hand out to her. “Come on,” he called. “You can do it. You walk faster than these oxen every day.”

  Francesca kept a tight grip on the rope that served as a handhold as she stepped down to the bottom step. The distance from there to the ground really wasn’t very far…not much more than a span, less than a half cubit. She took a deep breath and held out her hand. Marco gripped it tightly, which gave her some assurance. Francesca bit her bottom lip for a moment, then hopped from the bottom step to the ground, landing on one foot and advancing the other enough to start the stepping movement. She almost stumbled, but between her grip on the rope and Marco’s grip on her other hand, she remained steady and fell into the rhythm.

  “See?” Marco said. “I told you you could do it.” He dropped her hand and moved ahead.

  Francesca continued to hold onto the rope as she took a few more steps.

  “Are you all right, Maestra?” the drover said, leaning out of the opening slightly.

  Francesca looked up at him and smiled. “Yes, I believe I am. Thank you.”

  “I need to close this up again, then,” the drover said, laying a hand on the rope.

  “Oh,” Francesca said. She dropped her hand and moved away from the steps. As the drover pulled on the rope to pull the steps back up into the side of the wagon and latch them into place so that they disappeared from view and the wagon just looked like a wagon again, she moved ahead to catch up to where Marco had turned around and was walking backwards in the road ahead of the slow-moving oxen, waiting for her.

  Francesca moved past the oxen. Marco turned and fell in beside her as she stepped past him. “They must move more than just goods,” he muttered.

  “Does this surprise you?” Francesca replied with a small smile. Marco just shook his head.

  The road from Fiesole to Bologna moved through the foothills of the Apennine Mountains, going up and over some of them and around others. It was one of the reasons Francesca had been so glad to hear about the ox wagon.

  “We should see Bologna from the crest of this hill,” Marco said, gesturing at the one they were advancing on. “At least, that’s what Ricardo the driver said.”

  “Good,” Francesca said.

  “We made good time,” Marco offered after a few steps.

  “Better than I had hoped,” Francesca admitted quietly. “But the oxen were strong, the load was light, and the weather’s been good. That shaved at least a full day off the trip. We’re getting to Bologna in three days, when I expected it would take at least four, maybe five. That’s good, because I expect the palace has figured out I’m gone by now, and it won’t be long before they start looking.”

  “Are you sure about that? The looking part, I mean.” Marco’s voice was quiet, but his face was troubled.

  “It’s an almost absolute certainty,” Francesca replied, looking back at the ox-drawn wagon which was flying the papal nuncio’s banner and was trailed by two guards in Bolognese colors on horses. She and Marco were slowly drawing away from it. Healthy adults could outwalk an ox any day if the terrain was reasonably flat or not too hilly. But over the long haul, oxen would usually outwalk humans if not overloaded.

  “Why?”

  “I told you before,” Francesca said.

  “So tell me again. No one’s close enough to hear.”

  “I’ve been performing since I was a child,” Francesca began. “My father took our family around from noble house to noble house to palace to perform. By the time I was fourteen I was essentially committed to perform on demand for the Medici family. And that controlled my life, even after I was married, for my first husband, Giovanni, was also a musician in the court.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I was twenty when I married him. I’d known him around the court for a few years. Was I madly, passionately infatuated with him? No. And he was no paragon of a husband, either. He spent too much of our money on new clothes and on wine. But he wasn’t mean or cruel, and he could be gentle. And he was the father of our daughter, our only surviving child, whom he loved dearly. So, yes, I came to love him, even though he originally married me mostly to try and use me as a ladder to acclaim.”

  She shook her head. “So many years of singing, of playing, of writing music on demand, and never being more than a servant in the eyes of the court, never being more than an ornament at best and a possible whore who wouldn’t even have to be paid at worst. Giovanni was a large man, and our marriage was protection enough for most situations. But I was so tired of all that by the time that Giovanni died, that I quickly acceded to the desire of Tommaso Raffaelli to marry him. And he was noble enough, and well-off enough, that I could leave the court and retire to his Lucca townhouse. Unfortunately, that ended with his death a few years later, not long after the birth of our son, also Tommaso. His family rejected all of us, incl
uding little Tommaso. And they could hire more lawyers, and better ones, so I was forced to return to Firenze and to the Medicis, to resume my place as their musical ornament.”

  They marked off more steps before Francesca spoke again. “The dowager duchess, she was oh-so-glad to see me return. I could tell that to her it was like the return of a valued bauble that she had loaned out. I teach the Medici children; I come at the duchess’s call and perform for whichever little group of friends and associates has come in on any particular day. And, oh, I cherish the few nights when I am able to retire to my chambers alone, and read, and play the music I want to hear, or write the music that yet rings through my mind.”

  More steps.

  “The circles of my life are almost a canon. At fifty, at least I am old enough now that men no longer want to paw at my body. I could have stayed there, and just slowly drifted into the background and faded away, especially after the dowager duchess dies.”

  “Is she on the verge, then?” Marco sounded surprised.

  “Yes…no…I don’t know. She’s much older than I am…over seventy, by God’s grace. But she is drifting more and more into senility, and even if her body continues to breathe and house her spirit, her mind, all that made her the redoubtable woman she was, will soon be gone, and she will be relegated to the keeping of a nanny. And people would have forgotten me.”

  “So if that was your desire, why…”

  “Why leave? Why now? Why this way?”

  “Yes.”

  Still more steps before Francesca replied.

  “Because little Tommaso died a year ago, of a winter’s cough, so I need no longer care for him. The blessed Madonna has received him. But my daughter, my sweet Margherita, she is now fourteen. She is the same age as I when I came to the Medici court; her voice is every bit as good as mine was then; and she is as comely.”

  Marco shook his head. “She thinks she is not as pretty as you.”

  Francesca laughed. “Girls always think that. She is my very image. If I were her age again, we would pass as twins. She will grow into beauty, and she will be a songbird of note. But if I do not make another road for her, she will do so in the Medici court, where she will live the life I lived. Her life would be filled with the motifs and themes I have experienced, and I will not have that.”

  Francesca’s voice had darkened and hardened, and her last few words rang like a hammer on an anvil.

  “I did not know this,” Marco said after a moment.

  “It was not necessary for you to know.”

  “But if that is your desire, why is your daughter not with you?” Marco’s voice held a tone of uncertainty.

  “Because she is safer where she is. And when I have achieved my journey, when I know I have found safety and refuge, then I will bring her forth for the world to see. But not until then.”

  In silence they finished cresting the hill, and saw the gate of Bologna before them.

  “And now, we take the next step,” Francesca said, looking at a scrap of paper Bigliamino had given her as she had climbed into the wagon back in Fiesole. “We need to find Jachobe the moneylender.”

  Chapter 9

  “Your Grace,” was said in a quiet voice. Ferdinando looked up from where he was comparing two of the lenses to each other, to find Roberto Del Migliore standing two paces away from his desk. As soon as the other man saw that he had the duke’s attention, he gave a bow, somewhat deeper than the bow he had given earlier in the day.

  Ferdinando sighed. It was going to be bad news—he could already tell that. He set the lenses down on the velvet with care, then folded his hands together and looked at the palace-major. “Yes?”

  “At your direction, Your Grace, I went to the chambers of Maestra Francesca Caccini, taking with me Alessandro Nerinni, Cesare Falconieri, and my attendant, Paolo Gagliardi.”

  “Such a redoubtable group of men,” Ferdinando murmured.

  Del Migliore responded with a nod, and continued. “Her door was indeed barred, but Gagliardi was able to open the shutters and boost a servant into the room to withdraw the bar.”

  There was a moment of silence, before the duke observed, “And was the maestra in her chambers?”

  “No, Your Grace. From all the signs, she had not been there in some time—certainly at least a day, probably two, possibly three.”

  Ferdinando sat up straight. “You are telling me that she may have left the palace two or three days ago?”

  “Very possibly, Your Grace. Captain Falconieri is checking with the guards now to see if any of them recall seeing her leave the palace, and Alessandro is checking with the servants, but based on what was reported and based on what we have seen, then yes, it appears she left the palace as much as three days ago.”

  “Madonna mia,” Ferdinando muttered as he sat back in his chair. “Grandmama will have a fit.”

  The palace-major wisely did not respond to that.

  Straightening, Ferdinando said, “Find her. If she is in Firenze or the surroundings, find her and bring her here to me. If she is not to be found, report that as soon as you have made that determination.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Del Migliore gave an even deeper bow in acknowledgment of the commands.

  Ferdinando waved his hand. “Go. Go.”

  * * *

  Roberto headed for his office. He found both Alessandro and Paolo waiting on him when he arrived.

  “The daughter’s name is Margherita,” Alessandro said. “Her father was the maestra’s first husband, one Giovanni Battista Signorini, another musician in the court. And the last anyone knew she was residing in Convento della Crocetta, as were some of the other daughters of members of the court. Her son was named Tommaso, after his father, Tommaso Raffaelli, the maestra’s second husband. The boy died a year or so ago. A winter flux, one of the women said.”

  “And the convent is located…” Roberto said.

  “On the Via Laura,” Paolo replied.

  “Then what are you still doing here?” Roberto demanded. “I believe I gave you an order.” The smile on his face belied the sternness in his voice.

  Paolo straightened from where he leaned against a wall. “On my way.” A moment later, his footsteps were receding down the hallway. Roberto looked to his assistant.

  “I suppose it is possible that we will find the maestra somewhere in Firenze, but I have a feeling in my gut she’s run farther than that. Accordingly, I think we need an inventory of what is left in her room. Take one of the clerks and see to it. And do a deeper search than we did. There’s always the possibility that something was left behind that we will find useful.”

  “Right.” Alessandro rose from his seat. “That shouldn’t take long. And you’re going to be busy for the next little while, anyway.”

  Roberto raised his eyebrows.

  “The dowager duchess wants to talk to you as soon as I find you,” Alessandro said with a smirk.

  “Joy.”

  “So I’ll just go see about that inventory you wanted,” Alessandro said as he went out the door.

  Roberto stood alone in the room for a moment, after which he took a deep breath and betook himself to the quarters of the dowager duchess. He was met at the door by none other than the duchess’s trusted companion Maria, and was ushered to a room where the duchess obviously held court at times. There was a throne-like chair at one end of the room, he noted, albeit one somewhat less ornate and regal than that possessed by the grand duke. But all those present in the room were clustered around a lounge set to one side of the room, on which the dowager was reclining.

  Maria escorted Roberto through the numbers of women standing around, taking him through to the dowager herself.

  “Duchess,” Maria said, “here is Palace-Major Del Migliore, come in answer to your summons.”

  “Messer Del Migliore,” the dowager said, opening her eyes and holding out her hand.

  Roberto took her hand and dropped to one knee beside the lounge. “Duchess,” he said as he bowe
d his head.

  “Have you found La Cecchina for me?”

  “No, Duchess, we have not. She was not in her quarters. We are looking through the rest of the palace now, but I suspect that she is not within its walls.”

  The dowager’s eyes opened wide, and she struggled to raise up, aided by a young woman in servant’s clothing who stood at the head of the lounge.

  “You mean she has gone to the city and not returned? How long has she been gone?”

  “It’s not certain she has left the palace,” Roberto replied. “Until we have verified that, I would rather not speculate about anything else.”

  The dowager’s hand tightened its grasp on Roberto’s hand with surprising strength. “You find her, and bring her back to me. She is like a daughter to me, and I want to see her safe.”

  Releasing his hand, the dowager settled back on the lounge. “You may leave, Messere. I am weary.”

  Roberto rose to his feet and gave a courteous bow, aware of all the eyes upon him. He locked eyes with Maria for a moment, and quirked the corner of his mouth. Her own lips tightened in response. Message now sent and received, the palace-major retired from the chamber. Once in the corridor outside the chamber, Roberto stood, shook his head once, and returned to his office.

  * * *

  Roberto sat behind his desk and reviewed the current ledger of palace expenses. It looked like he was finally going to have to speak to Grand Duke Ferdinando about the expenses being incurred by his grandmother. The dowager duchess was outspending the budget for her maintenance by a noticeable amount. Until recently he had been able to smooth it out by transferring some underspent discretional funds from other accounts, but those were gone. The duke was going to have to either authorize some significant changes to the budget and accounts, or he was going to have to rein in his grandmother. Either way, Roberto wasn’t looking forward to the conversation.

  Footsteps sounded in the outer room. “The capitano in?” Roberto heard addressed to the clerk outside his office. Paolo was obviously back from his errand.