The Orphan of Florence Read online

  He meant me. Stupidly, I dropped the stiletto. And I ran.

  As fast as I could, faster than I ever had, not so much to get away from the crowd and the guard as from what had just happened.

  Back down the Borgo di San Iacopo, my breath coming out as wrenched, strangled noises, growing higher in pitch with each frantic strike of my boots against cobblestone. The city streets appeared as if underwater: blurred one instant, impossibly clear the next, as if I’d been swimming with eyes open beneath the River Arno.

  I flew over the street, over horse dung and human piss, over puddles of dirty water thrown from upstairs windows. There were buildings, landmarks, people, but I saw none of them: I saw only Ser Abramo’s torn vest pulled open, saw the blood covering his flesh, saw the terrible unfocused look in his eyes, different-colored like my own. I felt the lightning shock of knowing. There was no room in the world for anything but those sights, that feeling.

  I ran through the entire citified Oltrarno. As I finally stepped from paved ground onto soft earth where the city faded into forest, I heard the sound of another pair of boots thudding fast against the ground. I glanced over my shoulder to see the red-bearded giant, the second of Abramo’s murderers, several strides behind me. His cowl was thrown back, his yellow teeth bared above his cinnamon beard, his thick arms pumping as his long stride made short work of the distance between us.

  I thought it impossible for me to run any faster, but I did, ducking into a thicket of tall evergreen cyprus and coming out into an ancient olive grove with silvered leaves, the gnarled low-hanging limbs forcing my enemy to crouch and slow.

  I was in such agony already that his pursuit barely added to it. Part of me wanted to slow down, to let him catch and kill me, to be done with my painful life. But my thief’s instincts were too strong, and so I ran.

  I remembered little else of the chase—a glimpse of Red Beard the killer, and the rest of it, that final sight of Abramo dead, always before my eyes.

  But the moment finally came when I found myself gasping in front of the thick woody tangle of dead vines covering the secret gate in front of Abramo’s hideaway. I reached for the long necklace of keys around my neck and fumbled for the right one. My fingers trembled so badly that I dropped the ring once, so that the keys chimed against my chest, but I recovered them quickly and found the correct key.

  My hands shook violently as I scrambled to find the lock and mate it with the key. Behind me came the muted thud of leather boots against uneven earth.

  I dared not look back. I turned the key hard in the lock, heard the muffled click, and pushed against the wall.

  It barely moved. The cart that I’d used to scale the wall after Ser Abramo had locked me inside was blocking it. I braced my legs and feet and put my shoulder into it; on the other side, the cart’s wheels groaned and moved back slightly.

  It was enough of an opening for diminutive me to sidle into, but my forward progress was still blocked by the cart. I pushed again, gritting my teeth, straining every muscle until I involuntarily cried out with the effort.

  The cart rolled backward a bit, leaving just enough opening for me to squeeze through—but not before I felt a thick hand swiping at my shoulder. I turned to see the giant’s arm reaching through the slit in the gate, less than a finger’s length from catching me and pulling me back.

  I yelped and shot forward, the keys jangling sharply against my heart, stunned that the red-bearded monster hadn’t simply run me through with a blade and killed me on the spot.

  It was too late to protect Abramo’s lair from the Roman enemy, too late for me to escape him, too late for me to concoct a proper plan. I darted across the outer estate to the inner wall, reached again for the keys, unlocked it, and glanced back only long enough to see that the towering Red Beard had pushed the heavy cart entirely out of his way and was only four or five paces behind.

  I pushed the inner gate open. There was no time to stop and close it. My enemy was on my heels, gasping with increasing aggravation, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  I sprinted toward the house, the key held ready in my hand. I unlocked the door, stepped into the cloakroom with its black curtains, and pivoted to shut the door. In my haste to leave, I’d left the kitchen door open and the curtains parted; the hearth fire eased the room’s darkness. As I moved to slide the bolt, the door pushed back against me with unassailable force. In the shadows, I saw my enemy’s foot planted in the doorway.

  I cried out as he thundered over the threshold, letting in the cold. I headed for the kitchen door, but he clutched my shoulder with a huge paw and pulled me backward. I lost my footing and fell.

  I closed my eyes to await my end. But the end was not to be so simple.

  Eleven

  Something low, massive, and roaring clawed me with its bruising talons as it scrambled over me. Disoriented, I fought to cover my head with my arms and cried out when the beast crouched atop me and pushed against my body with crushing power as it lunged upward. But my cry could not compare to the shrill scream that emerged from the red-bearded giant or the savage, vicious growl from his attacker. Both of them now trampled me as they engaged in shadowy battle.

  I rolled onto my stomach and dragged myself clear of the fight using my elbows. Once clear, I propped myself up and looked behind me. The struggle had pushed the doorway open, letting in even more light.

  Less than an arm’s length away, the red giant lay supine, the backs of his boots pummeling the cold floor, his elbows bent and his hands gripping the neck of the Neapolitan mastiff who stood atop him, its jaws fastened firmly around his throat.

  The mastiff pressed its head downward until its jowls and head thoroughly obliterated the face of its enemy. Red Beard let go a horrible, feral howl, cut short by a dull, sickening crunch. His legs went still and slowly rolled outward.

  Leo lifted his face, his eyes bright and wild, his pale gray muzzle bloody, his teeth and tongue frothing with fine red bubbles. His stump wagged madly and his whole body trembled with a dark gladness, a primal satisfaction. In such a state, he turned his gaze on me, half-sitting as I was, my legs stretched out in front of me, my elbows propped behind.

  For a dangerous instant, his eyes burned with that bright madness that showed no recognition; I held my breath, then eased it out slowly and whispered,

  “Leo…”

  The dog shook his entire body from head to tail, his flapping jowls spewing Red Beard’s blood mixed with thick spittle. It struck my cheeks, my lips, and I hurriedly wiped it away.

  He stepped toward me, his great square head a hand’s span from mine, and grinned sheepishly.

  “Oh, Leo,” I said, my voice unsteady.

  Leo licked my face gently, comfortingly; his breath smelled of iron. Despite the blood, I threw my arms around his neck and made a noise that sounded very much like weeping, but no tears came.

  * * *

  I wanted to drag the giant’s corpse outside, but I was too squeamish and the body too heavy. I left it where it was and locked the door to the cloak room, then went inside, Leo padding beside me.

  The note Ser Abramo had left still sat on the kitchen table. My memory of trivial things had been undone by horror; Abramo had instructed me to do something, but I couldn’t remember what. As I unfolded the note, I felt a sharp pain just below the well of my collarbone at the realization that his hand had touched the paper only hours ago. Still, I kept from crying and stared at it again. One line popped out at me:

  Keep Leo by your side; he can protect you better than any blade.

  My face twisted at that. I petted the dog’s head with a mixture of gratitude and revulsion.

  Let no one enter the house, Abramo had written, except Niccolo, and then only if you are certain that he is alone.

  Niccolo was a murderer, and traitor, and while Leo would be no defense against him, if he came anywhere near me, I would chop him into little pieces or die trying. And Niccolo and his gang knew where I was—so whatever Abramo wanted me to do, I ha
d to do it quickly and leave.

  If I do not return by midday, find the key to the lockbox I showed you. You will find further instructions there.

  “The key to the lockbox,” I said aloud to the dog. I had to get to Ser Abramo’s message before Niccolo did.

  In my state of shock, I could remember only that the Magician had told me about the key while we were down in the dungeon. I hurried down there with a lamp and moved to where I remembered him standing—near the bookshelves, by the entrance, just past the black velvet curtains.

  I closed my eyes and pushed aside the painful sight of the dead Magician, and instead imagined him alive and standing there in front of me. He’d been holding a book in his hands; the pages had been cut out to hide a key—the key to the lockbox—inside the book. A slender book, leatherbound …

  I ran my fingers over the books within my reach until I finally came across it: Amarosa visione, Visions of Love, by Boccaccio.

  The key was inside. I remembered to move the scrolls on the bottom shelf and found the groove hidden in the wall behind them. I jiggled the key in the groove until it found the lock and the tiny hidden door popped open.

  I pulled out the lockbox, set it on the worktable, and opened it.

  The folded, yellowed pieces of paper that had been there before hadn’t been moved, but a brand-new folded piece of paper—with my name written on it—had been placed atop them.

  I picked it up and opened it; a key clattered out onto the table. I held the note to the lamp and read:

  Dearest Giuliana,

  If I have not returned by now, chances are I will never do so. Therefore, I must task you with a grave responsibility. This key opens a sliding panel on the wall of my bedchamber opposite the door. I need you to go inside the secret compartment there and take the wheel.

  You are my daughter; it was indeed my hand that cast the silver talisman for you. I was told you had died, else I would have spent my life looking for you. Suffice it to say you are heir to all of my properties and belongings.

  Assuming I am dead, you are now in dire danger. Leave all else behind, but take the wheel at once to Lorenzo de’ Medici, taking extreme care that you are not followed. I ask that you take Leo with you, if at all possible, and see that he is well cared for.

  I am sad that I am not here to help you in this perilous hour. But mark this: Death cannot separate us. I am indeed the Magician, and my reach extends beyond the grave.

  Be well, and for your own safety, burn this note at once.

  With deepest affection,

  Abramo

  My mind couldn’t accept what I’d just read. I went numb. Words on paper, that’s all they were, and all the horror of that day a dream from which I’d soon wake. Breathing ceased being a natural act and required my full attention. I watched myself move as if I were an outside observer. Watched as my body moved mechanically, without my conscious participation, as it picked up the key. Slipped it and the letter into my pocket. Replaced the lockbox. Climbed up out of the dungeon and, as an anxious Leo padded alongside, walked up the stairs to Ser Abramo’s bedchamber.

  I pulled back open heavy black curtains over a high solitary window to let in the morning light; it fell upon the busy wooden walls opposite the bed in great detail. They were golden brown with built-in cabinets covered by lattice doors and bas-relief panels of busy geometric designs set alongside them. In the corner farthest from the door, a prayer bench built into the wall had been unfolded; above it, a large bas-relief seraph lifted one hand in benediction, the other hand pointing downward as if to draw the viewer’s eye to something holy—an absent Christ child, perhaps, that the artisan had failed to add for want of space.

  The reminder of God provoked a spasm of bitterness in me. I spat on the angel. My spittle struck its waist and trickled down until a single shining bead dripped from its finger.

  It landed like a fallen tear upon a thumb-sized repair in the wood—a tiny square set in so perfectly that its seams were barely visible.

  And the angel’s finger pointed directly at it.

  I fingered the square, applying pressure in various corners until a little hatch popped open. Inside was the keyhole, and I hastily applied the key. I heard the successful click, but nothing happened until, in desperation, I pushed with all my strength against the angel.

  The entire section of wall groaned and slid backward, like a door.

  Inside was darkness. I took the lamp from Abramo’s night table and lit it. The room was the size of a generous closet, just large enough to hold a table and stool with a map of Italy on the wall above them. Upon the table rested pages of text in the tiny, cramped script I knew as the Magician’s. Atop them all was a cheap, thin talisman made of zinc and silver, with inferior engravings and no mark signifying its creator. It certainly wasn’t the work of the Magician of Florence.

  Moreover, the legends on it were a nonsensical hodgepodge of planetary, elemental, and zodiacal symbols, all mixed together so that I could discern no clear magical purpose. The numbers on the back were in a sequence that matched no known planet. Whoever created it had to have been completely ignorant in the subject of magic and the creation of talismans.

  More intriguingly, a square slab of wood the size of a small platter rested beside the stack of papers; it looked rather like a clockface without hands, but far stranger. Three concentric rings had been carved into the wood around a central circle. I set the lamp down beside it and peered more closely.

  Twenty-two symbols had been painted along the outer ring, symbols I knew well: those for the signs of the zodiac, the planets, and the four elements. The ring just inside it contained the twenty-two letters of the Tuscan alphabet.

  I pressed my finger against the outer ring; as I’d suspected, it slid easily, as if well-oiled, so that any magical symbol could be made to correspond to any letter of the alphabet. The third interior ring contained abbreviations of the names of cities and towns: Rome, Florence, Milan, Viterbo, Pisa, and so on. The immovable center circle contained numbers in random order: 1124, 7, 20, 325, 60, on so on: the apparently random numbers that appeared on the back of magical talismans, associated with different planets. I slid the outer ring back to its original configuration.

  A code generator. A sort of cipher wheel, using a magician’s alphabet.

  I thought of the secret alphabet I’d created as a child; I remembered how Ser Abramo had made me write it in the freezing mud.

  How he’d accused me of being a spy.

  Breathless, I put the cheap talisman in my palm. The writing on the front began with the Hebrew letter aleph and the number 0, neither of which appeared on the wheel. These were followed by the alchemical symbol for air, an upward-pointing triangle bisected by a horizontal line.

  I looked down at the cipher wheel, wondering where to begin—and realized that the symbol for air had been aligned with the letter L.

  Air. I stared at it as my memory stirred. Air, aleph, 0. They were all connected, all part of an attribution to a particular Tarot card, one of the few Ser Abramo had insisted I memorize.

  Air, aleph, 0.

  They were associated with the Tarot card Ser Abramo had used when I swore lifelong fealty to him.

  Air, aleph, 0 equal the Fool. Air equals L.

  The words I thought I had imagined, emanating from the wall of Abramo’s bedchamber—intentionally for me, or not? Lorenzo is the fool.

  The hairs on my forearms and the nape of my neck lifted; my fingers found the silver disk over my heart and closed around it. In my mind, Abramo spoke.

  “… there are things I must reveal to you—secrets that you must swear upon your life to keep. Secrets so dark, they call for blood.”

  His blood and mine, mingled upon the image of the Fool. Upon Lorenzo. Here in front of me were the secrets the Magician would have revealed to me in time, had he lived.

  Florence was at war. Despite the fact that our city was virtually surrounded by armies, Lorenzo had courted Milan, to no avail, and
was now courting Venice, whose army was less impressive but no less desperately needed. But getting a professional courier with an encoded letter past the troops—any letter, no matter how innocent—was close to impossible.

  But a poor, superstitious soul wearing the world’s cheapest charm just might get through. All manner of folk wore talismans—travelers especially, for safety. No one would think twice.

  Had Ser Abramo been a true magician? The Magician? Or had it all been deceit?

  I thought of his manner when he was in the magical tent, of his voice when he was chanting before the altar. I remembered the way he spoke of God and magic. He had meant what he said with his whole heart; I trusted him as much as I trusted Tommaso, as much as I trusted Cecilia.

  But magical talismans hadn’t been his only stock in trade.

  He had spoken of danger, of enemies who wanted to find and destroy him, and I’d foolishly thought he’d been referring to magical foes.

  But it was Niccolo, his own protégé, the boy who had grown into a man in Abramo’s house, who had betrayed him. Betrayed Lorenzo and all Florence to the Romans. Had killed his own mentor, because the latter was encoding messages for Lorenzo, for Florence, to send to Milan, to Rome, to Venice, to all the cities listed on the cipher wheel where he had agents.

  I hadn’t much time, but Abramo had known that I would be able to decipher the talisman quickly. I was born with the knack, and in a minute—using the cipher wheel with the symbol for air set to L, I managed to break the code.

  THE FOOL 30 NOV S TO GROSETTO, TO SHORE, TO GENOA, MARSEILLES.

  Even being female and therefore intellectually impaired according to most, I found the message obvious.

  Lorenzo was abandoning Florence, sailing via the northern port of Genoa to Marseilles, France. The rumors were true: he was saving his own neck and leaving the rest of us to the mercy of Rome and Naples’ armies.

  Get the wheel to Lorenzo, the Magician had said. I supposed I was to deliver the encoded talisman to Lorenzo as well, so that those responsible for helping him escape Italy could prepare his way.