The Orphan of Florence Read online

  Besides the twenty-odd preoccupied bodies, the quarters contained as many worktables set side by side, each occupied by works in progress: gleaming pieces of partially engraved fine armor, half-gilded candelabra, unfinished headboards and china and a thousand other things. Painters worked on a dozen canvases—sometimes two or more lads worked on a painting at a time, conferring with their elders; so it was with the large sculptures set on turntables, where I saw no fewer than four lads chiseling away on a statue of an ancient goddess. Nearby, three young boys sat on the floor, large mortars between their knees, stone pestles in their hands as they furiously grinded away beneath a large shelf bearing labeled glass jars of semi-precious stones and various colors of earth.

  The oldest student in the lot was in his twenties, the youngest around ten years old. Verrocchio, by far the eldest of them all, had survived his fourth decade, though he hadn’t a single white hair. He stood with his arms crossed, one hand bracing his chin, squinting at the sculpture of the goddess and giving verbal direction to his students. He had to raise his voice above the singing of the chisels, the pounding of the pestles, and the din of conversation.

  I headed toward him, the gold bars in my pockets suddenly unbearably heavy. I’d done business with Verrocchio on several occasions. He was stocky, but not fat, as his work required a great deal of muscle, but his face was broad and pudgy. Even at rest, his features were stern; his forehead was perpetually furrowed, his large dark eyes solemn beneath scant eyebrows, his nearly invisible lips turned downward at the corners above a small womanish chin. That day, his felt cap was pulled down tightly but couldn’t repress his indefatigable curls, which bloomed around his face and neck like a soft black cloud.

  Despite his rather intimidating expression, he wasn’t cruel to his students, but he wasn’t kind to them, either. Although he wasn’t married, he was the sole support of his family, including a bevy of nieces and nephews. His desire to take proper care of them had led to him taking his work very, very seriously.

  Yet when he caught sight of me heading toward him, his gaze softened, and the downturned corners of his mouth lifted a bit. He said a bit more to his student, then came over to meet me.

  “Ser Andrea,” I said mechanically; he always chuckled a bit at the fact that I would address a commoner like himself with such an honorific. But today he studied my stricken face and, rather than speak, jerked his head in the direction of the stairs that led up to the artists’ living quarters.

  We went up to the kitchen. It was empty, save for a pot of simmering minestra in the hearth. He gestured for me to sit at the wobbly, paint-stained table across from him and held me with those great serious eyes. I struggled to make my expression appear as normal as possible, but he wasn’t fooled. Not someone with such a keen eye.

  “What happened?” he asked quietly. “Do you need money?”

  I had to bite my lip at his kindness. I shook my head and leaned down to pull one of the gold bars from my pocket. I set it on the table and pushed it toward him.

  He let go a sharp, audible breath.

  “I want to exchange it for coins. I can’t go to a bank.”

  He raised thin, sparse eyebrows; his gaze remained on the gold bar. “No, I imagine you couldn’t.” He paused. “Where did you get this?”

  “If I told you it was mine, would you believe me?”

  “No,” he answered honestly.

  He stared at the gold bar for a long minute. I knew he wanted it for his workshop, but was weighing the risk. It was one thing to buy the few trinkets I brought him from time to time and melt them down; it was a far different thing buying such a huge amount of gold. Such a theft would undoubtedly be reported, and one of his students might remark to the wrong person about the master’s sudden unexpected acquisition.

  I jiggled my legs, trying not to tremble, but finally he rose and said, “I don’t have enough money on me. I’ll have to go to the bank”—he meant the Medici bank, of course, since the family was his major patron—“to get more.”

  I took a chance, perhaps a stupid one. “If I had two … would you be willing to buy them both?” If he answered enthusiastically, I would try to sell him the third.

  Ser Andrea was calm by nature, but even he managed a slight double take at my question.

  “One at a time,” he said. “It’s safest for both of us. Only one is a lot of money.”

  I nodded in reluctant agreement, but I was relieved that he was willing to do the exchange, that he was willing to take precautions. Cecilia and Tommaso would simply have to find a way to exchange the others at a later time, but this would give them enough cash to get well situated elsewhere.

  He went into a back room. When he came out, he was dressed in his winter cloak. He pocketed the gold.

  “I’ll ride instead of walk,” he said, “but it still might take a while. Wait here. Help yourself to some soup if you like.”

  * * *

  I couldn’t eat, of course. I was upset to the point that the smell of the minestra nauseated me, and the fact that I was finally alone and sitting with time to think made me fold my arms atop the table and set my head down on them.

  Had I been thinking clearly, I would have thrown the cipher wheel and the talisman bearing a message from Lorenzo into the Arno before I set foot on the Old Bridge. By the Medici’s calculations, that would have branded me a traitor—all the more reason for me to flee the city—but I had no intention of physically harming Lorenzo, especially since I couldn’t have if I’d tried, given his bodyguards. But I wouldn’t help a traitor. I’d get to Cecilia and Tommaso with the money, then immediately head for the nearest riverbank and throw the wheel in the drink.

  Then it was a matter of getting Leo safely away. And of course, killing Niccolo, if he wasn’t dead already.

  No matter what, killing Niccolo. Even if it meant dying myself.

  The plan raced through my mind a hundred times; a hundred times, I told myself that Verrocchio wasn’t late, that it was only my imagination, that he surely wouldn’t turn me in, but would return soon, very soon, with the coins.

  The nearby bells of Santa Croce marked the half hour. I hadn’t been given permission, but I went from the kitchen to one of the bedchambers—the floor covered by a jumble of cheap mattresses and students’ dirty, paint-stained clothing—and looked out the west-facing window down the street. Just the usual: pedestrians, carts, street vendors, chickens and whores and priests. I listened carefully for signs of anyone coming up the stairs, but except for the normal din, all was quiet.

  I began to pace; I began to sweat. I grew anxious enough to vomit, but refused to give in to the cowardly urge.

  The brightness of midday eased. I judged an hour had passed, and then a few minutes more. Ser Andrea had ridden a horse. He should have returned half an hour earlier.

  Something had gone wrong.

  On impulse, I ran down the stairs, past the mildly curious artisans, and out onto the street.

  They were coming from the east, less than a block away: gendarmes in cowled, belted black cloaks with the hilts on the outside, the better to grasp their long swords, the militia and police’s weapon of choice.

  I ran as though the devil himself breathed down my neck—gold bars and wooden wheel striking my legs, bruising my flesh mercilessly while I prayed that the men’s appearance was simple coincidence.

  Until one of them shouted, “There he is!”

  I should have known. The Medici had always been Verrocchio’s bread and butter, and he would have reported anything unusual to them, to avoid being suspected himself.

  I cursed his name, cursed his mother and father and all his nephews and nieces, because his betrayal hadn’t hurt only me. Tommaso and Cecilia would now suffer, if I couldn’t get the money to them.

  I’ve always been fast, almost as fast as Tommaso, even though my legs were always shorter than my pursuer’s. But the Magician’s gold and cipher wheel weighed me down far more than I’d realized. The city became a bl
ur as I raced south toward the Arno River, down piss-scented, garbage-filled alleys, past the simple façade of the Franciscan cathedral. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that the faceless, hooded men were gaining on me, scrambling down the alleyways with ease.

  Soon they were half a block away, then a stone’s throw. I pushed myself impossibly faster, till I felt I couldn’t breathe, till I was dizzy and gasping, but still they came closer. At last the cobblestone gave way to spongy, uninhabited marshland on the riverbank, and I propelled myself to the stone barrier that kept the Arno’s floodwaters at bay.

  I dared not look back again. I knew, in that terrible instant, that my enemies were at my heels, almost an arm’s length away. Bitter, I yanked both talismans from my neck—the silver one I’d had since childhood and the cheap one hidden in the secret room—not even feeling the pain as the leather thongs broke. I gave them an overhand swing and hurled them past the barricade and into the river; neither could help me anymore. Cecilia and Tommaso would never get the money to make a better life; I could never be certain that Ser Abramo had been avenged. The whole of my life had been meaningless. There was only one last useful act I could perform: to leap into the freezing waters taking the cipher wheel with me, and let Abramo’s gold pull me down.

  I scrambled atop the barrier and, out of instinct, spread my arms to keep my precarious balance. I contemplated the deep for less than a breath; I emptied my lungs and pushed off …

  Just as my boot heels left the platform, a stone hard arm clamped around my waist, squeezing the air out of me so hard I saw a bolt of blue pain as my rib cracked. I was swept off the barrier, pulled back, and cradled in those stony arms like a child. I was paralyzed, unable to draw a breath. Helpless, I stared up at the face of my captor, whose cowl had been pushed back by the wind and the chase.

  “Hello,” Niccolo said.

  Thirteen

  He dropped me immediately onto the damp soft ground, and fell, retching, onto his knees. I pushed myself up to sitting and was immediately yanked to my unsteady feet by two of the gendarmes; the third rested his hand on his hilt and glared menacingly at me. I spat at him. They were all Roman spies in costume, I knew, come to steal the key to breaking the Medici code.

  “Damn,” Niccolo gasped, as he pushed himself to his feet; a gratifyingly bright cherry bruise above his right eye. He nearly lost his balance, and the third spy seized his arm and gently helped him up.

  I wanted to scream curses at him, at the armed men, at God, but what came out of my mouth first startled us all.

  “Leo,” I blurted. “What have you done with Leo?”

  Pale and swaying, Niccolo blinked. He spoke in a calm, puzzled tone, as if we hadn’t just been trying to kill each other. “He’s fine,” he said. “The dog’s fine. Someone will go fetch him and take care of him.”

  It was what I wanted to hear, even though I knew it couldn’t be true.

  Niccolo kept looking at me strangely—reinterpreting everything I did, I assumed, now that he knew I was female—but he said not a word about it to his cohorts.

  As we turned and started walking back toward the city, I wanted to kick my captors. I wanted to shout curses and scream for help, but no one would believe a lad, however finely dressed, who was being dragged to prison by gendarmes. I should have fought, so I’d be killed right away and wouldn’t have to suffer, but everything I had gained and lost over the past several hours struck like an avalanche crushing my body, my heart. I froze. My legs went out from under me; I stopped fighting God and fate altogether. Like Niccolo, who was still unsteady on his feet, I had to be dragged the entire way back to the city.

  * * *

  I was taken to the guardhouse at the intersection of the Borgo di San Iacopo and the Old Bridge—the very guardhouse in front of the street where Ser Abramo had died, and I began to realize that my captors were the very gendarmes that had rushed onto the street and carried the body away. Niccolo disappeared at that point, supposedly carted off by one of the guards to see a doctor. I was forced to stagger up narrow stone stairs to a small windowless room, hot and stuffy because of a large snapping fire in the hearth.

  There was a stool near the hearth, where the two guards flanking me obliged me to sit. The only other object in the room, besides the poker and broom, was a small square table, occupied by a very thin, keen stiletto, a pair of sturdy pincers, a flagon full of red wine, and a ceramic cup. The guards relieved me of my heavy cloak and retreated. Under normal circumstances, I would have considered lunging from the stool to take up the stiletto or the poker, but I hadn’t the heart. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway.

  “And here we is again!” a familiar baritone growled cheerfully, accompanied by heavy tread. The man I’d come to think of as Stout—with his ample belly and heavy red cheeks that almost eclipsed his tiny eyes—stepped into the room and took his place between the table and me. “I hear you’ve been quite the busy lad today.”

  I didn’t answer. I propped my head against my hand, confused. Stout worked for Lorenzo—at least, I had seen him with Lorenzo when both were testing my loyalties. But was Stout loyal? Niccolo was definitely not. Should I lie or tell the truth?

  “You look to be a bundle of nerves. I just come to make some nice conversation; nothin’ to worry about.” He unstopped the flagon, poured some wine in the ceramic cup, and handed it to me.

  I didn’t care if it was poisoned; I hoped it was. I took the cup and threw the wine back in two gulps, and then grimaced. I’d become used to Ser Abramo’s fine wine, and the taste of cheap sour swill made me shudder.

  “Ooh, ain’t we the fine one now,” he teased, grinning, exposing that missing front tooth and making me inhale sharply at the thought of Tommaso, waiting for me. He gestured for the empty cup. I handed it to him and he filled it again.

  “Here,” he said, handing it back to me. “Drink up. And while you’re drinking, answer me one question. Why’d you run off with things as din’ belong to you? Some says as you’re only a thief. Some says as you’re a traitor.”

  I swallowed more wine before answering, “I’m a thief. But I’m no traitor. Maybe I took things because they belonged to me. Maybe I took things to keep them from getting into the wrong hands.”

  He tilted his head. “Some says as you were just using the old man. That you were learning things just to sell ’em off to the highest bidder.”

  “Bastard!” I snapped, but I was too weak to say it with the vehemence I felt. “Don’t you dare call him the ‘old man’! You speak of him with respect! His name is Ser Abramo!”

  He widened his eyes and raised his hands in mocking apology. “No need to get huffy with me, miladdo! I’ll call ’im whatever you like!”

  Mollified, I drained my cup again. As grief-stricken and anxious as I was, I expected the wine to have little effect. But the muscles in my back and legs abruptly unwound, and I found myself slouching on the stool. I had been running in a panic for so very long and was so very tired … I suddenly wanted to get very, very drunk, past feeling anything. Past caring that I was about to die.

  “It’s a lie,” I said, as I passed my cup back to Stout, who promptly refilled it and set it in my hand. “A lie. I…”

  My voice trailed off; I turned my face toward the fire.

  “Was it?” Stout asked curiously. He took one of the items from the table and stirred the fire with it. “Was it really a lie? You told me once you was loyal to Florence. To the Medici. But what if you knew the Medici was comin’ t’ see us that day?”

  “How could I ever know that?” I said, to myself more than to Stout. I watched the fire flicker as he stirred the logs; there were small sparks of blue and green in the orange-red flames. He held the poker in them until its tip began to glow a dull red.

  “Maybe Niccolo knew,” he said, staring down at the poker. “Maybe Niccolo knew, and he told you.”

  “Niccolo is a spy for Rome,” I slurred, aware that I was doing so, and pleased that the wine was having an effect.
I drained my cup again and felt the warmth from the hearth permeate my bones and muscles, which seemed to be melting, relaxing into a warm pool. My breathing slowed.

  “An’ you’re not?” he asked. He lifted the glowing poker—no, not poker, pincers, out of the fire and pointed them at me.

  I stared at them. Somewhere deep beneath a curtain of warmth and calm, I felt fear.

  “You drugged me,” I said sleepily. “And that’s fine by me. You can use the pincers or not, but I’ll tell you the truth either way.”

  “Do you work for Rome?” he asked, his grammar dramatically improved.

  “No,” I said. “I serve Ser Abramo.”

  He grabbed my arm with his left and caught what little flesh on my upper arm he could with the pincers. The pain was visceral, animal; drugged or not, I couldn’t have stifled my screams if I’d wanted to. The room filled with the smell of scorched flesh and wool. The cup in my hand fell to the floor and cracked. Stout ignored it.

  “Ser Abramo’s dead,” he said harshly as I moaned, rocking on the stool at the pain. “He don’t count. Where’s your loyalty now?”

  “Ser Abramo,” I said, still rocking, still in horrible pain, and wishing I could fall off the stool to the ground and sleep. I closed my eyes; my head began to nod. “Everyone betrayed him. Everyone except me—”

  “And the Medici? Lorenzo?”

  His voice seemed distant, as if I were hearing it in a dream.

  “I have a bone to pick with him,” I said, and promptly fell asleep.

  * * *

  The earth was rumbling and rattling beneath me. I was vibrating all over as I opened my eyes to a small enclosure with a ceiling of wooden ribs, as though I were inside the belly of a whale made of oak, not bone. A dark red tarp had been fastened atop the ribs like skin covering flesh. Wheels rumbled over cobblestone, accompanied by the clop of hooves. I sat propped up on a bench covered by cushioned velvet, my spine pressed against the back, my head tilted upward, my mouth agape, my lap and knees covered by a magnificent fur blanket. Even so, I was shivering. They’d taken my cloak, and there was only a wool tunic between me and the cold.