I, Mona Lisa Page 5

  Lorenzo did not see the hand that reached from behind him and lightly settled on his left shoulder—but he felt it as though it were a lightning bolt. With grace and strength that came from years of swordsmanship, he pushed forward out of the unseen enemy’s grasp, drew his sword, and whirled about.

  During the sudden movement, a keen blade grazed him just below the right ear; involuntarily, he gasped at the sensation of his tender skin parting, of warm liquid flowing down his neck onto his shoulder. But he stayed on his feet and held up his sword, ready to block further attacks.

  Lorenzo faced two priests: one trembling behind a small shield, halfheartedly clutching a sword as he glanced at the crowd scrambling about him—most of them headed for the cathedral doors. But he was obliged to turn his attention to Lorenzo’s personal attendant, Marco, a muscular man who, though no expert with a sword, made up for it with brute strength and enthusiasm.

  The second priest—wild-eyed and intent on Lorenzo—raised his weapon for a second attempt.

  Lorenzo parried once, twice. Haggard, pale-skinned, unshaven, this priest had the fiery eyes, the open, contorted mouth of a madman. He also had the strength of one, and Lorenzo came close to buckling beneath his blows. Steel clashed against steel, ringing off the high ceilings of the now mostly deserted cathedral.

  The two fighters locked blades, pressing hilt against hilt with a ferocity that caused Lorenzo’s hand to tremble. He stared into the eyes of his determined enemy, and drew in a breath at the emotion he saw there.

  As the two stood with blades crossed, neither willing to give way, Lorenzo half shouted, “Why should you hate me so?”

  He meant the question sincerely. He had always wished the best for Florence and her citizens. He did not understand the resentment others felt at the utterance of the name Medici.

  “For God,” the priest said. His face was a mere hand’s breadth from his intended victim’s. Sweat ran down his pale forehead; his breath was hot upon Lorenzo’s cheek. His nose was long, narrow, aristocratic; he probably came from an old, respected family. “For the love of God!”

  And he drew back his weapon so forcefully that Lorenzo staggered forward, perilously close to the blade.

  VII

  Earlier, as he drew his long knife and hefted it overhead, Baroncelli remembered all the dozens of phrases he had rehearsed for this instant; none of them came to his lips, and what he finally shouted sounded ridiculous to his own ears.

  “Here, traitor!”

  The church bells had just begun clanging when Giuliano looked up. At the sight of the knife, his eyes widened with mild surprise.

  Yielding at last to madness, Baroncelli did not hesitate. He brought the blade down.

  Lorenzo stumbled, off balance, toward his opponent—and let go a roar of self-disgust at the realization that he would never be able to lift his sword in time to fend off the coming blow.

  But before the wild-eyed priest could shed any more of Lorenzo’s blood, Francesco Nori stepped in front of his employer with his sword drawn. Other friends and supporters began to close in around the would-be assassins. Lorenzo became vaguely aware of the presence of Angelo Poliziano, of the aged and portly architect Michelozzo, of the family sculptor Verrocchio, of a business associate, Antonio Ridolfo, of the socialite Sigismondo della Stuffa. This crowd sealed him off from his attacker and began to press him toward the altar.

  Lorenzo resisted. “Giuliano!” he cried. “Brother, where are you?”

  “We will find and protect him. Now, go!” Nori ordered, gesturing with his chin toward the altar, where the priests, in their alarm, had dropped the full chalice, staining the altarcloth with wine.

  Lorenzo hesitated.

  “Go!” Nori shouted again. “They are headed here! Go past them, to the north sacristy!”

  Lorenzo had no idea who they were, but he acted. Still clutching his sword, he hurdled over the low railing and leapt into the octagonal carved wooden structure that housed the choir. Cherubic boys shrieked as they scattered, their white robes flapping like the wings of startled birds.

  Followed by his protectors, Lorenzo pushed his way through the flailing choir and staggered toward the great altar. The astringent smoke of frankincense mixed with the fragrance of spilled wine; two tall, heavy candelabra were ablaze. The priest and his assistants now encircled the blubbering Riario protectively. Lorenzo blinked at them. The afterimage from the lit tapers left him near blinded, and in an instant of dizziness, he put his free hand to his neck; it came away bloodied.

  Yet he willed himself, for Giuliano’s sake, not to faint. He could not permit himself a moment’s weakness—not until his brother was safe.

  At the same moment that Lorenzo ran north across the altar, Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli, down in the sanctuary, were pushing their way south, clearly unaware that they were passing their intended target.

  Lorenzo stopped in mid-stride to gape at them, causing collisions within his trailing entourage.

  Baroncelli led the way, brandishing a long knife and shouting unintelligibly. Francesco was limping badly; his thigh was bloodied, his tunic spattered with crimson.

  Lorenzo strained to see past those surrounding him, to look beyond the moving bodies to the place where his brother had been standing, but his view was obstructed.

  “Giuliano!” he screamed, with all the strength he possessed, praying he would be heard above the pandemonium. “Giuliano . . . ! Where are you? Brother, speak to me!”

  The crowd closed around him. “It’s all right,” someone said, in a tone so dubious it failed to provoke the comfort it intended.

  It was not all right that Giuliano should be missing. From the day of his father’s death, Lorenzo had cared for his brother with a love both fraternal and paternal. “Giuliano!” Lorenzo screamed again. “Giuliano . . . !”

  “He is not there,” a muffled voice replied. Thinking it meant his brother had moved south to find him, Lorenzo turned back in that direction, where his friends still fought the assassins. The smaller priest with the shield had fled altogether, but the madman remained, though he was losing the battle with Marco. Giuliano was nowhere to be seen.

  Discouraged, Lorenzo began to turn away, but the glint of swift-moving steel caught his eye and compelled him to look back.

  The blade belonged to Bernardo Baroncelli. With a viciousness Lorenzo would never have dreamed him capable of, Baroncelli ran his long knife deep into the pit of Francesco Nori’s stomach. Nori’s eyes bulged as he stared down at the intrusion; his lips formed a small, perfect O as he fell backward, sliding off Baroncelli’s sword.

  Lorenzo let go a sob. Poliziano and della Stuffa took his shoulders and pushed him away, across the altar and toward the tall doors of the sacristy. “Get Francesco!” he begged them. “Someone bring Francesco. He is still alive; I know it!”

  He tried again to turn, to call out for his brother, but this time his people would not let him slow their relentless march to the sacristy. Lorenzo felt a physical pain in his chest, a pressure so brutal he thought his heart would burst.

  He had wounded Giuliano. He had hurt him in his most vulnerable moment, and when Giuliano had said, I love you, Lorenzo. . . . Please don’t make me choose, Lorenzo had been cruel. Had turned him away, without help—the one thing he owed Giuliano most of all.

  How could he explain to the others that he could never leave his younger brother behind? How could he explain the responsibility he felt for Giuliano, who had lost his father so young and had always looked to Lorenzo for guidance? How could he explain the promise he had made to his father on the latter’s deathbed? They were all too concerned with the safety of Lorenzo il Magnifico, whom they considered to be the greatest man in Florence, but they were wrong, all of them.

  Lorenzo was pushed behind the thick, heavy doors of the sacristy. They slammed shut after someone ventured out to fetch the wounded Nori.

  Inside, the airless, windowless chamber smelled of sacrificial wine and the dus
t that had settled on the priests’ vestments. Lorenzo grabbed each man who had pushed him to safety; he studied each face, and was each time disappointed. The greatest man in Florence was not here.

  He thought of Baroncelli’s great curving knife and of the bright blood on Francesco de’ Pazzi’s thigh and tunic. The images propelled him to move for the doors, with the intention of flinging them open and going back to rescue his brother. But della Stuffa sensed his intention, and immediately pressed his body against the exit. Old Michelozzo joined him, then Antonio Ridolfo; the weight of the three men held the doors shut fast. Lorenzo was pushed to the outer edge of the engraved brass. There was a grimness in their expressions, an unspoken, unspeakable knowledge that Lorenzo could not and would not accept.

  Hysterically, he pounded on the cold brass until his fists ached—and then he continued to pound until they bled. The scholar Angelo Poliziano struggled to wrap a piece of wool, torn from his own mantle, around the bleeding cut on Lorenzo’s neck. Lorenzo tried to push the distraction away, but Poliziano persisted until the wound was bound tight.

  All the while, Lorenzo did not cease his frantic efforts. “My brother!” he cried shrilly, and would not be moved by those who came to comfort him, would not be stilled or quieted. “I must go and find him! My brother! Where is my brother? . . .”

  . . .

  Moments earlier, Giuliano had looked up in amazement as Baroncelli lifted his great knife overhead—the tip of the blade pointed directly at the younger Medici brother’s heart.

  It happened too quickly for Giuliano to be frightened. Instinctively, he backed away—into a body that pressed against him, so firm and so fast, there could be no doubt its owner was part of the conspiracy. Giuliano glimpsed the man behind him, dressed in the robes of a penitent—and then gasped at the cold, burning sensation of steel sliding into his back, just below his ribs.

  He had been terribly wounded. He was surrounded by assassins, and about to die.

  The realizations did not distress him as much as the fact that he was trapped and unable to warn Lorenzo. Surely his brother would be the next target.

  “Lorenzo,” he said emphatically, as Baroncelli’s knife at last came flashing down, the blade reflecting a hundred tiny flames from the candles on the altar. But his utterance was drowned out by Baroncelli’s panicked, nonsensical cry: “Here, traitor!”

  The blow caught Giuliano between his uppermost pair of ribs. There came the dull crack of bone, and a second spasm of pain so intense, so impossible, it left him breathless.

  Baroncelli’s clean-shaven face, so close to Giuliano’s own, gleamed with sweat. He grunted with effort as he withdrew the knife; it came out whistling. Giuliano fought to draw another breath, to call out Lorenzo’s name again; it came out less audible than a whisper.

  And in that instant, as he stared up at the knife, as Baroncelli prepared to deliver another blow, Giuliano was transported to another place, another time: to the river Arno, on a long-ago day in late spring.

  He called out for his brother, but no answer came; Lorenzo had disappeared beneath the cloudy water. Giuliano’s eyes stung. He could not find his strength or his breath, but he knew what he must do.

  Dear God, he prayed, with the sincerity of a child. Let me rescue my brother.

  With strength he did not have, he pushed backward against the penitent, causing the man to step back onto the hem of his garment and fall, tangled in his robes.

  Giuliano was free to flee, to stagger away from his attackers—but he knew that their main target must be Lorenzo.

  Time slowed, just as it did that day in the Arno. Despite his lethargy, Giuliano willed himself to do the impossible and create a barrier between the attackers and Lorenzo. If he could not cry out a warning to his brother, he could at least slow the murderers down.

  He heard his brother’s voice. Giuliano! Brother, speak to me!

  He could not have said whether it came from within the Duomo, or whether it was an echo from childhood, the voice of an eleven-year-old boy calling from the banks of a river. He wanted to tell his brother to run, but he could not speak. He struggled to draw in a breath, and choked on warm liquid.

  Baroncelli tried to edge by him, but Giuliano wobbled intentionally into his path. Francesco de’ Pazzi pushed past his co-conspirator. The sight of blood had stirred him to frenzy; his small black eyes sparkled; his wiry body shook with hatred. Raising his dagger—a long blade, almost as slender and keen as a stiletto—he, too, tried to move beyond Baroncelli’s victim, but Giuliano would not let him pass.

  Giuliano opened his mouth. What came out was an anguished wheeze, but he meant to shout, You will never get near my brother. I will die first, but you will never lay a hand on Lorenzo.

  Francesco snarled something unintelligible and struck. Weaponless, Giuliano raised a defensive hand; the knife pierced his palm and forearm. Compared to the agony in his chest and back, these fresh wounds were no worse than the sting of an insect. Taking a step toward Francesco, toward Baroncelli, he forced them backward, giving Lorenzo time to flee.

  Francesco, vicious little man, let loose a torrent of all the rage, all the enmity, that his family had felt toward the Medici. Each phrase was punctuated by a further blow of the dagger.

  Sons of whores, all of you! Your father betrayed my father’s trust. . . .

  Giuliano felt the piercing bite in his shoulder, in his upper arm. He could no longer keep his arm raised; it fell limply to his blood-soaked side.

  Your brother has done everything possible to keep us out of the Signoria.

  Harsher wounds: his chest again, his neck, a dozen blows to his torso. Francesco was a madman. His hand, his blade, pummeled Giuliano so swiftly the two were enveloped in a crimson spray. His movements were so wild and careless, he struck himself in the thigh, shrieking as his blood mingled with his enemy’s. Pain fueled Francesco’s fury; again and again, he struck.

  Spoken ill of us to His Holiness

  Insulted our family

  Stolen the city

  Giuliano was drowning. Such calumny against his brother would normally have incited his anger, but he had come to a place where his emotions were still.

  The waters inside the cathedral were murky with blood; he could scarcely see the wavering images of his attackers against the backdrop of scrambling bodies. Baroncelli and Francesco both were shouting. Giuliano saw their mouths agape, saw the glint of wielded steel, dulled by the muddy Arno, but heard nothing. In the river, all was silent.

  A shaft of sunlight streamed in from the open door leading north to the Via de’ Servi. He stepped toward it, looking for Lorenzo, but the current pulled strongly on him now. It was so hard to walk through the swirling water.

  Just beyond his reach, the raven-haired Anna was weeping, wringing her hands, mourning the children they might have had; her love tugged at him. But it was Lorenzo who had the final hold on his heart. Lorenzo whose heart would break when he found his younger sibling. It was Giuliano’s greatest regret.

  “Brother.” Giuliano’s lips formed the word as he sank to his knees.

  Lorenzo was sitting on the banks of the Arno, clutching a blanket round his shoulders. He was soaked through and shivering, but he was alive.

  Relieved, Giuliano let go a shallow sigh—all the air that remained in his lungs—then sank forward and down, down to where the waters were deepest and black.

  VIII

  26 April 1478

  To the Priors of Milan

  My most illustrious lords,

  My brother Giuliano has been murdered and my government is in the gravest danger. It is now time, my lords, to aid your servant Lorenzo. Send as many soldiers as you can with all speed so that they will be the shield and safety of my state, as always.

  Your servant

  Lorenzo de’ Medici

  DECEMBER 28, 1479

  IX

  Bernardo Baroncelli rode kneeling in a small horse-drawn cart to his doom.

  Before him, in the vast
Piazza della Signoria, loomed the great, implacable palazzo, seat of Florence’s government and the heart of her justice. Topped by battlements, the fortress was an imposing, almost windowless rectangle, with a slender campanile tower at one corner. Only an hour before he was led to the cart, Baroncelli had heard its bell tolling, low and dolorous, summoning witnesses to the spectacle.

  In the morning gloom, the palazzo’s stone façade appeared pale gray against the darkening clouds. Before the building, rising out of a colorful, varied assembly of Florence’s rich and poor, stood a hastily built scaffolding, and the gallows.

  The weather had turned bitterly cold; Baroncelli’s final breaths hung before him as mist. The top of his cloak gaped open, but he could not pull it closed, for his hands were bound behind his back.

  In this manner, unsteady and lurching each time the wheels encountered a stone, Baroncelli arrived in the piazza. No fewer than a thousand had gathered to witness his end.

  At the crowd’s edge, a small boy, a fanciullo, caught sight of the approaching cart and, in his childish falsetto, sang out the rallying cry of the Medici: “Palle! Palle! Palle!”

  Hysteria rippled through the throng. Soon its collective shout thundered in Baroncelli’s ears.

  “Palle! Palle! Palle!”

  Someone nearby threw a stone; it clattered harmlessly against the cobblestones beside the creaking cart. Only curses were hurled afterward. The Signoria had placed several policemen on horseback at strategic locations to prevent a riot; Baroncelli was flanked by mounted, armed guards.