JEANNE KALOGRIDIS

Painting Mona Lisa

For George, forever

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Prologue: Lisa June 1490

I

II

PART I April 26, 1478

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

December 28, 1478

IX

X

PART II LISA

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Epilogue: Lisa July 1498

LXXI

Acknowledgements

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue: Lisa June 1490

I

My name is Lisa di Antonio Gherardini Giocondo, though to acquaintances I am known simply as Madonna Lisa, and to those of the common class, Monna Lisa.

My likeness has been recorded on wood, with boiled linseed oil and pigments dug from the earth or crushed from semi-precious stones, and applied with brushes made from the feathers of birds and the silken fur of animals.

I have seen the painting. It does not look like me. I stare at it and see instead the faces of my mother and father. I listen and hear their voices. I feel their love and their sorrow, and I witness again and again, the crime that bound them together; the crime that bound them to me.

For my story began not with my birth but a murder, committed the year before I was born.

It was first revealed to me during an encounter with the astrologer, two weeks before my eleventh birthday, which was celebrated on the fifteenth of June. My mother announced that I would have my choice of a present. She assumed that I would request a new gown, for nowhere has sartorial ostentation been practised more avidly than my native Florence. My father was one of the city’s wealthiest wool merchants, and his business connections afforded me my pick of sumptuous silks, brocades, velvets and furs. I spent those days studying the dress of each noblewoman I passed, and at night, I lay awake contemplating the design.

All this changed the day of Uncle Lauro’s wedding.

I stood on the balcony of our house on the Via Maggiore between my mother and grandmother, staring in the direction of the Ponte Santa Trinita, the bridge which the young bride would cross on her ride to her groom.

My grandmother had come to live with us several months earlier. She was still a handsome woman, but the loss of her second husband had soured her and she was faded and frail; her hair had grown white at the temples, and her body bony. She would not live out the year. My mother was dark-haired, dark-eyed, with skin so flawless it provoked my jealousy; she, however, seemed unaware of her amazing appearance. She complained of the adamant straightness of her locks, and of the olive cast to her complexion. Never mind that she was fine-boned, with lovely hands, feet and teeth. I was mature for my years, already larger and taller than she, with coarse dull brown waves and troubled skin.

Downstairs, my father and Uncle Lauro, attended by his two sons, waited in the loggia that opened onto the street.

My mother suddenly pointed. ‘There she is!’

From our vantage, we could see down the length of the busy street to the point that it ended and the Ponte Santa Trinita began. A small figure on horseback headed towards us, followed by several people on foot. When they neared I could make out the woman riding the white horse.

Her name was Giovanna Maria; I had met her often during her six-month courtship with my mother’s brother. She was a friendly, plump fifteen-year-old with golden hair. Never again would she look as lovely as she did that day, in a pink overgown covered with seed pearls, her curls tamed into ringlets beneath a tiara of braided silver. When she arrived, my uncle helped her dismount. He was twice Giovanna’s age, a widower whose eldest son was two years her junior; she seemed painfully young standing next to him.

Before we joined them downstairs, my grandmother eyed the pair sceptically. ‘It cannot last happily. She is Sagittarius, with Taurus ascendant, and Lauro is Aries; everyone knows the Archer and the Ram despise one another. And with Taurus … the two of them will constantly butt heads.’

‘Mother,’ my own reproached gently.

‘If you and Antonio had paid attention to such matters—’ She broke off at my mother’s sharp glance and urged us downstairs to greet the bride.

I was intrigued. My grandmother was right; my parents loved each other, but had never been truly happy. For the first time, I realized that we had never discussed my natal chart.

I decided to bring up the matter with my mother as soon as possible. Well-to-do families often consulted astrologers on important matters. Charts were routinely cast for newborns. In fact, an astrologer had chosen that very day in June as the most fortuitous for Lauro and Giovanna Maria to wed.

After the feast as the dancing commenced, I sat beside my grandmother and questioned her further about the futures of the bride and groom. I discovered that Lauro had been born with his moon residing in Scorpio. ‘As a result, he has never been able to resist a Scorpio woman. It caused much heartache in his first marriage. Giovanna Maria’s moon is in Sagittarius, so she would be happiest with a man of her own sign.’ Grandmother sighed. ‘I married twice. Once for love – and we were miserable. The second time, I made no such mistake. I went to the astrologer. And though I had to turn down some well-born candidates, when I met your grandfather—’ her expression and tone softened ‘—I knew the stars smiled on us. Our charts were perfectly matched. A gentler, finer man was never born.’

‘My sign … and my moon … What are they?’ I asked. ‘Who would be a good match for me?’

She gave me an odd look. ‘Born in June … You would be Gemini, then. As for the others, I cannot say.’

‘But you were at my birth,’ I persisted. ‘Wasn’t an astrologer hired?’

‘I was too busy helping your mother – and you – to worry about such a trivial thing,’ she said. Politely, I did not point out that she had only just finished lecturing me on its importance.

That night, I lay awake puzzling over why I did not know such important information. Certainly my parents had consulted an astrologer at my birth. I was, after all, a rare creature: an only child, the bearer of my family’s hopes.

The next morning I went to my mother’s room. She was abed, though it was late; her health was poor and the wedding festivities had exhausted her. Even so, she welcomed me warmly. I clasped her hand and settled on the edge of her bed.

‘I have been thinking,’ I began solemnly. ‘I know I am Gemini, born mid-June. But I am now old enough to know the full details of my horoscope. What is my moon, and what sign is ascendant for me?’

My mother hesitated. Clearly, she had expected a discussion of fabrics and fashion, not this. ‘I am not sure.’

‘But you must have kept a copy of my birth chart?’

Her face, which rarely met the sun, flushed. ‘You did not come easily into the world, Lisa. You were small and I was ill afterwards, your father was so concerned … We did not think to have it done.’

I was aghast. ‘But I must know these things, to make a proper match. Grandmother has said so.’

My mother sighed and leaned back against her pillows, her long dark braid falling over one shoulder and into her lap. ‘Lisa … people marry every day without worrying about their stars. Your father and I are such an example.’

I dared not respond to this. Instead I countered, ‘Have you had your chart cast since your birth?’

In reply, she glanced guiltily downwards. ‘It is no small expense.’

But I heard her resolve weakening, and pressed. ‘It is less costly and involved than a gown. And it is what I want as my birthday gift.’

She sat forwards and reached out; cupping my chin in her hand, she studied me fondly. ‘You should reconsider. You will soon be a woman. A gown is far more practical.’

‘I will only outgrow it; but I will never outgrow the use of such important information.’ As an only child, I was often indulged and well aware of the power I wielded. Deliberately pitiful, I said, ‘Please.’

Because it was not safe for my mother to venture out, we did not go to the astrologer’s residence, but instead summoned him to our palazzo.

If the astrologer was not a wealthy man, he certainly behaved as one. From a window in the corridor near my bedroom, I watched secretly as his gilded carriage arrived in the courtyard behind our house. Two elegantly-appointed servants attended him as he stepped down, clad in a farsetto, the close-fitting garment which some men wore in place of a tunic. The fabric was a violet velvet quilt, covered by a sleeveless brocade cloak in a darker shade of the same hue. I could not see his face well from that distance, but his body was thin and sunken-chested, his posture and movements imperious.

Zalumma, my mother’s slave, moved forwards to meet him. Zalumma was a well-dressed lady-in-waiting that day. She was devoted to my mother, whose gentleness inspired loyalty, and who treated her slave like a beloved companion. Zalumma was a Circassian, from the high mountains in the mysterious East; her people were highly prized for their physical beauty and Zalumma – tall as a man, with hair and eyebrows black as jet and a face whiter than marble – was no exception. Her tight ringlets were formed not by a hot poker but by God, and were the envy of every Florentine woman. She generally kept them hidden beneath a cap – perfectly round on the sides, and perfectly flat on top, which she said reminded her of her native dress – with a long scarf that ballooned from her hair’s volume. At times, she muttered to herself in her native tongue, which sounded like no language that I had ever heard; she called it Adyghabza.

Zalumma curtsied, then led the man into the house to meet my mother. She had been nervous that morning, no doubt because this astrologer was the most prestigious in town and had, when the Pope’s forecaster had taken ill, even been consulted by His Holiness. I was to remain out of view, for this first encounter was solely a business matter, and I would only be a distraction.

I left my room and stepped lightly to the top of the stairs to see if I could make out what was going on two floors below me. Though my hearing was keen, the stone walls were thick, and my mother had shut the door to the reception chamber. I could not even make out muffled voices.

The initial meeting did not last long. My mother opened the door and called for Zalumma; I heard her quick steps on the marble, then a man’s voice.

I retreated from the stairs and hurried back to window, with its view of the astrologer’s carriage.

Zalumma escorted him from the house – then, after glancing about, handed him a small object, perhaps a purse. He refused it at first, but Zalumma drew close and addressed him earnestly, urgently. After a moment of indecision, he pocketed the object, then climbed into his carriage and was driven away.

I assumed that she had paid him for a reading, though I was surprised that a man of such stature, whose demeanour reflected prideful arrogance, would read for a slave. Or perhaps it was as simple a thing as my mother forgetting to pay him.

As she walked back towards the house, Zalumma happened to glance up and meet my gaze. Flustered at being caught spying, I withdrew.

I expected Zalumma, who enjoyed teasing me about my misdeeds, to mention it later; but she remained altogether silent on the matter.

II

Three days later, the astrologer returned – this time without his attendants. Once again, I watched from the top floor window as he climbed from the carriage to be greeted by Zalumma. I was excited; Mother had agreed to call for me when the time was right. I decided that she wanted time to polish any negative news, and give it a rosier glow.

This time the horoscopist wore his wealth in the form of a brilliant yellow tunic of silk damask trimmed with brown marten fur. Before entering the house, he paused and spoke to Zalumma furtively; she put a hand to her mouth as if shocked by what he said. He asked her a question. She shook her head, then put a hand on his forearm, apparently demanding something from him. He handed her a scroll of papers, then pulled away, irritated, and strode into our palazzo. Agitated, she tucked the scroll into a pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt, then followed on his heels.

I left the window and stood listening at the top of the stairs, mystified by the encounter and impatient for my summons.

Less than a quarter hour later, I started violently when downstairs, a door was flung open with such force it slammed against the wall. I ran to the window: the astrologer was walking, unescorted, back to his carriage.

I lifted my skirts and dashed down the stairs full tilt, grateful that I encountered neither Zalumma nor my mother. Breathless, I arrived at the carriage just as the astrologer gave his driver the signal to leave.

I put my hand on the polished wooden door and looked up at the man sitting on the other side. ‘Please stop,’ I said.

He gestured for the driver to hold the horses back and scowled down at me, clearly in a foul mood; yet his gaze also held a curious compassion. ‘You would be the daughter, then.’

‘Yes.’

He appraised me carefully. ‘I will not be party to deception. Do you understand?’

‘No.’

‘Hmm. I see that you do not.’ He paused to choose his words carefully. ‘Your mother, Madonna Lucrezia, said that you were the one who requested my services. Is that so?’

‘It is.’ I flushed, not knowing whether my admission would anger him further.

‘Then you deserve to hear at least some of the truth, for you will never hear the full of it in this house.’ His pompous irritation faded and his tone grew earnest and dark. ‘Your chart is unusual – some would say it is distressing. I take my art very seriously, young lady, and employ my intuition well, and it tells me that you are caught in a cycle of violence, of blood and deceit. What others have begun, you must finish.’

I recoiled, startled into silence by such unexpected harshness. When I found my voice, I insisted, ‘I want nothing to do with such things.’

‘You are fire four times over,’ he said. ‘Your temper is a furnace in which the sword of justice must be forged. In your stars, I saw an act of violence, one which is your past and your future.’

‘But I would never do anything to hurt someone else!’

‘God has ordained it. He has His reasons for your destiny.’

I wanted to ask more, but the astrologer called to his driver and a pair of fine black horses pulled them away.

Perplexed and troubled, I walked back towards the house. I lifted my gaze, and saw Zalumma staring down at me from the top floor window.

By the time I returned to my chamber, she was gone. There I waited for half an hour, until my mother called for me.

She still sat in the grand hall where she had received the astrologer. She smiled when I entered, apparently unaware of my encounter with him or of Zalumma’s distress. In her hand she bore a sheaf of papers.

‘Come, sit beside me,’ she said brightly. ‘I shall tell you all about your stars. They should have been charted long ago, so I have decided that you still deserve a new gown. Your father will take you today into the city, to choose the cloth; but you must say nothing to him about this.’ She nodded at the papers. ‘Otherwise, he will judge us as too extravagant.’

I sat stiffly, my back straight, my hands folded tightly in my lap.

‘See here.’ My mother set the papers in her lap and rested her fingertip on the astrologer’s elegant script. ‘You are Gemini, of course – air. And have Pisces rising, which is water. Your moon is in Aries – fire. And you have many aspects of earth in your chart, which makes you exceedingly well-balanced, and this indicates a most fortunate future.’

As she spoke, my anger grew. She had spent the past half-hour composing herself and concocting a happy falsehood. The astrologer had been right; I could not expect to find the truth here.

‘You will have a long, good life, wealth, and many children,’ my mother continued. ‘You need not worry about which man you marry, for you are so well-aspected towards every sign that—’

I cut her off. ‘No, I am fire four times over,’ I said. ‘My life will be marked by treachery and blood.’

My mother rose swiftly; the papers in her lap slipped to the floor and scattered. ‘Zalumma!’ she hissed, her eyes lit by a fury I had never seen in her before. ‘Did she speak to you?’

‘I spoke to the astrologer myself.’

This quieted her at once. and her expression grew unreadable. Carefully, she asked, ‘What else did he tell you?’

‘Only what I just said.’

‘No more?’

‘No more.’

Abruptly drained, she sank back into her chair.

Lost in my own anger, I did not stop to think that perhaps my kind and doting mother wished only to shield me from evil news. I jumped to my feet. ‘All that you have said is a lie! What others have you told me?’

It was a cruel thing to say. She glanced at me, stricken. Yet I turned and left her sitting there, with her hand pressed to her heart.

Later I realized that my mother and Zalumma had had a terrible argument. They had always been on the most amiable terms possible; but after the astrologer’s second visit, my mother grew cold each time Zalumma entered the room. She would not meet her slave’s gaze, nor would she speak more than a few words to her. Zalumma, in turn, was sullen and silent. Several weeks passed before they were friends once again.

My mother never spoke to me again of my stars. I often thought of asking Zalumma to find the papers the astrologer had given my mother, so that I could read the truth for myself. But each time, a sense of dread held me back.

I already knew more than I wished.

Almost two years would pass before I learned of the crime to which I was inextricably bound.

PART I April 26, 1478

III

In the stark, massive Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli stood before the altar and fought to steady his shaking hands. He could not, of course – no more than he could hide the blackness in his heart from God. He pressed palms and fingers together in a gesture of prayer, and held them to his lips. Voice unsteady, he whispered, pleading for the success of the dark venture in which he found himself entangled, pleading for forgiveness should it succeed.

I am a good man. Baroncelli directed the thought to the Almighty. I have always meant others well. How did I come to find myself here?

No answer came. Baroncelli fixed his gaze on the altar, fashioned of dark wood and gold. Through the stained glass windows in the cupola, the morning light streamed down in golden rays, glittering with dust as they glinted off the golden fixtures. The sight evoked unsullied Eden. Surely God was here; but Baroncelli sensed no divine presence, only his own wickedness.

‘God forgive me, a most miserable sinner,’ he murmured. His quiet prayer mingled with the hundreds of hushed voices inside the cavernous Church of Saint Mary of the Flower – in this case a lily. The sanctuary was one of the largest in the world, and was built in the shape of a Latin cross. Atop the juncture of the arms rested the architect Brunelleschi’s greatest achievement: il Duomo. Dazzling in its sheer expanse, the huge dome had no visible means of support. Visible from any part of the city, the orange brick cupola majestically dominated the skyline, and had, like the lily, become a symbol of Florence. It stretched so high that, when he first set eyes upon it, Baroncelli thought it must surely touch the Gates of Heaven.

Baroncelli dwelt in a far lower realm this particular morning. Though the plan had seemed simple enough to be foolproof, now the painfully bright day had dawned, Baroncelli was overwhelmed with foreboding and regret. The latter emotion had always marked his life: born into one of the city’s wealthiest and most eminent families, he had squandered his fortune and fallen into debt at an advanced age. He had spent his life as a banker, and knew nothing else. His only choices were to move wife and children down to Naples and beg for sponsorship from one of his rich cousins – an option his outspoken spouse, Giovanna, would never have tolerated – or to offer his services to one of the two largest and most prestigious banking families in Florence: the Medici, or the Pazzi.

He had gone first to the most powerful: the Medici. They had rejected him, a fact he still resented. But their rivals, the Pazzi, welcomed him into their fold; and it was for that reason, that today he stood in the front row of the throng of faithful beside his employer, Francesco de’ Pazzi. With his uncle, the knight Messer Iacopo, Francesco ran his family’s international business concerns. He was a small man, with a sharp nose and chin, and eyes that narrowed beneath dark, disproportionately large brows; beside the tall, dignified Baroncelli, he resembled an ugly dwarf. Baroncelli had eventually come to resent Francesco more than the Medici, for the man was given to fits of temper and had often loosed a nasty tongue on his employee, reminding Baroncelli of his bankruptcy with stinging words.

In order to provide for his family, Baroncelli was forced to grin while the Pazzi – Messer Iacopo as well as young Francesco – insulted him, and treated him as an inferior when in fact he came from a family with equal, if not more, prestige. So when the matter of the plot presented itself, Baroncelli was presented with a choice: risk his neck by confessing everything to the Medici, or let the Pazzi force him to be their accomplice, and win for himself a position in the new government.

Now, as he stood asking God for forgiveness, he felt the warm breath of a fellow conspirator upon his right shoulder. The man praying just behind him wore the burlap robes of a penitent.

Standing to Baroncelli’s left, Francesco fidgeted and glanced right, past his employee. Baroncelli followed his gaze: it rested on Lorenzo de’ Medici, who at twenty-nine years old was the de facto ruler of Florence. Technically, Florence was governed by the Signoria, a council of eight priors and the head of state, the gonfaloniere of justice; these men were chosen from among all the notable Florentine families. Supposedly the process was fair, but curiously, the majority of those chosen were always loyal to Lorenzo, and even the gonfaloniere was his to control.

Francesco de’ Pazzi was ugly, but Lorenzo was uglier still. Taller than most, and muscular in build, his fine body was marred by one of Florence’s homeliest faces. His nose – long and pointed, ending in a pronounced upward slope that tilted to one side – had a flattened bridge, leaving Lorenzo with a peculiarly nasal voice. His lower jaw jutted out so severely that whenever he entered a room, his chin preceded him by a thumb’s breadth. His disturbing profile was framed by a jaw-length hank of dark brown hair.

Lorenzo stood awaiting the start of the Mass, flanked on one side by his loyal friend and employee, Francesco Nori, and on the other by the Archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati. Despite his physiognomic failings, he emanated profound dignity and poise. In his dark, slightly protruding eyes shone an uncommon shrewdness. Even surrounded by enemies, Lorenzo seemed at ease. Salviati was a Pazzi relative, and no friend, though he and Lorenzo greeted each other as such; the elder Medici brother had lobbied furiously against Salviati’s appointment as Archbishop of Pisa, asking instead that Pope Sixtus appoint a Medici sympathizer. The Pope had turned a deaf ear to Lorenzo’s request, and then – breaking with a tradition that had existed for generations – he fired the Medici as the Papal bankers to replace them with the Pazzi – a bitter insult to Lorenzo.

Yet today, Lorenzo had received the Pope’s own nephew, the seventeen-year-old Cardinal Riario of San Giorgio, as an honoured guest. After Mass in the great Duomo, Lorenzo would lead the young Cardinal to a feast at the Medici palace, followed by a tour of the famed Medici collection of art. In the meantime, he stood attentively beside the Riario and Salviati, nodding at their occasional whispered comments.

Smiling while they sharpen their swords, Baroncelli thought.

Dressed unostentatiously in a plain tunic of blue-grey silk, Lorenzo was quite unaware of the presence of a pair of black-frocked priests standing two rows behind him. The tutor to the Pazzi household was a youth Baroncelli knew only as Stefano; a somewhat older man, Antonio da Volterra, stood beside him. Baroncelli had caught da Volterra’s gaze as they entered the church and had glanced quickly away; the priest’s eyes were full of the same smouldering rage Baroncelli had seen in the penitent’s. Da Volterra, present at all the secret meetings, had also spoken vehemently against the Medici’s ‘love of all things pagan’, saying that the family had ‘ruined our city’ with its decadent art.

Like his fellow conspirators, Baroncelli knew that neither feast nor tour would ever take place. Events soon to occur would change the political face of Florence forever.

Behind him, the hooded penitent shifted his weight, then let go a sigh which held sounds only Baroncelli could interpret. His words were muffled by the cowl that had been drawn forward to obscure his features. Baroncelli had advised against permitting the man to assist in the assassination – why should he be trusted? The fewer involved, the better … but Francesco, as always, had overridden him.

Where is Giuliano? the penitent whispered.

Giuliano de’ Medici, the younger brother, was as fair of face as Lorenzo was ugly. The darling of Florence, he was called – so handsome, it was said, that men and women alike sighed in his wake. It would not do to have only one brother present in the great cathedral. Both were required, or the entire operation would have to be called off.

Baroncelli looked over his shoulder to glance at the shadowed face of his hooded accomplice and said nothing. He did not like the penitent; the man had injected an undertone of self-righteous religious fervour into the proceedings, one so infectious that even the worldly Francesco had begun to believe that they were doing God’s work today.

Baroncelli knew that God had nothing to do with this; this was an act born of jealousy and ambition.

On his other side, Francesco de’ Pazzi hissed. ‘What is it? What did he say?’

Baroncelli leaned down to whisper in his diminutive employer’s ear. ‘Where is Giuliano?’

He watched the weasel-faced Francesco struggle to suppress his stricken expression. Baroncelli shared his distress. Mass would commence soon now that Lorenzo and his guest, the Cardinal, were in place; unless Giuliano arrived shortly, the entire plot would evaporate into disaster. It was unthinkable, there was too much danger, too much was at stake; too many souls were involved in the plot, leaving too many tongues free to wag. Even now, Messer Iacopo waited alongside a small army of fifty Perugian mercenaries for the signal from the church bell. When it tolled, he would seize control of the government palace and rally the people against Lorenzo.

The penitent pushed forwards until he stood alongside Baroncelli; he then raised his face to stare upwards at the dizzyingly high cupola overhead, rising directly above the great altar. The man’s burlap hood slipped back slightly, revealing his profile. For an instant, his lips parted, and brow and mouth contorted in a look of such hatred, such revulsion, that Baroncelli recoiled from him.

Slowly, the bitterness in the penitent’s eyes eased and the muscles in his face relaxed to the point that his expression resolved into one of beatific ecstasy, as if he could see God Himself and not the great ceiling’s smoothly curved marble. Francesco noticed, and he watched the penitent as though he were an oracle about to give utterance.

And give utterance he did. ‘He is still abed.’ And, coming back to his senses, the man carefully drew the hood forwards to conceal his face once more.

Francesco clutched Baroncelli’s elbow and hissed. ‘We must go to the Medici Palace at once!’ Baroncelli was not given to superstition, but could not disobey his employer.

Smiling, Francesco steered Baroncelli to the left, away from the distracted Lorenzo de’ Medici, and past a handful of Florentine notables that comprised the first row of worshippers. They did not use the nearby northern door that led out to the Via de’ Servi as their exit would more likely have drawn Lorenzo’s attention.

Instead, the pair moved down the outermost aisle that ran the intimidating length of the sanctuary – past brown stone columns the width of four men, which were connected by high, white arches framing long windows of stained glass. Francesco’s expression was at first benign, as he passed acquaintance after acquaintance in the first few rows, nodding greetings as he went. Baroncelli, dazed, did his best to murmur salutations to those he knew, but Francesco pushed him along so swiftly, he scarce could catch his breath.

Hundreds of faces, hundreds of bodies. Empty, the cathedral would have seemed infinitely vast; filled to capacity on the fifth Sunday after Easter, it seemed cramped, crowded and airless. Each face that turned to meet Baroncelli seemed filled with suspicion.

The first group of worshippers they passed consisted of Florence’s wealthy: glittering women and men weighed down by ostentatious displays of gold and jewels, by fur-trimmed heavy brocades and velvets. The smell of the men’s rosemary and lavender water mingled with the more volatile, feminine scent of attar of roses, all wafting above the base notes of smoke and frankincense from the altar.

Francesco’s velvet slippers whispered rapidly against the inlaid marble; his expression grew sterner once he moved past the aristocracy. The aroma of lavender increased as the two men walked past the rows of the richest merchants – the men and women dressed in silks and fine wool, embellished with a glint of gold here and silver there, even the spark of an occasional diamond. Unsmiling, Francesco nodded once or twice, to lower-ranking business associates as Baroncelli struggled to breathe; the onrush of faces – witnesses, all of them – triggered a profound panic within him.

But Francesco did not slow. As they passed the middle class tradesmen – the smiths and bakers, the artists and their apprentices – the smell of fragrant herbs gave way to perspiration and the fine fabrics to the coarser weaves of wool and silk.

The poor stood in the final rows at the back: wool carders, unable to muffle their coughing, fabric dyers, with darkly stained hands. The garments here consisted of tattered wool and rumpled linen, perfumed with sweat and filth. Both Francesco and Baroncelli involuntarily covered their mouths and noses.

At last, they made their way out of the huge open doors. Baroncelli took a great sobbing gasp of air.

‘No time for cowardice!’ Francesco snapped, and dragged him down into the street, past the clawing arms of beggars planted cross-legged on the church steps, past the slender, towering campanile to their left.

They made their way through the great open piazza, past the octagonal Baptistery of St. John, dwarfed by the Duomo. The temptation to run was great, but too dangerous, although they still made their way at a pace which left Baroncelli breathless despite the fact that his legs were twice the length of his employer’s. After the dimness of the Duomo, sunlight seemed harsh. It was a gloriously beautiful, cloudless spring day, yet to Baroncelli, it seemed ominous all the same.

They veered north onto the Via Larga, sometimes referred to as ‘the street of the Medici’. It was impossible to set foot upon its worn flagstones and not feel Lorenzo’s iron grip upon the city. The wide street was lined with the palazzi of his supporters: of Michelozzo, the family architect, of Angelo Poliziano, poet and protégé. Further down, out of sight, stood the church and convent of San Marco. Lorenzo’s father, Cosimo, had rebuilt the crumbling cathedral and founded the convent’s famous library; in return, the Dominican monks revered him, and provided him with his own cell for those times he was given to contemplation – which was not often.

Cosimo had even purchased the gardens near the monastery and Lorenzo had transformed them into a sculpture garden: a luxurious training-ground for young architects and artists.

Baroncelli and his co-conspirator approached the intersection with the Via de’ Gori, where the cupola of Florence’s oldest cathedral, San Lorenzo, dominated the western skyline. It had fallen into ruin, and Cosimo, with the help of Michelozzo and Brunelleschi, had restored its former grandeur. His bones rested there now, in the marble tomb set before the high altar.

At last, the two men reached their destination: the rectangular grey bulk of the Medici’s palazzo, sombre and stern as a fortress – the architect, Michelozzo was given strict instruction that the building was not to be ornate, lest it roused suspicion that the Medici considered themselves above plain citizens. Yet the modest design still emanated sufficient magnificence to be suitable for entertaining kings and princes; Charles VII of France had dined in the great hall.

It struck Baroncelli that the building resembled its current owner: the ground floor was made of rough-hewn, rustic stone; the second floor, of even brick and the third was crafted of perfectly smooth stone, and capped by an overhanging cornice. The face Lorenzo presented to the world was just as polished; yet his foundation, his heart, was rough and cold enough to do anything to maintain control over the city.

It had taken barely four minutes to reach Palazzo de Medici, which dominated the corner of the Vias Larga and Gori. Those four minutes passed as though they were hours; those four minutes passed so swiftly Baroncelli could not even recall walking down the street.

At the southern corner of the building, closest to the Duomo, stood the loggia. It was covered from the elements, but broad archways offered its shelter to the street. Here, citizens of Florence were free to meet and converse, oft-times with Lorenzo or Giuliano; a good deal of business was conducted beneath its stone ceiling.

On this Sunday morning, most folk were at Mass; only two men lingered in the loggia, talking softly. One of them – wearing a wool tabard that marked him as a merchant and possibly one of the Medici’s own bankers – turned to scowl at Baroncelli, who ducked his head, nervous at the prospect of being seen and remembered.

A few steps more, and the two conspirators stopped at the thick brass doors of the palazzo’s main entrance on the Via Larga. Francesco pounded adamantly on the metal; his efforts were finally rewarded by the appearance of a servant, who led them into the magnificent courtyard.

Thus began the agony of waiting while Giuliano was summoned. Had Baroncelli not been in the grip of fear at that particular moment, he might have been able to enjoy his surroundings. At each corner of the courtyard stood a great stone column, connected by graceful arches. On top of those was a frieze, adorned with medallions depicting pagan scenes in-between the Medici crest. They had been sculpted by one of Donatello’s students.

The famous seven palle – or balls – of the Medici crest were arranged in what looked suspiciously like a crown. To hear Lorenzo tell it, the palle represented the dents in the shield of one of Charlemagne’s knights, the brave Averardo, who had fought a fearsome giant and won. So impressed was Charlemagne that he allowed Averardo to design his coat of arms from the battered shield. The Medici claimed descent from the brave knight, and the family had borne the crest for centuries.

The cry ‘Palle! Palle! Palle!’ was used to rally the people on the Medici’s behalf. Of Cosimo the Elder, it had been said that he had branded even the monks’ privates with his balls.

Baroncelli let his gaze follow the path from one medallion to the next. One scene showed Athena, defending the city of Athens; another remembered the winged Icarus soaring for the heavens.

At last he dropped his gaze to the courtyard’s centrepiece: Donatello’s bronze David. The sculpture had always struck Baroncelli as effeminate; long curls spilled out from beneath David’s straw shepherd’s hat; his naked, curving form bore no masculine muscularity, and his genitalia were markedly small. (The fact had led to much speculation about the size of the Medici’s privates.) Indeed, one elbow was crooked with the hand resting on the hip in a girlish posture.

However, on this day, Baroncelli drew a totally different impression from the statue. He could see the coldness in David’s eyes as the boy stared down at the head of the slain Goliath; he saw how he gripped the great sword in his right hand.

Which role shall I play today? Baroncelli wondered. David, or Goliath?

Light and shadow conspired to distort both beautiful and mundane images, and impregnate them with hidden meaning. Above him, Athena struggled with Poseidon over Athenian souls, and Icarus, winged and filled with optimism, would soon plunge to his death.

Beside him, Francesco de’ Pazzi was pacing the floor with hands clasped behind his back, and small eyes glaring downwards at polished marble. Giuliano had best come soon, Baroncelli reflected, or Francesco would begin muttering to himself.

But Giuliano did not appear. The servant, a comely, well-trained youth, as well-oiled as every part of the Medici machinery, returned with a look of practised sympathy. ‘ Signori, forgive me. I am so sorry to tell you that my master is currently indisposed and cannot receive company.’

Francesco leapt forwards, and barely managed to replace his fright with jovialness in time. ‘Ah! Please explain to Ser Giuliano that the matter is most urgent.’ He lowered his tone as if confiding a secret. ‘Today’s luncheon is in the young Cardinal Riario’s honour, and he is sorely disappointed that Ser Giuliano will not be attending. The Cardinal is at the Duomo now with Ser Lorenzo, asking after your master. Mass has been delayed on this account, and I fear that, should Ser Giuliano fail to come with us now, the Cardinal will take offence. We would not want him to report this to his uncle, the Pope, when he returns to Rome …’

The servant nodded graciously while wearing a small frown of concern. Baroncelli sensed he was not quite convinced that he should further disturb his master. Francesco clearly sensed the same, for he pressed harder. ‘We have come at the behest of Ser Lorenzo, who bids his brother come, and swiftly, as we are all waiting …’

The youth gave a quick lift of his chin, signalling his understanding of the urgency. ‘Of course, I will relay all that you have said to my master.’

As the lad turned, Baroncelli gazed on his employer, and marvelled at his talent for duplicity.

In less time than either he or Francesco expected, footsteps sounded on the marble stairs leading down to the courtyard. Soon Giuliano de’ Medici stood before them, in a tunic of pale green velvet embroidered at the neck and sleeves with gold thread. Though his brother’s features were imperfect, Giuliano’s were without flaw. His nose, though prominent, was straight and nicely rounded at the tip; his jaw was strong and square; and his eyes were large and golden brown, framed with lashes that were the envy of every Florentine woman. Delicate, well-formed lips rested atop even teeth, and his hair was full and curling, parted down the middle and brushed back to better show his handsome visage.

Giuliano was always smiling and laughing. At twenty-four, life was good to him; he was young, lively and fair of face. Yet his good nature and sensitive character were such that he never made another feel inadequate. Indeed, his jocular demeanour and generous nature made him generally loved by Florence’s citizens. While he might not have shared his brother’s painful brilliance at politics, he was astute enough to use his other attributes to gain public support. Were Lorenzo to die, Giuliano would have no difficulty in taking up the reins of power.

Over the past few weeks, Baroncelli had tried hard to despise him, and failed.

The faint morning light that had begun to paint the bottoms of the columns revealed that today Giuliano’s glory was sorely dimmed. His hair had not been combed, his clothes had obviously been hastily donned – and his eyes were noticeably bloodshot, as though he had not slept. For the first time in Baroncelli’s memory, Giuliano did not smile. His manner was sombre, and he moved slowly, like a man weighed down by heavy armour. Icarus, Baroncelli thought. He has soared too high and has now been scorched.

When Giuliano spoke, his normally melodic voice was hoarse, almost as rasping as his brother’s. ‘Good day, gentlemen. I understand Cardinal Riario has taken offence at my absence from Mass?’

Baroncelli felt a strange sensation in his chest, as if his heart was flipping over. Giuliano looked like a beast resigned to the slaughter. He knows. He cannot possibly know. And yet … he knows …

‘We are so sorry to disturb you,’ Francesco de’ Pazzi said, his hands clasped in an apologetic gesture. ‘We have come at the behest of Ser Lorenzo …’ Despite the business rivalry between the Medici and the Pazzi, they were related by the marriage of Giuliano’s elder sister to Francesco’s brother Guglielmo. This called for a public show of cordiality, even affection – a fact Francesco was relying on now.

Giuliano released a short sigh. ‘I understand. God knows, we must take care to please Lorenzo.’ A glimmer of his old self returned, and he added with apparently genuine concern, ‘I only hope it is not too late to reassure the Cardinal that I hold him in the highest regard.’

‘Yes,’ Baroncelli said slowly. ‘Let us hope it is not too late. Mass has already started.’

‘Let us go, then,’ Giuliano said. He gestured for them to move back towards the entryway, and as he lifted his arm, Baroncelli noticed that Giuliano had dressed so hurriedly that he wore no sword at his hip.

Out they went, the three of them, into the bright morning.

The scowling man who had been waiting out in the loggia glanced up as Giuliano passed. ‘Ser Giuliano,’ he called. ‘A word with you; it is most important.’

Giuliano looked over and clearly recognized him. A disgruntled banker, Baroncelli thought. Perhaps Lorenzo had recently let the man go. Or could it be someone with knowledge of the plot? Someone who was deliberately trying to stall them?

‘The Cardinal,’ Francesco urged frantically, then addressed the man himself. ‘Good man, Ser Giuliano is late for an urgent appointment and begs your understanding.’ And with that he took Giuliano by the arm and dragged him away down the Via Larga.

Baroncelli followed. The fright had made his mind finally take leave of his body. He marvelled that, although he was terrified, his hands no longer shook and his heart and breath no longer failed him. Indeed, he and Francesco joked and laughed and played the role of good friends trying to cheer another. Giuliano smiled faintly at their efforts but lagged behind, so the two conspirators made a game of alternately pulling and pushing him along. ‘We must not keep the Cardinal waiting,’ Baroncelli repeated at least thrice.

‘Pray tell, good Giuliano,’ Francesco said, catching his young brother-in-law by his sleeve. ‘What has happened to make you sigh so? Surely your heart has not been stolen by some worthless wench?’

Giuliano lowered his gaze and shook his head – not in reply, but to indicate that he did not wish to broach such matters. Francesco dropped the subject at once. Yet he never eased their rapid pace, and within minutes, they arrived at the front entry of the Duomo.

Baroncelli paused. He was already half-mad, already doomed to Hell, so saw no point in suppressing any further urge towards deceit … and the sight of Giuliano moving so slowly, as though he were heavy laden, pricked at him. Feigning impulsiveness, he seized the young Medici and hugged him tightly. ‘Dear friend,’ he said. ‘It troubles me to see you so unhappy. What must we do to cheer you?’

Giuliano gave another forced little smile and a slight shake of his head. ‘Nothing, good Bernardo. Nothing.’

And he followed Francesco’s lead into the cathedral.

Baroncelli, meanwhile, had laid one more concern to rest: Giuliano wore no breastplate beneath his tunic.

IV

On that late April morning, Giuliano faced a terrible decision: he must choose to break the heart of one of the two people he loved most in the world. One heart belonged to his brother, Lorenzo; the other, to a woman.

Though a young man, Giuliano had known many lovers. His former mistress, Simonetta Cattaneo, wife of Marco Vespucci, had been hailed as the most beautiful woman in Florence until her death two years ago. He had chosen Simonetta for her looks: she was fine-boned and fair, with masses of curling golden hair that fell far below her waist. So lovely was she that they had carried her to her grave with her face exposed. Out of deference for the husband and family, Giuliano had watched from a distance, but he had wept with them.

Even so, he had never been faithful. He had dallied with other women during their affair and, occasionally he had revelled in the talents of whores.

Now, for the first time in his life, Giuliano desired only one woman: Anna. She was handsome, to be sure, but it was her intelligence that had entrapped him, her delight in life and the greatness of her heart. He had come to know her slowly, through conversation at banquets, and at parties. She had never flirted, never attempted to win him; indeed, she had done everything possible to discourage him. But none of the dozens of Florentine noblewomen who vied and simpered for his affections matched her. Simonetta had been vapid; Anna had the soul of a poet, a saint.

Her goodness made Giuliano view his former life as repugnant. He abandoned all other women and sought only the company of Anna, yearned to please only her. He wished to marry her, to father her children and none other’s. Just the sight of her made him want to beg forgiveness for his past carnal indulgences. He longed for her grace more than God’s.

And it seemed like a miracle when she had at last confided her feelings: that God had created them for each other, and that it was His cruellest joke that she was already given to another man.

As passionate as Anna’s love was for him, her love of purity and decency, was even greater. She belonged to another, whom she refused to betray. She had admitted her feelings for Giuliano, but when he pursued her – when he cornered her alone during Carnival at his brother’s house and begged for her – she rejected him. Duty, she had said. Responsibility. She had sounded like Lorenzo, who had always insisted his brother make an advantageous match, and marry a woman who would add even more prestige to the family, and not disgrace.

Giuliano, accustomed to having whatever he wanted, tried to bargain his way around it. He pleaded with her to come to him in private – simply to hear him out. She wavered, but then agreed. They had met once, in the ground floor appartamento at the Medici palazzo. She had indulged his embraces, his kiss, but would go no farther. He had begged her to leave Florence, to go away with him, but she had refused.

‘He knows.’ Her voice had been anguished. ‘Do you understand? He knows, and I cannot bear to hurt him any longer.’

Giuliano was a determined man. Neither God nor societal convention gave him pause once he had made up his mind. For Anna, he was willing to give up the prospect of a respectable marriage; for Anna, he was willing to endure the censure of the Church, even excommunication and the prospect of damnation. It seemed a small price in order to be with her.

And so he had made a forceful argument: She should go with him to Rome, to stay in a family villa. The Medici had Papal connections; he would procure for her an annulment. He would marry her. He would give her children.

She had been torn, had put her hands to her lips. He looked in her eyes and saw the misery there, but he also saw a flicker of hope.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ she had said, and he had let her return to her husband to make her decision.

The next day, he had gone to Lorenzo. Giuliano had wakened in the middle of the night and was unable to return to sleep. It was still dark – two hours before sunrise – but he was not surprised to see the light emanating from his brother’s antechamber. Lorenzo sat at his desk, with his cheek propped against his fist, scowling down at a letter he held close to the glowing lamp.

Nearby, another lamp cast light on the wall in front of him, where three large wooden panels had been propped – another artistic acquisition. Lorenzo had acquired them only a few weeks ago, from a family that owed him money; he was most excited about them because the artist, Uccello, was using the ‘new perspective’ to make the scenes appear more realistic.

Giuliano was not impressed. The panels depicted opposing armies at the very instant of their engagement. Banners fluttered in the sky; lances and swords were wielded; beautifully caparisoned horses reared and bared their teeth. They glorified Death. Giuliano could not understand how something as changeable and meaningless as politics should justify the killing of men and breaking of women’s hearts. The panels honoured a battle that had taken place a hundred years before, between Florentine and Sienese forces; many soldiers had died, but few today could remember their names, and no one cared why they had sacrificed themselves.

Giuliano returned his gaze to his brother. Normally Lorenzo would have glanced up, would have forced away the frown to smile, to utter a greeting; that day, however, he seemed in uncommonly ill sorts. No greeting came; Lorenzo gave him a cursory glance, then looked back at the letter. Its contents were apparently the cause of his bad humour.

Lorenzo could be maddeningly stubborn at times, overly concerned with appearances, coldly calculating when it came to politics, and at times dictatorial concerning how Giuliano should comport himself, and with whom he should allow himself to be seen. But he could also be enormously indulgent, generous, and sensitive to his younger brother’s wishes. Although Giuliano had never desired power, Lorenzo always shared information with him, they always discussed the political ramifications of every civic event. It was clear that Lorenzo loved his brother deeply, and would gladly have shared control of the city with him, had Giuliano ever shown an interest.

It had been hard for Lorenzo, to lose his father, and to be forced to assume power when so young. True, he had the talent for it; but Giuliano could see it wore on him. After nine years, the strain showed. Permanent creases had established themselves on his brow and shadows had settled beneath his eyes.

A part of Lorenzo revelled in the power, and delighted in extending the family’s influence. The Medici Bank had branches in Rome, in Bruges, in most of the greater cities of Europe. Yet Lorenzo was often exhausted by the demands of playing the gran maestro. At times, he complained, ‘Not a soul in the city will marry without my blessing.’ Quite true. And that very week, he had received a letter from a congregation in rural Tuscany, begging for his advice: The church fathers had approved the creation of a saint’s statue; two sculptors were vying for the commission. Would the great Lorenzo be so kind as to give his opinion? Such missives piled up in great stacks each day; Lorenzo rose before dawn and answered them in his own hand.

He fretted over Florence as a father would a wayward child. Lorenzo spent every waking moment dedicated to furthering her prosperity and the Medici interests.

But he was keenly aware that no one loved him, save for the favours he could bestow. Only Giuliano adored his brother truly, for himself. Only Giuliano tried to make Lorenzo forget his responsibilities; only Giuliano could make him laugh. For that, Lorenzo loved him fiercely.

And it was the repercussions of that love Giuliano feared.

Giuliano straightened and cleared his throat. ‘I am going,’ he said, rather loudly, ‘to Rome.’

Lorenzo lifted his brows and his gaze, but the rest of him did not stir. ‘On pleasure, or on some business I should acquaint myself with?’

‘I am going with a woman.’

Lorenzo sighed; his frown eased. ‘Enjoy yourself, then, and think of me suffering here.’

‘I am going with Madonna Anna,’ Giuliano said.

Lorenzo jerked his head sharply at the name. ‘You’re joking.’ He said it lightly, but as he stared at Giuliano, his expression grew incredulous. ‘You must be joking.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘This is foolishness … Giuliano, she is from a good family. And she is married.’

Giuliano did not quail. ‘I love her. I won’t be without her. I’ve asked her to go with me to Rome, to live.’

Lorenzo’s eyes widened; the letter slipped from his hand and fluttered to the floor, but he did not retrieve it. ‘Giuliano … Our hearts mislead us all, from time to time. You’re enthralled by an emotion; believe me, I understand. But it will ease. Give yourself a fortnight to rethink this idea.’

Lorenzo’s paternal, dismissive tone only strengthened Giuliano’s resolve. ‘I’ve already arranged the carriage and driver, and sent a message to the servants at the Roman villa to prepare for us. We must seek an annulment,’ he said. ‘I don’t say this lightly, brother. I want to marry Anna. I want her to bear my children.’

Lorenzo leaned back in his chair and stared intently at his younger brother, as if trying to judge whether he were an impostor. When he was satisfied that the words had been meant, Lorenzo let go a short, bitter laugh. ‘An annulment? Courtesy of our good friend Pope Sixtus, I suppose? He would prefer to see us banished from Italy.’ He pushed himself away from his desk, rose, and reached for his brother; his tone softened. ‘This is a fantasy, Giuliano. I understand that she is a marvellous woman, but … She has been married for some years. Even if I could arrange for an annulment, it would create a scandal. Florence would never accept it.’

Lorenzo’s hand was almost on his shoulder; Giuliano shifted it back, away from the conciliatory touch. ‘I don’t care what Florence will or won’t accept. We’ll remain in Rome, if we have to.’

Lorenzo emitted a sharp sigh of frustration. ‘You’ll get no annulment from Sixtus. So give up your romantic ideas: If you can’t live without her, have her – but for God’s sake, do so discreetly.’

Giuliano flared. ‘How can you speak of her like that? You know Anna, you know she would never consent to deception. And if I can’t have her I won’t have any other woman. You can stop all your match-making efforts right now. If I can’t marry her—’

Even as he spoke, he felt his argument fail. Lorenzo’s eyes were filled with a peculiar light – furious and fierce, verging on madness – a light that made Giuliano believe his brother capable of true malevolence. He had only seen such a look in Lorenzo’s eyes rarely – never before had it been directed at him – and it chilled him. ‘You’ll do what? Refuse to marry anyone at all?’ Lorenzo shook his head vehemently; his voice grew louder. ‘You have a duty, an obligation to your family. You think you can forget it, go to Rome on a whim, pass our blood on to a litter of bastards? You would stain us with excommunication? Because that’s what would happen, you know – to both of you! Sixtus is in no mood to be generous with us.’

Giuliano said nothing; the flesh on his cheeks and neck burned. He had expected no less, though he had hoped for more.

Lorenzo continued; the hand that had reached for his brother now became a jabbing, accusatory finger. ‘Do you have any idea of what will happen to Anna? What people will call her? She’s a decent woman, a good woman. Do you really want to ruin her? You’ll take her to Rome and grow tired of her. You’ll want to come home to Florence. And what will she have left?’

Angry words scalded Giuliano’s tongue. He wanted to say that though Lorenzo had married a harridan, he, Giuliano, would rather die than live in such loveless misery, that he would never stoop to fathering children upon a woman he despised. But he remained silent; he was unhappy enough. There was no point in making Lorenzo suffer the truth, too.

Lorenzo emitted a growl of disgust. ‘You’ll never do it. You’ll come to your senses.’

Giuliano looked at him a long moment. ‘I love you, Lorenzo,’ he said quietly. ‘But I am going.’ He turned and moved to the door.

‘Leave with her,’ his brother threatened, ‘and you can forget that I am your brother. Don’t imagine I am joking, Giuliano. I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Leave with her, and you’ll never see me again.’

Giuliano looked back over his shoulder at Lorenzo, and was suddenly afraid. He and his older brother did not joke with each other when they discussed important matters – and neither could be swayed once he had made up his mind. ‘Please don’t make me choose.’

Lorenzo’s jaw was set, his gaze cold. ‘You’ll have to.’

The following evening, Giuliano had waited in Lorenzo’s ground floor apartment until it was time to meet Anna. He had spent the entire day thinking about Lorenzo’s comment about how she would be ruined if she went to Rome. For the first time, he considered what Anna’s life would be like if the Pope refused to grant an annulment.

She would know disgrace, and censure; she would be forced to give up her family, her friends, her native city. Her children would be called bastards, and be denied their inheritance as Medici heirs.

He had been selfish. He had been thinking only of himself when he made the offer to Anna. He had spoken too easily of the annulment, in hopes that it would sway her to go with him. And he had not, until that moment, considered that she might reject his offer; the possibility had seemed too painful to contemplate.

Now he realized that it would save him from making an agonizing choice.

But when he went to meet her at the door and saw her face in the dying light, he saw that his choice had been made long ago, at the moment when he gave his heart to Anna. Her eyes, her skin, her face and limbs exuded joy; even in the shadowy dusk, she shone. Her movements, which had once been slow, weighed down by unhappy consequence, were now agile and light. The exuberant tilt of her head as she looked up at him, the faint smile that bloomed on her lips, the swift grace with which she lifted her skirts and rushed to him relayed her answer more clearly than words.

Her presence breathed such hope into him that he moved quickly to her and held her, and let it infuse him. In that instant, Giuliano realized that he could refuse her nothing, that neither of them could escape the turning of the wheel now set in motion. And the tears that threatened him did not spring from joy; they were tears of grief, for Lorenzo.

He and Anna remained together less than an hour; they spoke little, only enough for Giuliano to convey a time, and a place. No other exchange was needed.

And when she was gone again – taking the light and Giuliano’s confidence with her – he went back to his own chamber, and called for wine. He drank it sitting on his bed, and thinking of Lorenzo.

He finally understood the depth of his elder brother’s love and caring for him. When he had first become fascinated with Anna, he had gone to Lorenzo and asked, ‘Have you ever been in love?’ He had always felt pity for his brother, on account of his unhappy marriage.

Lorenzo had been busy at his desk, but at the sound of his brother’s voice, he had looked up and forced his stern expression to lighten. ‘Of course.’

‘No, Lorenzo, I mean desperately, hopelessly in love. So much in love that you would rather die than lose your beloved.’

Lorenzo sighed with mild impatience. ‘Of course. But the story ends sadly, so what would be the point in its telling?’

‘You never want to speak to me of sad things.’ Giuliano said. ‘Just like Father, always trying to protect me, as if I weren’t able to fend for myself.’

Hidden hurt glimmered in Lorenzo’s eyes as his gaze flickered down and to the side … and into the past. Giuliano realized he was thinking of their father, Piero, and of the day he died. In his last moments, Piero had asked to speak to his eldest son alone; Giuliano had always assumed it had been merely to relate political secrets. But at that instant, seeing the haunted look in Lorenzo’s eyes, Giuliano realized their conversation had dealt with something more important.

‘I’m sorry, Lorenzo. I didn’t mean to complain …’

Lorenzo gave a small, unhappy smile. ‘You’re entitled. But … you’ve already seen enough grief in your short life already, don’t you think?’

Recalling the conversation, Giuliano swallowed wine without tasting it. Now it seemed like a mockery that God had given him the wonderful gift of Anna’s love, only to have it cause everyone such pain.

He sat for hours, watching the darkness of night deepen, then slowly fade to grey with the coming of dawn and the day he was to leave for Rome. He sat until the arrival of his insistent visitors, Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli. He could not imagine why the visiting Cardinal should care so passionately about Giuliano’s presence at Mass; but if Lorenzo had asked him to come, then that was good enough reason to do so.

He hoped, with sudden optimism, that Lorenzo might have changed his mind; that his anger had faded, and left him more receptive to discussion.

Thus Giuliano rallied himself and, like a good brother, came as he was bidden.

V

Baroncelli hesitated at the door of the cathedral, as his objectivity briefly returned to him. Here was a chance to flee fate; a chance, before an alarm could be sounded, to run home to his estate, to mount his horse and head for any kingdom where neither the conspirators nor their victims had influence. The Pazzi were powerful and persistent, capable of mounting efforts to hunt him down – but they were neither as well-connected nor as dogged as the Medici.

Still in the lead, Francesco turned and goaded Baroncelli on with a murderous glance. Giuliano, still distracted by his private sorrow, was heedless and, flanked by the uncertain Baroncelli, followed Francesco inside. Baroncelli felt he had just crossed the threshold from reason into madness.

Inside, the air was filmed with smoke, redolent with frankincense and heavy with sweat. The sanctuary’s massive interior was dim, save for the area surrounding the altar, which was dazzling from the late morning light streaming in from the long arched windows of the cupola.

Again taking the least-noticeable path along the north side, Francesco headed towards the altar, followed closely by Giuliano, then Baroncelli. Baroncelli could have closed his eyes and found his way by smell, measuring the stench of the poor and working class, the lavender scent of the merchants and the rose of the wealthy.

Even before he caught sight of the priest, Baroncelli could hear him delivering his homily. The realization quickened Baroncelli’s pulse; they had arrived barely in time, for the Eucharist was soon to follow.

After the interminable walk down the aisle, Baroncelli and his companions arrived at the front row of men. They murmured apologies as they sidled back to their original places. An instant of confusion came as Baroncelli tried to move past Giuliano, so that he could stand on his right, the position dictated by the plan. Giuliano, not understanding Baroncelli’s intent, pressed closer to Francesco – who then whispered something in the young man’s ear. Giuliano nodded, stepped backwards, and made an opening for Baroncelli; in so doing, he grazed the shoulder of the penitent, who stood waiting behind him.

Both Francesco de’ Pazzi and Baroncelli watched, breathless, to see whether Giuliano would turn and make apology – and perhaps recognize the man. But Giuliano remained lost in his own misery.

Baroncelli craned his neck to look farther down the row, to see if Lorenzo had noticed; fortunately, the elder Medici brother was busy bending an ear to a whispered comment from the manager of the family bank, Francesco Nori.

Miraculously, all the elements were now in place. Baroncelli had nothing to do save wait – and pretend to listen to the sermon while keeping his hand from wandering to the hilt at his hip.

The priest’s words seemed nonsensical; Baroncelli frowned, straining to understand them. Forgiveness, the prelate intoned. Charity. Love thine enemies; pray for those who persecute you.

Baroncelli’s mind seized upon these phrases. Lorenzo de’ Medici had picked this Sunday’s priest himself. Did Lorenzo know of the plot? Were these seemingly innocuous words a warning not to proceed?

Barconelli glanced over at Francesco de’ Pazzi. If Francesco had detected a secret message, he gave no sign of it; he stared straight ahead at the altar, his gaze unfocused, but his eyes bright with fear and hatred. A muscle in his narrow jaw twitched madly.

The sermon ended.

The elements of the Mass proceeded with almost comical swiftness: the Creed was sung. The priest chanted the Dominus vobiscum and Oremus. The Host was consecrated with the prayer Suscipe sancte Pater.

Baroncelli drew in a breath and thought he would never be able to release it. The ceremony abruptly slowed; in his ears, he could feel the desperate thrum of his heart.

The priest’s assistant approached the altar to fill the golden chalice with wine; a second assistant added a small amount of water from a crystal decanter

At last, the priest took the chalice. Carefully, he lifted it heavenwards, proffering it to the large wooden carving of a dolorous, crucified Christ suspended above the altar.

Baroncelli’s gaze followed the cup. A shaft of sunlight caught the gold and reflected blindingly off the metal.

Again, the priest chanted, in a wavering tenor that sounded vaguely accusatory.

Offerimus tibi Domine …

Baroncelli turned to look at the younger Medici next to him. Giuliano’s expression was grave, his eyes closed. His right hand was clenched in a fist; his left hand clasped it, and both were pressed tightly to his lips. His head was bowed so he might have been praying. He looked like a man preparing to greet Death.

This is foolish, Baroncelli thought. He had no personal enmity toward this man; indeed, he liked Giuliano, who had never asked to be born a Medici. His quarrel with him was purely political, and certainly not great enough to warrant what he was about to do.

Francesco de’ Pazzi jabbed Baroncelli fiercely in the ribs, relating the unspoken message perfectly: The signal has been given! The signal has been given!

Baroncelli released a reluctant, inaudible sigh and drew his great knife from its hilt. Hefting it overhead, he 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.

Baroncelli did not hesitate. He brought the blade down.

VI

A moment earlier, Lorenzo de’ Medici had been engaged in courteous but muted conversation with Cardinal Raffaele Riario. Although the priest was finishing up his sermon, the wealthy power-brokers of Florence thought nothing of discussing matters of pleasure or business – sotto voce – during Mass. The social opportunity was simply too great to ignore, and the priests had long ago become inured to it.

A scrawny lad, Riario looked younger than his seventeen years, and though he was currently a student of law at the University of Pisa, his enrolment there was clearly due more to his kinship with Pope Sixtus than any native intelligence.

Nephew, Sixtus called him. It was the euphemism by which popes and cardinals sometimes referred to their bastard children. The Pope was an extremely intelligent man, but obviously had got this homely, witless boy on a woman with charms other than beauty or brains.

Even so, Lorenzo was obliged to show the young cardinal a fine time while he was visiting Florence. Riario had specifically asked to meet with the Medici brothers and to be given a tour of their property and collection of art; Lorenzo could not refuse. This was the Pope’s so-called nephew – and though Lorenzo had endured public humiliation at Sixtus’ hands – even been forced to hold his tongue while the Medici were replaced by the Pazzi as the papal bankers – perhaps this was an overture. Perhaps Sixtus was trying to make amends, and this gangly young creature in scarlet robes was his emissary.

Lorenzo was eager to return to the family palace to ascertain whether this was indeed the case; the cardinal’s visit would irritate him greatly if Sixtus was simply taking brazen advantage of Lorenzo’s generosity. It would be yet another insult.

But in case it was not, Lorenzo had called for a magnificent feast to be served after Mass in honour of the young Cardinal. And if it happened that young Raffaele had come only out of a desire to enjoy the Medici art, he could at least report to his uncle that Lorenzo had treated him lavishly and well. It could serve as a diplomatic opening, one that Lorenzo would use to full advantage, for he was determined to reclaim the papal coffers from the clutches of the Pazzi bank.

And so Lorenzo practised his most gracious behaviour, even though Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, stood smiling disingenuously on Riario’s other flank. Lorenzo had no personal quarrel with Salviati, though he had fought long and bitterly against his appointment as archbishop. So close to Florence, Pisa deserved an archbishop of Medici blood – and Salviati was related to the Pazzi, who already were gaining too much favour with the Pope. While the Medici and Pazzi publicly embraced each other as friends, in the arena of business and politics, there were no fiercer adversaries. Lorenzo had written an impassioned letter to Sixtus, explaining why the appointment of a Pazzi would be disastrous to papal, and Medici interests.

Sixtus not only failed to respond, he ultimately dismissed the Medici as his bankers.

Most would consider the appearance of Riario and Salviati as honoured guests a stinging blow to Medici dignity. But Lorenzo, ever the diplomat, welcomed them. And he insisted that his dear friend and the senior manager of the Medici Bank, Francesco Nori, show not the slightest sign of offence. Nori, who stood beside him now in silent support, was desperately protective of Lorenzo. When the news came from Rome that the Pazzi had been appointed the papal bankers, and the Medici were ousted, Nori had raged incessantly. Lorenzo had been obliged to calm his employee, though he had held his own anger in check, and spoke little of the affair. He could not afford the energy; he was already too busy scheming how he might win Sixtus back.

He had exchanged pleasantries with the young Cardinal throughout the service, and from a distance, smiled a greeting to the Pazzi, who were in full attendance. Most of them had gathered at the other side of the cathedral, except for Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, who stuck to the Archbishop’s side like a burr. Lorenzo honestly liked Guglielmo; he had known him since he, Lorenzo, was a boy of sixteen, when Guglielmo had escorted him to Naples to meet Crown Prince Federigo. The older man had treated him like a son then, and Lorenzo had never forgotten. In time, Guglielmo married Lorenzo’s older sister, Bianca, strengthening his position as a friend to the Medici.

At the start of the sermon, the boy Cardinal gave a strange, sickly smile and whispered, ‘Your brother … where is your brother? I thought surely he would come to Mass. I had so hoped to meet him.’

The question took Lorenzo by surprise. Although Giuliano had made polite noises about coming to the Mass in order to meet Cardinal Riario, Lorenzo felt certain no one, least of all Giuliano, had taken the promise seriously. The most famous womanizer in Florence, Giuliano was notorious for his failure to appear at formal or diplomatic functions – unless Lorenzo insisted vehemently upon it. (Certainly he had not done so here.) Giuliano had already proclaimed himself unable to attend the luncheon.

He had been thoroughly taken aback the previous day when Giuliano had announced his intention to run off to Rome with a married woman. Up to that point, Giuliano had never taken his lovers very seriously; he had never spouted such foolishness before and certainly had never spoken of marriage. It had always been understood that, when the time came, Lorenzo would choose his bride and his brother would submit.

But Giuliano had been adamant about getting the woman an annulment – an achievement which, if Cardinal Riario had not come as a Papal overture, was well beyond Lorenzo’s grasp.

Lorenzo was frightened for his younger brother. Giuliano was too trusting, too willing to see the good in others, too good natured to realize he had many enemies – enemies who hated him solely for the fact he had been born a Medici. He could not see, as Lorenzo did, that they would use this affair with Anna to tear him down.

Giuliano, the sweet soul, thought only of love. Though it had been necessary, Lorenzo had not relished being cruel to him. But he could not blame Giuliano for his weakness when it came to women.

Lorenzo himself was a passionate worshipper of the fairer sex, if a more circumspect one; he arranged trysts only occasionally, and then under cover of night. And though he had loved many women, he had kept them secret from his wife Clarice Orsini, a rigid, annoyingly pious woman.

Most wives were tolerant, even forgiving, of their husband’s desire to keep a mistress. But Clarice tolerated nothing, forgave nothing. Piero had insisted his elder son marry into the powerful, princely Orsini clan – and Lorenzo had regretted his decision ever since.

Lorenzo and his father Piero had both tried to impress upon Clarice the need for the Medici to behave as common citizens, and remain modest in their aspect and dress – but such restrictions vexed her. Though her home was exquisitely adorned, Clarice could not bear having to keep her huge diamond and ruby necklaces, her jewel-studded gowns and glittering hairnets locked away – even on those days when her husband entertained pontiffs and kings. Lorenzo had bought her more appropriate jewellery, and gowns considered breath-taking by Florentine standards – but it was never enough. Clarice wished to dress like royalty.

To placate her, Lorenzo had arranged for her to sit for the great artist Sandro Botticelli. ‘Make her look as best you can,’ he’d told Sandro. And being a good husband, he had set the painting in a great gilded frame and hung it in his appartamento.

But Clarice – despite Botticelli’s best efforts, and despite her noble blood – looked far from comely or regal. In profile, she was slumped and small-busted, with a nose so prominent it overwhelmed her thin, pursed lips. Her tiny eyes showed little sign of interest or intelligence, but a great deal of haughtiness and disgust at her fate. As a reproach to her husband, Clarice had posed entirely without jewellery, in a plain brown dress that would have been better suited to a struggling merchant’s wife. Her dull red hair was pulled unceremoniously back into a plain white silk cap.

Lorenzo treated her kindly, though the favour was not returned. He reminded himself that Clarice had presented him with three of his greatest joys in life: his sons, four year old Piero, Giovanni, a toddler, and little Giuliano, who was still an infant. Already he had spoken to the most learned scholar in Florence, his friend Angelo Poliziano – who stood near him now, at Mass – and asked him to be the boys’ official tutor when they were old enough.

At times, Lorenzo yearned for the freedom his brother Giuliano enjoyed. This morning, he particularly envied him. Would that he could linger in the arms of a beautiful woman, and let Giuliano deal with the Pope’s nephew– who was still gazing politely at Lorenzo, waiting to hear the whereabouts of his wayward brother.

It would be impolite to tell the Cardinal the truth – that Giuliano had never intended to come to Mass, or meet Riario – and so instead Lorenzo indulged in a polite lie. ‘My brother must have been detained. Surely he will be here soon; I know he is eager to meet Your Holiness.’

Riario blinked; his girlish lips thinned.

Ah, Lorenzo thought. Perhaps young Raffaele’s interest was more than superficially diplomatic. Giuliano’s handsomeness was legendary, and he had stirred the passions of at least as many men as women.

Guglielmo de’ Pazzi leaned across the Archbishop and gave the Cardinal an encouraging pat on the shoulder. ‘Have no fear, Holiness. He will come. The Medici always treat their guests well.’

Lorenzo smiled warmly at him; Guglielmo dropped his gaze without meeting Lorenzo’s and gave a quick nod of acknowledgment, but did not return the smile. The gesture seemed odd, but Lorenzo was at once distracted by Francesco Nori’s whisper.

‘Maestro … your brother has just arrived.’

‘Alone?’

Nori glanced briefly to his left, at the north side of the sacristy. ‘He has come with Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli. I do not like the look of it.’

Lorenzo frowned; he did not care for it, either. He had already greeted Francesco and Baroncelli when he had first entered the cathedral. His diplomatic instincts took hold of him, however; he inclined his head toward Raffaele Riario and said softly, ‘You see, Holiness? My brother has indeed come.’

Beside him, Cardinal Riario leaned forwards, looked to his left and caught sight of Giuliano. He gave Lorenzo an odd, tremulous grin, then with a snap of his head, forced his gaze back to the altar, where the priest was blessing the sacred Host.

The lad’s movement was so peculiar, so nervous, that Lorenzo felt a faint stirring of anxiety. Florence was always full of whispers, most of which he ignored; but Nori had recently reported a rumour that Lorenzo was in danger, that an attack was being planned against him. But as usual, Nori could offer no specifics.

Ridiculous, Lorenzo had scoffed. There will always be whispers, but we are the Medici. The Pope himself might insult us, but even he dare not lift his hand against us.

Now, he felt a pang of doubt. Beneath the cover of his mantle, he fingered the hilt of his short sword, then gripped it tightly.

Only seconds later, a shout came from the direction Riario had glanced – a man’s voice, the words unintelligible, impassioned. Immediately after, the bells of Giotto’s campanile began to toll.

At that moment Lorenzo knew that Nori’s so-called rumours were fact.

The front two rows of men broke rank and the scene became a clumsy dance of moving bodies. In the near distance, a woman screamed. Salviati disappeared; the young Cardinal flung himself at the altar and knelt, sobbing uncontrollably. Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, clearly terrified, began wringing his hands and wailing: ‘I am no traitor! I knew nothing of this! Nothing! Before God, Lorenzo, I am completely innocent!’

Lorenzo did not see the hand that reached from behind him to settle lightly on his left shoulder – but he felt it as though it were a lightning bolt. With a grace and strength that came from years of swordsmanship, he pushed forwards 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, half-heartedly clutching a sword as he glanced at the crowd scrambling 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 forwards, perilously close to the blade.

Before the opponent could shed more blood, Francesco Nori stepped in front of Lorenzo 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 Poliziano, of the aged and portly architect Michelozzo, of the family sculptor Verrochio, of his business associate Antonio Ridolfo, of the socialite Sigismondo della Stuffa. This crowd sealed him off from his attacker and began to press him towards 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 towards the altar, where the priests, in their alarm, had dropped the full chalice, staining the altar-cloth 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 towards the great altar. The astringent smoke of frankincense mixed with the fragrance of spilt wine; two tall, heavy candelabra were ablaze. The priest and his two deacons 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 moment that Lorenzo ran north across the altar, Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli were down in the sanctuary, pushing their way south, clearly unaware that they were missing their intended target.

Lorenzo stopped 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 below 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 this meant that 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 dreamt 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, and his lips formed a small, perfect o as he fell backwards, 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 towards the infinitely 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 dust 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 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 fast shut. 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 …?’

VII

As he stood beside Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli in the Duomo, Giuliano’s head was bowed. He was not a man who usually prayed: he had long ago come to the conclusion that religion was the invention of men, and that there could be no certainty when it came to the question of God. Unfortunately, the Church’s earthly power demanded that he keep up appearances, show the required reverence, make the required gestures.

But this morning, his desperation provoked him to speak silently to God, should He be there to listen. Giuliano silently confessed that over the years, he had been callous towards his lovers. He had abused his physical handsomeness and used it to dally with their affections; he had taken their adoration for granted and often dismissed them thoughtlessly. Now he was filled with remorse; he saw clearly the divine irony in the fact that he now had to suffer to have the one he truly loved. Even worse, his love caused her suffering.

He asked that God soften Lorenzo’s heart, or the Pope’s, or do whatever was necessary so that her misery might end.

God answered his prayer in unexpected fashion. The subtlest sound of metal sliding against leather made him glance upwards.

To his right, Baroncelli finished withdrawing his knife from its sheath, and by the time Giuliano had turned his head to stare at the weapon in amazement, Baroncelli was ready to strike.

The act occurred too swiftly for Giuliano to be frightened.

Instinctively, he backed away. A body pressed into him, so firm and so fast, there could be no doubt its owner was part of the conspiracy. Giuliano glimpsed a man dressed in the robes of a penitent – and then gasped at the cold, burning sensation of steel sliding into his back, into his right kidney.

He had been terribly wounded. He was surrounded by assassins, and was 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 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, was gleaming with sweat. He grunted with effort as he withdrew the knife from Giuliano’s chest; 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.

In the space of a heartbeat, Giuliano remembered with exquisite clarity an incident from childhood: at age six, he had gone with Lorenzo and two of his older sisters, Nannina and Bianca, for a picnic on the shores of the Arno. Attended by a Circassian slave woman, they had travelled by carriage across the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge built a millennium before by the Romans. Nannina had been captivated by the goldsmiths’ shops that lined the bridge; soon to be married, she was already interested in womanly things.

Lorenzo had been restless and glum. He had just begun to take on Medici responsibilities; the year before, he had begun receiving letters asking for his patronage, and their father, Piero, had already sent his eldest son to Milan and Rome on politically-motivated trips. He was a homely boy, with wide-set slanting eyes, a jutting jaw, and soft brown hair that fell in neatly-trimmed fringe across a pale, low forehead; yet the sensitive intelligence that shone in those eyes made him oddly attractive.

They made their way to the pastoral neighbourhood of Santo Spirito. Giuliano recalled tall trees, and a sweeping grass lawn that sloped down to the placid river. There, the slave woman set a linen cloth on the ground and brought out food for the children. It was late spring: warm with a few lazy clouds, though the day before it had rained. The River Arno was quicksilver when the sun struck it, leaden when it did not.

Lorenzo’s sullenness that day had made Giuliano sad. It seemed to him that their father was too intent on making Lorenzo an adult before his time. So, to make him laugh, Giuliano had run down to the riverbank, gleefully ignoring the slave’s outraged threats, and stomped, splashing, into the water fully clothed.

His antics worked; Lorenzo followed him in laughing, tunic, mantle, slippers and all. By this time, Nannina, Bianca, and the slave were all shouting their disapproval. Lorenzo ignored them. He was a strong swimmer, and soon made his way quite a distance from the shore, then dove beneath the waters.

Giuliano followed tentatively, but being younger, fell behind. He watched as Lorenzo took a great gulp of air and disappeared beneath the grey surface. When he did not reappear immediately, Giuliano treaded water and laughed, expecting his brother to swim beneath him and grasp his foot at any moment.

Seconds passed. Giuliano’s laughter turned to silence, then fear – then he began calling for his brother. On the shore, the women – unable to enter the water, because of their heavy skirts – began to cry out in panic.

Giuliano was only a child. He had not yet overcome his fear of diving beneath the water, yet love for his brother drove him to suck in a deep breath and submerge himself. The silence there astonished him; he opened his eyes and peered in the direction where Lorenzo had been.

The river was muddy from the previous day’s rains; Giuliano’s eyes stung as he searched. He could see nothing but a large, irregular dark shape some distance away from him, deep beneath the waters. It was not human – not Lorenzo – but it was all that was visible, and instinct told him to approach it. He surfaced, drew in more air, then compelled himself to dive down again: there, the length of three tall men beneath the surface, lay the craggy limbs of a fallen tree.

Giuliano’s lungs burned; yet his sense that Lorenzo was nearby made him push, with arms and legs, against the quiet water. With a final, painful burst, he reached the sunken branches and pressed a palm against the slick surface of the trunk.

At once, he grew remarkably dizzy, and heard a rushing in his ears; he shut his eyes and opened his mouth, gasping for air. There was none to be had, and so he drank in the foul Arno. He retched it up at once, then reflex forced him to gulp in more.

Giuliano was drowning.

Though a child, he understood clearly that he was dying. The realization prompted him to open his eyes, to capture a last glimpse of earth that he might take with him to Heaven.

At that instant, a cloud moved overhead, permitting a shaft of sunlight to pierce the river, so thoroughly that it caused the silt suspended in the water to glitter, and illumined the area directly before Giuliano’s eyes.

Staring back at him, an arm’s length away, was the drowning Lorenzo. His tunic and mantle had been caught on an errant branch, and he had twisted himself about in a mad effort to be free.

Both brothers should have died then. But Giuliano had prayed, with a child’s guilelessness: God, let me save my brother.

Impossibly, he had pulled the tangled clothing loose from the branch.

Impossibly, the freed Lorenzo had seized Giuliano’s hands, and pulled the two of them up to the surface.

From there, Giuliano’s memory became more blurred. He only remembered snippets: of himself vomiting on the grassy shore while the slave woman pounded his back, of Lorenzo wet and shivering, wrapped in picnic linens; of voices calling out: Brother, speak to me! Of Lorenzo in the carriage on the ride home, furious, fighting tears: Don’t ever risk yourself for me! You almost died! Father would never forgive me …! But the unspoken message was louder: Lorenzo would never forgive himself.

In the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli lifted his knife to deal Giuliano another blow.

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

With strength he did not have, he then pushed backwards against his first attacker, causing the man to step onto the hem of his garment and fall, tangled in his robes.

Time slowed then for Giuliano, just as it had that day in the Arno. Despite his lethargy, he willed himself to do the impossible and create a barrier between the attackers and Lorenzo. If he was unable to cry out a warning to his brother, he could at least slow the murderers down.

Then he heard Lorenzo’s voice. Giuliano! Brother, speak to me! He could not have said whether it came from within the Duomo, or whether he heard 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. Struggling to draw a breath, he choked on warm liquid.

Baroncelli tried to edge by him; but Giuliano stumbled intentionally into his path. Francesco de’ Pazzi pushed past them both, the sight of blood stirring him into a frenzy; his small black eyes sparkled as 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 to an anguished wheeze, meaning to scream instead, You will never get near my brother. I will die first, but you will never lay a hand on Lorenzo.

Francesco simply snarled something unintelligible and moved to strike the young man.

Weaponless, Giuliano raised a defensive hand and the knife pierced his palm and forearm; but compared to the agony in his chest and in his back, these fresh wounds were no worse than the sting of an insect. Taking a step towards Francesco, towards Baroncelli, he forced them backwards, and gave Lorenzo time to flee.

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

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

Giuliano felt a deep, piercing bite in his shoulder, then in his upper arm. He could not keep it raised, so he let it fall, limply, to his blood-soaked side.

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

Harsher wounds were dealt now upon Giuliano’s chest, his neck, followed by a dozen blows to his torso. Francesco was a madman. His hand and blade pummelled Giuliano so swiftly that the two were enveloped in crimson spray. His movements were so wild and careless, he even pierced his own thigh, shrieking loudly as his blood mingled with his enemy’s. Pain fuelled Francesco’s fury as he continued to strike.

Spoken ill of us to His Holiness.

Insulted our family.

Stolen the city.

Such calumny against his brother should have incited Giuliano’s anger, but he had found a place where his emotions were still.

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

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

Just beyond his reach, the raven-haired Anna wept and wrung her hands, mourning the children they might have had; her love tugs at him. But it is Lorenzo who has the final hold on his heart. Lorenzo, whose heart will break when he finds his younger sibling. It is Giuliano’s greatest regret.

‘Brother.’ Giuliano’s lips merely formed the word as he sank to his knees.

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

Relieved, Giuliano lets go of a shallow sigh – all the air that remains in his lungs – then sinks to where the waters are 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, 1478

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, the 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 pale stone façade appeared grey against the darkening clouds. Before the building, rising out of a colourful 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 fanciulo, 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 afterwards. The Signoria had placed several policemen on horseback at strategic locations to prevent a riot; Baroncelli was flanked by mounted, armed guards.

This was to prevent him from being torn apart before he could be properly executed. He had heard the tales of his fellow conspirators’ gruesome fates: how the Perugian mercenaries hired by the Pazzi had been pushed from the high tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, how they had fallen into the waiting crowd below, who had hacked them to pieces with knives and shovels.

Even old Iacopo de’ Pazzi, who during his life had been respected, had not escaped Florence’s wrath. Upon the sound of Giotto’s chiming campanile, he had climbed upon his horse and tried to rally the citizens with the cry, Popolo e liberta! The phrase was a rallying cry to overthrow the current government – in this case, the Medici.

But the populace had answered with the cry: Palle! Palle! Palle!

Despite his sin, he had been granted a proper burial after his execution – with the noose still round his neck. But the city had been so filled with hatred in those wild days, he had not been at rest long before his cadaver was dragged through the streets and reburied outside the city walls, in unhallowed ground.

Francesco de’ Pazzi and the rest had swiftly met justice; only Guglielmo de’ Pazzi had been spared, because of Bianca de’ Medici’s desperate pleading with her brother Lorenzo.

Of the true conspirators, Baroncelli alone had escaped – by hiding in the Duomo’s campanile, its air still aquiver from the ringing of the bell. When his way was clear, he had fled on horseback – without a word to his family – due east, to Senigallia on the coast. From there, he had sailed to exotic Constantinople. King Ferrante and Baroncelli’s Neapolitan relatives had sent funds enough to sustain a dissolute life. Baroncelli made mistresses of the slave girls he had purchased, immersing himself in pleasure and trying to submerge all memory of the murders he had committed.

Yet his dreams were haunted by the image of Giuliano, frozen at the instant he had glanced up at the shining blade. The young man’s dark curls were tousled, his innocent eyes wide, his expression unselfconscious and slightly dazed by the sudden appearance of Death.

Baroncelli had had more than a year to contemplate the question: Would removing the Medici and replacing them with Iacopo and Francesco de’ Pazzi have bettered the city? Lorenzo was level-headed, cautious; Francesco hot-tempered, swift to act. He would quickly have descended to the level of a tyrant. Lorenzo was wise enough to nurture the people’s love, as evidenced by the size of the crowd now gathered in the plaza; Francesco would have been too arrogant to care.

Lorenzo was, most of all, persistent. In the end, even Constantinople was not beyond his reach. Once his agents had located Baroncelli, Lorenzo had sent an emissary laden with gold and jewels to the Sultan. Thus was Baroncelli’s fate sealed.

All criminals were hanged outside the city gates, then hastily stuffed into unhallowed ground. Baroncelli would be buried in a hole with them – but given the gravity of his misdeed, his execution was to take place in Florence’s most public arena.

Now, as the little cart rattled past the crowd towards the scaffolding, Baroncelli let go a loud groan. Fear gripped him with an anguish far worse than any physical pain; he felt unbearably cold, searingly hot, felt a dizzying sense of sinking. He thought he would faint, yet unconsciousness, cruelly, would not come.

‘Courage, Signore,’ the nero said. ‘God rides with you.’

His nero, his Comforter, walked alongside the cart. He was a Florentine citizen named Lauro, and a member of the Compagnia di Santa Maria della Croce, also known as the Compagnia de’ Neri – the Company of the Black Ones – because its members all wore long black robes and hoods. The Company’s purpose was to give comfort and mercy to all those in need – including those anguished souls condemned to die.

Lauro had remained with him from the moment he had arrived in Florence. He had seen to it that Baroncelli received fair treatment, was allowed proper clothing and food, that he was permitted to send letters to loved ones (Giovanna never responded to his plea to see her). Lauro had listened kindly to Baroncelli’s tearful admissions of regret, and remained in the cell to pray for him. The Comforter had beseeched the Virgin, Christ, God and Saint John, patron of Florence, to give Baroncelli comfort, to grant him forgiveness, to allow his soul into Purgatory and thence to Heaven.

Baroncelli did not join him in prayer; God, he felt, would take it as a personal affront.

Now, the black-hooded Comforter walked beside him, speaking loudly – a psalm, a hymn, or prayer, all floating on the air as white vapour – but given the noise made by the crowd, Baroncelli could not make out the words. A single phrase thrummed in his ears and pulsed to the beating of his heart.

Palle Palle Palle

The cart rolled to a stop in front of the steps leading up to the gallows. The Comforter slid an arm under Baroncelli’s bound one and helped him awkwardly onto the cold flagstone. The weight of terror dropped the shivering Baroncelli to his knees; the Comforter knelt beside him and whispered in his ear.

‘Do not be afraid. Your soul will ascend directly to Heaven. Of all men, you need no forgiveness; what you did was God’s own work, and no crime. There are many of us who call you hero, brother. You have taken the first step in purging Florence from great evil.’

Baroncelli’s voice shook so he could scarce understand his own words. ‘From Lorenzo?’

‘From debauchery. From paganism. From the pursuit of profane art.’

Teeth chattering, Baroncelli glared at him. ‘If you – if others – believe this, then why have you not rescued me before now? Save me!’

‘We dare not make ourselves known. There is much to be done before Florence, before Italy, before the world is ready for us.’

‘You are mad,’ Baroncelli breathed.

The Comforter smiled. ‘We are fools for God.’

He helped Baroncelli to his feet; enraged, Baroncelli pulled away from him, and staggered up the wooden steps alone.

On the scaffold, the executioner, a slender man whose face was hidden beneath a mask, stood between Baroncelli and the waiting noose. ‘Before God,’ the executioner said to Baroncelli, ‘I beg your forgiveness for the act I am sworn to commit.’

The inside of Baroncelli’s lips and cheeks cleaved to his teeth; his tongue was so dry, it left behind a layer of skin as he articulated the words. Yet his tone sounded astonishingly calm. ‘I forgive you.’

The executioner released a small sound of relief; perhaps there had been other doomed men more eager to let their blood stain his hands. He caught Baroncelli’s elbow and guided him to a particular spot on the platform, near the noose. ‘Here.’ His voice was oddly gentle. And he produced from within his cloak a white linen scarf.

In the instant before he was blindfolded, Baroncelli scanned the crowd. Near the front was Giovanna, with the children. She was too distant for Baroncelli to be sure, but it seemed to him that she had been weeping.

Lorenzo de’ Medici was nowhere to be seen – but Baroncelli had no doubt that he was watching. Watching from a hidden balcony, or a window; perhaps from inside the Palazzo della Signoria itself.

Below, at the foot of the scaffolding, stood the Comforter, his expression serene and oddly satisfied. In an instant of epiphany, Baroncelli realized that he, Francesco de’ Pazzi, Messer Iacopo, Archbishop Salviati – all of them had been fools, their small ambitions used to serve part of a larger scheme, one that filled him with almost as much dread as the prospect of his imminent death.

The executioner tied the scarf over Baroncelli’s eyes, then guided the noose over his chin and tightened it around his neck.

In the instant before the platform beneath him dropped, Baroncelli whispered two words, directed at himself.

‘Here, traitor.’

X

The instant that Baroncelli’s body ceased its twitching, a young artist near the front of the crowd set to work. The corpse would hang in the piazza for days, until its decomposition caused it to drop from the rope. But the artist could not wait; he wanted to capture the image while it still possessed an echo of life. Besides, young hooligans, giovani, would soon amuse themselves by casting stones at it, and the imminent rain would soon cause it to bloat.

He sketched on paper pressed against a board of poplar, to give him a firm surface to work against. He had cut back the plume from his quill pen, for he used it so continually that any barbs there irritated his long fingers; he had carved the nib himself to a fine, sharp point, and he dipped it regularly, mindlessly, into a vial of brown iron gall ink securely fastened to his belt. Since one could not properly draw constrained by gloves, his bare hands ached from the cold, but he dismissed the observation as unworthy of his time. In the same manner, he dismissed the sorrow that threatened to overwhelm him – for the sight of Baroncelli evoked profoundly painful memories – and focused instead on the subject before him.

Despite all attempts to mask their true feelings, all men and women nonetheless revealed them through subtle signs in expression, posture, and voice. Baroncelli’s regret was blatant. Even in death, his eyes were downcast, as if contemplating Hell. His head was bowed, and the corners of his thin lips were pulled downward by guilt. Here was a man overwhelmed by self-loathing.

The artist struggled not to yield to his hatred, though he had very personal reasons for despising Baroncelli. But hate was against his principles, so – like his aching fingers and heart – he ignored it and continued with his work. He also found killing unethical – even the execution of a murderer such as Baroncelli.

As was his habit, he jotted notes on the page to remind himself of the colours and textures involved, for there was an excellent chance the sketch might become a painting. He wrote from right to left, the letters a mirror image of conventional script. Years before, when he had been a student in Andrea Verrochio’s workshop, other artists had accused him of unwarranted secrecy, for when he showed them his sketches, they could make no sense of his notes. But, he wrote as he did because it came most naturally to him; the privacy it conferred was a coincidental benefit.

Small tan cap. The quill scratched against the paper. Black serge jerkin, lined woollen singlet, blue cloak lined with fox fur, velvet collar stippled red and black, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli, black leggings. Baroncelli had kicked off his slippers during his death throes; he was shown with bare feet.

The artist frowned at Baroncelli’s patronymic. He was self-taught, still struggling to overcome his rustic Vinci dialect, and spelling bedevilled him. No matter. Lorenzo de’ Medici, il Magnifico, was interested in the image, not the words.

He did a quick, small rendering at the bottom of the page, showing Baroncelli’s head at an angle that revealed more of the gloom-stricken features. Satisfied with his work, he then set to his real task of scanning the faces in the crowd. Those near the front – the nobility and more prosperous merchants – were just beginning to leave, hushed and sombre. The populo minuto – the ‘little people’, remained behind to entertain themselves by hurling epithets and rocks at the corpse.

The artist carefully watched as many men as possible as they left the piazza. There were two reasons for this: The ostensible one was that he was a student of faces. Those who knew of him were used to his intent stares.

The darker reason was the result of an encounter between himself and Lorenzo de’ Medici. He was looking for a particular face: one he had seen twenty months earlier, but for only the briefest of instants. Even with his talent for recalling physiognomies, his memory was clouded – yet his heart was equally determined to succeed. This time, he was determined not to let emotion get the better of him.

‘Leonardo!’

The sound of his own name startled the artist; he jerked involuntarily and out of reflex, capped the vial of ink, lest it spill.

An old friend from Verrochio’s workshop had been on his way out of the piazza, and now moved towards him.

‘Sandro,’ Leonardo said, when his friend at last stood before him. ‘You look like a lord prior.’

Sandro Botticelli grinned. At thirty-five, he was several years Leonardo’s senior, in the prime of his life and career. He was indeed dressed grandly, in a scarlet fur-trimmed cloak; a black velvet cap covered most of his golden hair, cut chinlength, shorter than the current fashion. Like Leonardo, he was clean-shaven. His green eyes were heavy-lidded, filled with the insolence that had always marked his manner. Even so, Leonardo liked him; he was possessed of great talent and a good heart. Over the past year, Sandro had received several fat commissions from the Medici and Tornabuoni, including the massive painting Primavera, soon to be a wedding gift from Lorenzo to his cousin.

Sandro eyed Leonardo’s sketch with sly humour. ‘So. Trying to steal my job, I see.’

He was referring to the recently painted mural on a façade near the Palazzo della Signoria, partially visible behind the scaffolding now that the crowd was beginning to thin. He had received a commission from Lorenzo in those terrible days following Giuliano’s death: to depict each of the executed Pazzi conspirators as they dangled from the rope. The life-sized images duly inspired the terror they were meant to provoke. There was Francesco de’ Pazzi, entirely naked, his wounded thigh encrusted with blood; there, too, was Salviati in his archbishop’s robes. The two dead men were shown facing the viewer – effective, though not an accurate depiction. Like Botticelli, Leonardo had been in the Piazza della Signoria at the moment Francesco – dragged from his bed – had been pushed from the uppermost arched window of the Palazzo, hung from the building itself for all to see. A moment later, Salviati had followed and, at the instant of his death, had turned toward his fellow conspirator and – whether in a violent, involuntary spasm, or in a final moment of rage – had sunk his teeth deep into Francesco de’ Pazzi’s shoulder. It was a bizarre image, one so troubling that even Leonardo, overwhelmed by emotion, failed to record it in his notebook. Paintings of other executed men, including Messer Iacopo, were partially completed, but one murderer had been altogether missing: Baroncelli. Botticelli had probably taken notes himself this morning, intending to finish the mural. But at the sight of Leonardo’s sketch, he shrugged.

‘No matter,’ he said breezily. ‘Being rich enough to dress like a lord prior, I can certainly let a pauper like yourself finish up the task. I have far greater things to accomplish.’

Leonardo, dressed in a knee-length artisan’s tunic of cheap used linen, and a dull grey wool mantle, slipped his sketch under one arm and bowed, low and sweeping, in an exaggerated show of gratitude.

‘You are too kind, my lord.’ He rose. ‘Now go. You are a hired hack, and I am a true artist, with much to accomplish before the rains come.’

He and Sandro parted with smiles and a brief embrace, and Leonardo returned at once to studying the crowd. He was always happy to see Sandro, but the interruption annoyed him. Too much was at stake; he reached absently into the pouch on his belt, and fingered a gold medallion the size of a large florin. On the front, in bas relief, was the title ‘Public Mourning’. Beneath, Baroncelli raised his long knife above his head while Giuliano looked up at the blade with surprise. Behind Baroncelli stood Francesco de’ Pazzi, his dagger at the ready. Leonardo had provided the sketch, rendering the scene with as much accuracy as possible, although for the viewer’s sake, Giuliano was depicted as facing Baroncelli. Verrochio had made the cast from Leonardo’s drawing.

Two days after the murder, Leonardo had dispatched a letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici.

My lord Lorenzo, I need to speak privately with you concerning a matter of the utmost importance.

No reply was forthcoming: Lorenzo, overcome with grief, hid in the Medici palazzo, which had become a fortress surrounded by scores of armed men. He received no visitors; letters requesting his opinion or his favour piled up unanswered.

After a week without a reply, Leonardo borrowed a gold florin and went to the door of the Medici stronghold. He bribed one of the guards there to deliver a second letter straightaway, while he stood waiting in the loggia watching the hard rain pound the cobblestone streets.

My lord Lorenzo, I come neither seeking favour nor speaking of business. I have critical information concerning the death of your brother, for your ears alone.

Several minutes later he was admitted after being thoroughly checked for weapons – ridiculous, since he had never owned one nor had any idea of how to wield one.

Pale and lifeless in an unadorned black tunic, Lorenzo, his neck still bandaged, received Leonardo in his study, surrounded by artwork of astonishing beauty. He gazed up at Leonardo with eyes clouded by guilt and grief – yet could not hide his interest in hearing what the artist had to say.

On the morning of the twenty-sixth of April, Leonardo had stood several rows from the altar in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. He’d had questions for Lorenzo about a joint commission he and his former teacher Andrea Verrochio had received to sculpt a bust of Giuliano, and hoped to catch il Magnifico after the service. Leonardo only attended Mass when he had business to conduct; he found the natural world far more awe-inspiring than a manmade cathedral. He was on very good terms with the Medici. Over the past few years, he had stayed for months at a time in Lorenzo’s house as one of the many artists in the family’s employ.

To Leonardo’s surprise that morning in the Duomo, Giuliano had arrived, late, dishevelled, and escorted by Francesco de’ Pazzi and his employee.

Leonardo found men and women equally beautiful, equally worthy of his love, but he lived an unrequited life by choice. An artist could not allow the storms of love to interrupt his work. He avoided women most of all, for the demands of a wife and children would make his studies – of art, of the world and its inhabitants – impossible. He did not want to become as his master Verrochio was – wasting his talent, taking on any work, whether it be the construction of masks for Carnivale, or the gilding of a lady’s slippers, to feed his hungry family. There was never any time to experiment, to observe, to improve his skills.

Ser Antonio, Leonardo’s grandfather, had first explained this concept to him. Antonio had loved his grandson deeply, ignoring the fact that he was the illegitimate get of a servant girl. As Leonardo grew, only his grandfather noted the boy’s talent, and had given him a book of paper and charcoal. When Leonardo was seven years old, he had been sitting in the cool grass with a silverpoint stylus and a rough panel of wood, studying how the wind rippled through the leaves of an olive orchard. Ser Antonio – ever busy, straight-shouldered and sharp-eyed despite his eighty-eight years – had paused to stand beside him, and look with him at the glittering trees.

Quite suddenly and unprompted, he said, Pay no attention to custom, my boy. I had half your talent – yes, I was good at drawing, and eager, like you, to understand how the natural world works – but I listened to my father. Before I came to the farm, I was apprenticed to him as a notary.

That is what we are – a family of notaries. One sired me, and so I sired one myself – your father. What have we given the world? Contracts and bills of exchange, and signatures on documents which will turn to dust.

I did not give up my dreams altogether; even as I learned about the profession, I drew in secret. I stared at birds and rivers, and wondered how they worked. But then I met your grandmother Lucia and fell in love. It was the worst thing ever to happen, for I abandoned art and science and married her. Then there were children, and no time to look at trees. Lucia found my scribblings and cast them into the fire.

But God has given us you – you with your amazing mind and eyes and hands. You have a duty not to abandon them.

Promise me you will not make my mistake; promise me you will never let your heart carry you away.

Young Leonardo had promised.

But when he became a protégé of the Medici and a member of their inner circle, he had been drawn, physically and emotionally, to Lorenzo’s younger brother. Giuliano was infinitely lovable. It was not simply the man’s striking appearance – Leonardo was himself far more attractive, often called ‘beautiful’ by his friends – but rather the pure goodness of his spirit.

This fact Leonardo kept to himself. He did not wish to make Giuliano, a lover of women, uncomfortable; nor did he care to scandalize Lorenzo, his host and patron.

When Giuliano had appeared in the Duomo, Leonardo – only two rows behind him – could not help but stare steadily at him. He noted Giuliano’s downcast demeanour, and was filled with neither sympathy nor attraction, but a welling of bitter jealousy.

The previous evening, the artist had set out with the intention of speaking to Lorenzo about the commission.

He had made his way onto the Via de’ Gori, past the church of San Lorenzo. The Palazzo Medici lay just ahead, to his left, and he stepped out into the street towards it.

It was dusk. To the west lay the high, narrow tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, and the great curving cupola of the Duomo, distinct and dark against an impossible horizon of incandescent coral fading gradually to lavender, then grey. Given the hour, traffic was light, and Leonardo paused in the street, lost in the beauty of his surroundings. He watched as a carriage rolled towards him, and enjoyed the crisp silhouettes of the horses, their bodies impenetrably black, set against the backdrop of the brilliant sky, with the sun behind them so that all detail was swallowed … Sundown was his favourite hour, for the failing light infused forms and colours with a tenderness, a sense of gentle mystery that the noon sun burned away.

He became lost in the play of shadow on the horses’ bodies, on the rippling of muscles beneath their flesh, the spirited toss of their heads – so much so that as they came rumbling down upon him, he had to collect himself and move swiftly out of their way. He found himself standing on the southern flank of the Palazzo Medici; his destination, less than a minute’s walk away, was the Via Larga.

A short distance in front of him, the driver of the carriage jerked the horses to a stop and the door opened. Leonardo hung back, and watched as a young woman stepped out. The twilight turned the marked whiteness of her skin into dove grey, her eyes to nondescript darkness. The drabness of her gown and veil, the downward cast of her face, marked her as the servant of a wealthy family. There was purpose in her step and furtiveness in her posture as her gaze swept from side to side. She hurried to the palazzo’s side entrance and knocked insistently.

A pause, and the door opened with a long, sustained creak. The servant moved back to the carriage and gestured urgently to someone inside.

A second woman emerged from the carriage and moved gracefully, swiftly, towards the open doorway.

Leonardo spoke her name aloud without intending to. She was a friend of the Medici, a frequent visitor to the palazzo; he had talked to her on several occasions. Even before he saw her clearly, he recognized her movements, the cant of her shoulders, the way her head swivelled on her neck as she turned to look up at him.

He took a step closer, and was finally able to see her face.

Her nose was long and straight, the tip down turned, the nostrils flared; her forehead was broad and very high. Her chin was pointed, but the cheeks and jaw were gracefully rounded, like her shoulders, which inclined towards the Palazzo Medici although her face was turned towards his.

She had always been beautiful, but now the dimness softened everything, gave her features a haunting quality they had not heretofore possessed. She seemed to melt into the air; it was impossible to tell where the shadows ended and she began. Her luminous face, her décolleté, her hands, seemed to float suspended against the dark forest of her gown and hair. Her expression was one of covert joy; her eyes held sublime secrets, her lips the hint of a complicitous smile.

In that instant, she was more than human: she was divine.

He reached out with his hand, half thinking it would pass through her, as if she were a phantom.

She pulled away, and he saw, even in the greyness, the bright flare of fear in her eyes, in the parting of her lips: she had not meant to be discovered. Had he possessed a feather, he would have whisked away the deep line between her brows and resurrected the look of mystery.

He murmured her name again, this time a question, but her gaze had already turned towards the open doorway. Leonardo followed it, and caught a glimpse of another familiar face: Giuliano’s. His body was entirely obscured by shadow; he did not see Leonardo, only the woman.

And she saw Giuliano, and bloomed.

In that instant, Leonardo understood and turned his cheek away, overwhelmed by bitterness, as the door closed behind them.

He did not go to see Lorenzo that night. He went home to his little apartment and slept poorly. He stared up at the ceiling and saw the gently lucent features of the woman emerging from the blackness.

The following morning, gazing on Giuliano in the Duomo, Leonardo dwelled on his own unhappy passion. He recalled, again and again, the painful instant when he had seen the look pass between Giuliano and the woman, when he had realized Giuliano’s heart belonged to her, and hers to him; and he cursed himself for being vulnerable to such a foolish emotion as jealousy.

He had been so ensnared by his reverie that he had been startled by the sudden movement in front of him. A robed figure stepped forward a fraction of a second before Giuliano turned to look behind him, then released a sharp gasp.

There followed Baroncelli’s hoarse shout. Leonardo had stared up, stricken, at the glint of the raised blade. In the space of a breath, the frightened worshipers scattered, pulling the artist backwards with the tide of bodies. He had thrashed, struggling vainly to reach Giuliano, with the thought of protecting him from further attack, but he could not even hold his ground.

In the wild scramble, Leonardo’s view of Baroncelli’s knife entering Giuliano’s flesh had been blocked. But Leonardo had seen the final blows of Francesco’s unspeakably brutal attack – the dagger biting, again and again, into Giuliano’s flesh, just as Archbishop Salviati would, in due turn, bite into Francesco de’ Pazzi’s shoulder.

The instant he realized what was happening, Leonardo let go of a loud shout – inarticulate, threatening, horrified – at the attackers. At last the crowd cleared; at last no one stood between him and the assassins. He had run towards them as Francesco, still shrieking, moved on. But it was too late to shelter, to protect, Giuliano’s good, innocent spirit.

Leonardo dropped to his knees beside the fallen man. He lay half-curled on his side, his mouth still working; blood foamed at his lips and spilled from his wounds.

Leonardo pressed his hand to the worst of them, the gaping hole in Giuliano’s chest. He could hear the frail, gurgling wheeze of the victim’s lungs as they fought to expel blood and draw in air. But Leonardo’s efforts to staunch the flow were futile.

Each wound on the front of Giuliano’s pale green tunic released its own steady stream of blood. The streams forked then rejoined, creating a latticework over the young man’s body until at last they merged into the growing dark pool on the marble floor.

‘Giuliano,’ Leonardo had gasped, tears pouring down his cheeks at the sight of such suffering, at the sight of beauty so marred.

Giuliano did not hear him. He was beyond hearing, beyond sight: his half-open eyes already stared into the next world. As Leonardo hovered over him, he retched up a volume of bright, foaming blood; his limbs twitched briefly, then his eyes widened. Thus he died.

Now, standing in front of Lorenzo, Leonardo said nothing of Giuliano’s final suffering to Lorenzo, for such details would only fuel Lorenzo’s grief. He spoke not of Baroncelli, nor of Francesco de’ Pazzi. Instead, he spoke of a third man, one who had yet to be found.

Leonardo recounted that he had seen, in the periphery of his vision, a robed figure step forward on Giuliano’s right, and that he believed it was this man who had delivered the first blow. As Giuliano tried to back away from Baroncelli, the figure had stood fast – pressed hard against the victim and trapped him. The unknown did not even recoil when Francesco struck out wildly with the dagger, but remained firmly in place until Francesco and Baroncelli moved on.

Once Giuliano had died, Leonardo had glanced up and noticed the man moving quickly towards the door that led to the piazza. He must have paused at some point to look behind him, to be sure that his victim died.

‘Assassin!’ the artist had shouted. ‘Stop!’

There was such outraged authority, such pure force in his voice that the conspirator had stopped in mid-stride, and glanced swiftly over his shoulder.

Leonardo captured his image with a trained artist’s eye. The man wore the robes of a penitent – crude burlap – and his clean-shaven face was half-shadowed by a cowl. Only the lower half of his lip and his chin were visible.

Held close to his side, his hand gripped a bloodied stiletto.

After he had fled, Leonardo had gently rolled Giuliano’s body onto its side, and discovered the puncture – small but very deep – in his midback.

This he relayed to Lorenzo. But he did not admit what he knew in his tortured heart: that he, Leonardo, was responsible for Giuliano’s death.

His guilt was not irrational. It was the product of long meditation on the events that had occurred. Had he, the artist, not been so overcome by love and pain and jealousy, Giuliano might have lived.

It was Leonardo’s habit to study crowds – faces, bodies, posture – and from this, he usually learned a great deal of information. Almost as much could be read from a man’s back as from his front. If the artist had not been absorbed by thoughts of Giuliano and the woman, he would surely have noticed the exceptional tension in the penitent’s stance, for the man had been almost directly in front of him. He might have noticed something peculiar in Baroncelli or Francesco de’ Pazzi’s demeanour as they waited beside Giuliano. He should have sensed the anxiety of the three men, and deduced that Giuliano was in great danger.

If he had been paying attention, he would have seen the penitent surreptitiously reach for the stiletto; he would have noticed Baroncelli’s hand tensing on the hilt of his sword.

And there would have been time for him to take a single step forwards. To reach for the penitent’s hand. To move between Giuliano and Baroncelli.

Instead, his passion had reduced him to a witless bystander, rendered helpless by the panicked, fleeing crowd. And it had cost Giuliano his life.

He bowed his head at the weight of the guilt, then raised it again and looked in il Magnifico‘s sorrowful, eager eyes.

‘I am certain this man was disguised, my lord.’

Lorenzo was intrigued. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘His posture. Penitents indulge in self-flagellation, they wear hair shirts beneath their robes. Then slump, cringe, and move gingerly, because of the pain each time the shirt touches their skin. This man moved freely; his posture was straight and sure. But the muscles were tensed.

‘I believe, as well, that he was from the upper classes, given the dignity and gentility of his aspect.’

Lorenzo’s gaze was penetrating. ‘All this you have ascertained from a man’s movements, a man who was draped in a robe?’

Leonardo stared back unflinching. ‘I would not have come if I had not.’

‘Then you shall be my agent.’ Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed with hatred and determination. ‘You shall help me find this man.’

So, over the past year, Leonardo had been summoned several times to the prison in the Bargello, to carefully examine the lips and chins and postures of several unfortunate men. None of them had matched those of the penitent he had seen in the cathedral.

The night before Baroncelli’s execution, Lorenzo, had sent two guards to bring Leonardo to the palazzo on the Via Larga.

Lorenzo had changed little physically – save for the pale scar on his neck. If his unseen wound had similarly healed, this day had torn it open, rendered it fresh and raw.

Had Leonardo not been so stricken, he might have delighted in il Magnifico‘s unique features, especially his prominent nose. The bridge rose briefly just beneath the eyebrows, then flattened and abruptly disappeared, as if God had taken his thumb and squashed it down. Yet it rose again, rebellious and astonishing in its length, and sloped precipitously to the left. Its shape rendered his voice harshly nasal

That evening, il Magnifico wore a woollen tunic of deep rich blue; white ermine edged the collar and cuffs. He was an unhappy victor this night, but he seemed more troubled than gloating. ‘Perhaps you have already deduced why I have called for you,’ he said.

‘Yes. I am to go to the piazza tomorrow to look for the third man.’ Leonardo hesitated; he, too, was troubled. ‘I need your assurance first.’

‘Ask and I will give it. I have Baroncelli now; I cannot rest until the third assassin is found.’

‘Baroncelli is to die, and rumour has it that he has been tortured mercilessly.’

Lorenzo interrupted swiftly. ‘And with good reason. He was my best hope to find the third assassin; but if he does know him, he will take the secret to Hell.’

The bitterness in il Magnifico‘s tone gave Leonardo pause. ‘Ser Lorenzo, if I find this third assassin, I cannot in good conscience turn him over to be killed.’

Lorenzo recoiled as if he had been struck full in the face; his pitch rose with indignance. ‘You would let my brother’s murderer go free?’

‘No.’ Leonardo’s own voice trembled faintly. ‘I esteemed your brother more highly than any other.’

‘I know,’ Lorenzo replied softly, in a way that said he did know the full truth of the matter.

Gathering himself, Leonardo bowed his head, then lifted it again. ‘I want to see the man brought to justice – to be deprived of his freedom, condemned to work for the good of others, to be forced to spend the remainder of his life contemplating his crime.’

Lorenzo’s upper lip was invisible; his lower stretched so taut over his jutting lower teeth that the tips of them showed. ‘Such idealism is admirable.’ He paused. ‘I am a reasonable man – and like you, an honest one. If I agree that, should you find him, he will not be killed but instead imprisoned, will you go to the piazza to find him?’

‘I will,’ Leonardo promised. ‘And if I fail tomorrow, I will not stop searching until he is found.’

Lorenzo nodded, satisfied. He looked away, and stared at a Flemish painting of bewitching delicacy on his wall. ‘You should know that this man …’ He stopped himself, then started again. ‘This goes far deeper than the murder of my brother, Leonardo. They mean to destroy us.’

‘To destroy you and your family?’

Lorenzo faced him again. ‘You. Me. Botticelli. Verrochio. Perugino. Ghirlandaio. All that Florence represents.’ Leonardo opened his mouth to ask Who? Who means to do this?, but Lorenzo lifted a hand to silence him. ‘Go to the piazza tomorrow. Find the third man. I mean to question him personally.’

It was agreed that Lorenzo would pay Leonardo a token sum for a ‘commission’ – the sketch of Bernardo Baroncelli hanged, with the possibility that such a sketch might become a portrait. Thus Leonardo could honestly answer that he was in the Piazza della Signoria because Lorenzo de’ Medici wanted a drawing; he was a very bad liar, and prevarication did not suit him.

As he stood in the square on the cold December morning of Baroncelli’s death, staring intently at the face of each man who passed, he puzzled over il Magnifico’s words.

They mean to destroy us …

PART II LISA

XI

I will always remember the day my mother told me the story of Giuliano de’ Medici’s murder.

It was a December day more than thirteen and a half years after the event; I was twelve. For the first time in my life, I stood inside the great Duomo, my head thrown back as I marvelled at the magnificence of Brunelleschi’s cupola while my mother, her hands folded in prayer, whispered the gruesome tale to me.

Midweek after morning Mass, the cathedral was nearly deserted, save for a sobbing widow on her knees just beyond the entry, and a priest replacing the tapers on the altar’s candelabra. We had stopped directly in front of the high altar, where the events of the assassination had taken place. I loved tales of adventure, and tried to picture a young Lorenzo de’ Medici, his sword drawn, leaping into the choir and running past the priests to safety.

I turned to look at my mother, Lucrezia, and tugged at her embroidered brocade sleeve. ‘What happened after Lorenzo escaped?’ I hissed. ‘What became of Giuliano?’

My mother’s eyes had filled with tears. She was, as my father often said, easily moved. ‘He died of his terrible wounds,’ she said, and sighed. ‘And the executions of the conspirators were horribly brutal … It was a horrible time for Florence.’

Zalumma, who stood on her other side, leaned forward to scowl a warning at me.

‘Didn’t anyone try to help Giuliano?’ I asked. ‘Or was he already dead? I would have at least gone to see if he was still alive.’

‘Hush,’ Zalumma warned me. ‘Can’t you see she is becoming upset?’

This was indeed cause for concern. My mother was not well, and agitation worsened her condition.

‘She was the one who told the story,’ I countered. ‘I did not ask for it.’

‘Quiet!’ Zalumma ordered. I was stubborn, but she was more so. She took my mother’s elbow and in a sweeter tone, said, ‘Madonna, it’s time to leave. We must get home before your absence is discovered.’

She referred to my father, who had spent that day, like most others, tending his business. He would be aghast if he returned to find his wife gone; this was the first time in years she had dared venture out so far and for so long.

We had secretly planned this outing for some time. I had never seen the Duomo, even though I had grown up looking at its great brick cupola from the opposite side of the Arno, from our house on the Via Maggio. All my life, I had attended our local church of Santo Spirito, with its interior classical columns and arches made of pietra serena, a fine, pale grey stone. Our main altar was also centred beneath a cupola designed by the great Brunelleschi, his final achievement; I had thought Santo Spirito, with its thirty-eight side altars impossibly grand, impossibly large – until I stood inside the great Duomo. The great cupola challenged the imagination. Gazing on it, I understood why, when it was first constructed, people were reluctant to stand beneath it. I understood, too, why some of those who had heard the shouting on the day of Giuliano’s murder had rushed outside, believing the great dome was finally collapsing.

Magic it was, for something so vast to rise into the air without visible support.

My mother had brought me to the Piazza del Duomo not just to marvel at the cupola, but to slake my yearning for art – and hers. She was well-born and well-educated; she adored poetry, which she read in Italian and Latin (both of which she had insisted on teaching me). She had passionately acquired a wealth of knowledge about the city’s cultural treasures – and had long been troubled by the fact that her illness had prevented her from sharing them with me. So when the opportunity arose, on that bright December day, we took a carriage east, and headed across the Ponte Vecchio, into the heart of Florence.

It would have been more efficient to head straight down the Via Maggio to the nearest bridge, the Ponte Santa Trinita, but that would have denied me a visual treat. The Ponte Vecchio was lined with the botteghe of goldsmiths and artists. Each bottega opened directly onto the street, with the owner’s wares prominently displayed in front of the shop. We all wore our best fur-lined capes to protect us from the chilly air, and Zalumma had tucked several thick woollen blankets around my mother. But I was too elated to feel cold; I stuck my head outside the carriage to gape at golden plaques, statuettes, belts, bracelets and Carnival masks. I gazed on chiselled marble busts of wealthy Florentines, on portraits in progress. In the early days, my mother said, the bridge was home to the tanners and fabric dyers, who used to dump their noxious-smelling chemicals directly into the Arno. The Medici had objected: The river was cleaner now than it had ever been, and the tanners and dyers worked in specified areas of the city.

On our way to the Duomo, our carriage paused in the vast piazza, in front of the imposing fortress known as the Palazzo della Signoria, where the Lord Priors of Florence met. On the wall of an adjacent building was a grotesque mural: paintings of hanged men. I knew nothing of them save that they were known as the Pazzi conspirators, and that they were evil. One of the conspirators, a small naked man, stared wide-eyed and sightless back at me; the effect was unnerving. But what intrigued me most was the portrait of the last hanging body. His form differed from the others, was more delicately portrayed, more assured; its subtle shadings poignantly evoked the grief and remorse of a troubled soul. And it did not seem to float, as the others did, but possessed the shadow and depth of reality. I felt as though I could reach into the wall and touch Baroncelli’s cooling flesh.

I turned to my mother. She was watching me carefully, though she said not a word about the mural, nor the reason we had lingered there. It was the first time I had stayed for any length of time in the Piazza, the first time I had been allowed such a close view of the famous hanged men. ‘The last one was done by a different artist,’ I said.

‘Yes. He has an amazing refinement, doesn’t he? He is like God, breathing life into stone.’ She nodded, clearly pleased by my discernment, and waved for the driver to move on.

We made our way north to the Piazza del Duomo.

Before entering the cathedral, I had examined Ghiberti’s bas relief panels on the doors of the nearby octagonal Baptistery. Here, near the public entry at the southern end of the building, scenes of Florence’s patron saint, John the Baptist covered the walls, but what truly tantalized me was the Door of Paradise on the northern side. There, in fine gilded bronze, the Old Testament came to life in vivid detail. I stood on tiptoe to finger the sweeping curve of an angel’s wing as he announced to Abraham that God desired Isaac as a sacrifice; I bent down to marvel at Moses receiving the tablets from the divine hand while, at the foot of the mountain, the Israelites looked on in awe. What I most yearned to touch were the delicately rendered heads and muscular shoulders of oxen, emerging from the metal of the uppermost plaque to plough a field. I knew the tips of their horns would be sharp and cold against my fingertip, but they lay too high for my reach. Instead, I contented myself with rubbing the numerous tiny heads of prophets and sibyls that lined the doors like garlands; the bronze burned like ice.

The interior of the Baptistery was for me less remarkable. Only one item caught my attention: Donatello’s dark wooden carving of Mary Magdalen, larger than life. She was a ghastly, spectral version of the seductress: aged now, her hair so wild and long that she clothed herself in the tangles, just as St. John clothed himself in the skins of animals. Her cheeks were gaunt, her features worn down by decades of guilt and regret. Something about the resignation in her aspect reminded me of my mother.

We three made our way into the Duomo proper then, and once we arrived in front of the altar, my mother immediately began speaking of the murder that had taken place there almost fourteen years earlier. I had only moments to draw in the astonishing vastness of the cupola before Zalumma grew worried and told my mother it was time to leave.

So we returned to the present.

‘I suppose so,’ my mother reluctantly agreed with Zalumma’s urgings. ‘But first, I must speak to my daughter alone.’

This frustrated the slave. She scowled until her brows merged into one great black line, but her social status compelled her to reply calmly, ‘Of course, Madonna.’ She retreated a short distance away.

Once my mother satisfied herself that Zalumma was not watching, she retrieved from her bosom a small, shining object. A coin, I thought, but after she had pressed it into my palm, I saw it was a gold medallion, stamped with the words ‘Public Mourning’. Beneath the letters, two men with knives readied themselves to attack a startled victim. Despite its small size, the image was detailed and lifelike, rendered with a delicacy worthy of Ghiberti.

‘Keep it,’ my mother said. ‘But let it be our secret.’

I eyed her gift greedily, curiously. ‘Was he really so handsome?’

‘He was. It is quite accurate. And quite rare.’

I tucked it at once into my belt. My mother and I both shared a love of such trinkets, and of art, though my father disapproved of my having anything so impractical. As a merchant, he had worked hard for his wealth, and hated to see it squandered on anything useless. But I was thrilled; I hungered for such things.

‘Zalumma,’ my mother called. ‘I am ready to leave.’

Zalumma came to fetch us at once, and took hold of my mother’s arm again. But when my mother began to turn away from the altar – she paused, and wrinkled her nose. ‘The candles …’ she murmured. ‘Have the altar vestments caught fire? Something is burning …’

Zalumma’s expression went slack with panic, but she recovered herself immediately and said calmly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world: ‘Lie down, Madonna. Here, on the floor. All will be well.’

‘It all repeats,’ my mother said, with the odd catch in her voice I had come to dread.

‘Lie down!’ Zalumma ordered, as sternly as she would a child. My mother seemed not to hear her, and when Zalumma pressed on her limbs, trying to force her to the ground, she resisted.

‘It all repeats,’ my mother said swiftly, frantically. ‘Don’t you see it happening again? Here, in this sacred place.’

I lent my weight to Zalumma’s; together we fought to bring my mother down, but it was like trying to bring down an immovable mountain – one that trembled.

My mother’s arms moved involuntarily from her sides and shot straight out, rigid. Her legs locked beneath her. ‘There is murder here, and thoughts of murder!’ she shrieked. ‘Plots within plots once more!’

Her cries grew unintelligible as she went down.

Zalumma and I clung to her so that she did not land too harshly.

My mother writhed on the cold floor of the cathedral, her blue cloak gaping open, her silver skirts pooling around her. Zalumma lay across her body; I put my kerchief between her upper teeth and tongue, then held onto her head.

I was barely in time. My mother’s dark eyes rolled back until only the veined whites were visible – then the rigors began. Head, torso, limbs – all began to jerk arrhythmically, rapidly.

Somehow Zalumma held on, rising and falling with the waves, whispering hoarsely in her barbarous tongue, strange words coming so fast and so practised I knew they were part of a prayer. I, too, began to pray without thinking in a language equally old: ‘Ave Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis pecatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae …’

I focused on the linen kerchief in my mother’s mouth – on her champing teeth, and the small specks of blood there – and on her jerking head, which I now held fast in my lap, so I was startled into fright when a stranger beside us began praying loudly, also in Latin.

I glanced up to see the black-frocked priest who had been tending the altar. He alternated between sprinkling my mother with liquid from a small vial and making the sign of the cross over her while he prayed.

At last the time came when my mother gave her final wrenching groan, then fell limp; her eyelids fluttered shut.

Beside me, the priest – a young red-haired man with florid, pock-marked skin – rose. ‘She is like the woman from whom Jesus cast out nine devils,’ he said with authority. ‘She is possessed.’

Sore and halting from the struggle, Zalumma nonetheless rose to her full height – a hand’s breadth taller than the priest – and glared at him. ‘It is a sickness,’ she said, ‘of which you know nothing.’

The young priest shrank, his tone now only faintly insistent. ‘It is the Devil.’

I glanced from the priest’s face to Zalumma’s stern expression. I was mature for my age and knew responsibility: my mother’s delicate health had forced me to act as mistress of the household many times, playing hostess to guests, accompanying my father in her place on social occasions, and for the last three years I had gone with Zalumma to the market in my mother’s place. But I was young in terms of my knowledge of the world, and of God. I was still undecided as to whether God was punishing her for some early sin, and whether her fits were indeed of sinister origin. But I knew only that I loved her, pitied her, and disliked the priest’s condescension.

Zalumma’s white cheeks turned shell pink. I knew her well: a scathing reply had formed in her mind, and teetered upon her rouged lips, but she checked it. She had need of the priest.

Her manner turned abruptly unctuous. ‘I am a poor slave, with no right to contradict a learned man, Father. Here, we must get my mistress to the carriage. Will you help us?’

The priest looked on her with justifiable suspicion, but he could not refuse. And so I ran to find our driver; when he had brought the carriage round to the front of the cathedral, he and the priest carried my mother to it.

Exhausted, she slept with her head cradled in Zalumma’s lap; I held her legs. We rode home directly back over the Ponte Santa Trinita, a homely stone bridge which housed no shops.

Our palazzo on the Via Maggio was neither large nor ostentatious, though my father could have afforded to adorn the house more. It had been built a century before by his great-great-grandfather from plain pietra serena, an expensive, but subtle grey stone. My father had made no additions, added no statuary, nor replaced the plain, worn floors or the scarred doors; he eschewed unnecessary adornment. We rode inside the gate, then Zalumma and the driver lifted my mother from the carriage.

To our horror, my father Antonio stood watching in the loggia.

XII

My father had returned early. Dressed in his usual dark farsetto, a crimson mantle and black leggings, he stood with his arms crossed at the entry to the loggia so that he would not miss us. He was a sharp-featured man, with golden brown hair that grew in darker at the crown, a narrow hooked nose, and thunderous eyebrows above pale amber eyes. His disregard for fashion showed in his face; he wore a full beard and moustache at a time when it was common for men to be clean-shaven or wear a neat goatee.

Yet, ironically, no one knew more about Florence’s current styles and cravings. My father owned a bottega in the Santa Croce district, near the ancient Wool Guild, the Arte de Lana. He specialized in supplying the very finest wools to the city’s wealthiest families. He often went to the Medici palazzo on the Via Larga, his carriage heavy with plush fabrics coloured with chermisi, the most expensive of dyes made from the dried carcasses of lice, which produced the most exquisite crimson, and alessandrino, a costly and beautiful deep blue.

Sometimes I rode with my father and waited in the carriage while he met with his most important clients at their palazzi. I enjoyed the rides, and he seemed to enjoy sharing the details of his business, speaking to me as if I were his equal; at times, I felt guilty because I was not a son who could take over the family trade. I was his sole heir, and a girl. God had frowned upon my parents, and it was taken for granted that my mother and her fits were to blame.

And now there was no hiding the fact that our secret escapade had just caused her to suffer another one.

My father was, for the most part, a self-possessed man. But certain things goaded him – my mother’s condition was one of them – and it could induce an uncontrollable rage. As I crawled from the carriage to walk behind Zalumma and the others, I saw the danger in his eye and looked guiltily away.

For the moment, love of my mother took precedence over my father’s anger. He ran to us and took Zalumma’s place, catching hold of my mother tenderly. Together, he and the driver carried her into the house; as they did, he glanced over his shoulder at Zalumma and me. He kept his tone low so it would not distress my semi-conscious mother, but I could hear the anger coiled in it, waiting to lash out.

‘You women will see her to bed, then I will have words with you.’

This was the worst possible outcome. Had my mother not succumbed to a fit, we could have argued that she had been too long housebound, and deserved the outing. But I was overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility for all that had happened, and was ready to submit to a well-deserved tirade. My mother had taken me into the city because she delighted in me, and wished to please me by showing me the city’s treasures. My father could never be bothered; he scorned the Duomo, calling it ‘ill-conceived’, and said that our church at Santo Spirito was good enough for us.

So my father carried Mother up to her bed. I closed the shutters to block out the sun, then helped Zalumma undress her down to her camicia, made of embroidered white silk, so fine and thin it could scarce be called cloth. Once that was done, and Zalumma was certain my mother was sleeping comfortably, we stepped quietly out into her antechamber and closed the door behind us.

My father was waiting for us. His arms were again folded against his chest, his lightly freckled cheeks flushed; his gaze could have withered the freshest rose.

Zalumma did not cower. She faced him directly, her manner courteous but not servile, and waited for him to speak first.

His tone was low but faintly atremble. ‘You knew of the danger to her. You knew, and yet you let her leave the house. What kind of loyalty is this? What shall we do if she dies?’

Zalumma’s tone was perfectly calm, her manner respectful. ‘She will not die, Ser Antonio; the fit has passed and she is sleeping. But you are right; I am at fault. Without my help, she could not have gone.’

‘I shall sell you!’ My father’s tone slowly rose. ‘Sell you, and buy a more responsible slave!’

Zalumma lowered her eyelids; I saw the muscles in her jaw clench with the effort of holding words back. I could imagine what they were. I am the lady’s slave, from her father’s household; I was hers before we ever set eyes on you, and hers alone to sell. But she said nothing. We all knew that my father loved my mother, and my mother loved Zalumma. He would never sell her.

‘Go,’ my father said. ‘Get downstairs.’

Zalumma hesitated an instant; she did not want to leave my mother alone, but the master had spoken. She passed by us, her skirts sweeping against the stone floor. My father and I were alone.

I lifted my chin, instinctively defiant. I had been born so; my father and I were evenly matched in terms of temper.

‘You were behind this,’ he said; his cheeks grew even more crimson. ‘You, with your notions. Your mother did this to please you.’

‘Yes, I was behind it.’ My own voice trembled, which annoyed me; I fought to steady it. ‘Mother did this just to please me. Do you think I am happy that she had a spell? She has gone out before without incident. Do you think I meant for this to happen?’

He shook his head. ‘A girl so young, so full of such brazen disrespect. Listen to me: You will stay at home, by your mother’s side, all week. You are not to go to Mass or market. Do you not know how serious this offence is? Do you not know how terrified I was, to come home and find her gone? Do you not feel at all ashamed that your selfishness has hurt your mother so? Or do you care nothing for her life?’

His tone steadily rose throughout his discourse, so that by its end, he was shouting at me.

‘Of course—’ I began, but broke off as my mother’s door opened, and she appeared in the doorway.

Both my father and I were startled and turned to look at her. She looked like a wraith, clutching the doorjamb to keep her balance, her eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion. Zalumma had taken down her hair, and it spilled darkly over her shoulders, her bosom and down to her waist; she wore nothing but the billowing camicia, with its long, puffed sleeves.

She spoke in nothing more than a whisper, but the emotion in it could be clearly heard. ‘Leave her be. This was my idea, all of it. If you must shout, shout at me.’

‘You mustn’t be up,’ I said, but my words were drowned out by my father’s angry voice.

‘How could you do such a thing when you know it is dangerous? Why must you frighten me so, Lucrezia? You might have died!’

My mother gazed on him with haggard eyes. ‘I am tired. Tired of this house, of this life. I don’t care if I die. I want to go out, as normal folk do. I want to live as any normal woman does.’

She would have said more, but my father interrupted. ‘God forgive you for speaking so lightly of death. It is His will that you live so, His judgment. You should accept it meekly.’

I had never heard venom in my gentle mother’s tone, had never seen her sneer. But that day, I heard and saw both.

Her lip tugged at one corner. ‘Do not mock God, Antonio, when we both know the truth of it.’

He moved swiftly, blindingly, to strike her; she shrank backwards.

I moved just as quickly to intervene. I pummelled my father’s shoulders, forcing him away from her. ‘How dare you!’ I cried. ‘How dare you! She is kind and good – everything you are not!’

His pale golden eyes were wide, bright with rage. He struck out with the back of his hand; I fell back, startled to find myself sitting on the floor.

He swept from the room. As he did, I looked frantically about for something to hurl after him; but all I had was the cape still about my shoulders, a gift from him of heavy alessandrino blue wool.

I bunched it in my hands and threw it, but it went scarcely farther than an arm’s length before dropping silently to the floor – a vain gesture.

And then I came to myself and ran into my mother’s room to find her on her knees beside the bed. I helped her up into it, covered her with a blanket, and held her hand while she – once again half asleep – wept softly.

‘Hush,’ I told her. ‘We didn’t mean it. And we will make amends.’

She reached up blindly, looking for my hand; I clasped hers. ‘It all repeats,’ she moaned, and her eyes at last closed. ‘It all repeats …’

‘Hush now,’ I said, ‘and sleep.’

XIII

I sat at my mother’s bedside the rest of the day. When the sun began to set, I lit a taper and remained. A servant came bearing my father’s request that I come down and sup with him; I refused. I did not want to be reconciled yet.

But as I sat in the darkness watching my mother’s profile in the candleglow, I felt a stirring of regret. I was no better than my father; out of love and a desire to protect her, I had permitted my rage to overtake me. When my father had lifted his hand, threatening her – though I did not believe he would actually strike her – I had struck him, and not once, but several times. This, even though I knew our fighting broke my mother’s heart. I was a bad daughter. One of the worst, for I was vengeful and plotted against those who harmed the people I loved. When I was ten, we had a new servant, Evangelia, a stocky woman with black hairs on her chin and a broad red face. When she first witnessed one of my mother’s fits, she proclaimed – like the priest in the Duomo – that my mother was possessed of the Devil and needed prayer.

That claim alone would not have provoked my hatred, only my dislike: as I said, I was still undecided as to whether it was true, but I knew such statements embarrassed and hurt my mother. But Evangelia would not let the matter rest. Whenever she was in the same room as my mother, she crossed herself and made the sign to avert the evil eye – two fingers pointing outward in a vee at the level of her own eyes. She began to wear a charm in a pouch hung round her neck, then at last did the unforgivable: she left a second charm hanging from my mother’s door. It was supposedly to keep my mother confined to her room; when other servants confessed the truth of it, my mother wept. But she was too kind and ashamed to say anything to Evangelia.

I took matters into my own hands; I would not tolerate anyone who made my mother cry. I stole into my mother’s room and took her finest ring, a large ruby set in delicately crafted gold, a wedding-gift from my father.

I hid it within Evangelia’s belongings, then waited. The predictable occurred: the ring was found, to everyone’s horror – especially Evangelia’s. My father dismissed her at once.

At first I felt a sense of satisfaction: justice had been served, and my mother would no longer weep with shame. But after a few days, my conscience began to pain me. Most of Florence knew of Evangelia’s supposed crime, and she was widowed with a small daughter. No family would hire her. How would she survive?

I confessed my sin to the priest and to God: neither brought relief. At last I went to my mother and tearfully told her the truth. She was stern and told me outright what I already knew – that I had ruined a woman’s life. To my relief, she did not tell the full truth to my father, only that a terrible mistake had been made. She begged him to find Evangelia and bring her back, so that her name might be cleared.

But my father’s efforts were futile. Evangelia had already left Florence, unable to find employment.

I lived from then on with the guilt. And as I sat watching my sleeping mother that night, I remembered all the angry outbursts of my youth, every vengeful act I had ever committed. There were many; and I prayed to God, the God who loved my mother and did not want her stricken with fits, to relieve me of my dreadful temper. My eyes filled; I knew my father and I added to my mother’s suffering every time we fought.

As the first tear spilled onto my cheek, my mother stirred in her sleep and murmured something unintelligible. I put a gentle hand on her arm. ‘It’s all right. I am here.’

The instant I uttered the words, the door opened softly. I glanced up to see Zalumma, a goblet in her hand. She had removed her cap and scarf, and plaited her wild hair, but a halo of untamed curls still framed her white face.

‘I brought a draught,’ she said quietly. ‘When your mother wakes, this will let her sleep through the night.’

I nodded and tried to wipe my damp cheek casually, hoping Zalumma would not notice as she set the goblet beside my mother’s bed.

Of course she noticed everything, even though she had her back to me. As she turned, with her voice still low, she said, ‘You mustn’t cry.’

‘But it’s my fault.’

Zalumma flared. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s never been your fault.’ She sighed bitterly as she looked down on her sleeping mistress. ‘What the priest in the Duomo said—’

I leaned forward, eager to hear her opinion. ‘Yes?’

‘It is vileness. It is ignorance, you understand? Your mother is the truest Christian I know.’ She paused. ‘When I was a very young girl …’

‘When you lived in the mountains?’

‘Yes, when I lived in the mountains. I had a brother. Closer to me than a brother; he was my twin.’ She smiled with affection at the memory. ‘Headstrong and full of mischief he was, always making our mother wring her hands. And I was always helping him.’ The faint, wry smile faded at once. ‘One day he climbed a very tall tree. He wanted to reach the sky, he said. I followed him up as far as I could, but he climbed so high that I grew frightened, and stopped. He crawled out onto a limb …’ There was the slightest catch in her voice; she paused, then resumed calmly. ‘Too far. And he fell.’

I straightened in my chair, aghast. ‘Did he die?’

‘We thought he would; he had cracked his head and it bled terribly, all over my apron. When he was better and could walk, we went outside to play. But before we went too far, he fell, and began to shake, just as your mother does. Afterwards, he could not speak for a while, and slept. Then he was better again until the next time.’

‘Just like Mother.’ I paused. ‘Did the fits … did they ever … did he …?’

‘Did the fits kill him? No. I don’t know what became of him after we were separated.’ Zalumma eyed me, trying to judge whether I had grasped the point of her tale. ‘My brother never had fits before he hurt his head. His fits came after his injury. His fits came because of his injury.’

‘So … Mother has struck her head?’

Zalumma averted her gaze a bit – perhaps she was only telling a story, calculated to soothe me – but she nodded. ‘I believe so. Now … Do you think God pushed a little boy from a tree to punish him for his sins? Or do you think he was so craven that the Devil possessed him, and caused him to leap?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘There are people who would disagree with you. But I knew my brother’s heart, and I know your mother’s; and I know that God would never be so cruel, nor allow the Devil to rest in such sweet souls.’

The instant Zalumma said it, my doubts about the matter vanished. Despite what Evangelia or the priest said, my mother was not a host to demons. She attended Mass daily at our private chapel; she prayed constantly and had a shrine to the Virgin of the Flower – the lily, symbol of resurrection and of Florence – in her room. She was generous to the poor and never spoke ill of anyone. To my mind, she was as holy as any saint. The revelation gave me great relief.

But one thing still troubled me.

There is murder here, and thoughts of murder. Plots within plots once more.

I could not forget what the astrologer had told me two years earlier: that I was surrounded by deceit, doomed to finish a bloody deed others had begun.

It all repeats.

‘The strange things Mother cries out,’ I said. ‘Did your brother do that, too?’

Zalumma’s fine porcelain features reflected hesitation; at last she yielded to the truth. ‘No. She spoke of those things before the fits came, since she was a girl. She … she sees and knows things that are hidden from the rest of us. Many of the things she has said have come to pass. I think God has touched her, given her a gift.’

Murder, and thoughts of murder. This time, I did not want to believe what Zalumma said, and so I decided that, in this case, she was being superstitious. ‘Thank you,’ I told her. ‘I will remember what you have said.’

She smiled and leaned down to put an arm around my shoulder. ‘No more vigil; it’s my turn now. Go and get something to eat.’

I looked past her at my mother, uncertain. I still felt responsible for what had happened that morning.

‘Go,’ Zalumma said, in a tone that allowed no argument. ‘I’ll sit with her now.’

So I rose and left them – but I did not go in search of the cook. Instead, I went downstairs with the intent of going to pray. I wandered outside into the rear courtyard and garden. Just beyond them, in a small separate structure, lay our chapel. The night was bitter cold, the sky clouded and moonless, but I carried a lamp so that I would not stumble over my skirts or a stepping-stone.

I opened the chapel’s heavy wooden door and slipped inside. The interior was dark and gloomy, lit only by the votives flickering in front of the small paintings of our family’s patron saints: the woolly John the Baptist in honour of Florence; the Virgin of the Lily, my mother’s favourite; Santa Maria del Fiore, for whom the Duomo was named; and my father’s namesake, St. Anthony, who bore the Christ-child in his arms.

Most private Florentine families’ chapels were decorated with large murals, often portraying members as saints or Madonnas. Ours lacked such embellishment, save for the paintings of the three saints. Our grandest adornment was suspended over the altar: a large wooden statue of the crucified Christ, his expression as haunted and mournful as that of the aged, repentant Magdalen in the Duomo’s Baptistery.

As I entered, I heard a soft, low moaning. And as I lifted the lamp towards the noise, I saw a dark figure kneeling at the altar railing. My father was praying earnestly, his forehead pressed hard against the knuckles of his tightly folded hands.

I knelt beside him. He turned towards me; the lamplight glittered off the unshed tears in his amber eyes, eyes full of misery and remorse.

‘Daughter, forgive me,’ he said.

‘No,’ I countered. ‘It is you who must forgive me. I hit you – a horrible thing for a child to do to her father.’

‘And I struck you, without cause. You were only thinking to protect your mother. And that was my intent, yet I find myself doing the opposite. I am older, and should be wiser.’ He looked up at the image of the suffering Christ and groaned. ‘After all these years, I should have learned to control myself …’

I wished to coax him from his self-reproach, so I rested a hand on his arm and said lightly, ‘So. I inherited my ill temper from you, then.’

He sighed and ran the pad of his thumb tenderly over the contours of my cheek. ‘Poor child. This is no fault of yours.’

Still kneeling, we embraced. At that instant, the forgotten medallion chose to slip from my belt. It struck the inlaid marble flooring, rolled in a perfect circle, then fell flat on its side.

Its appearance embarrassed me. Curious, my father reached for the coin, lifted it, and examined it. He narrowed his eyes and drew back his head slightly, as if threatened by a slap. After a long pause, he spoke.

‘You see,’ he said, his voice low and soft. ‘This is what comes of anger. Dreadful acts of violence.’

‘Yes,’ I echoed, eager to end the conversation, to return to the warmer feeling of conciliation. ‘Mother told me about the killing in the Duomo. It was a terrible thing.’

‘It was. There is no excuse for murder, regardless of the provocation. Such violence is heinous, an abomination before God.’ The piece of gold, still held aloft, caught the feeble light and glinted. ‘Did she tell you the other side of it?’

I tried and failed to understand; I thought at first he referred to the coin. ‘The other side?’

‘Lorenzo. His love for his murdered brother drove him to madness in the days after.’ He closed his eyes, remembering. ‘Eighty men in five days. A few of them were guilty, most simply unfortunate enough to have the wrong relatives. They were tortured mercilessly, drawn and quartered, their hacked, bloodied bodies heaved out the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria. And what they did to poor Messer Iacopo’s corpse …’ He shuddered, too horrified by the thought to pursue it further. ‘All in vain, for even a river of blood could not revive Giuliano.’ He opened his eyes and stared hard at me. ‘There is a vengeful streak in you, child. Mark my words: no good can come of revenge. Pray God delivers you of it.’ He pressed the cold coin into my palm. ‘Remember what I have said each time you look on this.’

I lowered my gaze and accepted the chastisement meekly, even as my hand closed swiftly over my treasure. ‘I will.’

To my relief, he at last rose; I followed suit.

‘Have you eaten?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

‘Then let us find Cook.’

On the way out, my father picked up my lamp and sighed. ‘God help us, Daughter. God help us not to give in to our anger again.’

‘Amen,’ I said.

XIV

Before Zalumma retired that night, I sought her out and coaxed her into my little room. I closed the door behind us, then jumped upon my cot and wrapped my arms around my knees.

More of Zalumma’s wild, wiry tendrils had escaped from her braids and they glinted in the light of the single candle in her hand, which lit her face with a delightfully eerie, wavering glow – perfect for the gruesome tale I wished to hear.

‘Tell me about Messer Iacopo,’ I coaxed. ‘Father said they desecrated his body. I know they executed him, but I want to hear the details.’

Zalumma resisted. Normally, she enjoyed sharing such things, but this was one subject that clearly disturbed her. ‘It’s a terrible story to tell a child.’

‘All the adults know about it; and if you won’t tell me, I’ll just ask Mother.’

‘No,’ she said, so sharply her breath nearly extinguished the flame. ‘Don’t you dare bother her with that.’ Scowling, she set the candle down on my night table. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘What they did to Messer Iacopo’s body … and why. He didn’t stab Giuliano … so why did they kill him?’

She sat on the edge of my bed and sighed. ‘There’s more than one answer to those questions. Old Iacopo de’ Pazzi was the patriarch of the Pazzi clan. He was a learned man, and esteemed by everyone. He didn’t start the plot to kill the Medici brothers; I think he got talked into it once it was clear the others were going to go ahead with or without him.

‘Your mother has told you that when they murdered Giuliano, they rang the bells in the campanile next to the Duomo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that was the signal for Messer Iacopo to ride his horse into the Piazza della Signoria and shout “Popolo e liberta!", rallying the people to rise up against the Medici. He had hired almost a hundred Perugian soldiers to help him storm the Palazzo della Signoria; he thought the citizens would help him. But it didn’t go as he planned. The Lord Priors dropped stones on him from the palazzo windows, and the people turned on him, crying, “Palle! Palle!"’

‘So, when he was captured, they hung him from a window of the palazzo – the same one as Francesco de’ Pazzi and Archbishop Salviati. Because of his noble rank and the people’s respect for him, he was first allowed to confess his sins and receive the final sacrament. Later, he was buried in his family tomb at Santa Croce.

‘But a rumour started. People whispered that before he died, Iacopo had commended his soul to the Devil. The monks at Santa Croce grew frightened and exhumed the body to rebury it outside the city walls, in unconsecrated ground. Then, some giovani dug up the body when Messer Iacopo was three weeks dead.

‘He had been buried with the noose still round his neck, and so the giovani dragged his corpse by its rope all over the city.’ She closed her eyes and shook her head, remembering. ‘They mocked him for days as if his body were a puppet. They took him to his palazzo and banged his head against the door, pretending that he was demanding entry. I …’ She faltered and opened her eyes, but did not see me.

‘I saw him, and the giovani as I walked back from market one day. They had propped the corpse against a fountain, and were speaking to it. “Good day, Messer Iacopo!", “Please pass, Messer Iacopo.” And, “How is your family today, Messer Iacopo?”

‘And then they pelted the cadaver with stones. It made an awful sound – dull thuds; it had been raining for four days while he was buried in the earth, and he was very bloated. He had been wearing a beautiful purple tunic the day he was hung – I had been in the crowd. The tunic had rotted, covered now with a greenish black slime, and his face and hands were white as the belly of a fish. His mouth gaped open, and his tongue, all swollen, thrust outward. He had one eye shut and one open, covered with a grey film, and that one eye seemed to look right at me. It felt like he was pleading for help from beyond the grave.

‘I prayed for his soul, then, even though everyone was afraid of saying a kind word about the Pazzi. The giovani played with his body for a few more days; then they grew tired of it, and threw it in the Arno. It was seen floating to the sea as far away as Pisa.’ She paused, then looked directly at me. ‘You must understand: Lorenzo has done many good things for the city. But he kept the people’s hatred of the Pazzi alive. I have no doubt at least one of the giovani pocketed a florin or two, dropped into his palm by Lorenzo himself. His vengeance knew no bounds, and for that, God will someday make him pay.’

The next day, by way of apology, my father took me with him in his carriage to deliver his very best wools to the Medici palazzo. We rode inside the great iron gates. As always, I remained in the carriage while servants tethered the horses and my father went in the side entry, accompanied by Medici servants laden down with his wares.

He was inside longer than usual – almost three-quarters of an hour. I grew restless, having memorized the building’s façade, and exhausted my imagination as to what lay behind it.

At last the guards at the side entry parted and my father emerged. But instead of returning to our coach, he stepped to one side and waited. A cadre of guards sporting long swords followed him out the door. An instant later, a single man emerged, leaning heavily on the muscular arm of another; one of his feet was unslippered, wrapped to just above the ankle in the softest combed wool used for newborns’ blankets.

He was sallow and slightly stooped, blinking in the bright sun. He looked to my father, who directed his attention to our wagon.

I leaned forwards on the seat, mesmerized. The man – homely, with a huge crooked nose and badly misaligned lower jaw – squinted in my direction. After a word to his companion, he drew closer, wincing with each step, scarcely able to bear any weight on the stricken foot. Yet he persisted until he stood no more than the length of two men from me. Even then, he had to crane his neck to see me.

We stared unabashed at each other for a long moment. He appraised me intently, his eyes filled with cloaked emotion I could not interpret. The air between us seemed atremble, as though lightning had just struck: he knew me, though we had never met.

Then the man gave my father a nod, and retreated back inside his fortress. My father entered the carriage and sat beside me without a word, as if nothing unusual had taken place. As for me, I uttered not a word; I was stricken speechless.

I had just had my first encounter with Lorenzo de’ Medici.

XV

The new year brought ice-covered streets and bitter cold. Despite the weather, my father abandoned our parish of Santo Spirito and began crossing the Arno to attend Mass daily at the cathedral of San Marco, known as the church of the Medici. Old Cosimo had lavished money on its reconstruction and maintained a private cell there, which he had visited more frequently as he neared death.

The new prior, one Fra Girolamo Savonarola, had taken to preaching there. Fra Girolamo, as the people called him, had come to Florence from Ferrara less than two years earlier. An intimate of Lorenzo Medici, Count Giovanni Pico, had been much impressed by Savonarola’s teachings, and so had begged Lorenzo, as the unofficial head of San Marco, to send for the friar. Lorenzo complied.

But once Fra Girolamo gained control of the Dominican monastery, he turned on his host. No matter that Medici money had rescued San Marco from oblivion; Fra Girolamo railed against Lorenzo – not by name, but by implication. The parades organized by the Medici were pronounced sinful; the pagan antiquities assiduously collected by Lorenzo – blasphemous; the wealth and political control enjoyed by him and his family – an affront to God, the only rightful wielder of temporal power. For those reasons, Fra Girolamo broke with the custom followed by all of San Marco’s new priors: He refused to pay his respects to the convent’s benefactor, Lorenzo.

Such behaviour appealed to the enemies of the Medici and to the envious poor. But my father was entranced by Savonarola’s prophesies of the soon-to-come Apocalypse.

Like many in Florence, my father was a sincere man who strove to understand and appease God. Being educated, he was also aware of an important astrological event that had occurred several years earlier – the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. All agreed this marked a monumental event. Some said it augured the arrival of the Antichrist (widely believed to be the Turkish sultan Mehmet, who had stolen Constantinople and now threatened all Christendom), others that it predicted a spiritual cleansing within the Church.

Savonarola believed it foretold both. My father returned one morning breathless after Mass; Fra Girolamo had admitted during the sermon that God had spoken directly to him. ‘He said that the Church would first be scourged, then purified and revived,’ my father said, his face aglow with a peculiar light. ‘We are living at the end of time.’

He was determined to take me with him the following Sunday to hear the friar speak. And he begged my mother to accompany us. ‘He is touched by God, Lucrezia. I swear to you, if only you would listen with your own ears, your life would be forever changed. He is a holy man, and if we convinced him to pray for you …’

Normally my mother would never have refused her husband, but in this case, she held firm. It was too cold for her to venture out, and crowds tended to excite her overmuch. If she went to Mass, it would be at our own church of Santo Spirito, only a short walk away – where God would hear her prayers just as surely as he heard Fra Girolamo’s. ‘Besides,’ she pointed out, ‘you can always listen to him, then come and tell me directly what he has said.’

My father was disappointed and, I think, irritated, though he kept it from my mother. And he remained convinced that, if my mother would only go and listen to Fra Girolamo, her condition would improve magically.

The day after my parents’ disagreement on this subject, a visitor came to our palazzo: Count Giovanni Pico of Mirandolo, the very man who had convinced Lorenzo de’ Medici to bring Savonarola to Florence.

Count Pico was an intelligent, sensitive man, a scholar of the classics and the Hebrew Cabala. He was handsome as well, with golden hair and clear grey eyes. My parents received him cordially – he was, after all, part of the Medici’s inner circle … and knew Savonarola. I was allowed to sit in on the adults’ conversation while Zalumma hovered, directing other servants and making sure Count Pico’s goblet was full of our best wine. We gathered in the great chamber where my mother had met with the astrologer; Pico sat beside my father, directly across from my mother and me. Outside, the sky was obscured by lead-coloured clouds that threatened rain; the air was cold and bone-achingly damp – a typical Florentine winter’s day. But the fire in the hearth filled the room with heat and an orange light that painted my mother’s face with a becoming glow, and glinted off the shining gold of Pico’s hair.

What struck me most about Ser Giovanni, as he wished to be called, was his warmth and utter lack of pretension. He spoke to my parents – and most strikingly, to me – as if we were his equals, as if he was beholden to us for our kindness in welcoming him.

I assumed he had come for purely social reasons. As an intimate of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Ser Giovanni had encountered my father several times when he had come to sell his wools. Fittingly, the conversation began in earnest with a discussion of il Magnifico‘s health. It had been poor of late; like his father, Piero il Gottoso, Lorenzo suffered terribly from gout. His pain had recently become so extreme that he had been unable to leave his bed or receive visitors.

‘I pray for him.’ Ser Giovanni sighed. ‘It is hard to witness his agony. But I believe he will rally. He takes strength from his three sons, especially the youngest, Giuliano, who spends what time he can spare away from his studies at his father’s side. It is inspiring to see such devotion in one so young.’

‘I hear Lorenzo is still determined to win a cardinal’s hat for his second boy,’ my father said, with the faintest hint of disapproval. He kept stroking his bearded chin with the pad of his thumb and his knuckle, a habit he usually indulged only when nervous.

‘Giovanni, yes.’ Pico flashed a brief, wan smile. ‘My namesake.’

I had seen both boys. Giuliano was fair of face and form, but Giovanni looked like an overstuffed sausage with spindly legs. The eldest brother, Piero, took after his mother, and was being groomed as Lorenzo’s successor – though rumour said he was a dullard, entirely unfit.

Pico hesitated before continuing; his mien was that of a man being pulled in two directions. ‘Yes, Lorenzo is quite attached to the idea … though, of course, Giovanni is far too young to be considered. It would require a … bending of canon law.’

‘Lorenzo is quite talented at bending things,’ my father said off-handedly. Even I had overheard enough of this particular topic to know of the outrage it had incited in most Florentines; Lorenzo had lobbied to raise taxes in order to pay for Giovanni’s cardinalship. My father’s mood grew abruptly jocular. ‘Tell Madonna Lucrezia what he said about his boys.’

‘Ah.’ Pico lowered his face slightly as his lips curved gently upwards. ‘You must understand that he does not say it to them directly, of course. He dotes on them too much to show them any unkindness.’ At last, he gazed straight into my mother’s eyes. ‘Just as you so obviously do on your daughter, Madonna.’

I did not understand why my mother flushed. She had been uncharacteristically quiet up to this point, though she was clearly taken, as we all were, with the charming Count.

Pico appeared to take no note of her discomfort. ‘Lorenzo always says: “My eldest is foolish, the next clever, and the youngest, good.’”

My mother’s smile was taut; she gave a nod, then said, ‘I am glad young Giuliano is a comfort to his father. I am sorry to hear of Ser Lorenzo’s illness.’

Pico sighed again, this time in mild frustration. ‘It is hard to witness, Madonna. Especially since – I am sure your husband has spoken of this – I am a follower of the teachings of Fra Girolamo.’

‘Savonarola,’ my mother said softly, her posture stiffening at the mention of the name. Suddenly, I understood her reticence.

Messer Giovanni continued speaking as if he had not heard. ‘I have begged Lorenzo several times to send for Fra Girolamo – but il Magnifico still rankles at having been rebuffed by San Marco’s new prior. I truly believe, Madonna Lucrezia, that, were Fra Girolamo permitted to lay hands upon Lorenzo and pray for him, he would be healed at once.’

My mother averted her face; Pico’s tone grew more impassioned.

‘Oh, sweet Madonna, do not turn from the truth. I have seen Fra Girolamo work miracles. In my life, I have met no man more devoted to God or more sincere. Forgive me for being so blunt in your presence, but we have all seen priests who consort with women, who over-indulge in food and wine and all manner of worldly corruption. Fra Girolamo’s prayers are powerful because his ways are pure. He lives in poverty; he fasts; he expiates his sin with the whip. When he is not preaching or ministering to the poor, he is on his knees in prayer. And God speaks to him, Madonna. God gives him visions.’

As he spoke, Ser Giovanni’s countenance grew incandescent; his eyes seemed brighter than the fire. He leaned forwards and took my mother’s hand in his with great tenderness and a concern that held no trace of impropriety. My father moved towards her as well, until he was balanced precariously on the edge of his chair. Clearly, he had brought Pico here expressly for this purpose.

‘Forgive my boldness, but your husband has told me of your suffering, Madonna Lucrezia. I cannot bear to think of one so young and fair being denied a normal life – especially when I know, with infinite certainty, that Fra Girolamo’s prayers can cure you.’

My mother was mortified, furious; she could not meet Pico’s gaze. Yet despite the intensity of her emotions, her tone was controlled as she replied, ‘Other holy men have prayed to God on my behalf. I and my husband have prayed, and we are good Christians, yet God has not seen fit to heal me.’ At last, she brought herself to face Pico. ‘Yet, if you are so convinced of the efficacy of Fra Girolamo’s prayers, why do you not ask him to pray for me from afar?’

In his urgency, Messer Giovanni vacated his chair to bend on one knee before my mother in a posture of outright supplication; he lowered his voice so that I had to lean forwards myself in order to hear him over the crackling of the fire.

‘Madonna … you have certainly heard of the prophecy of the papa angelico?’

Everyone in France and Italy knew of the prophecy of the angelic pope – one elected not by a committee of cardinals but by God, who would come to cleanse the Church of its corruption and unite it shortly before Christ’s return.

My mother gave the most cursory of nods.

‘He is Fra Girolamo; in my heart, I am convinced. He is no ordinary man. Madonna, what harm can it do for you to come hear him once? I will arrange for him to meet you privately after Mass, this very Sunday if you are willing. Think of it: through Fra Girolamo’s hands, God will heal you. You need be a prisoner in this house no longer. Only come once, Madonna …’

She glanced over at my father. There was reproach in her gaze at first, for he had put her in the most awkward possible situation; yet that reproach melted away as she caught sight of his face.

There was nothing conniving in my father’s expression, nothing that smacked of satisfaction or victory. Like Pico’s, his face was aglow – not with reflected firelight or godly inspiration, but with the purest, most desperate love I had ever seen.

It was that, more than Pico’s persuasive charm, which made her yield; and when at last she answered the Count, she was gazing upon my father, with all the pain and love that had been hidden in her heart now visible in her expression. Her eyes shone with tears, which spilled onto her cheeks when she spoke.

‘Only once,’ she said – to my father, not to the kneeling Pico. ‘Only once.’

XVI

That Sunday the sky was blue, lit by a sun too feeble to soften the gripping cold. My thickest cloak, of scarlet wool lined with rabbit fur, was not enough to warm me; the air stung my eyes and made them water. In the carriage, my mother sat rigid and expressionless between me and Zalumma, her black hair and eyes a striking contrast to the white ermine cape wrapped about her emerald velvet gown. Across from us, my father glanced solicitously at his wife, eager to obtain a sign of affection, but she gazed past him, as if he were not present. Zalumma stared directly at my father and did not bother to hide the outrage she felt on behalf of her mistress.

Count Pico rode with us and did his best to distract my father and me with pleasant comments, but there was no ignoring my mother’s humiliation, icy and bitter as the weather. Arrangements had been made for us to meet privately with Fra Girolamo directly after the service, so that he could lay hands upon my mother and pray for her.

I gasped as we rolled up to the entrance of the church at San Marco. My awe was not generated by the building – a plain structure of unadorned stone, of the same style as our parish at Santo Spirito – but rather by the number of people who, being unable to find room inside the sanctuary, pressed tightly against each other in the doorway, on the steps, and all the way out into the piazza.

Had Count Pico not been with us, we would never have gained entry. He called out as he stepped from the carriage, and at once, three generously sized Dominican monks appeared and escorted us inside. Their effect on the crowd was magical; they melted away, like wax before a flame. In a moment, I found myself standing between my mother and father not far from the pulpit and the main altar, beneath which Cosimo de’ Medici lay entombed.

Compared to the grand Duomo, San Marco’s interior was sedate and unremarkable, with its pale stone colonnades and simple altar. Yet the mood inside the sanctuary was one of breathless feverishness; despite the numbing chill, women fanned themselves and whispered, agitated. Men stamped their feet – not against the cold, but out of impatience – and monks groaned as they prayed aloud. I felt as though I were at Carnival, awaiting a much-anticipated joust.

The choir began to sing, and the processional began.

With rapt expressions, worshippers turned eagerly towards the parade. First came the young acolytes, one holding the great cross, another swinging a thurible which perfumed the air with smoky frankincense. Next came the deacon, and then the priest himself.

Last of all came Fra Girolamo, in the place of highest honour. At the sight of him, people cried out: ‘Fra Girolamo! Pray for me!’ ‘God bless you, Brother!’ Loudest of all was the cry, ‘Babbo! Babbo!’, that sweet term only the youngest children use to address their fathers.

I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck, trying to get a glimpse of him. I caught only the impression of a frayed brown friar’s robe poorly filled by a thin figure; the hood was up, and his head was bowed. Pride was not among his sins, I decided.

He sat, huddled and intimidated, with the acolytes; only then did the people grow calmer. Yet as the Mass progressed, their restlessness again increased. When the choir sang the Gloria in excelsis, the crowd began to fidget. The Epistle was chanted, the Gradual sung; when the priest read the Gospel, people were murmuring continuously – to themselves, to each other, to God.

They murmured to Fra Girolamo. It was like listening to the thrum of insects and nocturnal creatures on a summer’s night – a sound loud and unintelligible.

The instant he ascended the pulpit, the sanctuary fell profoundly silent, so silent that I could hear a carriage’s wooden wheels rattling on the cobblestones of the Via Larga.

Above us, above Cosimo’s bones, stood a small gaunt man with sunken cheeks and great, protruding dark eyes; his hood was pushed back, revealing a head crowned by coarse black curls.

He was even homelier than his nemesis, Lorenzo de’ Medici. His brow was low and sloping. His nose looked as if someone had taken a great axe-shaped square of flesh, and simply pressed it to his face; the bridge jutted straight out from his brow in a perpendicular line, then dropped down at an abrupt right angle. His lower teeth were crooked and protruded so that his full lower lip pushed outwards.

No messiah was ever more unseemly. Yet the timid man I had seen in the procession and the one who ascended the pulpit could not have differed more. This new Savonarola, this touted papa angelico, had increased magically in stature; his eyes blazed with certainty, and his bony hands gripped the sides of the pulpit with divine authority. This was a man transformed by a power greater than himself, a power that radiated from his frail body and permeated the chill air surrounding us. For the first time since entering the church, I forgot the cold. Even my mother, who had remained subdued, beaten, and silent throughout the ritual, let go a soft sound of amazement.

On the other side of my father, Count Pico lifted his hands, clasped in prayer, in a gesture of supplication. ‘Fra Girolamo,’ he cried, ‘give us your blessing and we will be healed!’ I glanced at his upturned face, radiant with devotion, at the sudden tears filling his eyes. At once I understood why Zalumma had once derided Savonarola and his followers as piagnoni – ‘wailers’.

But the emotion swirling about us was infinite, wild, genuine. Men and women stretched forth their arms, palms open, pleading.

And Fra Girolamo responded. His gaze swept over us; he seemed to see us, each one, and to acknowledge the love directed at him with eyes shining with compassion and humility. He made the sign of the Cross over the crowd with hands that trembled faintly from contained emotion – and when he did, contented sighs rose heavenwards, and at last the sanctuary again was still.

Savonarola closed his eyes, summoning an internal force, and then he spoke.

‘Our sermon comes today from the twentieth chapter of Jeremiah.’ His voice, ringing against the vaulted ceiling, was surprisingly high-pitched, nasal and rasping.

He shook his head sorrowfully, and lowered his face as if shamed. ‘I am in derision daily, everyone mocketh me … because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me …’ He raised his face skyward, as if looking straight at God. ‘But His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing …’

Now he looked on us. ‘People of Florence! Though others mock me, I can no longer hold back the word of the Lord. He has spoken unto me, and it burns in me so bright I must speak or be consumed by its flame.

‘Hear the word of God: Think you well, O you wealthy, for affliction shall strike you! This city shall no longer be called Florence, but Den of Thieves, Immorality, Bloodshed. Then you will all be poor, all wretched … Unheard of times are at hand.’

As he spoke, his voice deepened and grew stronger. The air vibrated with his booming assertions; it trembled with a presence that might well have been God.

‘O you fornicators, you sodomites, you lovers of filth! Your children shall be brutalized, dragged into the streets and mangled. Their blood will fill the Arno, yet God will not heed their piteous cries!’

I started as a woman close behind us let out an anguished howl; the sanctuary walls echoed with wracking sobs. Overwhelmed by remorse, my own father buried his face in his hands and wept along with Count Pico.

But my mother stiffened; she seized my arm protectively, and, blinking rapidly from anger, tilted her chin defiantly at Fra Girolamo. ‘How dare he!’ she said, her gaze fixed on the monk, who had paused to give his words time to take effect. Her voice was raised, loud enough to be heard over the wailing crowd. ‘God hears the cries of innocent children! How can he say such horrid things?’

Just as my mother had clutched my arm protectively, so Zalumma quickly took my mother’s. ‘Hush, Madonna. You must calm yourself …’ She leaned closer to whisper directly into my mother’s ear. My mother gave an indignant shake of her head, and wound her arm about my shoulders. She pressed me tightly to her side as though I were a small child. Zalumma ignored the preacher and his piagnoni, and kept her keen gaze focused on her mistress. I, too, grew worried; I could feel the rapid rise and fall of my mother’s bosom, feel the tension in her grip.

‘This is not right,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘This is not right …’

So many in the church were crying and moaning, murmuring to Fra Girolamo and God, that not even my father noticed her now; he and Pico were far too captivated by the preacher.

‘Oh Lord!’ Fra Girolamo cried sharply. The monk pressed his forehead to his folded hands; he released a bitter sob, then raised his tear-streaked face towards Heaven. ‘Lord, I am only a humble monk. I have not asked for your visitation; I do not crave to speak for you, or to receive visions. Yet I humbly submit to your will. In your name, I am willing, as Jeremiah was, to endure the sufferings inflicted by the unholy on your prophets.’

He gazed down at us, his eyes and voice becoming tender. ‘I weep … I weep as you do, for the children. I weep for Florence, and the scourge that awaits her. Yet how long can we continue to sin? How long do we offend God, before He is compelled to unleash His righteous wrath? Like a loving father, He has stayed His hand. But when His children continue to err grievously, when they mock Him, He must, for their good, mete out harsh punishment.

‘Look at you women: you, with sparkling jewels hanging heavy round your necks, from your ears. If one of you – only one of you – repented of the sin of vanity, how many of the poor might be fed? Look at the swaths of silk, of brocade, of velvet, of priceless gold thread that adorn your earthly bodies. If but one of you dressed plainly to please God, how many would be saved from starvation?

‘And you men, with your whoring, your sodomy, your gluttony and drunkenness: Were you to turn instead to the arms of your wife alone, the Kingdom of God would have more children. Were you to give half your plate to the poor, none in Florence would go hungry; were you to forswear wine, there would be no brawling, no bloodshed in the city.

‘You wealthy, you lovers of art, you collectors of vain things: How you offend, with your glorification of man instead of the Divine, with your vile and useless displays of wealth, while others die for want of bread and warmth! Cast off your earthly riches, and look instead for that treasure which is eternal.

‘Almighty God! Turn our hearts from sin towards you. Spare us the torment that is surely coming to those who flout your laws.’

I looked to my mother. She was staring with a gaze fixed and furious, not at Savonarola but at a point far beyond him, beyond the stone walls of San Marco.

‘Mother,’ I said, but she could not hear me. I tried to slip from her embrace, but her grip only tightened until I yelped. She had turned stone rigid, with me caught in her grasp. Zalumma recognized the signs at once and was speaking gently, rapidly to her, urging her to free me, to lie down here, to know that all would be well.

‘This is the judgment from God!’ my mother shouted, with such force that I struggled in vain to lift my hands to my ears.

Fra Girolamo heard. The congregation near us heard. They looked to my mother and me, expectant. My father and Pico regarded us with pure horror.

Zalumma put her arms about my mother’s shoulders and tried to bring her down, but she was firm as rock. Her voice deepened and changed timbre until I no longer knew it.

‘Hear me!’ Her words rang with such authority that it silenced the whimpering. ‘Flames shall consume him until his limbs drop, one by one, into Hell! Five headless men shall cast him down!’

XVII

My mother fell heavily against me. I crumpled beneath her, colliding with my father as I did. I snatched a fleeting impression of Pico pulling him back before I reached the cold, unforgiving marble. I landed on my side, simultaneously striking my head, my shoulder and my hip.

Then came flashes of green velvet and white ermine, the hems of women’s skirts and the boots of men. I heard whispers, exclamations and Zalumma’s shouts.

My mother lay atop me, her side pressed to mine. Her limbs thrashed; her elbow spasmed and dug into my ribs. At the same time, my mother’s teeth champed; the air released each time she opened her mouth whistled in my ear. The sound terrified me: I should have been holding her head, making sure she did not bite her tongue or otherwise harm herself.

Zalumma’s loud commands suddenly became intelligible. ‘Grab her arms! Pull her out!’

Strong hands seized my wrists, lifted my arms above my head. I was rolled onto my back. My mother’s head fell onto my breast; her teeth snapped fiercely together. All the while, her arms and legs pummelled me; her hand swiped beneath my chin and drew away a piece of flesh beneath her fingernail.

Near my feet, invisible, Zalumma bellowed: ‘Pull her out!’

My father at once came to himself. With uncanny force, he clasped my upraised arms and dragged me out from under my mother’s writhing body. The movement caused an excruciating surge of pain in my ribs.

But the instant I was free, it was forgotten. I did not acknowledge my father’s aid; instead, I clambered to my knees and turned to my struggling mother. Zalumma had already crawled forward and used her body to weigh down her mistress’ kicking legs.

I found the furred edge of my mother’s cape and jammed it between her gnashing teeth. My intervention came late: She had bitten through her tongue, with frightening result. Blood stained her lips and teeth, cheek and chin; the white ermine round her face was spattered with crimson. Though I held her head fast, it jerked so violently in my hands that her cap fell back beneath her. My fingers soon were interlaced in her soft dark hair; the careful coils arranged earlier that morning by Zalumma frayed into tangles.

‘It is the Devil!’ A man stepped forward – young, red-haired, with pock-marked skin; I recognized him as the priest from Santa Maria del Fiore. ‘I saw her do this before, in the Duomo. She is possessed; the evil inside her cannot bear to stand upright in the house of God.’

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