Suicide Kings (13 page)

Pietro shrugged. “The Council is outside his control, presumably. That might be enough. There may be forces within the Republic working against Savonarola. I’m not sure, honestly. I wasn’t nearly far enough along in initiation with the group to be privy to such information. To continue however, on the night in question, we met at an old graveyard on the far side of the river. One young man by the name of Troilo Ricci was brought forcibly before us and unmasked. The High Apostle declared the man a traitor and spy for the Republic. A death sentence was pronounced upon him. The man swore his innocence. He was held firm, while the High Apostle drew forth a dagger and pressed it to the man’s neck.

“Our meetings had been in the main like philosophical discussions before that. Certainly we understood what we discussed was dangerous and heretical in the eyes of the Papacy, but for all our talk of revolution it never went much beyond talk. To see the life of a man, one of our own no less, threatened before us shocked your mother and I, and likely others in the gathering. Before he could be killed however, Republic gendarmes appeared, weapons drawn. They shouted for us to surrender, but we fled instead. A few men might have drawn weapons on the gendarmes, but most scattered like mice. Your mother and I made it into the woods, then back to the city where we discarded our Council robes, of course. The next morning the body of Troilo Ricci was found hanging over the river from the Ponte Vecchio. His stomach had been cut open and his entrails disgorged into the waters below. I do not know if it was the Republic or the Council who killed him.”

Diana absorbed what he told her. It was difficult to imagine her mother involved in such matters. She could see why her mother had become horrified. “When you met with her later, what did my mother tell you?”

Pietro’s eyes watered. “Regrettably, she did not make our appointment. I waited for her here alone for some time. I found out she had already taken ill. Soon after, she died.”

“Did you think she wanted to leave the Council?”

“It has been my guess this was her intention.”

“Would she have been allowed to leave?”

Pietro shrugged again. “She knew details of our discussions and plans. She would have known at least a few members’ names.” No more needed to be said.

Diana sighed. “So either the Council killed her for trying to leave, or the Republic killed her as a member of a secret society, or the Papacy killed for heresy, depending on who discovered her identity and intensions.” She looked up at Pietro. “Whoever did kill her…they may try to kill you as well.”

His mouth twisted in an odd facsimile of a smile. “The thought had occurred to me. Won’t be much of a loss to anyone, will it?”

Diana stared at him, not sure what to say.

“I don’t know the names of the other Council members,” Pietro added, softly. “I only knew your mother and one other. A man of little significance whom I recruited in turn. Everyone else wore masks. I was still only a novice.”

“How did the nun get half of the letter from my mother to you?”

“That I don’t know. It must have been stolen off my person on the night I waited for her. I thought I had lost it, but clearly I did not if it has come into your possession.”

Diana wrinkled her nose. She had trouble imagining how the note made its way from Pietro to the nun. The sister had never gotten the chance to explain it herself. Diana wondered if whoever had gotten it from Pietro had used it to learn of her mother’s involvement with the Council. Or had inferred her intention to leave? “What will you do now, Pietro? Surely they’ll come to kill you. You could make your way to Venezia.”

He shrugged again, as if it were little matter. “There will be no more love for the Boar in Venezia than he has found in Firenze. Whether it is the Council or the Papists or the Republic who wishes me dead, I shall make it as difficult for them as I can for as long as I can. In doing so, perhaps I will distract them for a time from your own efforts.”

“Here,” Diana reached for her purse and pulled out a few florins, “take these. At least you’ll be able to keep warm and get some food.”

He stared at the coins for a moment, then gently took them from her palm. “Thank you, lady. You have your mother’s kindness.”

She blushed, feeling she didn’t deserve the compliment. “You are mistaken. I am prepared to do things my mother never would to bring her justice.”

Pietro smiled. “Then perhaps you will succeed where she could not.” He took her hand in his own, the flesh of his hand soft and warm. She watched as he pressed her hand to the ragged remains of his lips. His large teeth felt like cold tusks against her skin. She showed no emotion and when he finished the chaste kiss, she allowed his hand a squeeze. “Keep yourself well, lady,” he said, then stood and drew his cape around him. Without looking back he moved quickly from the church.

Diana looked down, thinking. She still wasn’t sure how far she could trust Pietro and the story that he told her. Her mother had trusted him that far she believed, but who was to say he hadn’t betrayed that trust. Perhaps instead of the note being stolen from him, he had passed it on willingly? Perhaps they had met and he had even slipped her some poison himself? On the other hand, if he told her the truth, at least she understood how her mother had gotten herself in trouble. She still couldn’t be sure who was responsible for her mother’s death. The Council seemed the most likely culprit, although she didn’t know their identities. On the other hand, it could have been the Papacy or even the Republic. A spark lit in her mind. Oh dear God, she thought, if it were the Republic, she’d led them right to Pietro. They could be following her even now. And Niccolo…she had begun to trust him. But could he be responsible for her mother’s death?

Chapter Eight

The Two Princes

Dizzying thoughts coursed through Diana’s mind as she quickly skirted from the church to the Tornabuoni palazzo. Most of all she was stunned to find that her mother had this whole secret life that she’d known nothing about. She felt a little sense of betrayal her mother had kept such important events from her. She believed herself to be a horrible daughter given she hadn’t at all sensed that things had been different in her mother’s life.

She glanced around in the piazza outside of the church, one hand kept constantly on the grip of her pistol. Coming to meet with Pietro had been a big risk. Now she had to get back to the dinner with the Tornabuoni family or her father would be angry. She guessed her timing was pretty good and she would only arrive a little late. She’d miss some initial posturing and bragging about whose son had done what, who would receive a Cardinal’s hat, who was on a mission to France. Whatever. None of it interested her very much. Her father had little to discuss in those initial stages of a banquet. As a daughter, Diana was not allowed to accomplish much of significance aside from marriage, and that peculiar institution didn’t interest her very much. She was just as happy to skip standing around feeling like a disappointment.

Coat pulled tight, Diana moved off, keeping to the shadows. There were a fair number of others in the streets, enough that a public assassination would be unlikely. After a few blocks however, she sensed someone following. She glanced behind. There…a young man, slender and not too tall, long black cape tied round his shoulders. She’d seen him on the way to the church, and here he was once again. His pace matched hers exactly, constantly keeping one block behind, attempting to blend into the other pedestrians.

Diana’s heart raced. Could this be a minion of Mancini, waiting for the perfect opportunity to slip a dagger between her ribs? She was not about to have any of that. Still, if she picked up the pace she might lose him, but the gain would only be temporary. Likely as not he knew her destination, and certainly he knew where she lived. He’d only wait for a future opportunity.

No, if she was going to survive this she was going to have to face threats head on. Her grasp tightened on the pistol. Of course she could hardly shoot him in the middle of the street. An alleyway though, dangerous, no doubt about that. All manner of trouble waited down dark alleys. Nonetheless, if she was going to confront him, that was how it would have to be.

She knew this area of town well. After a little thought, she knew where to go. A few turns, and she skirted down a dark and ignored lane. A stack of empty crates provided a perfect point from which to launch an ambush. There, in the darkness, she pulled out her pistol and waited.

She was not left waiting for long. A few minutes after she laid her trap, it was sprung. The young man with the cape rounded the corner. No reason he’d come along this way other than to follow Diana. He looked around the alley, apparently confused as to why she’d come down this way. Before he could realize he was in trouble, Diana leapt out of the shadows and held the gun to his face. “Don’t move or I’ll kill you.” Her arms shook from excitement and cold, and a part of her brain told her to just do it. Shoot him before he could draw his dagger and strike.

The young man’s arms flew above his head, eyes white and wide even in the dark passage. “Lady Savrano,” he croaked, his voice higher pitched than she’d imagined.

No chance of pretense now, he knew her name.

“Do you have a weapon on you?” she barked.

With his elbow he moved aside his cape until she could see the pommel of a rapier, flecks of reflected light glinting off the metal.

“And a knife in your boot, I’d imagine,” she challenged.

Visibly swallowing, he nodded. “Please, mistress, let me explain.”

Diana felt that uneasy burning in her brain, the impulse to pull the trigger and be done with it before he could trick her. She suppressed it. Aside from the glancing wound to Mancini, she’d never done anyone harm before. The other day she’d tried to shoot Pietro when it seemed he might be her enemy, but she’d been wrong about that. At very least she needed to hear this man out, lest there indeed be a good explanation. “I think you’d better explain, and fast.”

“I’m with the gendarmes.”

“You’re not dressed in the uniform of the gendarmes!”

“I know, I know,” he flinched, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m under orders to follow you without drawing attention to myself. My orders are to keep you safe.”

“Keep me safe?” she cried, incredulous. “Who has taken it upon themselves to worry about me so?” Even as she asked the question, she guessed the answer.

“Signore Machiavelli has given me my orders, Lady Savrano,” the man told her, hurriedly.

She started to relax, figuring the man told her the truth. Still, it could be a trick. “What evidence do you have that you work on Signore Machiavelli’s orders?”

The gendarme blinked. “He, uh…told me that if you confronted me and didn’t believe my orders, I was to tell you—”

“Yes, out with it!”

“He told me to tell you that you are a stubborn woman who doesn’t know what’s good for her, and is likely to get herself killed, signorina.” He looked like he was ready for the hammer to come down on the pistol at any moment.

Diana sighed. She didn’t know him well but somehow that did sound like Machiavelli.

Apparently sensing the danger was ebbing, the young man added, “Signore Machiavelli mentioned you would likely be heading to the Tornabuoni palazzo once you were finished with whatever other mischief you were up to tonight. He wished for me to tell you, under circumstances such as these, that he would eagerly await your arrival there.”

She relaxed her grip on the pistol. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to inform me that you would be shadowing me?”

“Those weren’t my orders, Lady Savrano. I was told only to speak to you if I was confronted.”

Of course, Diana reasoned, this wasn’t just a matter of protecting her, although that might legitimately be one of Niccolo’s concerns. Having her shadowed also gave him an opportunity to spy on her. And here she’d led them to Pietro a second time. She wouldn’t have done that if she knew she’d been followed. She hoped he had managed to avoid detection.

Diana’s blood boiled. Damn that Niccolo, pretending to be concerned about her, then spying on her instead. Besides she didn’t know she could trust him. From the story Pietro had told, it was just as likely his gendarmes had killed her mother on orders from the Republic as it was that the Sacred Council of Apostles had killed her for trying to leave. Either way, she still lacked clear evidence, and had to keep a level head.

“Very well,” she said at last. “I won’t shoot you.”

“You can’t imagine what a relief that is to hear, signorina.”

“However, we will switch our positions. You are to remain twenty paces ahead of me at all times. If I so much as
think
I see you reaching for your rapier I will blow a hole in you large enough to sail a caravel through.”

“I understand, signorina, no twitching.”

“If I need assistance I will be sure to scream.”

“Yes, Lady Savrano, if you scream, I am allowed to twitch.”

“What is your name?”

“Crispino, Lady Savrano.”

“All right, Crispino, get walking. You already know where I’m going.”

She watched as Crispino turned without further word and began walking back out into the street. “You can put your hands down now, Crispino!” she called. She sighed and rolled her eyes. If this was the quality of the men watching out for her wellbeing, she was doomed.

****

Warmth greeted her inside the Tornabuoni Palazzo. It felt good to shake the cold out of her bones, rubbing her hands along her arms to warm the flesh. The scent of cooking food hung heavily in the air. Diana’s stomach rumbled, and she realized she hadn’t been eating well the past few days.

A young female slave, Slavic by the look and sound of her, offered to take Diana’s coat. Diana hesitated. Suddenly, with blood rising in her face, she realized she had brought the pistol to the dinner. She could hardly go through the evening with the thing strapped over her shoulder. Handing it over, though…the slave would certainly gossip. Worse, what if someone were to sabotage the pistol? Could she be sure that there were no agents of the Sacred Council of Apostles here at the dinner? She already knew that the Republic would be represented in the person of Niccolo Machiavelli. The pistol was her only defense. It would have been better if she’d left it at home tonight. Neither Pietro nor the gendarme Crispino had been a threat.