Suicide Kings (14 page)

There was nothing to be done now. Her only hope was that the slave would keep her mouth shut. Through a half open doorway, Diana could see the banquet in the great hall beyond. Those gathered there hadn’t noted her yet. Diana sucked in a deep breath to steady her nerves. The slave girl helped her out of her overcoat. Diana slipped off the satchel that held the pistol and handed it to the girl, pommel visible above the cloth. The young woman looked at it for a moment, hand frozen in the air half way to clutching it. She looked up at Diana with wide eyes.

“Listen to me,” Diana told the girl. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Katrianna,” the girl answered quietly.

“Katrianna, I need you to help me. I need you to put this someplace safe and to tell no one about it until I retrieve it. My life may depend upon it. Do you think you can do that?”

The girl nodded.

“I know servants talk among themselves. I’m hoping you’ll be able to refrain until I leave.”

“I’ll tell no one, lady.” The girl took the pistol, wrapping Diana’s coat around it, hiding it from sight. She scurried away into the dark corridors from whence the servants and slaves came and went.

Diana rubbed her hands, cold fingers coming back to feeling. She’d done her best. Either Katrianna would help her or betray her; she could do no more. She stepped through the doorway into the grand hall beyond. She allowed herself a moment to survey the group within. Perhaps two dozen men and women gathered in the hall, clustered in little groups of three or four. They were still talking. That was good. Dinner hadn’t been served yet, and she would not seem terribly late.

She spotted her father at once, back to her and speaking with Signore Orsini and his wife as well as the Signore and Signora Tornabuoni. Her father was in his element, holding court with these eminent citizens of Firenze and Roma. Cardinal Lajolo was here as well, as were members of some of the most illustrious families of Firenze: the Riccis, the Strozzis, remnants of the Salviati family, still shattered following their rebellion against Lorenzo of the Medici a generation before. There were younger members of each of these families in addition to their patricians. Young men were dressed up like peacocks, rapiers or daggers at their side as if each of these perfumed dandies needed to prepare for war at any moment. More likely they would draw swords and murder one another over some perceived slight. The young women were bedecked with jewels, eyes scanning the young men, not so much with lasciviousness as with frank appraisal of their worth as husbands.

All the people she expected. Well, except where was that devious little—

A touch at her elbow sent her jumping out of her skin. Niccolo, of course, like a ghost from between flickering shadows. “Christ curses you, Signore Machiavelli,” she hissed at him.

He grinned a little. “If only you were the first to say that about me. I’m pleased to see you here tonight.”

“Is that so?” she replied, feeling grumpy. “You’ll be more pleased I’m sure to learn your man Crispino still breathes, despite I almost fired a lead ball into him when I found him skulking in the shadows.”

“Ah, Crispino.” He nodded. “I’ll have to have words with him about proper surveillance. I hope you understand, I meant only to safeguard your wellbeing.”

She regarded him with care. What could she say? If she revealed what Pietro had told her, he’d know she’s spoken to the disfigured man, if he didn’t already know. She wanted to ask him what his role had been in investigating the Sacred Council of Apostles. Had he or his men killed the accused traitor Troilo Ricci? Had he killed her mother? Certainly the Council themselves made for more likely culprits, but could she be so sure?

On the other hand, she sensed that there was no benefit in coming across to Niccolo as a naïve little waif either. So she replied, “I think you’d like to know if I uncover any information that would do your job for you.”

“I would be remiss if I advised you to do anything other than to remain within the safety of your family palazzo.”

A clever, non-denial, Diana thought. He hadn’t bothered to ask why she’d come late. No doubt he’d get the answer soon enough from Crispino. Together, they stood side by side watching the other guests as if the two of them were empirical observers of some kind of social experiment.

“Do you know the Tornabuoni family well?” Niccolo asked after a few moments of silence.

She shook her head. “They’re friends of my father. They have business between them.”

Niccolo pointed to one young man at the center of heavy female attention. “That fine young fellow is the guest of honor. Bernardo Tornabuoni, currently holding court with his admirers, is recently returned from Paris and the attention of Charles VIII.”

Diana wrinkled her nose, as if noticing an objectionable odor. Charles VIII, King of France, had only recently cut a path of destruction through Italy before retreating back across the Alps in disgrace. His armies had occupied Firenze briefly and, although things could have been worse, had not endeared the French to many of Firenze’s citizens.

“He can’t be faulted entirely,” Niccolo continued, possibly sensing her reaction. “An alliance with France could signal advancement for the entire family. Savonarola favors the French, sees them as agents of God.”

“I must have very little understanding of God’s ways,” Diana commented.

“I as well,” Niccolo agreed. “I find it difficult to believe that God should show favor on such a perfumed dandy as Bernardo Tornabuoni.”

Diana raised an eyebrow and looked at Niccolo with a grin. “Why, you almost sound envious.”

Niccolo shrugged. “It would be pointless to deny he has enjoyed privileges that would be pleasing to most men. I do not mind so much when those privileges have been earned through cleverness or skill. I think that too often they are wasted on a misguided sense of divine anointment. Take the former Medici lords of Firenze, Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent. Those were men to be admired, not this pampered fool.”

“Words of praise for the Medici will find you trouble in Savonarola’s Firenze, dear Niccolo.”

He seemed unperturbed at that thought. “I have no wish to see the Medici return to Firenze. Yet I can’t deny a certain degree of merit among their founding fathers.”

People took their places along the banquet table. “It looks like our conversation is to be cut short.” She noted that seating was according to rank, a customary observation in Firenze. Given that her father was well-respected and intimately connected to the Tornabuoni, she would be seated with him near the front of the table. Niccolo’s family connections and position in the Republic were enough to get him invited tonight, but not enough to position him in a seat of high rank. As she took her place, she decided she’d miss their jousting, if that was what it could be called. Each of his words might be calculated to have some particular effect, but it was a contest she found comforting, as if she had established her stride in it. By contrast, the rich of Firenze, particularly the children of the rich who had known nothing different, she found boring. She might be one of them, but her peers seldom held interest for her. It was one reason among many she didn’t marry.

At the head of the table, Signore Tornabuoni and his wife held the position of honor. Their son, Bernardo sat to their right, her father to their left. This arrangement left Diana sitting just diagonally from the young man Niccolo had called perfumed and pampered. Up close there was little doubt Niccolo’s words held some merit. The young man was dressed and styled in the latest fashions and held his spine rigid with a slightly irritating aura of self-worth. Still, she couldn’t deny that he was handsome, an even blending of his elegant parents. She was surprised more so when he opened his mouth and intelligent words issued forth. Her father commented on the historical difficulties Galilei Galileo experienced in his dealings with the Roman See. Bernardo was quick to note how Galileo’s theories and observations unwittingly threatened the Catholic Church’s hegemony on celestial and thus heavenly truths.

Impressed though she might be, Diana didn’t worry herself overly much so with the sun and the Earth and which revolved around which. She turned away, looking down the table for more interesting conversation but found only the Orsinis and Riccis discussing the finer points of the latest fashions. This was fast becoming the typical sort of banquet her father invited her to. All that went missing was for her to find some way to feel humiliated before the night was over.

“So, you still have not decided to marry, Diana?” The feminine voice jolted her out of her thoughts. She was startled to see all three of the Tornabuonis staring at her, awaiting her reply. Her father coughed and looked at his plate. He would hardly lift a finger to rescue her.

“I, uh…” She cleared her throat. She had forgotten Signora Tornabuoni’s penchant for asking embarrassing questions as if they were no more matter than the weather. At least she was right on time to complete the evening. Diana recovered her composure and forced a smile through narrowed eyes and clenched teeth. “I suppose I haven’t gotten the right offer yet.”

“My dear,” Signora Tornabuoni said with a wave of a heavily bejeweled hand, “you have turned down every eligible bachelor in Firenze and beyond. Soon you’ll be beyond decent childbearing years.”

“She is only nineteen, Giovanna,” interjected her husband with an amused tone. “She likely fancies that she has not yet found her prince.”

Inwardly Diana groaned. Signore Tornabuoni was partly correct, although his tone of indulgence made her feel like a little girl rather than an adult woman. The implication was difficult to ignore: her whimsical girlish notions had gotten in the way of the practical business of marriage.

“You must pluck the fruit when it is ripe on the vine,” suggested Signora Tornabuoni with a tone that implied helpful intent.

“Please, Mother, Father,” objected Bernardo, “I am sure Signorina Savrano has her reasons for postponing marital plans. It is none of our business to pry in such matters.”

Diana raised her eyebrows at the unexpected defense.

“Well, whatever could be more important than marriage for a young woman?” pried Signora Tornabuoni further.

Her father finally spoke up. “She fancies herself a physician.” His tone suggested that this was no better than Signore Tornabuoni’s portrayal of her expecting a shining knight on a white charger. The Signore and Signora Tornabuoni giggled and knocked elbows on cue.

Diana resigned herself to a new wave of humiliation.

Once again, Bernardo rose to her defense. “Actually, I have heard that both the universities at Salerno and our own Pisa have accepted a few women among their medical students. Although it is said that the female psyche cannot handle the rigors of such study, or the unpleasantness of human sickness, I have heard that these women have requited themselves quite favorably. Perhaps we should not be so quick to judge.”

The giggling died down. “Quite so,” said Signore Tornabuoni after a moment. “You might be right. Your time in France has made you worldlier than the rest of us.”

What France, which to Diana’s knowledge had no female medical students, had to do with it, she did not know. Still, it was enough for her to look out from between her fingers, sensing the wave of humiliation had passed and without its customary fury. She found Bernardo giving her a little grin. She could not help but return it.

It was not lost on her, particularly in her recent paranoid mindset, that the entire exchange might have been a scripted set piece designed to put Bernardo in a good light for her own benefit. The Tornabuonis were one family who had not broached the subject of arranged marriage with her father or herself. Did they now intend to try? If so she had to admit that they had played their parts well, knowing what would impress her. Bernardo might be a dandy, but he was either cleverer or more gallant than Niccolo had given him credit for.

Soon after the dinner started, and this distracted the conversation from anything of value as people stuffed their faces through course after course of the finest and most expensive foods available. Diana, as was customary, became full too soon and could only pick at the later plates.

After dinner the musicians began, and the younger guests began pairing up. Although she enjoyed music, Diana had never been social enough to take much to dancing. As with dress, the styles changed too often for her to keep up with them. This year, the trends were to allow the partners to come into greater contact with each other, to loop arms while performing little twirls and skips. A young man’s arm might
accidentally
brush a woman’s breast, which was part of the thrill, she supposed. This would be a good time for her to make her escape she figured, but it was not to be.

“Would you care to dance?” Bernardo asked, standing from the table and offering his hand.

Diana stammered for a moment, caught off guard, looking at the older adults around her. The Tornabuonis both smiled, although timidly, as if trying not to push her too hard too quickly. Her father picked at his plate. If he orchestrated this, he knew better than to offer her any encouragement now, which would only inflame her resentment.

Still, Bernardo had been nothing but dignified during dinner, and had impressed her more than once. Diana was not cruel by nature and to turn him down would be to dishonor him after he had come to her aid.

“Very well,” she said. “One dance.”

As she took to the floor, she warned him, “I don’t know the latest dances.”

“Don’t worry, I will show you,” he told her, just the hint of an acquired French accent noticeable in his speech.

He proved an able instructor and in truth the dance was not terribly difficult to learn. Although she felt somewhat like an ox plodding around in a field, she figured that her missteps were at least noticeable only to Bernardo. He remained a perfect gentleman, not taking the liberties with their close proximity that the dance made possible. Envious glances from the other young women in the room only made Diana feel awkward, however.

“So why France?” she asked between twirls, bows, and little jumps.