Suicide Kings (2 page)

At last she came out of the winding stairwell onto a landing. Larger windows paned with clear glass let in better light here, and she could see the landing held supplies for cleaning the dome. The roof displayed an inward facing curve and she knew she must be near the top. Still, the nun was not here as she had hoped. Off to the left, a small door.

Diana ran to the door and opened it, emerging onto a small stone ledge running along the inside of the dome. Down below—it seemed like hundreds of feet—she could see the party of mourners. Her mother’s body was just barely visible in its coffin. To the best she could tell, no one saw her emerge on the inside rim of the dome.

Above her were scenes painted on the dome. Domenico di Mechelino had done them, she remembered. At the outside ring, nearest her, were scenes of the damned in Hell, tortured by devils that stripped them of their flesh or rammed fiery spears into their orifices. Closer to the center of the dome, these scenes blended effortlessly into scenes of paradise, of wise men and women engaged in pursuits of learning, or art, or gathered lovingly around Christ on his throne. The message of the dome was not hard to read.

The stone walkway ran around the circumference of the dome. At the opposite side, another little door. Where did this nun think she was going? Diana was resolute. She’d follow the nun to the outside of the cupola itself if need be. Her legs were getting wobbly, and her calves stiffening, but she wouldn’t let her body stop her. Through the door greeted another narrow set of stairs, so narrow even her slim body barely fit. She went with her hands in front of her, holding onto the steps in front, pulling herself up. It was dank in here, humidity clinging to the stone. Only the dimmest light seeped in from the open doorway below. If she lost her footing, if she fell, she’d go down twenty feet of the steepest stairs she’d ever climbed, hitting stone after stone.

At the top almost no light reached her, and she groped in the dark against a stone door. At last she found the latch and opened it. A strong wind pulled the door from her grasp and she nearly flew onto her face. Outside, an evening sky beckoned, the last rays of the sun casting a scarlet pallor over the horizon. Even through her thick dress, the night chill cut deep into her. The wind up here blew fierce and dangerous. The landing was not wide, and there was no railing for protection, only the swift curve of the dome that led into the open air. Diana hated to think how far the fall would be.

Here at last, waited the nun. The woman kept her back to Diana and didn’t turn as she emerged onto the cupola. The nun’s habit billowed in the wind, her body swaying in sudden gusts of cold.

“Sister,” Diana called out, taking a few tentative steps onto the landing. She held her dress in tight, both for warmth and to keep it from acting like a sail. She bent her spine low, keeping as squat a profile as she could. “Did you speak to me at the funeral?”

The woman turned, her face haggard. Diana surmised the nun must have been in her fifth decade. Her eyes were clear and young, but her face wrinkled with age. Her face had a quality that suggested the weathering of experience beyond the cloisters. “I did, lady, but perhaps it was ill-advised.”

Diana felt a stab of confusion, whipped into frenzy by the grief of her mother’s death. How dare someone claim her mother had been murdered only to later regret making such a claim! “Why would you say such a thing to me?”

“Because I believe it to be true, lady.” The wind whipped the nun’s habit, flicking the ends of the black robes into the breeze so she appeared like an unholy phantom.

“My mother died of marsh fever!” Diana shouted, although the ferocious winds carried away much of the force of her voice. Awkwardly, Diana crept forward like a well-dressed hermit crab. She constantly peered over the edge of the dome to the darkness beyond. How easily the wind could gust, and push her over the edge. It occurred to her this could all be some elaborate trap, with the nun luring her out here to be pushed to her death. That made even less sense than the accusation of her mother’s murder. She could think of no reason anyone would want either of them dead. “How dare you malign my mother’s memory by claiming she was murdered!”

Under the assault, the nun lowered her eyes and fell silent. This was not what Diana wanted. She had to get control over her emotions, and so she swallowed and took a step closer. “Do you have proof of what you say?”

The nun looked up, “None that would withstand inquisition, lady.” She looked at her hands that quivered as she spoke. “I am only recently of the veil. Prior to entering the cloister I lived a life that was…unholy.” As she said this, Diana assumed she referred to prostitution. It seemed the most likely route for a woman to enter into a life of sin.

The nun continued, “This last week I have seen a man in Firenze I knew from my former life. This man has only one business: to bring death to enemies of his powerful patrons. He did not recognize me under the veil and I kept myself hidden from him, fearing for my own safety.”

Diana shook her head, absorbing what the nun told her. “You’re saying this man is a hired assassin?”

The nun nodded. “I thought he might have been sent by the Borgia pope to assassinate the mad friar Savonarola. Yet Savonarola lives and your mother has died. Hers has been the only death of a person of note since my former colleague has come to Firenze. That she is said to have died of marsh fever when it is too cold for the disease to take hold in the body has led to my suspicion.”

Diana looked away. “Is there more than that?”

The nun nodded. “Just one thing more, although what to make of it I am unsure.” She reached into the folds of her habit and produced a parchment. She extended her arm, passing the parchment to Diana. The rough paper flapped in the draft, threatening to be taken away forever if Diana hesitated.

Diana took the proffered parchment. A seal on one side had already broken open. Diana opened it, but between the encroaching darkness and the wind, found she could not read it.

“Keep it safe,” advised the nun, “and read it when you can. Perhaps it will make some sense to you.”

Diana did as she was told, putting the parchment safely into the folds of her dress. “Who is this man you claim has killed my mother?”

The nun looked down again. Diana sensed her discomfort, although in her urgency to get to the bottom of the nun’s claim, it mattered very little. At last the nun said, “He goes by the name of Giuseppe Mancini di Milano.”

“Where can I find this man?”

The nun’s eyes went wide. “Surely you must understand that approaching such a man is extremely dangerous. I must warn you away from such a course of action.”

“I want to know where I can find him!”

“So be it, although you should heed my warning. He was staying at the inn called the Romancier. If his business in Firenze is concluded, he may have moved on from here.”

Diana absorbed it, memorized the name. She realized, too, she had been wrong about her guess regarding the nun’s former life. “You were in this business with him, weren’t you?” she cried. “You murdered people for money.”

The nun fell to her knees, hands held out in supplication. “Please do not say such things out loud. I have repented my former life and wish nothing more than to live out the remainder of my days in penance. But when I saw him—” A glint shone in her eyes when she said this, and Diana guessed the two had once been lovers. “—when I learned your mother, always known as a good and generous lady, died suddenly, I could not stand by. In approaching you, I sought only to give your mother an opportunity for justice, but I fear I may have only brought you to danger. Promise me you will not use what I have said to bring trouble onto yourself!”

“Why didn’t you go to my father with this?” Diana demanded, as it was the most logical course.

The nun looked tearful and shook her head as if begging forgiveness. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was startled by the sound of grinding metal as the latch on the cupola door worked open. Someone was coming out onto the cupola landing with them.

The nun’s eyes glinted in the last rays of the sun. “Quickly, you must get away!” The nun grabbed Diana’s arm, and pushed her from the door. “There is another door on the other side of the cupola. The stairway will lead you back down inside. I will stay here so you may escape!”

Escape, Diana wondered. Surely it would only be her father or one of the other funeral attendees coming to check on her after witnessing her sudden flight. The nun remained insistent though, and her fear became infectious. The cupola door squeaked on its rusty hinges. With a flash of panic, Diana picked her way along the landing, careful not to lose her balance. After only a few steps she slinked around the corner and out of sight. Her fear, no longer fueled by the nun, began to ebb. Here she stood, a lady of Firenze, skulking about like a thief on the cupola dome. She still had none of the answers she wanted, only some vague insinuations her mother had been assassinated. Feeling fury welling up inside her, Diana turned back, coming around the corner and back into view of the nun.

What she saw gave her pause. The figure that had emerged onto the landing had its back to Diana. The entity wore a loose fitting cape with hood, not unlike a Dominican monk’s robe. The cape flittered in the strong winds like a specter. The figure loomed over the nun, who gestured frantically and spoke rapidly, although Diana could hear little of what she said.

The caped form spoke in return, and Diana could only pick up pieces of it. It was a man’s voice, deep and resonant. Although it must have been a trick of the wind, the voice seemed to harmonize with itself as if two people were speaking at once. Diana had never heard anything quite like it. It was not a pleasant combination such as from a choir, but something that was unnatural and dissonant. The few words Diana could distinguish over the wind were Latin, but she could not hear enough to understand the conversation.

The nun raised her hands, in one of them a small metal cross she held up toward the cloaked figure. The gesture was unmistakable, a rebuke of the unholy. Diana wondered for a moment if the dark figure might dissipate before the power of Christ like the vapors of a ghost.

Either the specter was of a wholly more material nature, or the nun’s faith was weak. The figure put one dark hand on the cross and flung it away into the night. The nun screamed then, the sound piercing even from the distance, striking terror into Diana’s heart. Diana wished to run forward, to come to the assistance of the nun, but she stood paralyzed with fear and uncertainty. There would be little a young woman such as herself could do against such an imposing figure.

The specter raised one hand high over his head. Diana opened her mouth but her voice refused to come. The nun put up her arms defensively, but the dark form offered no mercy. The specter brought his hand down against the nun’s outstretched arms and he pushed her. Her legs went out from under her and she fell, down to the landing and then over it onto the edge of the cupola. The dark figure kicked the nun’s prone body and she went out over the edge of the dome and silently into the blackness below.

Diana’s scream now came instinctively, her voice breaking through the barriers of fear. She barely realized the sound was her own until the cloaked figure turned to stare at her, the face lost in the darkness of the hood. To Diana it seemed as if the specter were the Angel of Death himself. Panic now unquenchable, Diana turned and ran for the door the nun told her of. Her dress threatened to get under her feet and trip her. The hands of that specter could only be moments from flinging her off the dome to join the nun below. Diana burst into a flurry of activity. Once she saw the door, she hastened to it, her hands fluttering over the latch. It seemed stuck at first, her terror growing with every second that slipped away futilely trying to work it. At last the rust gave way and the door came open. Without looking back she flung herself through the opening into the darkness beyond. There remained almost no light now, and she felt her way down the stairs as quickly as she could, taking only as much care as necessary not to doom herself to tumbling to certain death.

It occurred to her even if the specter were not directly behind her, he could take the opposing stairway and cut her off at the interior ledge, or the interior landing with the maintenance supplies. There was nothing to be done about that, however. Diana could hardly lurk on the dome indefinitely. No safe hiding place offered itself. She had to trust in herself and in God that she would make it down safely.

At each moment she expected cold hands to lay themselves upon her, to reach around her throat and snuff the life from her. The horror of these thoughts drove her on. She cursed the ridiculous dress that made flight so difficult. She made promise after promise to God, about good behavior, the frequency of her prayers, that she would stop glancing lustily at the Abruzzi’s son when she saw him during mass. At last she came out on the interior rim of the dome. Below, far below, she could see her mother’s funerary party much as she had left them. They had not moved, evidently unaware of the nun’s death.

“Papa!” she called out. From so far above she could not distinguish him from the rest, nor see if they looked up at her. Certainly they could not have failed to hear her voice as it echoed throughout the chamber. There were still so many stairs ahead of her. However, now if she were being followed by the specter at least he would be seen by the funerary party below. Knowing this gave her a measure of comfort. Still, he was nowhere in sight, and she began to suspect her pursuer had quit the chase.

This supposition did not stop her from making haste in her descent down the remaining stone stairs, however many hundreds there must be. At last she emerged back in the nave, exhausted. She bent over her waist, hands on her knees and coughed loudly and violently as she struggled to suck in breath.

Around her the funerary party clustered, anxious. She looked aloft and saw her father staring at her, disapproving. She ignored his look and told the assembled group, “Quickly, we must go outside. There’s been a death!”