The King's Diamond (25 page)

‘Of course. I did not really lie when I told you I was a merchant. But in these times secrets are a far more profitable commodity than any other.'

‘And will there be peace?'

John shrugged. ‘No one trusts anyone. One ambassador slanders another. One thing is sure. Whether we have peace or war, it will not be settled by the men you can see. The invisible is what counts.'

‘Men like you?'

John smiled, full of impudence. It was an old familiar smile that soothed away my fears. I said, ‘Well, that gold is real enough, at any rate. We must celebrate. Martin?'

‘Yes, master, a bottle.'

Martin padded away, taking one of the two candles with him. In the near darkness John smiled again.

‘You never believed me, did you? Ah, Florence, city of delights. But the news from there is not good. If the Imperial army comes any nearer, the people will rise up against the Medici. Freedom, that's what they see in the Empire. The Pope and the Medici mean only tyranny and serfdom. Yes, I think Alessandro de' Medici and his cronies, the Cardinals Cibo and Passerini, are shaking in their beds tonight.'

I did not like to hear this talk. Like all Romans, I had come to think of Florence as our bulwark against Bourbon's army. It might take months or years, people said, for the Imperials to conquer Florence. In that way, Bourbon's strength would exhaust itself before ever drawing close to Rome.

‘But not all Florentines are for the Empire?' I pressed, as Martin brought the wine.

‘All? No. But a few bold men, hot for revolution, will be enough. Men like Salviata and Corsini, and de' Bardi.'

The name made me sit up with a start. In my mind I saw once again the diamond I had held for so short a time in Venice, but which I had seen over and over again since then in my dreams. I saw its cool blue gleam and its sudden fire, and that milky veil suddenly drawn across its charms.

‘Not Lorenzo de' Bardi?'

John lifted his cup and laughed. ‘No! Not the old man. I mean his son. Alonso. There is not much love between the two of them: the father staunch for the Medici, the son as hot against them. They say old Lorenzo has cut him off. Won't see or speak to him. He means to die alone, with what little wealth is left to him. And that won't be long now. Days, most likely. What's the matter?'

I was staring at him. My face must have been like a ghost's. The ideas were chasing one another round in my head. Lorenzo de' Bardi. Dying alone. No heir. The old man and the diamond. Dying. Alone. I felt it was within my grasp: and I knew at the same moment that I could never be content with my other stones. I stood up.

‘John, how many days' ride is it to Florence?'

‘Three or four, if you ride like thunder. And if the rains have not closed the passes.'

‘And how far do you think Bourbon's army is from the city?'

‘By my information, about forty miles. Why?'

‘Martin, fetch us horses. We are going.'

‘By God's precious blood, master, I beg you, no. Not the diamond?'

‘The diamond.'

‘But Mrs Hannah? And Benvenuto?'

Hannah: yes. There had been promise in her eyes, no question. I almost wept to think of what I might be missing when midnight came tonight. But would she really be there? Or was I just sticking my foot into another snare, with more mockery, more teasing? If I could only get that diamond, I thought, the Diamond of the Old Rock of Golconda. That would be the conquering of her.

‘You will take her a message,' I told Martin, ‘and Benvenuto can work very well without us.' I turned to John. ‘Will you come?'

John leant back and stretched. ‘My dear Richard, you are my very dear friend, but I will not stick my hand into that hornets' nest again.'

‘Very well, then.' Martin still stood staring. I clapped my hands at him. ‘Be quick! We have a long road to travel. We will be back in a week, I promise. And that stone will make us rich.'

For two days we wound up the valley of the Tiber to Orvieto. Then came barren wastes where the road climbed to a rocky, treeless pass and the wind blew tatters of cloud across our way. Ahead we saw the stone fortress of Radicofani, outpost of the Republic of Siena. This we skirted. Siena was no friend of the Pope, or of Florence. At an inn high in the mountains I counted my remaining bills and reckoned up what I could afford while still leaving enough to pay Benvenuto and get home. I decided I would run up to sixteen hundred ducats, four hundred more than I had offered in Venice. It was an even chance, I thought. Last time I had failed. Everything hinged on the old man's frame of mind. I folded the bills away and spent a cold, anxious night, trying to sleep. Next day came the descent to Cortona in the territory of Florence, and after that the last fifty miles down out of the hills.

We came at last, Martin and I, to the hill overlooking Florence, and a fair sight it was, well walled, with the dome of the cathedral rising at its heart. It was late afternoon on the eleventh of April: ten days before Easter. John's three or four days had taken us five. We rode quickly down and into the city. The place had an air of calm
affluence. Carts made their way home from the markets, gentlemen walked the streets. It did not resemble John's vision of a city divided against itself, or in fear of war. I went at once in search of that diamond.

The Palazzo de' Bardi was situated on a street leading off the Piazza della Signoria, the long square that is the city's heart. The quarter of the bankers and goldsmiths was close by, and the streets were thick with grand palazzi, with the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria rising above them all. At the de' Bardis' door I presented myself as an Englishman who was acquainted with the master of the house in Venice, and begged an interview, however brief. I paced the entrance hall, impatient, while my message was taken up. I noted the walls bare of tapestries, the plinths where statues must once have stood. Plainly the old nobleman was still short of ducats. The gaunt old chamberlain returned.

‘Signor de' Bardi will see you.'

He led me up a bleak, echoing staircase and into a small saletta. I stopped, taken aback. Seated at a plain walnut writing table was a young man, elegantly dressed in black satin. He stood up, and I bowed.

‘And so you are a friend of my father's?'

‘I had the honour to meet him some months ago, in Venice. Is he …?'

‘Still living. But in no condition to receive guests. Perhaps you will accept my hospitality in his place.'

The young man was urbane and courtly. He smiled, rang a small bell and whispered to the chamberlain when he returned. There was nothing I could do but bow and murmur thanks. But inwardly I was raging. Where was the bitter feud between father and son that should have given me my chance?

Alonso de' Bardi led me through to a smaller room, painted with trompe-l'oeil scenery. He smiled again and beckoned me to sit. The same old chamberlain brought us wine and then two or three dishes
of chicken, mutton and beef, plain but excellently well dressed. Alonso drank freely, laughed, complimented me on my Italian, and questioned me closely about my business in Venice and Rome. I gave away that I was a merchant in gems, and shared an interest in them with the young man's father; but I said nothing of the diamond.

‘And what a fortunate moment you choose to come to Florence. I dare say you have heard nothing of the Armistice? Peace signed and declared between His Holiness and the Duke of Bourbon.' He took another long drink of wine, emptying his cup. ‘That will please a great many people.'

I sat, calculating and distrustful. There had been rumours of peace so many times before. ‘But not you?'

Suddenly he slammed his cup down on the table. ‘By God, not me. You know nothing of Florence, I see. What are we? Neither a true republic nor yet a dukedom, but a wretched vassal of the Holy See. The city is in the pocket of a couple of Pope Clement's fatherless, base-begotten relatives.' I noticed he was swaying and slurring his words. He counted on his fingers. ‘There's black Alessandro de' Medici: that's bastard number one. Son of a slave: they call him the Moor. Then there's Ippolito de' Medici, an idle young whoremaster. Bastard number two. To prop them up there's a couple of damned eunuch cardinals, that vulture Passerini, Bishop of Cortona, and stinking Innocenzo Cibo, the Pope's cousin. Did I say eunuch? I'm sorry. I forgot that Cibo is fond of futtering his brother's wife.'

I ventured, ‘And so your lordship would not be sorry to see the Imperial army advance a little nearer to Florence?'

De' Bardi glared at me, suddenly suspicious. ‘What is your real business here?'

I nodded back in the direction of the goldsmiths' quarter. ‘Trade.'

‘And does “trade” give you a reason to see my father? I am curious about you, Englishman. Well, you shall see him. Marcello! Old whoreson, lights!'

Dusk had been gathering while we ate. The chamberlain returned, and with trembling hands lit all the candles on a five-branched candelabrum. ‘Forgive my poor Marcello. He is slow, old, and timid. A true Florentine.' He gave the servant a light kick on the rear. Marcello stumbled. The three of us set off through another doorway, and up a winding stair. Martin, who had watched the meal from the shadows, followed.

We passed along dim halls and came at last to carved double doors. Alonso threw them open with a bang and then strode ahead into the darkness. ‘Do not trouble over Father. Night is his most wakeful time.'

As I entered the room with the candles following, I saw a large, canopied bed, still with its hangings of rich blue silk. Propped on bolsters was a small and shrunken old man, who looked back at me with the same mild eyes I remembered from Venice. His face was more yellowed and lined, and a smell of rottenness breathed from his body as I came near. Alonso hung back, leaning against the wall with a smile.

Old Lorenzo lifted a bony hand in greeting. ‘And so it is the Englishman, who so nearly bought my diamond.'

I heard a snort from behind me. Alonso saw through me. And my business with the old man would have to be done in the son's presence. I said, ‘It grieves me to see your lordship in such poor health. I was still further grieved when I heard your lordship had quarrelled with his son. I am glad to know that such rumours are false.'

The old man glanced quickly in the direction of his son. ‘We are once more in accord. Well? You have not just come to see me. Will you have a sight of the diamond?'

He motioned to Marcello, who put down the candelabrum and unlocked a chest beside the bed. He took from it the inlaid jewel box, and from that the red velvet pouch, which he handed to his master. Lorenzo de' Bardi's long, shaking fingers drew out from the pouch the diamond. I caught my breath. I had seen it before in daylight. By
candlelight its seduction was multiplied. The subtle gleam ran over its surface, half-opaque, with only a glint of sea-blue and carmine as the old man turned it in his hands. His face was alight. My fingers itched to hold it. At last Lorenzo held it out to me. I lifted it between thumb and forefinger. It was cool and smooth; as I turned it the candlelight penetrated, and I experienced once again that sudden plunge into its depths, that brilliant cascade of colours, blood-red, indigo, sea-green. It exceeded even my memories of it. There were three separate places, I saw, at which the misty veil could be made to part, and at each one the dance of light was different. I would have done anything to have it.

The old man smiled in triumph. ‘What will you give me for it now?'

I darted him a look of quick expectation. ‘Sixteen hundred.'

He shook his head. ‘It is not for sale. Buy it from Alonso when it is his. Perhaps next week. Perhaps sooner.'

But a glance at the younger de' Bardi convinced me I would have little luck from that quarter. Alonso sneered. ‘Sell a rough diamond? No, I shall have it cut. Then what will it be worth? Twenty thousand?'

I turned back to the dying man. ‘I beg you to let me take it to be cut. I know the only man who can do it. You know that one mistake would be the ruin of it. Eighteen hundred.'

Lorenzo took the diamond from me. His face kindled again as he touched it. Then he grunted in pain, and lay back on his bolsters with a sigh. ‘No one cuts this stone while I am alive. But come to me again, Englishman. Come in the day, when the stone truly shines. Your talk gives me life.'

I bowed, and turned to go. Lorenzo lay with the diamond still clutched in his hand.

As we walked back to our inn some streets away behind the Mercato, Martin was studiously silent. At last I could bear it no longer.

‘By God!' I burst out. ‘Tell me you think we've come on a fool's errand and have done with it.'

‘I am not saying so, master. Only time will answer that.'

 

Day by day I sat in the darkened chamber that looked out over the Via dei Calzaiuoli, the street named for its shoe-makers but actually one of the grandest in Florence. Old Lorenzo talked to me of his family, of the faded glory of the de' Bardis, once among the richest bankers of Italy, until their great fall into bankruptcy in the year 1343. He spoke of the senior branch of the family, the Counts of Vernio, who still kept up a show of grandeur in their palazzo on the Via de' Benci. ‘But the glory is long gone, long gone.' At other times his talk moved to the war. ‘God be thanked for the Armistice. The world has more sense than to rip itself apart. Alonso is a good boy. He may talk about liberty, but if the day came, he would stand by his native city against the Imperials. We must oppose the foreign invaders. The Medici have their faults, but they are Florentines, like us. If Bourbon ever came to Florence, it would be with fire and the sword.' This speech appeared to exhaust him, and he lay panting, with the diamond loose in his hand.

I raged at the delay. I pictured the Cages back in Rome, their goods packed, waiting only on the pleasure of the Pope in order to depart. I should abandon this chase and go back. But the diamond's pull was too strong. And to go back and face Hannah without it, after the way I left her: no, it was not to be thought of. I sat and saw the doctors come. They slid their lancets into the old man's arm and let the blood drip down into a crescent-shaped dish held beneath. I saw them change the dressings on the swollen ulcers on his side, that unloosed a stink of corruption when they were unbound. Lorenzo's slow slide into death appalled me. But the old man seemed entirely content. Myself and the Golconda diamond were to be his last companions.

‘For forty-three years I have gazed on this stone every night. Nothing else has lasted.'

‘Sell it to me,' I whispered. ‘Let me give the stone its reward. I will offer it to a great King, and he will give it to his lady. She will wear it on her breast. Thousands will see it.'

Lorenzo looked up at me. ‘What lady is this?'

‘The most beautiful lady in the world. Who else could wear the most beautiful diamond?'

His resolve was weakening, I was almost sure. He said, ‘Did I never tell you of the day I bought it? Venice: the Rialto. In the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent. November, 1484. A dealer just in from Cairo. He dared not keep it; the temptation to try to cut it was too great. He dared not. Two and a half thousand ducats I paid.'

‘I'll match that,' I whispered, knowing as I said it that I was ruining myself.

Lorenzo's fist clenched over the diamond, and from his eyes tears started. The closer he slid towards death, the further he was from relinquishing the diamond. I could bear no more of this. I straightened up and marched out of the room. I needed to walk the streets and vent my frustration; but I would be back. I knew I would be back. Leaning in the doorway, Alonso watched me go with a satirical smile.

 

I had been in Florence about a week when Martin came to me at breakfast and told me there was news. I jumped up.

‘Dead?' This was the thing I dreaded most: to lose the old man too soon.

‘There are more affairs in this world than your diamond,' Martin chafed me. ‘No, the Imperials are advancing.'

‘How far?'

‘They say they have moved round to the south, blocking the road we travelled from Rome. They are at a place called San Giovanni Valdarno, about twenty miles up the valley.'

‘But the Armistice?'

‘There's news about that, too. The eighty thousand ducats that the Florentines sent to the Duke of Bourbon to pay his troops, to persuade him to move away: well, he's sent it all back.'

I felt the pit of my stomach fall away. There could be no clearer sign. Bourbon had torn up the treaty, and meant to storm Florence. This was what I had sworn to myself I would have the wit and luck to avoid: to be caught in a city subjected to the horrors of a sack. I left my bread and wine unfinished and hurried to the goldsmiths' quarter where I had made a few friends, and asked after more news. There was panic everywhere. It was too late to send any goods out of the city for safety. I heard curses of the Medici, curses of the Pope who had had the arrogance to sign Florence into the Holy League without her own permission, curses of Cardinal Passerini, who governed Florence and had not the ghost of a notion what to do.

‘He must arm the people. We must have pikes and harquebuses from the Arsenal. There are enough of us to keep the walls against Bourbon.'

‘Passerini will never dare. He knows if we're armed he'll be the first to feel the blade at his throat.'

‘He will have no choice.'

‘He'll wait to the last moment: the Duke of Urbino is coming, with the Venetians and the other allies of the League.'

‘They'll do nothing. They may be our allies, but Venice has no interest in saving Florence.'

Next I hurried to de' Bardi. ‘I must leave Florence,' I told him. ‘Tomorrow at the latest. I beg you, if you wish to see the stone come to its glory after you are gone, sell it to me now.'