Alana White

ST. STEPHEN'S DAY

Sixth December 1476
Milan

That Friday night in Milan began quietly enough. Snow descending upon the city dressed the Cathedral’s prickly spires in lacy white. Some good distance from the Cathedral sat the church of San Stefano, unremarkable and alone. Snow swirled around San Stefano’s stone walls and drifted beneath the portal. Inside, near the altar, where a few candles smoked and burned, the trap door leading down into the crypt stood folded back. At the bottom of the stone steps, in the burial vault, two monks shivered among corpses whose bones were clothed in moldering brocades and dust.

“Uncle Fuccio,” said Brother Bernardo Spini, “hurry and d-drink the wine, please. I’m freezing.” Brother Bernardo kept his voice respectful, but he was frightened, eyeing the men, women and children asleep forever in the vault--he hoped.

Brother Fuccio swigged wine from the flask and smacked his shiny, wet lips. The candle flickering in his gnarled hand made his eyes two hollows against the shadows dancing across his face. “If Father Abbot were less stingy, we’d have no cause to meet in this wretched hole for our farewell drink. ‘No wine other than for special observances,’ says he. Well, I say I’ll toast Bacchus whenever I please, and it pleases me now. God knows I’ll miss you after you leave tomorrow—but, ah, my loss is Firenze’s gain.” Fuccio’s bushy brows rose toward his tonsure, a brush of wintry white.

Brother Bernardo, tipping the flask, heard footsteps move across the church floor above and paused, whispering, “Uncle Fuccio, someone’s in the sanctuary. Several people, I think.”

“Dio!” Brother Fuccio snatched the wine flask and secreted it in the folds of his robe.
Brother Bernardo’s glance ran up the stone staircase, toward the dark opening in the sanctuary floor. “Uncle, do Saint Stephen’s monks wear heavy boots?”

“No. Quiet!” Fuccio hissed.

Perilously near the trap door, a torch whooshed and blazed and a man said in a penetrating voice, “Giovanni, you’re sure no one knows we’re here?”

“Who would know? The monks are asleep.” Giovanni chuckled wickedly. “Or else they’re in the crypt below, as dead as Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza will be when we send him home to Hell.” Giovanni’s companions laughed nervously.

The downy hairs on Bernardo Spini’s arms rose. Round-eyed, quietly, he extinguished his uncle’s candle.

“Then our course is set?” Another footstep advanced toward the steep mouth of the vault.

Brother Bernardo’s heart pounded with dread as he listened, appalled, to the shrill exclamations of the men:

“He killed my brother!”

“He raped my sister!”

“Death to the Sforza snake!” Giovanni again.

“Saint Stephen, bless these men and their glorious mission. On the twenty-sixth day of December in the year of Our Lord 1476, Galeazzo Maria Sforza shall die. God bless the new Milanese Republic!“

In the vault, Brother Fuccio gasped, “Holy Mary! That’s Father Abbot!” Fuccio’s hand plunged into a pile of bones; a skull spun across the dirt floor.

Brother Bernardo’s ears roared. A moment passed. Footsteps strode away from the vault. The light of the men’s torches faded; the front door opened and closed, squeaking at the hinges.

“God in Heaven!” Brother Fuccio said. With shaking hands, he set his candle stub ablaze. “Who could that’ve been with Father Abbot? And to suggest—“

“Evil-doers,” Brother Bernardo said in a rush, “sinners bent on butchering Sforza here on Saint Stephen’s Day. And unless I stop them, they will do it!”

“You?”

“Yes. I’ll warn the duke!”

“Fool!” Fuccio spat. “Sforza’s guards will slaughter you before you even speak. Leave the duke to his fate. You’ve seen that devil’s flag: a viper in a bloodied field, crushing a man till his eyeballs pop.”

Resistance sliced through Bernardo like a knife. “Uncle Fuccio, it’s not for us to say. I’ll get help in Florence. An excellent man lives near my church, in the Unicorn district. A lawyer, famous for his kindness and good sense.“

Fuccio groaned. “Puppy! Why should this paragon listen to you?” The old man indicated the airless passageway yawning out behind them. “Take us into the garden. Honest lawyers,” he muttered, shuffling behind his nephew back toward the tunnel. “Sometimes, I know you’re the smartest lad in the world, and other times, I doubt you have the sense God gave a—“

Behind Fuccio, a whirlwind descended the stone steps, men cursing, daggers flashing in the candlelight. “God’s tears!” Fuccio shrieked. He turned, thrusting his meager taper before him like a knife. “Bernardo—run!”

“But—“

“GO!”

Bernardo, backing away, turned and bolted into the tunnel, his sandals carrying him into a world of twisting black. “After him!” Giovanni roared.

“Why?” challenged another man. “We know his plan. We waited long enough to hear it. But what about this old rabbit?”

“Him?” Giovanni’s harsh laughter bounced off the walls. “Cut his throat.”

Ten Days Later
Florence

Florentine lawyer Guid’Antonio Vespucci stood with Giuliano de’ Medici high atop Florence Cathedral, gazing across the city’s snowy rooftops. Guid’Antonio tugged his fox-lined crimson cloak tighter around his shoulders and drew a deep, cold breath. Beyond the iron safety rail, the sides of the Cathedral’s red brick dome curved sharply toward Piazza del Duomo, far down below.

Beneath the glittering morning sun, the River Arno looked to Guid’Antonio like a shining silver ribbon, frozen solid. Walking from the Vespucci palace along Borg’Ognissanti, All Saints Street, a few moments ago, he had watched rosy-cheeked skaters race across the ice. On the riverbank, bonfires sizzled and glowed.

“Guid’Antonio,” Giuliano said. “Look here.”

Turning, Guid’Antonio saw the younger man pluck a tool off the platform floor.

“A knife.” Giuliano offered the handle.

“A sturdy piece,” Guid’Antonio said, accepting it in his hand. “Forgotten by one of Verrocchio’s workmen. In—“ He tapped his lips with one finger. “Late May, 1471.”

Humor sparkled in Giuliano’s brown eyes, and an amused smile tipped the corners of his lips. “Really, Guid’Antonio, you can tell the exact date?” The hair brushing the collar of Giuliano de’ Medici’s black velvet cloak was in its turn so black that in the glinting sunlight, it reflected blue. Crimson satin ran along the cloak’s black velvet sleeves in narrow bands; the same blood-red color lined the generous hood.

“I can make an educated guess,” Guid’Antonio said, smiling back. “First, the knife’s rusty. Second, judging from its plain look, its purpose was utilitarian. And third, the last work crew up here was with our Andrea five years ago.” That spring, Andrea del Verrocchio’s laborers had worked hard to place a bronze sphere on the Cathedral lantern and crown it with a high cross.

Guid’Antonio finished wryly, “I remember specifically because my neck ached for a week from standing in the piazza below and craning my head to see.” Shifting his weight on the platform, he glanced up toward the sunlit ball. Suddenly dizzy to the point of nausea, he grabbed the nearby handrail and felt it wobble beneath his fingers.

“Steady,” Giuliano said, “that rail’s loose.”

Carefully, Guid’Antonio drew back, his heart tripping in his chest.

Giuliano smiled softly, gratefully. “Thank you for meeting me here. I remember you’ve no love of heights, and this is a lofty place.”

“’Lofty?’” Guid’Antonio laughed. “If we were any higher up, we could touch the sun.” He turned directly to his young companion. “I came because I think you have something private to share and every wall in Florence has ears.”

The youth hesitated an instant, his cheeks turning bright red. “You—you’re one of my family’s most loyal friends.”

Guid’Antonio spread his hands in an easy manner. “I’ve always believed in supporting our cities’ most capable men.”

“Thank you for that.” Giuliano ran his hand down over his face. “You know my brother’s squabble with Sixtus IV over the purchase of Imola cost our bank the Papal account.”

Guid’Antonio nodded, careful to keep a neutral expression. Acting as Lorenzo’s…agent…in the affair over the town of Imola several years ago had been his first official assignment for Lorenzo de’ Medici. ”Your brother wanted Imola for Florence,” he said now.

“Yes,” said Giuliano, the color in his cheeks darkening to a rosy hue. “Instead, he earned the Pope’s hatred—and wasn’t that foolish?”

Instinctively, Guid’Antonio glanced around the platform, although they were alone, as high as clouds above the city. “Giuliano, that’s dangerous talk, particularly when applied to family.”

“You know I love my brother,” Giuliano said. “And you know his ways. Lorenzo watches, measures, and waits. He’s determined to show Sixtus IV who’s lord of Tuscany and let Rome go to Hell.”

Within Guid’Antonio, a dark warning stirred. “’Show Sixtus?’ How?”

Giuliano coughed in the frigid air, turning his face slightly aside. “He thwarts the Pope at every turn. And not only the Pope, but the Pope’s relatives and friends, moving to have laws enacted to redirect inheritances they would otherwise collect, and all other manner of aggravation. You know Lorenzo has the means to do it.”

Guid’Antonio bit his lip. Yes. Lorenzo de’ Medici was a private citizen, but he held sway over the Florentine Republic and the Medici political party. Guid’Antonio Vespucci’s party.

“You’re the one man outside the family Lorenzo completely trusts,” Giuliano was saying. “He’ll listen at least if you suggest he let this rivalry between him and Sixtus die.” Gently, he touched Guid’Antonio’s arm. “My fear is by grasping for too much, we’ll lose everything.”

Everything. We. Giuliano meant not only the Medicis but also the Vespuccis, the Soderinis and all the other Florentine families who supported the house of Medici. Atop the Cathedral dome the air was so cold, Guid’Antonio’s nose and throat ached when he breathed. The sun’s glare on the snow-covered countryside beat painfully on his eyes. He did not like second-guessing Lorenzo but, by God, he was not afraid to do it.

“We’re invited to your house for the Yule Log celebration on Christmas Eve. I’ll find an opportunity then.”

A brilliant smile lit Giuliano’s even features. “Grazie, Guid’Antonio!” He stepped to the edge of the platform, stretching his arms over his head to relax them, inhaling deep cold breaths of air. As he did so, the toe of his boot sent a stone plummeting into the void below.

Guid’Antonio’s stomach shrank. Instinctively, he reached out a hand, like a father to his son. “Giuliano, stand back. You said yourself the rail is loose.”

Giuliano laughed in surprise, as a man of twenty-three will do. “What? Oh--“ He saw Guid’Antonio’s worried expression and drew back from the precipice. “I don’t believe there’s any danger of me falling.”

“Nor did the two men who plunged to their deaths during construction believe it.”

Giuliano made a contrite little face. “True.”

#

Back home at the Vespucci palace, Guid’Antonio opened the courtyard gate and started toward the loggia, ice crackling beneath his boots. He looked around, surprised. Someone other than he had come and gone in the family courtyard this morning. Here, the snow was packed down; there, stones and dirt pocked the glittering crystals. His gaze tracked a set of footsteps leading to the studietto where he and his nephew, Amerigo Vespucci, conducted the family business. Cloth, grapes, olive oil. . . .

He crossed the yard and entered.

“Uncle Guid’Antonio!” Amerigo, seated on a stool with a brazier near his booted feet, jumped up, a relieved smile illuminating his face.

“Why are you in the shadows?” Guid’Antonio set about lighting candles and an oil lamp. The leather and wooden chests lining the walls, their contents bank records and other business documents, jumped into relief.

“I was worried about you, Uncle. Give me your cloak.”

“No. It’s cold. Worried? Why? Are our accounts sorry as all that?” Guid’Antonio strode to the hearth and stirred up the fire; embers sizzled and sparked.

“Oh, no! We’re still wealthy as Croesus.” Amerigo frowned. “But after you left this morning, a young monk ran into the courtyard, one of our Benedictines from Ognissanti Church. He demanded to see you, waving his arms like a lunatic. You were gone—“

Amerigo angled a look at Guid’Antonio, who said nothing.

“—And given his mad behavior, I threw him out.”

“One of our monks, you say?” Guid’Antonio swallowed a drink of the Chianti Amerigo handed him. Ognissanti, just down the street, was the Vespucci family church.

“Yes! I feared he meant us harm.”

“What was his name?”

“Brother Bernardo Spini.”

“Hummm,” Guid’Antonio said, “I’ve yet to meet a monk seeking legal counsel, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything. We’ll find Brother Bernardo in church tomorrow and see what’s going on.”

“If he’s there,” Amerigo said.

“Oh, he will be.” Guid’Antonio drained his cup and found the ledger containing their cut-velvet orders from the previous April.

#

“He lies yonder, dying,” said old Brother Renaldo Allegri, the cellarer, pointing toward the infirmary.

Amerigo drew himself up. “What! He seemed fit enough when he burst into our house yesterday.”

Guid’Antonio laced his hands back though his silvery black hair, his light grey eyes narrowed in consternation. “Well then, Amerigo, next, the infirmary.”

They discovered Brother Bernardo Spini’s slight figure on a pallet beneath a coarse canvas sheet, his mouth pursed and pulled oddly down at the corners, as if he desired nothing more than to speak, but was constricted in some terrible way. He was a mere youth, younger, it appeared than Amerigo’s twenty-two years. Guid’Antonio’s heart went out to him. “How long has he been like this?” he asked the infirmarer, Brother Sigismondo Inghirami.

Inghirami tucked the canvas around Bernardo’s shoulders. “Since late yesterday. He returned from your house in a fever—“ Inghirami glanced critically at Amerigo. “—Having been rudely dismissed from your courtyard. I fetched wine to calm him.”

“’Rudely?’” Amerigo bristled. “A bit more, and he would’ve felt my dagger against his throat!”
“Amerigo, please. How was he before that?” Guid’Antonio asked.

Impatiently, Inghirami said, “He was just back from Milan, where he visited an old uncle, himself a monk, Brother Fuccio Spini. Bernardo returned here excited, shouting no one could help him but Messer Guid’Antonio Vespucci, the illustrious jurist and diplomat.” Inghirami oozed doubt, his glance sweeping up and down Guid’Antonio’s voluminous wool cloak, coolly appraising the deep red color obtained from a dye that was so expensive, its hue signaled the ultimate in Florentine wealth and power.

“Help Bernardo how?” Guid’Antonio asked.

“Who knows? I suggested he might better turn to God.”

Guid’Antonio resisted a comeback. “Church matters he would take to your superior, Abbot Roberto Ughi.” And yet, Guid’Antonio thought, he came to me. Why?

“Clearly,” Inghirami snapped, “the matter concerned something outside Ognissanti! Bernardo raved about devils in church and terrified all our order—“ Inghirami drew a sharp, surprised breath and pointed towards the cot. “What in God’s name—?“

Brother Bernardo’s eyelids had flown open. He struggled to lift himself up, reaching out with one hand, his eyes focused on Guid’Antonio. “Help—help me.”

“Bernardo,” Guid’Antonio urgently said, bending low, his fingers clasping the youth’s trembling hand. “How? What is it—?”

“Murder…” Bernardo’s mouth worked compulsively in a series of bubbling gasps, ending in one prolonged hiss. His eyes closed and he fell back into unconsciousness.

“Murder? Pah!” Inghirami said. “The fever’s melted his brain.” Crossing himself, he began to pray over Bernardo’s body. “Holy Father—“

Guid’Antonio snapped, “Inghirami! Is that Bernardo’s cup?” He indicated the pottery vessel near the pallet on the floor.

“Yes!” the infirmarer huffed.

Guid’Antonio swirled the dregs and inspected them with his finger. Crushed berries, whitish and round.
“Mistletoe,” he whispered.

“Mistletoe?” Inghirami said.

“Yes! Brother Bernardo’s been poisoned—quickly, where’s the cupboard? Inghirami, do something!” Guid’Antonio waved his hands, looking around.

Inghirami stood maddeningly immobile, his expression astonished. “Mistletoe berries may be deadly, but who would think—?“ He hastened to his medicine store, muttering, “He must be made to vomit—“

Amerigo watched, horrified, as Inghirami opened a pot of mustard seed. “Vomit? How, when he’s fainted dead away? And is turning paler by the moment? Surely he’ll strangle if you force an emetic mixture of mustard down his gullet.”

Inghirami snapped, “Surely he will die if I don’t!”

While the infirmarer ground the mustard seeds, Guid’Antonio broke the ice from the top of a pottery jug and poured out a portion of cold water. Within moments of administering the antidote, foul liquid dribbled down Bernardo’s chin and throat.

“Poisoned,” Inghirami said, helping Guid’Antonio lower Bernardo back down onto the pallet. “Who would do something like this? Here in Ognissanti?”

“That,” Guid’Antonio said, fixing the other man with a level gaze, “is what I meant to ask you.”

“Me!” Brother Inghirami stiffened. “No one here would think of it. Bernardo’s a good lad, devoted to our order. He’s not been alone since we put him here to rest immediately he left your palace.” The infirmarer bumped his chin up in triumph.

“He was alone when we got here,” Guid’Antonio pointed out. “And the mistletoe was in one of your cups.”

“I certainly didn’t offer Bernardo any refreshment at our house,” Amerigo interjected. “Only the courtyard gate.”

“Well, then—“ Inghirami huffed. “What next?”

What next, indeed? “You,” Guid’Antonio said, “will watch over the lad day and night. As for me, I mean to do as he asked and help him.”

Inghirami sputtered, gesturing to the lifeless boy on the pallet, “Help him? How?”

“By taking his case.”

“Case? Whoever heard such an insa—“

Guid’Antonio lifted his brow.

Inghirami licked his lips, his eyes flicking to the design of wasps embroidered in gold around the narrow collar of Guid’Antonio’s crimson cloak, and then to the painting of the Virgin and Child on the infirmary wall: one of many precious gifts from the Vespucci family to Ognissanti.

Inghirami sighed, deflated. “I’ll bathe Bernardo and make him comfortable. When—if—he wakes, I’ll give him egg whites and milk to sooth his stomach, and send you word.”

“Immediately,” Guid’Antonio instructed. Turning to Amerigo, he added, “Go to the Bargello and fetch—“

“I’m here,” inserted a familiar voice, and the slender figure of Palla Palmieri, Florence’s chief of police, stepped forth from the infirmary shadows.

“This is quick,” Guid’Antonio observed.

Palla said slyly, “Not when you consider I heard about the disturbance in your courtyard moments after it occurred yesterday morning and am only now arriving here.” Palla smiled his dark, devilish smile. Glancing at Brother Bernardo, he said, “Here’s foul work. Mistletoe berries, you say?”

#

For the remainder of the week, while Brother Bernardo Spini clung to life in Ognissanti Church, Palla Palmieri investigated the poisoning on an official basis. From the Spini family, Guid’Antonio learned Bernardo was their kinsman, albeit a distant one. He was a fine youth, his people originally from a village near Milan, decimated by the plague. Die, and he would be missed.

So—a quiet, well-mannered youth, Guid’Antonio reflected later, alone in the confines of his study. And yet, shouting out for me at my house about a matter of grave importance. One so significant that to prevent the telling someone gave him the kiss of death. He shook his head, staring into the flames of the hearth fire, thoroughly mystified, his mind eventually drifting to other matters. Winter, the coming holidays.

Late December was rapidly approaching, Florence shimmering with bright banners and ribbons and lively preparations for the Christmas season. This year, the observances bit into the core of the workweek (Guid’Antonio grumbled to himself), and so it came about on Tuesday, the twenty-fourth day of December, he strode through swirling snow with his wife Maria to the Medici palace for Lorenzo de’ Medici and his family’s annual Christmas Eve and Yule Log celebration.

#

“Benvenuti in questa casa, Guid’Antonio and Maria, Welcome to this house.” The touch of Lorenzo’s cheek on theirs as he greeted them was warm and smooth. “You’re cold. Let’s go stand by the fire.”

At the man-sized hearth Lorenzo’s mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, joined them, offering food and drink before accompanying Maria to the nursery, where Lorenzo’s wife had taken the other women to look in on the younger children.

Across the grande sala, Guid’Antonio saw Amerigo playing chess with Giuliano, while a gathering of young women and men looked on, their faces luminous in the reflection of soft candlelight. Painted banners and winter greenery festooned the reception chamber. Music played. Lorenzo put one hand lightly on Guid’Antonio’s arm and with the other gestured to the men standing together beneath the blazing grande candeliero. “Want to go on over?”

Guid’Antonio shrugged, smiling. “May as well.”

“Have you seen the printing press at San Jacopo di Ripoli?” Andrea Antinori was saying. “Who knew those monks would produce Platonic dialogues as well as hymns and ballads?”

Guid’Antonio accepted a goblet of Trebbiano from a passing servitor, thinking not of printed manuscripts, but of good white wine, mistletoe berries and Brother Bernardo Spini lying senseless in Ognissanti. When a servant entered from the kitchen carrying a platter of fruit and cheese, Lorenzo courteously excused himself from the conversation and strode to the sideboard to speak with the man. Guid’Antonio, seeing the servant quickly depart, joined Lorenzo there.

The hum of voices in the chamber ceased. “Amazing,” Lorenzo observed, his brows rising above dark, strong features. “Suddenly, the room is watching.” He bit into a bright red apple and grinned.

“They wonder.”

“Let them. Have a piece of buccellato, Guid’Antonio mio. I would offer you some Venus’s Nipples, but—“ Lorenzo glanced toward the chess table, brown eyes shining with mirth. “Amerigo’s eaten them all.”

Smiling dryly, Guid’Antonio accepted a piece of ring-shaped cake; on it, Lorenzo spooned a generous portion of strawberries marinated in sugared wine. “No nipples are safe when my nephew’s around.”

Lorenzo laughed, but quickly sobered. “How’s the young monk in Ognissanti? Pray Palla finds whoever’s responsible for harming him. Or you do. There’s murder enough in that sewer called Rome. We don’t want it in our town.”

Guid’Antonio gazed at Lorenzo across the top of his cake. Lorenzo de’ Medici stood well above average height. His body was sturdy and athletic. He had not, Guid’Antonio noted, partaken of the rich cake, but had chosen fruit. Guid’Antonio put down his plate. “The boy isn’t dead yet. Brother Bernardo may tell us himself who administered the poison.”

He reached for a linen napkin, showing the other men in the sala his back. “Lorenzo, do you mean to continue the quarrel between yourself and the Pope? Those are dangerous waters.”

Hectic color mottled Lorenzo’s cheeks. “You’ve spoken with my brother.”

Your brother has spoken to me. “Yes,” Guid’Antonio said.

“And ‘yes’ again,” Lorenzo shot back. “All Italy saw us lose the fight for Imola, Guid’Antonio. Venice, Naples and, of course, Rome. Show our belly again, and those bastards will come after us like wolves. Thank God, Milan’s our friend--our only powerful ally, in fact.”

Lorenzo shook his head vigorously, as if that would cool his heated thoughts. “I may sound harsh, but just thinking of Sixtus makes me sick in my gut. Enough—“ He smiled. “This is, after all, Christmas Eve.”

He placed two silver vessels together on the sideboard and reached for the Vino Santo to pour it. “I’ll talk to Giuliano tomorrow, convince him Sixtus IV is nothing to worry about. How much harm can that old fisherman do?”

Do you mean the old fisherman who snatched Imola out from under your nose and removed his account from the Medici bank? Guid’Antonio wondered. A fat account the Medici family had held since the day of Lorenzo’s grandfather, and whose loss had crippled their international banking business.

In the end they drank wine together and avoided speaking of politics and Rome. At midnight Amerigo and Giuliano threw a Yule Log decorated with juniper and other greenery on the fire, while their audience raised their silver cups and cheered. Shortly thereafter, Guid’Antonio and Maria walked back out into the snow, now with Amerigo in their company, having agreed they and their Medici hosts would meet in Piazza del Duomo early Thursday morning for the annual Saint Stephen’s Day celebration.

#

The pale winter sun shone down on Florence though a thin sheet of clouds, tinting the snow covering Borg’Ognissanti a soft bitter blue. Along with other pedestrians, Guid’Antonio and Amerigo strode past Santa Maria Trinitŕ and across the adjacent piazza toward the gate at Via Porta Rossa. “Everyone’s hurrying to the Duomo for the feste,” Amerigo observed, inhaling a breath of raw air. Immediately, he became contrite. “Begging your pardon for Maria.”

Guid’Antonio sighed. “She’s home by the fire.” Two nights ago the Medici children had shared their colds with Guid’Antonio’s wife. Now, instead of accompanying him to the Cathedral, she sat by the crackling log fire in their bedchamber, sipping hot horehound and hyssop tea. The pain of regret stabbed Guid’Antonio’s chest. Maria, his beautiful wife, adored Saint Stephen’s Day. He missed her slender arm in his, besides.

He and Amerigo strode from a shadowy byway into a burst of pure, cold light. Streamers decorated the shops around Piazza del Duomo. Two tawny lions, symbols of Florentine liberty, roared and paced in their cages, breaths billowing in the air, while people dressed as angels and saints milled about, awaiting the signal to enter the Cathedral.

“There are Lorenzo and Giuliano.” Guid’Antonio indicated the two brothers talking with friends near the Baptistery. Giuliano’s hooded black cape with the crimson trimmings flowed gracefully from his sturdy shoulders. Beside him, clad in dark brown leather, stood Lorenzo.

Guid’Antonio took a sharp, second look. The slight, pale blond figure of Franceschino de’ Pazzi lingered alongside Giuliano, one hand resting familiarly on Giuliano’s back. Guid’Antonio cocked his head, scrutinizing the two young men. In public the Medici and Pazzi families still observed the niceties, even though Franceschino, weasel that he was, had once slipped behind Lorenzo’s back and loaned Pope Sixtus IV the funds to purchase Imola town, whereas Lorenzo had wanted the place for Florence. Why make such a public show of friendship now? Guid’Antonio wondered, and felt a ghost pass over his grave.

“Uncle Guid’Antonio,” Amerigo said, his voice oddly subdued. “Look.”

Guid’Antonio glanced across the crowded piazza and saw the haggard figure of Brother Bernardo Spini—the heretofore-prostrate Brother Bernardo Spini—staggering toward him. “God in Heaven,” Guid’Antonio whispered, stunned. A servant-girl retreated from Bernardo, holding her nose in disgust. A wine-peddler yelled an obscenity and pushed him roughly back by the shoulder.

Guid’Antonio strode quickly forward. “Let him through!”

Brother Bernardo stumbled. “Messer Vespucci!” he cried, his face an anguished mask. “Saint Stephen’s Day—“

“Yes, it is,” Guid’Antonio gently agreed, and watched, horrified, as a white dove flew into the boy’s throat, exploded, and blew Bernardo’s head to pieces.

“Jesus wept!” Amerigo exclaimed, flying back.

Screams of panic erupted in the piazza. People scattered, snatching up their children. “It’s Satan!” yelled a man dressed as the angel Gabriel. “Run!”

Guid’Antonio knelt beside Brother Bernardo’s crumpled body, light-headed, aware Lorenzo and Giuliano were pushing toward him, despite the warnings of their companions. Near Bernardo’s bloody head lay a mechanical dove, false feathers drenched in gore.

What in the world, Brother Bernardo? Guid’Antonio thought. Crossing himself, he glanced up, as if seeking a sign from God.

“Amerigo—look!” Guid’Antonio jumped quickly to his feet.

Above their heads, a thin metal wire glinted dully in the gray winter sunlight. Guid’Antonio squinted, following the cable from the Cathedral doors to a balcony on the piazza’s opposite side. “You stay here!” he ordered, sprinting across the piazza toward the church.

Inside the deserted Cathedral, Guid’Antonio stood still beneath the vaulting nave, ears cocked to the intense quiet. There! Footsteps hurrying toward the dome’s southwest pier. “Christ, no,” Guid’Antonio grumbled, already running again, his fingertips on the sheathed dagger bouncing at his waist.

At the pier he hastened through the Porta dei Canonici and took the steps spiraling upward into the dome. Ahead of him footsteps thudded rhythmically up, up, up. “Devil,” Guid’Antonio growled, breathing hard, but keeping pace.

An interior balcony encircled the dome’s foundation. Here, the inner vault soared high over Guid’Antonio’s head. Below him, the Cathedral floor resembled a dark marble sea. Guid’Antonio’s fingers clutched the rail. He glanced across the void toward the vault’s opposite side, panting for breath, certain Bernardo’s killer had done the same only moments before. Sucking in air, he began climbing the steps between the dome’s double shells, through cramped passageways and twisting, musty corridors. Hundreds of uneven steps led to the platform at the top of the dome where just over a week ago he and Giuliano de’ Medici had stood in the frigid air talking about the perilous paths men seemed hell-bent to follow.

Guid’Antonio was so winded he felt his heart might burst through his chest. He kept climbing, silently thanking God for the small windows in the outer wall that provided the stairs with air and light. Better thank Brunelleschi, he thought.

Stones rattled ahead. Guid’Antonio jerked back, his stomach sour with fear. After a moment, he heard the other man scrambling farther up the stairs and caught the scraping sound of the platform door as it opened. Guid’Antonio felt a gust of cold air and glimpsed wintry sunlight. Footsteps crossed the wooden planks. Moving quickly, Guid’Antonio burst into the freezing air, the desire to confront Bernardo’s killer a sharp ache in his throat.

But the platform was empty. Impossible! The muscles in Guid’Antonio’s legs quivered, and his head felt dizzy. Far beyond the city walls, the snow-covered hills and surrounding mountainsides sat mute beneath the flat silver coin that was the sun. His gaze fell on the loose safety rail and every muscle in his body pressed away from it. He had no desire whatsoever to look down into the piazza.

The sound of footsteps scurrying back down the narrow stairs pricked his ears. “Stay here and fight!” Guid’Antonio exploded. “Coward!”

Lost in the frigid air above the icy rooftops of Florence, his words evaporated, much like Brother Bernardo’s soul, winging its way to Heaven.

#

“He got away,” Lorenzo stated flatly. Giuliano and Amerigo were with Lorenzo, their faces questioning.

Guid’Antonio coughed, breathing hard. “Yes.”

Palla Palmieri rode into the piazza, threw Brother Bernardo’s corpse a black look and slid from the saddle. “What’s this?”

Words tumbling, they described the morning’s sorry events and how Bernardo’s death was engineered. In a strained voice, Giuliano said, “There are so many questions. Who? Why kill this—this harmless monk?” He watched two gravediggers, quick-handed fellows for all their burly size, load Bernardo’s corpse onto a cart and toss a sheet of cheap cloth over it.

Giuliano went on, “How did the killer know Bernardo would be in the piazza this morning, instead of in the infirmary?”

“There’s the ‘how’ of the mechanical dove, too,” Amerigo said. “The Cathedral monks know the means, of course, it’s only gunpowder and a fuse, meant to set off fireworks. That trick’s a bit of spring magic performed on Easter Sunday. But surely none of them killed Bernardo.”

The death cart rattled from the piazza. Palla flicked his eyes away from it. “I’ll question both the Cathedral’s religious and Bernardo’s brothers at Ognissanti, as well as send my deputies to the inns, inquiring after any strangers in town. I’m sorry the lad survived poison only to come to this.” Palla pursed his lips, his hard gaze finding the balcony on the far side of the square. “I’ll quiz yon occupants, too, and see if anyone knows anything about the wire.”

“As for strangers, there are a good many about,” Lorenzo remarked. “It is a festival day.”

“One severely dampened,” Amerigo frowned.

Lorenzo shrugged eloquently. “More so for Bernardo Spini than for us.”

#

That night Guid’Antonio sat alone in his studiolo amid his books and family papers. “Who would want to kill Bernardo?” he wrote in his journal. “We remain woefully bereft of facts after today’s investigations.


“1.) This afternoon Amerigo and I spoke with Luca Landucci at Luca’s apothecary shop, ‘The Sign of the Stars.’ Neither Luca nor anyone else in the Guild of Apothecaries and Doctors has sold the means for making an explosive since our last festival. Nor will they sell any until just before the Easter celebrations, for ‘The Explosion of the Cart.’

“2.) From the keeper of the Prato Gate, Palla Palmieri learned that at about mid-morning today a fellow on horseback departed the city at breakneck speed. Our man? If so, once again evil has ridden away. The monks in Ognissanti claim they have no idea how Bernardo rose and walked from his bed. How I would like to break their shaved heads!

“3.) Bernardo’s killer understands the inner workings of the dome. Is he a laborer or, again, one of our religious? Whoever the murderer may be, what was his relationship with Bernardo? How did he know Bernardo would appear in the piazza today? Was so sure of it, he prepared the dove beforehand, in fact?”


Guid’Antonio sighed, put aside his journal and rubbed his face in thought. How could the killer possibly have known Bernardo would come to the piazza? He could not! A fresh feeling of anger and confusion surged in Guid’Antonio’s chest. The strange occurrences surrounding Brother Bernardo’s death suggested some uncanny force at work. But Guid’Antonio did not believe in the supernatural. Did he? What he did not doubt was the force and even the stubbornness of nature, or the forward thrust of time and fate, call it what you would; some events transpired in life that—no matter how hard he tried—a man could not prevent. This Guid’Antonio Vespucci understood all too well. Or at least for now, he believed he did.

Disheartened and certain he had let Brother Bernardo Spini down in some terrible, final fashion, he locked his journal away.

#

He and Amerigo were at the Medici palace on the first day of January, celebrating the occasion of Lorenzo’s twenty-seventh birthday, when a tall, young courier enveloped in cold pushed boldly past the servant who had shown him the way.

“Magnificent!” The messenger’s bright, glittering gaze slid past the small gathering and settled on Lorenzo de’ Medici, standing by the hearth, roasting chestnuts. “I have horrible news! The duke of Milan’s been slain.”

Shoulders sagged. Laughter died, mouths dropped open. Carefully, as if his hands bore a lead weight, Lorenzo placed the roasting pan beside the firedogs on the hearth. “When?” he said, apprehension heavy in his voice.

“Saint Stephen’s Day. Assassins slew him in Saint Stephen’s Church.” The messenger began to tremble and his shoulders slumped, as if his limbs were about to break beneath the burden of his long ride from Milan through snow and freezing rain.

Lorenzo gestured toward the hearth, his eyes sick with worry. “Warm yourself there—“ His voice trailed off, his gaze moving uneasily between his guests as the news began to sink in.

The fellow fumbled with his wet gloves and tugged the fastening of his sodden cape, casting it aside and looking utterly miserable as he hurried to warm his hands near the dancing flames.

For Guid’Antonio, time dropped away and once again he was in Piazza del Duomo with Brother Bernardo staggering toward him. “Messer Vespucci, Saint Stephen’s Day—“ In a flash, Guid’Antonio had it, the bones of the story, if not the body. Somehow, Brother Bernardo Spini had discovered the plan to assassinate Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and he had meant to stop it. Instead—

“The duke’s captains slew the plot’s ringleaders in Milan,” the courier said through chattering teeth. “Even now their heads are drying on pikes on Bruletto Nuovo.”

Lorenzo stalked the room, angry emotion flashing in his narrowed brown eyes. “Good! Damn them to Hell for doing this,” he said, clenching his fists.

Guid’Antonio struggled to keep his emotions in check, to keep a clear head. He—everyone present—understood exactly what this assassination meant. Sforza’s death put the duchy of Milan in the hands of Sforza’s widow and their seven-year-old son. A woman and a boy. Laughable. The child had five Sforza uncles. How long would it take those ambitious men to fall into a heated frenzy over the Milanese state? Venice, Naples and Rome would cast greedy eyes on the crippled northern city, as well.

“The duchess will look to us for protection,” Guid’Antonio said, managing to keep calm, despite his mounting tension, seeing in his mind’s eye clandestine meetings, secret agreements…war. “Milan’s been our ally for years.”

“Florence will do whatever is best for Florence,” Lorenzo said, waving Guid’Antonio’s comment brusquely away. “As I repeatedly tell Giuliano—“ He glanced at his brother. “We must always appear strong.”

Giuliano turned his face to the fire, his demeanor uncharacteristically stiff.

By the fire, the courier rubbed his fists in his eyes, his exhaustion showing. “Paolo,” Lorenzo said, addressing the servant by the door. “See this fellow eats and has a bed.”

“Milan’s in an uproar,” the courier mumbled, half stumbling across the carpet. “Along with the duke’s assassination, the old monk slaughtered in Saint Stephen’s Church is on everyone’s lips.”

The air caught in Guid’Antonio’s throat. “What?” he said, rising from his chair. “What monk in San Stefano?”

The messenger turned back toward the gathering. “A few days before Galeazzo was murdered, the old religious was found in the crypt, cruelly gutted. Brother Fuccio Spini.”

Guid’Antonio drew a sharp breath, his eyes locking with Amerigo’s. Hadn’t Brother Inghirami, the infirmarer, described Bernardo as just having returned from Milan, where he visited his aged uncle, a monk at Saint Stephen’s Church? Bernardo, whose surname was Spini.

Another piece of the puzzle fell into Guid’Antonio’s hands. Somehow, Bernardo and his uncle had become privy to the assassination plot. Incredible. The old man, Fuccio, was murdered to silence his tongue. Bernardo had escaped, only to be killed in Florence, where he had sought help and been turned away.

Guid’Antonio flushed hotly. He had lost court cases before but never had he felt like he personally had cost an innocent young man his life. His ears roared and he found it difficult to attend the courier’s tumbling words.

“—Other warnings occurred, as well. The night before Sforza went to church, his wife had a frightening dream. She begged him not to go.”

“Would he had listened,” Giuliano said, turning toward Lorenzo and solemnly smiling, Giuliano’s perfect, high cheekbones flushed with a rosy tint, his eyes glowing like two dark jewels.

#

“So,” Palla said at the Vespucci palace later that same evening, “Brother Bernardo tried to tell you of the assassination plot, that you might prevent it.”

“Yes. Though God only knows how he meant for me to do it.” Guid’Antonio gave an involuntary shudder. Outside his studiolo, snowflakes swirled along moonlit streets. Somewhere a dog barked, hovering in an alley. Cold. As cold as the grave, a mighty final resting place.

Palla, leaning against the door, watching Amerigo pace, turned to Guid’Antonio with a crooked smile on his mouth. “You have powerful friends. Perhaps Bernardo believed they—and you—could intercede.”

“Perhaps,” Guid’Antonio said. “But he had powerful enemies, or at least one who was determined to stop him, and did.”

“I don’t understand,” Amerigo said, screwing up his face. “By the time of Saint Stephen’s Day here in Florence, preventing the crime in Milan was impossible. Brother Bernardo should have stayed in the infirmary.” He popped a sugared almond into his mouth.

“Bernardo was confused,” Guid’Antonio pointed out. “Anyway, there are ways and more ways to explain it.”

“Try.” Palla’s black eyebrows arrowed up.

“Bernardo’s assassin couldn’t know whether the duke actually had been slain, since he—Bernardo’s assassin, I mean—was here in Florence. Slain or not, however, Bernardo could expose Sforza’s enemies.”

“That simple monk.” Amerigo shook his head. “And he and his old uncle somehow privy to a political plot. It does defy the senses.”

Palla smiled softly. “Put it down to wickedness, Amerigo. Believe me, I have seen it.” Palla drew on his cloak, preparing to go forth once more into the night.

“Here,” said Amerigo, taking a candle from a basket and lighting it, “I’ll accompany you.”

“Evil,” Guid’Antonio said on a sigh as their voices faded down the hall. Once set in motion, was there any stopping it? Sweet Heaven, he wanted to think, yes. If he had been home when Bernardo stormed the Vespucci palace, he could have sent Sforza fair warning. Or would the courier’s horse have tripped over a snowy log and fallen? Would the duke’s Milanese guards have turned the messenger away at the Castello gate?

The courier had offered one last piece of news: Pope Sixtus IV had already declared in a statement, “The peace of Italy is dead.”

Guid’Antonio felt weary, but he knew he would not sleep tonight. His mind wanted to dwell on Brother Bernardo’s killer and how the fellow knew Bernardo would be in Piazza del Duomo on Saint Stephen’s Day. At the same time, logically Guid’Antonio understood this was a secret whose answer he likely never would know. Could one man turn the tide of events? That question bedeviled him, as always. He fell into a melancholy reverie, gazing into the brazier’s dying coals, wishing Saint Stephen’s stone walls could talk and thinking how history turns men into restless ghosts.

†††


AUTHOR’S NOTE: Two years after “Saint Stephen’s Day” takes place, on Sunday morning, 26 April 1478, with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV and the king of Naples, Franceschino de’ Pazzi and an accomplice murdered Giuliano de’ Medici in Florence as he stood beneath Brunelleschi’s soaring dome and bent his head to pray. Fearful the bricks were about to crash down on their heads, the congregation fled into the streets. Only slightly wounded, Lorenzo leapt the altar rail and, drawing his sword, escaped.


First published in Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine, January-February 2007

THE LADY'S NOT FOR DYING
Macavity Award Nominee, Best Short Story, 2005

30 May 1471

Florentine lawyer Guid’Antonio Vespucci’s luminous gray eyes followed the magistrates into the courtroom, their crimson robes lit by sunshine streaming through the Palazzo della Signoria’s high, open windows. Each judge nodded a greeting, some smiling, others doubtful and impatient. A divorce case in Italy? Rare in 1471—particularly one initiated by a female. And for the brilliant Guid’Antonio to represent her? The fellow had gone mad.

Everyone in the hall wanted this hearing hastily concluded. Another spectacle awaited them beyond these walls in the glittering May atmosphere outside Florence Cathedral. Within the hour, sculptor Andrea Verrocchio and his workshop would attempt to place a bronze cross atop the Cathedral dome, 350 feet high up in the air. People were already streaming toward the church. Latecomers risked being stuffed tight as sausages into narrow side streets, blocked off from the amazing event.

Guid’Antonio acknowledged the judges, professionally smooth, as befit his profession. He glanced at Amerigo Vespucci, his nephew and secretary, who would keep notes during the proceedings. Neither wife nor husband stood present. She lay faint abed; he laughed off the need for a defense.

“Uncle Guid’Antonio,” Amerigo murmured, “you’ve put your good reputation on the line, given this impossible task.”

“Here,” Guid’Antonio protested, lightly smiling. “I intend to win. The lady’s been grossly mistreated. Remember, Amerigo, we live in enlightened times.”

Amerigo dipped his pen. “You mean the magistrates want to make haste to the Cathedral. As do I, or Leonardo’s bound to lose himself in a construction drawing and relinquish our place in the square.”

Still a youth, Verrocchio’s fair-haired apprentice from Vinci could become so absorbed in his work he forgot time entirely. “Amerigo,” Guid’Antonio said, “in a few moments, the young woman will have her divorce, and we’ll be on our way.”

Softly, he addressed the judges. “Imagine you’re a monk alone in a midnight church. Candles flicker. A corpse approaches you from the crypt--”

The seated magistrates drew back, wide-eyed.

“You flee! And then a girl emerges from the chapel. A girl believed dead and entombed alongside decaying corpses. A girl so desperate to escape the putrid darkness, she raises the heavy marble slab covering the vault and runs to her husband’s house in the dead of night!” Guid’Antonio paused dramatically. “And what’s his response upon answering her knock?”

The magistrates leaned forward as if drawn by a string.
Guid’Antonio’s brow arrowed up. “The lout screams and turns her away!”

#

“Enlighten me, please,” Leonardo said as he and the Vespuccis craned their necks to watch Verrocchio & Co. coax the swaying bronze cross into position against the crystalline sky. “Why did the magistrates grant this exceptional divorce?”

The cross threatened to topple from the church lantern. “Because, Leonardo,” Guid’Antonio said, “they accepted my argument: no woman should have to stay with a man who can’t tell her from a ghost.” The crowd gasped, then sighed with relief as the cross hesitated and held steady.

†††



Based on a true divorce case from 1400s Florence and first published in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine


“27th May. A Monday, the gilt copper ball was put up on the lantern of the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore.
30th May. They placed the cross on the said ball, and the canons and many other people went up (atop the Cathedral) and sang the Te Deum there.”

Luca Landucci, A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516