David (8 page)

I thanked her for the wine and for the honour of the glimpse of what was in the casket and left hurriedly. I ran all the way to my workshop, pleading a stomach upset as a reason for my lateness. And certainly I arrived feverish and trembling and could not concentrate properly on my work that morning. My brother had been right; the lusts of the flesh brought nothing but trouble.

Angelo showed me his marble reliefs as he had promised. There were two, both made from marble given to him by Lorenzo the Magnificent at the time this remarkable man had been my brother’s patron.

And the two couldn’t have been more different.

‘This was the first real work I did,’ he said, unwrapping the bundle of cloth that protected the first relief. ‘You can see it’s the work of a young and inexperienced sculptor.’

I couldn’t see that: to me it was beautiful. There was a Madonna, sitting on the corner of a flight of stairs that disappeared away into the distance on the left. She was a sturdy peasant women, like my own mother, veiling her breast with a piece of cloth; the equally sturdy Christ child seemed to have just left off from drinking her milk.

The whole was of a beautiful ivory colour, polished to a very high shine. I could have looked at it for hours.

‘How about this one?’ he asked, unwrapping another bundle. ‘I think it’s more successful.’

It was certainly very different – a mass of writhing naked male bodies, standing out from the background in contorted poses.

‘Who are they all?’ I asked.

‘It is a classical story,’ he said. ‘The Battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths.’

‘Centaurs are mythical beasts, I know,’ I said. ‘But what are Lapiths?’

‘Just men like you and me,’ he said. ‘They were celebrating the wedding of their king when the centaurs, who had been invited to join them, got drunk. One of them attempted to carry the bride off and then all hell broke loose.’

I could see that. There was such a tangle of limbs and muscles. It wouldn’t be the last time that a fight broke out at a wedding because too much wine had been consumed, and I thought Angelo had captured the moment wonderfully well.

He was pleased by my praise, I could tell.

I was spending more and more time with the
frateschi
at Gianbattista’s house. If I’m honest, it was as much because of the appeal of his sister as any attraction to their political views. Gianbattista didn’t seem to mind that Simonetta had shown me the sacred relic. She had told him of my protection after the incident in the Piazza della Signoria and he obviously approved.

I had passed a further test and been admitted into the inner circle. Whenever I went to one of their meetings, I lived in hope of a glimpse or a touch from the unobtainable sister. I didn’t fool myself that her family would ever consider me as a possible suitor and I didn’t even know if I wanted to be one. But putting her in the forefront of my mind blotted out the image of Clarice with her new husband and helped me to forget how long it would be before I could be back with Rosalia.

‘We need to find out just what they’re planning,’ said Daniele one evening.

‘Who?’ I answered absently, looking at Simonetta.

‘The
compagnacci
, of course,’ said Fra Paolo, looking at me as if he thought I was the village idiot. He usually did look at me that way; I wasn’t his idea of an aristocratic
fratesco
at all.

‘We think they are plotting to bring back Piero de’ Medici,’ said Donato.

‘But didn’t they try that once before?’ I asked. I remembered that Angelo had told me something about an attempt on the city gate some years ago.

‘What a botch that was!’ said Gianbattista. ‘It was in ’97. Piero brought a small army to one of the city gates in the south.’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘The government took all his followers hostage in the city,’ said Donato. ‘More than fifty high-born
compagnacci
. He didn’t dare risk their lives – it would have wiped out his power base completely – so he slunk away.’

‘By August the five main conspirators were executed,’ said Daniele. ‘And one of them was the
gonfaloniere
of the city!’

‘Beheaded in the Bargello in the early hours of the morning,’ said Fra Paolo. ‘They say it took five blows of the axe to get old Gonfaloniere Nero’s head off.’

I thought he was taking rather a ghoulish delight in the facts of the case.

‘The
compagnacci
and the
arrabbiati
have never forgiven the city for what it did to those five,’ said Gianbattista. ‘And we believe they are planning another attempt to reinstate Piero – better organised this time.’

‘
Arrabbiati
is the right name for them,’ said Donato. ‘They are literally enraged by the idea that anyone would want to get rid of the de’ Medici.’

‘Why do they think so highly of the family?’ I asked. I’d never really understood.

‘Money,’ said Fra Paolo. ‘The de’ Medici made their fortune first through wool and then through banking, till they had a stranglehold on the city.’

‘My . . . friend, the sculptor,’ I said cautiously, ‘thought very highly of Lorenzo.’

‘He did some good things,’ said Daniele. ‘But he was like the rest of them in one way – he thought he had a right to rule the city.’

‘And Florence is a republic!’ said Giulio. ‘It had the right idea when it first pushed Cosimo out nearly a hundred years ago. They should never have let him back in. It’s not right to buy influence with money.’

They were beginning to whip themselves up into a sort of frenzy. Then suddenly Daniele turned to me with a serious look.

‘You could find out what they’re plotting.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You could be our spy in the pro-Medici camp.’

‘But how?’ I protested. ‘I’m not even an aristocrat.’

‘But you know de’ Altobiondi,’ said Gianbattista quietly. ‘At least, you know his wife.’

I jumped as if stung by a bee. Was this why these men had befriended me in the first place? But if they knew what my relationship with Clarice had been, they must also know how unwelcome I would be in her husband’s house? And did Simonetta know too? I didn’t dare look at her.

‘I see we are right,’ said Daniele. ‘And we could give you the right clothes. Your face would do the rest.’

I was still fretting about my new task the next day and wondering how I could get out of my role as spy. So I was not expecting the young woman waiting for me outside my
bottega
. She was dressed as a servant and at first I thought she might have come from Clarice, but she would have sent Vanna, the impudent maid who had first summoned me to my lady’s house nearly six months earlier.

This one was a comely full-figured young woman of about my own age. She cast her eyes down modestly enough but I had caught a glimpse of her frank appraising stare when she called my name as I came out of the building, slapping the stone dust from my hands.

‘My master desires that you should visit him,’ she said, giving me a slip of paper with a name and address on it.

‘Why?’ I said. ‘And who is he?

‘I don’t know, sir,’ she said. ‘Andrea Visdomini merely told me to bring the message to Gabriele del Lauro at the stonecutters’ in Via del Proconsolo.’

‘And how did you know that was me?’

‘I was told . . .’ she hesitated. ‘He said . . . the young, good-looking one.’

We were both embarrassed now.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Grazia, sir,’ she said. I swear she almost curtsied.

‘Call me Gabriele,’ I said. ‘Does he want me to come now?’ I was feeling in need of a wash and hungry for my lunch.

‘After work would be soon enough, my master said,’ said Grazia. ‘Do you know the way?’

It was on the tip of my tongue to say I’d need her to come back and lead me there but I decided against it; my love life was complicated enough without pretty Grazia.

I said goodbye to her, quite reluctantly, and went to see my brother at work. He grunted when I entered to let me know he knew I was there.

I took a ladle of water and poured it over my dusty curls and whitened hands. Angelo laughed – a low rusty sound.

‘Soon no one will be able to tell the difference between you and David,’ he said.

How many times did I think of that remark in the future!

But I just munched my bread and cheese and I asked him if he had ever heard of Andrea Visdomini.

‘What do you have to do with him?’ he asked.

‘He wants to see me. I don’t know why.’

‘Well, he is a wealthy man,’ said my brother. ‘And a patron too. Maybe it was me he wanted?’

‘He told his servant to ask for me by name at the stonecutters’.’

‘Well, are you going?’

‘I suppose I must,’ I said. ‘But I’d like to know whose side he is on.’

‘Now you sound like a proper Florentine.’

I went just as I was, after work, carrying my bag of tools and as dusty as I always was at the end of any working day.
Whatever he wants with me, he’ll see me as I am
, I thought. Just another working man in the big city.

A manservant answered the door; no sign of luscious Grazia. He led me to a room on the
piano nobile
and told me to wait. My brother had been right. There were bronzes and marbles in the room that showed me Visdomini was both rich and a man of taste. I was pretty sure he would be a Medici supporter.