Suicide Kings (26 page)

Across town, Diana set off, keeping her head low and avoiding eye contact. People were out on the streets and an air of normalcy seemed to return to the city. Still, people could be seen to speak in hushed tones about the night’s events, and if Diana looked carefully, she found she could spot bits of ash that had landed like snow. The closer to the center of town, the more this was true, and here even the remains of the great bonfire scented the air with the odor of spent flame.

Diana’s goal was the Palazzo Vecchio, where the government of Firenze historically housed. She had no way to be certain that Savonarola would be there, but she could think of no better place to search for him. She remained uncertain of what she would say to him, and could only trust that the God who had intervened to spare her the night before would inspire in her the proper words.

The palazzo itself was a tall, imposing building, managing to somehow capture terror and beauty at once in its architecture. A solid stone structure, the palazzo did not radiate warmth and its single off-center tower angled toward heaven not in adulation but like a dagger stabbing for the heart of God. People came and went from the palazzo on their business and gendarmes stood guard outside the main door.

Waiting in the line outside the door, Diana let her eyes close and tried to relax. What was the worst that could happen? Well, the worst was that Savonarola might suddenly turn on her and have her burned at the stake. Nonetheless, she had to believe that this would be unlikely even if he did not look favorably on her requests. Standing in line to see a priest always brought forth such anxiety in her, whether for confession, communion or whatnot. The majority of them always seemed both unhappy and disapproving. She wondered sometimes how the men entrusted to guide God’s flock onto the path of righteousness could display such contempt for that flock at times. Once in confession a young priest had made sexual advances toward her; although his advances had been cordial enough and not vicious, and he had taken her rebuff well, the event had left a mark. Never again had she viewed the vestments as separating priests from other men who too often were prone to aggression and rapaciousness.

Lost in her thoughts, she did not notice that the line had parted for her. Only the silence startled her from her reflections. She looked up and swallowed. The petitioners had stood aside from her, giving a clear path to the door. There stood a young man all in black, his eyes locked on her own.

“Niccolo!” she gasped.

His expression was unreadable, his manner stiff and formal as always. “You have been expected,” he told her in his even tone.

God, how must I look?
A silly and girlish thought if ever there was one. She stepped forward, looking him in the eye, waiting without word for explanation.

None came. “Follow me,” he told her and returned to the dark interior of the palazzo without waiting to see if she obeyed.

Feeling as if this were all some surreal dream, she stepped over the threshold and into the palazzo. She looked from left to right at the gendarmes, but neither of them seemed to pay her much mind. Neither did they see fit to remove her pistol from her, though surely the grip was visible, for she had not securely fastened her coat.

The palazzo had few windows and so the interior was lit with candles that flickered and threatened to die in the drafts. Diana felt as if she had been plunged back into night. Niccolo, in his black costume, presented a difficult figure to track in the dark, and he never once turned to face her or to speak of what had happened since she had fled from her mother’s grave.

She longed to converse with him, but felt a gulf between them. So she kept her silence until at last Niccolo brought her to a small dining room in the darkest recesses of the palazzo. Here Savonarola awaited her, hunched over a simple breakfast of plain bread, a bit of fruit and water. The contrast between the striking opulence of the palazzo and the meager form of Savonarola’s diet, as well as the wooden plate and cup from which he consumed it felt difficult to reconcile.

Niccolo extended one arm to indicate she should enter. With some hesitance, she did so. Then, silent as ever, he turned and left them alone in the dining room.

Savonarola looked up at her, one eye squinting. He chewed half-heartedly on a crust of bread as he regarded her. In turn she stood straight and unapologetic in the face of his scrutiny. Best to remain silent though, to allow Savonarola control over their exchange.

At last he spoke, his voice strained and tired. “I am pleased to find you well, Lady Savrano. Won’t you sit to breakfast, and talk with me?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You want me to dine with you?” For a priest to maintain such contact with an unmarried woman was unusual.

“…and talk with me,” Savonarola confirmed. As he spoke figures emerged from darkened halls, wait staff who held out a chair for her and quickly brought her a meal of wine, quails’ eggs, eel, and fine bread. The figures might have been ghosts for all Diana could see of them in the dim room, lit only by a lonely candle.

With a last suspicious look at Savonarola, Diana tore into her breakfast. When had she last eaten? She could barely remember. Even now she hadn’t realized how much hunger weakened her body until the food lay before her. Savonarola watched her with a look of interest, even amusement.

“I feel sorrow about your mother,” he told her after some minutes of silence. His voice echoed through the room, deep and foreboding.

Diana hesitated, her fork hovering over a plate still half full with food. “I appreciate your words,” she replied, her own voice crisp, high, contrasting his own. “My efforts proved insufficient to see to her best welfare.”

Savonarola plucked a grape from his plate and popped it into his mouth, chewing with deliberation. “When I began as a novice with the order, my master bade me to inscribe a copy of the Gospels. I was never one who had talent with pen or paint, but I labored at this task with devotion sometimes twenty hours a day. My mistakes were frequent, and when made required that the task be abandoned and started anew. So much paper, valuable paper wasted on my pitiful attempts. My master chastised me with his words and with his fists. Finally, my skills improved so with the most Herculean of efforts, I scribed a magnificent set of the gospels.” Savonarola’s lips twisted into a grimace of a smile. “Each page lovingly crafted, engraved with the finest drawings my hand had ever made before or since. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever created.”

Diana watched him, chewing on a boiled egg.

Savonarola’s eyes slid sideways, locking on her own, his voice dropping an octave. “When I had finished, my master looked over what I had done. Without a word, without an explanation, he threw the completed work into the fire and left me alone with the embers of months of painstaking effort.”

Savonarola sipped from his wooden cup, swallowed loudly. “How I hated him—hated him as Satan must hate Christ.”

Diana stopped eating, staring at Savonarola without knowing how to respond. At last she asked, “Have you forgiven him now?”

Savonarola chuckled. “A year after this event he suffered apoplexy and died. But on his deathbed I came to him. I don’t know if he could hear me in his last moments, but I spoke of what he had done. And then I asked him to forgive me.”

Diana put down her fork, appetite slipping away.

“Your mother is now with God,” Savonarola said simply.

“With how she sinned, with the Council, won’t she spend time in Purgatory?”

Savonarola regarded her with his watery eyes. “Don’t you see, girl? We are already in Purgatory. Destined to repeat out our sins over and over, until at last we see through them and mend the tears in our soul. Then, and only then, shall we be prepared to enter into the grace of God. Your mother saw her own sins, suffered and died for them. Her time with us has come to its end. I feel great joy for her.”

She watched him quietly. Her body remained too exhausted to allow her much emotional reaction to his words. She didn’t know what to think really. What could he know about the fate of her mother’s soul? Pondering it offered nothing of value. The afterlife…her mother’s afterlife was too remote. All that mattered now was in this life her body moldered in the grave.

Savonarola must have sensed that her thoughts wandered for his eyes glinted in the way that they did and he changed topics saying, “I’m sure you haven’t come to me this morning to receive a homily.”

Diana straightened in her chair with a deep intake of breath. “You know that I’ve been trying to discover who has killed my mother. In truth I have not yet been very successful in my efforts.”

He nodded, “I am well aware of the course you’ve set for yourself. I’d suggest that perhaps you have been more successful than you give yourself credit for. A little girl floundering in the dark could easily be ignored and you certainly have not been ignored.”

She looked down for a second. She had difficulty remaining focused and confident around Savonarola. Each new statement required her to summon up her courage. “It seems to me that our goals in this case are as mutual as we might expect. For different reasons we each want to get at the heart of the Sacred Council of Apostles. I would like you to help me. I would like you to grant me authority to conduct my investigation in the name of the Republic of Firenze.”

Savonarola regarded her silently for a long, uncomfortable moment. “You understand that what you ask for is unprecedented. For a woman to involve herself in the work of men to such a degree, you will anger many who are not your enemy simply for flaunting the rules of society. Under different circumstances I would condemn you myself.”

She met his gaze, unwavering. “I understand that for which I ask. I am willing to accept whatever costs may come.”

Savonarola puckered his lips, thinking. He then gestured to the lurking shadow servants, calling for one of them to bring him parchment, pen, and ink. These were quickly delivered and without word, Savonarola set himself to scribbling on the parchment. Several minutes passed in this manner, and Diana remained quiet, sensing this was no time to interrupt.

His work completed, Savonarola pushed the parchment across the table to her. “This is a warrant that grants you authoritative powers on behalf of the Republic of Firenze. With this writ, citizens of Firenze are compelled to answer your questions subject to seizure and criminal penalties on failure to comply.”

She picked up the writ. The parchment felt heavy in her hands. Now that it was done, now that she had gotten what she’d come for, she no longer felt certain that she wanted this.

“You’ll find it won’t open every door in Firenze,” Savonarola murmured, one hand holding his face partially obscuring his words. “Nonetheless, you are now in a position of power, real power, however temporarily. The enemies you make will be permanent.”

She tucked the writ into her dress. She stood up, her legs still wobbly from the stresses of the past day. “I thank you, Friar, for entrusting me with this authority.”

He nodded. “I hope I will not be proven wrong about you. You are a very brave and determined young woman. The ranks of the saints are filled with such brave and determined young women. It is an unfortunate fact most of them died violently.”

Diana swallowed and bowed her head in respect. Then, feeling that further words could gain her no more than she’d already gotten, she turned and left back the way she had come, through dark corridors until finally greeted by the light of day.

****

The stone fortress of her family palazzo seemed like an alien structure when finally it came into view. She stopped in the street and regarded it for a moment. Columns of stone rose up toward the sky, the artifice interrupted at ground level only by the family coat of arms. On a brass plaque, three roses intertwined reaching up together for the sky. She approached the coat of arms and ran her fingers along the cold metal. When she was a child she had imagined that the three roses signified her family: mother, father, herself, an inseparable unit. Silly of course. The coat of arms predated any of them. Now such flights of imagination seemed all that much more foolish. Her hand dropped to her side.

“Lady Diana?” a voice hesitantly called.

She turned. One of the Swiss mercenaries watching the door drew near to her. Tall, red-haired, rugged, he came carefully as if in fear that a careless move might cause her to explode. “We’ve been scouring the city for you.”

She knew the tone in his voice: fear. What could a man such as him have to fear of her? “I’m here now,” she told him, disinclined to explain herself. “I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you.” She brushed past him, through the door, coming home.

Inside warm air crept into her cold skin, reaching her aching bones. Standing in the entrance hall, looking up at the ceiling. As a little girl she must have once stood like this and looked up at the images there, the half-nude woman futilely fleeing from the unwanted embrace of a satyr. The fleeting tendrils of a memory eluded her.

A hand on her shoulder. Siobhan scrutinized her with concern. “I feared the worst,” the Irish girl told her.

So she had guessed the depths of Diana’s misery. Diana opened her mouth to speak, to say something, to apologize perhaps, but no words suited. She met Siobhan’s eyes, unsure of what to say.

Siobhan lowered her own glance, taking Diana into her arms and holding her there for a moment. Warmth passed between them, a welcome change from the cold outside. Still there was a barrier even Siobhan could not penetrate. “Come.” Siobhan pulled away from the embrace. “There is someone you must see.”

Siobhan took her by the hand, and without a further word, led her upstairs. Diana followed, too tired and drained to resist. The girl brought her to a guest bedroom, spacious and lavishly designed. Light poured in through a wide window, illuminating a woman’s figure sitting by a writing desk wrapped in a thick blanket. Golden hair cascaded down the woman’s shoulders. A flash of green underneath the blanket. The woman wore one of her mother’s dresses.

Siobhan stepped aside at the door, allowing Diana to enter. This she did without a word.