Ysabella took a glowing ember from the fire to do that while Bianca disappeared, taking Gabriella with her to safety.
Our attacker began to groan and move his limbs. Gabriele took the dagger from the bed, and he bent at Baldi’s side, holding the blade near his throat.
“To forestall any difficulty,” Gabriele said, and we all waited until Baldi’s eyes opened.
“Bastard,” he said.
“Perhaps, but that has no bearing on this situation,” Gabriele responded. Humor in the face of danger was his specialty too. “Tell us your true name. We know you are not the Ospedale scribe you claimed to be.”
“I was the scribe until this upstart bitch took my job from me.”
So this was the Guido Baldi I’d replaced, the one Fra Bosi had told me about on my first day of work.
“Trying to kill your replacement is a pretty extreme reaction to losing your job,” I said, still shaking from the adrenaline of the attack.
“I was hired,” Baldi said, cringing away from the dagger’s point.
“By whom? I should very much like to know,” Gabriele said evenly.
Baldi’s eyes went to Gabriele’s face, then mine.“What might the information be worth to you?”
“Your survival might be of some worth,” Gabriele answered evenly.
Baldi grunted. “I will tell you if you don’t turn me in.”
In the candlelight I could see the sheen of sweat on Baldi’s face and the small, deep-set eyes. Gabriele and I exchanged glances. The information might be worth it.
“You should be in prison, Messer Baldi,” Gabriele said.
“It’s my master you want, Accorsi. I’m done with him now.”
“Very well. Tell me who hired you, and I shall not turn you over to the police,” Gabriele said, “but if I find you are lying, or if any trouble arises that could be attributed to you, I shall make it my business to see you arrested. Or worse.”
We all watched, waiting for Baldi’s answer.
“Iacopo de’Medici, of Florence.”
*
Immacolata moved about her rooms with a new sense of freedom, now that the men of her household were gone. Giovanni’s death had receded from the most acute place of shock, replaced by a disturbing contentment. When she stretched out in their large connubial bed, she no longer worried she might accidentally brush one of her husband’s furred limbs. Once, waking him in the night would have brought at best a day of angry words, and at worst, a beating; now there was no one to wake.
But Iacopo’s absence gnawed at her. A week after her son’s latest departure for Siena, Immacolata woke from a dream with her heart pounding. In the dream, Iacopo sat immobile in a flat-bottomed boat without oars, a boat that skimmed rather than parted the water. His craft headed inexorably toward the narrow line of horizon, and though she tried to call him back, he faded from her reach, shrinking to a pinpoint.
Awake in bed at dawn, Immacolata rubbed her eyes to dispel the nightmare’s afterimage. When she went downstairs for a cup of something warm to drink, her manservant appeared from the gloom of the hall.
“A letter for you, Signora,” he said, handing her a folded parchment, sealed with wax.
In the Name of God, Amen
Cara Mamma,
Business keeps me here longer than I planned and I do not know when I shall return. Do not expect word from me.
Your Iacopo
Immacolata clutched the letter as if it were Iacopo’s own hand, rather than his words. The message, bare of any detail, unnerved her. She placed the untouched cup of hypocras on the kitchen table and walked slowly back upstairs.
She found the old letter she had hidden in a drawer, and unfolded it to read again.
I have done your bidding. The Painter Accorsi has been imprisoned by the Podestà’s police and will stand trial within the week. That will pay him back for bearing witness at your father’s trial. With success your family name will be cleared of any taint and the painter will hang from the gallows. Ser Signoretti granted me audience once he read the letter of introduction you sent, and has agreed to take the witness stand in your favor.
I will find you after the trial to collect my due. Will you be staying at your accustomed place? This time we have him.
With God’s help this letter will move you to ride quickly to Siena and bring my gold.
Penned by my hand on this last Day of December, 1348
G.B.
Siena
The initials brought no one to mind. But those words—this time we have him—told of other times and failed attempts. Failed attempts at what? She hoped to God Iacopo had stopped, would stop, at false denunciation—a heinous enough crime. But what if he had worse evil in his heart? What if he planned murder, the ultimate vengeance?
What use are the secret plans of men if they only bring death and destruction? I will not let my son follow his father to the gallows with blood on his hands. The words reverberated in her head like a Compline prayer.
* * *
Immacolata arrived in Siena by carriage in the last days of February. She went first to the inn where she’d visited Iacopo in the terrible days after Giovanni’s death. Messer Semenzato himself answered her knock.
“Do you have a guest here by the name of Iacopo?” Before she used his last name, a name that might not be well received here in Siena, she paused to let the innkeeper answer.
“We don’t see many women looking for a man without a family name,” he said, narrowing his eyes. The bells in the Torre rang for Vespers. Immacolata had not intended to arrive so late; a dangerous time to be a stranger in any city.
“He travels under several names,” Immacolata said, the answer rolling easily off her tongue. It might not be a lie. “And he comes from Firenze often on business.”
“He might have been here before, but now my rooms are full of Poggibonsi merchants.” The innkeeper looked more closely at Immacolata. She had dressed carefully for the journey in a high-necked gown of dark red wool edged with green and embroidered with a pattern of vines. There were advantages to being an aging woman—few would suspect trouble from her. Messer Semenzato opened the door wider when he saw the florins glinting in her hand.
“What makes you think he might have been here before, Ser?”
“A Florentine has stayed here several times, but never called himself Iacopo. He came recently to rent his usual room, but I had no rooms to let.”
“Was he dark, and slim?”
“Could be,” the innkeeper said, “though many are.”
“Do you know where he might have gone, if not here?”
“I’m afraid I do not,” the innkeeper said, and she had no luck prying any more information from him, other than a recommendation for a place where she might rest her horses and herself for the night. She hoped the dawn would bring more help, as finding a single man with an assumed name in a city of this size would be a daunting task.
* * *