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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
16th century Italy, deep in the Tuscan countryside a long-held feud between two aristocratic families ends in tragedy leaving only one young girl alive. Having barely escaped with her life, she vows to survive at all costs . Years later, amidst the winding streets and majestic facades of Florence, two murders are not all they seem. As Onorio Celavini, commander of the Medici police force, investigates he is horrified to find a personal connection to the crimes, and a conspiracy lurking beyond. The secrets of his past threaten to spill out and Celavini is forced to revisit the traumatic memories hidden deep within him to lay the ghosts of history to rest. Poignant, brutal and compelling The Phoenix of Florence is a richly told and cleverly crafted tale of a struggle for identity and a battle for justice in an Italy besieged by war.
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THE PHOENIX OF FLORENCE
Philip Kazan
For T, F & P
Contents
BOOK I
CHAPTER ONE
When Sergeant Andrea Gherardi started banging on my door that night in August, I was asleep. It might be more precise to say that I was negotiating one of the hazy and feverish realms between true sleep and wakefulness, because the stifling air of a Florentine summer night had not let anyone in the city sleep properly for days, and my rank as one of the Grand Duke’s police officers did not exempt me from the common suffering. I rolled and kicked at the damp sheets, sometimes dimly aware, sometimes trapped inside shallow dreams like a fly caught in the filmy surface of a puddle. The dreams were the usual ones: palimpsests of memory, scraped off and redrawn, rubbed away and drawn again, line by line into the same dull scene, made up of things I recognised but knew had never happened. A country road, a common track of chalk and dust, climbing steadily up a smooth, brown hillside. On the other side, a town with a market, and my father waiting for me. But the track never reached the skyline. The crown of the hill receded imperceptibly. I stopped to drink at a fountain, and when I looked up, the track was running through fields, or a vineyard. The sun slipped from zenith to dusk. My father was waiting.
I turned and, finding a miraculous little patch of cool linen, groaned with pleasure. The landscape changed. A copse of holm oaks hiding a spring, water dripping over emerald moss. I was leading a horse, who dipped its head to drink. Flies hummed like a plucked lute string. Above the dream, in the thick night, a thread of breeze trailed in through the window and brushed across my damp skin. I stretched and let myself surrender to the flickering shadows of the leaves.
At first I thought it was my own heart that had woken me, thumping so hard that I could hear it. I rolled onto my back, unpleasantly alert. The inner workings of my body were something that, for as long as I could remember, I had regarded with unease. Every soldier knows that the body of a man is nothing but meat, and that whatever animates it is not only invisible but fickle. I had seen men die from scratches no worse than a shaving cut. On the other hand, people I knew had survived the loss of arms, legs, even, once, a sizeable chunk of skull. I’d seen men clutch their chests and fall off their horses, stone dead, killed by their own hearts. So I felt a brief surge of relief when I realised that the knocking was coming from the outer door of the house and not from under my ribs. Relief which faded when I heard a familiar voice.
‘Comandante! Are you there? Comandante?’
‘For God’s sake …’ I pressed my thumbs against my eyelids and sat up, muttering. The knocking continued. ‘Be quiet, Andrea!’ I rasped. The calling and knocking did not relent. I staggered upright. ‘Sergente Gherardi!’ I called, louder, wincing as my voice cracked. ‘Shut up! You’ll wake the whole street!’
Even though the heat was almost unbearable, I had slept in a linen shirt. Cursing, I tightened the laces and tied them with a savage tug. My undergarments and stockings were folded on a nearby chair. I pulled them on. Toes groped for slippers. Despite the closeness, I swung my cape, the long black broadcloth one I used for night work, around my body. Gherardi was still hammering away as I stamped downstairs, crossed the courtyard and unlatched the street door.
‘What is it that couldn’t have kept until morning, Andrea?’ I croaked, as the large man stepped into the courtyard. Andrea Gherardi of the sbirri of Florence grinned and planted two meaty fists on his hips. He was sweating in thick beads and his dark clothes were soaked through at the chest and under the arms.
‘Guess who’s got himself killed, Comandante?’ he asked, when we were both inside. His chest was heaving, I noticed, as if he’d run here.
‘Tell me you didn’t wake me up to play games.’
Andrea laughed. ‘There’s been fun and games, all right.’
‘Oh, just fucking tell me, Andrea,’ I snapped.
The big man pouted in mock disappointment. Then he brightened. ‘You’d have guessed it in three goes or less, Comandante. Pietro Vennini!’
‘Vennini?’ I frowned. Part of my mind was still watching the light dance on that cool, green spring water. Then it cleared. ‘Ah. Yes, I would have guessed that, you’re right. He didn’t just die, I suppose? Someone killed him?’
‘Cazzo, Comandante! Someone? The bastard was cut to sausage meat by a whole gang. Right on Ponte Santa Trìnita.’
I sighed and dragged my fingers through my damp hair. ‘When?’
‘About half an hour ago. Haven’t seen anything like it for a while. The bridge looks like a slaughterhouse. There’re two other stiffs apart from Vennini.’
‘You can stop smiling, Andrea. Three people dead?’
‘Oh, come on, Comandante. We all know that Pietro had it coming to him. The whole of Florence knew it.’
I sighed. ‘Let me get dressed. Who’s there at the bridge?’
‘Tedesco and Gualdi.’
‘Just two men?’
‘I sent word to the Bargello before I came here.’ The sergeant paused and scratched his nose, glancing slyly at me. ‘I was going to get the capo, but …’
I sighed. ‘You did the right thing. Scarfa wouldn’t have appreciated it in the slightest. Not that I do, mind.’
‘That’s what I thought. He’d be like a bear in winter. Make our lives a misery for the next month.’ The sergeant folded his arms.
‘Can I get dressed, please, Andrea?’ I said pointedly.
‘Go ahead.’ The sergeant looked at the nearest chair, obviously planning to make himself comfortable.
‘Jesus …’ I growled in frustration. ‘There’s a jug of beer in the pantry. It should still be cool. Please, go and help yourself.’
The sergeant grinned and rolled off in the direction of my outstretched finger. When he was out of the room, I went up to my bedroom and locked the door. I was buttoning my black doublet when I heard Gherardi stamping up the stairs. I unlocked the door as quietly as I could and met him on the landing.
‘Was the beer cool?’ I asked, taking down the lantern I used for night business from its hook near the door.
‘Nah. Warm as piss.’ Gherardi blinked as he remembered who he was talking to. ‘But most welcome, Comandante. Most welcome indeed. Here …’ He took the candle from his own lantern and lit mine with it. ‘Yes, most welcome. It’s going to be a long night.’
We didn’t have far to walk. My house was in Borgo Ognissanti, just past the hospital of Santa Maria dell’Umiltà, the orphanage which everyone knew as the Pietà. As soon as we crossed in front of the Palazzo Ricassoli and turned onto Lungarno Corsini, I saw the glow of torchlight just ahead. There was an excited buzz of voices as well.
‘Quite a crowd,’ I said to Gherardi. ‘Tedesco and Gualdi should have sent them off to their beds.’
‘Everyone’s a bit worked up,’ he answered. ‘The heat and everything. And Vennini was popular.’
The two policemen had managed to keep the crowd, which was a good fifty or sixty strong, off the bridge itself. Gherardi walked straight into the throng, big elbows hammering left and right, and I followed him. In the torchlight, the faces around me drifted in and out of shadow and focus. Working men, mostly: weavers and dyers, my neighbours from Borgo Ognissanti and the streets round about, their features stained and prematurely aged by poverty and hard labour. Closer to the bridge, Gherardi shoved past some better-dressed men and they rounded on him angrily, only to step back, muttering, when they saw he was wearing the livery of the police. I looked them up and down, running my eyes over faces, clothes and hands, but there was no blood and they were sweating from the heat, not recent exertion. Tedesco, a recent recruit to the sbirri, was gripping the shaft of a halberd and his expression told me he was enjoying himself.
‘The first one’s here,’ Gherardi said, pointing. A long, dark shape was laid out at an angle across the pavement where the bridge started to rise over the first arch. I bent down and shone the beam of my lantern into the corpse’s face. A youngish man with dark, curly hair and extravagant mustachios; his light brown eyes were still shining, and his lips were curved in a half-smile as if he’d just lowered himself into a warm bath. Blood had run from his nose and the corner of his mouth. I turned him over onto his back: his dark red doublet was stained even redder and was torn in at least three places. Dark liquid welled up through the rips as the cloth settled against his torso.
‘Recognise him?’ Gherardi shook his head. ‘Me neither. That’s a soldier’s moustache, though.’ I stood up, and a ripple of excitement ran through the crowd behind me. ‘Tell those idiots to go home,’ I said. ‘Tell them I’ll fetch the Lanzi if they give me any trouble.’
The threat of the Grand Duke’s German guards had the desired effect. With a lot more muttering, the crowd began to thin and then evaporate. I watched them drift away up Via de’ Tornabuoni or along the riverbanks. The workers would go home, the gentlemen would be heading for the brothels and gambling dens near the Mercato Vecchio. I sighed and walked over the curve of the bridge to where Gherardi was standing, holding his lantern over a man who was sitting against the parapet of the bridge, legs splayed out in front, chin bowed to his chest. He could have been a sleeping drunkard, but when I came forward and held my own light close, I saw that one limp arm was attached to the body by not much more than a laced doublet sleeve, and that the top of the man’s head was crushed like the top of a boiled egg. Blood and brains plastered his hair to his face. I drew my dagger and lifted the sticky curtain aside.
‘Don’t know him,’ said Gherardi.
‘I do,’ I said. In spite of the deep slash that had almost taken off his nose, I recognised the pinched cheeks and long, narrow jaw. ‘He’s from Siena. I don’t remember his name, but he knew some friends of mine. He was a sergente in Scipio Piccolomini’s company in Flanders.’ I straightened up. ‘He’s in quite a state. Did Vennini kill both these fellows, or did he have friends with him?’
‘From what I can gather, it was just Vennini against six or seven attackers,’ said Gherardi. ‘Want to see him? Over here. He’s in a worse state than this poor sod. A lot worse.’
The third corpse was a dark heap in the shadows at the far end of the bridge. He had almost made it home. Pietro Vennini’s house was in Borgo San Jacopo, just around the next corner. The other policeman, Gualdi, was holding back another crowd, thirty or so faces, their grimaces licked by torchlight. Gherardi trotted over to them and began to shout the same threat he’d made just now, and again, the faces began to draw back and fade into the darkness. When they had mostly gone, I squatted down next to the dead man.
Vennini had been handsome. One of the most handsome men in Florence, depending on whom you asked. The face in the flickering light from my lantern was barely a face at all, though. He had been stabbed through one eye, and the left side, from ear to mouth, had been sliced clean away, exposing clenched teeth. There was another wound in his forehead that had punched clean through the skull, and his neck had been hacked down to the bone. Vennini had been wearing a doublet of defence, a jacket of quilted and ruched leather studded all over with ornamental strips of gilded steel, but even that had been cut to pieces. One arm, hand still grasping the hilt of a sword, lay a little to one side. I looked back across the bridge. A trail of blood – drops and footprints, some distinct, others dragged and smeared – ran from the direction of Via de’ Tornabuoni.
‘He put up a proper fight,’ I said.
Gherardi had come back and was standing over me. ‘That he did,’ he said. ‘Two dead, and judging by the amount of gravy, a few more seriously damaged.’
I stood up, imagining what had happened. He’d have been wounded further over the bridge but had kept his attackers at bay as he retreated. The temptation to turn tail and run for the safety of his house must have been overwhelming, but he’d resisted it. Or perhaps he couldn’t run. I stooped to have another look, wrinkling my nose at the smell of blood already starting to turn foetid in the heat. Yes, there was a deep gash in his left thigh. He would have been gushing blood. He’d stopped here, then, and made his last stand. The wounds to his face and neck had been made while he was still upright, but the others … I narrowed my eyes, seeing blades rising and falling, hacking at the fallen man.
‘This wasn’t just a brawl,’ I said. ‘Those two were soldiers. Who wanted him dead?’
‘Comandante!’ Gherardi chuckled. ‘Only half the husbands in Florence.’
Vennini’s stock-in-trade had been the seduction of women of noble or gentle birth, young women harnessed to older men for the furthering of bloodlines and fortunes. Usually the cuckolded husbands kept quiet, fearing shame and laughter, but a few years ago one of them had challenged Vennini to a duel and got himself killed, for which crime Vennini had been exiled. He had been back for almost a year, having done some favour for the Grand Duke in Rome. Pietro Vennini had a few important friends, being from one of those Florentine families that had been here for ever, but the Venninis hadn’t been anywhere near power in the city since before Old Cosimo’s time. This death wouldn’t ruffle many feathers: far more people would rejoice than would mourn. But something wasn’t right. Supposing the two dead attackers were part of a bigger gang of soldiers for hire, and Vennini hadn’t simply crossed them in some tavern or brothel, someone had paid to have him cut to pieces very publicly.
‘Who was he screwing?’ I asked Gherardi.
‘Who wasn’t he screwing?’ The sergeant made a face and pumped his fist back and forth.
‘For God’s sake …’ I rubbed at the scar on my neck. My throat was starting to feel tight. Soon my voice would fail altogether. ‘Find out. I want to know first thing in the morning. And names: those two over there, and whoever else might have been here. I want witnesses.’
‘Yes, Comandante,’ said Gherardi, his buoyant mood evidently punctured.
‘Get on with it. I’m going back to bed,’ I told him, and started off towards the north bank. The smell coming up from the river, which was very low and running sluggishly between festering, muddy strands, was catching in my throat. As I passed, I looked down at the man from Siena. His name was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t catch it. I remembered him more clearly now, though. He’d been one of those men who make a nuisance of themselves when there is no fighting to be had, gambling and whoring around the taverns of Brussels. He’d fought one of my men – yes, that was right. I had been in charge of my company’s security back then, and I’d had to complain to his condottiere, Piccolomini, a Sienese patrician who had settled matters reluctantly and with a lot of well-bred flouncing. It wasn’t particularly surprising that he’d washed up here in Florence. There were plenty of ex-mercenaries floating around Italy these days, now that the endless wars had actually come to an end. I yawned. This would be over in a couple of days. Vennini had slept with the wrong wife. As Gherardi said, it was bound to have happened sooner or later. It was a demonstration of power, and the man who had ordered it would not keep his involvement secret. He was probably already on his way to Milan or Rome, to save himself the bother of a trial, bribes and exile.
There was something else to all this, though, and I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep tonight. Vennini had no doubt been killed over some affair that had been discovered. But there are at least three parties to any affair: the wife, the lover and the cuckold. A cuckolded husband who had taken the trouble to murder his rival so very extravagantly had another person to deal with. As I walked past the hospital and the Casa della Pietà next door, where a hundred and fifty orphaned girls lived and worked, I knew that somewhere in Florence, a woman was waiting for her killers, or was already dead, and there was nothing I could do about it. A couple of cloaked figures slipped into an alley to avoid the beam of my lantern. I was the sbirri, the Grand Duke’s police: the very sight of me made people afraid. Those two: coming or going from some gambling den. Or perhaps they were a pair of sodomites. Both those likelihoods put them under my jurisdiction. But I wasn’t in the mood for any more excitement tonight. There would be enough of that in the morning, and morning wasn’t very far away.
My bed was as damp and unwelcoming as when I had left it, and though I slipped into the shallowest of sleep, all it brought me was the familiar phantoms. Soldiers’ dreams, as thin and clinging as a bloody bandage. Here they came: the barber-surgeon’s trembling hands forcing a needle and thread through my flesh; the clack of boot-soles on stone stairs; a horse, kicking with a broken leg, its great, soft brown eye begging for understanding. When I woke at dawn it was, as usual, a relief.
CHAPTER TWO
The bell towers of Florence began, one by one, and then in a galloping, tuneless chorus, to welcome the sixth hour of the day. Santa Maria dell’Umiltà’s old, off-pitch bells were clanging too loudly for the stinking air of this last day of August, filling up Borgo Ognissanti, and my head, to bursting. There had been a lovely few minutes before sunrise when a cool breeze had slipped in through the open window of my bedchamber and I had got up and stood naked, looking over the rooftops to where the mountains were just forming out of the darkness, letting the cold air play across my skin. I had gone down to the courtyard, drawn a bucket of water from the well and, still in my nightshirt, poured it over my head. Then I had dressed and slipped out into the daylight, which was as hot and jaundiced as old melted butter.
The curfew was still in effect and the parish of Ognissanti was silent, though the stench of urine from the dyers’ workshops on each side of the street was so strong that it almost had its own sound: a thin whine, as insistent as a trapped wasp. Piazza della Signoria was empty of anyone and anything, except a flock of pigeons. By the time I got to the Bargello, it was as if I hadn’t slept at all. My boss, Captain Benedetto Scarfa, had already arrived, which was a rarity; I was almost always the first in to the office, and I guessed that Scarfa’s presence didn’t bode well. I was right.
‘You’re late, Celavini,’ the captain said. By the sound of his voice, he had slept as well as I had.
‘Late for what?’ I replied, looking around pointedly at the empty room.
‘For last night’s murder.’
‘Late? By a few minutes. The blood was still steaming when I got there, I can assure you, Capo.’
‘Keep up, Celavini. There’s been another one.’
My stomach lurched, even though I had been expecting this. ‘Of course there has.’
‘Another one, Celavini.’
‘I heard you. Pietro Vennini’s lover, no doubt.’
‘You’re a hard man to surprise. But yes, you’ve got it.’ Scarfa crossed himself with a world-weary flourish. ‘She was called Zanobia Linucci, God rest her soul. You’ll find her in Chiasso Cornino.’
‘Linucci?’ I frowned. I had expected a name I recognised, the wife of a patrician or a rich merchant. ‘I’ve never heard of her. Are we sure that she’s part of this?’
‘The servants say that Vennini was a regular visitor. And the whole city knows Vennini.’
‘Who is she, though?’
‘That, my dear fellow, is your exciting challenge for today. And a write-up on last night’s little cavort, if you please.’
I rubbed my stinging eyes and shook my head, wishing it would clear, wishing I didn’t feel as if I had the worst hangover in the world, though I hadn’t touched a drop the night before.
‘They didn’t waste any time,’ I muttered at last, settling into my chair. The stack of papers on my desk seemed to have grown in the night, as though the wood had been infected by some particularly aggressive fungus. At least it was quiet right now. The office of the sbirri is next door to the torture chamber of our employers, the Otto di Guardia, the Eight of Public Safety, and the magistrates don’t mind how early they begin to interrogate their suspects.
‘Unlike you,’ said Scarfa. ‘Off you go, Celavini. I want a report on all this mess for the magistrates. I want it before luncheon. Well before.’
I smelt the blood before I had even reached the bottom of the stairs. The narrow house on Chiasso Cornino looked ancient on the outside but the interior was done up in the newest style. I noted a very fine tapestry in the entrance hall, and my shoes sank luxuriantly into the long pile of a Turkish carpet as I walked towards the stairs. The stairwell was lined with crisply carved panelling, and the plastered walls were brightly frescoed with cherubs and greenery in the ancient Roman style. There was a rich scent of polish, of laundry and fine beeswax candles in the air. But over it all was the thick, rank sweetness of blood spilt into August heat. A small crowd of people blocked the top of the stairs: servants, from the scullery maid to the steward, all whispering busily to each other. None of them looked particularly upset. Quite the reverse. I recognised the muted holiday mood that often attended these miserable affairs. I sighed wearily and cleared my throat, and the two footmen who were blocking my way started guiltily and stepped aside.
‘Let the comandante of the Bargello through!’ It was the voice of a man who had slept even less than I had, and sure enough, when I peered through the crowd, a square-shouldered man in Medici livery was standing in front of a painted door.
‘Good morning, Andrea,’ I called, and saw one of the servants, a lady’s maid by the quality of her dress, frown at the harsh, cracked sound of my voice. It was worse than usual this morning; the heat and the lack of sleep had dried out my throat, and I knew I must sound horrible. No more horrible, though, than what was behind that door. ‘Something of a fairground up here. It’s worse down in the street.’
‘No one ever gets bored of blood,’ said Gherardi.
‘Really? I’m getting a little tired of it, for one. Seems like we’ve been wading through it lately. When did you get here?’
‘I stayed on duty last night, Comandante.’ He looks as rough as I feel, I thought.
‘And someone came and reported the crime?’
‘Someone …’ He scanned the gaggle of servants. ‘That one there,’ he went on, pointing at the youngest footman.
‘Time?’
‘Around four of the clock.’
‘And you’ve been here ever since?’
Gherardi rubbed his stubbled chin. Twenty or more years older than I, like most of the police, the sergeant drank too much and was ageing by the minute, so it seemed, under the strain of trying to marry off his three daughters. ‘Well …’ He looked down knowingly at me. ‘There wasn’t any need to hurry, was there?’
‘No?’
He shrugged. ‘Dead is dead, Comandante. Am I right?’
‘And she was dead?’
‘Oh yes.’ Gherardi chuckled grimly. ‘There wasn’t any rush. Well, you’ll see, sir.’
He shifted to one side and opened the door. I paused. ‘Anyone else been inside?’
‘The priest just left.’
‘All right. Thanks, Andrea.’ I ducked under the sergeant’s arm and stepped into the bedchamber.
The heavy curtains were still drawn across the windows, and the room was dark, except for one candle burning in a candlestick that stood on the floor, carefully placed in the centre of one of the geometric medallions of the rug, a few inches from the naked foot of the young woman who was half lying, half sitting against the side of the four-poster bed. Her nightdress was rucked up around her splayed thighs, its white linen dark red now and plastered to her body. Her head lolled back against the coverlet at a right angle. There was almost nothing to hold it in place: the wound that divided the waxy skin of the woman’s neck was so deep that I could see the yellowish bone of her spine. Her eyes, already filmed with dust, gazed blindly at the coffered ceiling, and her lips were drawn back in a rictus, exposing white teeth and blackened tongue.
‘Donna Zanobia,’ I murmured. I knew her name; it seemed impolite not to use it. I walked carefully across the room, noting the bloody footprints that dotted the bright colours of the rug, guessing that the priest had knelt on one of the clean patches. He hadn’t wanted to get too close. If he was the parish priest, then I knew him: a fastidious little man who would be upset by stains on his cassock. You should have closed her eyes, I thought, bending over the woman. I reached down and touched her cold eyelids with my fingertips, pulling them gently down over the glassy pupils, but when I took my fingers away one lid opened again, slowly. Nothing but a reflex of dead tissue, yet there was something almost complicit in the way the eye continued to stare. We both know what we see, the dead woman seemed to be telling me.
‘I know, I know,’ I said to the empty room. I shook myself, trying to shift the stifling mood that had been weighing on me ever since I had walked into the house, went over to the windows and pulled open the curtains. ‘No one is surprised, are they? Not even you.’ I turned back to the bed and saw that the low sunlight pouring in through the windows had made the body more grotesque, less human. It was a relief.
I squatted down on the carpet and pinched out the candle. The dead woman’s bare feet, stained crimson where she had slipped in the cascade of her own blood, had perfectly manicured nails.
‘Come in here, please, Andrea,’ I called. The sergeant came round the door and stood, looking bored, at the edge of the bloodstain that had swallowed half the rug. ‘Any witnesses?’
‘Plenty.’ Andrea scratched his nose idly; the dead woman was keeping him from his breakfast.
‘How so?’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘The steward was woken by a banging on the door – as I said, around four of the clock. Two men with their faces masked—’
‘Masked? What sort of masks?’
‘Hoods with eyeholes cut in them. Black. And they wore black robes. Like the Misericordia, is what the witnesses all said.’
I grimaced. The city confraternities who tended the dying and collected the dead hid their identities, for modesty’s sake, behind black hoods and robes. And they would be along, shortly, to collect Zanobia Linucci. ‘The Misericordia, or the Battuti Neri.’ The masked men who also accompanied those condemned to die on their last journey to the gallows pulled on their legs to make sure they died quickly.
‘They had a sense of humour, at least.’ Andrea scuffed idly at the rug with the toe of his shoe. The dead woman was nothing more to him, now, than an impediment to breakfast.
‘Is that what you’d call this?’
‘I mean, after what happened to Pietro Vennini, she might as well have been waiting on the gallows.’
‘That seems to be what everyone thinks.’
‘Everyone.’ Andrea nodded in placid agreement. ‘You still need me, Comandante?’
‘Yes. Who was she?’ I asked.
Andrea cast a weary glance ceiling-wards, giving me a view of the bloodshot whites of his eyes. Then he shook his head. ‘Good question. As far as I can gather, she’s a widow from down south …’
‘South? Naples? Rome?’
‘South in Tuscany. No one’s very clear about where.’
‘Siena?’
Andrea shrugged. ‘Can’t get a clear answer.’
‘But she’s a widow?’
‘That’s what they say.’ Andrea looked around the room. ‘Married young and married very well, by the looks of this place. Rich husband with the decency to turn up his toes before she lost her looks.’
‘She was carrying on with Vennini, but she’s a widow. Why kill her?’ I looked down at the carpet. It had a decidedly masculine air about it. Would a young-ish woman have chosen it for her bedroom? ‘So she was someone’s mistress. Kept. Who owns the house?’
‘Give me a chance, Comandante!’
‘Get the witnesses together so I can question them. Then you can go. I want the deeds to this house on my desk before lunch.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Andrea went out and closed the door behind him. I looked around the room again: fine old furniture, a well-painted portrait of a man in armour with a bullish face, another painting of a classical nymph. Above the table, which was scattered with pots of face creams and paints, a Venetian mirror was hanging, from which I was staring back at myself: a small and slight man, a head shorter than my sergeant, with close-cropped, straight brown hair under my neat cap. Clean-shaven, with an old scar running up from the high collar of my doublet, scribbled like a crack in porcelain across my pale skin, a red line from the hollow of my throat to just under my left ear. A fresher scar, hardly healed, smeared across my right temple. Small and rather fine nose, broken at some point, skilfully reset. Brown eyes, almost unnaturally large in the setting of a delicate face.
I turned my back on him and knelt again on the rug. It was new, I saw: golden-yellow medallions like knotted stars laid out across reds and purples and blues, everything geometric, repeating obsessively. A muffled hubbub came to me through the door, but the loudest sound inside the room was my own measured breathing. I traced one of the golden patterns with a finger, smoothing the soft nap of the wool. Complicated, but once my finger had travelled through every angle, it arrived back at the point where it had begun. The stars were mazes with no way out. In that way they reflected the life and now the death of their owner. I stood up, drew in a deep breath and took hold of the corpse under its arms. The dead woman was heavy and beginning to stiffen, but I lowered her as gently as I could to the floor, straightened her legs and crossed her arms over her chest. I pulled a sheet from the bed and covered her with it, watching as the fine white cloth ballooned gently before settling on her limbs and face. Then I knelt beside her and began to pray.
The steward shifted uncomfortably against the carved panelling of the main room. He looked like a disgruntled bullock trying to scratch an itch. A large, dark-haired man with bramble eyebrows and steel-blue bristles on his cheeks, he wasn’t happy that I had caught him trying to slip away through the kitchen.
‘Who killed your mistress?’ I asked, for the second time. My voice gave the words a jagged edge. The man shrugged. ‘You can tell me now, or I’ll put you in front of the Otto. You can tell the magistrates. You’re a big fellow: not ideally suited to the strappado, I wouldn’t think.’
The man swallowed. ‘Why would they torture me? I’m just a servant.’
‘Because you’re acting a bit suspiciously, aren’t you, Simone? First you open the door to a couple of masked men who swan upstairs and butcher your mistress, and then you try and sneak out when the comandante of the sbirri arrives.’ I cocked my head. ‘If I was the Otto, I’d torture you, to be honest. Give you a couple of drops, whether you needed them or not.’
‘All right! All right. But I don’t know who killed Donna Zanobia. They were wearing masks, like I said. That’s the truth.’
‘Who sent them? Actually, no, let’s not waste time here. Who kept Donna Zanobia? Whose mistress was she? Who owns this house?’
‘Donna Zanobia owned it.’
‘Do I look like a simpleton? Who bought it for her?’
Simone pursed his lips until they were white, then let out a deflated sigh. ‘God in heaven. I warned her, you know. I told her what would happen. But she knew what she wanted, and, well …’
‘The house, Simone.’
‘But she really did own it! I worked for her; we all did. Donna Zanobia came up from the south two years ago. Her husband had died: he was a gentleman from Pitigliano. A wine merchant or something like that. Brother of a bishop, I think. I was hired after the house was bought, to arrange for her arrival. But you’re right, Signor Celavini. I don’t think any of this was paid for by Donna Zanobia. It was very clear that she had been installed here in the city as a man’s mistress. I wasn’t happy about that. My career has been respectable …’
‘No doubt.’ I let myself soften a little. ‘So, this man.’
‘Will I be safe? If I tell you, I mean?’
‘You’re going to tell me or the Otto, Simone.’
‘But all these deaths!’ The big man wasn’t being shifty, I saw; he was terrified.
‘You’ll be a witness in a murder case. The magistrates have every reason to keep you safe.’
He gritted his teeth and let out a sort of moan. ‘I … I know he didn’t kill Donna Zanobia, because I’d have recognised him, mask or not.’
‘Oh yes? Why?’
‘Because he has a crooked back.’ Simone arched his spine back and to the side. ‘Like this.’
‘So he’s a hunchback?’
‘No. Not crooked like that. He isn’t exactly a cripple, just twisted. As if he’d had an accident: fallen off his horse, or been wounded, but a long time ago. He doesn’t accept it, if you know what I mean. If he’d been born that way, he wouldn’t be so … angry about it.’
‘About his back?’
The steward groaned. ‘I don’t know what I mean. All I can tell you is that he’s tall and his back’s twisted. His name is Don Bartolomeo. It isn’t his real name, though, I swear.’
‘Bartolomeo? Just Bartolomeo?’
‘No, no. That could be real enough. It’s his family name. I just never believed it.’ He relaxed slightly. ‘I’m a Florentine, signore, and my people have lived here since Caesar’s time. I have a little education, and the history of our city is my passion.’ He crossed his arms over his chest, warming to his subject. ‘I daresay I know the name of every family, great and small, that has lived inside these walls since before the Duomo was built. The Black Guelphs, the White Guelphs—’
‘I believe you. But I don’t want a history lesson. I want a name.’
‘That’s just it. Don Bartolomeo’s family name hasn’t been used in Florence for centuries.’
‘Bloody hell …’
‘No, signore! Listen to me. It used to be a really important family, one of the most important. But they died out in the time of Dante’s exile.’
‘Fascinating, Simone.’ I pulled at a strand of my hair, something I only did when I was at the limits of my patience. Next, my hands would be around his neck. ‘And what is this extinct name?’
‘Ormani, signore. The man who kept Donna Zanobia calls himself Don Bartolomeo Ormani.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘Ormani?’
‘Yes, signore. Ormani. They were one of the prominent families in the Quartiere Santa Maria. Some of them changed their name to Foraboschi, the rest were exiled or died out. But that was two and a half centuries ago, at least.’
I swallowed. My throat was closing up. ‘And that’s why you think it’s a false name?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He drew himself up proudly. ‘And I’ll gladly tell that to the Otto.’
‘That’s good. That’s … good.’ I scratched the scar on my neck. It was beginning to throb. ‘Where does he live, this Bartolomeo Ormani?’
‘That I don’t know,’ said Simone eagerly. We were friends now, apparently. ‘But not in Florence. He comes into town once every six weeks or so, stays for a few days and leaves again.’
‘Is he here now?’
The steward shook his head.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Two weeks ago.’
‘You have an address for him?’
He shook his head again.
‘Then how did you keep in touch?’
‘Through his bank. There’s an agent there …’
‘And when did you tell him that Donna Zanobia was sleeping with Pietro Vennini?’
‘My God, sir!’
‘Oh, come off it. Do you think I don’t know how these arrangements work? The lady was a possession; her servants were her keepers. Keepers, and spies.’
‘It wasn’t me! I was fond of Donna Zanobia. She was kind. And she wasn’t vulgar. Not like one of those courtesans.’
‘Who, then?’ I snapped my fingers in front of his face.
‘I … Probably Riccio the cook or Lisabetta the lady’s maid,’ he said hurriedly.
It had been Riccio. He wasn’t in the slightest bit shy about admitting it, either. ‘That’s what Don Bartolomeo pays me for,’ he said.
‘A jealous fellow, is he?’ I asked.
The cook was a nondescript man on the borders of old age, with a heavy Prato accent and few teeth. ‘Prudent, that’s all. You know what women are like.’ He sucked air wetly across an expanse of mottled gums.
‘So you tipped him off, knowing full well what would happen to your mistress,’ I went on. I had arranged myself casually against the kitchen table, but my hands were gripping the edge hard enough for my nails to dig into the scrubbed wood.
‘Straight away! A man’s honour was at stake!’ The cook raised a dandruff-flecked eyebrow at me in puzzlement.
‘How much did he pay you?’
‘Four lire a month. There’ll be a bonus for me now, though.’ He smacked his lips happily.
I left him to his cooking: a pot of ribollita was plip-plipping over a low fire and there was a basket of carp ready for the knife. There would be a lot of excited mouths to feed today. I was looking for the lady’s maid when a twittering broke out on the floor above me, and four black-robed men in tall, pointed hoods came around the bend in the staircase, carrying a stretcher between them. They manoeuvred their burden expertly down the last of the stairs. I looked at the body on the stretcher; it looked smaller than the dead woman I had seen upstairs, wrapped in the sheet I had draped over her, which had now been tied at the head and feet.
‘Comandante.’ One of the hooded men nodded at me. I recognised the voice: a lawyer from the parish of Santa Croce. I knew most of the brothers of the Misericordia, but you didn’t get familiar with them while they were at work.
‘Good morning, brother,’ I said. ‘Where are you taking her?’
‘She has no relations here in Florence,’ said the man. ‘We’re taking her to the Bigallo. If no one comes forward to pay for a funeral, we will have to bury her in the common grave outside Porta San Francesco tonight.’ I held the door open for the men and watched as a fifth hooded figure greeted them with a grave bow and led them off down the street, ringing a large hand-bell that tolled out a loud but flat note. There was quite a crowd outside, and they all crossed themselves busily and craned their necks to get a good eyeful of the corpse. One of the sbirri, an old soldier called Colino, was on guard by the front step.
‘Make sure no one leaves this place with anything that doesn’t belong to them,’ I said. ‘Which means anything at all. I’ll send you some help. When they get here, clear the place and seal it in the name of the Otto.’ I went back inside and found the steward, who was helping himself to his mistress’s good wine.
‘Where is the strongbox?’ I asked. He got to his feet rather unsteadily and led me back upstairs. There was a small room furnished as a chapel next to the bedroom, and against the wall stood an iron-bound chest.
‘Key,’ I said, waggling my fingers at him.
The steward produced a large key from inside his doublet and rattled it into the lock. There wasn’t much inside the chest: some silver candlesticks and trenchers in a velvet bag, and several pouches of coin. I lifted one up: gold.
‘There should be more here. Where’s your mistress’s jewellery?’ I demanded.
‘The murderers took it all,’ he said.
‘So it was a robbery?’
‘No, no. They said they were reclaiming their master’s goods,’ the steward said. ‘Though …’ He frowned into the chest, reached in and released a catch. A hidden lid sprung open, revealing a coil of pearls and some fine golden earrings. ‘These are her own things,’ he said, ‘but there should be more. A pendant that she treasured. A ring – no, the ring was given to her by Don Bartolomeo, but she loved it so much that she kept it here. Perhaps she was wearing them when they came for her.’
His face fell, and he looked away towards the door. ‘I tried to stop them,’ he said quietly. ‘But they were the kind of men …’ He looked at me and lifted his hands weakly. To my surprise, I found myself believing him. ‘You know what kind of men they were, Comandante.’
‘I do.’
‘I don’t think Don Bartolomeo trusted me,’ he went on. ‘Because I worked for Donna Zanobia, not for him, and I … I …’ Without warning he buried his face in his hands and began to sob. ‘She didn’t deserve it,’ he said, his voice wet and muffled. ‘I would never have stolen from her. I wanted to get away in case Don Bartolomeo thought I’d been part of it. Her affair with Don Pietro. As if I’d been her pimp! Oh, Jesus …’
‘Don’t worry, Simone,’ I said. I upended the bag, counted the coins and handed two of them to the steward. ‘There’s two scudi here. Buy your mistress a proper funeral.’
‘Two scudi?’ The steward’s tear-streaked face brightened. ‘That will pay for candles! A feast! We’ll bury her here, in San Biagio!’
‘Donna Zanobia will be at the Bigallo,’ I said. ‘Give the money to the brothers.’ I held up a finger. ‘They’ll give me a full accounting, master steward.’ I dropped the bag into the chest and locked it. ‘This goes to the magistrates.’
‘Of course, of course!’ He actually grinned. ‘You are a good man, Comandante.’
‘You sound surprised,’ I said, turning to leave.
‘If I find out anything about Don Bartolomeo, I’ll come straight to you,’ he called after me. I lifted my hand in acknowledgement.
I didn’t go straight back to the Bargello. Instead I walked through the crowds around the fish market, across the Piazza Signoria and into the Palazzo Vecchio. The office where the state tax records were kept was a long, dingy room at the back of the palace that smelt of mildew. The river had got inside during the flood of 1557, and the place had never been properly redecorated. It was all due to be moved into Messer Vasari’s new office building around the corner, but the packing had only just begun. I looked around for the head clerk and found him kneeling in front of an ancient-looking document chest.
‘Comandante Celavini,’ he said unenthusiastically. The sbirri tended to put a lot of enquiries in the way of the tax office, but niggling, time-consuming ones that the clerks seemed to find even more onerous than the paralysingly dull work of their day-to-day. ‘How can I help our oh-so-diligent police today?’
‘Two names,’ I said. ‘I don’t need you to calculate anything; I just want information.’
‘Two names.’ The clerk, whose name was Boschi, raised his eyebrows sceptically.
‘Zanobia Linucci and Bartolomeo Ormani.’
‘And what information do you want?’
‘Anything.’
‘Can you give me a little more to go on?’
‘One’s dead.’ I paused. ‘And the other …’
‘Ormani, you say? That’s an old, old name.’ Boschi hunched his shoulders and frowned. ‘No Ormani has paid tax in Florence for a very long time. It’s a name from before this palace was built. In fact, the tower used to be theirs: the palace was built around it. They were called the Foraboschi then, of course.’ He stalked over to a huge stack of shelves holding vast ledgers, their damp-puckered leather spines secured by rusting chains. ‘I expect there are Ormanis somewhere else in Italy, maybe even in Tuscany. I can have a look if you really need me to.’
‘Thank you. The only thing I know about Zanobia Linucci is that she was possibly from Pitigliano, and she was a widow, so Linucci may be her husband’s name.’
‘Pitigliano is outside the State of Tuscany,’ said Boschi peevishly. ‘It’s a fief of the Orsinis.’
‘Yes, I know. I said possibly from, Signor Boschi. But she was from south of here.’
‘Was?’
‘She was murdered this morning.’
‘Ah. She was that Vennini fellow’s lover.’
‘Dear God.’ I shook my head in amazement. Even this half-fossilised tax official had caught the latest gossip. ‘Yes, that’s her. Do what you can, please. You have a friend in the chancery, don’t you? Ask him too. Your reward will be that if Donna Zanobia has died intestate, the state now owns a very nice house in Chiasso Cornino.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Boschi, folding his arms.
‘Our usual arrangement will apply,’ I assured him.
‘Good. I will send word when – if – I find anything of interest,’ he said, and turned his back on me.
I had the sudden need to be outside again and made my way back to the piazza. I looked up at the clock in the tower that had once belonged to an extinct family called Ormani. There were still three hours to go until noon. I walked to the Mercato Vecchio and threaded my way through the stalls, through crowds of merchants and shoppers, clouds of flies and wasps, flocks of sparrows, strutting gangs of pigeons and pickpockets, until I came to a stall stacked with an extraordinary arrangement of cheese. Ash-rubbed rinds, hay-wrapped wheels, some new and golden, some aged underground until they were almost black. Bottle-shaped caciotta cheeses hung from the cross-bar. A wiry little man in a greasy apron was arguing loudly and blasphemously with a cook who, I knew, worked in one of the nearby inns that doubled as brothels. I waited until the cook had reluctantly parted with a handful of coins for two cheeses from Pienza, then strolled up to the stall.
‘Good morning, Umberto,’ I said.
‘Comandante! Are you buying today?’
‘I need your very best,’ I said.
‘You’ll like this,’ he said, and, picking up a knife with a handle made from a goat’s horn, he cut a thin wedge from a cheese with a rind the colour of tarnished brass and held it out to me. I wasn’t hungry; in fact, my stomach had been jumping with nerves ever since I had left the house of the murdered woman. But to be polite I nibbled an edge, and it was, indeed, excellent: creamy, a little sour, a hint of the sheep who had given the milk.
‘It’s a Marzolino from Monte Amiata,’ he said. I closed my eyes and, despite my mood, took another bite and found myself imagining the rustle of chestnut leaves and the artless clank of sheep bells.
‘Delicious. Yes, I’ll buy one of those,’ I said.
‘Anything else?’
‘A caciotta with peppercorns. And I want to know if any wounded men were treated in the city last night or this morning. Sword wounds.’
‘Hmm.’ Umberto stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled twice. As he was unhooking one of the hanging cheeses, three young men appeared behind him. They were dressed in clothes that, a few owners ago, had belonged to rich and stylish gentlemen but were now shabby, though still rakish. Umberto and his sons had been my most useful informers for several years. I turned a blind eye to a few of their schemes, mostly procuring and gambling, and in return for this, and a judicious distribution of lire, they supplied me with detailed information on the Mercato Vecchio’s comings and goings, dirty dealing, fraud, the activities of their rivals (several of whom were also in my pocket) and the sort of gossip that didn’t make it to the ears of tax clerks in the Palazzo Vecchio. The sons grinned toothily at me, nodded their heads at their father’s instructions and drifted off into the crowd.
‘The lads will tell me if anyone so much as stubbed their toe,’ Umberto told me as I counted out three times the value of the cheeses I had bought into his hand.
‘Have these sent around to my house,’ I said. ‘And, Umberto, do you know anything about a woman called Zanobia Linucci?’
‘Aha! So it’s about that rumpus, is it? Thought so,’ Umberto said, rocking back on his heels. ‘As it happens, I know her cook. Riccio from Empoli. He’s an arsehole.’
‘So he is,’ I agreed. ‘He was the one who betrayed the poor woman. Do you know anything about her? Or about her patron?’
‘As a matter of fact …’ Umberto turned and called to a chubby teenager with bad impetigo who was sitting on a barrel behind the stall, throwing gravel at the pigeons. He was delegated to mind the business, and then Umberto led me across the square and into one of the alleys that led off the west side.
We were behind the church of Santa Maria in Campidoglio, one of the seediest parts of the city. ‘Just step in here,’ he said, unlocking a door in a damp, mossy wall. The houses around here were so old that some of them looked like candles melting into the ground. Beyond the door was a dim but cluttered space. I trusted Umberto within the confines of our business arrangement, but I kept my hand near the pommel of my dagger as I walked past him into a small warehouse that smelt strongly of sheep. Cheeses were stacked on rough pinewood shelves, and huge wicker-bound glass flasks of wine and oil stood between them. Plaster was coming away from the walls in sheets. A large ginger and white cat with only one ear glared at us from his perch on the sill of a high, barred window.
The cheese-seller shut the door behind us, bolted it, and brushed past me. ‘Your pardon,’ he muttered. ‘Now then …’
He extracted a key from inside his hose, opened a rather fine old cabinet that was leaning against one wall, kept off the damp floor with bricks, and began to rummage inside. ‘Here it is.’ He locked the cabinet again, tucked the key back between his legs, and held something out to me.
It was a pendant on a gold chain. I took it over to where a beam of sunlight shone past the cat onto a patch of drying olive oil on the tiled floor and held it up. ‘Jesus,’ I muttered.
The heart of the pendant was a cameo of a woman in profile, in brown and cream agate, which was obviously Roman, framed by curlicues of gold enamelled in red and green. Four baroque pearls, embellished with gold to resemble tritons, were fixed to the frame. At the top, two little gold mermaids flanked an enamelled shield, into which the pendant’s ring was fixed. The shield, though tiny, was so detailed that I could make out the coat of arms on it. A white field was divided by a gold stripe. Below, angled red stripes, and above, a tiny red rose.
‘Where did you get this?’ I asked Umberto.
‘That arsehole cook,’ he replied. ‘You know I have a bit of a sideline as a fence, Comandante. Just a dabbler, that’s me. A dabbler, and no rubbish either. Anyway, that Riccio came looking for me, which I take as a compliment to my reputation …’
‘Don’t push your luck,’ I reminded him.
‘No, no and indeed, no.’ Umberto held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘As I said, Riccio sought me out, asking if I’d be interested in some choice pieces. I said I might. You know, Comandante, can’t be too careful. A couple of days later he brings me this. And, Mary’s tits! What a beauty, eh?’
‘When was this?’
‘A few days ago.’
‘And he just stole it from under her nose?’
‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? A little shit like that, pulls off something a master thief would count as the pinnacle of his career.’
‘Did he say how?’
‘Just that the lady was distracted. Distracted! I ask you. Meanwhile, he said there would be more. The next day, he said.’
‘And was there?’
‘Well …’
‘Umberto,’ I said reprovingly.
‘You’re too sharp, Comandante,’ he muttered, fishing behind his codpiece again for the key. This time he opened his hand like a bored conjuror and presented me with a ring. I plucked it from his palm, holding the pendant out of his reach when he tried to take it.
‘I’m taking these,’ I said, putting them both in the pouch that hung from my belt.
‘Comandante!’
‘I’m saving you a lot of bother, Umberto. A lot. The men who killed Zanobia Linucci took the rest of her jewels. They belonged to the fellow who kept her as his mistress. And no, I don’t mean Pietro Vennini. Someone who paid to have Vennini cut to pieces and his own mistress almost beheaded. I don’t think you want him or his bravos after you.’
‘If you put it like that, Comandante.’ Umberto bit his lip, then gave a mirthless smile. He gave no sign of being angry, but I knew the man, and his cheery varnish hid a dangerous soul. But he was no fool either. The mirth returned. ‘I heard all about Vennini. No, I’ve no wish to end up as bistecca.’
‘I’ll put something your way,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘As if I would, Comandante. Now, shall we? I don’t like leaving Cadere in charge of the stall for too long. His face doesn’t encourage the buying of fine cheese.’
I left Umberto to lock up his warehouse after he’d promised to send one of his sons to me as soon as he had any information, and walked slowly back to the Bargello, so deep in thought that I was almost trampled by a pack horse on Via Calimala.
Captain Scarfa was waiting for me. ‘My report, Don Onorio?’ he said, as soon as I walked into the office.
‘That’s going to take a while,’ I said.
‘Hmph. A while, you say.’
‘It’s turning into a difficult one,’ I said, carefully. ‘You know how we hadn’t heard of Zanobia Linucci? Well, the man whose mistress she was is from outside Florence, and he seems to have used a false name.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ Scarfa made two fists and banged them together, hard enough for the bony knocking to carry around the office. ‘That bastard Vennini. I knew he’d leave us with a bloody mess to clean up, sooner or later. So what can you tell me?’
‘Two hooded men were let into Donna Zanobia’s house this morning around four of the clock. The steward let them in – he’s a sound fellow and a good witness – he says neither of them were her lover, who apparently has a crooked back. The cook, a Riccio of Empoli, was the one who informed on her. I need a warrant for him; he’s a nasty piece of work. The lover calls himself Bartolomeo Ormani, but there’s every reason to believe it’s an assumed name. He ordered the killers to take back all the jewellery and silver he’d given her.’
‘Ormani? No one’s—’
‘Yes, I know. No one’s carried that name in Florence for centuries,’ I snapped. ‘I’ve got the tax office and the chancery working on him. Donna Zanobia as well – she’s a mystery too. But you should see this.’ I took out the pendant and dropped it into Scarfa’s open palm. ‘The steward thought his mistress came from Pitigliano. And look here.’ I pointed to the tiny shield above the cameo. ‘That’s the arms of the Pitigliano Orsinis.’
‘Orsini, eh?’ Scarfa squinted at the pendant, then took the pair of eyeglasses he kept on a cord around his neck and fitted them to his nose. ‘This thing is worth a fortune. I thought you said the killers took everything.’
‘Riccio the cook stole this and took it to my friend Umberto to fence. Umberto naturally brought it straight to me,’ I said.
‘Naturally.’ Scarfa licked his lips. ‘The magistrates won’t like this. They’re giving me all sorts of aggravation about the business on the bridge. The Grand Duke is upset about it, and I don’t blame His Highness one bit.’
‘The men who killed Vennini were mercenaries,’ I told him. ‘I recognised one of the bodies: he was in Flanders when I was there. No doubt Donna Zanobia’s killers were mercenaries as well. I’ve got people checking the hospitals and the shady barber-surgeons. Vennini hurt at least one of them very badly.’
‘Good swordsman, Vennini,’ Scarfa said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you’d have an opinion on that, Don Onorio?’
‘He was a braggart, but yes, he was an excellent swordsman. He challenged me once, as you know.’
‘And backed out when you accepted. You might have saved everyone a lot of bother if you’d killed him then, Comandante.’
