From Hell with Love (19 page)

“Do you…see something you like, sir?” the merchant asked on the other side of the table.  He was a rather skinny man with dark skin and hair, clearly of Sicilian descent, but his face was still intimidating.  A scar ran along the curve of his jaw, which made Niccolo wonder what kind of man he was about to fool.

“Yeah, I think so.  This tunic is quite vibrant…” he said, picking up the garment.  Niccolo was trying to maintain some semblance of propriety, but that meant nothing to the merchant.  When Niccolo picked up the dark green cloth, the man eyed him warily and his hand went down to the scabbard at his side.  Niccolo was only just able to stop himself from breaking his staring contest with the tunic.  “It doesn’t seem like that great of quality, though.”

“You have no sense of taste, then, as this was made by a skilled craftsman.”

“Oh, and what craftsman would that be?  Does he have a name?” Niccolo asked, staring into the man’s cold eyes.  The merchant’s son had been paying attention to the traffic on the street, using his peripheral vision, and was just waiting for the right moment.

“Well,” the merchant said, breaking eye contact so that he could recall the craftsman’s name.  It was just the moment of opportunity that Niccolo had been waiting for.  When the vendor looked down, Niccolo tucked the shirt underneath his arm and jumped backward, narrowly avoiding contact with a woman holding a large pot full of water.  Both the woman and merchant were surprised by the act, but Niccolo took advantage of this by taking hold of the woman’s shoulder and shoving her into the vendor’s table, causing a large amount of chaos in a short time.

“What?” the vendor asked in surprise, but Niccolo was not there to answer him.  He had already taken off, sprinting away from the string of merchants and gaining stares from men and women he had known for years.  “S-stop him!  Thief!” the vendor shouted, jumping around his table, not bothering to help the woman sprawled over his wares.  The Sicilian was about to run after him, but then Niccolo turned back to smile.

“Follow me and my friends will take your goods!” he shouted before turning and sprinting through the crowds.  Niccolo did not bother to watch the vendor’s reaction, but he knew what the Sicilian would do.  He would likely stop a few feet away from his wares and debate on whether Niccolo was telling the truth, but eventually would stay to man his stall and abandon his pursuit.

“Stop, you bastard!” Niccolo heard behind him.  In his confusion, he looked over his shoulder to see the merchant still pursuing him.  Niccolo cursed before running headlong into a group of people, knocking them to the ground.

“Sorry!” he whispered before picking himself up from the angry man that had served as his cushion.  Niccolo panicked as he realized that the vendor was the kind of idiot who would abandon his stall, but then he remembered the scar on his face and the knife on his belt.  The vendor could very well be the kind of man who would not hesitate to use his blade on a small time thief.

“I’ll kill you!” his pursuer screamed behind him.  This time Niccolo did not bother to look back and just focused on running through the streets of Firenze.  He ducked underneath donkeys and horses, trying to put obstacles in the vendor’s path, and jumped over stalls and tables that were in his way.

After a few minutes of pursuit, Niccolo looked over his shoulder and found that the thin vendor was still behind him, although he looked very tired from the effort.  It was not much of a relief, however, as Niccolo was also exhausted from the chase.  He turned back around and threw himself down a nearby set of stairs, hoping that he had just enough stamina to evade the vendor.

Labored breaths increased in volume as he ran through the narrow alleyways of Firenze, Niccolo doing everything he could to best his opponent.  Niccolo cursed between heavy breaths, wishing that he could go back in time and steal from a different vendor.  He was not going to last much longer.

Niccolo could see the Arno ahead of him and wondered when he got turned around, but he continued running anyway.  If he made it back to the Ponte Vecchio, he might be able to convince one of his father’s friends to pay for the tunic.  With this new plan in mind, Niccolo tried to sprint toward the open street, but he did not make it.  Just a moment after he had decided on this new plan, he was yanked backwards by his collar, which caused him to fall to the dirt of the alleyway.

It was a frantic chaos as the vendor fell on top of him, cursing his name and whatever family members came to mind, but Niccolo was not listening to the vendor’s words.  All he could see was the tan leather of the man’s skin and the wild look in his eyes.  The rot in the man’s gums was enough to make Niccolo cringe, but he pushed him off with a strong push of his back and legs, sending the older man over his head.  Niccolo picked himself up quickly, trying to regain his breath, but it was not long before he realized that the vendor was between him and the Arno.

“Look,” he started, his chest heaving as he considered his statement.  “I’m sorry, I only… tried to steal…the tunic…because I left my coin purse at home,” he said, but the vendor only regarded him with hatred.

“Liar!  You’re a thief!  I’ll kill you,” he snarled, the words barely recognizable.  After the statement he gnashed his teeth and brought out a knife with his left hand.

“Whoa, whoa!” Niccolo shouted, putting out his hands and dropping the tunic to the ground.  “It’s just a tunic!  I promise, I’ll pay for it!  I’m the son of Carlo Vespucci, I just spent the night with a whore and she stole my money!”

“Just new lies,” the vendor said, hunching over and approaching Niccolo with a violent agenda.

“I
am
Carlo Vespucci’s son.  I’m Niccolo!  He’s in charge of rebuilding the Ponte Vecchio, if you didn’t know.  The bridge that’s
right over there
,” he pleaded, pointing to the end of the street.  “If we just walk over there, we can settle this right now.  I’ll get someone there to pay triple, hell
, ten times
what that tunic is worth!  Just put away the knife…”

“You are a liar, and you are about to be dead.  There are things we must accept.  Now, you must accept that you have been caught, and that you are about to die at my hand,” he stated coldly, only a few feet away from Niccolo.  He halted for a moment, trying to figure out his best plan of attack.

“
Twenty
times,” Niccolo tried to negotiate, but the vendor was not going to hear it.  Before Niccolo could finish the words, the vendor lunged forward with his knife, bringing the blade toward Niccolo’s torso.  At the last second, realizing that there was not going to be any conversation, Niccolo turned away from the knife, only just avoiding the strike.  Almost immediately the vendor brought the blade back, turning it so that the edge could sink into Niccolo’s chest.  The merchant’s son was lucky, however, as the blade struck against his lowest rib and only cut into the skin.

It still hurt.

“No more talk!” the vendor shouted as he jumped after Niccolo, who had staggered against the wall of the alleyway.  He had only just regained his footing when the man was on top of him, but before the vendor could sink the blade into his heart, Niccolo threw up his arms and was able to stop the blade from running through him.  Niccolo’s face was inches away from the vendor’s lips, which were pulled back to expose his rotten gums again.  His breath was rank and smelled of fish and disease, but Niccolo could only perceive the blade that was less than an inch away from his sternum.

The two of them grunted as they both fought for control, but after a few seconds of effort the merchant seemed to have the upper hand.  The blade crept toward Niccolo’s exposed chest, which caused him to panic.  He thought about what it would mean to die here, a merchant’s son getting killed for not being able to pay for a tunic, and then found a reserve of strength.  Although the tip of the blade had been able to prick into his skin, Niccolo brought up his knee into the man’s groin, which caused him, and the knife still in his hand, to fall away from Niccolo.  He took that time to breathe in and gather his nerves, scrabbling to his feet, but the vendor quickly recovered and snarled at him.

“You fight like a woman!” he shouted before rushing into another attack, but Niccolo was ready for him.  When the vendor stabbed at his gut, Niccolo side-stepped the blow and grabbed the man’s wrist with his left hand.  The merchant growled at the act, but when Niccolo grabbed his throat and then threw his forehead into the man’s nose, he yelped in surprise.  With blood spraying out of his nostrils, the man staggered backward, which Niccolo used as an opportunity.  The merchant’s son stepped to the man’s left and swung him around, slamming the man’s wrist against the wall of the alley.  When Niccolo heard the clink of the blade falling against a rock, he knew that his idea had worked.

He jumped down to the ground and scrambled to grab the blade, but almost immediately the merchant was on top of him.  Niccolo could feel himself getting lighter and realized that the merchant had grabbed his collar once more and was trying to slam him into the ground.  He put out his elbows just in time and the strike was rendered ineffective, but the vendor was not done with him.  Niccolo stretched out his right arm and found the knife in his hand, but also found that the merchant had put his hand on top of his.

They struggled for a moment, the merchant trying to grab the knife from his unblemished hand, but neither side seemed to have the advantage.  As skinny as he was, the Sicilian was much stronger than Niccolo, which made him more than just nervous.

“You will die, thief,” the vendor promised, saliva dripping from his mouth as he wrestled with Niccolo.  When the drops hit his face, Niccolo realized that this was not a fight of honor, this was not a fight between gentlemen for some trivial pursuit.  This was a fight to the death and the man above him was not going to stop until one of them was bleeding out.  Niccolo’s brow furrowed as he realized that he could not escape the man’s grip, but he knew he had a way to distract him.  In a flash, Niccolo brought his bandaged arm up to the blade in his right hand and slipped it down, slightly cutting into the flesh underneath.  At first, the vendor was confused why Niccolo had done it, but after a moment he saw the rotting flesh and seeping wounds scattered along Niccolo’s arm.

“My God…” he said in shock, backing away from the arm in horror, which was exactly what Niccolo had intended.  He sat up quickly and sunk the knife deep into the vendor’s gut, which brought a look of pain and anger into his brown features.

“You…you!” he breathed out, his eyes shaking in fury, but Niccolo did not bother to care.  He brought the blade down, ripping the man’s abdomen in two, and stared into the eyes of the Sicilian.

“
You
.  You did this.  It was just a
tunic
,” he said before pushing the man away, watching him squirm as blood poured out of the deep wound.

“Help…” he pleaded out to the air, but his voice was too weak to garner any attention.  Niccolo shakily rose to his feet, blood staining the tunic he was currently wearing.  He looked down at the red blotch covering his stomach and then turned his attention to where he had dropped his stolen goods.  The green tunic was still there, untarnished by their confrontation.  Coolly and without emotion, Niccolo turned back to the dying merchant.

“I’m the only one who can hear that.  Do you really think I’d spend any more time on
you
?” Niccolo asked before turning away and raising his bloody tunic over his head.  He dropped the clothing to the ground before walking over to the green tunic and throwing his arms through the sleeves.  Once it was in place, Niccolo turned back to his victim.  The man’s eyes were fixed on him in anger, but the life had gone from them. 

It was only then that the adrenaline left Niccolo and the implications of his actions fully started to affect him.  He shook uncontrollably as he felt the dead man’s stare.  This merchant did not deserve this; he did not deserve to die.  Then Niccolo realized that he did not deserve to die, either.  He did not deserve to be afflicted by this disease; he did not deserve to be cast out of his home or abandoned by his friends.  What happened in that alleyway no one deserved, but it still happened.  Something like that was outside of Niccolo’s control.  As he made his way to the opening of the alleyway, using the wall to support himself, Niccolo tried to convince himself that it was just a matter of survival, that it was outside of his control.  However, it all sounded like hollow reasoning.

In the back of his mind, Niccolo realized that a man would still be alive if he had not tried to steal a green tunic.

***

Niccolo looked at his father’s estate, his home, and wondered what he was going to say to the man.  Carlo had been his father for twenty years and had loved Niccolo for most of them; that should mean something.  If it was a matter of love, Niccolo would assume that he had plenty in reserve, but this leprosy was a tricky business.  He had to find a cure, and if he approached this conversation correctly, his father would help him.

When Niccolo walked into the courtyard, one of the servant girls noticed him and gasped.  He turned in confusion, but she scampered away without saying a word to him.  Niccolo tried to remember her name, but it was not coming to him easily.  For a moment he felt awful, but that was only until his father appeared from the hallway the servant girl had disappeared into.

“What are you doing back here?” Carlo asked, his voice cold and hard.  His son looked at him, his mouth open as he tried to find the words, but eventually he gathered himself for their conversation.

“Father, I know this morning came as a shock…”

“I told you to leave,” his father responded, his gaze full of what seemed like enmity.  Niccolo shook his head as he put out his palms in supplication.

“I did, father, but I thought I could come back and talk to you in a civil manner,” Niccolo tried to explain, but Carlo stepped forwards, shaking in anger.

“You think civility will solve this?  There are no words you can say to me.”