The King's Agent (5 page)

Just beyond the long Palazzo dell’Antella, patrons encircled every round, scarred wood table running along the front of the Angelo di Fuoco, some drinking toasts, others drowning their sorrows. The still-rising midday sun found the piazza, and its springlike warmth raised the heat of the festivities.

“Come, come.” The small, spry owner of the trattoria spied the approach of Battista and his men. “Marco, a table, chairs,
presto!
”

“
Grazie,
Pasquale.” Battista accepted the man’s hospitality, well earned through years of patronage. Without request the table thus placed, the correct number of chairs along its perimeter, soon filled with flagons of white Frascati wine and dozens of trays of food filled with
salame
and other sliced meats, chunks of
parmigiano
and sharply flavored cheeses, and breads.

“For you.” Pasquale himself brought over the tray of stuffed eggs, Battista’s favorite.

“Ah,
grazie,
Pasquale.
Grazie mille
.” Battista eyed the treats with unfettered delight. Boiled, their yolks removed and mixed with raisins, cheese, and spices, the eggs were stuffed and closed once more, then fried to a golden brown.

The men said little as they stuffed their mouths, gulped heartily of their wine, and watched the throngs of people coming and going through the square. Battista’s eyes wandered to the Basilica, its many white stone peaks and ornamented spires. His gaze moseyed to the palazzo above his head and the varying shapes of the windows. From this vantage point, one perceived their differences, though from the Basilica they somehow all looked the same. His thoughts languished upon little else but the delicious flavors assaulting his mouth and the moment of triumph still as fresh as the thin sheen of sweat upon his brow, accepting the nods and smiles of congratulation tossed his way by passersby.

“Did you see Alberto?” Pompeo asked him with a hearty belch, sitting back from the table, having consumed more than his share of the victuals.

Battista threw back his head and laughed, brushing dampened locks off his forehead. “I did. He does not enjoy losing. Not that he has to do it often. When you tur—”

“May we join you?” The deep-voiced request came from behind Battista.

Turning in his chair, Battista acknowledged the two well-dressed men, cheerfulness watered away like cheap wine.

Cecchino Bracci accompanied Bernardino Altoviti, as always, dressed similarly in short velvet
farsetti,
voluminous cloaks of camlet trimmed in miniver over these doublets, and high-crowned hats, costumes as befitted their stature as representatives of two of the leading families of Florence. The Altoviti men had been great soldiers for centuries, bestowed with the imperial knighthood, now ambassadors of great distinction. Minor nobles themselves, the Bracci family owned one of the largest banks here in Florence and in Rome as well.

Yes, they were two of the finest members of the Florentine community, but they were serious men, far too serious for a day such as this.

Battista reached for a
damigiana
of wine, pouring each newcomer a great dose of white liquid from the short, narrow neck of the large bottle, hoping to lighten their natural dourness with the spirits. But it was not to be.

“You have heard France and Spain battle once more for control of Italian lands?” Bernardino leaned his horselike face toward Battista, urgency in his hushed question.

Battista smacked his lips, removing with his tongue a piece of food stuck between his teeth. “Of course I have, Bernardino. It is all anyone has spoken of for days.”

“It is a sign, do you not think?” Cecchino asked the table at large, round puppy eyes blinking rapidly, not as reluctant as his companion to tender his words publicly. “The Medici days are numbered, I tell you. This action portends it for certain.”

The other men at the table greeted his pronouncement with hopeful nods and grunts of agreement. None here backed the Medici, including Battista. He, and his family of apothecaries, had been loyal to the Medici, but after the death of Giovanni de’ Medici—who had died as Pope Leo X—and the influence of the teachings of Savonarola, the Dominican friar outspoken against moral corruption, Battista’s beliefs and loyalties had shifted, like most in Florence.

All here were old enough to remember the benevolent rule of a
signori,
a republican body of government, functioning with the complete support and endorsement of its citizens. The taste of the returned
Signore,
a ruling family—one whose concerns did not often align with its citizenry—had turned bitter indeed over the last decade.

The glory of the Medici rule had reached its peak half a century ago, under the administration of banker Cosimo and his grandson, Lorenzo, Il Magnifico. Though they took no title, their furtively wielded power bestowed them with despotic power, authority equal to that of the
gonfaloniere,
the head executive office of the
signori
. Cosimo had expanded their reach to Rome, Milan, Venice, and beyond. Under Lorenzo’s diplomacy, Florence dismantled dangerous alliances, creating his own and ensuring the peace of the land.

But everything had changed under the rule of Piero, Lorenzo’s son, a feckless man who had fled when Charles VIII of France marched on Florence. The Republic rule that followed lasted only eight years—but few Florentines had forgotten the sweetness of it—before the Medici returned, under the power of Giulio, Lorenzo’s nephew. The man who was now Pope Clement VII had appointed Cardinal Passerini of Cortona as his administrator, and with him the citizens’ dissatisfaction grew sharper with each passing day.

“Passerini is a crude and greedy foreigner,” Cecchino spat, “with no respect for our elected officials.”

“You speak the truth there,” Battista joined in, as always pushed to anger at the mention of the contemptuous man. “Florence should be ruled by Florentines.”

The grumbling of agreement whirled about the table, an opinion festering throughout the city.

“I have heard he sends part of our taxes back to Arezzo, that sewer he crawled out from,” Ercole sniped.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Bernardino agreed. “But Clement does not seem to care. We have appealed to him over and over to replace the man, but every request has been dismissed or ignored.”

“And the bastard, Ippolito,” Frado grumbled in his cup, cursing the sixteen-year-old illegitimate nephew of the pope. “Already he swaggers with obnoxious cruel power. They are born to their evil.”

“And the pope allows it,” Bernardino quipped.

“He is leaving us no choice,” Cecchino riled them all further.

“And now a French king comes once more.” Bernardino clasped his hands together as if in prayer and leaned forward. Every man at the table focused upon the message he had come to deliver. “A French king has freed us from tyranny once before. I believe with all my heart he will do it again.”

Battista held firm to that hope, ever more resolute as François I had made the same intimation himself when last they had been together, when the king had made it clear that Battista, and Florence, could count on his support in return for the great works of art Battista provided him.

“That is why you must continue your work, Battista,” Cecchino chimed in. “Intensify it if you must. For the time is upon us and your work might well be the key to our freedom.”

Battista nodded his head, throwing back a last gulp of his wine. He scanned the faces of his men as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Seeing the same burning passion in their eyes that pulsed in his heart, he banged his empty cup upon the table. “
Sì
. The time is now.”

Nuntio rushed at him the moment Battista opened the door. Behind the bowed man’s back, he spied the stranger sitting upon his settee, and his hand eased toward the daggers at his waist.

“He comes with a message. I tried to make him leave it ... I tried to keep him beyond the door ... but he pushed his way in.” Nuntio’s rheumy eyes drooped at the corners, flicking back and forth between Battista and the stranger.

The strange visitor stood but did not move, drawing out no weapon, no look of fear or concern upon his unfamiliar features. Battista recognized no threat and concerned himself more for Nuntio’s fretting.

He gently took the older man’s gnarled hands—the skilled fingers that had once picked more locks than Battista might see in a lifetime—in his, led Nuntio to the large table, and poured him a glass of whatever lay in the bottle perched upon it.

“All is well, Nuntio. Have no fear.” Battista put the metal cup of red, fragrantly fruity liquid in the man’s quivering hands. “I know you did your best. You always do.”

Nuntio graced him with a silent, grateful glance before lowering his lips to the wine.

Battista turned back to the stranger, the soft sheen of patience and caring upon his face disappearing behind a stony countenance.

“You have entered my home when you were not made welcome. I can only hope, for your sake, you have good cause.”

The man’s right hand reached to the pouch at his waist.

With a clamorous clanging and the sharp
shing
of steel upon steel, four swords and three daggers promptly pointed at his chest, the only missing weapon belonging to Lucagnolo, now returned to his wife.

The man’s dark-avised face paled, and he swiftly raised both hands in the air.

“A message, signore. One I was instructed to put into your hands and your hands alone.”

Battista took in the measure of the man through narrowed eyes. With a flick of his head and the tip of his dagger, Battista gave the man permission to continue. With the weapons leveled at him, he’d be a fool to attempt anything else.

Wary gaze remaining cautiously upon the circle of men surrounding him, the stranger pulled out a thick fold of parchments. At once, Battista recognized the seal of the French king. He replaced the dagger to its rightful place with his usual reverse twirl flourish and stepped forward, accepting the message. François had never sent a communication directly to Battista before; he didn’t know what to expect or what this man knew, but Battista would reveal nothing to him in the ignorance.

Drawing out two large coins from his purse, Battista placed them in the man’s hand. “A pleasant journey to you,
messere
. I am saddened we will not see you here again.”

The man reached out tentatively and accepted the coinage; there was no mistaking Battista’s cryptic salutation, nor the profundity of it in his pointed glare. “
Arrivederci,
signore.”

With a tilted tip of his
beretto,
the courier took his leave. With a tick of Battista’s chin, the bald and bull-like Barnabeo stepped out behind him; he would award the man a safe, if covert, escort out of the city.

Battista watched their shadowy images pass the glazed windows, swiftly retreating to the table, breaking the red wax fleur-de-lis seal with a snap, and unfurling the folded golden parchment with a crackle. As he sat, his men gathered round him, their silence thick with curiosity and the scraping of chair legs across stone floor.

His wide-eyed expectancy sagged, mouth pursing. “It is in Latin.”

Without a word, Giovanni raised himself up and reached across the wide expanse of polished cherrywood, pulling the pages from Battista’s hand and his reluctant grasp.

With deep sighs of disappointment, the others stood and set themselves away ... some to cards, some to more drink ... leaving Giovanni to his work. All save Battista.

“I can’t do this if you keep hovering,” Giovanni grumbled without looking at the man pacing behind him.

Battista’s broad shoulders slumped as he raised his dark eyes heavenward. “But you are taking so very long.”

“Well, it is a very long message.” Giovanni did turn then, his own impatience in the set of his jaw. “And it is strangely wrought. Please, a few moments of stillness and it will be done.”

Battista looked as if he would argue, but thought better of it. Stomping to a chair in the front room, he flounced into it like a denied child on the cusp of a tantrum. His thoughts churned in turmoil, tossed about on the turbulent ocean of this message. The king must be riled indeed, to send a message directly. Only something so grave or of such dire consequence would impel him to forgo their usual and multibranched routes of communication. Battista envisaged plans to capture Florence or perhaps the imperative for Battista to return to France.

The years he had spent at the French court were some of the dearest in Battista’s memory, especially the time in the company of the king’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre. Their discussions on the fanatical friar Savonarola and his teachings were among the most stimulating of the young man’s life. If not for Marguerite and her brother, he would be dead by now, at the least imprisoned. When first he’d arrived in France, when his name or allegedly words by his hand were linked with an assassination attempt on the then Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, it was only by the protection of François that he had been spared prosecution. In a printed declaration, the king of France had placed the property of the della Palla family, and those of other families indicted as rebels, under the official protection of the French Crown. Such aegis included Battista himself and, with the act, the king had secured the young man’s lifelong loyalty.

Battista did not know his own mind should the missive call him once more to the king’s side. He would do whatever François asked, except, perhaps, turn his back on Florence when she needed him most.

The anxiety of his thoughts propelled him to his feet once more. He spun toward Giovanni, only to flinch away again for fear of halting the man’s progress.

“I believe I have it now.”

The call found him like a beacon through a dense fog, and Battista clung to it, rushing to Giovanni’s side.

“As I said, it was strangely formed. My translation is but the gist of it, as opposed to word for word.” Giovanni offered the parchment filled on two sides with his own pretty hand, and Battista grabbed it.