The Wolves of St. Peter's (13 page)

Seeing the strange man flying through the air toward him, The Turk lurched in his seat. This proved too much for the chair. The legs snapped, and The Turk plummeted to the floor.

Imperia leaped up and, with both hands pressed to her cheeks, stood over The Turk, unsure what to do. It was Francesco who held out a hand, flinching as the amethyst ring bit into his palm. “What in hell?” The Turk sputtered as he struggled heavily to his feet.

“I'm sorry,” Francesco began. “He is not … well. And I think he saw Marcus at the docks. I think he saw what happened.”

While the splinters of The Turk's chair were swept away and a sturdier chair was brought to replace it, Raphael pressed a cup of wine into Dante's hand. “We will take care of it now,” he told Dante. “Be a man for us tonight and keep your peace.” Raphael looked to the others. “Could you please take Dante to the music room and keep him amused? I am sure you understand.” The other men did as they were told, but their reluctance was evident. They didn't want to miss out on the evening's entertainment. Taking Dante by the hand, Sodoma defiantly scooped up one of the wine pitchers. When the door closed behind them, only Francesco, Raphael, Imperia, and The Turk remained.

“Shall I continue?” The Turk asked, settling cautiously into the new chair.

“Please do,” Raphael said, pouring wine for The Turk. The Turk took the cup, displaying the ring yet again without the slightest sign of embarrassment.

Drinking his wine in a single gulp, he held the cup out to be refilled, and Raphael obliged. “As I was saying,” The Turk went on, “he became agitated and there was no option. It was not a very Christian burial, very expedient on my men's part. Had I but known his intentions, I could have prevented this tragedy. Can you forgive me, my dear Imperia?” He took her hands again in his.

A bell tolled the hour, and from the music room emanated the sound of laughter and the sweet murmurings of Colombo's lute, but the salon was quiet as they waited for her reply.

“But … but Silvio,” Imperia finally stuttered. “You are wearing her ring!”

“Ring? Whose ring? Calendula's?” He stared down at his large hands, which still held Imperia's small ones. “I don't understand. Every one of these rings is mine.”

“That one!” She pulled her hands from The Turk's and touched the amethyst as quickly as if it were burning hot. “That one! It was Calendula's! She was wearing it the night she was killed. It was cut from her finger. I mean, her finger was cut off, and the ring was taken, and now you are wearing it. Oh, Silvio! What am I to think?”

The Turk looked so taken aback Francesco could not believe for even one second he was acting. “Her finger was cut off?” The Turk asked weakly.

Imperia burst into tears. Raphael tried to intercede, but she waved him away, producing one of her lacy handkerchiefs to blot her cheeks.

“Oh, I cannot imagine my little girl's finger cut off,” said The Turk. “It's just
too
horrible.”

Imperia twisted the handkerchief in her lap. “I was very angry with Calendula about the ring. I asked her to sell it and give me my share. It's our business arrangement, the arrangement I have with all my girls. If I'd known what was to happen, though, I would never …”

Francesco thought this must be the fight the cook had been referring to. He tried to catch Raphael's eye, but he was too intent on the scene unfolding before them, his normally serene brow puckered with lines.

Imperia took a breath. “The night before Calendula was killed, she was wearing that ring. She refused to sell it, she was so proud of it.” Imperia looked at Francesco. “I know I didn't tell you this part. I was embarrassed—it seemed so cold under the circumstances. But I swear I was only thinking of her. With the sale of the ring, even after giving me my portion, she would have had enough money to marry Marcus.” She turned back to The Turk, who was now twisting the ring on his finger. “Still, she refused. She said she didn't need to sell it, that she was going to be a lady. Marcus was not only jealous but also heartbroken. I'm sure he believed the only thing standing between him and Calendula becoming man and wife was a dowry. And she goaded him too, telling him the ring was from a man far richer than himself. Marcus was so angry he struck her. And then, when her body was found …” Here Imperia started to cry, the words coming out in sobs, “Someone had cut off her finger and taken the ring … and here you are, Silvio … wearing the ring! And I swear to you on all that is holy and good: it is the same ring!”

The Turk closed his eyes for a moment, as if to let it all sink in. When he spoke, he sounded incredulous. “And so you think, all of you, that after I gave her the ring, I killed her and cut off her finger to get the ring back. I then threw the poor girl in the river …” As he spoke, he became increasingly indignant. “And then, after agreeing
with you that you should collect the body from the mortuary, I took it after all and hid it on my boat? Why, why, why? Why do you believe I would do such things?”

Raphael, always the peacemaker, was about to interject, but Imperia interrupted him. “I know, it sounds so terrible. I didn't want to believe it. But why do you have her ring?”

“This is not her ring, Imperia. It cannot be. It was given to me by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian himself. The stone was set by Maximilian's own goldsmith. There's no other ring like it. You see the chain of my initials, SG, around the band. Silvio il Greco. That's my real name,” he said, with a glance at Francesco and Raphael. “I like to say ‘The Greek' was the name I was born with, and ‘The Turk' is the name I earned. I'm afraid you are all terribly mistaken. It might have been an amethyst, but it was not this ring. It is impossible! But one thing
does
make sense now. I know why Marcus went mad yesterday. He saw the ring.” He pointed a finger—this one bedecked in an emerald—at Francesco. “And you. You must have seen it too!”

“Yes, I did.”

“And do you think it's the same ring?”

Francesco nodded. He hadn't known that the intricate chain etched in the band was a string of
S
's and
G
's, but it was most certainly the ring Calendula had held in front of his eyes, long enough for him to memorize every detail, every curlicue in the band's design, the intensity of the purple stone. Is that what she had wanted? He would have to think about that possibility later, though, as Raphael was now asking The Turk if Calendula could have “borrowed” his ring.

“And returned it before she was killed? She would have had to ‘borrow' it, as you so nicely put it, and then return it sometime between
showing it off and getting herself murdered. And if she returned it, why would her killer have cut off her finger if not to get the ring?”

“One of the servants then?” Imperia ventured.

“He borrowed the ring, gave it to Calendula, telling her he was going to make her a lady, then killed her and took it back?” The Turk's skepticism was evident.
If he is guilty,
Francesco thought,
wouldn't he go along with any theory that didn't point to him?
For that matter, why not just say there were many rings like his own belonging to all sorts of murderous types? “And I suppose you think the servant took her body too,” The Turk volunteered sarcastically.

“I don't know,” Imperia cried. “But where is her body? Where can it be?”

“I wish I knew the answer to that. I'll make some inquiries. But one thing I can assure you: Calendula's body is not on my ship!”

Francesco decided now would be the time to ask about something else that was bothering him. “What were Cardinal Asino and Paride di Grassi doing on your ship today?”

“What? You think they had something to do with Calendula? And how do
you
know they were on my ship today?” Francesco started to say he was there looking for Marcus, but The Turk interrupted him with an impatient wave of his bejeweled hand. “Let me answer before you think they had something to do with Calendula. Quite the contrary. They were there to buy slaves. Boys. No girls. Just boys. They like them very young and very pretty, if you catch my meaning.” He lowered his voice and chuckled a little malevolently. “Just like His Holiness himself likes them.”

“His Holiness? Pope Julius?” Francesco echoed, feeling ill. Christ, was he the only one not to have figured that out? That golden-haired boy he took everywhere. What an irony—the Christ Child in
The Marigold Madonna.
What had Michelangelo said to him?
Rome would be wise to remember the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah …

Francesco looked at The Turk. “And you sell …”

“A man's got to make a living, and better they get buggered by Christians than by heathens. Not that anyone will be making me a saint.” He laughed. “Anyhow, they didn't take them. Too old, they said, though the eldest is ten. Now I have twenty pretty young boys with no higher prospects than breaking rocks in the quarries. Unless you have need of one?”

Francesco shook his head vigorously.

“You have a lot to learn, boy. But you can see that Asino and di Grassi would have no interest in Calendula.”

Francesco cast a sideways glance at Raphael and was satisfied to see that he, too, looked taken aback by The Turk's cheerful confession.

Imperia, on the other hand, did not seem shocked. No doubt she'd been aware of this all along. “Please, please,” she begged. “I don't want to talk of your business. I want to know where Calendula is.”

“I promise I'll give this my full attention first thing tomorrow,” The Turk answered. “It might help to know what exactly you were told at the mortuary.”

Imperia took a deep breath. “That a fat man had already been there and paid handsomely for the privilege of taking a dead whore off their hands. The policeman asked him if he'd like another for the same price. He thought himself very amusing.”

The Turk, who seemed to find almost everything amusing, looked like he wanted to laugh. “Are you sure I'm the only fat man Calendula fancied?”

Imperia was stony-faced. “I could think of no one else.”

“I'll pay a visit to the mortuary tomorrow and see if a bigger bribe will elicit further details.”

“I thank you, but I doubt the fat man would have left his name.”

“It is very possible too,” Raphael suggested, “that the fat man was working for someone else.”

“Yes,” The Turk said, nodding and sending his chins dancing. “Indeed, the man we really need to find could be tall and thin, sending the fat man only to distract us. Did Calendula know any tall, thin men?” The Turk now seemed to be enjoying himself, as if this were a puzzle or game rather than the death of someone he professed to care about.

“I'm beginning to believe we'll never know what happened,” Imperia said with a sigh.

“Don't despair, my dear. A substantial bribe may work wonders. But perhaps tonight you might introduce me to the girl I saw on the way in. The one with the red hair. Such an unusual shade and such lovely curls.” He bowed to Raphael and Francesco. “I trust, gentlemen, we will meet again.”

They bowed in return. Imperia took The Turk's arm, but as she led him toward the music room, The Turk stopped to address Francesco. “You must come back to my villa, boy. I'll show you my collection of ancient and medieval weaponry. The largest in all of Italy. I have Mark Antony's breastplate, the one he was wearing in Egypt when he plunged his sword through his own heart. If you look closely enough, it still bears traces of his blood and, I like to think, Cleopatra's kisses.” They could hear his laughter even after the door had closed behind him.

“And there goes the most cheerfully evil man I hope I ever meet,” Raphael said.

“Do you think he's telling the truth?” Francesco asked.

“Absolutely. Though why do I think he is in the music room right now charming his next victim?”

“The one with red curls. He does like women with unusual hair.”

“And he does like to own things no one else has.”

“I wondered if he'd had Calendula's body preserved, to add to his collection.”

“I would laugh if I did not believe it possible. I would believe almost anything of that old toad.”

“I was thinking he looked like a bullfrog. Did you know about the Pope's boy?”

“No. I thought His Holiness was being kind to an orphan. I certainly did not believe what The Turk suggests. Perhaps it is to our credit that we do not think of such things?”

“Perhaps it's only because we have recently arrived in Rome and are, as the French say, naive. And yet I feel little better that those boys on the ship will be breaking rocks in a quarry. How many years will they live? One or two, before beatings or falling rocks end their lives?”

“I doubt even that long. I know I will be kinder to Alfeo tomorrow.”

“Nonsense. I fear I now speak with experience on this matter. No boy could have a better or more generous master.”

“I had hoped,” said Raphael, “this evening would be spent with a fine cup of wine and the new volume by Erasmus. I now only want to close my eyes and sleep.”

Francesco looked at the glass case. “Erasmus will wait for us. That is one of the marvelous things about books.” He had a brief fantasy of being home again, sitting by the fire and reading Erasmus aloud to Calendula … No, not Calendula! It was Juliet he meant. Juliet. He imagined what it would be like to sit with
Juliet.
He shook his head; he, too, must be tired.

“Will you come to my apartments tomorrow?” Raphael said, interrupting his thoughts.

“Thank you. Perhaps then you can tell me how Marc Antony plunged his sword into his heart while still wearing his breastplate.”

Raphael laughed. “You will have to ask The Turk. I am sure he would be happy to explain.”