From Hell with Love (18 page)

"Oh, father, I did not know," Niccolo said, which caused Carlo's eyes to fill with disappointment.

"How
could
you?  You have been evasive, disappearing in the early morning and returning only at night.  Do you know what that has done to my plans?  I wanted your help with the Ponte Vecchio, Nico.  I wanted you to take some of the responsibility and make it so I didn't have to run around talking with every single vendor and tradesman in the city.  This was to be the first real assignment I was going to give you."

"I...what else can I say, father?  I'm sorry.  Forgive me, I have no excuses," Niccolo apologized, doing his best to keep his face filled with sympathy.  The pain and itchiness from his arm was starting to drive him mad, but he needed his father to remain ignorant.  To his surprise, Carlo bought the act and sighed heavily.

"I guess I shall have to, as my father did for me.  Remember, Niccolo, that we are men of passion, but we must also be men of moderation.  That is where we shall find our success," his father said before walking toward the doorway.  "Come with me.  Your stepmother is with your brother in the courtyard.  It's time the two of you met."  Niccolo was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but just before Carlo reached the doorway, he turned slowly and his face was full of suspicion.

"Oh, before we head down, I've heard from Arturo and a number of other vendors that you have been buying wool and linen.  Why is that?" he asked, staring deep into his son's eyes.  Niccolo stammered, unable to think of an answer for his father's question.

"I-I, it's a personal..." he started, but suddenly his father turned to face him and furrowed his brow.  Carlo was vicious and determined once he saw an ounce of weakness; it was the reason for his success in Firenze.

"Personal?  Have you taken up textiles, my son?  The clothes you wear should be enough…" he started, turning his gaze down to look at his son's clothing, but then his dark eyes stopped halfway to the ground.  "What happened to your arm?"

Niccolo looked at his rotting arm and his mind spiraled into despair.  Four crimson and yellow patches had started to bloom on the sleeve of his tunic, the bandages hardly stemming the flow of blood.  Before he could react, Carlo grabbed Niccolo's hand and jerked it toward him, his eyes filled with worry.

"Nico, what did you
do
?" he asked in desperation, turning his son's arm over and back again, seeing different spots of red working their way through the sleeve of Niccolo's tunic.  He set his hands to work, trying to roll back the cloth, but Niccolo was finally able to react and stumbled back toward the far end of the room.

"N-nothing, I...I got in a duel," he said, trying to come up with an explanation on the fly.  Carlo only stared at him with disdain.

"With
your
skills?  Only if you were massively drunk would you let someone strike you.  And in any case, if my son was going around dueling everyone I would have heard about it!" Carlo shouted, offended that his son was lying to him.  "What is the
truth
, Niccolo?" he demanded, looking around the room for some explanation that did not involve his son's lies.  He finally found what he was looking for by the wardrobe; a small, tan piece of linen was lying there exposed.  Niccolo tried to make up some excuse, but he could only stare in horror as Carlo stomped over to the furniture and used his foot to drag out the used bandages.

"Niccolo..." he muttered, finally realizing what had happened, his mind reeling in shock.  With tears in his eyes, Carlo Vespucci turned to his diseased son and whimpered.  "No.  No, you can't..." Carlo tried to speak, but he ended up trailing off toward the end.  It was a few moments before he sniffed loudly and then stared hard into his son's eyes.  "Show me."

"Father," Niccolo started, but his father slammed his fist against the wardrobe.

"Show me, you coward!" he demanded, forcing Niccolo to revert back to a child.  The merchant's son took off his tunic, his thin chest seeming to shrink as he could barely breathe.  Under his father's scrutiny, Niccolo undid the knot holding the bandages to his rotten arm, letting the putrefied linen fall away.  When his rotting, blemished flesh was bare for his father to see, Niccolo could not keep his eyes open.  He wanted to die.

"Get out," Carlo's voice came softly, causing Niccolo's eyelids to flutter open.

"What?" he asked, but when he looked at his father, he saw only misery and anger.

"Leave this house.  Leave now," the older man said, sorrow seeping through every syllable.

"Father-"

"Now!  I need to think," Carlo said, his resolve breaking along with his heart.  Niccolo tried to think up some argument, tried to think up some way to make his father forgive him for these lies, but he could not.  He loosely wrapped the bandages around his arm once more, he could tie them again once he left, and threw his tunic over his torso before rushing out of the room.  Carlo did not want him to be there and Niccolo surely did not want to stay.

Neither man had ever felt so alone.

***

Niccolo ran through the streets of Firenze, but he could not be bothered with the steady flow of foot traffic or the stares of people he had known all his life.  He could not care that bloody and putrid bandages were trailing behind him because he had not wrapped them tight enough.  Even the gasps of serving women and laborers did nothing to break him from his thoughts.

All he wanted was his life back.

He barreled through one of the markets, his shoulder slamming into the corner of a wagon, but he did not stop even when his tunic ripped at the seam and exposed his bandaged arm.  A fisherman gasped at the sight, but it only drew Niccolo’s gaze for a moment; the merchant’s son only had one thing on his mind.  Stares and screams would not stop him from finding refuge at the one place left to him.

"Marco!" Niccolo screamed as he slammed against the door of his oldest friend.  He threw his entire forearm into the strikes, the cheap wood almost splintering from the force, but he did not care.  Niccolo needed to have someone help him, needed someone to accept that he was still the same person.  "Marco, please!  I need you!"

"Nico...?" a confused voice came from the other side of the door.  Although Niccolo could hear the older man rummaging around his apartment, the merchant's son continued to rain blows down on the door, using his rotting arm without thinking and leaving bloody smears along the edges of the planks.

"Hold on," Marco said, clearly dealing with mental and physical fatigue.  When the door opened up, it revealed a man worse for the wear.  Although others might have viewed Marco with disdain, the older man was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to Niccolo.  He had taken to finding Niccolo’s cure with zeal, staying up nights drinking merchants and traders under the table so they would not remember their conversations about lepers.  Niccolo was about to burst into his friend's home when Marco blocked the doorway, his eyes wide with fear.

"W-what?" Niccolo asked, taken aback by the older man's sudden wariness.  Marco just continued to look at him in horror, but eventually Niccolo found what caused his friend's reaction.  Marco was staring down at the bloody mess that Niccolo's arm had become, the sores oozing clear, yellow liquid along with the deep red flowing from opened gashes.  Niccolo had not even thought about how his bandages had fallen away, exposing the leprosy taking over his arm.

"
Nico
... how long has it been like that?" he asked, still blocking the doorway.  Niccolo shook his head, unable to comprehend what his friend was thinking.  He looked back at his arm and finally realized why Marco was staring him down.

"A...a few days...but," he started, but Marco just shook his head in disbelief, his eyes started to glass over.

"Niccolo, that's...that's so much worse than it was after the viper."

"I know, but-"

"Nico," Marco interrupted, looking his old friend directly in the eye, "no one ever comes back from
that
."

"Marco, if you just let me in, we can talk this over.  I can explain what we're going to do," Niccolo pleaded, but the man on the other side of the door shook his head, tears starting to pool at the bottom of his eyes.

"I can't… I don’t want to end up like you," he said, hesitating on speaking the act aloud.  Niccolo's face twisted in horror as he realized what his oldest friend was about to say.

"Marco, no...no!  This is something I can fix!" he shouted, starting to reach for his friend with his good hand, but Marco evaded its contact.

"No, Nico, you
can’t
.  I don't know what you did to deserve this, but...what has happened to your arm…this must be
His
wrath," Marco explained, religious for the first time in years.  It was the only explanation that made sense.

"Marco," the merchant's son pleaded, but his friend just shook his head once more.

"Goodbye, Nico.  I am so sorry.  I tried…I wanted to help," he said before trying to close the door, but Niccolo slammed his hand between the door and the frame.

"You still can!" he shouted, but his friend rapped Niccolo's knuckles with a piece of metal, shocking Niccolo enough to retract his hand and allowing Marco to slam the door.

"I can't, Nico.  Whatever you did, you're paying the price.  I cannot share that burden."

"Marco!" he shouted, slamming his hand against the planks of wood, feeling a resistance that could only mean that his friend had his back against the door.  "Marco, you open this door!"

"Goodbye, my friend.  I hope that you find some way to live with this.  Perhaps you can find forgiveness," he whispered on the other side of the door.  Niccolo started to kick at the wooden planks furiously, yelling his heart out.

"Marco, you bastard!  You good for nothing sack of shit!  How long have I known you?! 
This
is how it ends?  You slam the door on my face?!  You leave me and abandon me to the wind!  Just because of a little disease?" he shouted, punctuating every question with a violent mark upon the door, the skin around his knuckles splitting in the effort.  By the last question, tears fell freely from his eyes and blurred his vision, but he could only imagine his friend on the other side of the doorway.  He could only imagine the expression on that coward's face.

"I can't go with you, Nico.  Wherever you go.  You're on your own," Marco whispered, his voice wracked by silent sobs.  Niccolo continued to beat on the door for a few more desperate minutes, leaving spots of blood all over the cheap planks, but eventually he ran out of anger and hatred.  He walked backwards, away from the doorway, and eventually had to turn.  Niccolo could not look at the mess that he had made of Marco's door.

It just made his loss all the more real.

***

Niccolo had found his way to a dark corner of the city, away from the prying eyes of the market district, and had grabbed a few hours of rest in the shade.  He could not risk the stares of the vendors and their customers, anyone who could recognize him; he could not take any more unwanted attention.  If he was going to make his way back to his home, it would have to be after normal business hours.  Niccolo just huddled into the corner between two homes near the Arno, hoping he could catch a few hours of sleep.

It had never happened.  All the merchant’s son could think about was how Marco, his one friend in the world, had abandoned him like this.  Niccolo thought briefly of what kind of revenge he would bring to the good-for-nothing drunk once Carlo cooled off, denial was a much better prospect than total hopelessness, but he could not bring himself to hurt Marco even in his mind.  Niccolo only wanted to stop this pain.

During his time in the shade, Niccolo had gone about making himself more presentable.  He washed the bandages in the Arno, trying to get rid of the stains from pus and blood, and then set them out to dry on a sunlit set of posts nearby.  While they dried in the sun and wind, Niccolo thought about what he could say to his father.  For a time, Niccolo set about gingerly cleaning his wounds in the river, but his mind was not entirely focused on the task at hand.  He could see the construction of the Ponte Vecchio downriver and tried to formulate an argument for his continued tutelage.  Carlo had spent so much time on Niccolo already; it would be a waste to throw him away, now.  There were not too many cases of successful lepers, but this was the modern age; there could be a cure out there.  It was possible Innocenti had given him the wrong kind of viper.

As his thoughts returned to the scheming merchant, Niccolo growled.  His “cure” had not been worth a cent, only serving to make Niccolo weak and sick for two days.  In return, Innocenti had been granted a very lucrative deal at Niccolo’s suggestion.  If his father took him back, it was going to be Niccolo’s first act to strike down that deal, as the sly devil had not kept up his side of the bargain.  After Niccolo cleaned his wounds, he walked back over to the shade and found his mind more than willing to consider revenge for the useless man.  As he tried to sleep, he smiled at the possible future where everything went according to plan.  His father would be proud, his enemies would suffer, but best of all he would return to being his normal self.  In his desperation, even the absurd seemed possible.

When the merchant’s son noticed that his bandages were waving freely in the wind, he walked over and examined them.  They were still a little damp, but Niccolo figured his courage would not last long; it was time for him to confront his father.  He tied the bandages tightly and tried to keep the bloody patches of linen on the inside of his arm.  Niccolo would make a better argument for himself if he could hide the worst of it.

After a few moments, he looked at his arm and smiled.  The sores still hurt a bit, but his time in the shade had been enough for scabs to form on some of the worst lesions and gashes.  He looked at his hand, which he had wrapped as well, and thought about Marco’s door.  Niccolo would have to apologize for that later.

As he made his way back to the Vespucci estate, Niccolo did his best to avoid eye contact with the people passing by.  Due to the state of his bandages, he drew some stares, but nothing like he had during that morning flight.  However, it was enough for Niccolo to realize that he would need to find better cover for his arm during the appeal to his father.  When he walked past a row of merchants along the side of a building, he tried to find a suitable garment that would obscure his condition.