Juliet (26 page)

Comandante Marescotti took a step back. He might be an army commander and always prepared for foul sneak attacks, but Salimbeni was
more dangerous than any foreign enemy. “Excuse us!” he said. “I believe Messer Tolomei and I were having a conversation.”

“You may have all the conversations you like,” Salimbeni shot back, “but that girl is mine. It is my one condition to maintain this ridiculous peace.”

Due to the general uproar following Salimbeni’s outrageous demand, no one heard Giulietta’s cry of horror. Crouched behind the column, she pressed both hands against her mouth and sent up an urgent prayer that she had somehow misunderstood the men’s conversation, and that the girl in question was not her, but someone else.

When she finally dared look again, she saw her uncle Tolomei stepping around Salimbeni to address Comandante Marescotti, his face contorted in embarrassment. “Dear Comandante,” he said, his voice unsteady, “this is, as you say, a delicate matter. But surely, we can come to some agreement—”

“Indeed!” His wife, Monna Antonia, finally dared speak again, this time to throw herself obsequiously at the frowning Comandante. “I have a daughter, fully thirteen, who would be an excellent wife for your son. She stands over there—see?”

The Comandante did not even turn his head to look. “Messer Tolomei,” he said, with as much patience as he could still muster, “our proposal is for your niece Giulietta alone. And you would do well in consulting her on the matter. These are not the barbarous ages, where a woman’s wishes can just be ignored—”

“The girl belongs to me!” snapped Tolomei, angry that his wife had intervened, and unhappy to be the victim of a lecture, “and I can do with her as I choose. I thank you for your interest, Comandante, but I have other plans for her.”

“I advise you to consider this more carefully,” said Comandante Marescotti, taking a warning step forward. “The girl is attached to my son, whom she considers her savior, and she will most certainly give you grief if you ask her to marry someone else. Especially someone”—he cast a disgusted glance at Salimbeni—“who does not seem to appreciate the tragedy that befell her family.”

Faced with such unswerving logic, Tolomei was at a loss to come up with a word of objection. Giulietta even felt a brief stab of sympathy for
him; standing between these two men, her uncle looked much like a drowning man grasping for the dispersed boards of a boat, and the result was anything but graceful.

“Am I to understand that you are opposing my claim, Comandante?” asked Salimbeni, once again stepping in between the two. “Surely, you do not mean to question Messer Tolomei’s rights as head of his own family? And surely”—there was no mistaking the threat in his eyes—“the house of Marescotti does not desire a quarrel with Tolomei
and
Salimbeni?”

Behind the column, Giulietta could no longer fight back her tears. She wanted to run over to the men and stop them, but knew that her presence would only make things worse. When Romeo had first mentioned his intention to marry her—that day in the confessional—he had said that, between their families, there had always been peace. It would seem that now, because of her, those words were no longer true.

NICCOLINO PATRIZI, ONE OF
the nine head administrators of Siena, had overheard the escalating conflict beneath the podium with growing apprehension. He was not the only one.

“When they were mortal enemies,” mused his neighbor, eyes fixed on Tolomei and Salimbeni, “I feared them greatly. Now that they are friends, I fear them even more.”

“We are the government! We must be above such human emotion!” exclaimed Niccolino Patrizi, rising from his chair. “Messer Tolomei! Messer Salimbeni! Why such clandestine airs on the vigil of Madonna Assunta? I hope you are not conducting business in the house of God?”

A pregnant silence fell over the noble assembly at these words spoken from the podium, and beneath the high altar, the bishop momentarily forgot to bless.

“Most honorable Messer Patrizi!” replied Salimbeni with sarcastic civility. “You pay no compliment to either us or yourself by speaking such words. Rather, you should congratulate us, for my very good friend Messer Tolomei and I have decided to celebrate our lasting peace with a marriage.”

“My condolences on the death of your wife!” spat Niccolino Patrizi. “I had not heard of her demise!”

“Monna Agnese,” said Salimbeni, unstirred, “will not live beyond this month. She lies abed at Rocca di Tentennano and takes no nourishment.”

“It is hard,” mumbled one of the Biccherna magistrates, “to eat, when you are not fed!”

“You will need to seek the Pope’s approval for a wedding between former foes,” insisted Niccolino Patrizi, “and I doubt you will get it. Such a torrent of blood has washed away the path between your houses that no decent man can send his daughter across. There is an evil spirit—”

“Only marriage can chase away evil spirits!”

“The Pope believes otherwise!”

“Possibly,” said Salimbeni, allowing an unbecoming smile to bend his lips, “but the Pope owes me money. And so do you. All of you.”

The grotesque claim had the desired effect; Niccolino Patrizi sat down, flushed and furious, and Salimbeni looked boldly upon the rest of the government as if to challenge anyone else to speak against his enterprise. But the podium was silent.

“Messer Salimbeni!” A voice cut through the murmur of subdued indignation, and everybody stretched to see the challenger.

“Who speaks?” Salimbeni was always delighted to get a chance at putting lesser men in their place. “Do not be shy!”

“Shyness is to me,” replied Romeo, stepping forward, “what virtue is to you, Messer Salimbeni.”

“And what, pray,” said Messer Salimbeni, holding his head high in an attempt at looking down at the contender, “can you possibly have to say to me?”

“Just this,” said Romeo, “that the lady you covet already belongs to another man.”

“Indeed?” Salimbeni cast a glance at Tolomei. “How so?”

Romeo straightened. “The Virgin Mary delivered her into my hands that I may guard her forever. And what Heaven has entwined, let no man tear apart!”

Salimbeni first looked incredulous, then broke into laughter. “Well spoken, lad, I recognize you now. Your dagger killed a good friend of mine lately, but I shall be generous and bear no grudge, seeing that you took such fine care of my bride-to-be.”

Turning away, Salimbeni made it evident that he considered the conversation
over. All eyes now fell on Romeo, whose face was aflame with revulsion, and more than one felt sorry for the young man who was so obviously a victim of the wicked little archer.

“Come, my son,” said Comandante Marescotti, backing away. “Let us not linger where the game is lost.”

“Lost?” cried Romeo. “There never was a game!”

“Whatever the dealings of those two men,” said his father, “they have shaken hands beneath the altar of the Virgin. Quarrel with them, and you will be quarreling with God.”

“And so I shall!” exclaimed Romeo. “For Heaven has turned against itself in allowing this to happen!”

When the youth stepped forward again, no gesture was needed to bring about silence; everyone’s eyes were already fixed on his lips in uneasy expectation.

“Holy Mother of God!” yelled Romeo, surprising the whole assembly by addressing the empty air of the dome above rather than Salimbeni. “A great crime is being committed in this very house, under your very cape, on this very night! I pray that you set the scoundrels straight and show yourself to them, that no one may doubt your divine will! Let the man who wins the Palio be your chosen one! Bestow on me your holy banner that I may drape it over my wedding bed and rest upon it with my rightful bride! Thus satisfied, I shall give it back to you, O merciful Mother, for it was won according to your will, and given to me by your hand alone, to show all mankind your sympathies in this matter!”

When Romeo finally fell silent, there was not a man around him who would meet his eyes. Some were petrified by the blasphemy, others were ashamed to see a Marescotti strike such a selfish and unconventional bargain with the Virgin Mary, but most were merely sorry for his father, Comandante Marescotti, who was a man universally admired. Whether by divine intervention following such a blatant profanation, or by the simple necessity of human politics, young Romeo Marescotti, in most people’s minds, would not be allowed to survive the Palio.

   [   IV.III   ]

…

W
ALKING AWAY FROM THE OWL MUSEUM
, I was torn. On the one hand it was a relief that the cencio and Romeo’s dagger were now in Peppo’s safe; on the other hand I regretted giving them away so quickly. Suppose my mother had wanted me to use them for a specific purpose? Suppose they somehow held a clue to the location of Juliet’s grave?

All the way back to the hotel I was resisting the urge to return to the museum and reclaim my treasures. I was successful mainly because I knew that the satisfaction of getting them back would soon be overshadowed by fear of what would happen to them next. Who was to say they were more secure in Direttor Rossini’s safe than in Peppo’s? After all, the thug knew where I lived—how else could he have broken into my room?—and sooner or later, he would figure out where I kept my things.

I believe I stopped in the middle of the street. Until this moment it had not even occurred to me that going back to the hotel was the least intelligent thing I could possibly do, never mind that I no longer carried the artifacts. Without a doubt, the thug would be waiting for me to do just that. And after our little hide-and-seek in the university archive, he was probably not in a particularly generous mood.

Clearly, I would have to change hotels, and it would have to be done in such a way that my trail went cold. Or maybe this was, in fact, my cue to hop on the next plane back to Virginia?

No. I could not give up. Not now, when I was finally getting somewhere. I would change hotels, maybe tonight, when it was dark. I would
become invisible, cunning, mean. This time, Juliet was going to the mattresses.

There was a police station on the same street as Hotel Chiusarelli. I lingered outside for a bit, watching the officers come and go, wondering whether this would be such a smart move—making myself known to the local law and risking their discovering my double identity. In the end I decided it was not. Based on my experiences in Rome and in Copenhagen I knew that police officers are just like journalists; sure, they’ll hear your story, but they much prefer to make up their own.

And so I walked back downtown, turning every ten steps to see if I was being followed, and wondering what precisely my strategy should be from now on. I even went into the bank in Palazzo Tolomei to see if Presidente Maconi had time to see me and give me advice; unfortunately, he did not, but the teller with the slim glasses—now my best friend—assured me that he would be more than happy to meet with me when he returned from his vacation at Lake Como in ten days.

I HAD WALKED PAST
the forbidding main door of Monte dei Paschi several times since my arrival in Siena. My steps had always quickened to bring me past this Salimbeni fortress without detection, and I would even duck my head, wondering if the office of the Head of Security was facing the Corso or some other way.

But today was different. Today was the day I took the bull by the horns and gave it a good shake. And so I walked up to the Gothic front door and went inside, making sure the surveillance cameras got a good shot of my new attitude.

For a building that had been burnt down by rival families—my own being one—torn apart by an angry populace, rebuilt several times by its owners, confiscated by the government, and finally reborn as a financial institution in the year 1472, making it the oldest surviving bank in the world, Palazzo Salimbeni was a remarkably peaceful place. The interior design blended medieval and modern in a way that made sense of both, and as I walked up to the reception area, the gap of time between now and then closed seamlessly around me.

The receptionist was on the phone, but held a hand over the receiver to ask me—first in Italian, then in English—whom I had come to see.
When I told him I was a personal friend of the Head of Security, and that I had urgent business to discuss with him, the man smiled and said I could find what I was looking for in the basement.

Pleasantly surprised that he let me enter just like that, unescorted and unannounced, I started down the stairs with deliberate detachment, while a chorus line of little mice were riverdancing on the inside of my rib cage. They had been oddly silent while I was running from the tracksuit thug earlier on, but here they were full force, just because I was going to see Alessandro.

When I had left him at the restaurant the night before, I had, quite frankly, harbored no desire ever to see him again. The feeling, I am sure, was mutual. Yet here I was, walking straight into his lair for no other reason than instinct. Janice used to say that instinct was reason in a hurry; I was not so sure about the reason part. My reason told me it was highly likely that Alessandro and the Salimbenis were involved in all the nastiness currently coming my way; however, my gut told me I could count on him, even if it was only to let me know how much he disliked me.