Suicide Kings (35 page)

Diana blinked. “Well, technically we were running away.”

“Not specifically from him!” Siobhan snapped. “Oh God, it hurts! You can’t even imagine!”

Diana frowned and wiggled her nine fingers for her friend. “Can you walk?” Diana asked, changing the topic to something more critical.

Siobhan nodded. “I can, just not so quickly as before. I can see myself out all right. I won’t be much use to you down below, though. I urge you to come out the window with me.”

Diana shook her head. “I can’t leave Francesca. Are you sure you can get out by yourself? I won’t leave you either.”

Siobhan nodded. “I’ll meet you outside. I think this lot will all be running home. No need to hide any longer.”

Diana gave her a quick embrace. “Be safe, Siobhan.”

“You too, Diana. Be careful.”

With a sense of apprehension, Diana turned and began her fateful descent into the flames. She hoped she did the right thing, leaving Siobhan alone. If she aided Siobhan, she abandoned Francesca, and by aiding Francesca she abandoned Siobhan. Either choice was fraught with risk. If in the end, she chose wrong, and one of her friends came to harm, she’d never forgive herself.

By now the scent of smoke stung her nostrils. As she took the steps down, the Council members were fleeing for the door, trampling over each other, pushing each other, cascading over each other. Any sense of shared purpose they might once have had disappeared in the urgency of self-preservation.

She plowed into their mass without any thought for her own well-being. Her eyes searched about desperately for her anchoress friend. “Francesca!” she called out, her voice drowned out by the screams of the terrified throng. From one brown or gray robe to another, she could barely tell the difference in this mass of arms and masks. These people jostled and pushed her, not because she had slain one of their own, but because she stood between them and the door. At last, she pushed her way through them and their whirling gathering slid past her like a rough winter wind. She turned back to watch them for a moment, pressing each other to get toward the door and safety. She didn’t see Francesca among them.

Just through an archway, the reception area burned. The flames had gone up and across the far wall now, spreading easily through the rotted wood despite the cold. Heat flowed copiously through the doorway. She could still see the outlines of the two dead men, Lajolo and the guard, flames coating their bodies now like a blanket. No sign of Francesca.

“Diana,” hissed a male voice from behind.

She spun to find herself face to face with one of the figures in brown, a serenely smiling Venetian mask hiding whatever emotion might lay behind. Lowered against one leg he held a wheelock pistol much like her own.

Diana brought her own pistol up, resting it across her left forearm. She hesitated to fire. Dressed in brown, he wouldn’t be one of the important leaders.

“I’m the one you want,” the man said, his voice low, raspy, unidentifiable.

“What do you mean?” she shouted, conscious of the growing inferno behind her, crackling wildly now with the sounds of splintering wood.

“I’m the one you’ve searched for. Let the others go back to their lives. I killed your mother.”

Diana sobbed instantly, blinking away tears at the words. “Why?”

“I’m sure the Boar told you. Only he didn’t know she told one other of her intentions. Me. She trusted me and I poisoned her so as to protect my own future. I didn’t mean for it to be the way it was for her. I had no idea nightshade would have the effect on her it did. I intended her death to be peaceful. Believe that at least.” She could see his eyes only through the mask, and beheld in them something like true sorrow.

The voice was impossible to register. Could it be her father? The sorrow in his voice—who else could it be? Tears came down her face. “How could you do such a thing?” she begged to know.

“I could offer any number of excuses, but ultimately it is a matter that I valued my own life over hers, isn’t it?” he said coolly. A moment passed. Diana felt like her heart might split in two. “If it matters at all to you, I’ve come to regret what I’ve done.”

Diana let forth a raw primal scream. For a moment she could not look at him, whatever the risks; despite he might shoot her, she could not stand to look in his direction, mask or no mask. Only with great revulsion could she bring her eyes back toward him, staring at him over the barrel of her gun. Her hand trembled on the pistol. The pain in her finger throbbed with every pulse of blood through her body.

“Would you not shoot me down, knowing it was I who killed your mother?” the figure asked quietly.

Behind her, the flames roared higher, stronger, sending gusts of heat rolling through the front hall. Minutes…seconds…the fire would spread through the hall. If they remained standing here it would engulf them. Yet she could not move, could not pull the trigger, could not murder a man, even if he had murdered her mother. Her instinctive rage had been spent on Lajolo. It angered her—a dark part of her she’d never known before—to learn she had such a weakness.

“I thought not,” he whispered, his voice almost sad. Slowly, he raised his pistol.

Diana fired at last. Her shot took him in the sternum with a snap, and knocked him to the ground. His pistol scattered away and his head clunked against the rotted wood floor. He lay there, arms outstretched, gravely wounded.

Diana rushed to his side and knelt. He breathed still, although the breaths came shallow and quick. Through the mask, his eyes rolled over to her, wide and afraid. She reached down for the mask. She had to know, even if it were her father, even if she committed patricide, she had to know.

Her fingers hesitated.

“Do it,” he whispered.

She snatched away the mask, flinging it into the shadows. She held her breath as she stared down at the face beneath. Not her father. Bernardo Tornabuoni. “Oh, God!” she said, horrified. “You?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his breath raspy. “I was afraid of the Mad Friar. I was just afraid.” He reached one hand toward her, but she wrenched her arm away, moved out of reach. She stared at him, speechless, dizzy, nauseated. “The flames. I don’t want to die in the flames. The pistol…”

She gaped a moment, not comprehending. Then she followed the direction of his shaking fingers to his own pistol, cast aside when he fell. She stood and hurried to it, taking it from the spot where it had flown. Her own pistol she tucked into its holster and now this one she braced over her forearm as she had learned to do. The barrel, she directed toward his skull.

He looked up at her, weakening now beyond words. Her body shuddered, and tears came furiously from her eyes. She hesitated, caught between an act of murder and an act of mercy, the desire to see him die painlessly or to let him twist in the agonies of a cleansing fire. Could she be like Savonarola, finding pleasure in consigning others to the most horrible of deaths? Gritting her teeth she forced herself to concentrate, to take careful aim as she slowly squeezed the trigger.

****

She found Siobhan and Francesca sitting together outside. Well, Siobhan lay on her stomach on the cold ground. The rest of the Council had scattered into the night. Diana could still see a few of them disappearing into the darkness, returning to their normal lives, perhaps now never to return to the heresies of the Council. Who knew, it didn’t matter. The Council would be Savonarola’s problem from now on. Diana had her satisfaction. If only it left her satisfied. At the end of it all, her mother still moldered in the grave, and Diana only accomplished adding a list of dead to her own reckoning.

Siobhan and Francesca at least were safe. Siobhan, not surprisingly, remained in obvious discomfort, although her bleeding did not seem bad. “Damn carriage of yours took off at the first sight of trouble. Can you believe that? I’ve got to walk all the way into town with a lead ball in my arse.”

Diana sat next to Francesca. The older girl still wore the brown robe she’d gotten for her ruse. She watched Diana without speaking.

When she felt she’d gotten enough control over her voice to keep it from degenerating into bawling hysterics, she said, “Quite brave of you, what you did, Francesca.”

“I sought to end your impasse.” Francesca cocked her head to one side. “I hope that it was the right thing.”

Several heartbeats passed in silence. Then Siobhan said, “You’ve found who killed your mother, haven’t you?”

Looking away, Diana muttered, “Bernardo,” and her resolve broke, her shoulders unable to hold back their shudders, nor her eyes a flood of tears. She wept for her mother, whom she’d been unable to save, and for Bernardo whom she’d begun to love despite that horrible secret he kept from her. She wept for her father, whom she’d accused of murder. She admitted that no small part wept for herself, who had been so stupid, too sheltered to stop this evil before it occurred, and unable to do anything but kill in response.

Heat from the conflagration behind them swept over her and with it came the comforting arms of her friends, Francesca and Siobhan.

Chapter Twenty

Denouement

Diana sat on a set of stone steps across from the Basilica of Saint Zenobius. With a parchment and piece of charcoal, Diana sketched its outlines. She’d never done much drawing before, never really had the inclination. Suddenly this morning, she’d decided to see if she had any talent for it. Given the result so far, it looked more like a barn than a basilica; she guessed she would not be ranking as the first female Great Master of Firenze. Still, it provided good distraction. Drawing the Basilica also made her feel close to her mother, despite that she had not set foot in the cathedral since the fateful night of Savonarola’s Bonfire. A month had since passed.

She didn’t notice she had company until the figure blocked out the sun and cast her in shade. She looked up, one hand shielding her eyes. With surprise, she found Niccolo standing above her. A pang of guilt swept across her chest. Somehow she lingered on the thought she’d managed to wrong him. She felt certain she had, even if she could not exactly pin down what she’d done wrong. “Niccolo, such a pleasure,” she told him.

He sat next to her, returning her to the warmth of the sun. “It is good to see you. I’m glad I found you here. How do you fare, Diana?”

She used her cheek muscles to make a facial shrug. “As well as might be expected I suppose. My finger only aches when it rains. The headaches have mostly gone away. My father still treats me like I’m made of glass, though. That’s actually kind of nice, in a way.”

He smiled, a gesture for him that never quite managed to look kind. “And your comrades?”

“Siobhan finally manages to walk without bitching and moaning about it. Francesca has recovered her health completely.”

“She hasn’t gone back to the convent then.”

Diana shook her head. “Francesca tends to look for Godly messages in events. Nothing like being poisoned and buried alive to give you a message it’s time to move on, I suppose. She still doles out the occasional brain-numbing prophecy though. God is not about to leave that girl alone.” She flashed him a tired smile.

He chuckled, politely.

“It’s good to see you, Niccolo. I wondered how you were.”

He held his hands to the air. “The same as before. I am but a loyal servant of the Republic.” He looked over at her and smiled. “In fact I come to you bearing an unusual message on behalf of the Republic.”

“Oh? I returned the Friar’s warrant.”

“Not that. A compendium of thoughts and issues has coalesced in a way which might advantage you, although I’ll spare you the details.” From his tone, he wouldn’t tell her those details if she asked. “The short version of it is that the Republic has paid a full tuition for you at the Medical College at the University of Pisa.”

Diana stared at him as if he’d told her she could now flap her arms and fly. Finally she managed to cough out an incredulous laugh. “That’s a cruel joke to play, Niccolo. You know my thoughts on this matter.”

“I’m not joking.” He produced a parchment from inside his doublet and held it out for her. “This is your letter of appointment. We don’t have any sway with the University of Salerno, as I know that is your first choice, so the University of Pisa will have to do.”

She snatched the parchment from his hands, unrolled it and read, disbelieving. The contents of the letter were as he said. She now was a medical student at the University of Pisa, should she choose to act on the letter. “This is very generous. I don’t understand.” But she did of course. In part it would be Savonarola—and Niccolo’s—appreciation for helping to splinter the Council. But it also rid the city of a strange and monstrous woman who took lives like a man. She had no future here anyway. Better she go to one of the few places where women who acted like men might be accepted.

Niccolo waved off her protest. “An account has been taken out at the Fuggers’ Bank branch in Roma in your name. Held in trust, the account will pay out enough to cover modest living expenses for the duration of your studies. You’ll have to present this parchment to the bank officer in Roma”—he passed her another scroll—“and regular disbursements will be sent to you at Pisa.”

She held the two parchments like they might erupt into flame in her hands if she were not careful. “Dear Niccolo. I don’t know what to say!” She flung her arms around him, hugging him like a true friend. At last she let him go and looked down. “Niccolo, I am sorry that our paths did not cross more resolutely. At a different time…”

“At a different time we would not have met at all and your father would never have consented for a mere clerk to court you anyway.” He smiled at her. “And I would not keep you from your dream…your destiny. Perhaps we will meet again one day.”

Her face softened into a grin, warm at the fantasy of it, yet quietly knowing it was only fantasy. “I would like that very much. I suppose you will know how to find me.”

“I do at that,” he agreed. “I do at that.”

****

With her few things packed and a heavy heart, Diana searched out her father. She found him as always in his study, poring over his accounts. She knocked on the door, waiting for his soft but firm voice giving her permission to enter. She stood nervously by the open entry waiting for his acknowledgement.