“Father,” I answered. Loretta brought a chair. I thanked her and asked her to leave, but asked Zalumma to stay. Then I sat down and took my father’s hand; he was too weak to return my grip.
His breath came quick and shallow. “How like your mother you look… but even more beautiful.” I opened my mouth to contradict him, but he frowned. “Yes, more beautiful…” His gaze rolled about the room. “Is Matteo here?”
Guilt pierced me; how could I have denied him his one joy, his grandson? “I am sorry,” I said. “He is sleeping.”
“Good. This is a terrible place for a child.”
I did not look at Zalumma. I kept my gaze on my father and said, “They have poisoned you, then.”
“Yes. It happened faster than I thought…” He blinked at me. “I can hardly see you. The shadows…” He grimaced at a spasm of pain, then gave me an apologetic look once he recovered. “I wanted to get us out of Florence. I had a contact I thought could help us… They gave him more money than I did. I’m sorry. Can’t even give you that…” All the speaking had wearied him; gasping, he closed his eyes.
“There is one thing you can give me,” I said. “The truth.”
He opened his eyes a slit and gave me a sidewise glance.
“I know you killed the elder Giuliano,” I said. Behind me, Zalumma released a sound of surprise and rage; my father began to mouth words of apology. “Please-don’t be upset; I’m not asking you to explain yourself. And I know you killed Pico. I know that you did whatever Francesco told you, to keep me safe. But we are not done with secrets. You have more to tell me. About my first husband. About my only husband.”
His face contorted; he made a low, terrible noise that might have been a sob. “Ah, daughter,” he said. “It broke my heart to lie so cruelly.”
“It’s true, then.” I closed my eyes, wanting to rail, to give vent to my fury and joy and grief, but I could not make a sound. When I opened my eyes again, everything in the room looked changed, different.
“If I had told you,” he whispered, “you would have tried to go to him. And they would have killed you. They would have killed the baby. And if he had tried to come to you, they would have killed him.”
My life with Francesco, I realized, had been limited: I saw the servants, my husband’s guests and associates, the insides of churches. And no one had ever spoken to me of Giuliano. No one except Francesco had ever spoken at length to me about the Medici.
I looked back at my father and could not keep the pain from my voice. “Why did he not come to me?”
“He did. He sent a man; Francesco killed him. He sent a letter; Francesco made me write one, saying you had died. I don’t think even then he believed it; Francesco said someone had gone to the Baptistery and found the marriage records.”
Salai. Leonardo. Perhaps Giuliano had heard of my marriage and had it confirmed; perhaps he had thought I wanted him to think me dead.
“You want the truth…” Antonio whispered. “There is one thing more. The reason I was so angry with your mother…”
His voice was fading; I leaned closer to hear.
“Look at your face, child. Your face. You will not see mine there. And I have looked at you a thousand times, and never seen Giuliano de’ Medici’s. There was another man…”
I dismissed the last statement as the product of delirium; I did not consider it long, for my father began to cough, a low burbling sound. Blood foamed on his lips.
Zalumma was already beside me. “Sit him up!”
I reached beneath his arm and lifted him up and forward; the movement caused a fountain of dark blood to spill from his mouth into his lap. Zalumma went to call for Loretta while I held my father’s shoulders with one arm and his head with the other. He gagged, and a second, brighter gush of blood followed; this seemed to relieve him, and he sat, breathing heavily. I wanted to ask him whose face he saw in mine, but I knew there was no time.
“I love you,” I said into his ear. “And I know you love me. God will forgive your sins.”
He heard. He groaned and tried to reach up to pat my hand, but he was not strong enough.
“I will leave soon with Matteo,” I whispered. “I will find a way to go to Giuliano, because Francesco has little use for me now. You mustn’t worry about us. We will be safe, and we will always love you.”
He shook his head, agitated. He tried to speak, and started, instead, to cough.
Loretta came in with towels, then, and we cleaned him as best we could, then let him lie down. He did not speak coherently again. His eyes had dulled, and he did not react to the sound of my voice. Soon after, he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.
I sat with him through the afternoon. I sat with him at dusk, when evening fell. When Francesco came, his indignance over my escape from the palazzo constrained by false sympathy, I would not let him in my father’s room.
I stayed beside my father until the hour past midnight, when I realized he had not been breathing for some time. I called Loretta and Zalumma, and then I went downstairs, to the dining room, where Francesco sat drinking wine.
“Is he dead?” he asked, kindly.
I nodded. My eyes were dry.
“I shall pray for his soul. What did he die of, do you know?”
“Fever,” I said. “Brought on by an ailment of the bowels.”
Francesco studied my face carefully, and seemed satisfied by what he saw there. Perhaps I was not such a bad spy after all. “I am so sorry. Will you be staying with him?”
“Yes. Until after the funeral. I will need to speak to the servants, find them placement with us or a new family. And there will be other matters to deal with…”
“I need to return home. I am awaiting word on our guest’s arrival, and there are still many matters to take care of in regards to the Signoria.”
“Yes.” I knew that Savonarola had been arrested, thanks to Francesco’s timely defection to the
“Will I see you, then, at the funeral?”
“Of course. May God give us all strength.”
“Yes,” I said. I wanted strength. I would need it, to kill Francesco.
LXVIII
I did not watch Loretta wash my father’s body as I waited for Zalumma to return. Instead, I went to his study, and found a sheet of writing parchment, and a quill, and ink.
