The images propelled him to move for the doors, with the intention of flinging them open and going back to rescue his brother. But della Stuffa sensed his intention, and immediately pressed his body against the exit. Old Michelozzo joined him, then Antonio Ridolfo; the weight of the three men held the doors shut fast. Lorenzo was pushed to the outer edge of the engraved brass. There was a grimness in their expressions, an unspoken, unspeakable knowledge that Lorenzo could not and would not accept.
Hysterically, he pounded on the cold brass until his fists ached-and then he continued to pound until they bled. The scholar Angelo Poliziano struggled to wrap a piece of wool, torn from his own mantle, around the bleeding cut on Lorenzo’s neck. Lorenzo tried to push the distraction away, but Poliziano persisted until the wound was bound tight.
All the while, Lorenzo did not cease his frantic efforts. “My brother!” he cried shrilly, and would not be moved by those who came to comfort him, would not be stilled or quieted. “I must go and find him! My brother! Where is my brother?…”
…
Moments earlier, Giuliano had looked up in amazement as Baroncelli lifted his great knife overhead-the tip of the blade pointed directly at the younger Medici brother’s heart.
It happened too quickly for Giuliano to be frightened. Instinctively, he backed away-into a body that pressed against him, so firm and so fast, there could be no doubt its owner was part of the conspiracy. Giuliano glimpsed the man behind him, dressed in the robes of a penitent-and then gasped at the cold, burning sensation of steel sliding into his back, just below his ribs.
He had been terribly wounded. He was surrounded by assassins, and about to die.
The realizations did not distress him as much as the fact that he was trapped and unable to warn Lorenzo. Surely his brother would be the next target.
“Lorenzo,” he said emphatically, as Baroncelli’s knife at last came flashing down, the blade reflecting a hundred tiny flames from the candles on the altar. But his utterance was drowned out by Baroncelli’s panicked, nonsensical cry: “Here, traitor!”
The blow caught Giuliano between his uppermost pair of ribs. There came the dull crack of bone, and a second spasm of pain so intense, so impossible, it left him breathless.
Baroncelli’s clean-shaven face, so close to Giuliano’s own, gleamed with sweat. He grunted with effort as he withdrew the knife; it came out whistling. Giuliano fought to draw another breath, to call out Lorenzo’s name again; it came out less audible than a whisper.
And in that instant, as he stared up at the knife, as Baroncelli prepared to deliver another blow, Giuliano was transported to another place, another time: to the river Arno, on a long-ago day in late spring.
He called out for his brother, but no answer came; Lorenzo had disappeared beneath the cloudy water. Giuliano’s eyes stung. He could not find his strength or his breath, but he knew what he must do.
With strength he did not have, he pushed backward against the penitent, causing the man to step back onto the hem of his garment and fall, tangled in his robes.
Giuliano was free to flee, to stagger away from his attackers-but he knew that their main target must be Lorenzo.
Time slowed, just as it did that day in the Arno. Despite his lethargy, Giuliano willed himself to do the impossible and create a barrier between the attackers and Lorenzo. If he could not cry out a warning to his brother, he could at least slow the murderers down.
He heard his brother’s voice.
He could not have said whether it came from within the Duomo, or whether it was an echo from childhood, the voice of an eleven-year-old boy calling from the banks of a river. He wanted to tell his brother to run, but he could not speak. He struggled to draw in a breath, and choked on warm liquid.
Baroncelli tried to edge by him, but Giuliano wobbled intentionally into his path. Francesco de’ Pazzi pushed past his co-conspirator. The sight of blood had stirred him to frenzy; his small black eyes sparkled; his wiry body shook with hatred. Raising his dagger-a long blade, almost as slender and keen as a stiletto-he, too, tried to move beyond Baroncelli’s victim, but Giuliano would not let him pass.
Giuliano opened his mouth. What came out was an anguished wheeze, but he meant to shout,
Francesco snarled something unintelligible and struck. Weaponless, Giuliano raised a defensive hand; the knife pierced his palm and forearm. Compared to the agony in his chest and back, these fresh wounds were no worse than the sting of an insect. Taking a step toward Francesco, toward Baroncelli, he forced them backward, giving Lorenzo time to flee.
Francesco, vicious little man, let loose a torrent of all the rage, all the enmity, that his family had felt toward the Medici. Each phrase was punctuated by a further blow of the dagger.
Giuliano felt the piercing bite in his shoulder, in his upper arm. He could no longer keep his arm raised; it fell limply to his blood-soaked side.
Harsher wounds: his chest again, his neck, a dozen blows to his torso. Francesco was a madman. His hand, his blade, pummeled Giuliano so swiftly the two were enveloped in a crimson spray. His movements were so wild and careless, he struck himself in the thigh, shrieking as his blood mingled with his enemy’s. Pain fueled Francesco’s fury; again and again, he struck.
Giuliano was drowning. Such calumny against his brother would normally have incited his anger, but he had come to a place where his emotions were still.
The waters inside the cathedral were murky with blood; he could scarcely see the wavering images of his attackers against the backdrop of scrambling bodies. Baroncelli and Francesco both were shouting. Giuliano saw their mouths agape, saw the glint of wielded steel, dulled by the muddy Arno, but heard nothing. In the river, all was silent.
A shaft of sunlight streamed in from the open door leading north to the Via de’ Servi. He stepped toward it, looking for Lorenzo, but the current pulled strongly on him now. It was so hard to walk through the swirling water.
Just beyond his reach, the raven-haired Anna was weeping, wringing her hands, mourning the children they might have had; her love tugged at him. But it was Lorenzo who had the final hold on his heart. Lorenzo whose heart would break when he found his younger sibling. It was Giuliano’s greatest regret.
“
Lorenzo was sitting on the banks of the Arno, clutching a blanket round his shoulders. He was soaked through and shivering, but he was alive.
Relieved, Giuliano let go a shallow sigh-all the air that remained in his lungs-then sank forward and down, down to where the waters were deepest and black.
VIII
