14

 

Niccoluccio threaded through the streets, though he didn’t remember the trip. He wasn’t sure how he managed to stay upright. It felt like the strings holding him up had been cut.

The past few days had been a dream, a hint of Paradise. Now he’d been cast back to Earth.

It had to happen at some point. Habidah hadn’t allowed him any illusions about staying in her home. All he’d wanted was to put off leaving as long as he could. It smelled so sweet back there. Florence was a nightmare by contrast. He picked his way over the sewage-filled runnels, hand held over his nose.
He was so intent on remembering the smell of Habidah’s home that he hardly noticed he was back in his old street. The sense of familiarity made him halt. Two houses had been taken down and replaced. Another was missing its windows. The old servants’ chapel had lost all of its paint.

He still hadn’t seen anyone he knew. He strode to his father’s home without looking at it. He took a breath, braced himself, and faced it.

There was no one inside. He knew that at once. No smoke came out of the chimneys. At this time of year, there should be at least one fire. Puddles of frost-salted mud sat undisturbed in front of the door. When Niccoluccio had been young, if their front walk had looked so filthy, his father would have had him out cleaning it before dawn.

He stared for a long time until he found the courage to approach. The door was locked. No one answered his knock. His father was a late sleeper, but his siblings and their children and servants should have been up.

For a long time, he stood in front of the door, hoping that someone would come up and tell him what to do next. He nearly started speaking to Habidah as she’d taught him. The way she’d looked at him before she left made him hold back, though.

The last he’d heard (and his news was not recent), two of his four brothers had homes in the city. He had no idea where. His brother Dioneo had finished his legal training and begun to work for one of the city’s priors. The priorate met in the Palazzo della Signoria. He had no choice but to start walking.

The streets were far filthier than he remembered. Dark masses had congealed under the ice. A pair of pigs ruffled in the refuse. The roads hadn’t been cleaned by rain or city sweepers in a long time. After the faultlessly immaculate rooms of Habidah’s home, he felt he needed a bath just walking here. The buildings on either side seemed too close together, but he was sure that was a trick of his memories of rural Sacro Cuore. Florence had, in his absence, turned from a city of streets into a city of alleys.

He passed his first victims of the pest. Two men bore a cart covered with pale cloth. Niccoluccio may not have been able to see underneath, but the cloth couldn’t hide the stink. Niccoluccio had smelled bodies, fresh and old, too many times to forget it.

But if only Brother Rinieri could see how many people still lived here.

The filth diminished as he approached the figurative center of the city. The manors stood pridefully tall, overlooking the streets like little castles. Some bore faux-crenelated roofs. In the days before Niccoluccio had left, the vanity of it all had made him say a prayer for the people inside. After Habidah, it only seemed insignificant.

He didn’t see the Palazzo della Signoria until he stepped out into it. The street emptied out into a wide, clean cobbled space, free of the worst city smells. Even at this early hour, the plaza bustled. Foodsellers set up their stalls along the brick walls, but the plaza itself hosted nothing but people and their conversations: civil servants hustling to work, merchants in open-air meetings, clergymen giving sermons to crowds clustering to hear. Even in the aftermath of the plague, it was still as Niccoluccio remembered.

He stood at the fringes for nearly a minute before he remembered he’d come with a goal. As impressive as the plaza was, the priors only met here. They worked elsewhere. He spun in a circle and racked his memories before he alighted on the Palazzo Vecchio.

The Palazzo Vecchio was a broad, squat-looking rectangle with an ugly, jutting, off-center finger of a tower. It cast a deep shadow over half of the plaza. Like the manors, it had a crenelated roof, but the battlements were more than decorative. As one of the centers of Florence’s government, it had good reason to fortify itself against riots.

It had been built over the home of a rebel family to prevent their supporters from ever rebuilding there. The off-center tower had been a part of that home. Florentines took pride in the building, but Niccoluccio found it jarring. Time hadn’t improved its appeal. If anything, its walls were dirtier than he remembered.

The grand, golden foyer felt like a cathedral. Niccoluccio would have stopped in his tracks if he hadn’t just come from a more incredible place. Neither of the men standing guard inside looked at him, but the pock-faced secretary behind the lone desk did. Niccoluccio approached him. Hesitantly, he gave his brother’s name and then his own.

The secretary raised an eyebrow, but dispatched a page upstairs. Niccoluccio stood by the wall, closed his eyes, and tried to center himself. He didn’t have long to do that before the boy returned.

The boy led Niccoluccio up a flight of stairs and through a hallway far wider than it needed to be. Other people were about – Niccoluccio heard an occasional cough or wheeze – but they were hidden behind doors and few in number. The priors and their aides generally didn’t do any work this early. Like most of the city’s wealthy, they slept through the mornings.

Niccoluccio’s guide left him in front of a carved wooden door large enough for three men. The boy bowed before he left. Niccoluccio watched him leave. He hadn’t thought he’d deserved a bow. He couldn’t remember anyone in this city bowing to him before. He was so perplexed that he neglected to knock before entering.

On the other side, there was a door, a desk, and a man.

The man was not the younger brother he remembered – almost a stranger. Dioneo stood astride a finely carved oak desk piled with ledgers. His hair was thinning and exposed a patch of scalp. Some of it had started to lighten, a prelude to graying. His brow had grown a deep crease. He held a pair of hefty, white-framed spectacles.

But his eyes brought back memories sweet as strawberries. When they were young, he’d spent hours each day teaching Dioneo to read and do sums. Niccoluccio had once been able to lift his brother. Now Dioneo looked to be one-and-a-half times his weight. It was as if Niccoluccio’s brother had aged two years for every one Niccoluccio had been away.

Dioneo stood in a wordless stupor. He let his spectacles clatter to the desk. He brought Niccoluccio into a wrenching embrace before Niccoluccio realized what was happening. “You’re still alive?”

When Niccoluccio got his breath back, he answered, “That does seem to be the most appropriate greeting for the times.”

Dioneo laughed a disconcertingly deep laugh. “Well met! So long as there are still two Caracciolas in the world, we can remember how to laugh.” The edges of his eyes were wet, but he was not crying. He clapped an arm over Niccoluccio’s shoulder and led him to the seat before his desk.

Niccoluccio sat with hands folded in his lap. His pulse threaded in his ears as he explained what had happened – up until the point at which he met Habidah. Dioneo said, “I heard from a merchant that the survivors of your monastery’s lay community fled. They’d assumed you had all fallen to the pestilence. Was I told a tale? Does Sacro Cuore survive?”

Niccoluccio was oddly pleased that his brother knew the name of his monastery. He had assumed that his father – along with everyone else in the family – had forgotten it. “Your report was right. Would that those travelers had found us. We would have gone with them.”

Dioneo’s paunch sagged below his waist. “How many of them lived to make the journey with you?”

“I was the only one at the end. I left when I realized it.”

“On your own?”

Niccoluccio knew the lie was coming, but he couldn’t hold it back. “It was a long road from Sacro Cuore. I had supplies, but you are the first person I’ve exchanged more than five words with since I left.”

Dioneo couldn’t answer for a moment. He brushed the wetness from the corner of his eye. “Then your coming to us was twice a miracle, brother.”

“Very much,” Niccoluccio said, sincerely. It was the closest he could come to the truth.

Now he couldn’t keep the tears back, either. The two of them wept in earnest, and thanked God for the opportunity to meet again. Dioneo recovered himself in just a minute, though. His voice sounded as if it had never broken. He said, “I had imagined that I was the last of our family in Florence, as well. Our father was the first of us to die.”

Even after Niccoluccio had seen his old home empty, he’d tried to hope that his father was traveling or sheltering in the countryside. The news came as no surprise, but still felt like ice in his stomach. Dioneo told him next of their siblings. “Until you arrived, I had thought Umiliana and myself the only survivors of our generation.” Umiliana had lived outside the city ever since she was married. “I myself lost three of my five living children.”

News of death had become so commonplace that all Niccoluccio could think to ask was, “You have had that many children?”

Dioneo laughed again, boomingly, and shook his head, though there was a trace of anguish in it.

Niccoluccio said, “I didn’t mean– that is, to count your children as–”

“I have two living children now. Let’s leave it at that. I nearly lost my wife as well, but she miraculously recovered. Not nearly so miraculous as your arrival here, I might add. How long are you to stay before going to your next monastery?”

Niccoluccio said, “I have not applied to any other monasteries, and do not believe I will. I don’t feel suited for it after everything I witnessed.”

If Dioneo had had any idea of the gravity of what Niccoluccio had just said, he would have been taken aback. But Dioneo had always lived outside of the church. For him, leaving a monastery was on a par with changing from one job to another. “Then I insist that you stay with myself and my family. You have been alone far too long.”

“I passed our father’s house. It seemed empty. If it has not been sold, I could stay there and not get in your way.”

Something else had changed in his brother, too, that Niccoluccio was only just starting to see. There was a probing edge to his eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of condemning my dear brother to such danger. The pestilence lingers in the homes of the dead. Besides, I wouldn’t get to see you.”

Niccoluccio fought to keep the relief out of his voice. “If I would not be imposing.”

They were interrupted by a sallow clerk. While Dioneo was preoccupied, Niccoluccio looked about the office. Though he’d known his brother worked in governance, he hadn’t imagined anything this large, or that Dioneo would have men serving him. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Another sad tale. The prior I worked for, the vexillifer iustitiae, did not flee the city like his colleagues. He and his heir perished. As his senior officer, I am filling in for him in the meantime, and, if I have my way, permanently.”

The vexillifer iustitiae, the standard-bearer of justice, was one of the Florence’s seven priors, and the only one who didn’t represent one of the city’s districts. He, along with the podesta and the captain of the people, was one of the city’s highest legal authorities. Suddenly the size of the office and the voluminous ledgers made more sense.

When Niccoluccio didn’t answer, Dioneo grinned broadly. “Yes, things have gotten so desperate that the other magistrates are considering even the likes of me.”

All Niccoluccio could think to say was, “It’s an amazing opportunity to elevate the family.”

“What’s left of us. Speaking of, I must introduce you to them.”

Niccoluccio nodded at the ledgers. “Your work comes before me.”

“For now, dear brother, you are my work.” Dioneo put an arm around Niccoluccio’s shoulder before Niccoluccio could ask what he meant.

 

Dioneo stopped at several offices on the way out to announce that his brother had miraculously returned from his distant monastery. Niccoluccio stood obediently behind him, hands clasped. Their progress seemed interminable, but eventually they reached the plaza.

Dioneo’s home was near. It made their father’s look tiny. It was broad, shaped like a half-oval, and hosted a garden that must have looked spectacular in summer. The doors were shadowed by loggias. Dioneo led him inside. Portraits of Niccoluccio’s father and a man Niccoluccio didn’t recognize flanked the walls.

The next hour blurred into a stream of names and faces. Not only were Dioneo’s wife and two children at home, but so were their five servants. His wife had invited a cousin and her family to supper. Niccoluccio hadn’t met so many people at once since his first day at Sacro Cuore. By the time Niccoluccio sat to supper, he couldn’t remember if Dioneo’s wife’s name was Catella or if that was her cousin. It was all he could do to keep his thoughts centered. Every time he heard a new name, embraced a stranger, it felt like bits of him were flying off. Except for the washing of each others’ feet, the brothers had rarely touched each other. Niccoluccio had to hide a shiver whenever anyone, even Dioneo, touched him.

Dioneo soon departed to find a better point to end his work. Niccoluccio was left in a labyrinth of strangers. He couldn’t hear a word of the conversation. It flittered through the air, insubstantial. He heard himself responding. He and the other brothers broke rules whenever they so much as whispered at each other during communal meals. Niccoluccio couldn’t focus on either the conversation or the too-oily, too-rich rice pasta. His thoughts were as long-lived as a fog of breath.

By rights, he ought to have been more comfortable here than he had with Habidah and her companions. In an odd way, their very alienness had helped. They were so far removed from him that the only way they could connect was through the basic nature that united all humans. Niccoluccio had been lost and suffering, and Habidah had wanted to help. It was the same innocent manner that three year-olds related to the people around them.

Here, things were far from innocent. Niccoluccio abstained from the meat pies offered to him. He offered his servers an apologetic smile, but nothing else. He tried to hide his dismay at the gowns and jewelry the women (even his eleven year-old niece!) wore. They, in turn, didn’t disguise their disdain at his habit. It was freshly laundered, at least. It had been cleaned while he’d slept in Habidah’s home, though he didn’t care to think about how.

When Dioneo returned, Niccoluccio said, “Surely you didn’t finish your work so early.”

Dioneo was grinning. He wrapped his arm over Niccoluccio’s shoulders. “I haven’t even started it. I’ve visited the clergymen at the cathedral chapter, telling them about the miracle of your survival.”

“It wasn’t…” Niccoluccio started, and stopped himself.

“Wasn’t a miracle?” Dioneo finished.

“Of course it was a miracle,” Niccoluccio said. “Just one I would rather not speak of widely.”

“That is too bad for you, dear brother. My friend at the cathedral, Ambrogiuolo Olivi, wants to meet you. I have made an appointment for you in the morning.”

The way Dioneo spoke the name made Niccoluccio think he was expected to recognize it. “Who? Why?”

“You’ve seen how much of a toll the pestilence has taken. You weren’t here when it was at its worst. The corpse wagons flowed like a river. It hasn’t ended. Even now, people are only starting to return. They fear that the pestilence could return at any instant. People need a hero, a survivor to admire. A miracle to show that the world has not ended.”

Niccoluccio had already shaken his head several times by the time his brother finished. Dioneo, hand still over his shoulder, led him from the table before he could find his voice. “Ambrogiuolo is a powerful man in the cathedral chapter. He can do a lot for the family. You’ll see when you meet him. You do want to do more here than just live at my home, don’t you? Be active. Contribute.”

Niccoluccio stopped. He had become acutely aware how much his brother had accomplished while he was away. All he’d brought back from his twelve years as a monk was a conviction that he was no longer suited for it. Even at his most pious, he’d never felt so small. Perhaps that meant his piety had never been so sincere after all.

He was at the mercy of his own petty ego. And yet: “I will not be a hero. Let alone a saint.”

“Then don’t be, but the appointment is already made. See him. Tell the truth about what happened. Preach the glory of God in that way.”

Prior Lomellini had often preached that the world outside the monastery was a tempest, replete with evil and temptation, and that a man could not help but be caught up by it even when he knew better. Niccoluccio opened his mouth, throat dry, but he could not bring himself to say no to his brother. Not yet.