19

 

At the breakfast table, Dioneo’s surviving children couldn’t stop talking about something that had happened in the skies early this morning. They hadn’t seen it themselves, but they had heard the story from their housekeeper. Shortly after the last of the stars had disappeared, a white streak had ripped across the sky, as if the firmament could be split like the skin of a fruit.

By the time Niccoluccio had woken, it had long since disappeared. According to the people who had seen it, it had been like a comet’s tail. Comets always heralded disaster.

Dioneo’s children were struggling to determine what could be worse than the pestilence. Finally, they turned to Niccoluccio. “Is this the end of days, uncle?” the oldest boy asked. He sounded as though he were asking if there would be fruit after breakfast.

“Never believe that,” Niccoluccio said.

He ate the rest of his bread in silence while his nephew at once disregarded him. He’d hardly had to think about his answer. He didn’t know what other people had seen, but he knew the end of days wouldn’t look like that. He could have conjured a thousand theological reasons, but none of those would have been the reason he’d answered as he had. He couldn’t have even explained it to Brother Rinieri.

He knew how small his experiences were, and how ill-equipped they left him to explain anything. His experience with Habidah had served to remind him how tiny he was underneath the heavens. Habidah had seemed like an angel. After her, he’d had no idea what an angel might look like, and had given up trying to conceive of one.

Dioneo met him halfway to the San Lorenzo parish. Niccoluccio hid his grimace, but Dioneo took no notice. Dioneo strode along with him, and took the opportunity to lecture Niccoluccio on politics.

“This city did not defend and support the papacy against the Ghibellines for so long to be ruled from Avignon as a reward. Our city is our own, not a… a French pope’s.”

Niccoluccio remarked, “The papacy doesn’t belong to any kingdom.”

Dioneo chuckled, bitter. “We made our choice to side with the papacy when the papacy was Roman. Whatever good men there were in the papacy have been choked by the stench of Avignon. Do you know how many whorehouses that city has? And how few monasteries and churches?”

Niccoluccio politely refrained from enumerating the brothels he and Dioneo had passed already on their walk today. He turned his attention elsewhere. At Sacro Cuore, he had always woken with the dawn. The sun was already halfway to its zenith, yet he still didn’t feel awake, and wasn’t sure he ever would.

Since he’d come back, every time he looked at Florence, he felt tired. The filth in the alleys and the runnels along the road made his skin itch. The smell of fresh-cooked meat from the marketplaces roiled his stomach. He hadn’t seen any plague dead today, but expected them at every intersection. If anything heralded the end of the world, it would be unburied bodies, not lights in the sky.

Passersby still gawked skyward. Eventually, they had to get on with the day, even if awed and subdued. By the time Niccoluccio and Dioneo reached the outskirts of the San Lorenzo parish, the markets were as bustling as the day before.

The skyline took shape as if from his memories. So much had changed about the city since he’d left, but not this neighborhood. He and Dioneo were only streets away from their father’s house. And there was Elisa Vergellesi’s home, with its multi-arched roof and trellised, ivy-spun windows. Further down the street, he would find the bakery that occupied the spot where the old grain market had been. He, Elisa, and Pietro had sneaked into the market at nights for their contests in love.

Elisa had been the daughter of a merchant who was often away, trading along the Grecian coast. She had been pretty, with pale skin and carefully braided brown hair. Pietro had had tanned skin, short blond hair, a handsome chin. Niccoluccio and Pietro had gotten it into their heads that they were play-fighting for her hand, and had kept up the illusion even after they’d grown old enough to realize what was actually happening.

Niccoluccio didn’t remember when he’d started to think that Pietro had been prettier. The first time he and Pietro had had each other had been in that grain market. Elisa had brought them there at night and declared that she needed to see them practice their arts of love before she would deign to let them touch her. When Niccoluccio and Pietro had sufficiently proven themselves, she would join them.

Niccoluccio felt light-headed, and had to close his eyes. The memories were heady and unwelcome, but he couldn’t push them away. He hadn’t turned to the monastic life to escape Florence. He’d turned to it to escape himself.

Niccoluccio’s memories of those nights kept him awake at night for years. He’d confessed his deeds. To his shock, his confessor had said that Niccoluccio had needed to scourge himself publicly, to bring Pietro and Elisa to the attention of the city authorities. Niccoluccio’s tutor had not been so severe, but had told him to seek monastic solitude. That was the only thing that could save him.

Niccoluccio shed most of himself in the monastery, but there would always be that rotten core at his heart. Monastic life had been helpful in other ways, but it couldn’t smother the flames of his youth or the sins of his body. He could no more divest himself of it than he could his bones.

It was a relief to reach the parish’s head church.

Dioneo showed him about. Niccoluccio would even have his own office, a shadowed space that reminded him of his cell in Sacro Cuore. Candles cast a respectful glow over it, and the mutterings of parishioners sounded like wind rustling trees.

Dioneo introduced the clergymen who would answer his questions. Then Dioneo announced he had an appointment he needed to keep. The clergyman disappeared as soon as Dioneo left. Niccoluccio was alone with the diocese’s account ledgers.

He read for hours. To his dismay, he discovered that Dioneo’s tirade against the papacy had some reason. The diocese had become significantly poorer over the past few years thanks to clerical taxes. The taxes had been collected in the name of crusade, but there had been no crusades in years.

The San Lorenzo parish and the Diocese of Florence had gone heavily into debt. Now the pestilence would prevent the diocese from raising the money to pay it off, let alone the new taxes.

Niccoluccio found one of the clergymen. The wisp-haired old man couldn’t quite meet his eyes. It took Niccoluccio a moment to realize that he was in awe. Niccoluccio hesitated a moment, and then told him to collect a count of the preachers employed by San Lorenzo and record their salaries. The old man nodded and scurried off.

Niccoluccio watched him go. If only he knew how unworthy Niccoluccio actually was. What would Habidah think of him, the real him?

He returned to his office. The noise from the parish hall grew louder as he read. When he stepped back out, the church had become full of parishioners, many of them looking toward his opening door. The closest stepped back with a respectful hush.

Dioneo had obviously not hesitated to share Niccoluccio’s story.

The nearest reached out to touch his sleeve. Niccoluccio drew back. People followed to the door, but, fortunately, didn’t chase him outside.

He kept his head down as he walked. At Sacro Cuore, he’d dared to believe he was beyond anger. His brother probably thought he was doing Niccoluccio a favor.

He flexed the muscles in the back of his throat, almost spoke to Habidah again. But she had her own problems. He didn’t need to run to her like she was his mother. Habidah was human, not someone to whom he could pray.

That he’d nearly started to meant that there was something deeply broken in him.

His chest still burned when he looked at Elisa’s home. Maybe, he thought, there always had been something broken. Sacro Cuore hadn’t changed a thing that mattered.