NOVEMBER 7TH, 1494
No one will interrupt him at prayer, but as soon as he steps out of the church into the courtyard of San Marco, Brother Tomasso is hovering. It is afternoon. Girolamo had lingered to pray alone for a little while after the service. In the summer there would be hours of daylight yet, but it is November, and chill high clouds are making it seem dusk already a little before four o’clock.
“Thanks be to God,” Girolamo says, resignedly, wondering what it was now that couldn’t do without him for an hour. Tomasso is a tottering elderly monk who remembers First Brother Antoninus and the painter Brother Angelico. His spine is bent so that his head juts forward, and he has only the thinnest fringe of snow-white hair around his tonsure, but his blue eyes are clear and warm. He has been assistant to the First Brother for too long, so that he thinks of that chore as his real work and fusses over it, instead of concentrating on his devotions. This kind of over-identification is a good reason for regularly rotating offices, but in Brother Tomasso’s case it’s too late. Girolamo doesn’t want to break a good old man’s heart by demoting him.
“Piero Capponi is waiting to see you,” Tomasso says. “And that woman of the Count’s is here. And Brother Benedetto insists on an interview.”
Angelo died, after another day of vomiting and agony. They buried him in the church of San Marco. Piero de’ Medici hadn’t objected, or suggested that he should be in San Lorenzo beside Cosimo and Lorenzo, or that as a great Florentine poet he should be with the city’s honoured dead in Santa Croce. To Brother Girolamo, this makes his guilt clear. Marsilio Ficino came to the funeral mass, and all Angelo’s friends. The church was packed with every humanist and educated man in Florence. The Count was in the front row, looking pale. Piero wasn’t there. Girolamo conducted the mass. He still wanted to confront Piero with his treachery. Angelo was his tutor, his own man, which makes poisoning him a betrayal of such a magnitude he can hardly believe it possible.
The Count has been failing slowly ever since, declining all through October. He came to Girolamo’s All Souls’ Day sermon, where Girolamo had preached against rich families trying to buy their way into Heaven by art donations to churches that aggrandize the family. Girolamo had seen him there, looking grey and ill, but he hurried away afterwards and did not wait to speak. If Isabella is here, then the Count must need Girolamo. The King of France, with his huge army, is coming close. Piero de’ Medici, attempting to repeat his father’s legendary action that ended the Pazzi Wars, has gone alone unarmed into Charles’s camp. Girolamo thought of Angelo when he heard, blaming all Piero’s failings on his experiences during the Pazzi years. Everyone is drawing the comparison now, and hoping the son can do as well as his father. Doubtless Piero is hoping the same. Charles is the Sword of the Lord, and he is coming. Girolamo has prophecied that the Count will not live to see it. And yet, Camilla Rucellai said that the Count would join San Marco at the time of the lilies. She could be wrong, of course, but when he heard it Girolamo felt that certainty that is the mark of true prophecy, as if her words were confirming something he had always known. Lilies, an Easter flower, will not bloom again until spring. He sighs. Prophecy is only sometimes helpful.
“What does Capponi want?” he asks.
Tomasso can no longer shrug, but he makes a gesture with his bent shoulders that serves the same purpose. “I don’t know. He’s waiting for you in the Pilgrim Hall. I know he’s not a pilgrim, but it’s very cold today, and there’s a fire there.” It was indeed cold, one of the days when the wind came straight down from the snows of the mountains. The last of the leaves had been whirled off the trees, and the Tuscan olive harvest was over.
“I’d better see him first and find out.” Capponi is a diplomat, one of the crop of talented men picked out by Lorenzo who do the work of running the city for the Medici. “Tell Benedetto I’ll see him in my room after Twilight Prayer, right before dinner. And tell Isabella I’ll come out to her as soon as I can.”
Tomasso tuts and wrinkles his nose at the thought of speaking to the Count’s woman.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Our Lord spent time with sinners. Think of Mary Magdalen. And Isabella has spiritual gifts. She saw a demon. Perhaps she will take vows, after the Count dies.”
Tomasso bows his head even further, acknowledging the reproach. “How can she?” he asks. “She’s neither virgin nor widow.”
“There are Magdalen orders,” Girolamo says. “There’s the Convertite. But there’s not enough of them. We could do with a Magdalen order of Dominicans here.” The problem with that is that it wouldn’t be popular for endowments. People wouldn’t want to send their chaste daughters there. Rich widows wouldn’t want to retire to it. A convent can make some income from spinning and fine embroidery, and from copying manuscripts, but if the nuns are to eat, it also needs to own property that brings in money from rents. The Church is too dependent on wealth, but he can’t see how to manage without it. The Franciscans, technically an order of beggars, attract huge donations and are now very rich.
“Maybe the Count would endow one,” Tomasso suggests.
“The Count has given away all his money, lots of it to us. Maybe we could endow one. Look into the possibility.” What he’d need would be a very respectable widow. Any man doing it, even a monk, would be accused of wanting somewhere to send his discarded whores. It is a sadly fallen world.
He makes his way down to the Pilgrim Hall. Over the door is a Brother Angelico fresco of Christ coming as a pilgrim with a staff and being welcomed by two Dominicans. It lifts his heart to see it, as it always does.
Inside, there are a number of indigents huddled around the fire waiting for dinner, and among them Piero Capponi, in his red citizen’s cape, looking prosperous and urbane. He is a short man, and plump, so he also looks very much like the capon that his family are named for. He comes forward to greet Girolamo affably, which is a relief. He was half expecting a senatorial reproach for his last sermon.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Capponi asks, after politely declining offers of refreshment.
Girolamo considers the parlour, but it will be cold and unwelcoming. He leads him out through the cloister, along the corridor, and up the stairs to the cells. At the bottom of the stairs is a Brother Angelico fresco of the crucifixion. At the top is his Annunciation, one of the most beautiful paintings Girolamo has ever seen. Capponi stops a moment at the turn of the stairs, his breath taken away; then he admires it aloud. “Gabriel’s wings,” he says. “And the Virgin’s face, so delicate, so expectant.”
“And her house is so plain, as plain as this one,” Girolamo says, pointing it out. Like many of Brother Angelico’s paintings, it could be taking place right there in San Marco. “Sometimes they show her in a palace, but no, the holy family were simple people.”
Capponi nods. Girolamo leads him down the corridor to his own cell. Brother Silvestro is sitting writing in the outer office, his tongue poking out as he concentrates, so Girolamo takes Capponi into the little cell where he composes his sermons. He seldom brings outsiders here, the second wooden chair is usually for his brothers. “Didn’t you design this chair?” Capponi asks, sitting down. “I have one at home. Wonderfully comfortable. Very clever, all these curved slats.”
He nods. “It’s just an improvement on the old version. Carpenters enjoy making them.”
Capponi looks at him shrewdly, his head tilted slightly, and suddenly there is nothing of the capon about him at all. “Have you heard the news from the French camp?” he asks.
Girolamo shakes his head. “Only that Piero went out to them.”
“Damn fool thing to do. Lorenzo got away with it fifteen years ago in Naples because he was Lorenzo—and also we were desperate. Besides, he had allies in Naples, the crown princess was in his pocket. Pope Sixtus wanted Lorenzo to apologize for not being assassinated, but Lorenzo found a way out. This…” He sighs. “This isn’t at all the same. Militarily, this time, we weren’t in a bad position. Sarzana and Senigallia were well-fortified and strongly manned. We could have held them off until Pope Alexander sent troops to help us. Though with this Borgia pope we can’t tell what he’ll do. We’ve had a bad run of popes.”
Girolamo can’t be tempted into speaking out against the Pope, but privately he agrees. Sixtus IV was a terrible pope, Innocent VIII was only a little better, and Alexander Borgia is working out to be the worst yet. Secretly, he suspects Borgia may be the Antichrist. He has legitimized his son Cesare and appointed him cardinal, and openly moved his mistress into the Vatican.
“You’re speaking in the past tense. Has the Pope taken action?” he asks.
At that moment, San Marco’s bell begins to ring to mark the hour of four, the high bell they call the Wailer. No one knows, when they cast a bell, how it will sound, and this one has a strange high-pitched lingering D tone. They can’t hear each other speak until it stops, but Capponi shakes his head in answer.
“We can’t fight against the Sword of the Lord,” Girolamo says, when it is quiet again.
“Yes, I’ve heard you saying that. Florence is the Ark, and the Sword of the Lord is coming to sweep everything else away. This isn’t the usual kind of war, nothing like it. Did you hear what they did to Fivizzano? Sacked it, killed everyone. Terrible. You think Charles will take Naples, then?”
“I know he will. He will take it with hardly a blow struck.”
“Well, that’s the case. He’s taking us, anyway.”
“What has happened?” Girolamo leans forward.
“That fool Piero can’t negotiate his way out of an open wine cup. He’s given Charles everything; all our fortresses, Pisa, and two hundred thousand florins, too.”
“That’s bad.” Girolamo shakes his head. “That’s disastrous in fact. Pisa! In exchange for what?”
“Nothing,” Capponi says. “We’re supposedly allied with him now, and he’s got all that—well, except for the money, which Piero hadn’t packed along. The Senate won’t put up with this.”
“You can make them put up with it,” Girolamo says.
“And you can make the people put up with it, if you stand up and say it was God’s will. We don’t want blood in the streets. A sack doesn’t help anyone.”
“Hasn’t Charles promised not to hurt Florence?”
“Not even that.” The two men stare at each other for a moment. “First Brother, Piero’s not a bad man. He’s arrogant, and he’s not half the man his father was. And he’s young. I’d hoped he’d learn. Poliziano—”
“I believe he poisoned Angelo Poliziano. And Count Pico, too.”
“What!” Capponi starts up out of his chair, then settles back into it. “Perhaps he is a bad man.”
“By what right does he rule Florence? Lorenzo, yes, Lorenzo was first among equals, I’ll grant you that. And I’ve heard the same said about his grandfather, Cosimo. But young Piero? What makes men like you follow him?”
Capponi shakes his head slowly. “Brother Girolamo, I’d be prepared to die for Florence if necessary. For the Medici, even. Lorenzo made me all I am. But not for this piece of foolishness which benefits no one. We’re neither of us fools.”
“No,” he says, cautiously. “Is Piero back?”
“No, the news came ahead of him. Bad news has wings. The Senate wants to send another delegation to Charles, repudiating Piero’s terms, making a better deal. Piero had no actual right to negotiate for us, not a scrap.”
If Charles granted Piero authority to negotiate, then the authority existed, whether it did on paper or not. The Medici had always ruled from behind the scenes, seldom holding office. “Sending another delegation seems like sound sense in the circumstances.”
“I came to ask you, to beg you, to keep the people quiet. The people will listen to you. You don’t need an official voice, you’re a prophet. It cuts past all of that.”
Girolamo doesn’t need God to tell him that this is the moment to act. “And now?” he asks.
“Now I’m asking you to join the Senate’s delegation to Charles. You can persuade him not to harm the city.”
“Yes,” Brother Girolamo says.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I can do that. Charles won’t harm Florence once I have spoken to him.” He is sure, and awed by his own certainty even as God speaks through him. The most unstoppable army Europe has ever seen is sweeping towards defenceless Florence, and he knows he can stop them, singlehandedly, with nothing but words. He is sure, as sure as he has ever been of anything. “But it will take all of our strength. We must trust in God, but trust ourselves, too, and be alert.”
Capponi nods. “Are you ready to go?”
“I have to speak to someone first,” he says.
“I’ll assemble the rest of the delegation here. I’ll bring a horse for you. We can ride in half an hour.” Girolamo considers refusing to ride, but it would be an assertion of pride, not humility, in these circumstances. He nods. Capponi leaves, looking relieved to have his mind made up. Girolamo pauses to kneel before his crucifix for a quick prayer, then follows.
Brother Benedetto is waiting outside his cell. “I want permission to transfer to Bologna,” he says, without any preliminaries.
“I said after Twilight Prayers. I don’t have time now,” Girolamo says. “And I have to go. I’ll deal with you when I get back.”
“But this won’t take long. First Brother Vincenzo has sent for me, and I have a wonderful opportunity for promotion!” Benedetto objects.
“You shouldn’t be thinking about any worldly promotion, only the promotion of your soul to Heaven,” Girolamo says. Benedetto comes from a wealthy family, and though he is intelligent, he can’t seem to let go of being proud and worldly. “Go to the church and repeat the Lord’s Prayer thirty times, and then say the rosary, and really think about what you’re saying.” Girolamo has pity on him. “You can take my big rosary.” He reaches to his belt for it.
“I have one,” Benedetto says, and shows his own rosary, gold links and garnets, where Girolamo’s has black wooden beads on a string. “After I’ve prayed, can I go to Bologna?”
Girolamo doesn’t want to give up on the soul of his brother, but he is in a hurry. The French are coming, and the Count could be dying. “Yes, go,” he says, unhappily. Benedetto can be Vincenzo’s problem. He hurries out to the gate of San Marco. Isabella is waiting, wrapped in a dark brown cloak. Her face is red with weeping. He can see the edge of her dark hair, slipping uncombed from under her scarf. “Did the Count send you for me?” he asks.
“No. I came myself. I think Giovanni’s poisoned, the same as Angelo,” she says, low-voiced. “I caught his servant Cristoforo putting a powder in his food. I turned him off, and he went straight to the Palazzo Medici. But Giovanni’s worse, and I can’t manage to care for him entirely alone. The servants still haven’t come back, and if I hire someone new I don’t know if they’re in Piero’s pay. Can you let me have a reliable brother to help?”
He doesn’t have time, the whole city, the whole of Italy, is poised on this moment. He can’t send a monk back with her, she can’t have thought how it would look. “Bring him here,” he says, abruptly. “He was almost ready to take vows. The brothers will care for him in the infirmary, as if he were one of us.”
“But I—” She stops, and knows what she would have said, that she won’t be able to care for him herself, or even see him once he has been taken inside San Marco to the cells. But she is brave, and wants what is best for the Count. She clutches the cloak at her breast. “Yes.”
“Some brothers will come with you and carry him here,” he says.
Girolamo goes back in and finds Domenico and Silvestro still in the outer office. He gives them rapid orders, concerning both the Count and his own forthcoming absence. Old Tommaso comes up with a clean white under-robe, someone else’s, and his own best black robe to go on top of it. “Don’t want you to be a disgrace to the Order,” he says, in his quavering voice. “There’s mud and worse all over the one you have on.”
He’s right, and the hem is fraying, too. Girolamo takes the clean habit and thanks the old brother. Then he closes the door of his cell, leaving his brothers outside. He prays before his crucifix for a moment, then fumbles in the locked drawer of his desk and draws out the little volume of Pliny he found in Santa Lucia two years ago. He thrusts it into his sleeve.
Then he goes downstairs again, and Capponi is back, with five other men and a spare riding horse, already saddled. He swings himself up, adjusting his robe, and follows Capponi away from San Marco, towards the French and his destiny. The bell is ringing again. The last thing he sees as they ride off is Isabella’s tear-stained face.
The day is almost over, and the wind seems edged with ice. When they come to the city gate, it is besieged. As usual, it takes Girolamo a moment to realise that no one else can see the demonic legions that surround the walls. They are demons of all kinds, great and small, animal headed, bat winged, armed with spears and swords and claws, drawn up in a great host that stretches out as far as he can see, covering the hills and fields, with shadowy banners waving about them. They are pressing on the walls, thousands of them, blue, and red, and green, and black, or pink and fleshy, all monstrous, all hideous, and ringing the city. As they see Girolamo they begin to howl. “Stop,” he says, in a choked voice, and the other envoys rein in their horses, looking at him curiously. He slides down from his own beast, and tosses the reins to the nearest envoy, without looking.
As he steps forward he realises that, try as they might, the demons cannot pass the wall, and that it is not the physical wall of Florence that repels them, as it might a material army, but the mighty wall of prayer and repentance that has been built up around it and through it. He cannot see the spiritual wall, but he can see the demons flinging themselves against it and recoiling. Florence can hold them off now, she is strong enough. But there is no need to leave her open to their constant assaults, not when he is here. The demons retreat snarling before him as he advances. After a few steps, he fumbles the translucent green stone out of the book and holds it high in his right hand, letting the thin sunlight fall on it. With his left he forms the circle, and he begins to sing, as loudly as he can, the powerful heartening words of Psalm Fifty-one. The demons stream up like a great mist, becoming insubstantial like smoke and flowing through his fingers. When the last of them has gone, he puts the stone back in his sleeve and goes back to his horse.
“Nice to have a prayer for setting off,” Capponi says, looking sideways at him as he mounts up again.
He nods. He doesn’t want to see demons when other men do not, didn’t ask for this power and this responsibility. But since God has given it to him, since he can act to banish them, then he will do so. The city was holding them off without him, he reminds himself. The wall of prayer was resisting. It is the most reassuring sign he has ever had of the effectiveness of his ministry.