released from Bargello but nothing further was known. I felt a huge rush of joy at the news, but soon began to fret once again; I knew that if he’d been released into the hands of his cousin, he may have been safer in jail. I pestered my mother to find out more, and in the space of time that was only a sennight but seemed a year, she reported to me. In a voice filled with truth (I must admit), she informed me that my monkish friend had been released into the arms of the brothers at Santa Croce there to continue his calling on the condition that he did not try to leave their precincts. Relief filled my chestspoon, although a note of doubt sounded—I knew he did not want to reclaim his monkish life, but supposed that, if faced with death, he might have made his peace with his Lord. With that, I had to be content, until I could find a way to quit this place. For I was now trapped indeed. Not just by the city but by the winter, the cruel winds, mountain snows to the north, and freezing tides. However, nothing less than this news could have made me stay. My mother watched my reaction to the news carefully, in some ways as relieved as I. She suspected, I knew, that had I known Brother Guido to be in true danger I would have found a way, somehow, to leave that night.
Yet I was not content for long with my precious snippet of information, and my doubt at Brother Guido’s religious about-face swelled on the horizon like a cloud fattened with rain. I needed some contact, some more news of how he did. Was he well? Had he truly found the church again? I worked as hard as I could with my stern Dominican tutor and one day after a lesson I scratched out a laborious, blotted, short note—an ink-stained plea for information, with pain and hope in every word. After long deliberation I decided to send the missive to Brother Nicodemus, the herbalist, as I did not wish to invite suspicion or draw attention to my friend by having him receive strange messages from Venice. I felt sure the Medicis would be keeping a close eye upon him. I wrote the direction myself and sent a runner to Florence on my own account; these little freedoms were small compensation for my watery prison.
When the reply came, all hope died. Brother Nicodemus of Padua had, of his great kindness, written a reply so simple that I could read it.
“You are mistook. Brother Guido not at Santa Croce; in Bargello awaiting trial. Courage.”
Black hate filled my heart against my mother. That lying bitch. How could I have ever thought her noble, found her companiable? I, even I, had been seduced by her company, after sixteen years of desertion. And she had repaid me with this. How she must have laughed at her little deception. I spent the afternoon in my room, alternating my humors between rage at my mother and anguish at Brother Guido’s fate. How long would he wait for trial before facing the inevitable noose? Had they tortured him, damaged him in mind or body? How long did I have to save him?
I toyed with the idea of confronting my mother with her fraud but knew it would avail me nothing. I was in the Shelion’s den and she would do anything, say anything, to keep me there. It would not do to show her all I knew. I was learning the Venetian way.
Betimes I thought of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his hellish assassin, and allowed myself to speculate on their future plans—for it was certain now that the father of Florence was one of the Seven and had some deadly plot in mind. But such thoughts never occupied me for more than a heartbeat; I forgot all about the thirty-two roses, whatever they may mean, and the rest of the clues we had unearthed in our month-long odyssey. I hid the cartone in an inlaid chest in my room, but never took it out to look—the pain was too great, for I had pored over it so often with him that was gone. I cared not for any plot nor painting anymore—just for my lost companion. I would not rest easy till I saw him again, but as the winter closed in I knew I must wait. Unbearable though it was,