father. He had made any undertakings that the Seven had demanded, and once they were assured of Pisa’s connivance, Brother Guido was as good as dead. My blood froze, at how close I had come to losing him.
“I was given a last request. I asked for a Chianti of the Pisan region, and two cups, that my friend might share it with me through the bars. Even as I poured I questioned whether I should put the belladonna in his cup or my own. I had not forgot, you see, that I was once a man of God.”
“And God spoke to you?” I breathed.
“Not he. He has been quiet in my ear since Rome. Even in my cell he did not visit. I spent time with the old gods of the Primavera.”
“Then who?”
“I spoke to myself. I decided one man’s life had to be weighed in the scales with the nameless evils that the Seven have planned. I put the belladonna in his cup, and he died instantly.” Brother Guido looked at his hands, as if he expected to find blood on them. “He had a wife and children. He spoke of them often.”
As did Bonaccorso Nivola. So Brother Guido was guilty, had taken a life. I knew now that this, not his ordeal, was what had aged his countenance and darkened his eyes. I wondered if, guilty thing that I was, I wore the same expression, wondered if I could ever tell him what I had done to an innocent sailor in his name.
“Then?”
“It took me three hours to wrest the keys from beneath his body—I lived in fear for every moment as the sky lightened that the watch would change and I would be taken to my death. But before dawn I was free and made it back to Santa Croce just as they were beginning their day. Malachi let me in. I went straight to the herbarium, and Brother Nicodemus hid me for some weeks. He said he’d been in contact with you—I commend you, incidentally, for your newfound abilities as a scribe.” He smiled properly this time, once again the old Brother Guido for whom reading and letters were everything. I blushed—not something I’m in a habit of doing—but was helpless in the face of a compliment from the only man whose opinion has ever meant anything to me.
“I then knew of your whereabouts. Brother Nicodemus took me out of the city as one of his assistants on a medical mission to the city of Mantua. There I joined a train of Franciscans who were heading to Trento for a colloquy. I peeled off at the foot of the mountains—the good brothers lent me the mule I rode. I found a boat at Mestre and came to the city of Venice. Once there I stayed on the island of Giudecca with a company of Jesuits who were building a foundation there. In exchange for my labor I was able to board with them, and upon my rest days I was able to follow you.”
My flesh heated. “You saw me?”
“Many times. Always going about with your mother, never alone. I guessed that Carnevale was to be my best opportunity to make contact, in the confusion and lawlessness of the festivities.”
In that, his thoughts and my own had marched as one. My flesh now chilled to think that I had planned to take advantage of the Carnevale to escape—on the eve of the very day he had planned to come for me! Oh, Bonaccorso, your sacrifice was in vain! I was unable to speak, and my friend continued unchecked.
“I saw you that day in the Piazza San Marco. The storm came and I followed you into the basilica. When I saw you examining the horses I knew you must have found something. I remembered what the Seven spoke of in Rome—that Flora held the secret and that a map was mentioned many times. I thought you must have found the map of which they spoke, but I had time to do no more than tell you to keep it safe and that I would meet you in Milan. For by then, through all my days of musing in prison, I knew that the Botticelli figure represented Milan (the clues to which I will explain in good time), but I could not divine the meaning of the Zephyrus figure. I take it, then, that you had similar epiphanies in Venice?”
It was my turn. I told him of my time