where we were, by a strange twist of fate, guests of Lorenzo de’ Medici at his riverside palace on the Lungarno Mediceo. A place I had once gone to with Brother Guido, and stolen a boat, to drift down the river of a thousand torches. The irony was not lost upon me; Brother Guido had left his own city in the manner in which he was to die.
I saw Lorenzo il Magnifico now and again, and he was the very model of courtesy. Neither he, nor anyone, referred to the events that had taken place in Genoa not four months ago. In all that time I had not once seen Niccolò. I understood he had taken an arrow in the leg at the Battle of Torriglia Pass and had gone to the mountains to take the waters and recover. My mother had assured me that all was well. (As if I were worrying about him.) “The marriage contracts are intact, despite recent—events . . .” It was the closest she ever came to speaking of it. “Except for a few minor alterations. It is true that the prince was injured in the battle, for he is, as you perhaps know, not an accomplished fighter. But his condition will not affect the wedding, it will take place almost as planned.”
Yes, with my damaged husband carried in on a litter. Madonna. One thing worse than being married to an evil selfish man was being married to an evil selfish cripple.
Now, at the hour of my marriage, my mother pinched my cheeks, then adjusted my bodice. “There. You are lovelier than a summer day.” I looked at her sharply, but there was no irony in her tone nor her eyes. She meant what she said and it was said with love. I shook back my hair, heavy with a thousand pearls and moonstones, and hitched up my bodice. Something felt different. I looked down between my breasts—the knife was gone.
“Mother,” I called sharply.
She turned back, guilty, and I saw at once she had taken it. She had last touched that piece of Venetian glass when her hands had placed me in the bottle, with the bread and breast-milk. She had taken it, and with it, my way out.
I let out a gusty sigh, utterly defeated. “Very well.” I knew now I must go through with the wedding, but it would not be for naught. “Grant me a boon then, as a wedding present, if I am to do this thing.”
She came back to me. “Of course.”
I said, slowly and clearly, “I want you to free Bonaccorso Nivola.” I thought I would have to explain who the imprisoned sailor was, for my mother, as I told you, never noticed the little people. But she knew at once—perhaps he had been troubling her conscience too.
“Done.”
And as she spoke the trumpets and timbrels sounded, and the great doors opened into the cathedral. I processed down the aisle on the arm of my mother, feeling, as I had done once before, that the great white pillars and the arching ribs above my head were bones, and I was trapped in the belly of a great beast. As we walked through ranks of cheering people I wondered if they were the same folk who’d cheered me a year ago, when I’d been here with Brother Guido, riding in a golden carriage with the doomed father of my betrothed.
My mother kissed my cheek as we reached the altar. “You’ll be happy,” she said. “Trust me.” For the second time today I looked into her leaf-green eyes and saw no lies writ there.
And now I saw the back of my detested groom, broad and tall and clad to match me in white velvet and gold. I noted he did not even turn to greet me as the rest of the congregation did; he did not even possess the basic courtesies of a family of consequence. He was taller than I’d remembered; his hair curled like his cousin’s had, but a little longer, the resemblance crueler than everything else. I felt as if the knife were in my throat after all, for I was bleeding to death.
He turned and I nearly fainted at a cathedral wedding for the second time in my life.
It was Brother Guido.
Really, truly he—living, breathing, smiling. He held me with the hand that wore a gold ring of the palle on his thumb.
He was thinner, his hair a little longer, clean shaven, with his sunburned skin golden