• 1 •
THE DAVID
FLORENCE, 1517
The mud was from the banks of the Arno river. But also, it was from the banks of the Arno river inside the city walls, so it was probably not entirely mud. It really stank like not-entirely-mud in Cat’s hand. But she’d touched worse in her life. And anyway, Gio had dared her.
She followed the carriage.
They’d entered the city through the Porta Romana, which Cat thought was silly. It was a big, fancy carriage, covered in gold and paint and stuff like that, and it was supposed to be full of fancy people too. Shouldn’t fancy people know that the Porta Romana was one long snarl of people and carts at this time of day? Or maybe they were too rich to care about that sort of thing.
They weren’t too rich not to care about everything, though. Cat hung in the shadows as the carriage paused in front of Signore Bruno’s bakery, the one that sold the ciambelle that Gio sometimes stole. It was a two-story shop front, and Signore Bruno was perched on a ladder outside. He had a chisel and a bucket of soapy water, and he was scraping at the printed paper that had been pasted to his wall. Cat shrank further back when she saw the two City Guards at the base of Signore Bruno’s ladder, keeping careful watch on him.
The carriage’s velvet curtain twitched aside. The hand that pulled it sparkled in the sunlight, just as shiny as the carriage. Cat caught a glimpse of a stormy frown before the curtain settled back. A moment later, two of the Medici Guardsmen strode toward the City Guards. Someone inside the carriage thumped on the roof, and the driver urged the horses forward. Cat hurried to keep up as, behind her, an argument broke out between the two sets of uniformed men.
There was still one last scrap of paper clinging to the wall despite Signore Bruno’s scrubbing. And Cat was picking up some letters these days. Reppublica. That’s what it said.
Cat grinned and forged onward.
They were headed into the Piazza della Signoria, a giant plaza in the center of Florence. It was one of Cat’s favorite parts of the city. She liked the way the cobblestones sprawled in every direction. She liked the sweeping arches of the Loggia dei Lanzi. And she loved the gleaming white marble of the statue of David, which towered before the Palazzo Vecchio’s front entrance.
The murmurs began as the carriage rolled out into the Piazza. In ones and twos, and then in bigger groups, the crowd turned their faces toward the crest on the carriage doors. “The Medici?” Cat heard them whisper as she passed. “Has the Pope returned?”
Almost as though they’d heard the question, the curtains of the fancy carriage opened, pulled back by that same bejeweled hand. There were no troubled frowns now—just a man draped in purples and golds, with beneficent eyes and an indulgent smile.
“But you said he was a Medici,” Cat had protested earlier that day. “How can he be the Pope if he’s also a Medici?”
The look Gio had given her said quite clearly that only babies asked stupid questions like that, and that ten-year-olds like Gio didn’t have time for babies.
“My beloved Florence!” Pope Leo X—or maybe Giovanni de’ Medici—declared. His voice carried. “I am home!”
The reaction was immediate. The Piazza burst into cheers, pushing forward to get a better look at the carriage. Cat let herself be swept along, taking advantage of the path that the stink emanating from her right hand carved for her.
Guards in Medici blue had sprung into action by the time Cat made it to the front of the mob, shoving people away from the horses. They didn’t pay much mind to Cat. Who would notice a little girl in a crowd of grasping adults?
“I am gratified by your warmth and love,” the Pope said. His voice carried across the Piazza. “My dear cousin had assured me of your welcome, but it is quite another thing to witness it in person! Would you greet your people, Giulio?”
There was a spindly silhouette in the carriage at the Pope’s shoulder. He did not move forward into the sunlight. The Pope rolled his eyes. “That is Cardinal de’ Medici for you.”
An old woman in a gray shawl had managed to get to the carriage window. “Your Holiness!” she croaked, reaching for the Pope’s hand. Cat saw the man shoot a disgusted glance back into the carriage, toward his angular companion. He pulled back out of her reach, sketching a quick sign of the cross over her head.
“Thank you,” the old woman called. She fell back from the window, a few tears rolling down her cheek.
“Bless this city,” called the Pope. “And bless every soul within it!”
Cat threw shit at him.
She did not have the best aim. The ball of muck hit the edge of the window. But it exploded with a gratifying splatter all across the shiny robes, and the Pope staggered back into his fancy carriage with a “Jesus Christ!” that would have gotten Cat’s ears boxed.
“Who threw that?” thundered the captain of the Medici Guard. He wheeled his horse between the carriage and the crowd. But even his bellows weren’t loud enough to drown out the “Look at me, Giulio, I’m covered in filth!” that caterwauled out from the carriage window.
Shock rippled through the crowd, murmurs that grew and grew. Someone shoved Cat back, until the carriage was blocked from sight behind a set of broad shoulders.
“I want them caught! I want them flogged!” the Medici Pope was wailing. But it was harder and harder to hear him over the growing shouts of the crowd. People were no longer cheering, or at least not all of them were.
“Long live the Republic!” The chant rang from every corner of the Piazza until it was deafening. “Long live the Republic!”
It occurred to Cat that she maybe hadn’t thought about how to get away. This was especially a problem because of the men in Medici blue who were starting to thread through the crowd, shoving past onlookers. Looking for someone.
Looking for her.
Cat gulped and turned. But the current that had bobbed her all the way to the Medici carriage was working against her now. It was like the Piazza had become a wall of legs and torsos, and nobody seemed eager to budge for the girl with the smelly hands. Not when the guards were closing in. Not until—
A path opened. Just for a moment. And, at the end of it, Cat saw a lifeline.
Without hesitating, she dove into the chaos of Florence and let herself be saved.
• 2 •ROSA
As far as naked men went, Rosa Cellini supposed that this one was impressive. Muscular. Tall enough, certainly. Her neck hurt from craning. But no matter how long she stood by his feet, David’s gaze did not creak down to meet hers.
That was alright. He was a statue, after all.
She fanned her skirts, settling comfortably against the statue’s plinth. It was a careful maneuver—she had to be cautious not to disturb any of the flowers, the fruit, and the … less-savory offerings that had been strewn about the base. Despite her best efforts, a small roll of paper fluttered loose from where it had been pinned down by a pigeon-pecked roll. Rosa scooped it up, doing her best to ignore whatever pleas or prayers or dreams were scribbled on it in blotched ink—but as she did so, something on the cobbles caught her eye: a scrap of paper bearing a few fragments of printed words.
“REPPUBLICA FIORENTINA,” it read. The ink was smeared.
Rosa nudged it aside with her toe and managed to find an undisturbed seat. Fishing out a deck of well-worn cards, she began to shuffle, scanning the crowd with reserved interest.
The Piazza was clearing, the chaos of the last ten minutes quieting. Medici Guards were still making the rounds, interrogating bystanders, searching for whoever had been brave enough to lob what had looked to be a handful of pig shit at the head of the Church.
It had been a beautiful carriage. And that muddy projectile had hit smack in the middle of the triple fleur-de-lis Medici crest adorning the front door.
Rosa dealt out three cards and waited.
Florence, for all that it had been built on Roman ruins, had been brought to wealth and prominence by the money and machinations of the Medici bankers. For years upon years, men wearing a veneer of proletariat humility over deep, deep pockets of wealth had transformed the city from a huddle of hovels on the banks of the Arno river into the sprawling metropolis that it was today.
It was almost refreshing, Rosa thought, to see the gilding and the metalwork of the Pope’s carriage. This particular Medici scion was not one who would pretend to be one of the common folk. He advertised his fortune. A palate-cleanser. And after six years of avoiding the city like the plague, Rosa had walked through the gates at nearly the same hour he had.
“What are you hanging around here for?”
Rosa smiled up at the two guards across the wooden board balanced on her knees. She could imagine the picture she presented. A short young woman with wild dark hair and dark eyes and a deceptive softness all over. Her red woolen kirtle was heavily travel-stained, and the leather satchel at her side was patched in some places and in need of patching in others.
Not a threat. Not remarkable in any way.
“Good afternoon!” she chirped, flipping the three playing cards to display their faces. Knave. Six. Queen. “What a blessed day! Can you believe our good fortune? To have such a man in our midst? Well, of course you can—you probably see him all the time—”
One guard was blushing. The other was not. These were odds Rosa could work with.
“Did you see a young girl?” the unblushing guard demanded. The other was fixated on the cards under Rosa’s hands.
“A girl? I’ve seen plenty of girls today. Find the Lady?”
This last was directed to the fascinated guard, who met her eyes, startled. He was younger than his partner, perhaps even of age to match Rosa’s own seventeen years. Flustered by the sudden attention, he stammered, “I—uh—I don’t—”
“I’ll show you how to play,” said Rosa. She flipped the cards over again and began to shuffle them, spinning them over and around each other on the board.
“She would be about this tall,” the other guard said, ignoring this. He held his hand as high as his waist. “Filthy. Shabby clothes.”
Rosa gasped. “Is this the person who attacked His Holiness?” Her hands were still moving, a blur that the younger guard watched, hypnotized. “I haven’t seen anyone like that,” she said. “But it was all so horrible. So exciting. Is His Holiness unharmed?”
“You’re certain you haven’t seen anyone who fits that description?” the terse guard said.
Rosa shook her head, lifting her hands. The cards lay in a razor-straight line. “On His Holiness’s life, I swear I haven’t seen anyone like that. Now. Can you find the Lady? Where is that queen hiding?”
Seemingly without thinking, the younger guard tapped the middle card. “Ricci,” barked his partner, but Rosa was already turning it over to reveal the Queen of Cups’ impassive face.
“Well done, signore,” she said. “You’re a natural.”
The other guardsman had reached the end of his patience. “She’s a charlatan, you rube,” he snapped. “Get your head on straight. We’re wasting our time.” Without another word, he turned and marched across the Piazza, headed for the lingering crowds inside the Loggia dei Lanzi. Ricci, suitably chastened, moved to follow.
“Signore,” Rosa said, carefully removing the board and rising. “Here.” She held out the Queen. “For you.”
He had already taken it when his brain caught up. “Don’t you need this?”
“Some things are worth a little sacrifice,” she told him. The chilly breeze off the Arno was whipping color into her cheeks. She winked at Ricci, plucked the card back from him, and tucked it into his belt. “Lovely to meet you,” she said.
Rosa may as well have axed him between the eyes. He blinked, empty-headed, until—
“Ricci!” The grumpy guard looked about ready to spit nails. With an anxious jolt, the young man turned on his heel and hurried after his partner, tripping over his feet in his haste to catch up. Rosa continued to shuffle her cards as she watched the two of them go, Ricci cowering from his partner’s scolding.
“Are they gone?”
The voice was muffled by layers of Rosa’s woolen skirts and the wooden board she had propped up against the statue’s plinth. Rosa didn’t chance a look at the girl crouched behind her. She could tell by the smell that the girl hadn’t taken advantage of Rosa’s waterskin to clean the mud and God-knew-what-else off her hands.
“Shh,” she said. Ricci had managed to distract his partner away from berating him and toward interrogating more of the throng thrumming through the Loggia dei Lanzi. Their sights set on some other poor bastard, they finally disappeared from view. “Yes,” she said. “But don’t you come back out here until you’ve washed those hands.” Water immediately began splashing onto the cobblestones, and Rosa bit back a smile.
It had been a matter of course to hide the girl when she’d darted out of the crowd, hands filthy and face wild with terror. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and Rosa had plenty of memories of similar scrapes at that age (though none that involved the Pope).
Now the girl emerged, empty waterskin in hand and a sheepish look on her face. She handed it back with a little bob of the head. “Thank you, signorina.”
“Don’t mention it,” Rosa said, wiping the skin discreetly on her skirts before fastening it once again to her bag. There was a commotion over by the Loggia dei Lanzi. Someone—perhaps a young guard in the uniform of one of Florence’s most preeminent noble houses—seemed to have mislaid his purse. Rosa shouldered her pack. “Come on,” she said. “Time to go.”
“Are you in trouble, signorina?” The girl followed on Rosa’s heels as she strode out onto one of the many side streets. “They didn’t see you hide me.”
“They didn’t see me lift that guard’s money either. But it will only be a matter of time before they decide to circle back.”
“You let him win that hand, didn’t you?”
The girl’s eyes were sharp as she watched Rosa, cleverness honed by necessity. “Of course,” Rosa told her. “You always let a mark win the first hand of Find the Lady. Maybe even the first few hands.”
Copyright © 2024 by Caitlin Schneiderhan
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