Page 34

July 8th of 1348, Palazzo Tornaparte

While Lucia slept the deep sleep of the recently ill, Ginevra tossed and turned in a bed in another room. The comforts of a proper place to sleep after weeks on the road were lost on her; the first part of the night was spent weeping tears for her dead lover and her disappeared Piero. Eventually the tears were supplanted by the sort of neurotic and futile plotting that only happens in the middle of sleepless nights. How on earth was Ginevra to find seven bits of saints in a city of infinite rooms?

Sleep eluding her still as dawn rose, Ginevra decided to get the house in order as best she could. She opened the windows of turpentined linen to let in cool air and cleaned up the spoiled food from the dining hall. She shooed the rats from the kitchen and mice from the cellar, then sifted weevils out of the flour and started a dough, so they might have bread in a few days’ time. She took the dead wood from the garden and managed to begin a fire in the hearth that produced good hot coals that could be stored for days in the ash. She untangled the kink in the well’s chain, and filled the sinks and basins. She caught one of the well eels and baked it in a pie.

With her current abode made as orderly as it could be, Ginevra felt ready to turn her mind to the problem of the relic thief. She sat down at the long rectangular table in Lucia’s dining hall. How strange to be in such a grand room all by one’s self. She put the inquisitor’s overly illustrated report upon the boards, to see if it made any more sense now that she’d had something to eat. Seven stolen relics were listed, chronologically in the order of their disappearances. Also written were the last dates the relics were seen in their places. Alright, she thought, so here, at least, we have the windows of time when the thefts occurred.

The cathedral and its baptistry were robbed first. Their Filippo Arm and Zenobio head were taken in April. The next month, May, the four churches of the Rogazione were pilfered sometime after the annual procession along their cruciform axes. Lastly, San Barnaba’s relic—taken about a month later again, near the start of June. Was the thief making monthly visits to Florence’s churches? What would be the point of that? And today was July 8—if Ginevra was correctly reading his cadence, he might be robbing another church this very minute! But which one? There were dozens within the city walls. It seemed possible he was targeting relics with upcoming feasts or processions. Or were those events simply when the thefts were noticed? Ginevra rubbed her eyes, overwhelmed.

Again, she took out the green smaragdus and focused her vision into its depths, concentrating on the question “Where must I go first?” A puff of air, like a little sigh, came from the gem and again the convent of Sant’Elisabetta appeared in her mind’s eye. She shook the jewel and shook her head and asked it the same question once more, disliking its answer. But still, she could not get her one-time home out of her head. Very well, then, if that’s how it was. She must go to Sant’Elisabetta and face those she had wronged.

TWENTY-ONE

TRAFFICKING OF NECROMANTIC BOOKS

1340, City of Florence

After being turned out of the Aldobrandini sick room, Ginevra walked back to Sant’Elisabetta, her head floating with a poor night’s sleep and a deep sense of dread. She’d used a magic gem to cure the son of a noble. Or, as others might put it, she had stolen and destroyed an expensive jewel that belonged to an important physician. It was all well and good, giving enchanted river water to peasants. But this was further than she’d intended to go.

Still, she had saved the son of one of the most powerful men in the city. And she had Ludovico on her side. Ostensibly. By now, it was a week, at least, since their last visit and he had sent no word. Perhaps nothing would come of it. Perhaps the physician would be ashamed. The Aldobrandini would be grateful and discreet. Soon the city would be well again, thanks to her. She tentatively decided she’d done nothing wrong.

However, the next day Fra Simone, founder of the convent of Sant’Elisabetta, called Ginevra to his studio for the first time ever to ask why Lord Aldobrandini had sent him sixteen cured hams and a gilded reliquary containing the toe of San Silvestro.

“Oh, did he?” she said with rehearsed nonchalance. “That was kind of him. Their son was sick, and...I have been helping sick people a little bit on my errands.”

“The Aldobrandini are clients of the physician Maestro Ficini di Salerno. Was he not available?”

“Oh, yes. He was there, too. Only he had this—theriac pill—it wasn’t able to help the child, so I did,” she said, omitting the bit about the destroyed ring.

“You should not have made a fool of that man. He is friendly with the inquisitor.”

“He made a fool of himself with no help from me,” she said before she could stop herself.

Fra Simone shook his head. “For these hams and this toe of Silvestro, you have put our convent in danger. You must always remember who holds the bridle, girl, or they will rattle the bit against your teeth! Agnesa has given you too much freedom. You will cease your work in the city and stay cloistered with the nuns.”

“But—”

He put up his hand. “That is all we will speak on the matter. Your stupidity pains me too greatly.”

Ginevra walked out, furious that he wouldn’t acknowledge the good in what she had done.

“Ginevra!” called Agnesa, hurrying to catch up with her. “What did Fra Simone want? Why are there so many hams here? Does he know about...it?”

“What? No. It’s nothing, a donation. We needed food, didn’t we? I have to go lie down, my head aches.”

Ginevra just wanted to be alone. She was very upset. So upset, in fact, that she did not notice how her coral figa grew pale and cold, a warning sign of danger it could not deflect.

The danger was the Maestro Ficini, who was not just a bad doctor, but also a bad man. Instead of rejoicing that his patient lived, he was consumed with jealousy, humiliated that he’d owned a magic ring for so long and never even noticed. So, as soon as he left the home of the Aldobrandini, he wrote a letter to his friend the Inquisitor Perugia detailing how Ginevra di Genoa had let holy relics fall onto the floor and consulted a strange book.

When the sickness withdrew at the end of summer and all the frightened clergy unlocked their doors, the inquisitor walked straight over the fresh graves of fifteen thousand Florentines to have a talk with Fra Simone. What was the Fra thinking? Harboring the likes of Ginevra, letting her run unsupervised throughout the city—he was supposed to be saving souls, not corrupting them! The inquisitor still had to think what he would do with the girl, but as a first step, a massive fine was levied against the convent. The amount was staggering, disastrous. More than a year’s worth of eggs and gold thread for tapestries. More than the entirety of the secret donations of the noblewomen.

Agnesa found Ginevra sitting on the floor in the corner of the empty women’s ward. Sighing, she crouched down next to her pupil and took the girl’s hand in her own.

“Do not blame yourself, Ginevra. I was a fool to let you take that stone. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Ginevra crawled with guilt. “It is my fault, not yours. I convinced you. How can we pay that fine?”

“Shhh.” Agnesa studied their clasped hands before she spoke again. “You are young and in my charge, which means I bear the responsibility. But—there is a way to fix it.”