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“Thank you for the information, Becchini. I must take my leave.” She turned to go.

“Hey! Wait a minute, what about your friend here? Where do I put her?” Becchino gestured to the full graveyard with the dead arm, still held in his own.

“Won’t you put that down?”

“Nah, I kind of like it. Adds a gravitas to whatever I have to say.”

Ginevra looked around the hellscape that was the churchyard of San Paolino.

“Becchino, is there no other option?”

“We could wrap her with stones and sink her in the Arno. It’ll keep her from the scavengers, at least.”

“Very well, let’s do that, then.”

“I’ll need some money for rope, and for the extra time spent...”

Ginevra took the dead arm from him and threw it back into the graveyard. It landed at the feet of a scavenger, who picked it up appraisingly. “You press too far, Becchino! Do not take me for some girl-child. You have been paid enough to throw ten maidens into ten rivers!”

“Alright, alright,” he said, miffed, as the second becchino snickered. “You can’t blame a man for asking.” He took his cart, now empty except for Antonella, and rolled away singing:

“A rosy maid in crimson gown

Weds noble youth with golden crown

But lo, their beauty soon departs

See rotten eyes and wormy hearts...”

Ginevra turned away from the foul place and headed toward the dead parish of Santo Stefano al Ponte and the tower of the Girolami.

TWENTY-SIX

TORRE GIROLAMI

Afternoon, July 8th of 1348,

Torre Girolami

Nobody knew how long the Girolami had lived in Florence, but it might as well have been since the beginning of time. Their tower was in the oldest part of the city, near the Ponte Vecchio. The structure itself was already a relic of another age, built when the magnate families fought openly in the streets and then ran back into their personal fortresses to shoot each other with arrows from the rooftops. Now, though, the city was a place for fat merchants, not hardened warlords. The outdated towers were eyesores, and it was forbidden to build any more of them. Most families had moved on, chopping off the tops of their towers and renovating them into more comfortable modern palazzos. But the Girolami remained in their ancestral home, its archaic form a testament to the longevity of their clan.

Ginevra had hurried past this tower many times during her years at Sant’Elisabetta, but never paid it much attention. Now, as she stood at the locked door, she was struck by the oppressive gloominess of the massive gray stone structure. It was square and narrow, high as a bell tower. She had to bend her head all the way back to see the top. The door was as small as the building was large. She banged on it, then stepped back, afraid of her own boldness. Nothing.

She shouted, “Hello,” up at the small windows that perforated the tower in a vertical line.

Nothing.

They are dead already, she thought.

“Hey!! You!”

Ginevra jumped and looked up at the tower, but the windows remained shut.

“Hey! Over here, stupid woman!”

She spun around. It was a neighbor—poking his head out of his own window. “I wouldn’t try so hard to get in there if I were you,” he said. “The whole family is nearly dead.”

“Did you say nearly dead? As in, still alive?”