Page 55 of The Stone Witch of Florence

“But if you know it’s poisoned, wouldn’t you just not drink it instead of wasting the bezoar?”

“I hadn’t thought of that... In truth, I haven’t used this one yet. Maybe if the drink was something really delicious and you didn’t want to throw it out? Something expensive like your husband’s wine?”

“Oh, yes, then that would be a good thing to have. And what about this one?” She picked up a gem clear as water, the shape of two pyramids stuck together at their fat bottoms.

“Ah, you remain as ever the wife of a wealthy man. These come from far away and are exceedingly costly. I got this one from an heirless merchant on his deathbed, otherwise he never would have parted with it. It is called diamante. When given as a gift between two quarreling parties, it ends the quarrel.”

“Even a war?”

“So they say.”

“Do diamanti come from inside animals also?”

“No, they come from deep canyons in India where they are guarded by serpents and sharp rocks so it is too perilous for any man to venture down and gather them.”

“So how do they get them, then?”

“They throw butchered goats off the cliff tops into the canyons, and the stones stick into the soft meat. Eagles fly down to the dead goats and bring them back to their nests to feed their chicks. Then the merchants scare away the mother birds, and pick through the carcasses to find their treasure.”

“Come, Ginevra. This is a story for a child, is it not?”

“Perhaps, but it is what they say! And until we have journeyed to India and seen for ourselves, who are we to doubt such a fine tale? But enough of this for now. It is late already, and if you are to be on your way, you must be on your way.”

And with that, she picked up the dirty street rags and threw them into a pot with water, beginning the long process of extracting the healing essence of the bloodstones with the help of a kitten.

TWENTY-NINE

ALLE PANCHE

Night, July 8th of 1348,

an Infamous Tavern

With an amethyst in her cheek and the heliodor held aloft like a lantern, Lucia crept through dark and empty streets toward the infamous tavern Alle Panche. It was black as a hole outside the small golden sphere of light cast by the gem, and even with the magic beacon, her mind still played tricks as she hurried past the doorways of dead neighbors. Several times, she heard whispers and pattering steps, a pleading cry ending in a muffled whump. She held her breath and pressed against walls, clutching the light, until the silence was full again, and it was as Ginevra said: nobody noticed her. Quickly, quietly, Lucia hurried onward. In her old life, she would never have left her home after curfew. Certainly not to visit Alle Panche. But still, she knew where it was. Everybody in Florence knew where it was, either to seek it out or to avoid it.

Alle Panche was the sort of place where naive travelers were robbed of their purses and young men met to realize the grisly ends of familial vendettas. Whenever there was a criminal led through town on a donkey, you could bet the location “Alle Panche” would be yelled out in the catalog of his crimes. But it was also the sort of place that guaranteed an exciting evening, if you could manage to just observe the trouble instead of joining it.

It was with this intrepid thought that Lucia steadied her nerves, tucked away her light, and stooped through a sunken door into the low vaulted interior. It was smelly inside, and dim, and it was crowded, and the rumble of conversation was punctuated by real, actual laughs. Here are all the people with life left in them! she thought. Instead of the repulsion she was bred to feel, a sense of camaraderie swelled in her breast—and as she observed the dirty crowd, sitting close to one another on rough wooden benches, she almost had to wipe away a tear. She peered through the smoky light of clay lamps and saw a man in a monk’s habit perched importantly atop a mighty stack of barrels.