The Palace

PART I Chapter Fourteen

  Before his lathered, panting horse had come to a full stop, Agnolo Poliziano was out of the saddle, shouting for a groom as he ran down the path of Laurenzo's villa at Careggi. He pounded on the door and cursed at each blow.

  "You took enough time, Ragoczy," he said bitterly to the man who opened the door for him. "Where's Laurenzo? I came as soon as Mass was over!" His small, discontented mouth was more pursed than usual.

  "In his bedchamber," Ragoczy said and put a restraining hand on Poliziano's shoulder. "Do not distress him. He has too little time for that. "

  "Distress him?" Poliziano shrugged Ragoczy's hand away. "Who is here?"

  "Fra Mariano is here. He is reading the Gospels to Laurenzo. I think Savonarola is about to leave. "

  "Savonarola? What's that canting hypocrite doing here?" Poliziano was about to plunge down the hallway, but this news brought him up short.

  "Laurenzo sent for him. I think he wants to be sure Fiorenza is safe. " Ragoczy had closed the door and now stood leaning against it. "Wait a moment and you need not encounter the Domenicano. "

  Poliziano considered this, then asked with some difficulty, "Has he confessed?"

  "Yes. And was absolved. And received Extreme Unction. " There was strain in Ragoczy's eyes.

  "From Savonarola?" was Poliziano's quick demand.

  "No. Not from Savonarola. "

  "It doesn't seem possible," Poliziano said suddenly. "Extreme Unction. He's really dying. Dying?" He looked toward Ragoczy, becoming frightened. "He's forty-three years old. He can't die. "

  Ragoczy was spared an answer to this as Laurenzo's voice, a thin, reedy travesty of itself, called out. "Is that you, Agnolo?"

  Poliziano's eyes flew to Ragoczy's and he stood as if turned to stone. "Laurenzo?" he whispered to the dark-clad foreigner.

  "Yes. " The word was hard to say. "I'll lead you in to him. " As he spoke, he came up to Poliziano and laced his arm through the other's. "Be calm if you can, Poliziano. For his sake, be calm. "

  "What do you think I am; an inconsiderate fool?" Poliziano asked gruffly as they reached the door of Laurenzo's bedchamber.

  That was, in fact, exactly what Ragoczy thought he was, but he said, "No, but you haven't seen Laurenzo for several days and he's much changed. It would distress him if he knew how much. "

  The door opened from within and a small man in the black habit and white cassock of the Dotnenicani stepped out. But before he closed the door, he turned back, saying, "If it had been for me to give you absolution and Extreme Unction, Medici, I would have refused it until you had given up your wealth, your sins and your power. But what's been done is done. And God will judge you with the whole might of His Power. I take comfort in remembering that the hottest fires in hell burn for traitors. "

  Agnolo Poliziano had already bunched his fists and was about to hurl both blows and insults at Savonarola when he felt Ragoczy's small hands on his arms and the soft, slightly accented voice say very quietly, "I share your impulses, Poliziano, but it would not be kind to Laurenzo. "

  "No," Poliziano admitted, and opened his hands again. "But it galls me, Ragoczy. One day, if God is truly just, I will see that monk flayed. "

  Apparently Savonarola overheard this, for he turned and his bright green eyes glared at Poliziano. "Another worshiper of the Antichrist," he said measuringly. "Think of the Wrath of God, sinner, and tremble. " With a deliberate force, he pulled the door closed behind him and marched away toward the front of the villa, one of his pitifully narrow shoulders hitched higher than the other. He did not look back.

  Ragoczy paused a moment and then opened the bedchamber door, standing aside so that Poliziano could enter ahead of him. "Another friend, Magnifico," he said softly.

  The hangings around Laurenzo's bed had been pulled back, and Laurenzo, wearing a thin lucco, was propped up by pillows. He was painfully thin and his skin stretched over his bones with dreadful tightness. There was two days' stubble on his face. His wide mouth gaped in an agonized, happy smile and he tried to raise an arm in greeting. There was a smell about him, sweet and rotten, like fruit that was overripe.

  Poliziano clapped his hands to his eyes and gave one strangled sob. He moved drunkenly toward the bed and fell to his knees, his head buried in the pillows that raised Laurenzo.

  "No, no, Agnolo, bellissimo," Laurenzo said in his ruined voice. "No, don't weep. " With considerable effort he put his hands on Poliziano's shoulders, trying feebly to lift him. "Agnolo, you must not. It's too hard for me if you do. "

  From his place by the door, Ragoczy turned his eyes to Marsilio Ficino, despair in them. Ficino nodded helplessly, moving away from the foot of the bed. As he came to the door he whispered to Ragoczy, "I must leave. Laurenzo told me to escort Savonarola back to Fiorenza. I'll be back as soon as possible. "

  The Agostiniano Fra Mariano looked up from the Gospels he held open on his lap, and for a moment the gentle murmur of his voice stopped.

  "Yes, Brother, I'm going," Ficino said shortly, and let himself out of the room. The door closed with a hollow sound.

  At last Poliziano raised his head and turned his grief-reddened eyes to Laurenzo. "Why did you let him say that?" he demanded incomprehensibly.

  But years of friendship with Poliziano had taught Laurenzo understanding. He answered, "What are his denunciations to me now? If Fiorenza is safe, then his gestures cannot hurt me. Agnolo, he has hated me so long, you mustn't begrudge him his moment of venom. " He had sunk back on the pillows; even those few words exhausted him.

  Ragoczy crossed the room silently and took up Ficino's place at the foot of the bed.

  "But damnation, he as much as cursed you!" Poliziano had got to his feet and there was a militant glare in his eyes. "Let him say one word about this, one word, and I'll have him hanged from the clock tower. "

  Fra Mariano got to his feet. In a quiet, stern voice he said, "Poliziano, if you have no respect, have courtesy enough to be silent for those who do. " When Poliziano had turned abashed eyes on him, he nodded once, and resumed his seat.

  "But, Laurenzo," Poliziano said after a moment, keeping his voice as low as his emotion would allow, "I know the man. I tell you, it will be all over Fiorenza in two days that he refused you absolution, unless you let me throttle him now. "

  Laurenzo seemed not to hear, but in a moment he took a slightly deeper breath. "It doesn't matter, Agnolo. Truly, it doesn't matter. If Savonarola was right, I will dine tonight in hell on brimstone. And unless Satan restores my sense of smell, it will make little difference to me. " His laugh grated once, then stopped as his body contorted with pain. He breathed deeply, trying to hold the pain at bay.

  In the far corner, two physicians exchanged worried glances, and debated pulverizing more precious stones to feed il Magnifico. Laurenzo's own physician, Ser Piero Leoni, turned away, utter despair in his face. He crossed himself and began softly to pray.

  When he could speak again, Laurenzo went on, more weakly, "If, on the other hand, God is just, and. . . " He took his lower lip between his teeth for a moment. ". . . and has read my heart, then perhaps. . . He will send me to Purgatory. Until my errors and sins and evils are burned away. . . Does Christ open His arms in anguish or compassion? Laurenzo the Banker or Laurenzo the Poet. Which one is worthy? And of what?" He caught sight of Ragoczy at the foot of the bed. "Mio caro stragnero. "

  "Magnifico. " He was mourning already, and the word was thick with the tears he could not shed.

  "Come closer. It's too dark to see you well. " He waited until Ragoczy stood near his head. "If you were God, Francesco, what would you do with me?" His voice was only a thread now and he groped for his silver crucifix.

  "I would love you, Magnifico. "

  Poliziano turned suddenly and flung out of the room. The door slammed and the
room was silent.

  Laurenzo held the crucifix to his lips, and as Fra Mariano once again resumed his reading, Laurenzo murmured the familiar verses of the Passion with him, occasionally breaking off as his little remaining strength waned. It was not long before the crucifix fell from his hand and the silence in the bedchamber stopped even the sacred words of Fra Mariano. Then Laurenzo groped slowly, achingly for his crucifix.

  Ragoczy dropped swiftly to his knee beside the bed and carefully held the crucifix for him.

  "Grazie, Francesco," he breathed, and put one hand over Ragoczy's.

  For some time there was only that pressure, feather-faint, and the almost imperceptible rise of his chest that told Ragoczy that Laurenzo de' Medici had not yet died.

  A bell sounded from the monastery at the crest of the hill, a call to vespers and the special services of a Passion Sunday. No one in the bedchamber gave any indication of hearing it.

  Under his fingers, Ragoczy felt a last flutter of breath that became a faltering sigh, and the lean, swollen hand over his was limp.

  Ragoczy pulled the crucifix away and rose to his feet. As he kissed the crucifix, Fra Mariano stopped reading for the last time.

  "Should we get a mirror?" one of the physicians asked in a frightened undervoice.

  "No. " Ragoczy took Laurenzo's hands, folded them over his breast and returned the crucifix to him. Mercifully Laurenzo's long-lidded eyes were closed, for Ragoczy knew that he could not bear to see them glassily flat, untenanted. As the others in the room crossed themselves, he copied the gesture automatically, and then, as Fra Mariano began his prayers for the dead, Ragoczy bent and kissed his friend for the last time before leaving the bedchamber, the hall, the villa at Careggi.

  The twilight bloomed around him, new stars littered the sky and a soft breeze redolent with flowers and the freshness of spring carried away the cloying, fatal sweetness. Ragoczy stood by the fountain while his horse was brought to him. The opulent beauty of the season was arid and desolate to him, the laughter of the fountain a cruel mockery.

  When the groom brought his horse he swung into the saddle without a word, spurring the gray to a gallop before he was out of the villa's court. He rode recklessly, forcing his stallion to greater speed as the night deepened.

  He was halfway to Fiorenza when he heard the first grieving note as the funeral bell at Sacro Infante began to toll.

  Text of a letter from Donna Demetrice Clarrissa Renata di Benedetto Volandrai to her younger brother, Febo Janario Anastasio di Benedetto Volandrai, at the estate of Landgraf Alberich Dieter Fritz Grossehoff near Wien:

  To her brother Febo in this time of sorrow, his sister Demetrice sends her blessings and sympathy.

  You have, by now, heard that our beloved kinsman Laurenzo di Piero de' Medici died on April 8. He had been ill for some time, and though it is hard to lose him, we must thank God that he has been spared further suffering. And, Febo, he did suffer. We all hoped for a miracle, prayed for it, but there was none. His physician was so overcome that he has thrown himself down a well. The Church has refused him Christian burial for this act, but Ser Piero Leoni deserves better.

  Laurenzo was brought to San Marco to lie in state before being buried in his own Chiesa di San Lorenzo. It was strange to see him there, not for the death, but because of the animosity that has long existed between the prior Savonarola and Laurenzo. Yet that is where he was taken, his catafalque draped in red and gold brocade, his Last Attendants in white. His funeral and monument were very simple, for no one knows how to honor him. The whole city is in mourning still, everyone in black or red.

  Yet I can't believe he's really dead. I have grown so used to him, to his vitality, that Fiorenza still seems full of him. Everywhere I turn I see him-in the sculpture and frescoes that make the city beautiful, in the widened streets and new buildings. I am still working on his library, and I find I must catch myself often, for I will read a manuscript and will find a passage that he would like for its beauty or its learning, and without thinking, I will want to call out to him.

  The saints in heaven be thanked for Francesco Ragoczy! Without him I could not endure my life. He has been much affected by Laurenzo's death, and I have heard, but not from him, that he was there with Laurenzo at the end. He has made no public show of grief except to dress in black-which is no show at all, for he has always done so. He does not weep and when I have thought I would be overcome with mourning, he has given me courage. But I think he is more afflicted than even I am, for his suffering is silent, as if to speak it would be more than he could stand.

  I am now a resident of Palazzo San Germano, Ragoczy's home. I serve in capacity as housekeeper, but his houseman Ruggiero does most of the work as well as managing the staff. Ragoczy has no slaves, but hires all his servants, which is an added expense, though he insists that his household be run on that basis. Apparently he has tremendous wealth, for the palazzo is amazingly rich, and he was able to have it built in little more than a year.

  Febo, my dear brother, I have yet to make arrangements for your education. I realize Laurenzo had promised that he would provide you the funds, but Laurenzo is dead, and from the rumors I hear, his bank has suffered unfortunate losses. I have decided to ask Ragoczy if we can make some adjustments in what I earn so that you will indeed be able to go to Paris at the end of the summer. But this may not be possible, for I have no demands on Ragoczy. You may rest assured that I will not barter with my body. If he takes me as his leman, it will be for devotion, not for payment. When I know more, I will write to you again. I am sending this with the Fiorenzan merchant Arrigo Niceli Perrigolo, who is traveling beyond Wien into Poland.

  Pray for the soul of our good, generous kinsman, Febo. Without him, you and I would be beggars today. If that thought will bring him one step nearer the Mercy Seat, I will sing it every hour of the day.

  Meanwhile, do not despair. You will have word from me before the summer, I promise, and if the thing can be done, I will see that you have money for your studies in Paris. You are too great a scholar to be forbidden that opportunity. I will do my utmost for you, the saints be my witnesses.

  As always, this brings the affections and duties of your sister,

  Demetrice Volandrai

  In Fiorenza, April 29, 1492