Jeanne Kalogridis - Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

I sighed. “The same people will be running Florence. It won’t change anything at all.”

Afterward, when Matteo was asleep in the nursery and the servants were all downstairs eating in the kitchen, I went to Francesco’s study.

It was foolish, going in the middle of the day, but I was consumed by restlessness and a mounting sense of worry. And I had not even considered how I would get to Leonardo if I found a new letter.

It is time to join the Arrabbiati and sacrifice the prophet. We have already translated into action your suggestion of luring Piero to Florence and making public example of him. The people are still angry; we will give them a second scapegoat. Otherwise, with Savonarola gone, they might soften too much toward the Medici. We are taking Messer Iacopo’s plan as our model: I shall expose the traitor in the midst of his crime, take him to the piazza for public spectacle, and rely on mercenary troops as reinforcement. Those mercenaries failed Messer Iacopo years ago-but ours, I assure you, will not fail us . Popolo e libertà!

Seek out Lord Priors who will support us in this move. Recompense them generously. Guarantee them important roles in the new government to come; but only you will be my second .

Let us not confine our public spectacle to Piero. We must dispense with all Medici brothers-for if even one survives, we are not free of the threat. Cardinal Giovanni presents the least danger, and my agents will try to deal with him in Rome, where he will surely stay .

But the youngest-he is the most dangerous, having all the intelligence and political acumen his eldest brother lacks. And in your house sleeps the perfect lure to bring him to Florence .

I dropped silently to the floor as if downed by an assassin’s blade and sat, gasping, my skirts furling about me, the impossible letter in my lap. I was too stunned to embrace its contents. I dared not. My father had been right: If I knew the full truth, Francesco and Claudio would read it in my face, my every gesture.

For the sake of my father and my child, I chose to become numb. I could not let myself think or feel. I could not let myself hope or rage.

I rose on trembling legs, then carefully refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. I went up the stairs to my room. Slowly, deliberately, I took a book from the trunk and set it on my night table, where Isabella would be sure to see it.

Rapid footsteps sounded on the stairs, in the corridor; as I went to open the door, Zalumma pulled it open first.

She did not notice that I was stunned, wild-eyed, pale. Her black brows, her lips, were stark, broad strokes of grief.

“Loretta,” she said. “From your father’s house. She is here. Come quickly.”

He was dying, Loretta said. Three days earlier, his bowels had turned to blood, and he had not been able to eat or drink. Fever left him often delirious. Not plague, she insisted. Plague would not have brought the bloody flux. For two days, he had been asking for me.

And each time Loretta had come, Claudio or Francesco or one of the armed men had sent her away.

Loretta had driven herself in the wagon. I did not stop or think or question; I said nothing to anyone. I went immediately to the wagon and climbed in. Zalumma came with me. Loretta took the driver’s seat, and together we left.

It was a terrible ride over the Arno, over the Ponte Santa Trinità, over the murky waters where Giuliano supposedly had drowned. I tried to stop the words repeating in my mind, to no success.

But the youngest-he is the most dangerous …

And in your house sleeps the perfect lure .

“I can’t,” I said aloud. Zalumma looked worriedly over at me, but said nothing. The letter had to be a trap; Francesco must have discovered me rifling through his desk, or else Isabella had lost her nerve and told all. It was impossible, of course. The world could not have known he was alive and not told me.

I drew a deep breath and remembered that my father was dying.

The ground beneath my feet had tilted sideways, and I was clawing for purchase.

For the first time in my life, I entered my father Antonio’s bedchamber. It was midday; a cool breeze blew outside. In my father’s room, it was dark and hot from the fire, and the air stank of unspeakable things.

Antonio lay naked beneath a worn blanket, on a bed damp from cleaning. His eyes were closed; in the light filtering through the half-closed shutters, he looked grayish white. I had not realized how thin he had become; below his bare chest, his ribs thrust out so prominently, I could count each one. His face looked as though the skin were melting off the bone.

I stepped up to the bed and he opened his eyes. They were lost and glittering, the whites yellowed. “Lisa,” he whispered. His breath smelled vilely sweet.

“Father,” I answered. Loretta brought a chair. I thanked her and asked her to leave, but asked Zalumma to stay. Then I sat down and took my father’s hand; he was too weak to return my grip.

His breath came quick and shallow. “How like your mother you look… but even more beautiful.” I opened my mouth to contradict him, but he frowned. “Yes, more beautiful…” His gaze rolled about the room. “Is Matteo here?”

Guilt pierced me; how could I have denied him his one joy, his grandson? “I am sorry,” I said. “He is sleeping.”

“Good. This is a terrible place for a child.”

I did not look at Zalumma. I kept my gaze on my father and said, “They have poisoned you, then.”

“Yes. It happened faster than I thought…” He blinked at me. “I can hardly see you. The shadows…” He grimaced at a spasm of pain, then gave me an apologetic look once he recovered. “I wanted to get us out of Florence. I had a contact I thought could help us… They gave him more money than I did. I’m sorry. Can’t even give you that…” All the speaking had wearied him; gasping, he closed his eyes.

“There is one thing you can give me,” I said. “The truth.”

He opened his eyes a slit and gave me a sidewise glance.

“I know you killed the elder Giuliano,” I said. Behind me, Zalumma released a sound of surprise and rage; my father began to mouth words of apology. “Please-don’t be upset; I’m not asking you to explain yourself. And I know you killed Pico. I know that you did whatever Francesco told you, to keep me safe. But we are not done with secrets. You have more to tell me. About my first husband. About my only husband.”

His face contorted; he made a low, terrible noise that might have been a sob. “Ah, daughter,” he said. “It broke my heart to lie so cruelly.”

“It’s true, then.” I closed my eyes, wanting to rail, to give vent to my fury and joy and grief, but I could not make a sound. When I opened my eyes again, everything in the room looked changed, different.

“If I had told you,” he whispered, “you would have tried to go to him. And they would have killed you. They would have killed the baby. And if he had tried to come to you, they would have killed him.”

“Giuliano,” Zalumma whispered. I turned to look at her. “I did not know,” she explained. “I was never sure. Someone in the marketplace once said something that made me think perhaps… but I decided he was mad. And few people in Florence have ever dared breathe the name Medici, except to criticize. No one else ever dared say anything around me, around you, because you had married Francesco. And Francesco told all the other servants never to mention Giuliano’s name, for fear of upsetting you.”

My life with Francesco, I realized, had been limited: I saw the servants, my husband’s guests and associates, the insides of churches. And no one had ever spoken to me of Giuliano. No one except Francesco had ever spoken at length to me about the Medici.