Black Madonna

19

They gave up any hope of getting their biological rhythms synchronized. At midnight, Michael was wide awake and lively while Serrin and Geraint were tired. Streak seemed inexhaustible but was keeping his own counsel. Kristen was excited at the prospect of seeing the great city of Florence, so it was difficult to determine how tired she actually was. Further delay seemed pointless. Only slightly over eighty hours remained before Michael’s deadline was up.

“At least Renraku seemed happy enough,” Michael told the others. “That is, they’re in a state of barely controlled hysteria. It’s when the control breaks down that they’ll start screaming. In the meantime I got the money. The rewards gone up, too.”

“Reward?” Streak sniffed the air like a well-trained bloodhound. “Someone mentioned a reward?”

“If I play a determining role in keeping Renraku from getting wiped I get the reward,” Michael grinned. “You’re on a retainer. I may cut you in for some of the deal if we succeed.”

“Very generous,” Streak said with feigned nonchalance. “What’re we talking about here?”

“I could stretch it to a hundred,” Michael said.

“A hundred nuyen? Oh, wow, like, carry me out on a gilded-”

“A hundred thousand, slot,” Michael retorted sharply. Before the astonished elf had time to reply, he’d picked up his suitcase and left the room.

They made the small local airport at two in the morning. A security squad had delivered everything they thought they might need from Geraint’s apartment and a no-name, no-number, ex-SAS rigger was along for the ride in the pilot’s seat, hitching a lift, as it were, on his way to other business in Italy. The small private jet rose into British airspace at two-fifteen AM. and entered Florentine airspace at four-forty. The sky was just beginning to hint that the black of night was really only a deep blue deprived of light.

“Airport breakfast and we get collected at six,” Geraint told them. “We have a villa at our disposal.”

“What about security?” Streak asked.

Michael threw up his hands in amazement. “We’re staying with a member of the de Medici family and you ask about security?”

“I don’t know no de Medicis. I’ll need to check it out when we get there.”

“I don’t think so,” Geraint said in his best “We’re paying you, so just for once do what I say” voice. Streak frowned and fell silent.

“There are one or two people I might talk to here” Serrin offered.

“Yeah?’ Michael asked casually.

“Yes.” Serrin apparently wasn’t giving anything away. “And we’d better be careful. The NOJ has force in the city. We need to keep a very low profile.”

“Actually, I’m not even sure what we’re doing here.” Michael said.

Serrin ran it down for him. “One, we’re out of London, where a bunch of watchers are currently taking a very active interest in Geraint’s flat. Two, as I said, there are people I can talk to here. Three, Merlin seemed happy about it. Four, why not? It’s a lovely city.”

“Okay. Just get me through breakfast and let me get my deck set up. I want to snoop around the corps today. Find out who else is onto this and what they’ve got so far.”

“Breakfast in the airport,” Geraint said as they disembarked, “is a depressingly imminent probability. Let’s get it over with, shall we?”

The sky was bright and clear as the horse-drawn carriage took them along the convoluted Viale Machiavelli, through the riotous Boboli gardens, past the Belvedere fortress with its looming clock-tower, toward the Arno River. The air was clear and fresh, the scent of flowers and blooming trees sweet but not cloying. Unlike Venice, a city that had virtually rotted from within around its toxic lagoon and in the deep chemical-soup slurries at the bottom of its canals, Florence had remained more or less beautiful over the centuries. The carriage headed toward the old Roman gateway to the inner city, and then along the broad, straight Via de Serragli toward the Carraia Bridge.

“We’re staying in a villa along the Via Cavour,” Geraint told them, “not far north of the river.”

“Not far from the Baptistery either,” Michael murmured. “A place we should go and see, I think.”

“I’d sure like to take Kristen there,” Senin said.

“Be my guest,” the Englishman replied. “I’ll leave you to it and stick with my deck. Just who’re you going to see here, anyway?”

“I’m not absolutely sure,” Serrin admitted. Michael looked curiously at him, but didn’t press the issue.

“I’ll leave you to your own devices,” Geraint told them. “I decided to get measured for some suits as long as we’re here. My appointment’s at midday.”

“You want me to stay with Mikey boy or tail Serrin and Kristen in case they’re being tracked by any interested parties?” Streak asked.

Geraint looked to Michael. “What do you think?”

“Go with them,” Michael said. “So long as the villa security is good enough.” He looked out the window at the swift-flowing river down below.

“It will be,” Geraint promised. “Trust me. I’ve been here before. Someone tries to kidnap a Medici every week of the year, or so it seems. Quite often it’s one of the other Medicis. The descendants of Cosimo and Lorenzo have some exciting internecine feuds.”

“They run the whole city?” Streak asked.

“More or less,” Geraint said. “The city council is absolutely dominated by them and their proxies. It really isn’t so very different from the fifteenth century-except that they don’t have to worry about being invaded by the French or Spanish.”

One of the black horses whinnied as the carriage halted outside the villa. The title was somewhat misleading; the house was narrow and several stories towered high above the narrow terraced street. If Serrin had imagined a small white building set off in its own gardens, he was disappointed. Liveried servants hurried to take the visitors’ baggage off the carriage and ferry it indoors.

Geraint quietly and subtly handed one of the men a tip as the others milled in the hallway admiring the paintings and various busts.

“Never mind those. There’s a genuine Donatello in the dining room apparently,” Geraint told them, opening the double doors to that room with a sweeping gesture. His gaze passed over the superb mahogany dining table and chairs, over the gleaming silverware and crystal, to the carved alcove at the far end of the room.

The depiction was very unusual. No Mother of Christ stood facing them, but the Magdalene. It was a Magdalene to rival Donatello’s most famous, and one that was alleged to be a first study for that later work. If so, it seemed even to surpass it. While the final version was a portrait of decay and dissolution, the artist influenced by Gothic tradition, this statue seemed serene by comparison. Ragged and poor though the figure was, the face of the Magdalene did not have the ravaged look of the later statue, and the clasped hands of the bronze seemed more relaxed the pose more peaceful, than Donatello’s final nightmare vision. The quality of the piece was stunning, simple and radiant, and the whole group stood staring in silence for a few moments.

Even Streak. “Now that really is something.” he mumbled. In an odd gesture, he seemed to feel for a nonexistent hat as if to take it off his head, and then realized he wasn’t wearing one. The effect was comical, but his sincerity was genuine.

Michael walked up to the bronze and stared at it intently. “A mysterious lady,” he said wonderingly.

They could find little else to say. The great artist’s work could hardly he done justice by hasty words. They carried their bags up the stairs, despite the protestations of the domestic staff who’d arrived belatedly on the scene. The scent of freshly ground coffee and baking bread wafted gently after them.

I know we just scarfed up that breakfast,” Streak said, “but slot if I don’t half feel peckish again.”

“I just saw the cook with a basket of cheeses,” Serrin whispered to him conspiratorially. The other elf licked his lips.

“And prosciutto with melon,” Serrin added. Streak flung his bag at a bedroom doorway chosen at random and scurried downstairs to the dining room.

Serrin glanced around at the others and grinned. “I’ll be down later,” he said. “Save some melon for me.” He reached out a hand to Kristen and, with a nod, she took it. They closed their bedroom door behind them.

Michael winked at Geraint. “I don’t think we should disturb the loving couple, should we?”

“I thought he’d lived in Britain long enough that his libido had waned by now,” Geraint joked.

“Come now, Geraint, I think that you of all people can hardly subscribe to that old myth,” Michael said tartly. “By the way, how is the Countess?”

“Just fine,” Geraint said. “Let’s have a second breakfast. That ham did look awfully good.”

Kristen watched over Serrin’s physical body as he breathed quietly, the rest of him utterly still. Quite unconsciously, her hands were clasped together and, if she’d lived in Donatello’s day, something quite different might have stood in the dining room, the subject of admiring gazes from visitors of later centuries.

The spirit had not wanted to materialize. He was not entirely sure what place they were in, and he didn’t want to enquire where the guiding watcher spirit had directed him.

“I shouldn’t really be here,” Merlin fretted. “But matters move so swiftly and I’m restless and troubled.”

“I plan to go to the Baptistery,” Serrin told him. Despite the endless immensity of astral space around them, their astral forms were huddled close together. They might have looked, in some far more mundane context, like a pair of third-rate spies exchanging secrets on some dingy, muggy street Corner.

“Yes. That’s good.”

“Merlin, it’s hard to play a game when I don’t know any of the other players nor the rules of the game,” Serrin said exasperatedly.

“I think he will come to you,” Merlin replied slowly. “Or he’ll send some message, some sign. He wants to see you make the right moves. Visit the Baptistery. Don’t forget what it means to this city.”

“I don’t understand,” Serrin said.

Merlin looked around him, as if fearing some menace or threat. His face was furrowed with anxiety and sadness. “I can’t put it more bluntly. Consider what the Baptistery means to this city and consider how he has depicted it. Then you’ll have more understanding of him.

“When you see him, take your wife,” the spirit concluded, quite unexpectedly. “That is vital.”

“What do you-”

“Just listen and do what I tell you.” Merlin was, by all appearances, struggling to contain a rising anger, but then he calmed down and seemed filled with sadness again. “Oh, Serrin, when you understand all this, you’ll look back and kick yourself for being so slow. Though that’s not any consolation to you now. I must go. My absence will be noted if I do not.”

The figure moved away with astounding speed. Serrin swam his way wonderingly back to his meat body, settling down into his physical shell, then roused himself to wakefulness.

Kristen saw his eyes flutter beneath his eyelids and smiled. When he woke, she hugged him and cradled his head against her chest.

“I met him,” Serrin told her. “He says that when we finally catch up with whoever it is that’s behind all of this, you must be there too.”

“I told you he was wise,” Kristen said, teasing but also pleased.

Serrin looked at her a little darkly.

“And I like that he makes you jealous. Well, I like it a little,” she said, with the coquettish smile that at times drove him to distraction. This was one of those times.

They didn’t make breakfast for a while.

The ornate carriage clock was chiming nine when they finally emerged, to be greeted in the dining room by the vulture-stripped carcass of what must once have been a massive breakfast. Michael looked distinctly as if he needed his corset for more than supporting his back.

“Middle-age spread,” Serrin taunted him, threatening to poke his stomach. Michael groaned, unable to take evasive action. “You look like Hecate when she was a kitten.”

“I what?” Michael said, inelegantly.

“Our cat. When she was a kitten she once stole a cooked chicken off a table and ate the whole thing. All of it. All she could do afterward was lie on her back and make pathetic mewling noises. She couldn’t walk for a day and a half. You remind me of her.”

“Thanks, friend,” Michael said witheringly.

“At least I kept him off el vino,” Streak put in.

“Good job too,” Serrin said, sitting down and spreading some goat’s cheese on a stray slice of bread. “Mmmmm,” he purred through his first mouthful. “Swunnerful.”

“Enough,” Geraint clapped his hands together. “Michael and I are going to check out some corp systems for a few hours and then I’m off for lunch.” He grimaced a little at the thought of any more food. “You’re going-”

“-to visit the Baptistery. Where are my guide books?” Serrin made a dive for his bag.

“What do you need to know?” Michael asked. “I did some preparation, and Geraint’s been here before.”

“The Baptistery. I know it has some of the finest art in the city, but what’s the most important thing about it?”

“Depends on what you mean,” Geraint said. “The most obvious thing is that John the Baptist is the patron saint of Florence.”

Serrin stopped searching through his bag for a moment. “Uh-huh,” he said thoughtfully.

“Why did you ask?”

“No special reason,” Serrin lied. He was still mulling over that interesting fact. and remembering something he wanted to check out. There was a painting, wasn’t there?

Geraint let it pass. The mage seemed even more absentminded than ever this morning. He wondered if the months in the lonely wilds of the Hebrides had accentuated the trait. He wiped the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin, then he and Michael made for their decks awaiting them upstairs.

Serrin quietly asked one of the maids who came to clear away the table where he could find a particular kind of store, and learned to his satisfaction that one was only a few minutes’ walk away. He squinted a little in the now-brilliant sunlight as he stepped into the street, and followed the simple directions to his destination.

A little later, he walked slowly back, looking at the picture.

Ah, now, isn’t that wrong? he thought.

And doesn’t it have an extraordinary beauty?