The Dark Heart of Florence by Tasha Alexander (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

Westminster Abbey, with monuments and memorials to Galileo, Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli, Rossini, and more, it was unsurprising to see it filled with tourists. We headed toward the cloisters, ducked through an atrium supported by Corinthian columns, and stepped into a perfect domed chapel—empty, aside from us—designed by Brunelleschi for the Pazzi family. As they had led the fifteenth-century conspiracy against the Medici that ended with a dramatic assassination in the Duomo, it seemed an appropriate place for our own collusion, even if poor Lena had no idea we were hiding the truth about her fiancé. She believed him to have died in an accident, not at the hand of some yet-unknown villain. Or so I thought.

“Marzo’s fall was no accident,” she said, pulling Cécile and me close, her voice hushed.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“Ridolfo knew his brother was dead before your husband told the family yesterday. Just after lunch the day before Signore Hargreaves came, I was in the apartment with Signora Spichio, making pappardelle while her ragù al cinghiale—wild boar ragù—simmered. She told me she wouldn’t share her recipe for that until after the wedding but was more than happy for me to help with the pasta. Ridolfo came in, when he should have been at work, a crazed expression on his face, and told us Marzo would not be home for dinner.”

I waited, assuming there was more to her story, but nothing came. “Did he say anything else?”

“There was no need to,” she said.

“His suggestion that Marzo would not dine with his family that evening was enough to make you believe your fiancé was dead?”

“Oh, no, not that,” she said. “Obviously, Marzo never did come home; and later in the evening, when Signora Spichio commented that she would save some of the ragù for him, Ridolfo said not to bother, that he was the elder son now. At the time, I thought it was just a nod to their usual rivalry, but now I see it was more. Ridolfo already knew Marzo was dead.”

“They did not get along?” Cécile asked.

“Not since Marzo and I agreed to marry. You see, I used to walk out with Ridolfo, when we were young, but he is a man with no ambition, and once I became old enough to recognize that, I stopped seeing him. Ridolfo was furious when he learned I was with Marzo, even though years had passed since we had been together.”

“Do you think Ridolfo killed his brother?” Cécile asked.

“No, there’s no chance of that. Marzo was working on your roof. Ridolfo is far too lazy to have ever climbed up so high. And he is not a man to see to dirty deeds of that sort.”

“Would he have hired someone else to do it for him?” I asked.

“There was much bitterness between them, but neither would murder the other. As for paying, Ridolfo would never be able to afford that. I suspect, though, that he was aware of another person who felt hatred for Marzo.”

“Who?” I asked.

“That I do not know,” she said. “You must talk to Ridolfo, find out how he knew before anyone else that Marzo was dead.”

“I don’t think he’s likely to confide in Signora du Lac or me,” I said. “Will his anger at you ebb now that his brother is gone?”

“It might if I tell him I’d loved him all along. He is stupid enough to believe that.”

“I would never ask you to do that.”

“It might be amusing,” she said, her eyes brightening. “There are things about him I miss. But I could not let his mother see what I am doing. She would be angry.”

Rightly so, I thought. “Where does Ridolfo work?”

“Not in Florence. He is a tanner in Santa Croce sull’Arno, halfway to Pisa.”

“How far away is that?” Cécile asked.

Lena shrugged. “Thirty miles or so? Far enough that he has a room there.”

“Yet he was in Florence the day his brother died?” I asked. “Was that unusual?”

“Not entirely. As I said, he is lazy and does whatever he can to avoid work.”

“Was he home when my husband broke the news about Marzo’s death?”

“Yes, but I believe Signore Hargreaves told him downstairs when Ridolfo answered the door. What do we do now? Will you talk to him? Or should I pretend to like him again?”

“I will approach him,” I said. “I don’t want you to put yourself in an awkward situation.”

“If you change your mind, leave word for me at Dante’s cenotaph. You can slip an envelope under the arm of the sculpture of the lady weeping. I will check every day—and you should do the same, in case I need to contact you.”

“I assure you, that won’t be necessary—”

She interrupted. “But it would be thrilling, would it not, passing secret messages?” She smiled again and lowered her voice. “I must go now. There’s no need to escort me. I wanted to speak to you away from the family and pretended to cry so that Signora Spichio would ask you to take me home.”

“You really must let us escort you—”

She was gone before I could finish my sentence.

Nonplussed, Cécile and I tried to go after her, but she had disappeared from the church. We stopped in front of Dante’s monument to gather our thoughts. The poet was exiled from Florence after supporting the wrong side—that is, the losing side—in the strife between the White and Black Guelfs in the early fourteenth century. He adopted Ravenna as his home, died and was buried there, never returning to his beloved Florence. Despite attempts in the seventeenth century to return his mortal remains to the city of his birth, Ravenna refused. Why should Florence have the poet in death, when she banned him in life? Nonetheless, in the nineteenth century, the city commissioned sculptor Stefano Ricci to make a cenotaph for the poet, even if it was to sit forever empty in the church. In a way, it was a long overdue apology from the city.

There was a spot perfect for hiding a