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

“Good heavens,” I said. “She really did expect us to check every day. It’s fortunate we went to see her father.”

“For all we know, she left this for us days ago, and obviously, given she went to Marzo’s funeral, didn’t remain indefinitely in the Medici Chapel,” Cécile said. “As for her warning of danger, even her father admits that she longs for adventure. This may be nothing more than a game to her.”

I was not convinced.

We raced to the Duomo, skirted around the Baptistry of San Giovanni, and turned into the Piazza San Lorenzo. Inside the church, I inquired as to where we would find the New Sacristy and was informed that it had a separate entrance, in the Piazza Madonna. Fortunately, this was only a couple hundred feet away, so within moments, we entered the chapel Michelangelo constructed to house the Medici dead. The artist never completed his work on the space, and to this day, the most famous member of the family, Lorenzo the Magnificent, remains interred beneath the floor, with no spectacular monument to mark his resting place. Ironically, the only tombs Michelangelo finished belong to the least interesting of the Medici.

Today, though, there was no time for musing about the Medici; we were searching for a trapdoor. The chapel’s brightly colored marble floor revealed nothing, and I thought it unlikely that there was anything beneath it other than tombs. We turned our attention to the small rooms that came off the chapel and in one of them, beneath a well-worn rug, was a trapdoor.

“How did Lena know this was here?” I mused.

“The girl is clearly in possession of hidden depths,” Cécile said.

As the vestry was not of much interest to tourists, we had the room to ourselves. I tugged at the ring on the door, which opened with remarkable ease to reveal a set of narrow stone stairs. I pulled out the candle and matches I always kept in my reticule—one never knows when one might need to illuminate a dark space—lit the candle, and started down the steps, Cécile following immediately behind.

At the bottom was a small room, slightly more than twenty feet long, but only about six and a half feet wide, its walls covered with charcoal sketches. Lena had indeed come here to wait for us, but we’d arrived too late. She was there, on the floor, lying in a dark pool of blood.

 Florence,

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A mood of profound morbidity clung to me for weeks after my grandfather told me I would inherit his books. Every time a servant brought me a message, I feared it would contain news of his passing, even though he had never suffered from ill-health. Eventually, reminding myself that we have no control over death, I managed to push aside my gloomy preoccupation and, soon thereafter, accompanied him to the villa of one of his friends, outside Florence. The owner, Giovanni Tornabuoni, a banker, was hosting a hunt on his grounds. I had no interest in sport, but Nonno wanted me to come regardless, insisting I would find much to enjoy from the company of the other guests.

“You haven’t hunted for years,” I said.

“I’m too old for it. I will sit with the other ancient men and argue about life while you have your fun.”

“Fun is not the word I would choose.”

“Try to have a more positive outlook, Mina,” he said. “You might find you like la caccia. Even if it’s not to your taste, it’s an opportunity to make a few friends. You can’t spend all your time with old men.”

“I don’t spend all my time with old men. I do have Bia, too, you know.”

“Children and octogenarians ought not be your primary sources of companionship.”

When we arrived at the villa, the guests were already gathering outside the house. Introductions were made, and I had to admit it was a lively group, everyone well educated and urbane, but I would have little chance to get to know any of them until after we’d returned from the hunt. I was, at best, an adequate horsewoman, so there was no way I would be able to simultaneously converse and keep up with the others. Not wanting to disappoint my grandfather, I tried to look cheerful as one of our host’s grooms helped me onto my mount. A pack of tan and white pointers—Bracci, a fine hunting breed—gathered in the front of the assembled riders and we set off into the woods. I lagged behind almost at once, and before the group had downed their first boar, I’d fallen off my horse when he jumped over the trunk of a fallen tree. The steed, better trained than I, noticed the absence of my weight and stopped. Even if I could manage to get back on top of him without assistance, I had no chance of finding, let alone catching up to, the other hunters. If he had an inclination to return to his barn, I might be able to make my way back to the villa.

I was trying to remember any stories of horses making their way home on their own when I heard the sound of snapping branches and snorting, followed by a squeal of some sort, all of which presumably came from a boar. As a hunting novice, I had been given a small cudgel to carry, rather than a spear or anything likely to be of use against a wild beast. No one had expected I would face any creature on my own, and, to be fair, no weapon of any sort would have made much of a difference. I knew how to wield none of them.

My heart was racing as a boar came into sight. His head was enormous as were the tusks jutting from the sides of his jaw, which he was popping, making his saliva foam. I was half a step from the trunk of a tree. Without stopping to think, I reached for its lowest branch and started to climb. The boar