Page 41 of The Medici Return

The neighborhood around him was definitely familiar. He’d visited here before. Was Richter headed there? Possible. But other cardinals lived in this area too. Richter turned a corner then headed straight for one of the apartment buildings and stepped inside.

“Have you ever considered serving the church in a different capacity?”

He knew what to say. “I am at its disposal.”

“Your bishop tells me that you are a resourceful individual, one he has come to depend upon.”

“I have done what he asked of me.”

“Modest, too, I see.”

“Vanity has never been something I suffered from.”

“Good. Because the service the church will now ask of you requires neither vanity nor ego. Only discretion. Absolute and total discretion.”

That man changed his life.

Charles Cardinal “Chas” Stamm.

Who recruited him for the Entity.

Richter had entered the building where Stamm lived. Coincidence?No way. He found his phone and placed a call, reporting to Ascolani what he’d observed.

“It seems our wayward cardinal has sought out an ally,” Ascolani said.

“Others live in the building.”

“That is true. But at this hour? And on this night? After all that has happened? No. He has gone to Stamm.”

He waited for instructions.

“Stay there,” Ascolani said to him. “Alert me to any change. Then we will decide what to do next.”

CHAPTER 27

ERIC WAS HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPING.

He’d been born and raised about an hour outside of the city, in an ancient hilltop town, one of many scattered across Tuscany. His grandmother would tell him a giant carved the town straight from the rock, and to see it was to believe that story. Less than five hundred full-time inhabitants. Lots of blooming flowers, laundry hanging from lines, street names like Via dell’Amore and Via del Bacio. Its main claim to fame? Sheep cheese. High quality, made from an especially aromatic milk thanks to the succulent pastures in the nearby valleys. Its pungent smell remained in his nostrils, even after all the years that had passed since he left.

Earlier, he’d followed the curator and his DNA expert as they made their way down to the lower crypt in the Medici Chapel, off limits to tourists and any other visitors, to the coffin holding the remains of Anna Maria. There she’d rested for nearly three centuries. But not peacefully. Far from it with all the so-called scientific investigations. With regard to Anna he’d always found it curious that she’d been buried wearing the crown of the German Palatinate, for her husband, rather than the traditional Medici death crown. That had been a relatively unimportant piece of information to those performing the examination of her remains.

But to him? It spoke volumes as another message from the grave. True, Anna had been first and foremost a Medici, conscious of her birthright, proud of her family heritage. But she’d been resentful when she was denied the opportunity to succeed her father as grand duchess. Especially considering the ineptness and unpopularity of her brother. After Gian Gastone died she was still denied, as the duchy was confiscated by the Holy Roman emperor and given to Francis of Lorraine, effectively ending Medici rule. She’d been relegated to being the widow of Wilhelm, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, daughter of the late Cosimo III, sister of the departed Gian Gastone.

Which meant nothing.

But fate worked in her favor.

Her brothers left no legitimate heirs. Which meant that after Gian Gastone died, everything the Medici possessed became hers. Paintings, statues, bronzes, gems, cameos, busts, books, antiquities, suits of armor, furniture, reliquaries, clothing, land, money, anything and everything dating back three centuries. The fact that the duchy itself had been lost did not affect the vast holdings of family wealth. Prior to her death Anna Maria made a momentous decision. In her will she left all of it to Tuscany on the condition thatit be maintained as ornamentation of the State for public use and to attract the curiosity of foreigners, never to be removed or transported outside of the Capitol and the Grand Ducal State.

The famous Family Pact.

A final Medici bow to dignity and greatness.

In the years after 1743 Medici possessions flowed into the galleries and museums of Florence. Anna’s final act was one of great generosity. An astonishing gift that laid the groundwork for modern-day Florence. Yet few knew her name. No statue of her adorned any of the city’s open spaces. No gallery or museum displayed her name above its doors. No bust or picture of her was placed in honor on any walls. Only a sculpture in the Medici Chapel above her grave. Hundreds of thousands pass through Florence every year without ever hearing her name. Yet none of what those people came to see would be there but for her.

Was he related to Anna Maria?

He had to know.

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