Page 59 of The Medici Return

He’d never ridden a horse that fast before, especially bareback. It was like the ones on the merry-go-round when he was a kid. Hard. Slippery. In constant motion. His parents had been there then, holding on to him. No such luck now. Definitely a unique experience. Going thirty miles an hour, gripping a bridle, with only your legs holding on. Luckily, a horse knew what to do. All a good rider did was give the animal the freedom it needed to do its thing. Could he ride in the race and all of the chaos associated with it? Horses constantly bumping into one another. Jockeys hitting the ground. Some being trampled. Horses collapsing in hard falls. Some seriously injured.

Survival of the fittest.

But if he was nothing else, he was fit.

“Does it matter how I do it?” he asked Camilla.

“Not in the least. Just make sure the jockey goes down, and also make sure the riderless horse does not make it to the finish line first.”

He caught Richter’s gaze and read the cardinal’s thoughts. And he agreed. This was insanity. Definitely not what he’d signed on for.

Thirty years ago, when he was a teenager in middle Georgia, before the navy, he believed that the world would treat him fairly if he removed his cap in church, always spoke the truth, and saidsirorma’amto everyone. Boy he was wrong. Fairness had to beearned. Which generally involved paying a price of some kind. Here, though, there was something about the abstract challenge he faced that was buoying. How many times in his life would an opportunity like this come by? Not many. So no matter how foolish it might be, he was going to do it.

“You ready?” Richter asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

CHAPTER 40

ANNAMARIALUISA DE’ MEDICI WAS TRYING TO ENJOY THE EVENING.Dinner had been hosted by her father, Grand Duke Cosimo III, the sixth from the House of Medici to rule Tuscany. He had occupied the throne for fifty years, the longest of anyone before him. The party at the royal palace had been organized to mark that glorious occasion, and the local nobility had turned out. Even her father, who rarely smiled in public, seemed pleased. Most had left after the meal ended, but her father had asked twelve of the noblemen to stay. Tuscany was in the midst of an economic depression with the downturn deepening. Compounding this was her brother, her father’s named successor, Gian Gastone, who was spending money at a rapid pace in Bohemia, racking up massive debts. Even worse, there were no grandchildren. Her older brother had died childless and Gian despised his wife. They lived totally separate lives in separate countries. Children for them was out of the question. Her own marriage to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, had been a long and good one. They spent twenty-five happy years together before he died. Early in their marriage she even became pregnant, but miscarried. In the end their marriage had seen no Medici heirs birthed either.

A royal family without heirs was a dangerous thing.

The vultures would descend from all over Europe to take Tuscany.

She knew there would be no place for her at the discussions about to happen. Men only. So she took her leave and left the palace. A lovely summer evening enveloped Florence. Many were out enjoying the warm air. A welcome respite from the bitter north winds that raked across the city each winter, sometimes bringing snow.

She walked at a leisurely pace, heading away from the palace and across the River Arno, turning right toward the Church of Santa Croce. The piazza in front of the building was busy with people, including children playing on the cobbles. She’d chosen a simple black dress, keeping with her official status as being in mourning, and had come alone so as not to draw any attention. Just a few weeks ago the annual Calcio Storico matches had been played right here in the piazza. She loved the violent spectacle, steeped in history, which was so utterly Florentine.

Her widowhood was in its fourth year. And she was tired of it. Grief did not become her. She was lonely. She missed having a husband. The only true relationship she had here in Florence was with her father. She and her brother despised each other, and the rest of the family viewed her as a threat, an interloper, who had returned after years of being gone, wanting it all for herself.

But it was her birthright.

After her father, she and her brother were the last two royal Medicis.

Life had been kind to her. She was still blessed with a fair complexion, eyes large and expressive, teeth white as ivory. She loved the outdoors, walking, hunting, horseback riding, and dancing. Especially the dancing. She was educated, refined, aware of her status, and she should be the one to succeed her father as grand duchess, not her vulgar and incompetent brother. He would do nothing but make a mess of things. Gian did not have the capacity to govern Tuscany. She knew that. Her father knew that. But Medici tradition demanded that the duchy only go to male heirs.Her father had tried to change that but to no avail. It seemed that Florence had become accustomed to the fact that male succession was sometimes based on nothingness.

She entered the church and found the family chapel. Though San Lorenzo was their main house of worship, the Medici had long maintained a presence at Santa Croce with a modest chapel dedicated to St. Cosmas and St. Damian, the family’s patron saints.

She liked coming here.

No one else was around.

Which she also liked.

After a few minutes she left the chapel and walked out into the open cloister. Above, in the rectangle of ink-blue sky, a brilliance of stars lifted her heart. At the far end stood the lesser-known Pazzi Chapel, an outward sign of the once disgraced family’s climb back to influence in the late fifteenth century. She had no desire to return to the palace, so she walked down the graveled path between two stretches of summer grass and entered through an open portal. Her eyes were immediately drawn upward to the spherical dome and its dark oculus. During the day light poured through but now, at night, it stared back black. The twelve windows along the dome ribs were likewise lifeless. The chapel’s overall emptiness could lead someone to dismiss the space as unimportant.

But that would be a mistake.

As it was the space itself that was the star.

The Pazzi had long been rehabilitated, their property restored. Their attempt to kill Lorenzo de Medici and their murder of his brother Giuliano had neither been forgiven nor forgotten, it was just that three centuries had dulled the anguish. The family still existed, though scattered, its wealth coming from land, farms, receivables, and business capital. Nothing like it once had been, but nonetheless substantial. She’d always admired their coat of arms, which depicted crescents, battlemented towns, and, of all things, twin dolphins on a blue field with nine crosses. Theycontinued to trade on the legend of how the family was rewarded during the First Crusade with sacred flints. The annual Easter procession that featured them had once again become part of Florence’s yearly routine. Medici and Pazzi never mingled, but neither did they war with each other.

They just stayed apart.

She approached the altar, which filled a tall niche in one wall. The two stained-glass windows above were dull without the sun. In the dome above was a fresco, painted in the fifteenth century, depicting the constellations present in the night sky over Florence on July 4, 1442. Interestingly, an identical fresco was present inside the Medici’s Church of San Lorenzo. Both created by the same artist at relatively the same time. She’d always wondered how two families who hated each other tolerated having the same thing, especially considering the Pazzi purge that happened after the sinister plot failed.

“It is magnificent, is it not?”

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