Before, however, the confectioner made his scenograpic entrance into the dining room, I heard a dog barking repeatedly outside the villa and instinctively decided to go and see why the animal wanted to attract the attention of the owners. Entering the garden I discovered incredulously Giuliano and Simonetta rolling on the ground without being able to control their limbs: Vespucci, red in the face, with eyes and mouth wide open, trembled like a leaf; her lover, on the other hand, tried to tear his clothes off, alternating spasmodic laughter with hallucinations… I returned to the house without delay and, taking advantage of a break, with utmost discretion asked Lorenzo to follow me.
Rushing to the spot, we saw the two lifeless bodies. Lorenzo ordered me to call the doctor immediately; although he tried to shake his younger brother's head and torso, he did not react in the slightest, neither to slaps or to his voice. After a while seizures began.
The situation was critical and very delicate. After a few moments, excitement and bewilderment on the Magnificent’s face turned to panic and helplessness. Although he wanted to ask anyone present at his home for help, he knew well that the public discovery of the two young people in such conditions, in addition to creating an enormous scandal would certainly mean, for himself and his family, the loss of the significant political support of Marco Vespucci, at that moment a needle in the balance of a Council that was already mined by de’ Pazzi (the noble Jacopo de' Pazzi, without a shadow of a doubt, would have taken advantage of the situation to claim control of the city).
Lorenzo was not reassured even by the sudden arrival of the doctor and the apothecary, who kept asking me what I had seen before he came. The great doctors in fact, immediately theorized a case of poisoning, they were unable to identify the substance responsible and consequently indicated a possible remedy. In the meantime, Agnolo Ambrogini arrived on the spot, the only one, besides his mother, whom Lorenzo blindly trusted; he was entrusted with the task of fabricating a necessary excuse for the guests, who rightly began to discern and accuse the absence of the landlord. With the help of Agnolo the bodies were quickly and secretly transported to a nearby shelter.
I noticed then that where Simonetta's body had recently lain there was a small basket of apples and berries, all apparently edible and harmless. I grabbed a blueberry between two fingers and crushed it. In a flash I remembered that a few months earlier Jacopo in Rome had shown me a very poisonous plant, called “atropa”, also known as “Satan’s cherry”, the fruits of which were easily confused with the berries of the common blueberry but unlike this the latter could be lethal in small quantities. Young women often used a marinate of atropa leaves to cause their eyes to shine and to dilate the pupil so as to appear more seductive. The doctor accepted my theory as possible and confirmed that both the young people dying had bluish spots on their lips. However, the scientist ruled that if that were the case there was no known cure, throwing the landlord into the most desperate resignation.
The dynamic was clarified days later: someone, in the pay of Francesco de' Pazzi, had not replaced the blueberries accidentally with the atropa in that fruit basket that Donna Vespucci had then shared with her lover. Giuliano had therefore poisoned himself by tearing the poisonous berries, in an erotic game, directly from the mouth of the beautiful Simonetta. And so, after a few minutes, the powerful drug took effect.
Still stunned at what had taken place in such a short time, I dared to intrude a second time and proposed to the Honorable Lorenzo to make an extreme attempt, and to consult the pontifical delegation hosted in the diocese. The Magnificent, making me promise maximum reserve, consented and hurriedly made me escort him to Jacopo, with whom I returned shortly thereafter. My Benedictine analyzed the fruits of the solanaceous and administered an antidote to the sufferers from the unknown lands of Africa. After about an hour the symptoms subsided, their body temperature began to fall and within eight days the two young people recovered completely.
Together with fate any suspicion was removed, inside and outside the walls. In fact, when Marco Vespucci returned to the city with his bankers, he didn't notice anything: he was even richer, Simonetta was even more beautiful, Giuliano even more in love… but, most of all, Florence was even more Medici.
Even the archbishop, slowly, seemed to recover; therefore we prepared to return to Rome. First, however, the Magnificent, in sign of his affection and esteem as well as thanks and gratitude, wanted to pay homage to me for what everyone considered to be one of the highest awards of the republic: the gold ring bearing six balls, a universal pass within the city territories… and not only.
Since then I carry it with me always, as a precious testimony to Lorenzo's friendship and to the imperishable memory of those two unfortunate lovers who, like Paris and Helen, who had several times risked turning Florence into Ilium.
Throughout the narration, Pietro, fascinated and enraptured by the extraordinary nature of the facts, by the skilled narration of the speaker and by the abundance of details, dared not speak.
He waited a few seconds after the happy ending to be sure not to desecrate that incredible story and, giving a tight squeeze on his bandage, finally said proudly:
“Thank you sir. Serving you will not only be just an honor for me, it will be a pleasure.”
After two days of further journey, the Via Cassia revealed the magnificence of Rome and although men and animals were very tired, at the mere sight spirits regained their force and bodies their strength. Tristano urged on his horse and increased the speed.
V
The countess of Forlì
He didn’t find Giovanni Battista waiting for him in the rooms of the protonotary but a plump cleric who invited him to go directly to the busy monsignor who was in the basilica of San Pietro, where he had been urgently summoned by the pontiff. There he found both in the midst of a serious meeting in front of the funeral monument for Roberto Malatesta, the hero of the battle of Campomorto.
Standing beside Sixtus IV was his nephew, the sinister captain general Girolamo Riario, whom Tristano already knew as having been one of the main protagonists of the failed conspiracy in Florence four years earlier, hatched against his friends Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, which had cost the life of the latter.
Not satisfied with having received the Lordships of Imola and Forlì from his uncle, after failing to take possession of Florence and having failed to conquer Urbino, the insatiable Riario was now in danger of seeing his ambitions for Ferrara also fail definitively.
The Republic of Venezia, as has already been said, continued to be deaf to the pontiff's warnings and excommunications; indeed, after having withdrawn its ambassadors from Rome, every day it increasingly threatened the Milanese border and the territories of the Church in Romagna. And now the old Sixtus IV worried about this more than anything else.
Before it was hopelessly too late, it was then thought to play the Aragonese card: it was decided to send Tristano to Naples to King Ferdinando in an attempt to convince him, after Campomorto, to enter into a new coalition agreement (in which Florence and Milan would also participate) against the Serenissima. In truth, Giovanni Battista was not enthusiastic about this solution and had instead proposed dealing directly with the doge, but given the firm determination of the Holy Father, he finally had to put a good face on it and accept the assignment.
The one who was the most satisfied with the deliberate solution was obviously Girolamo, who saw in this move the last glimmer of hope for his being able to sit as a protagonist at the winners’ table and finally get his hands on the Este city.
“Monsignor Orsini” appealed to the latter before the Holy Father dismissed those present, “Please do me the courtesy, Your Magnitude and Our honorable ambassador, to accept the invitation to a sober banquet that my lady and I will hold tomorrow evening at my humble palace at Sant'Apollinare to inaugurate the period of Holy Christmas.”
Giovanni Battista accepted and thanked him with deference.
Tristano,