The main street doors stood open, revealing the sunlit courtyard beyond, and there she was, slimmer, possibly taller, her hair up, no longer a girl but a woman. He called her name.
When she saw him she turned so pale he thought she was going to faint, but she rallied, said something to her attendant to make her go away, and came out to him, her hands outstretched. He drew her quickly out of the street into the secluded shelter of an archway nearby, whose yellow stones were festooned with ivy. He stroked her neck, and noticed that the thin chain to which his pendant was attached was still around her neck, though the pendant itself was hidden in her bosom.
‘Ezio!’ she cried.
‘Cristina!’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I am here on my father’s business.’
‘Where have you been? I have had no word of you for two years.’
‘I have been… away. Also on my father’s business.’
‘They said you must be dead – and your mother and sister.’
‘Fate dealt with us differently.’ He paused. ‘I could not write, but you have never left my thoughts.’
Her eyes, which had been dancing, suddenly clouded and looked troubled.
‘What is it, carissima?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’ She tried to break free. He would not let her.
‘Clearly it’s something. Tell me!’
She met his eyes, and her own filled with tears. ‘Oh, Ezio! I’m engaged to be married!’
Ezio was too taken aback to answer. He let go of her arms, realizing that he was holding her too tightly, hurting her. He saw the lonely furrow he had to plough, stretching ahead of him.
‘It was my father,’ she said. ‘He kept on and on at me to choose. You were gone. I thought you were dead. Then my parents began to entertain visits from Manfredo d’Arzenta – you know, the son of the bullion people. They moved here from Lucca soon after you left Florence. Oh, God, Ezio, they kept asking me not to let the family down, to make a good match while I still could. I thought I’d never see you again. And now -‘
She was interrupted by a girl’s voice, crying out in panic at the end of the street, where there was a little square.
Cristina became instantly tense. ‘That’s Gianetta – do you remember her?’
They could hear more screams and yells now, and Gianetta called out a name – ‘Manfredo!’
‘We’d better see what’s going on,’ said Ezio, making his way down the street in the direction of the fracas. In the square, they found Cristina’s friend Gianetta, another girl whom Ezio did not recognize, and an elderly man who, he remembered, had worked as Cristina’s father’s head clerk.
‘What’s going on?’ said Ezio.
‘It’s Manfredo!’ cried Gianetta. ‘Gambling debts again! This time, they’re going to kill him for sure!’
‘What?’ cried Cristina.
‘I am so sorry, signorina,’ said the clerk. ‘Two men to whom he owes money. They’ve dragged him off to the foot of the New Bridge. They said they were going to beat the debt out of him. I am so sorry, signorina. I could do nothing.’
‘That’s all right, Sandeo. Go and call the house guards. I’d better go and -‘
‘Wait a minute,’ put in Ezio. ‘Who the devil is Manfredo?’
Cristina looked at him as if from the inner side of prison bars. ‘My fidanzato,’ she said.
‘Let me see what I can do,’ said Ezio, and rushed away down the street that led in the direction of the bridge. A minute later, he stood at the top of the embankment looking down at the narrow strip of land near the first arch of the bridge, close to the heavy, slow-moving, yellow waters of the Arno. There, a young man clad in elegant black and silver was on his knees. Two more young men were sweating and grunting as they kicked him hard, or bent down to pummel him with their fists.
‘I’ll pay it back, I swear!’ groaned the young man in black and silver.
‘We’ve had enough of your excuses,’ said one of his tormentors. ‘You’ve made us look very foolish. So now we’re going to make an example of you.’ And he raised his boot to the young man’s neck, pushing him face down in the mud, while his companion kicked him in the ribs.
The first attacker was about to stamp on the young man’s kidneys when he felt himself grabbed by the scruff of the neck and his coat-tails. Someone was lifting him high up – and the next thing he knew, he was flying through the air, landing seconds later in the water among the sewage and debris that had washed up around the foot of the first pier of the bridge. He was too busy choking on the disgusting water that had poured into his mouth to notice that his companion had by now suffered the same fate.
Ezio reached a hand down to the mud-spattered young man and hauled him to his feet.
‘Grazie, signore. I think they really would have killed me this time. But they’d have been fools if they had. I could have paid them – honestly!’
‘Aren’t you afraid they’ll come after you again?’
‘Not now they think I’ve got a bodyguard like you.’
‘I haven’t introduced myself: Ezio – de Castronovo.’
‘Manfredo d’Arzenta, at your service.’
‘I’m not your bodyguard, Manfredo.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You got those clowns off my back, and I’m grateful. You don’t know how much. In fact, you must let me reward you. But first, let me get cleaned up and take you for a drink. There’s a little gaming-house just off the Via Fiordaliso -‘
‘Now, just a minute,’ said Ezio, aware that Cristina and her companions were approaching.
‘What is it?’
‘Do you do a lot of gambling?’
‘Why not? It’s the best way I know of passing the time.’
‘Do you love her?’ Ezio cut in.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your fidanzata – Cristina – do you love her?’
Manfredo looked alarmed at his rescuer’s sudden vehemence. ‘Of course I do – if it’s any of your business. Kill me here and I’d die still loving her.’
Ezio hesitated. It sounded as though the man was telling the truth. ‘Then listen: you are never going to gamble again. Do you hear?’
‘Yes!’ Manfredo was frightened.
‘Swear!’
‘I do!’
‘You do not know how lucky a man you are. I want you to promise me to be a good husband to her. If I hear that you are not, I will hunt you down and kill you myself.’