Because the day was hot, the stench was worse. Fiorenza was plum-ripe with gutter smells and a slow, insidious rot that ate away the old buildings near the river. Heavy, low clouds moved sluggishly through the sky, and occasionally a discontented snarl of thunder echoed through the hills.
There was little traffic on the street and only one ferry moved over the river. Everyone that could be inside was, and there were services in four of the churches to pray for rain. Even the massive doors of il Palazzo della Signoria were closed and the Console had adjourned to hear Girolamo Savonarola preach. A few stalls were set up in il Mercato, but almost no one came to buy, and the vegetables and meat wilted and stank in the enveloping heat. In the buildings of l'Arte della Lana the looms were still and many of the weavers were in church with the masters of the city. Only one of the silkmakers was busy today. In defiance of the order of il Prior di San Marco, Buovo Frugatti kept shop, and the spinning and clickings of his silk looms were strangely loud in the humid afternoon.
Ragoczy had changed from his house gown to a guamacca, for the short, flared garment was not only more typically Fiorenzan, it was cooler, being made of black-dyed Egyptian cotton. The slashed sleeves today revealed only Ragoczy's well-muscled arms, and not his usual fine white silk shirt. He had substituted Venezian silk hose for the standard calzebrache, and his boots were ankle-high and heeled after the Hungarian fashion. The wallet tied to his broad black leather belt was quite large, and at least half its contents were forbidden substances under the stringent new regulations affecting physicians and apothecaries.
"But I want to help you, San Germano," Demetrice protested as he went into the courtyard.
"You will do that by staying here." He tried to move by her but she blocked the way, and her jaw was set with determination. "If it is dangerous to me, it must be dangerous to you."
"Must it?" He met her eyes, a certain anger behind his flippancy. "You're mortal, Demetrice. Disease can strike you down as surely as it killed Laurenzo. But I have died once, and no disease can touch me. Destroy my spine, and I will die the true death. Chop off my head or burn me or pull me limb from limb, and I will perish at last. No disease will do that. So you will stay here, if you would please me."
Her arm still blocked his way. "There are other dangers. Or have you forgotten so soon what happened to Magister Branco?"
"I haven't forgotten," he said softly. "And if that's your best argument, then think what might befall you if you were with me and I was attacked. The Palleschi are as much targets for mischief as strangers like me, especially now with the Medici house in such disorder. And you are known as a Palleschi, aren't you?"
For the first time she did not answer at once. "Yes, I'm a Palleschi. It's an honor to be a Palleschi!" Her jaw came up again. "Let me maintain that honor, San Germane When Laurenzo was alive, he never refused to aid his city, no matter what the danger. If Piero won't uphold his family, then let me."
Ragoczy knew it would be a simple matter to push her out of the way and leave Palazzo San Germano without her. Yet he did not want to cheat her. "Is this a debt, then?" he said kindly.
She nodded, and her amber eyes met his directly. "It's a debt."
"Are you certain there is no other way you might pay it? You still have much to do with Laurenzo's library." As he spoke he felt himself weaken. "He would not ask you to walk through fire, amica mia."
"I would have done it if he wished it." At last she lowered her arm blocking Ragoczy's away. "He wouldn't have to ask me. Just as he didn't have to ask you."
"Yes." Ragoczy looked at her, seeing worry lines around her eyes that hadn't been there two months ago. "Do you understand that the people are dying of swine plague? Do you know what it's like?" He looked beyond her. "I've seen it many times. In Roma, in Egypt, in my homeland. It is a terrible way to die. And there is little anyone can do to save the victims. Syrup of poppies will lessen the pain and poultices sometimes will help. But beyond that, all we can do is offer help to ease dying."
Demetrice looked at him and her expression was solemn. "If you will wait a few moments more, I will be ready to go with you."
Ragoczy capitulated. "Very well, Donna mia. I will wait for you. Wear something that you can burn when we are through, and be sure that you discard the garment before we come into the palazzo. I will give you a solution to wash with, and you must use it when you discard your garment. Otherwise you may carry infection in to the servants."
"I will do whatever you think I should. You have only to tell me." She paused, as if she were about to say something more, and then she turned and hurried into the palazzo.
When she returned she wore a sensible gonella cut off just below the knees and tied at the waist with three stout cords. Her rosy-blond hair was tucked away under a linen cap and she had put high kitchen boots on her feet.
"Will this do?" she asked. There was nothing provocative in the question and her manner was briskly impersonal.
"It will do very well indeed. Where did you find the kitchen boots?"
"They're mine. I've had them since before my father's death. You'll see where the cloth tops are worn. I won't mind giving them up, if that concerns you." She fastened her wallet to her belt and watched him. "Shall we go, San Germano?"
He had thought to attempt to dissuade her, but he knew now it would be useless. He shrugged, but warned her, "If there is too much danger I will send you away. And you must not seek to argue with me then."
Demetrice was glad to agree to that stricture. "I'll do it."
He almost smiled. "Good. I'll be in no mood to brook opposition." Then he stood aside and they walked out into the street.
As they passed San Marco they could hear chanting and occasional outbursts of prayer. The frightened cries blended with the singing in a terrible harmony. Ragoczy felt his body tighten as he listened to the sounds.
"What is it?" Demetrice asked, seeing his discomfort.
"I was... remembering." Plainly he did not want to discuss the matter.
"Remembering what?" Demetrice persisted.
"Many things," he snapped. Then, as they crossed to la Via Larga he relented. "I've seen all kinds of delusions. I was remembering what happened shortly after the Domenicani were founded, and what they, in their zeal, did to the Cathars."
"The Cathars?" Demetrice frowned. "I don't know if I've heard of them."
"The Albigensians, if you prefer." As they went past il Palazzo de' Medici, Ragoczy said, "Piero hasn't given orders to pull down the old buildings where the plague is yet. He'll regret it."
"I've heard of the Albigensians. They were heretics."
"No," Ragoczy snapped. "That's the verdict of the Domenicani. Before they, in good faith, destroyed the Cathars, they explained that it was because the Cathars were heretics. That was not the Cathars' opinion, believe me." He shook his head. "It isn't the time to discuss this."
"But will you, later?" She had to hurry to keep up with him, and as her breath grew short, she realized that his breathing was even and there was no sign of sweat on his face in spite of the heat of the day and his quick pace.
"Perhaps." He was silent then, and shortly they came to la Via degli Arcangeli. It was a narrow, mean street, and the old buildings crowded close together, touching one another as if taking strength from the presence of other equally ancient wrecks. There were sewer smells here, and the scent of rancid food. But the stranger odor of sickness was stronger than any other, and its putrid touch lingered on the air, its corrupting flavor masking all other smells.
Ragoczy saw that Demetrice had whitened. "It's worse inside," he warned her. "If you go in, you must breathe that smell. If you can't, I'll escort you home."
She shook her head and bit her lip. "No. I'll stay. I'll manage."
"If that's what you want." He went to the third house from the corner. It had a black stripe painted on the door, and beyond, there was the sound of weeping. Ragoczy knocked once, twice, and then called out, "Cuorebrillo, it is Ragoczy."
It seemed that no one had heard, and Ragoczy repeated his knocking. This time there was a breaking off of sobs, and a scuffling and scraping indicated that they would be admitted.
Sesto Cuorebrillo was twenty-seven years old and looked fifty. His soft brown hair was already frosted with white and his face was gouged deeply with the marks of pox and sorrow. He stared at Ragoczy with red-rimmed eyes, then, dumbly, held the door open.
"I have brought more help with me, Cuorebrillo," Ragoczy said as he stepped into the dark, filthy room. "This is Donna Demetrice, who does me the honor to be my student."
Cuorebrillo glared at her. "As she honored Laurenzo? Well, you are too late. Annamaria died this morning and Lugrezia is failing too fast." He wiped his face with a dirty apron and crossed himself as an afterthought. "Come this way."
"What of your wife, Sesto? And your other children?" Ragoczy was gentle, but he demanded an answer.
"Feve is not well, and has laid down to mourn. Cosmo, Gemma and Ermo have been taken to the good Cisterceni Brothers at San Felice until the danger is over, or until we are all dead. Only Ilirio is left. He's too young to be taken away. Without his mother, he will die because we have no money for a wet nurse."
"Take him to la Casa Ospedale delle Madre," Demetrice said, knowing that the home for nursing mothers and foundlings rarely turned anyone away. "Take the infant and your wife there."
Sesto scoffed. "They will not admit anyone from a house visited by plague. It endangers all the others." Bitterly he turned away, and started back into the house. "Go away. Go away. Leave us to our ends. Go away."
"Cuorebrillo," Ragoczy said, and though he had not raised his soft, low voice, the name carried as if it had been shouted. "Take us to your wife. I promise you we will do her no harm."
"Per tutti gli angeli! Let us die peacefully! Leave her alone. She's had too much of sorrow." Quite suddenly Sesto brought his hands to his face as he wept.
Demetrice went up to him. There was neither revulsion nor fear in her as she took the poor man by his shoulders. "Signore Cuorebrillo, do not abandon hope. It is a great sin to forget the Mercy of God. Surely your wife must be given every chance to live. If we do less than that, then we're worse than wolves ravening in the fields. We know that it is wrong to let her suffer, but wolves do not. Let us see her. If there is nothing else to do, we can at least pray for her together."
The low, ill-lit room was filthy and the thick, fetid smell like a blanket pressed to the face. Sesto raised his head slowly and looked around the room. "Buona Donna, the rest of the house is no better."
"With your family so ill and yourself worn beyond endurance, I'd be much troubled if it were otherwise." Demetrice nodded philosophically. "If Our Lord could touch lepers without fear, what is a little dirt to me?"
Sesto stared at her as if she was mad, but turned and led the way down a narrow hallway, remarking as he went that the floor sagged but probably wouldn't break.
Ragoczy went behind Demetrice, pointing out to her white patches on the old wooden walls. "There, do you see? These buildings should have come down a long time ago. Laurenzo mentioned that he'd wanted to take down these hovels and make new houses for the poor beyond la Porta Santa Croce. It's a shame there was not time enough to see it done."
Up ahead of them Sesto had stopped at a doorway, and as he motioned to Ragoczy and Demetrice, he lifted the thin, torn curtain that covered the opening. "Feve, sposa," he said in a small, heartbroken voice, "the foreigner has come again. There is a woman with him, the one you said was so pretty when il Magnifico came back from the country with her. We were fishing for our supper and we saw them ride by."
It was doubtful that his Feve heard any of this babble. She lay on a hard bed in blankets soaked with sweat and urine. Her eyes were distant and glittering with fever, her hair lay in great matted tangles on her pillow, and she trembled under the three thin blankets though the room was stiflingly hot.
Demetrice paused on the threshold to cross herself, and to school her features to show none of the dismay that filled her.
Through parched and blistered lips, the woman on the bed croaked out, "Buona Donna... You must... not... I'm dying..."
Ragoczy had come into the room behind Demetrice and his first glance told him that there was very little hope of saving Feve now. But he opened the wallet he carried and brought out a small glass vial. If he was upset by the surroundings or worried about the woman's condition, there was nothing in his calm, assured manner to show it.
Taking Ragoczy for her model, Demetrice went to the side of the bed. "You are not to despair, Feve," she said evenly, and turned to the door where Sesto lingered. "We'll need water."
"Don't take it from the old well," Ragoczy cautioned. "Leave the city on the east and take fresh water from the Santa Croce spring."
Sesto's eyes widened, then narrowed. "That will take a great deal of time. You might do anything while I'm away."
Ragoczy straightened up and regarded Sesto silently. Then he said, "Cuorebrillo, if this plague is in the city, then your wells may be contaminated. There would be no benefit in giving water from wells where the disease lurks. Therefore, you must get your water from uncorrupted springs. If you go to i Lanzi, you will get the loan of an ass and two barrels. That way you will not have to return for a few days and there will be fresh water for you, and for the others who live in these disgraceful hovels."
"But we have been forbidden to work on this day. Savonarola himself has declared that all must pray and worship for salvation from dawn until sunset." Sesto was genuinely concerned, for there were new and unpleasantly punitive laws affecting those who were lax in their religious exercises.
"For how long," Ragoczy mused, "has it been a sin to succor these in need? Undoubtedly I am mistaken in thinking that feeding the hungry and comforting those in distress are acts of charity."
Under this rebuke Sesto squirmed. He nodded, but said with a finger upraised in warning, "If i Lanzi will not give me the ass and the barrels, you can fetch the spring water, stragnero."
As soon as Sesto was gone, Ragoczy held up his vial. "Here, Demetrice. Give this to her. Moisten her lips with it, and then, when she can swallow, tip it down her throat."
"What is it?" She took the vial as she asked, and unstoppered it, turning a little of the clear liquid onto her fingers. These she touched to Feve's lips.
The woman sobbed. "I can't... My mouth..."
"More on the lips," Ragoczy said crisply and moved the two feeble rushlights nearer the bed.
Demetrice did as he instructed her, ignoring Feve's futile attempts to force her gentle hands away.
"Now. Not too fast." Ragoczy watched as Demetrice poured the shining liquid down Feve's throat. Feve gasped, coughed and for an instant seemed to choke on the fluid. Then she swallowed deeply, and sighed.
"What is it?" Demetrice asked again, not taking her eyes from Feve. "What does it do?"
Ragoczy shook his head, saying somewhat obscurely, "The process is something like the others you have learned. The liquid is for healing. If the body is not too much harmed, it can stop some diseases. It begins very humbly," he added in a different voice, "as moldy bread. It is transformed into a white substance, and then, through another process, into that clear liquid."
Only Demetrice's raised brows expressed her surprise, and with it, a kind of apprehension. Before she could stop the words, she asked, "And would it have helped Laurenzo?"
"No."
She recognized that cold, remote tone, and knew that she should say no more, that her first question had been unwise. "But didn't you give him some medicine in a vial... ?" She broke off as Feve began to cough. A swift, worried glance at Ragoczy told her that there was no great danger to Feve yet.
Easily, smoothly, he said, "I gave him two vials, one was a cordial for pain, the other... the other a compound to... to buy a little time. It was all I could do. You credit me with more skill than I have, Demetrice, if you think that I, or anyone, can restore blood that is rotten. This"-he nodded toward Feve-"occasionally can be treated. But the other, no."
"I'm sorry, San Germano," she said, and there was a heightened color in her face to punctuate her apology, "I had no right. But I hated so to see him die..." Again she stopped. "If it hadn't been for you, I don't know what would have become of me."
Ragoczy looked down at the neat row of vials in his large wallet. "We'll wait a bit and give her some more of the fluid. If that greenish cast has left her skin after that, she will have a good chance to survive-that is, if Sesto can get some decent food for her. One of the charitable Confraternite should be willing to help. If she doesn't improve, we'll know that we've done all that we can." He joined her beside the bed and looked down at Feve. There was a strangeness in his face, both infinitely sad and infinitely distant, as if he looked down the centuries with sorrow.
Demetrice had never seen an expression like this before, and it frightened her. In spite of herself, she shrank from his hand as he laid it on her shoulder. Immediately she felt ashamed and she said with difficulty, "That... that was not what you think."
"You have no idea what I think," he said, and turned away.
Lightning was pricking the dusk-thickened clouds by the time Sesto returned. He kicked open the door with a shout and in a few moments there was the rumble of a barrel being rolled into the hall.
"I have brought you spring water," Sesto announced as he came to the doorway. Under the grime his face was gray with fatigue and he leaned against the rough frame as if every muscle in him ached.
"Excellent," Ragoczy said, and looked down at Demetrice. "If I bring you water, will you wash Feve? Until she's clean again, there will be no chance for her."
Demetrice nodded. She was determined to atone for her earlier mistakes, which had in her mind by now taken on the importance of disastrous and irremediable blunders.
Already Ragoczy had turned his attention to Sesto. "I will need your largest basin and fresh cloths. And there must be other blankets to put on the bed. If you haven't any clean ones, go to the priests at Santa Maria del Fiore. They have such things. Tell them it is an emergency."
Sesto nodded, somewhat numbly. "Why don't you go?" he asked.
"Because I am a foreigner, I am a landholder, and it is known that I am ineligible to receive charity." Ragoczy put his hand to his eyes.
"But they know you're working with the sick..." Sesto sighed and gave up. He went into the hall and was almost at the door when a high, thin cry came from the depths of the house. He stopped abruptly. "Ilirio! He's awake. He's alive." With more strength than he knew he had, Sesto pushed the second barrel aside and stumbled into the main room of the house.
In the corner was an old, rockerless cradle, and in it, Sesto's son cried, twisting in his swaddling bands. His infant face was screwed into a reddened, enraged mask. Eagerly Sesto reached into the cradle and lifted Ilirio out, crooning to the child as he carried it back to the room where Feve lay.
"What is it?" Ragoczy asked, frowning as Sesto came into the squalid room once more. "We need those blankets."
"It's Ilirio," Sesto said, holding up his squalling son. "He's hungry. He wants the breast."
"No." Ragoczy stood ready to block Sesto's way.
"But he's hungry. He must have milk." Sesto held up the baby and said to Demetrice, "Buona Donna, it is as I say."
"I know he's hungry," Ragoczy began, attempting to explain.
A particularly loud burst of thunder blocked out Sesto's objection and set the baby to screaming. Sesto busied himself tending his son, and then renewed his arguments. "Don't deny him. He could die if he has no food..."
"If you let him nurse when his mother is so full of sickness, he will most surely die." The words were harsher than Ragoczy had intended, and Sesto glared at him while Ilirio shrieked.
"The prior of San Marco said that God will save the mother who holds her infant to the breast. He says it is holy, and holy things drive out all ill. It is heresy to deny this, Savonarola says."
Instead of answering this with anger, Ragoczy shook his head slowly. "Believe what you want, Cuorebrillo. Believe that demons have poisoned your well, believe that this is a judgment upon you, believe that a woman giving suck is proof against disease." He stared down at Feve, and knew that the woman who lay there in torment would not survive the night. "You have all believed that, and in the last eight days, more than fifty of you have died."
One of the rushlights winked out and Sesto stared at it, and murmured, "Libera me, Domine."
At this point Demetrice decided to interfere. She pushed herself to her feet and wiped the sweat from her face. "It's very hot, and I must bathe your wife, Signore Cuorebrillo. If il Conte Ragoczy says that your wife is too ill to nurse your baby, then it is true. Get me water and blankets and cloths so that I may finish my work."
To Ragoczy's surprise, Sesto stopped arguing. "As you say, Buona Donna. But what of the child?"
"You must take him to Perpetua della Porta San Nicolo. She will nurse him until your wife is well." Already Demetrice was working on the guttered rushlight to see if there was sufficient oil to make it burn again.
"And how will I pay her?" Sesto was quickly becoming angry. "I am a poor man. I have no gold."
"But I do." Ragoczy untied the small purse that hung beside his wallet. "Do as Donna Demetrice instructs you."
Sesto looked from his fainting, shivering wife to his crying child, then took the purse. He started to say something, changed his mind, and with Ilirio still in his arms, rushed from the room. A few moments later the street door slammed shut behind him.
Demetrice let out a long sigh, then resumed her place beside Feve. "It will be good to be home," she said to Ragoczy as she adjusted the soiled blankets over the stricken woman again. Feve moaned and plucked at the thin brown wool fitfully before she began to cough once more.
"We won't be home for some time yet," Ragoczy said, a hint of a smile in his eyes at her use of the word "home." "When we are through here, there are still three other houses to visit. In this terrible heat, the disease will spread rapidly."
The one burning rushlight began to falter, giving out a few sputtering flames before it started to fade.
"There won't be any light without it," Demetrice said, more to herself than to Ragoczy. "I'll need light."
"I'll bring you more lamps," Ragoczy said, and left the room, to return a few minutes later with four tallow candles. The rushlight was only a small blue spark in the corner of the room, and he thrust one of the twisted straw wicks into the brightness. There was light in the room again, and Ragoczy set the candles about the room.
"Where did you find them?" Demetrice asked rather absently as she studied Feve, who had begun to toss restlessly.
"One was under their Madonna shrine, and the others were in the main room. They'll give you a few hours of light, but then we'll need something else."
"Will we be here that long?" Demetrice said in an undervoice.
As he had done many times that afternoon, Ragoczy went to the sick woman, touched her forehead, her hot, dry hands, the side of her neck. "I don't think so."
"You should fetch a priest, then," Demetrice told him, then bit her lower lip to stop from weeping in vexation. She was losing her battle for the life of Feve Cuorebrillo, and she hated losing.
Apparently Ragoczy understood, for he reached over and touched her arm affectionately. "I know, amica mia. And it never gets easier. Never."
A peal of thunder deafened them for a few moments, and then it was quiet again. Demetrice said, "She will need a priest, San Germano. Look at her."
"No priest will come. Yesterday Savonarola declared that the plague is of infernal origin, and that it is a damnable act to give last rites to those who are dying."
Outraged, Demetrice got to her feet. "He can't mean it. This woman deserves better." She was almost too angry to speak, and she took an agitated turn about the small room. "This is unforgivable. It's infamous!"
"That may be, but it is also the law." Ragoczy hesitated, then pulled two stoppered silver bottles from his wallet. They were both quite small, of exquisite workmanship, and each was marked with the Cross. "Here. This is consecrated oil, and this is holy water. You take Communion regularly and have confessed just two days ago. Mark her forehead for her. That way, Sesto need not know."
Demetrice nodded, then knelt before the silver bottles in Ragoczy's hands, crossing herself and closing her eyes to pray. When she was done, she took the bottles and reverently approached the bed.
When Sesto returned he was drenched by the downpour which at last signaled a break in the weather. The blankets he carried were also soaked, but by then they were no longer necessary.
Text of a letter to Piero di Laurenzo de' Medici from an unknown person:
To Piero de' Medici one who wishes him well sends warnings:
Charles of France covets your land, Medici. His expedition into Italia is for the purpose of gaining strength and holdings, not to restore peace. You think that he will not harm you, but I tell you that he will see you driven from your home and will install those who are compliant and willing at the head of your government.
If you act at once, you may avert disaster. Beware of enemies. Remember that Savonarola favors the French, and regard his advice with caution. Remember that Il Moro, Lodovico Sforza, has borrowed large sums of money from Genova and is working for your downfall. Remember that your father refused titles from the French so that he might retain his independence and the independence of la Repubblica Fiorenzen.
Heed this well and act quickly. Or be exiled and disgraced forever.
A friend from the north
July 10, 1494