The Medici secret by Michael White

Author:Michael White [White Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-04-17T02:02:45+00:00

Chapter 16

Northern Italy, May 1410 The journey from Brisighella to Venice took six days. Many years later Cosimo could still remember the sense of foreboding that descended on the party as they travelled north. It seemed that as they rode further from Florence they were entering a brooding darkness that grew ever more oppressive with each passing mile. There were rumours of plague spreading its deadly tendrils across the countryside and reports of bandits controlling the main routes.

They spent a night outside the walls of Modena where they shared a camp with a group of travelling musicians and actors. They were a merry band, but it was clear they were fuelling their high spirits with mead and something else, some strange weed they had acquired from another party of performers whose paths they had crossed in Venice. They claimed the weed came from China. The leader of the troupe, a bear of a man named Trojan, showed Cosimo and his associates how to roll it in the palms of the hands and then chew the darkened and mangled leaves. It tasted like thyme but hit you with a great wave of euphoria that lasted several minutes.

The encounter with the performers was one of the few bright times they experienced during this part of the journey. When they waved farewell at a crossroads north of Modena, the dark veil of anxiety returned.

After a long night's ride, they reached Copparo, a small town near Ferrara. The sun was rising over low hills lighting up the young green shoots of barley. A dusty track led to the centre of the town. Turning a bend, they came upon a church. A crowd had gathered, which cheered loudly as a pyre was lit. In a matter of seconds, the flames licked the hem of a habit worn by a priest tied to a rough stake. He was dressed in grey, his hands bound with rope, head shaved. His eyes were black with terror.

The prosecutor had deliberately used damp wood, so the fire took a long time to blaze. Cosimo and Niccolo Niccoli turned away as the priest began to scream. They learned later that the condemned man had been found guilty of impregnating three young women in the small town. The party stayed just long enough to sleep away the daylight in a tavern on the edge of the town, the air rank with the smell of burned flesh. They returned to the road an hour after sunset, eager to leave. The bones of the priest had already been pulverised and the townsfolk had scattered his ashes across a field of barley.

Cosimo and his little entourage were no strangers to death, but this familiarity did nothing to help numb the rising sense of dread each of them felt that morning. The sky was leaden, the land grey. Pestilence stalked the land but death also came easily from the hands of men. It wasn't until they entered the Veneto that their spirits rose. A little over twenty-four hours later, they reached Mestre, two hours before sunset.

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