Read Online The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) by Alana White - Free Book Online Page A

Guid'Antonio rubbed his neck to ease the muscle ache holding him in its grip. With Amerigo at his side, he approached the door.
    “Guid'Antonio,” Bartolomeo said, beaming, “here's a message from Via Larga.”
    All eyes shifted their way. Tommaso turned and locked Guid'Antonio in his silver gaze. “And?” Guid'Antonio said.
    Bartolomeo smiled his confusion. “From Lorenzo. He needs you there.”
    “When?”
    Bartolomeo hesitated, glancing at the courier, who bowed, murmuring, “
Il Magnifico
didn't say.”
    “No.
Il Magnifico
wouldn't need to, would he?” Guid'Antonio said.
    And so he and Amerigo went back out into Piazza della Signoria, each with his own private thoughts, Amerigo pondering the whys and wherefores of Turks and virgins, holy or otherwise, while Guid'Antonio considered the complex nature of power, desire, and truth. A brief farewell, and Amerigo struck out toward home, whistling tunelessly to himself, and Guid'Antonio strode north toward the Medici Palace in the Golden Lion district of the San Giovanni quarter of the walled city, acutely aware of the battered animal keeping a safe distance behind the heels of his fine leather boots.

F IVE
    Lorenzo, standing at the windows of his ground floor palazzo apartment, looked around with relief and a smile of recognition when Guid'Antonio walked into the room. “So,” he said, his brown eyes dark and shining. “Shall I take myself to Rome?”
    “No,”
Guid'Antonio said. They clasped one another, and embraced another moment, Lorenzo every bit as solid and strong as Guid'Antonio remembered him to be. Roused by Guid'Antonio's entrance, the sleek greyhound snoozing before the cold, man-size hearth raised his head before breathing a deep, shuddering sigh and lowering his nose back onto outstretched paws.
I remember you.
    “Guid'Antonio, thank you for coming,” Lorenzo said. “So quickly, too. How are you, my friend?”
    “Stunned.”
    “Yes!” Lorenzo said. “The
Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta
is weeping in Ognissanti—your family church—and there's a hue and cry in the streets, while I'm blamed for
everything
. Or am, at least, made the solution.”
    He pulled his thick, dark chestnut hair from his face, holding it aloft before letting it brush back onto his shoulders. Never handsome, but in no respect ill-looking, Lorenzo de' Medici's hair framed dark, irregular features. He wore short boots, ash gray leggings, and a loosely belted tunic of white linen whose plain round collar stopped short at the jagged scar visible at his neck. Well above middle height and light of foot, at the first swipe of the knife-brandishing priest who meant to kill him that bloody April Sunday morning in the Cathedral, he had drawn his sword, fought off his attackers, vaulted the altar railing, and found safety in the sacristy, where he and three friends had bolted the door against the men scampering after them.
    “But I've jumped straight into the fray,” he said. “Are you hungry?” He grinned. “I doubt you ate much locked in Palazzo della Signoria with our nine Lord Priors.”
    “Not a bite,” Guid'Antonio said, glancing toward the walnut sideboard against one wall, noting the refreshments on silver trays, pottery bowls of mixed olives, fresh oil, bright green melon slices,
prosciutto, salame
, bread seasoned with herbs in the Medici Palace kitchen, and cheese ripe from Lorenzo's dairy farm at Poggio a Caiano. All ready and waiting for Lorenzo's friend and right-hand man, Guid'Antonio Vespucci.
    “Grazie.”
He poured water over his fingers and dried them with a linen towel.
Delicious
, he thought, biting into a thick slice of rosemary bread slathered with creamy pale pecorino. And a far cry from the rancid cheese the farmer had palmed off on him in the marketplace today. A farther cry from the old woman's burned crow tart.
    “Poggio's up and running?” he said. Lorenzo had begun acquiring property in the countryside between Florence and Pistoia