And you’d better not puke, she thought. That would be the end.
She strode over to the odd alcove by the entrance to the Uffizi, still wondering at the way the reality of Florence so contrasted with the image she’d built of the place when she read the guidebooks and histories back home. There was supposed to be magnificence everywhere, a visible show of all Europe’s grandeur. Not lowering fortresses hiding their riches behind windows cloaked in iron bars. The loggia was, she realized as she walked towards it, one of the few free displays of art anywhere they’d seen. A collection of statues set in a small enclosed area, the front open to view so that you could walk round them, feel close to the past.
‘What the hell’s that?’ the boyfriend asked, coming close and staring at the flapping, damp pages. He looked interested finally.
‘Perseus,’ she said, ‘with the Head of Medusa.’
‘Who?’
Something from mythology, she thought. Quite what… It was late. She was tired and a little woozy from cheap red Chianti. Another day…
He walked to the front of the statue and stared up at the warrior with the sword and the strange severed head in his hand. Then, like an idiot, he put a foot on the bottom ledge of the plinth, reached up and slapped the figure hard on the leg, yelling some stupid cry, the kind he copied from all the dumb Samurai TV shows he loved.
‘That’s the way!’ the boyfriend barked at the still figure above him. As he spoke a bead of something thick and dark dropped from the dangling head, landed on his face, spattered his eyes and lips.
Rain, she thought. Except rain didn’t move like that, slowly, in big, gouty gobs that looked too physical, too real to come from the sky.
She watched him start screaming. Watched him begin to gag and then puke. Then she looked at the statue again and, as her eyes adjusted to the faint lights of the Loggia dei Lanzi, saw the thing there, the staring eyes, the matted hair, the mouth open in terror.
Real, she thought. It looks so real, and then her legs buckled, her breath came in short, agonizing gasps and she fell on to the stones in the Piazza della Signoria as a black fog of nothing came to swim around her.
‘The Brigata Spendereccia,’ Fratelli said. ‘Who would have thought…?’
‘You’ve heard of it?’
A tug at the hair. She was learning to ignore this.
‘Dimly. Florence is drowning in history, in case you hadn’t noticed. Even I can’t recall every single detail. Dante, Boccaccio, the Guelphs, the Ghibellines. Civil war. The Medici. Art and philosophy. Then that brief and strange interlude with Savonarola. Such busy times…’
She smiled and tapped his jacket. ‘Soderini’s made me an appointment at San Marco for Thursday,’ she said brightly. ‘I’m going to see the monk’s cell.’
‘Lucky thing. Our mayor does seem inclined to open every door he can find. I wonder why.’
‘No prizes for guessing that. We’ve got wandering eyes in England. Wandering hands too.’
‘Soderini’s a politician,’ he said with a shrug. ‘What do you expect? They have strange habits, and even stranger ideas about their own importance. But the Brigata Spendereccia…’
‘What is it?’
‘What was it?’ Fratelli replied.
He picked up some finocchiona and dangled it in front of her. Julia shook her head.
‘No, thank you.’
‘You’d best not be so picky when it comes to Thursday night. The Brigata is… was about excess. A group of twelve men, if I recall correctly. I think the idea was imported from Siena, which is odd given that the Sienese were our greatest enemies in those days. Anyway… imagine your prime minister and his fellow deputies—’
‘Cabinet ministers,’ she corrected him.
‘I stand corrected. Imagine that they feel they’re owed some favour in return for all the long hours they expend on behalf of the state. The collection of taxes, which they skim for themselves, naturally. The formation of foreign policy. Who to fight and who to back. In return for a consideration, of course.’
‘Cynicism does not become you,’ she scolded him.
‘I’m a practical man. Not a cynic. In Italy we accept these things for what they are, part of the natural order. In England you pretend such peccadilloes do not exist, or at least only in foreigners. You’re mistaken, and will one day realize it. But I digress…’
‘They want a party,’ Julia suggested. ‘A break from the tedium of governing.’
‘The party to end all parties. One in which they may lose themselves for a while. In the most exotic and luxurious of foods. The most expensive drink.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘In engaging and beautiful company.’
‘A Roman orgy.’
‘Certainly not! A Florentine one. Far more refined. And discreet too, I’ll bet. We love our secrets. You believe our friend Sandro has been organizing these things for a while?’
She thought back to the way Soderini spoke about his invitation.
‘I got the impression they’ve been going on forever.’
Fratelli sighed. ‘Well then. There’s something I never knew about the ruling classes. What a furtive little bunch they are.’
‘Cibreo,’ she said.
‘Sounds very much like the kind of thing they might eat.’
‘Pino. Are you sure they wouldn’t serve it in a restaurant? If you think your man’s in the catering business, surely that’s the place to look.’
He shook his head, adamant to the last. ‘No. My Sant’Ambrogio butcher supplies the finest and most expensive establishments in the city. If anyone knew, it would be him. No one eats that kind of thing these days. Imagine it on the menu!’
‘You eat lampredotto, which is the umpteenth stomach of a cow or something.’
‘Fourth,’ Fratelli corrected her. ‘And that’s tradition. Boiling cocks’ combs isn’t. Not since the fifteenth century or so. Detection depends greatly on the question of probabilities. Remember this, Julia. It may prove useful in your studies.’
‘Oh, them…’ she whispered.
‘Cibreo’s a dish for a feast, a banquet. Hardly a TV dinner for two. If it’s not on the menu of a restaurant, then a private occasion such as Soderini’s would seem the prime candidate here.’
Fratelli shook his head and frowned. ‘For the life of me I never knew that kind of thing still went on. You hear of squalid parties in the hills. In the villas of the rich. We occasionally had to deal discreetly with a drugs overdose. But the Brigata Spendereccia…’
There were people coming into the bar now. A couple had occupied a table within earshot.
‘There’s something old and aristocratic about the idea,’ Fratelli continued, sotto voce. ‘One can imagine it would appeal to those obsessed with their birth.’
‘Like a Soderini? Or a Tornabuoni?’
‘Plenty of others too,’ he said softly, casting an eye at the adjoining table. ‘And their cronies. So I doubt cibreo’s on many menus. Which, if we’re lucky, may mean our man works for whatever catering institution supplies our friend with his peculiar specialities. Do you know where it takes place?’
‘I meet Soderini at the Palazzo Vecchio at seven. That’s as much as he’s told me.’
He waited.
‘It could be anywhere, couldn’t it?’ she asked. ‘How many palaces do you have in Florence?’
‘This is a city of rusticated monstrosities. I believed I’d made that clear.’
‘Well then.’
‘Are you going to go?’ he asked gingerly.
‘To an orgy? No thanks. I’d rather sit here and talk to you.’
‘I’m flattered I suppose. But then what would we find out? Discovery comes from action, not idle discussion. We can exchange our theories endlessly, but where will that get us? Even if Walter listened to me, he wouldn’t approach Soderini and ask for the menu. Not if this is meant to be secret. If you have a location for these events then I can find out more. Who handles the catering. Luca can quietly check the files and see if there are any workers involved with a criminal record. We have an entrance point into proceedings. A way in. I…’