The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) Read Online Free PDF

snowy white linen.
    “Scuttle back to your palace kitchen if you don't like my wares,” the farmer said. “In the markets, you'll find the pickings slim.”
    “Slim? Looks to me as if they've given up the ghost,” Amerigo said. “What do you expect us to eat?”
    The man's stare was as contemptuous as it was hard. “Do you think I care? What do you expect from war?”
    Amerigo opened his mouth to speak; gently, Guid'Antonio touched his arm. “Everything will improve, friend, now the war's ended and we have peace again.”
    The old man barked a laugh. “Where've you been hiding your head? In the well at your country villa?”
    Amerigo gasped. “Old man! Have a care!”
    “Messer Vespucci!” a friendly voice called out in the piazza. “And Amerigo!” A heavyset fellow hurried toward them, holding up the hem of his brown
lucco
to keep it tidy as he bustled around the water well in the center of the marketplace. “Welcome home, welcome!”
    “It's good to see you, Luca.” True, but Christ, here was another delay.
    “When did you arrive?”
    “Dawn today.”
    “And already you're out and about in the city. Well, no rest for the weary.”
    “There doesn't seem to be.”
    Guid'Antonio knew Luca Landucci better than he did most other men who were not part of the city's ruling elite. In Florence, he often visited Luca's apothecary shop, the Sign of the Stars, to purchase medicaments for the family and sometimes to enlist the druggist's assistance with one or another of Guid'Antonio's private cases of an investigative nature.
    “Ser Landucci,” Amerigo said, “how's Gostanzo's performance in the
palio
this summer? Exciting as always?”
    Guid'Antonio listened with half an ear, aware of the farmer's disdain, the miserable dog retching into the dirt, and the shadows lengthening around them in the market as Luca spoke glowingly of his younger brother, Gostanzo Landucci, of Gostanzo's horse from Barbary,
Il Draghetto
, the Little Dragon, and of the horse races held throughout the year in Tuscany. Prato, Montepulciano, Santa Liperata, and Cortona: those tight little piazzas. Thundering hooves slid on loose pebbles. Horses crashed over stones and into shop walls, leaving the animals and their riders in a tangle of bones, blood, and sweat. The goal? A coveted spot in the championship race in August.
“Palio!”
    “Neither my brother Gostanzo nor any other man takes the banner when Lorenzo de' Medici puts a horse in the mix,” Luca grumbled. “No doubt he'll claim the grand prize again next month.” Luca muttered something about judges. “Ah, well, Messer Vespucci. How long will you bless Florence with your presence this time around?”
    “I won't be leaving again.”
    Amerigo clasped his chest. “Christ's bones! Does our Lorenzo know?”
    “Right now, Luca, we're bound for the Lord Priors,” Guid'Antonio said.
    The forgotten old farmer spat a gob of phlegm at Guid'Antonio's feet. “Priors? Bastards, is more the like! When you see those nine fools tell them to come into the street so we can whip their Medici asses!”
    Amerigo stared, aghast. “Do you
want
to spend the rest of your days in the Stinche?”
    Guid'Antonio looked into the farmer's glowing stare. “Why are you so angry?”
    “You're a
palleschi!
” the farmer said in reference to the Medici family's emblem, a varying number of
palle
, or balls, in red on a gold field. “A Medici man born and bred.”
    “Yes,” Guid'Antonio said with the confidence born of his family's alliance with the Medici family for the last half century.
    “Because of Lorenzo, we went to war with God!”
    “Not with God,” Guid'Antonio said. “With Pope Sixtus IV.”
    “The Pope and God are one and the same!” the farmer said, trembling.
    “No.” Guid'Antonio shook his head. “Sixtus IV,
not
God, declared war on us when his nephew's scheme to cripple our government failed. We have a treaty with the Pope now.” Surely the old fellow knew this?
    At the first