“Look,” she had pointed out, scrolling down the long document, “there are Giuliettas and Giannozzas all over the place!”
“Originally, they were twins,” I had explained, pointing out a passage in one of Giulietta’s last letters to her sister, “see? She writes, ‘You have often said that you are four minutes younger, but four centuries older, than me. I now understand what you mean.’”
“Creepers!” Janice had stuck her nose in the family tree once more. “Maybe these are all twins! Maybe it’s a gene that runs in our family.”
But apart from the fact that our medieval namesakes had been twins, too, it was hard for us to find many other similarities between their lives and ours. They had lived in an age where women were the silent victims of men’s mistakes; we, it would seem, were free to make our own and to shout about it as loudly as we pleased.
Only when we had read on-together-in Maestro Ambrogio’s journal had the two very different worlds finally fused in a language we could both understand, namely that of money. Salimbeni had given Giulietta a bridal crown with four supersized gemstones-two sapphires and two emeralds-and those were supposedly the stones that would later end up in the statue by her grave. But we had fallen asleep before we got that far.
After only the barest bones of sleep, I was woken up by the telephone.
“Miss Tolomei,” chirped Direttor Rossini, enjoying the role of early bird, “are you upright?”
“I am now.” I grimaced to see the face of my wristwatch. It was nine o’clock. “What’s wrong?”
“Captain Santini is here to see you. What should I tell him?”
“Uh-” I looked around at the mess. Janice was still snoring soundly beside me. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”
My hair still dripping from a drive-thru shower, I ran downstairs as fast as I could to find Alessandro sitting on a bench in the front garden, playing absentmindedly with a flower from the magnolia tree. The sight of him filled me with warm expectation, but as soon as he looked up to meet my eyes, I was reminded of the photos of him breaking into my hotel room, and the happy tickle immediately turned into stings of doubt.
“Top of the morning,” I said, not quite meaning it. “Any news about Bruno?”
“I came by yesterday,” he replied, looking at me pensively, “but you weren’t here.”
“I wasn’t?” I did my best to sound surprised. In my frenzy of meeting motorcycle Romeo in the Mangia Tower the day before, I had completely forgotten my appointment with Alessandro. “That’s strange. Oh, well-so what did Bruno say?”
“Not much.” Alessandro tossed aside the flower and stood up. “He’s dead.”
I gasped. “That was sudden! What happened?”
As we strolled through town together, Alessandro explained that Bruno Carrera-the man who had broken into my cousin Peppo’s museum-had been found dead in his cell the morning after his arrest. It was hard to say whether it was suicide or whether someone on the inside had been paid to silence him, but, Alessandro pointed out, it requires quite a bit of expertise-if not downright magic-to hang yourself from your frayed old shoelaces without breaking them in the fall.
“So, you’re saying he was murdered?” Despite his character, behavior, and gun, I felt sorry for the guy. “I guess someone didn’t want him to talk.”
Alessandro looked at me as if he suspected I knew more than I let on. “That is what it looks like.”
FONTEBRANDA WAS AN old public fountain-thanks to plumbing it was no longer used-which sat at the bottom of a sloping maze of city streets in a large open area. It was a detached, loggialike building in ancient, reddish brick, and leading down to it were broad stairs grown over with weeds.
Sitting down on the edge next to Alessandro, I looked around at the crystal-green water in the large stone basin and the kaleidoscope of light reflected onto the walls and vaulted ceiling above.
“You know,” I said, having a hard time accepting all this beauty, “your ancestor was a real piece of shit!”
He laughed in surprise, an unhappy laughter. “I hope you are not judging me by my ancestors. And I hope you are not judging yourself by yours either.”
How about, I thought to myself as I leaned down to run my fingers through the water, judging you by a photo on my sister’s cell phone? But instead, I said, “That dagger-you can keep it. I don’t think Romeo would ever want it back.” I looked up at him, needing very much to hold someone responsible for Messer Salimbeni’s crimes. “Peppo was right, it has the spirit of the devil in it. But so do some people.”
We sat for a moment in silence, Alessandro smiling at my frown. “Come on,” he finally said, “you are alive! Look! The sun is shining. This is the time to be here, when the light comes through the arches and hits the water. Later in the day, Fontebranda becomes dark and cold, like a grotto. You would not recognize it.”
“What a strange thing,” I muttered, “that a place can change so much in a few hours.”
If he suspected I was referring to him, he didn’t show it. “Everything has a shadow-side. In my opinion, that is what makes life interesting.”
Despite my general gloom, I couldn’t help smiling at his logic. “Should I be frightened?”
“Well-” He took off his jacket and leaned back against the wall of the arch, a challenge in his eyes. “The old people will tell you that Fontebranda holds special powers.”
“Go on. I will let you know when I am sufficiently spooked.”
“Take off your shoes.”
Much against my will, I burst out laughing. “Okay, I’m spooked.”
“Come on, you’ll like it.” I watched him as he took off his own shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and stuck his feet into the water.
“Don’t you have to work today?” I asked, staring at his dangling legs.
Alessandro shrugged. “The bank is over five hundred years old. I think it can survive without me for an hour.”
“So,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, “tell me about those special powers.”
He thought for a moment, then said, “I believe there are two kinds of madness in this world. Creative madness and destructive madness. The water from Fontebranda, it is believed, will make you mad, pazzo, but in a good way. It is hard to explain. For almost a thousand years, men and women have been drinking this water and have been filled with pazzia. Some have become poets, and some have become saints; the most famous of them all, of course, is Santa Caterina, who grew up right here, around the corner, in Oca, the contrada of the Goose.”
I was not in the mood to agree with anything he said, or allow him to distract me with fairy tales, and so I made a point of shaking my head. “This whole saint thing-women starving themselves and getting burned on the stake-how can you call that creative? It’s just plain insanity.”
“I think that, to most people,” he countered, still smiling, “throwing rocks at the Roman police would be insanity, too.” He laughed at my expression. “Especially when you won’t even put your feet in this nice fountain.”
“All I am saying,” I said, taking off my shoes, “is that it depends on your perspective. What seems perfectly creative to you might, in fact, be destructive to me.” I stuck my feet tentatively into the water. “I think it all comes down to what you believe in. Or… whose side you are on.”
I could not interpret his smile. “Are you telling me,” he said, looking at my wiggling toes, “that I need to rethink my theory?”