David by Mary Hoffman Page A

flustered.
    ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow I have a half-day free in honour of Saint Remigius. Meet me at the Baptistery at midday and I’ll tell you what I know.’
    And then she was gone. Leone looked at me with a half-smile.
    ‘I notice she didn’t offer to tell me,’ he said, as he bolted the door again. ‘Come on, get your clothes off. Neither of us is being paid to chat.’

    I was outside the Baptistery as the bell in the campanile tolled the midday hour. And yet I almost missed Grazia. She had changed into her best dress, a mossy green velvet one that I somehow knew had once belonged to her mistress. It was only half covered by her russet cloak, so I knew she wanted to show it off. And in her hair she had twined a crimson ribbon. She wore no jewels – I doubt she possessed any – but she looked as charming as any lady could on this cold January day.
    There were few places in the city where a young man might take a young woman to be warm in winter – especially on a saint’s day. But I knew of a bakery nearby, where the ovens would be fired up even on a holiday and the baker had befriended me some months before, for the sake of my closeness to the Buonarroti family. He had a very beautiful wife of good birth and was always talking about having her portrait painted. I think he liked to be on friendly terms with artists.
    So I took Grazia to Gandini the baker’s and bought us hot soft rolls to eat as we sat in a corner of his paneficio . It wasn’t really open to the public but a few of the baker’s regulars were there and his wife gave us cups of hot spiced wine in honour of Saint Remigius, she said.
    Grazia and I were sitting cosily in a corner and I realised that we looked like any other couple of the common people, enjoying some rare time away from work. I must tell her about Rosalia , I thought.
    But she started to talk in a low and urgent voice about the conspirators at Visdomini’s house. It was clear that she didn’t think of our meeting as any kind of tryst.
    ‘They are supporting more than one member of the de’ Medici family,’ she said. ‘Piero, as before, but I think they have no high hopes of him after last time. So now they are talking about Giovanni – the one who is a cardinal in Rome. And another one . . . Giuliano? No, Giulio. He is the bastard son of Lorenzo’s brother.’
    That made me jump a bit and I thought of Clarice for the first time for weeks. It seemed as if nobles could father children outside marriage and their offspring still find a superior place in society. But not men like me.
    Still, this was a useful titbit to take back to the frateschi .
    ‘Do you know anything about when they are expecting to bring the de’ Medici back into the city?’ I asked. It was very intimate, sitting so close together that our faces were almost touching, keeping warm in the bakery while the streets outside were rimed with frost.
    ‘No,’ said Grazia. ‘I hear only snippets. It has taken weeks to understand as much as I have told you.’
    ‘It’s very helpful to me,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to get you into any trouble.’
    ‘Why does it help you?’ she asked. ‘How does it?’
    ‘You know I am not sympathetic to the Medici cause,’ I said quietly. ‘There are . . . friends of mine who want to know this sort of information.’
    ‘And what would they do, these “friends” of yours?’
    I didn’t know the answer to that.
    ‘Will you tell me anything else you find out?’ I asked, taking her hand.
    It was a rough hand, not like Clarice’s, but rough with work like Rosalia’s. I respected them both for that. She blushed but did not take her hand away.
    ‘There is no need for you always to go straight home after you have finished posing for Leone of an evening, I suppose?’ she said.
    It was true that it was always Grazia who guided me to the front door when I had finished my supper. She carried a lantern, saw me out through the postern door and then locked