The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) by Alana White Page A

traitors who have on occasion lived therein.”
    Lord Prior Antonio Capponi laughed, reaching for the wine jug near to hand. “There's a sharp parry, Guido! Here's to you, my friend.” Capponi's red Prior's coat was unbuttoned over his shoulders, revealing his black quilted
farsetto
and gray cotton shirt: the Capponi family colors.
    Across from Capponi, Prior Pierfilippo Pandolfini's eyes radiated impatience. Three gold-enameled fish set in a blue stone decorated the ring on Pierfilippo's hand: the sign of the Pandolfinis. “Guid'Antonio,” Pierfilippo said. “You're fresh from the saddle. You can't have heard the latest from Rome.”
    Rome, Rome, Rome. “Of course not. No.”
    “Florence is still excommunicated.”
    Guid'Antonio sat back hard in his chair. “Impossible. Both King Ferrante
and
Sixtus signed Lorenzo's treaty.”
    “There are always complications,” Tommaso Soderini said, smiling thinly.
    Guid'Antonio's mind whirled. If Sixtus hadn't lifted the interdict, all the rites of the Church were still forbidden the Florentine people. No wonder the people in the marketplace had been so afraid and angry. No weddings, no baptisms, no burials in holy ground. “Why?” he said. “It makes no sense.”
    “Because we haven't met the Pope's last demand,” Tommaso said.
    “Which is?”
    Shriveled and purpled with age, Tommaso's lips lifted in a grin. “That we send Lorenzo to him in Rome.”
    Guid'Antonio jumped up and hit the table with his fist. “The war
began
because we wouldn't give him Lorenzo! Do the last two years mean nothing to that crazy man in the Vatican?” He drew a sharp breath. “What about Lorenzo? What has he said?”
    “What he has always said,” Antonio Capponi answered. “ ‘No.’ Oh, he'll do whatever's necessary to preserve the Florentine Republic. Just not today. Naples was one edge of the sword, Rome's quite another. He might actually die there.”
    “Tommaso,” Guid'Antonio said, sitting back down. “What have you advised him to do?”
    The older man grunted. “To saddle his horse and ride like the devil to Saint Peter's.”
    “What? This is news!” Pierfilippo Pandolfini said. “At what cost? To be murdered the instant he enters the Eternal City? It's eternal, all right!”
    Lord Prior Piero di Nasi, by nature a quiet man, shifted in his chair. “Come now. That isn't likely to happen.”
    “Nor was it likely Giuliano would be murdered in the Cathedral,” Guid'Antonio said, his temper roaring as he fought memories so sharp, they threatened to cut him to the bone.
    Tommaso's fingers caressed his hand-warmer, a round, pewter container polished to resemble silver, then filled with heated coals, here in the high heat of summer. “Lorenzo's treaty is unpopular,” he said.
    “
Unpopular?
So what? Why?” Guid'Antonio said.
    “Because it allows the prince of Naples to remain camped on our southern border, for one thing,” Tommaso said.
    “In Siena?”
    Tommaso shrugged. “Of course.”
    Guid'Antonio was too stunned to speak. Prince Alfonso of Naples was the elder of King Ferrante's two sons. A skillful soldier, Alfonso had captained Roman and Neapolitan troops against Florence during the war. And Lorenzo was allowing the warrior prince to remain thirty miles from the Great Hall in Palazzo della Signoria, where the majority of Florence's government leaders now sat? Surely, Alfonso wouldn't mount a surprise attack against them.
    Tommaso slathered fresh cream cheese on a thick slice of bread. “King Ferrante wants his son within pissing distance of us. Should opportunity knock, I suppose. Lorenzo agreed to it to bring home the treaty.”
    “You know our ways,” Bartolomeo Scala said, frowning. “Lorenzo gave us peace. Now we gripe about terms. Reason has little to do with it.”
    Antonio Capponi blew a stray blond hair from his cheek. “The point is, when you add Prince Alfonso's continuing presence to the Turks beating at our door and the Pope's constant interdict,