Free Guardia: A Novel of Renaissance Italy by Michael Crews Page A

himself into the near doors and back outside.
    Once more I took to the chase and I could see now he was winded. Several times he tripped and nearly fell to the ground.
    “Marco! Stop now!”
    He cried out in fear and continued. I had nearly reached him when he frantically tore at a loose scaffold, sending debris hurtling down at me. I narrowly pitched myself away in time to avoid getting slammed by falling wood and brick.
    Finally we found ourselves in secluded alley between some tenement buildings, a wall at Marco’s back. The buildings were old and in disrepair, the paint faded and cracked. Brackish mold covered large swathes of the surface, creating interesting patterns in the decayed surface. The sour stench of rotting debris and waste were subtle but permeated the narrow duct.
    “Don’t hurt me!” he pleaded as I approached him.
    “Tell me why I shouldn’t,” I said. “You could have killed me.”
    He cleared his throat nervously. “You – you were looking for information on Ugo. I knew him.”
    Pietro’s footsteps resounded behind me and stopped as soon as he saw Marco. I held up my hand and he stood silently.
    “How did you know Ugo?”
    “I work at one of the butcher shops near the Neri workshop. I ran into Ugo on a daily basis.”
    “So you were friends?”
    “For a little while, yes I would say that.” Beads of sweat were forming on his brow. His eyes were wide, as if he was reliving some terror from his past. “He was trouble. Ugo lived a very dangerous and foolish lifestyle. He and many of the other workers on the bridge, including myself, would go drinking some nights. Other times we would gamble, but it was mostly harmless.”
    “Mostly?” I watched his expression. The man’s eyes remained fixed, his skin flushed.
    “Please, you mustn’t tell anyone that I told you any of this. This cannot come back to me. I have a child and a wife.”
    I put my hand on his shoulder. “I won’t say anything about you, you have my word.”
    The man swallowed hard. “At first these outings were safe enough, we all had a good time and some of us even made a little bit of money. One day, he asks me and some of the men if we want to raise the stakes. None of us know what he’s talking about, so we decide to find out. He tells us to meet up with him the next night at a farm outside of town. He told us to bring masks, something to hide our identities. We would be going incognito.” The stranger folded his arms. His voice became hoarse, the last sentence a strangled croak.
    “Go on.”
    Bells from the nearby clock tower chimed suddenly, announcing the passage of midday. The man waited until it was quiet again before continuing.
    “The following night we did as he said, me and two other workers from the Ponte Vecchio. Ugo met us there. There were other men as well. I could tell that some of them were very wealthy by their speech and by their clothing. Anyway, we were met by other men riding in a carriage. I remember that one of them was African, his skin black as pitch and his voice was loud and inhumanly deep.
    “There were several men, but he seemed to be the leader. As soon as they arrive they pick a half dozen or so at random and tell us to get in the carriage. We do that, and as soon as we do they close the doors and we realize that all the windows are sealed. It’s completely dark inside as they escort us to the meeting place. Not a word is spoken inside the carriage.”
    I interrupted. “So you got into a carriage with men you didn’t know, and you didn’t know where they were taking you?”
    “Please, I don’t have much time. But yes, we did. And it was a mistake. As soon as the carriage stopped we were brought out. It was dark but there were some lamps that showed the way. The men brought us to some kind of old stone building. I couldn’t make it out the shape of it, I just remember the doorway and the long passageway that led us inside.
    “The passageway led us underground, into this large