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

battled Rome.
    Give me that Florentine upstart.
    Guid'Antonio remembered Girolamo Riario well from the contest over Imola, having traveled to that unfortunate little town as Florence's legal representative at the height of that affair, on what amounted to his first “mission” for the youthful Lorenzo. Girolamo was a slender prick of a young man with bobbed hair and moist, prissy lips.
    He tapped his mouth with his fingertip, mentally sifting, considering this and that and drawing back. “My bet is on someone local rather than Rome as the source of our troubles here. Currently, I mean.”
    “What?” A brittle laugh escaped Lorenzo's lips. “Why now?”
    “Power? Fortune? First place in the city?”
    Lorenzo regarded him with a mild brown stare. “Neither the Pope nor Girolamo Riario, but other men who regard me with suspicion and envy? That would include my Uncle Soderini.” Tommaso Soderini, the
official
head spokesman of the Florentine government.
    Dangerous, dangerous waters
. “Surely the monks in Ognissanti are thriving, given the weeping Virgin,” Guid'Antonio said. “Would this be the first time a church made a hoax to fill the collection box? No.”
    The raven-haired monk dashed through Guid'Antonio's mind, along with the two black-robed young men of the Humiliati who had pursued their brother toward the Prato Gate early this morning. Brother Martino, Brother Paolo, and the little novice, Ferdinando Bongiovi. What might that trio have to do with the painting weeping in Ognissanti? Something? Nothing? What of the missing girl—at the hands of Turks, or so some hare brains believed—and the escalating demand for Lorenzo to pack his bags for Rome? Guid'Antonio's imagination, experience, and hours spent handling all manner of complex court cases and tricky investigations warned him not to dismiss any scheme.
    “Florence is rich with monks and miracles,” Lorenzo said. “And no monk is more devious than the abbot of your church.”
    True. Guid'Antonio knew this all too well from past experience with Roberto Ughi, the arrogant abbot of Ognissanti. “Have you seen the tears?” he said.
    “Haven't I, yes. Last Wednesday the
Virgin Mary of Santa Maria Impruneta
wept as copiously as if for the devil himself.” Lorenzo's face clouded. “Yet in my heart I can't believe she wept for me.”
    “She will if you go to Rome.”
    Lorenzo waved his hand. “Surely His Holiness isn't truly capable of murder in the Vatican.”
    “You know as well as I do that madman is capable of anything. As is his nephew.” Guid'Antonio left the rest unsaid.
After all, with Francesco de' Pazzi as their pawn, they murdered Giuliano.
    “What choice do I have but to go? All I hear from Bartolomeo Scala, our nail-biting Chancellor, is how an alarmed sense of fatality has overcome our city. Because of the war, the wool and silk trade has declined sharply. The backbone of Florentine industry, as you well know. Business travel and employment have suffered. On and on it goes until I'm sick of hearing it. Predictions of uprisings and exile march daily from the good Chancellor's pen and lips.”
    “We are as fragile as glass,”
Bartolomeo Scala had said this morning.
    “Mercy Jesus, if I could have one hour of quiet, I swear I never would complain!” The frustration in Lorenzo's voice cracked the silence like a hammer cracking marble. By the hearth, Leporarius blinked, staring from one to the other of the two men.
    “Nor would I,” Guid'Antonio said mildly.
    “All I want is peace! How has this happened?” Lorenzo's voice caught, filled with unrestrained emotion. “When was the last time we had peace? Fourteen fifty-four! And then thanks to the Turks.”
    In 1454, one year after the fall of Constantinople to Mehmed the Conqueror, Italy had united in fear and formed a defensive league to present a united front against foreign aggression. Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples and Rome: eventually, all five major Italian powers had joined