The Mosaic

Chapter 68 | The Writing on the Wall

Writings on the wall – an idiom suggesting impending doom, based on the story of Belshazzar's feast in the book of Daniel

"He's here," Lorenzo choked out, after barrelling into them rounding a corner.

"Very dramatic," Giacinto reached out just in time to steady the other with a firm grip on his shoulder. "Trade it for something more specific?"

Lorenzo hesitated, hand half raised as if to grab onto Giacinto, then quickly stepped away with a small, sheepish smile. "Sorry. Of course. My father."

It hit Alessandro like ice cold water poured down his back. That wasn't possible. It just wasn't. Lorenzo's father had been out of town the entire week, he was supposed to be back in Venice, with his wife giving birth – he might loathe her, but he had to keep up appearances. The one thing more dangerous than Venice's foggy backwater alleys in the cold claws of night were the brightly lit ballrooms and salons of the nobility, the ladies' lips stained red with rumour's blood and the lords smiling daggers at each other.

He had never gone to Venice. There was no way he could have made it back in time. It had been a trick. And they had fallen for it.

Lorenzo looked back and forth between them, chest still heaving. "I don't know how he's – he didn't send word he'd be back – "

"That's not your fault, Zo. We should've known," Giacinto muttered, hand twitching for the blades at his belt.

Lorenzo's father knew of his son's involvement with them – when the Reaper had attacked them in the Cathedral, Lorenzo had been right there with them. Of course he wouldn't tell his traitorous son he'd come back. A heavy knot settled in Alessandro's stomach. That was his fault. Lorenzo had gone because of him.

And yet... something about Lorenzo's costume gnawed at the back of Alessandro's mind. While Giacinto was the shadow at Alessandro's side, Lorenzo was dressed from to head to toe in pure white. Even his boots were white, the stiff, gleaming leather reaching high over his knees. Muscles shifted beneath the tight trousers clinging to his thighs when he shifted under Alessandro's stare.

He forced his gaze to move on quickly.

His blouse was flowing white silk, gleaming in the candlelight like liquid starlight, the wide arms gathered at the wrist, bleeding into wide, frilled lace falling loosely over his hands. The lace of the wide cuffs was stained a glaring red fading into the pure white at his wrists, as if he had washed his hands in fresh blood and soaked the fabric. He wore no mantle, no waistcoat either, not even a cravat. A strange capelet rested on his shoulders and upper chest, stiff like a piece of armour, made from long, snow white swan feathers, flaring into white shoulder pads and reaching up in a high collar, long feathers framing his face.

A swan prince out of a fairy tale.

Alessandro's mind was reeling, jumping back and forth to trace the sharp jaw and muscles straining against the tight trousers, and retracing the conversation overheard before, what the costume could mean...

Lorenzo Pazzi. Alessandro had dismissed it, Lorenzo was a popular name and his Lorenzo was a Morosini, Venetian, not Florentine. But his mother was.

The Medici servants twirling through the guests had worn swan costumes, black in mourning for their patriarch. Lorenzo also appeared a mystical swan, but striking in white. Perhaps he hadn't known. Lorenzo loved dramatic costumes. It could be nothing. It could just be Alessandro always connecting, scheming, hunting meaning where there was none.

But who else would dare to show up at a ball of grief in pure white, mocking the costumes of the most powerful family? Only the Pazzi hungered for the Medici's hatred enough.