The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [40]
Monna Alessandra, surveying Nicholas in her doorway, had emitted a sigh that would have felled a small tree. Before leaving the house, Godscalc himself had at least cornered the lion and tried to make him see reason. Nicholas had listened politely, fastening the fur up to his throat and placing his tail carefully over his arm like a pallium, before lifting his head from the table. He buffed both his eyes with his cuff. “You think I’ll offend the Medici?”
Godscalc said, “They must have sent you a costume.”
“I took it back,” Nicholas said. “My lord is Cosimino, you see. Not his grandfather.”
Godscalc had said nothing more. Shrewd; shrewd as the cleverest merchant among them. So sharp he’d cut himself; one of these days.
When they reached the Piazza della Signoria, the horses were still in their lines and the carts, which had been standing all night, had hardly got their covers off. It was starting to rain. Above the roar of the encircling crowd and the high Tuscan voices of the performers, the orders, the warnings, the appeals of the organisers rose from four or five different places, hoarse and tetchy as ravens. Tobie disappeared, hustled off by a fellow in Medici livery. Julius followed him. Nicholas said, “That must be us.”
The float stood, last of four, between the yellow bulk of the Republic’s Palazzo and the arches of the loggia with which it made a right angle. Prison, fortress, council chamber, the Palazzo filled the grey sky. Its corbelled battlements thrust over their heads, and the tower above dissolved into the clouds, from which a bell had begun tolling. The noise slackened below, and then began to climb as if fit for eruption. Arriving at the designated contrivance, which contained a lot of sand, a painted cave and a palm tree, Godscalc found a pair of steps and began to climb into it. He said, “Excuse me.” It was dry in the cavern, and there were two hermits there already. He bent and crawled in beside them. Someone said, “Where’s the lion?” He crawled out again.
The lion was leaning against the next float, its tail hanging negligently over its arm. The cart contained a large sheeted object and several excitable workmen, to whom Nicholas appeared to be offering comments. The rain, increasing, beat down on his face. Still talking, he put his head on. His voice emerged from its jaws. On the float, a man in an ancient black cap dropped his arms and strode to the edge of the cart. Two other men promptly hauled the sheet down, exposing a large terracotta statue of St Anne on a rock, with accommodation here and there for performers. A fourth man, leaning over her lap, began attempting to pull the sheet up again. The man in the black cap stood glaring down and Nicholas, looking up, examined him amiably. The man said angrily, “My Marzocco!”
He was addressing Nicholas, who courteously took his head off. The eyes of the man on the float followed the sweep of wet fur and whiskers, and the eyes of the lion peered back from the arm of its owner. The speaker, it could now be seen, was as elderly as his hat, with a dry yellow face rusticated like the stones of the Palazzo, and a set of grey whiskers singed brown at one edge. Nicholas said, “Monsignore?”
“Who made your head?” said the man. “You have no right to it.”
“Why?” said Nicholas.
“It is mine,” said the elderly man.
Nicholas hefted the lion’s head in two capable hands and held it up to the man on the float. “Allow me to return it,” he said. The elderly man made no move to take it. The man on the lap of St Anne abruptly gave up the battle to shroud her and leaping nimbly down began to come over. The other two bundled the sheets off the float and left with an air of efficiency. There was a pause.
On the other side of the square, the first chariots had been harnessed and horses were being pulled through