Chapter 47 Cosimo #2
They watched as the hooded figure went straight to Dante and they began talking in low voices.
The priest reached into the deep pocket of his house cassock and pulled something out; Cosimo couldn’t see what exactly, not from this distance, not in the darkness, but as Dante held his hand out, it fell from the priest’s grasp.
A small red leather prayer book, tooled with gilt, hit the ground.
The priest bent to retrieve it, and Cosimo caught a glimpse of his profile in the light coming from the courtyard behind Dante.
What …?
Savelli shot him a stunned look.
They watched as Giannelli took the book and the two men said a few more words before their business was concluded.
Dante stepped back inside his gate and the priest hastened back into the lee of the cathedral, where the door was always open, where he could slip silently into the bowels of the seminary with total discretion.
The entire meeting had passed in a matter of minutes, almost silent, almost unseen.
It had been inconspicuous, yes, but innocuous … ?
Cosimo and Savelli stared at one another, unsettled.
Why exactly was Father Caputo having a secret assignation with Dante Giannelli in the dead of night?
The silence was profound. But for a few scattered coughs, someone blowing their nose, a baby mewling somewhere at the back, Cosimo could almost hear the collective pleas for help as the congregation prayed.
His own lips didn’t move. His eyes didn’t close. He was staring at the patch of stone floor before him, willing himself to sit through this charade. He no longer believed in anything but his own survival instinct, his love for Rafaella, and hers for him.
Savelli, beside him, pressed his fingertips lightly on Cosimo’s knee, holding it down as he cast him a sideways look. Cosimo shrugged his eyebrows back in reply. He hadn’t realized his leg was jiggling, agitation leaking from him in a multitude of ways.
‘Amen,’ Father Polacco intoned solemnly.
‘Amen.’
‘Come on,’ Savelli whispered, and they rose from their appointed seats at the end of the choir.
Alessio was on wine duty, Cosimo handing out the wafers, and they walked to the altar, bringing them over to the bishop on golden dishes as the congregation began to stream down the aisle in orderly lines to receive communion.
Cosimo moved automatically, staring out at the sea of faces, looking only for hers.
Where was she?
‘The body of Christ …’ Father Polacco intoned.
‘Amen …’
Where was she? He felt racked with apprehension that something would go wrong, that there would be a stick in the wheel to trip them up. Had she been safe at Gina’s last night, or had Fon come looking for her? Had Dante given her up to him?
Everyone moved in rhythm, as if in a coordinated dance: the bishop offering the sacrament and blessing his flock with the sign of the cross, reverent eyes looking up at him, mouths opening expectantly …
He saw her coming down the line at last!
Her face was downturned as if trying to hide from scrutiny, but he would always find her in any crowd.
She was so slender, so chimerical, it was as if the light shone right through her, golden flecks glinting in her hair and – as she looked up, straight at him – her eyes.
He thought he would go crazy just from looking at her, the flagrant yearning in her eyes matching his own.
With that single look, she told him what he needed to know. They were still on track.
He held his breath as he waited for the line to move, as she knelt before Father Polacco.
‘The body of Christ …’
She tipped her head back slightly as she drank from the goblet Savelli offered, her hair falling back from her face and exposing a faint bruise on her cheek. Cosimo’s eyes narrowed, the sight of it like a sword swipe to his own skin. ‘Amen,’ she said softly.
‘Amen,’ echoed a male voice, and Cosimo realized that of course Fon was right beside her – also kneeling, receiving the sacrament, as if he wasn’t a sinner who had laid hands on his wife!
He felt his anger surge as he waited for Fon to look at him, willing him to make eye contact.
He wanted to see that look of fear come into Fon’s eyes, as it had on his wedding day.
It would be the release trigger Cosimo needed to act …
but for the first time that he could ever remember, Fon appeared not even to notice him.
He looked straight through Cosimo with an almost haunted expression as he received the eucharist.
Cosimo watched in disbelief as his old enemy passed right by without even seeing him. What …?
Dante and Gina were coming up behind them. Gina was struggling to kneel, her balance thrown off by the late stage of her pregnancy; Dante chivalrously helped her down, aware that he had an audience.
Up close, the differences Cosimo had registered in him last night were even more apparent.
Wealth could be worn. Paraded. It was conveyed through glowing skin, white teeth and shiny hair; a good watch, a hand-stitched tie, a heavy gold ring …
Dante Giannelli made sure everyone could tell he was a power player now. He wore it like cologne.
Father Polacco made the sign of the cross as Savelli offered him the goblet of wine – but Dante looked straight at Cosimo.
It was the first time the two men had directly laid eyes upon one another in three years but Dante was regarding him without any apparent surprise, almost as if he had been awaiting this very moment.
As if he had known he would see him here.
Had Gina told him?
Cosimo saw a crowing glory in his eyes. See how completely the tables had turned? Now it was the fisherman’s son living in splendour while the duke’s son embraced poverty and abstinence.
‘The body of Christ …’ Father Polacco said.
‘Amen to that,’ Dante said, right in front of him now and biting down on the wafer Cosimo gave him with a wolfish snap.
Cosimo felt an echo reverberate in his body as Dante moved off. Gina caught his eye momentarily and he saw in her familiar face deep concern, a silent plea, before Dante reached for her hand and led her away.
He watched the married couples go, Fon and Rafaella just ahead – together but very much apart – as they made their way back to their seats.
The difference in all four of them was startling, but something in Dante’s look in particular had disturbed him.
It was more than gloating. It reminded him of that day on the rocks when Cosimo had humiliated Fon with his daring and won – he’d thought – a bigger battle than just diving from a cliff. He had felt victory. Supreme victory.
That same look on Dante’s face now told him something else was going on, something more than he could see.
‘… The body of Christ …’
‘Amen …’
Amen to that.
Another memory surfaced from that day on the rocks.
Still Fon locking antlers with him, but there had been more going on than the two of them vying for supremacy, trying to win Rafaella’s admiration.
He remembered Dante’s flashy entrance on the speedboat, back where it had all begun for the Giannellis: water-skiing trips, of all things.
He remembered Gina’s excitement as Dante aggressively wooed her in front of them all.
And he remembered Romola’s barbed comments as she struggled to regain her pride, her sense of self, after losing her footing with Fon …
He owns the entire cabinet.
He caught his breath as his sister’s desperate boast sounded in his head, as clear as if she were whispering it to him now … And Dante’s cool response? Amen to that.
She had revealed untold treasure to two brothers who had been nothing at the time but now sat here like kings; two brothers whose meteoric rise simply would not have been possible without ruthless ambition.
But were they ruthless enough to snatch a man at gunpoint off the street? Ambitious enough to turn a man of the cloth for lavish reward?
Cosimo slowly turned, the movement causing Savelli to glance at him curiously, and looked back towards the choir.
Father Caputo was sitting in his usual place, dressed in his ceremonial robes, a model of piety now.
But last night … the house cassock, the red leather, the pages edged with gilt …
Not a prayer book, but something else so familiar that Cosimo had become blind to the very sight of it.
His father’s diary.
His father’s surprise visit.
The last of your things … somewhere safe this can be stored …? Too late, he realized the shoebox hadn’t been in with his possessions last night.
‘The body of Christ …’
‘Amen …’
He stood motionless as the sacrament was given. Miracles really were at work all around him, because suddenly he knew who had Fede. And he knew why.
But he also knew they had achieved what they wanted, and that meant one of two things. His brother was either a free man …
Or a dead one.