The Miracle That Inaugurated Horrific Times
#TheNovel - The Mad Schemers - S1E2
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Episode 1 - Conspiracy, Death, and Executions (in case you missed it!)
Florence, Sunday, April 26th, 1478 - As the afternoon arrived, it turned to be the longest and most horrific for Lorenzo and the city of Florence.
"Pass me that white shred near the alb," Lorenzo asked the priest, who had rushed to his aid after carefully locking the sacristy door. "Wrap it tight around my neck… Those bastards," he continued. "Where is my brother?" his mind was still racing, but his focus was slowly coming back now that the wound on the neck had stopped bleeding—a miracle, you'd say.
Sitting beside him, the priest held his arm but did not say a word. He closed his eyes and put his head down because answering that question would only fuel sadness and rage—the mix that makes you blind. “We don’t know, maybe he was able to escape,” he wished Lorenzo to remain grounded. But soon, that apparent calm was going to break.
Thud, thud, thud. "Open, it's me!" The altar boy saw the whole scene from behind the marble tabernacle. "I don't have good news, Sir," he said with a head shake and visible red spots on his white surplice. "Your brother is…" Lorenzo slammed his fist on the wooden table, startling the young boy who had rushed to help cover Giuliano's body. "Sir, I am sorry, but there is more to it." The boy continued with an innocent bravery that few could afford against the anger of someone who had just lost his brother. Like any Sunday, that kid assisted the priest in preaching the word of the Lord. Now, blamelessly, his words fueled the anger of a man whose power was unlimited.
"Two of your guards are here, outside the Cathedral, to escort you, and there is this man who ran to inform you," the boy continued. "What else happened? Speak up!" Lorenzo responded with a sharp tone–a cocktail of fear, impatience, and anger fled in his veins. "Your Gonfaloniere, Petrucci, has managed to capture dozens of men who had tried to enter Palazzo della Signoria. They intended to take over your government." A long pause filled that empty moment. "A coup!" Lorenzo exclaimed with eyes wide open. Silence all around; those screams had faded away as if Christ had restored the calm in the aisles of that Duomo outside the sacristy. "Francesco Salviati, Sir, led those men. They confessed to working for Jacopo Pazzi. Two of your guards are closely watching him. Their lives are all in your hands now, Sir."
Lorenzo remained silent, his gaze locked on the boy who stood before him—a mere messenger of unfolding events. "I will kill ALL of them," he shouted abruptly. He reached for his wound and tightened that white shred, now in vivid red-purple, so strong that blood dripped again from his neck. It was as if Lorenzo was in search of physical pain to calm the chaos in his mind. And that helped because they all perceived Lorenzo's silence and now controlled breath as a sign of a calculated vindication about to happen.
"The Archbishop of Pisa and the Pazzi family behind this mess," Lorenzo repeated these words three times, in a state of paranoia, as when you cannot believe it is true. His eyes steered into the emptiness—like someone already seeing the events about to unfold. The orchestrators of that conspiracy were not merely Florentines; their influence reached far beyond the city's walls, extending to the Pope himself. It was a plot of epic proportions, entwined with the very seat of religious power.
The priest, the altar boy, and the guards followed Lorenzo as he rushed out of the sacristy. "You. Take care of my brother's body," Lorenzo commanded the priest as he steered at Giuliano's body on the ground. No tears, no emotions, his eyes narrowed as a reflection of the void and pain hitting his stomach. He wanted to remain there to hold his brother’s hand for the very last time. But he returned to his walk with his chest up and measured steps, each projecting power all around—the determination they all needed to see in their leader. "Take me to Palazzo della Signoria! Hurry!" he instructed the coachman as he stepped on the carriage.
The revenge had just begun, and Lorenzo's keen intellect was already devising a strategy to erase that family and their power from the earth's face. But what he was going to witness and do at the palace was just the beginning of horrific years ahead.
Subscribe - New episodes every Thursday at 7AM EST
Episode 1 - Conspiracy, Death, and Executions (in case you missed it!)
Thank you for reading. As I am writing my first novel, I will share facts, events, and characters I come across in my search. Share with your friends, tell them to subscribe.
Gerardo-
You write well, I am enjoying the story.