Chapter Text
“What did he say?” Lorenzo asked immediately when Bianca returned home.
“He agreed to cooperate.” Bianca replied.
“You are so brave.” Lucrezia said and with tears in her eyes embraced her. “But where is your cloak, Bianca?”
“I was upset when leaving home and so I forgot to take it with me.” Bianca said. “I am going to change.” She added and shot an important look to Lorenzo. He understood and nodded silently.
Bianca almost ran to her room. It didn’t take more than five minutes until Lorenzo knocked on her door. She let him in and closed the door behind him.
“What did you want to tell me?” Lorenzo went straight to the point.
“I can’t lie to you, Lorenzo. I don’t want to. Please, never push me to it.” Bianca said.
“What do you mean?” Lorenzo asked suspiciously.
“If I go to Francesco tomorrow…” Bianca started.
“That would be most convenient.”
“If I go to him tomorrow,” Bianca continued, giving Lorenzo a pointed look, “and he tells me what you want to hear, what happens then?”
“Sister.” Lorenzo said earnestly. “If it’s too much for you, I understand. To be honest, I think it would be too much for me too. You don’t have to go there if you don’t want to. We’ll strengthen our position differently, even if we do not discover all the families who plotted against us.” Lorenzo said and it broke Bianca’s heart how genuinely he did so.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…just tell me.” Bianca said.
“I will keep my word. Once we get the information, we proceed with the formal trial. It’ll be brief; and all of us will be spared a long and public questioning thanks to you.” Lorenzo replied.
“I can’t accept the fact that he should be executed.” Bianca said, and her voice broke.
“What did he tell you, Bianca? You can’t let him manipulate you.”
“But he didn’t. I was the one sent there to manipulate him, wasn’t I?”
“Bianca, I understand if you still have some feelings for him. There’s nothing wrong with that. And as I have already told you; if you want to stay away from this and start moving on, you have my blessing.” Lorenzo urged.
“What if he doesn’t deserve to be hanged in public?” Bianca said.
“Bianca, he killed Giuliano. He tried to kill me. What would have happened if he had succeeded? Hm? Maybe his feelings for you are genuine, but still, what would you have done? Would you have taken the place by his side as he would have declared himself the ruler of Florence?”
“No. You know that.”
“Then maybe you should ask him about that. What would happen with the two of you had his plan succeeded?”
“I think that if his heart had been fully in it, the plan would have succeeded.” Bianca said slowly. “And he would never have been declared the ruler of Florence. That would have been Jacopo. It was Jacopo’s plan from the very beginning. Even you must admit that.”
“Of course it was Jacopo’s plan. But Francesco was given the option – we would have welcomed him in our family. I made him a godfather to Piero. I chose him over Giuliano. It was up to him to make the decision. And he chose wrong. Now he must suffer the consequences for his actions.” Lorenzo said with conviction.
“Lorenzo.” Bianca said, urging Lorenzo with her eyes. “If it were the way you described, I would agree with you. It would be what he deserves.”
“But what other way could it have been? We’ve seen it with our own eyes. Well…you didn’t but that’s because of the letter HE sent you to keep you safe, which only confirms the fact that he has planned this through. Was he manipulated by Jacopo? Yes, I am not denying that. But he wasn’t in an impossible situation; Jacopo was not holding a dagger against his throat. He could have refused; he could have warned us…he didn’t.”
“But he hesitated, you said that yourself. He only stroke when Jacopo screamed at him to do so.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Do you think you would have survived if Francesco made it his mission to kill both of you?” Bianca asked.
“Bianca, you’re forgetting that Giuliano is dead.”
“Of course I am not forgetting that. But it was Simonetta’s husband who killed him. He was consumed by revenge. He had killed his wife already.”
Lorenzo put his face into his hands.
“What would you have me do?” He asked sincerely. “I…I trusted him too. We were friends. When he embraced us in front of the cathedral, I believed him to be genuine. I don’t want to see the truth that as much as you don’t but we cannot deny the facts.”
“All I am asking is that you let me understand why he did what he did. I told Francesco that I was allowed to visit him because you wanted the information…”
“You did what?!”
“Let me finish. I told him why I was there and first, he didn’t want to tell me anything. He said he didn’t want to make it sound as if he was trying to save his life. And no, it wasn’t a part of him manipulating me to say so.” Bianca commented upon noticing that Lorenzo was about to make this assertion. “That’s not him. That’s Jacopo. That’s you. No, don’t deny it.” Bianca again predicted Lorenzo’s words. “You do manipulate people, Lorenzo. I think you know it too. And I know you do it for the right reasons, unlike Jacopo, and I am not pointing this out to slander you. I am saying it because we both know that manipulating people is not Francesco’s style. He is proud, yes, but he does not manipulate, and he is no coward.”
Lorenzo kept silent for a while.
“I get what you’re saying but my question still stands: what would you have me do?” He asked finally.
“I am asking you to trust me, the same way that I asked Francesco to do so. And should I come to believe that a series of unfortunate misunderstandings let Francesco to act the way he did, I am asking you to judge him with mercy.”
“Mercy. There can be no mercy for Giuliano’s murderer.”
“I want them punished as much as you do. And trust me – Francesco will be punished and he is already being punished for what he did. But if something led him to do this whilst something else let him to leave the cathedral without making sure you were truly dead, let’s not give up on him.” Bianca said.
“Say we find out that Jacopo made him do it. First of all, we would never be able to prove it. Second of all, our mother would never forgive us for not seeking justice for Giuliano. And lastly, we survived only because of the people of Florence. These people risked their lives for us and now they want blood.” Lorenzo said.
“There is always a way, a loophole, Lorenzo.” Bianca pointed out. “And the people….they have already had blood. And they looted the palazzo de’ Pazzi.”
“Is he really worth all of it?” Lorenzo asked quietly after a while.
“What if it was Giuliano in his place?” Bianca whispered. “What if it was Giuliano who was accused of a terrible crime and we all knew he was guilty? Wouldn’t we try to seek a way to try to understand his behaviour, to excuse it?”
“That’s different.” Lorenzo conceded after a moment. “Giuliano was a family.”
“But that is exactly the point, isn’t it? You said that we treated Francesco as one of us, but we didn’t, did we?”
“Sister. Even if you found that he’s as much to blame as Jacopo, you would still want me to spare him.”
Bianca looked Lorenzo straight in the eyes.
“Yes.” She admitted. The tears came forcefully into her eyes which were unable to hold them. “I…I’ve seen Giuliano’s eyes. They were so empty. The eyes that used to hold so much joy when he would sneak out to see Simonetta, those eyes that were capable of so much pain and remorse after her death; now they were just empty. And I couldn’t bear it. And now, when I close my eyes, I see them. I see Giuliano lying on the floor of the cathedral, those empty eyes staring at nothing. And then, those blue eyes turn into brown eyes and it is Francesco’s eyes. Unmoving, Dead. And I don’t know…I just…I just can’t.”
“I see them too. The eyes. And at the back of my mind I hear mother screaming that I abandoned him.” Lorenzo uttered and began crying as well.
“Bianca. I know that you loved Giuliano and you would not choose anyone above him. And this, this was a crime against our family. Against all of us. You shouldn’t be punished for that. They should be punished. And they have already been punished, as you have pointed out. And Francesco…” Lorenzo stopped for a second. “Francesco has been punished as well. And if he’s done that for the same reasons as Jacopo, letting him live will be a bigger punishment than killing him for he will have to live with the shame for the rest of his days. The Pazzi are finished. No one would help him now. If he did it hand in hand with Jacopo, we will exile him. I will explain it to the signoria, and to the people. I will tell them that it is done so that there will be a visible reminder of what happens when you oppose us. All his property will have been seized; he will be left with nothing but his life.” Lorenzo finished.
“And what if…what if he isn’t truly the one to be blamed?” Bianca asked.
“We’ll find the loophole as we always do. But I pray you, sister. Be careful with your judgement.”
“I am not going to evaluate him.” Bianca opposed. “Such a thing is beneath all of us. But I believe he will judge himself. And that will lay his soul bare.”
“Thank you, Bianca.” Lorenzo said and embraced Bianca.
“For what? It should be I to be thanking you.” Bianca countered.
“For making me understand what I have wanted to do all along. And for stopping me from doing something I might live to regret.”
“Thank you, Lorenzo. For not hardening your heart for most people would have done so.” Bianca said.
“Listen, Bianca.” Lorenzo said after the hug. “The content of this conversation can never leave this room. Mother can never know.”
“I know.” Bianca agreed.
“I think we are all lucky to have you.” Lorenzo added. “For you have a good heart but a sharp mind as well.”
“Looking at you, I think it runs in the family.” Bianca winked at him.
“How is he?” Lorenzo couldn’t bring himself to say the name. “Pazzi.”
“He’s hurt. Emotionally and physically.” Bianca answered only.
“I want him to suffer for what he did but when I hear of his suffering, the desire leaves me and I just feel empty.” Lorenzo said.
“I understand.” Bianca nodded.
“So you will go to him tomorrow?” Lorenzo asked finally.
“I will. That reminds me – he asked about Guglielmo.”
“Guglielmo is locked in one of the rooms in our house. I don’t believe he had anything to do with it, but we can’t let him out just yet.” Lorenzo said.
“Alright, thank you. I’ll let him know.”
“You know what, Bianca. Pazzi is a lucky bastard. I can only hope that one day I might find somehow to have as much faith in me as you have in him.”
“You have all of us, Lorenzo. The Medici. Our family. I know that with Clarice it has been rocky, but you can always count on us. And you know it. Francesco has only me left. I can’t let him down.”