Juliet by Anne Fortier Read Free Book Online Page A

were touches of the Renaissance here and there, but overall, the hotel director had sniggered, Siena had been too wise to be seduced by the charms of history’s playboys, those so-called masters, who turned houses into layer cakes.
    As a result, the most beautiful thing about Siena was her integrity; even now, in a world that had stopped caring, she was still Sena Vetus Civitas Virginis, or, in my own language, Old Siena, City of the Virgin. And for that reason alone, Direttor Rossini had concluded, all fingers planted on the green marble counter, it was the only place on the planet worth living in.
    “So, where else have you lived?” I had asked him, innocently.
    “I was in Rome for two days,” he had replied with dignity. “Who needs to see more? When you take a bite of a bad apple, do you keep eating?”
    From my immersion in the silent alleys I eventually surfaced in a bustling, pedestrian street. According to my directions it was called the Corso, and Direttor Rossini had explained that it was famous for the many old banks that used to serve foreigners traveling the old pilgrim route, which had gone straight through town. Over the centuries, millions of people had journeyed through Siena, and many foreign treasures and currencies had changed hands. The steady stream of modern-day tourists, in other words, was nothing but the continuation of an old, profitable tradition.
    That was how my family, the Tolomeis, had grown rich, Direttor Rossini had pointed out, and how their rivals, the Salimbenis, had grown even richer. They had been tradesmen and bankers, and their fortified palazzos had flanked this very road—Siena’s main thoroughfare—with impossibly tall towers that had kept growing and growing until, at last, they had both come crashing down.
    As I walked past Palazzo Salimbeni I looked in vain for remnants ofthe old tower. It was still an impressive building with quite the Draculean front door, but it was no longer the fortification it had once been. Somewhere in that building, I thought as I scurried by, collar up, Eva Maria’s godson, Alessandro, had his office. Hopefully he was not—just now—scrolling through some crime register to find the dark secret behind Julie Jacobs.
    Farther down the road, but not much, stood Palazzo Tolomei, the ancient dwelling of my own ancestors. Looking up at the splendid medieval façade, I suddenly felt proud to be connected to the people who had once lived in this remarkable building. As far as I could see, not much had changed since the fourteenth century; the only thing suggesting that the mighty Tolomeis had moved out and a modern bank had moved in were the marketing posters hanging in the deep-set windows, their colorful promises sliced by iron bars.
    The inside of the building was no less stern than the outside. A security guard stepped forward to hold the door for me as I entered, as gallantly as the semiautomatic rifle in his arms would allow, but I was too busy looking around to be bothered by his uniformed attention. Six titanic pillars in red brick held the ceiling high, high above mankind, and although there were counters and chairs and people walking around on the vast stone floor, these took up so little of the room that the white lion heads protruding from the ancient walls seemed entirely unaware that humans were present.
    “Sì?” The teller looked at me over the rim of glasses so fashionably slim they could not possibly transmit more than a wafer-thin slice of reality.
    I leaned forward a bit, in the interest of privacy. “Would it be possible to talk to Signor Francesco Maconi?”
    The teller actually managed to focus on me through her glasses, but she did not appear convinced by what she saw. “There is no Signor Francesco here,” she said firmly, in a very heavy accent.
    “No Francesco Maconi?”
    At this point, the teller found it necessary to take off her glasses entirely, fold them carefully on the counter, and look at me with that supremely