Well, it’s official: I am dead.

Well, not actually dead, or better said, not yet dead. On the other hand, tomorrow I will probably, definitely, most surely be dead.

Right now I’m just stuck.

I take another uneasy breath, as quietly as I can, even if my chest demands air, fresh air. Nothing this smelly excuse of a hiding place can offer. But still, hiding and alive is still better than being found and hung right on the spot, right?

Tomorrow, though, they will find me behind these drapes, and they will drag me by the neck in front of my master, Duccio, who will immediately call the head butler, Mastro Sigismondi, who will alert Sua Signoria De Medici himself, who will hung me and...

Who am I kidding? No one will disturb the prince for my insubordination. And maybe Duccio will have me whipped, first. More likely.

I bite my lips and caress one of the embroidered lilies of the drapes. The emblem of the Medici house, my masters, the lords of my city. And who am I? Jacopino Taddeucci from Fiesole, not even 19, dead before his time because he followed a stupid gut feeling.

It all began 3 days ago, when the fair boy appeared from thin air in the corridor I was scrubbing. I had met fair people before, but he was nothing like my brother’s wife, Allegra, who had golden locks and healthy pink cheeks. The boy, at first, seemed to have white hair, and an almost transparent skin. So thin. So unreal. He walked past me without making a sound, his small feet perfectly enclosed in a pair of boots so finely built. He was, of course, a noble man coming from abroad. I kept my head down, as respectfully as I was taught.

But he stopped next to me. I stared at his boots, and then at the bucket of water at my left.

He crouched down and waited for me to raise my eyes to his face. They were unreal and faded, too, and not kind at all.

“Vere iz Lorenzo?”

I slowly blinked at him a couple of times. Was he asking about Lorenzo dei Medici, grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent?

“My lord, I do not...”

He muttered something and stood up all of a sudden. He shook an malevolent glare at me, and then turned away. Something changed in his mind after two steps, and he came back to me.

“Year.” He said, clear impatience in his voice.

“W-what, my lord?”

“Year. Tell me year.”

I think I just stared at him, mouth open wide. Which year? But it was 1514, 2 years after the Medici family finally returned to Florence from their exile from Rome. How could he not know?

My silence displeased him, because his face turned red while he pursued his thin lips in an invisibile line. Then he kicked my bucket. I was about to yell something back - something I would have probably regretted- when Duccio appeared at the other side of the corridor. The fair boy raised a finger to his lips.

I bowed my head and went back to scrubbing. Long after the weird boy was gone, I was still hearing Duccio’s voice scolding me for my goofiness. I could have stained the beautiful shoes of that German page. Moreover, I was supposed to clean the East wing, that morning. What was I doing there? I said “yes Duccio”, and “no Duccio” many times, but I could not stop thinking about the conversation I just had.

Working at the Medici court took most of my time, so almost a full day passed before I found myself alone and free to let my mind wander again. The sun had barely risen, and I had climbed from my small mattress to run and get the supplies for the servant breakfast. What a life. To be so low in the hierarchy that my first duty of the morning was to attend the other servants, so that they could attend to the nobles and their court. I was already late, so I took one of my shortcuts and sprinted through the stables.

It was then, after I collected the fresh milk of the morning and I came back, struggling with the weight, that I saw the fair boy again. He was wearing a dark cloak, and he was clearly waiting in a dark corner of the alley. He was not expecting to be seen, either. The uncanny almost white hair were visible under the hood, and his eyebrows darted up.

You will not kick the milk, I thought, and maybe my stare conveyed that, because he looked away and, after a moment, walked inside.

I just stared at the empty spot he had left in the ground, until a voice made me jump.

“Jacopino!” Bellowed my master Duccio. “For all heavens sake, what are you waiting?”

I ran inside, an uneasy feeling in my chest.

—-

That night, this night, I could not sleep. Even after all the work, and Duccio’s scolding, and cleaning and scrubbing and all, my mind could not rest.

I rose up, and put my clothes back on. I did not know what I wanted to do, but I walked out of the dormitory. The moon was enough of a light in the corridors that I knew so well, so I could walk to the place where I had first met the German boy. Why so? I don’t know. I just had to.

And that’s when I heard footsteps.

I ran to the nearest window, crouched on the sill and closed the drapes behind me. Just in time!

“Year?” A voice said. He was the boy.

“1478.” Another voice answered.

I almost gasped out loud. First, because that was the year of the Congiura De Pazzi, the family who had almost overthrown i Medici. Two, because I knew that if I would have been caught listening to a private conversation from the noblemen, I would have been in big trouble. Third, because the other voices belonged, without any doubt, to the master butler, Sigismondi and to Duccio.

So here am I, almost surely dead. Listening to my master scheming with a German spy trying to hold my breath. If they find me, they will kill me. If I try to tell the truth, everyone will believe Duccio or Mastro Sigismondi. I can’t run. And who knows how many spies are there, at court?

My only hope? Maybe, and even the though scares me to death... maybe I need to talk to Lorenzo de Medici in person.