“How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know yet, half a year maybe?”
“I still don’t think anything will be achieved by going on this … this vacation.” She didn’t have to look at him to know that a frown was marring Percy’s brow, his disapproving tone told her all she needed to know.
“It’s not a vacation, Percy,” she tried to explain. “As cliché as it sounds, I need to find myself. For the last seven years I’ve learned about magic and read about wizards all over the world, but the only wizards and witches I have actually met were the teachers at Hogwarts, the shop-owners in Diagon Alley and the other students. I still feel like an outsider, trying to play at life in a strange world.”
“I don’t understand this attitude, Penelope.”
“And I don’t expect you to. You’ve been a part of this world all your life. I’m still looking for my place in it.”
“And you can’t find it here in England?”
Penelope shook her head. “No. I don’t know what I’m looking for yet, but I know I won’t find it in England.”
Percy heaved a sigh. “If there’s really nothing I can say to change your mind and come work at the Ministry with me…”
“There’s nothing.”
“Then I suppose all that’s left to say is ‘good luck’.” His frown softened when he saw the slightly apprehensive look in her eyes. “I might not understand why you have to leave, but I hope you find what you are looking for, Penny.”
A wide smile brightened up her face before she closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. “Thank you.”
She had only stepped into the narrow corner store by chance, but it proved to be the best thing she had done since arriving in Florence. The Florentine wizards were a reclusive bunch with no central gathering point like Diagon Alley and, as a Muggleborn witch, she had no connections to wizarding Florence that could have helped her make new acquaintances. So she had spent the days walking through the streets, hoping beyond hope to stumble upon a part of wizarding Florence.
The little shop was filled to the brim with candles, dried herbs and different stones that supposedly had healing properties. It looked like any other ‘magic store’ for Muggles that wizards just laughed about. Penelope had entered on a whim, never having been in such a store before. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it surely hadn’t been for the owner, a plump middle-aged woman, to look up as soon as the bells at the door chimed and exclaim, “You have the gift! You carry the gift of the great healers of the olden times!”
She involuntarily took a step back and was about to leave, when the woman continued, “Don’t worry, my dear. I’m not one of those crazy Muggles thinking she’s a witch.” A self-depreciating smile flitted across her lips. “It’s just that you are the first real witch who has come to my store in a very long time and I have seldom seen an aura stronger than yours.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Penelope said, surprised by the woman’s strange words as much as by her flawless English.
“I can see a wizard’s aura, it’s a gift that runs in the family.” Seeing Penelope’s confused half-smile she continued, “I’m Marie Alberti, a descendant of Giovanni Alberti, the most famous healer of Florence.”
Penelope tried to remember if she had ever heard the name during her History of Magic lessons at Hogwarts, but drew a blank. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him,” she admitted.
“That’s to be expected,” the woman nodded. “He was mostly famous for turning his back on wizards and only treating Muggles, with magical means of course. He was the healer of the Medici for over a hundred years.”
The Medici! She had read all about how they had ruled Florence from the shadows with their money, giving loans to some influential people and bribing others. They had always fascinated her. Marie Alberti had, all of a sudden, become very interesting. “Didn’t they grow suspicious of him when he aged slower than they did?”
“They probably did, but he was very good with words, he could have talked his way out of everything. He left us his diaries, maybe he recorded an explanation in them, if you are interested in having a look?” Marie offered.
This was the closest Penelope had come to wizarding Florence and she wasn’t all that confident that she would actually get to meet another Florentine witch or wizard during her stay. She didn’t have any other plans for the day anyway, so what was stopping her from taking Marie Alberti up on her offer? “I’d like that,” she finally replied, smiling shyly.
Mrs. Alberti sent a beaming smile her way and led her into a backroom even smaller than the shop itself. There she unlocked a drawer, took out several leather-bound volumes and placed them on the table in front of Penelope carefully. “Here they are!”
“Thank you very much, Mrs Alberti.”
“None of that, dear, call me Marie,” she insisted, “it’s nice to have another witch around and not just these foolish Muggles who fancy themselves able to do magic.”
“Then you should call me Penelope.”
Marie nodded. The bells in the outer room chimed again, signalling the arrival of another customer. “Call me if you need anything, Penelope,” Marie said and disappeared back into her overcrowded shop.
Penelope stroked the spine of one of the books reverently, before opening it slowly. Turning the pages, she scanned through Giovanni Alberti’s diary entries until one of them caught her eye.
April 26, 1478
Guiliano de’ Medici is dead, his older brother Lorenzo still fighting a poison he never should have come into contact with. I’m confident that I can cure him, but if he had a mere Muggle doctor, there would be no hope for him.
In all the time I have been the Medici’s healer, since Cosimo de’ Medici came to Florence in 1434, I have never seen the Palazzo this sad and confused. The servants have lost the spring in their step; fear and sadness have taken over their eyes. Downstairs the closest family friends are waiting for news of Lorenzo.
And poor Guiliano! He was but a child with his four-and-twenty years, his life had only just begun when he was so cruelly ripped from it.
Today’s events weren’t the actions of a lone madman or a small group of usurpers. Who would attack Florence’s most influential citizens during High Mass at the Duomo? This wasn’t random, it has been orchestrated by someone with power and planned for a long time. If I am to believe the people on the streets, even a priest belonged to the group that set upon Lorenzo and Guiliano and stabbed Guiliano to death.
Lorenzo might have escaped the church with only shallow wounds, but his condition is no less critical. His cuts have already started to heal, but still his condition deteriorates. There is a poison at work in his body. It is the only explanation for his sluggishness, as the Blood-Replenishing Potion I gave him should have remedied this by now.
I need one of the daggers to find out the nature of the poison. I’m afraid I have no bezoar at hand and even though I ordered one, I don’t dare to hope that it will be here before young Lorenzo’s time runs out.
April 27, 1478
There has been no improvement in Lorenzo’s condition, but I have high hopes that I will be able to cure him soon. A servant girl brought me one of the assassin’s daggers. Tomorrow I’ll know the nature of the poison he is battling and a cure should be at hand.
But while Lorenzo seems saved, my beloved Florence is in grave danger.
The Florentines have taken it upon themselves to avenge the Medici brothers. Yesterday a member of the Pazzy family was thrown out of a window, dragged through the streets and beaten to death, before his body was dumped into the Arno River. A messenger boy told me, he had been seen stabbing Guiliano. I was appalled by his callousness.
But my shock then paled in comparison to what I was feeling when I walked past the Palazzo della Signoria on my way to the Palazzo Medici. There, on the walls of our government’s Palazzo, Francesco Salviati, the venerable archbishop of Pisa, was hanged!
The city is in utter turmoil! The artists and scholars, worshipped by all of Europe, are turning into nothing more than an angry mob, while Lorenzo is incapable of restoring peace. I fear the consequences this will have for my beloved Florence.
The Pazzi and Salviati families are not to be underestimated. They have powerful allies and should not taken lightly, even if they conspired to assassinate Guiliano and Lorenzo, they should not be alienated and made our foe. This despicable hot-headedness only puts Florence and the Medici in greater danger.
April 30, 1478
Lorenzo is well again and has cautioned the Florentines against exacting revenge without trials. I fear his caution may have come too late. The Pope has already expressed his displeasure with archbishop Salviati’s end and excommunicated Lorenzo.
The Florentines remain loyal to the Medici for now, but their fevered response will only anger the Pope further. If Florence doesn’t give, war will be inevitable.
After the news I brought Lorenzo today, I have no illusions that Florence will give in. He was severely displeased when he heard of the poison smeared on the dagger’s blade. An oil containing large quantities of the essence of monkshood coated the dagger. Monkshood is harmless until it is ingested or comes in contact with open wounds, then it will cause a slow, painful death.
Finding it on the dagger’s blade can only mean one thing: whoever orchestrated the assassination attempt wanted to ensure that neither Medici brother survived, in case one or both of them could fly from the church.
January 28, 1480
As I predicted, war is upon us. The Pope didn’t react kindly when the people of Florence excommunicated him. It’s been almost two years since Guiliano’s death and no resolution has made itself known to Lorenzo.
Our allies in Bologna and Milan have not come to our aid. Florence stands alone against the Pope and the King of Naples, whose army stands outside Florence’s gates. We can’t win a confrontation; our armies are too small. Without Bologna and Milan, Florence is doomed to fall.
January 30, 1480
Diplomacy is the only hope Florence has left. Lorenzo is determined to journey to Naples and hand himself over to Ferdinand I. I fear that this could be the last we hear of him, but he won’t be dissuaded.
May 10, 1480
Florence is celebrating! After three excruciating months, Lorenzo has returned to us. He has made peace with the King of Naples and the Pope; the interdict has been lifted from Florence. Today High Mass is being celebrated again for the first time in two years!
The sun basked Alexandria in a warm glow, but even further inland and away from the direct coastline a light sea breeze cooled the skin and made the heat bearable. Penelope wandered through the Attarine District, enjoying the weather and stopping frequently to view the displays in the shop windows.
The District was full of old little shops selling antiquities, old weapons or furniture. Most tourists were headed straight for the Attarine Mosque in the centre of the District and ignored the colourful displays to both sides of the road, but Penelope thought them infinitely more fascinating than the mosque.
Her favourite shop so far was piled high with furniture and trinkets from the Napoleonic era. She had spent a good two hours browsing through the various displays, carefully lifting and examining especially beautiful pieces. The shop owner had watched her progress with a smile and commented on some of the items she perused from time to time, but mostly he had left her alone. She was glad that he was different from most Arabic shop owners and didn’t try to talk her into buying something; the antiquities needed peace and quiet to speak for themselves, not an overzealous dealer who did little more than annoy her.
In the end she had left the shop with a black oval box, displaying the Napoleonic brass bee in the middle of its cover, that was perfect for her jewellery. Even thinking about it now, her hand strayed into her handbag to make sure it was still there, gliding over the smooth surface lovingly.
Across the street she spied a shop window displaying several old, leather-bound books. The Ravenclaw in her couldn’t not cross the street to take a closer look. She was already halfway across the street by the time her mind had processed all these thoughts, her feet seemingly developing a mind of their own.
Because her eyes were trained on the display, she didn’t see the woman hurrying down the streets laden down with shopping bags until a second before they collided.
“Ayyouh!” With an astonished yelp the woman let go of her shopping bags, spilling their contents over the paved streets.
Penelope bent down to help her gather her things up at once, apologising profusely as she worked, “God, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching where I’m going. This is all my fault, I’m really sorry.”
When the bags were packed once again, the woman smiled at Penelope, inclined her head and mumbled some Egyptian words Penelope didn’t understand. She inclined her head, hoping the woman hadn’t asked for anything. To her relief the woman nodded and carried on down the street without a backwards glance.
Penelope made a point of paying attention to her surroundings as she crossed the rest of the street. She didn’t want to run into anybody else. The shop window that had caught her eyes looked even more splendid close up than it had from the other side of the street. One of the books was opened to a colourful illustration with what Penelope thought was an inlaid golden border. She had never seen a book with real gold in it before. Gazing at the display in awe, she decided that she definitely needed to enter this shop and see what other treasures it held.
On the inside the bookstore looked just like a European bookstore might, high shelves lined the walls and created small aisles in the middle of the room. In contrast to the stores she was used to in England though, this one didn’t have very good lighting. There were a few old-fashioned lamps here and there, but their light combined with the sunlight streaming in through the shop window wasn’t enough to light the shop properly, leaving it in a sort of twilight.
She was surprised to see a sign reading ‘English Books’ hanging in front of one of the shelves, but made her way over to it anyway. Even though she had entered in hopes of looking at some more gorgeous illustrations, like the one in the display outside, she wasn’t about to object to perusing books she could actually read.
She ran her finger along the spines of several books before she picked one up at random. She opened it somewhere towards the middle and inhaled deeply.
“Don’t you just love the smell of old books?”
The sound of a voice right next to her startled Penelope so badly, she nearly dropped the book she was holding. Whirling around she saw a middle-aged man leaning against a shelf next to her, chuckling good-naturedly.
“You startled me,” was the only thing she could think to say. Then, “How did you know I was English?”
“I didn’t,” he said, his foreign sounding accent thick as he pronounced the unfamiliar words, “but you’re standing with English books, so I guessed you would speak English.”
Penelope nodded dumbly. The man had caught her completely off-guard and she had no idea how she hadn’t heard him approach. He seemed to be finding the situation all too amusing though.
“My name is Omar,” he said, still smiling widely. “I own this shop.”
“Penelope Clearwater. Nice to meet you.”
“What brings you to Alex? Surely it’s not your need for books you can’t read?” His eyes twinkled merrily.
“Alex?”
“Alexandria. It’s what we natives call her, Alexandria is much too long, if you say it all the time.”
Penelope nodded, “ I see. I’m here on vacation, you could say. I saw your shop in passing and couldn’t resist.”
Seeing his apparent interest made getting over the shock of his sudden appearance easier and she soon found herself talking avidly about books and history.
“You said, you’re on vacation,” he finally came back to the beginning of their conversation, “but you’re not looking like a regular tourist...”
Penelope’s cheeks coloured. “I’m kind of on a quest to find myself,” she tried to explain, “I finished school and now I don’t know what to do with myself, you see?”
Omar smiled gently. “Maybe you’re not as lost as you think, deary.” At her questioning look he continued, “You have an undeniable passion for history and learning. You might not realise it yet, but those are rare passions and great things can come from them.”
She tried to push him into saying more, but he wouldn’t budge. Penelope finally left the shop, replaying Omar’s words in her head. A passion for history and learning. Great things can come from them. She wasn’t sure what he had meant with his last remark, but the idea of devoting her life to the mysteries buried in history appealed to her.
When she stepped onto the street again, the Imam began calling the people to prayer. Penelope listened to his voice for a while, feeling an odd sense of power behind his words. Maybe it was time to look for some spiritual guidance.
Author's Note: "Ayyouh!" is an exclamation without actual meaning and is used when something embarassing, surprising or slightly annoying happens.