Primavera

by Mary Jane Beaufrand

  And now my time is done. I prefer to pick the hour of my leaving rather than endure another moment in the company of your mother. I go to sleep satisfied that you are at least out of danger.

  Be strong, cara mia. Stay safe. Zephyrus will pursue you for a while, but I know that, whatever you decide, you will emerge in splendor and bring a new season to the lives of others just as you have brought a new season to mine.

  Addio,

  Cenesta Pazzi, Your Nonna

  I read through the letter again and again until I committed it to memory. Then I cast it on the hearth. My new master and mistress were generous, but such a letter was too dangerous to keep.

  When there was nothing left of it but ash, I put on her ring and went downstairs to the hot, smoky forges. Maestro Orazio said I would not be able to go outside. Not for months at a time. That seemed like a suitable penance for me, shut up in here, away from everything green, away from the changing seasons.

  Signor Botticelli once said that he didn’t stay a goldsmith because he couldn’t stand the smell. Or the heat. Or the burned fingers. He said that to be a goldsmith one had not only to endure beastly working conditions but they also had to enjoy torturing shapeless lumps into works of art. I thought of Ghiberti’s bronze gates of paradise, elaborate and beautiful, and I wondered if a person could fashion their atonement from hot metal, the way Nonna brewed hers from herbs and broth.

  It was time for me to find out.

  Chapter Twenty

  Maestro Orazio was wrong about one thing: his shop had the perfect vista. Every morning before I began my labor I leaned outside and counted the bodies strung from the upper stories, a count that increased daily as more were implicated in what they were now calling la Congiura di Pazzi, the Pazzi Rebellion. People I’d seen only once, or never seen in my life, were added to my brothers because they did business with us, or supped with us, or even nodded to us on the street. Graziella was the first non-Pazzi, non-Riorio goon to be added to the corpses swinging from the prison walls (they did put some women to death, apparently). Then came an endless line of conspirators: all of Riorio’s men (but not Riorio), everyone from our guard, the musicians who regularly performed in the great hall, the footmen, the clerks from the bank. I even caught sight of Francesco, whom Andrea almost fired a month ago for my crimes.

  There were more, but I stopped recognizing them after the ancient contadino who sold Nonna wild strawberries through the kitchen window. All I knew was this: Andrea’s body didn’t appear, nor did Emilio’s. And while I knew from the talk that Andrea was still alive within the prison walls, I had no hope for Emilio. He would not have left us. He was as dead as my father. I only hoped he was buried somewhere — preferably in one piece.

  Orazio’s shop also had the perfect vista for me to learn about what was happening in the world outside the city. Notices were posted outside the Bargello as well as fingers and heads. In this way I read about how Pope Sixtus excommunicated Lorenzo de Medici for crimes against the Pazzi family. The pope also imposed an interdict against the whole city. No one could celebrate mass. We were all going to hell, according to him. The interdict didn’t affect me. I was already there.

  Thanks to Maestro Orazio’s vista, I also learned the fate of my mother.

  I had been an apprentice goldsmith for about a month. I was learning engraving, spending most of my days crouched over a workbench carving shapes into soft metal. To G. From E. I love you forever. From letters I progressed to swirls, ivy, and cherubs. It was a cherub that employed me that afternoon (a cherub who, under my novice’s hands, looked like a sack of meal) when I heard a roar coming from outside. I leaned out the window and observed a crowd lining the streets. The roar was the citizens of our city of flowers awaiting some event. I confess by that time I had grown cavalier about the bloodlust. Who is it now? I wondered. My uncle’s cousin’s tanner’s wet nurse?

  I stared out the window as the roaring grew louder. The crowds parted long enough for me to see my mother, wearing sackcloth, her hands bound in front of her, being led south through the streets by a Medici guard on a horse. Her head was uncovered, but her posture was unbowed, no matter what she wore, or how many rotten eggs trickled down her face. Had her hair always been so gray?

  I heard citizens yell and spit. “Exile is too good for that serpent.” “Why should she live in luxury while poor Giuliano is cold in his grave?” “There won’t be any luxury for her. She’s going to live with her daughter in Naples. King Ferrante won’t allow her any comfort — not while the peace talks are so delicate.”

  Since I had been watching the notices and listening to the talk of customers (few) and passersby (many), I knew that King Ferrante was the one man of consequence in the entire peninsula who was neutral in our conflict. He was friendly with the Medici; he was also friendly with Pope Sixtus; and it was to Naples that Il Magnifico had ridden to plead for intervention after being excommunicated. The plan clearly must have worked because the interdict was lifted and Pope Sixtus’s Medici brother (his words) was welcomed back into the loving bosom of the church, along with the entire city.

  And now, watching Mamma make her way through the streets, her hands bound in front of her, but still proud, I felt my blood boil. I told myself I had no right to be angry. How many times had I wanted to do exactly what everyone else was doing? Swear and hurl things at her? And her: could it hurt her to show a little sorrow, a little shame? She did not deserve to live. I was angry with all of them.

  It was at that moment I saw her stumble.

  She tried to catch her fall with her hands but wound up on her knees. The Medici guard who was leading her just looked back and yanked her rope hard, as though she were a stubborn goat. She tried to get to her feet but stumbled again. Without thinking I rushed out, forced my way through the crowd that lined the street, and plucked her up. I lifted her by the elbow and brushed the worst of the mud from her lips with my own hands, now blackened from the forges like my master’s. At that instant as I looked into her face, she seemed not only old but vulnerable as well. She looked on me with a confused expression, as though she not only didn’t know who I was, but didn’t even know which way was up. The expression lasted only a moment. Then her eyes narrowed. “Grazie,” she said. But she didn’t really mean it. Not to an urchin like me.

  I let her go. Before she’d even gone two steps I felt a whack on my shoulders. I turned around and wiped what was left of a tomato off my shirt. A middle-aged man positioned himself in front of the crowd, his throwing arm lax, his face twisted up with righteous fury. “What are you doing showing pity to that witch, boy? Are you blind? She’s a Pazzi,” he spat.

  “She’s still someone’s mamma,” I countered in my deepest voice. I was still disguised.

  The man smirked. “Not anymore.”

  I took a lesson from Nonna and stood tall. I didn’t swear, I didn’t spit, I didn’t throw anything back. I kept my voice steady: “All the more reason to show her pity. A good Christian would.”

  It was a strange moment. I watched as all the rage drained out of that man. It left him shaky and uncomfortable. He took a step back and scurried away, grumbling as though he were a child deprived of a treat. With him gone, I watched my mamma continue down the street unharassed. No one threw anything else at her.

  Did I think even once about joining her, taking my rightful place at her side? Going to King Ferrante’s court in Naples? A place where I would be comfortable but barely tolerated?

  Not even for an instant.

  Instead I felt a small measure of freedom. As Mamma walked away from me, I knew I had discharged a debt. She gave birth to me; I allowed her to keep her pride for those few last paces out of town. It was a small accomplishment but it was enough. I was sure Nonna would approve.

  Back inside my master was waiting for me. As soon as I stepped over the threshold he closed the door behind me and dealt me a blow that sent me sprawling halfway across the floor. “Stupida!” he yelled. “What were you thinking?�
�� I didn’t answer him. I crouched where I had landed and wiped the blood from my mouth. I watched him pace back and forth, back and forth. Then, as with the man on the street, the rage seemed to drain from him. He breathed out deeply and offered me a hand up. “Do you not understand, Emilio,” he said with forced patience, “that when you did that you not only endangered yourself but Maria and me as well? You could have been discovered. We could be hanged. I know you have little care for your own life, but please think of us before you act next time.”

  I took his outstretched hand. What more could I do? My jaw ached, but he was right and I knew it. I forgave him the blow. These days even the meekest, most docile men fell into a rage with less provocation.

  “Tomorrow we work on casting,” my master said, giving my shoulder a pat.

  I owed Maestro Orazio another debt, but I didn’t reveal it to him. That entire month under his tutelage I reverted to my old ways. I plotted; I stole. With each ring I engraved on his orders, tiny gold shavings dropped onto the floor. I picked them up and put them into the compartment of Nonna’s poison ring. I hoarded them, waiting for just this moment, the moment I could take my hoard and create something bigger and more valuable.

  One day, when my master and mistress were at mass, I took out Nonna’s ring and poured gold shavings into a cast. I hammered it into a new solid unalloyed gold ring, shiny and complete, then to make it that much more attractive, I etched it with wildflowers. Those I took great care over, calling upon my memory of a hillside in Fiesole.

  I waited for my moment, and then I crossed the street. I wore an apron over my tunic and a brown mazzochio on top of my head. My hair was still short, but I took no chances. I held a moldy cabbage in one hand. With the other, I fingered the ring in my apron pouch. It was still warm from the forges.

  Now was the test. How good was my disguise? I’d been outside once before to aid Mamma, but this was different. That day I held people at a distance; today they would see me up close.

  “Excuse me, signor,” I asked the guard who wore the most garish uniform. He was a short man shaped like a butternut squash: long but round about the bottom. “I would like to see the traitorous Pazzi.”

  He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on the smudges. Then he brought his sleeve up to his mouth and coughed. Even away from the forges I smelled like smoke.

  “And who might you be?” he asked.

  “Emilio, sir,” I said. “The goldsmith’s apprentice.”

  “What business have you with that villain?” he asked.

  I showed him the cabbage. “He lives, that is my business. His every breath is an outrage. I want to show him that some of us do not forget.”

  I counted my heartbeats until he answered. One. Two. Three. Four.

  “Boy,” he said finally, “if I let in every citizen with a rotten cabbage the prison would smell worse than it already does and no one would be any richer.” And he turned away from me.

  I felt my heart drop in my chest. It didn’t work. Then, God forgive me, I actually almost went back to the goldsmith’s. I even took two paces back across the street. Then I fancied I heard Nonna’s voice whispering in my ear: coraggio. Be brave. I realized Nonna would not give up so easily. Only a nitwit like Domenica would. I went back to the guard.

  “I believe you dropped this,” I said to his back, and I produced the golden ring.

  He didn’t look at my face, but he scrutinized the object in my hand. “Well, well,” he said, taking it and putting it in a leather pouch that was strapped to his belt. “Emilio the goldsmith’s apprentice. Fratello mio. Welcome to the Bargello.”

  He clapped me on the back and ushered me inside.

  We walked through a passage to an open courtyard, where a horrible stench greeted my nostrils. I thought I was immune to stink because of my time in the forges, but the scent here was one hundred times worse than smoke. It was blood and feces and something even more awful.

  In the middle of the courtyard was a bench made of stone, surrounded by a shallow moat of red water. Flies buzzed around it in one black cloud as we walked past. I fancied I saw bits of flesh and bone still stuck to its surface.

  “What happened here?” I asked the guard.

  He smiled a cruel smile and shrugged. “This and that. On Sundays the public gathers here to watch us mete out punishment to the wicked. Are you so tender that you have never been?”

  “My master is harsh,” I lied. “He makes me work Sundays.”

  “Console yourself,” the jailer said, pointing to the slab. “Treason is a harsher master.”

  With that, my new fratello led me through a door and up a flight of stairs. On the second flight I wished I had a hand-kerchief to tie around my face. The stench inside was even worse than in the courtyard and soon I understood why. The prisoners — and there were more than I could count — were kept in cages smaller than they were. They could not stand up; they could not walk. The floors of some cages had a few bits of dirty straw, but most were just covered in excrement.

  And the men inside those cages — Madonna! Most of them had untreated wounds leaking pus, great gaping holes where their eyes or ears or nose had been. As we walked past they crawled to the bars and reached out for us. “Piacere, signori . . . have mercy. I am an innocent man.”

  Those who had no tongues or no strength merely reached and uttered piteous moans. Dream deep, I willed them. It’s your only way out.

  Before I came in I thought this place was a slaughterhouse. Now I realized it was worse than a slaughterhouse. I wouldn’t even treat livestock like this.

  “Welcome to our piano nobile, fine enough to rival even the Pazzi palazzo,” the jailer smirked. He jabbed at the prisoners with his sword until they retreated back into heaps in the far corners of their cages. He didn’t seem to need a handkerchief.

  In the far corner we came to a cell large enough for a man to stand straight, even walk two paces across the length of it. There was a cot there as well. Atop the cot was a bundle of dirty, smelly rags, perhaps waiting for the laundry? That couldn’t be. Clearly no washerwoman ever entered the Bargello.

  The jailer banged on the bars. “Arise, worm! There is someone here to visit you.”

  As I watched, the rags stirred, revealing a gray face that was so gaunt it looked like a skull. The hair on the prisoner’s head was thin and grew in clumps away from the oozing, festering sores, as though someone had dealt him blows but not enough to dent his skull, just enough to make him bleed and suffer. I didn’t shriek. But in not shrieking, I bit my lips until they bled. Andrea. My real fratello.

  “You might need to shred that before you throw it,” the jailer said, indicating the cabbage I held in my left hand. “I’ll be back to collect you in a few minutes. Enjoy yourself.” Then he strolled off, as though he were walking through a meadow on a fine spring day.

  “Cretino,” I muttered.

  Over in his corner, Andrea sat crouched on his pallet. He stared at me without recognition. “Come to sport with the Pazzi vermin, eh? Let’s get it over with.”

  I shook my head. I wanted to utter some words of comfort but was afraid. I was not eager to share information with Andrea’s neighbors, much as I pitied them. “Come closer, Signor Pazzi, I would have a word with you,” I said in my lowest, steadiest voice.

  He snorted. “Where is the sport in that? No, signor. We must test your aim.”

  “What I have to say is for your ears alone,” I said.

  Andrea snorted. “When have I heard that before?”

  I exhaled. “Bene,” I said. “I will speak from here. You may not remember me, but I used to labor in your father’s palace. My name is Emilio. I was a friend to your sister. . . .”

  Andrea sprang up and bolted to the cage. “Quiet, you idiot!” I had thought his rags would fall off him, he jumped so suddenly, but he was careful to keep his arms covered shoulder to fingertips. He was concealing something. His hands must have been bound before him in some manner, like Mamma’s.
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  His eyes darted to the cages across the hall from him. “What news have you of my family?” he said in a whisper.

  Seeing his face up close, feeling his fetid breath on my cheek, I thought: I have to get him out of here. I have to get him to Nonna. She’ll fix him.

  But there was no kitchen; no Nonna anymore. There was no one but me.

  “Your father and brothers are dead, all save Antonio and Lionardo.”

  “This I knew,” he said. “But what of my mother and sisters?”

  “Your mother is exiled to Naples. Your sister Domenica is safe. She is sheltered at Our Lady of Fiesole.”

  “And Flora? What of Flora? Is she there as well?”

  I shook my head. “Your sister would not remain in a convent. She is abroad,” I whispered. My eyes darted to the left and right.

  “And is she out of the reach of the Medici?”

  “No one is out of the reach of the Medici,” I said. “Not even God.”

  “Do not play with me so,” Andrea said, and there were tears in his eyes. “Just tell me direct: is she safe?”

  As he said this, he reached up to grip the bars of his prison. As he did so, the rags fell from his arms and I saw the truth of his fate.

  The left hand was whole but grimy. But where his right hand used to be was just a stump. They had left a bony knot of a wrist, perhaps to remind him of what he’d lost. All that remained of the hand was coarse black thread sewn into a stump of putrid flesh.

  “Your hand,” I said, stifling an even larger shriek. “What happened to your hand?”

  He put it behind his back. “I was to be drawn and quartered like my brothers but Father Alberto intervened. He vouched for my character and said I could have had nothing to do with the assassination. Instead I was found guilty of thievery.”

  “But how? You’re no thief, Signor Andrea.”

  Andrea sighed wearily. “My father was found to be corrupt in all his business dealings. The ledgers were all in my hand. That alone made me guilty of thievery. You know the sentence for thievery.”