“Let it be no later,” Ser Benedetto said, and I heard the warning in it.
I heard the warning, and was happy. I wanted Fra Girolamo to burn. Even more, I wanted Domenico to burn with him.
On Monday morning, my husband told me to have the servants prepare the house for a prestigious guest, who would be coming to stay with us for a few weeks; then he left for the Signoria. Even though the streets were calmer, thanks to the small battalions of neighborhood troops maintaining the peace, he did not travel alone: He requested that Claudio drive him, and he had two armed men accompany him in the carriage.
I was stranded at home, without a driver. Zalumma and I could always ride on horseback together, if we desperately needed to leave the house-but it was always safer to have a male companion, and that was under normal circumstances, not uncertain times like these. And every servant that might act as chaperone was far too busy obeying Francesco’s orders to ready the palazzo for our guest.
I chafed to see my father. I decided that as soon as Francesco returned, I would insist on going to visit my father, to be sure that he was well. I envisioned the conversation with Francesco in my mind: his refusal, saying it was not safe, and my insistence, saying that I would have Claudio and the two armed men to protect me.
Zalumma and I fetched Matteo from the nursery and took him down to the garden, since the day was pleasant. We chased him and giggled, and I clasped his hands and wrists and whirled him round in a circle until his feet lifted off the ground.
I intended to exhaust us both. I knew of no other way to brighten my thoughts. But for the first time, Matteo tired first. Head lolling, he slept in my arms-almost too heavy now to hold-and I walked beside Zalumma past the rosebushes.
Zalumma kept her voice low. “What do you think will happen to Savonarola?”
“I think that Francesco will join the Arrabbiati,” I said, “and that Savonarola will die. Be burned at the stake, just like Mother said. She was right about the five headless men, don’t you remember?”
“I remember.” Zalumma gazed at a distant olive grove on a hill, at some secret memory. “She was right about many things.” Her tone hardened. “I’ll be glad when he dies.”
“It won’t change anything,” I said.
She snapped her head about to look at me in disbelief. “What do you mean? It will change everything!”
I sighed. “The same people will be running Florence. It won’t change anything at all.”
Afterward, when Matteo was asleep in the nursery and the servants were all downstairs eating in the kitchen, I went to Francesco’s study.
It was foolish, going in the middle of the day, but I was consumed by restlessness and a mounting sense of worry. And I had not even considered how I would get to Leonardo if I found a new letter.
It is time to join the Arrabbiati and sacrifice the prophet. We have already translated into action your suggestion of luring Piero to Florence and making public example of him. The people are still angry; we will give them a second scapegoat. Otherwise, with Savonarola gone, they might soften too much toward the Medici. We are taking Messer Iacopo’s plan as our model: I shall expose the traitor in the midst of his crime, take him to the piazza for public spectacle, and rely on mercenary troops as reinforcement. Those mercenaries failed Messer Iacopo years ago-but ours, I assure you, will not fail us. Popolo e libertà!
Seek out Lord Priors who will support us in this move. Recompense them generously. Guarantee them important roles in the new government to come; but only you will be my second.
Let us not confine our public spectacle to Piero. We must dispense with all Medici brothers-for if even one survives, we are not free of the threat. Cardinal Giovanni presents the least danger, and my agents will try to deal with him in Rome, where he will surely stay.
But the youngest-he is the most dangerous, having all the intelligence and political acumen his eldest brother lacks. And in your house sleeps the perfect lure to bring him to Florence.
I dropped silently to the floor as if downed by an assassin’s blade and sat, gasping, my skirts furling about me, the impossible letter in my lap. I was too stunned to embrace its contents. I dared not. My father had been right: If I knew the full truth, Francesco and Claudio would read it in my face, my every gesture.
For the sake of my father and my child, I chose to become numb. I could not let myself think or feel. I could not let myself hope or rage.
I rose on trembling legs, then carefully refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. I went up the stairs to my room. Slowly, deliberately, I took a book from the trunk and set it on my night table, where Isabella would be sure to see it.
Rapid footsteps sounded on the stairs, in the corridor; as I went to open the door, Zalumma pulled it open first.
She did not notice that I was stunned, wild-eyed, pale. Her black brows, her lips, were stark, broad strokes of grief.
“Loretta,” she said. “From your father’s house. She is here. Come quickly.”
He was dying, Loretta said. Three days earlier, his bowels had turned to blood, and he had not been able to eat or drink. Fever left him often delirious. Not plague, she insisted. Plague would not have brought the bloody flux. For two days, he had been asking for me.
And each time Loretta had come, Claudio or Francesco or one of the armed men had sent her away.
Loretta had driven herself in the wagon. I did not stop or think or question; I said nothing to anyone. I went immediately to the wagon and climbed in. Zalumma came with me. Loretta took the driver’s seat, and together we left.
It was a terrible ride over the Arno, over the Ponte Santa Trinità, over the murky waters where Giuliano supposedly had drowned. I tried to stop the words repeating in my mind, to no success.
But the youngest-he is the most dangerous…
And in your house sleeps the perfect lure.
“I can’t,” I said aloud. Zalumma looked worriedly over at me, but said nothing. The letter had to be a trap; Francesco must have discovered me rifling through his desk, or else Isabella had lost her nerve and told all. It was impossible, of course. The world could not have known he was alive and not told me.
I drew a deep breath and remembered that my father was dying.
The ground beneath my feet had tilted sideways, and I was clawing for purchase.
For the first time in my life, I entered my father Antonio’s bedchamber. It was midday; a cool breeze blew outside. In my father’s room, it was dark and hot from the fire, and the air stank of unspeakable things.
Antonio lay naked beneath a worn blanket, on a bed damp from cleaning. His eyes were closed; in the light filtering through the half-closed shutters, he looked grayish white. I had not realized how thin he had become; below his bare chest, his ribs thrust out so prominently, I could count each one. His face looked as though the skin were melting off the bone.
I stepped up to the bed and he opened his eyes. They were lost and glittering, the whites yellowed. “Lisa,” he whispered. His breath smelled vilely sweet.
“Father,” I answered. Loretta brought a chair. I thanked her and asked her to leave, but asked Zalumma to stay. Then I sat down and took my father’s hand; he was too weak to return my grip.
His breath came quick and shallow. “How like your mother you look… but even more beautiful.” I opened my mouth to contradict him, but he frowned. “Yes, more beautiful…” His gaze rolled about the room. “Is Matteo here?”
Guilt pierced me; how could I have denied him his one joy, his grandson? “I am sorry,” I said. “He is sleeping.”
“Good. This is a terrible place for a child.”
I did not look at Zalumma. I kept my gaze on my father and said, “They have poisoned you, then.”
“Yes. It happened faster than I thought…” He blinked at me. “I can hardly see you. The shadows…” He grimaced at a spasm of pain, then gave me an apologetic look once he recovered. “I wanted to get us out of Florence. I had a contact I tho
ught could help us… They gave him more money than I did. I’m sorry. Can’t even give you that…” All the speaking had wearied him; gasping, he closed his eyes.
“There is one thing you can give me,” I said. “The truth.”
He opened his eyes a slit and gave me a sidewise glance.
“I know you killed the elder Giuliano,” I said. Behind me, Zalumma released a sound of surprise and rage; my father began to mouth words of apology. “Please-don’t be upset; I’m not asking you to explain yourself. And I know you killed Pico. I know that you did whatever Francesco told you, to keep me safe. But we are not done with secrets. You have more to tell me. About my first husband. About my only husband.”
His face contorted; he made a low, terrible noise that might have been a sob. “Ah, daughter,” he said. “It broke my heart to lie so cruelly.”
“It’s true, then.” I closed my eyes, wanting to rail, to give vent to my fury and joy and grief, but I could not make a sound. When I opened my eyes again, everything in the room looked changed, different.
“If I had told you,” he whispered, “you would have tried to go to him. And they would have killed you. They would have killed the baby. And if he had tried to come to you, they would have killed him.”
“Giuliano,” Zalumma whispered. I turned to look at her. “I did not know,” she explained. “I was never sure. Someone in the marketplace once said something that made me think perhaps… but I decided he was mad. And few people in Florence have ever dared breathe the name Medici, except to criticize. No one else ever dared say anything around me, around you, because you had married Francesco. And Francesco told all the other servants never to mention Giuliano’s name, for fear of upsetting you.”
My life with Francesco, I realized, had been limited: I saw the servants, my husband’s guests and associates, the insides of churches. And no one had ever spoken to me of Giuliano. No one except Francesco had ever spoken at length to me about the Medici.
I looked back at my father and could not keep the pain from my voice. “Why did he not come to me?”
“He did. He sent a man; Francesco killed him. He sent a letter; Francesco made me write one, saying you had died. I don’t think even then he believed it; Francesco said someone had gone to the Baptistery and found the marriage records.”
Salai. Leonardo. Perhaps Giuliano had heard of my marriage and had it confirmed; perhaps he had thought I wanted him to think me dead.
Imagine you are with Giuliano again, Leonardo had said. Imagine that you are introducing him to his child…
“You want the truth…” Antonio whispered. “There is one thing more. The reason I was so angry with your mother…”
His voice was fading; I leaned closer to hear.
“Look at your face, child. Your face. You will not see mine there. And I have looked at you a thousand times, and never seen Giuliano de’ Medici’s. There was another man…”
I dismissed the last statement as the product of delirium; I did not consider it long, for my father began to cough, a low burbling sound. Blood foamed on his lips.
Zalumma was already beside me. “Sit him up!”
I reached beneath his arm and lifted him up and forward; the movement caused a fountain of dark blood to spill from his mouth into his lap. Zalumma went to call for Loretta while I held my father’s shoulders with one arm and his head with the other. He gagged, and a second, brighter gush of blood followed; this seemed to relieve him, and he sat, breathing heavily. I wanted to ask him whose face he saw in mine, but I knew there was no time.
“I love you,” I said into his ear. “And I know you love me. God will forgive your sins.”
He heard. He groaned and tried to reach up to pat my hand, but he was not strong enough.
“I will leave soon with Matteo,” I whispered. “I will find a way to go to Giuliano, because Francesco has little use for me now. You mustn’t worry about us. We will be safe, and we will always love you.”
He shook his head, agitated. He tried to speak, and started, instead, to cough.
Loretta came in with towels, then, and we cleaned him as best we could, then let him lie down. He did not speak coherently again. His eyes had dulled, and he did not react to the sound of my voice. Soon after, he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.
I sat with him through the afternoon. I sat with him at dusk, when evening fell. When Francesco came, his indignance over my escape from the palazzo constrained by false sympathy, I would not let him in my father’s room.
I stayed beside my father until the hour past midnight, when I realized he had not been breathing for some time. I called Loretta and Zalumma, and then I went downstairs, to the dining room, where Francesco sat drinking wine.
“Is he dead?” he asked, kindly.
I nodded. My eyes were dry.
“I shall pray for his soul. What did he die of, do you know?”
“Fever,” I said. “Brought on by an ailment of the bowels.”
Francesco studied my face carefully, and seemed satisfied by what he saw there. Perhaps I was not such a bad spy after all. “I am so sorry. Will you be staying with him?”
“Yes. Until after the funeral. I will need to speak to the servants, find them placement with us or a new family. And there will be other matters to deal with…”
“I need to return home. I am awaiting word on our guest’s arrival, and there are still many matters to take care of in regards to the Signoria.”
“Yes.” I knew that Savonarola had been arrested, thanks to Francesco’s timely defection to the Arrabbiati. At least I would no longer have to pretend that my husband and I were pious folk.
“Will I see you, then, at the funeral?”
“Of course. May God give us all strength.”
“Yes,” I said. I wanted strength. I would need it, to kill Francesco.
LXVIII
I stayed at my father’s house that night and slept in my mother’s bed. Zalumma went back to Francesco’s palazzo and fetched me personal items and a mourning gown and veil for the funeral. She also brought, at my request, the large emerald Francesco had given me the first night I had sullied myself with him, and the earrings of diamond and opal. Matteo remained at home, with the nursemaid; I did not have the heart to bring him to such an unhappy place.
I did not watch Loretta wash my father’s body as I waited for Zalumma to return. Instead, I went to his study, and found a sheet of writing parchment, and a quill, and ink.
Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici
Rome
My love, my love,
I was lied to, told you were dead. But my heart never changed toward you.
A warning: Salvatore de’ Pazzi and Francesco del Giocondo plan to draw you and Piero here to kill you. They are amassing an army in Florence. They want to repeat-this time, with success-Messer Iacopo de’ Pazzi’s plan, to rally the people in the Piazza della Signoria against the Medici.
You must not come.
I paused. After the passage of so much time, how could he be sure of my handwriting? What could I say so that he could be certain of the letter’s authenticity?
I only ask, as I did before: Give me a place, in some other city, and a time. Either way, I am coming to you soon. You dare not communicate it by regular correspondence-your letter would be confiscated and read, and I and our child, your son, endangered.
I have been separated from you because of a monstrous falsehood. Now that I know the truth, I cannot tolerate the distance between us an instant longer than I must.
Your loving wife,
Lisa di Antonio Gherardini
When Zalumma returned, I handed her the folded parchment. “I cannot send this as correspondence,” I said. “The Council of Eight would intercept it, and have my head. I will have to buy someone willing to hide the correspondence on his person and ride all the way to Rome with it, and see it personally delivered.” I showed her the emerald and the earrings, and handed them to her.
“You are the only
one I can trust,” I told her. I had thought I could trust Leonardo; now, I could not speak his name without venom. He had knowingly kept from me the one truth that would have healed my heart.
Giuliano… dead. Few people have heard this. Most believe he is still alive.
Do you not love him still?
He had been reticent on our first meeting because he thought I had married another man while my first husband still lived. He had thought me capable of complete betrayal-because he was capable of it himself.
Zalumma took the jewels and nestled them carefully in the pocket hidden in the folds of her gown. “If it is at all possible,” she said, “I will see it done.”
We agreed that she would go early in the morning to search for a trustworthy courier. The lie: I was so grief-stricken that she had gone to the apothecary’s in search of something to soothe my nerves. It was so early, and I so desperate, that I did not want to wait for the stablehand to wake and ready the horses, and so I sent her off on foot.
I was terrified to send her off on such a dangerous hunt; one thing especially worried me. “I did not bring my knife,” I said; if I had, I would have given it to her.
Her smile was small but wicked. “I did.”
I did not mourn that night. I lay in my mother’s bed, with Zalumma at my feet in the cot that my father had never been able to bring himself to remove, and did not sleep. Now that Antonio was dead, Francesco had no more use for me-except as a lure, a role I would not play. The time had come to escape; my ultimate destination was Rome. I considered a dozen different ways to try to make it past the city gates-but none were safe or feasible when a restless two-year-old boy was involved.
I resolved only one thing, that we three-Zalumma, Matteo, and I-would leave in the hours before dawn, after Francesco had returned from his revels, so that I could kill him as he lay drunk in his bed.
In the quiet of morning, when everyone was still asleep, the time came for Zalumma to go. I took her hands and kissed her cheek.
Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa Page 45