Secrets of the Tower

by Debbie Rix

  The visit had been arranged, partly, for the benefit of her father who, as architect of Lorenzo’s fine new house, was in search of a striking piece of classical statuary to complete one important vista of the building. As he wandered intently between the rows of vast blocks of marble and carved stone, Berta rummaged amongst the trunks filled with valuable bolts of fabric and delicate glassware.

  ‘I have never seen anything like this before, Lorenzo. Where did you get it?’

  She held up a saffron-yellow glass vessel, decorated with brightly coloured enamel designs. Even in the dimly lit interior of the warehouse, it sparkled and shone like sunlight.

  ‘The glass comes from Syria; it’s extraordinary isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you use if for?’

  ‘For drinking from, you goose,’ the man laughed and pulled the girl close to him, kissing her neck.

  ‘For drinking! But it’s so delicate. Doesn’t it break?’

  ‘It will,’ he said, taking the glass from her and wrapping it carefully back in its covering, ‘but not if you are careful. As you must be with this. I have already sold this collection to the Archbishop.’

  ‘Lorenzo,’ she twined herself around him, her father hidden from view by a large Greek statue of a young man. ‘When we are married, may we have some yellow glass from Syria?’

  ‘You may have yellow, blue and green glass, cara – whatever you desire.’

  When the marriage day finally arrived, and the feasting and celebrations were over, the couple retired to their bedchamber, where a bath had been prepared. It was the custom for newly married couples to bathe with one another before they retired to bed. Naturally, it was a young groom’s first opportunity to see his new bride naked, and Lorenzo, in spite of his greater maturity and experience, was, excited and delighted at the prospect. Berta, while initially modest, let her long shift drop to the floor and climbed into the steaming water next to her new husband. As he washed her back, she felt her skin tingling with unexpected pleasure. But, turning to face him, she held her hands protectively over her breasts.

  Dressed once again in the shift, she lay expectantly in the large marital bed. Her father, naively, had omitted to prepare his only child for what was to come, and the young woman was apprehensive. But Lorenzo was an attentive and kind lover and lingered over his new bride. He held her in his arms and stroked her hair; he gazed at her body as she lay next to him, admiring and caressing her, feeling her heart quicken as he stroked her breasts through the fine fabric. When, finally, he kissed her, probing her mouth with his tongue, after a small pause, she opened her mouth wide to him. As he slid his hands down between her white thighs, he gasped at how wet she felt, as his fingers gently explored her. And when he entered her, shuddering with pleasure after just a few moments, she lay quite still for what seemed to her a polite interval, before asking: ‘Lorenzo, can we do that again? I think I must practise as much as possible and get better for you.’

  ‘Cara, it’s not a lesson to be learnt like geometry or astronomy.’

  ‘No?’ she said teasingly, before pulling her shift over her head, revealing her full breasts, their tips hard and firm.

  That night they practised… and Berta soon discovered the overwhelming, juddering pleasure that the act of love could bring.

  After they were married, the tower house and its adjoining piazzetta, with the beautiful Berta as its mistress, became the centre of Pisan artistic life. Architects, painters and merchants met at the house. Deals were struck, commissions were sought, and all the while Lorenzo’s wealth grew and grew like his fleet of galleys that rocked in the wind at the quayside on the Arno.

  When they entertained, their table was laid with the exquisite glass Berta had so admired. Her jewellery was kept in caskets made of carved ivory from the Indies; cedar clothing chests overflowed with gowns made from brightly coloured damasks from China, and bedcovers and cushions were fashioned from cut silk velvets in shades of blue and terracotta, their patterns inspired by Islamic art. Berta found herself the leader of fashion and revelled in her elevated position in society. And the more she yearned for what was new or novel, the more her husband was driven to make greater demands on his men.

  One afternoon, early in their marriage, Lorenzo arrived back at the palazzo after a long journey abroad. Berta heard him arriving, and throwing her book to the floor, rushed down the circular staircase to greet him.

  ‘Caro, caro,’ she kissed his face and danced around him. ‘You are back safely; I am so glad. What did you bring me, Lorenzo, please show me?’

  Lorenzo, exhausted but amused, slumped in the large oak chair in the hallway of the central tower.

  ‘Sit here by me, little one, and I will show you what I have brought.’

  Feeling into the leather pouch hanging from his belt, he took out a rough-hewn stone, turning it against the candlelight.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’

  Berta tried to take the stone, but he pulled away and stood up, holding it above his head.

  ‘No… you must guess,’ he teased.

  ‘Oh Lorenzo, you’re so mean,’ she said, like a little child. ‘How am I to know… it looks like nothing, perhaps it is a piece of glass?’

  Lorenzo smiled.

  ‘No,’ she continued playfully, ‘you are more generous than that. Is it a jewel of some kind? It does not look like a jewel, but maybe, is that what it is?’

  ‘How did you get to be so clever?’ he asked delightedly. ‘You are right… it is a jewel… a very special one, a diamond. It comes from India. It is very valuable and it is for you.’

  ‘Oh,’ her tone was disappointed, ‘thank you. But what will we do with it? It’s not very pretty, Lorenzo.’

  ‘No, cara, but wait until the jeweller has cut it and shaped it. Then you will see. It will sparkle like the sun and the moon together. I will set it in gold for you to wear around your neck.’

  His wife smiled and, taking the jewel in her hands, held it up to the light.

  ‘After dinner, I shall I tell you the story of how I found it. But first, I need a bath and to bed with my beautiful wife.’

  In those early days, during Lorenzo’s long sea voyages, Berta created something of a secret life from her husband. Frustrated by the containment that her position afforded her, which required her to stay within her household at all times, unless accompanied by her husband, or a retinue of servants, she found that she missed her young independent life of painting and sketching. And so she had begun to make regular journeys, alone, across the river to the Piazza, in order to watch and sketch the men at work on the new Duomo.

  One day, as she sat on a low wall to one side of the building site, her eye was caught by a boy. He had beautiful black curls which fell to his shoulders, and translucent green blue eyes – the colour of the sea on a warm summer’s day. The child, who must have been no more than seven or eight years old, was striking a piece of stone with his hammer and chisel, while an old man about fifty years his senior guided his hand. Gently, the man instructed the boy, once narrowly preventing him from chipping off his own thumb.

  ‘Gerardo,’ he called out, ‘take care,’ as he deftly grabbed the hammer just as it was about to injure the boy’s hand.

  The child, scared by the near miss, dropped the chisel with a clang onto the ground and burst into tears. The old man picked up the boy, cradling him in his arms and soothing him, before placing him back down in front of the stone work and instructing him to take up the chisel again, once more showing him how to hold it with care while tapping gently, the hammer held squarely in the other hand.

  Berta, impressed by the older man’s gentleness, walked across to the pair and handed the child a little apricot.

  ‘Here,’ she said, ‘take this. It will take his mind off the pain.’

  The old man thanked her, and the child took the soft apricot in his small grubby fingers and pushed it enthusiastically into his mouth. Juice spurted out, and he laughed, before wiping his chin with the
bottom of his shirt.

  ‘Say thank you to the lady, Gerardo,’ the older man said.

  ‘Yes, grandpa. Thank you, signora,’ said the boy, with a broad smile revealing several missing teeth.

  Over the next ten years, she often saw the boy with the beautiful dark hair and sea-green eyes on her visits to the Duomo. She had fallen into the habit of smiling at him and, on occasion, speaking a few words to him. Dressed as she was, in a simple woollen or linen gown, she did not strike the boy or his grandfather as a wealthy woman but as something of an oddity: a woman who was at liberty to spend her day as she pleased, rather than having to be at home caring for her children or attending to her household. The boy and his grandfather were, of course, too polite to question her, and so she remained something of a mystery.

  And now, as she lay in the steaming water, preparing for that evening’s dinner party, she thought about young Gerardo. Since she had first spotted him in the Piazza almost a decade before, he had grown into a handsome and accomplished young man… tall and athletic, with golden skin and dark hair curling around his ears. A fine young mason, she was determined to help him. He was, perhaps, the most talented of her ‘little protégés’, as Lorenzo irritatingly referred to them.

  She was jolted out of her musing, as Lorenzo came back into the room. He was wearing the dark red robe, belted tightly across his generous stomach.

  He gazed at her as she bathed.

  ‘Still the most beautiful woman in Pisa,’ he said, his dark eyes roving back and forth across her white, scented body. The ring he had first given her on their betrothal, an emerald set in gold to match her eyes, hung heavily on her delicate finger. He took the hand in his own big, rough grasp and kissed it. Removing the ring gently, he turned it over, gazing as the stone flashed in the sunlight, and read the inscription that had been engraved all those years before.

  ‘Desire no other,’ he spoke the words while watching her sharp beautiful face, waiting for a loving remark, or at least some sign of reassurance.

  He was not disappointed. Berta knew how to please him. ‘Caro, I could never desire anyone but you.’ And she held out her elegant hand for him to place the ring once again on her finger.

  ‘Now, please Lorenzo, leave me. Aurelia and I have work to do. It is not a simple business preparing for one of these events.’

  And Lorenzo, comforted, like a little child, kissed his wife on the forehead and left her to her toilette.

  Chapter Six

  1160

  Gerardo di Gerardo was just a baby when his father died from a deadly fever caused by the bad air, or mal aria, that floated on the air from the marshes that surrounded the city. This illness, which was both untreatable and often fatal, had spread to that part of Italy hundreds of years before, carried as a parasite within the bodies of soldiers and merchants travelling north from Sicily and North Africa. Pisa, and the marshy plains criss-crossed with canals and rivers that surrounded the city, proved an ideal breeding ground for the mosquito that transmitted the disease, and the illness was endemic. His mother, Carlotta, grieved for her beloved husband and wondered how she would survive with a babe-in-arms to care for. But she was rescued by her widowed father and her father-in-law, who moved into the tower house she occupied on the northern outskirts of the city.

  Thanks to the two older men, she did not want for male company, money, or indeed protection – and her child had two father figures to emulate and love. The two men worked hard and provided a reasonable income for the family. Carlotta was even able to employ a couple of servants: a boy to help with the harder chores, and a young maid to work with her in the kitchen. Carlo, Carlotta’s father, was away at sea two or three times a year, working for the merchant Lorenzo Calvo, in charge of one of his fleet of ships. He was a trusted employee, a good ten years his master’s senior. When he travelled, he would be away from the family for several months at a time, but on his return, he entertained his grandson with tales of life at sea, and helped his daughter around the house. He was a talented joiner and had made several pieces of furniture for the household.

  Gerardo the elder, Carlotta’s father-in-law, was a master mason, or lapicida, on the constantly expanding site that was the Piazza del Duomo. His working life was built around routine and discipline, and did not alter come winter or summer. He would rise before dawn, wash, prepare his tools and leave for work as the rest of the household were just waking. Most of the tradesman were on site early, particularly in the summer months, in order to take advantage of the cooler air. Gerardo would work hard until lunchtime, then eat, rest – sometimes even coming home – before returning to work in the late afternoon. Young Gerardo idolised his older namesake and would often sit and watch him in the early morning as he stood washing at a stone trough near the back door, stripped to the waist. He was fascinated by the older man’s hands, which seemed to the little boy so very large. His fingers, long, straight but exceptionally wide, could encompass both of his grandson’s tiny hands.

  When Carlo was at home, he vied for the child’s attention. Tall, darker than his counterpart, his skin burnt and hardened by the sun and wind, he had black eyes that seemed to the child to sparkle as he spoke of his escapades at sea. The little boy loved and admired both his grandfathers, but he was devoted to his mother. His grandfathers made him laugh and shriek with fear and delight as they told their tales, or threw him wildly in the air during games, but he was truly happy and at peace when he lay in his mother’s arms, his head resting on her breast, breathing in the faint scent of rosemary or sage from the day’s cooking, her sweet floury hands entwined in his own, while Carlo told exciting tales of the strange dark-skinned men he had encountered in foreign lands and of life on the ships where he made his home.

  So, little Gerardo was a contented child, for he had everything a child could want: love, attention and food. His mother lay next to him in the big bed on the first floor, and until he was five or six years old, he lay wrapped in her arms feeling her large breasts rise and fall with her breathing. Her face, soft and brown, was the first thing he saw in the morning and last thing he saw at night. During the day, the little child and his mother would bake and cook, or he would sit at her feet when she sewed, embroidered or darned. He would mirror her actions: kneading, stirring, sewing. The men in the household, when they returned from their labours, often chastised her for ‘making the child soft, encouraging him in women’s work’, but his mother took no heed, instead relishing the company of her son, who looked so like the husband she had lost.

  ‘You will spoil the boy,’ Gerardo scolded. ‘You cannot keep him tied to you forever. Let him come to the Piazza with me. I will school him in the ways of a mason. He will need to learn a trade.’

  ‘Gerardo, he is just a baby, not even seven years old. Besides, who says he should take up your profession? He might prefer a life at sea.’

  ‘That he might; but Carlo cannot take him until he is eight or nine years of age. In the meantime he should learn a skill and spend time with me.’

  And so, reluctantly, Carlotta, sent the child off, early one morning, with his grandfather. She fussed and fretted until the older man, normally so understanding and patient, was at the end of his tether.

  ‘Please remember that he has not been away from me before; please don’t lose him, Gerardo. And do remember to feed him – he needs meals regularly, little and often. I’ve packed a picnic for you both... bread and ham and some fruit. Please give him something to drink also. Is there water at the site?’

  ‘Carlotta, we are only going to work… not away to sea for a month,’ Gerardo scolded. ‘He will be fine. Please stop worrying; there’s enough food here to last a week.’

  The boy was led away, his tears mirroring his mother’s distress. As he reached the end of their road, the tears had become a torrent and he began to sob loudly at the prospect of leaving his mother who, trying to be brave, stood waving at the child, longing to rush to him, gather him up in her arms and bring him back home. But
Gerardo picked him up, disappearing into the crowd of men walking towards the Piazza without a backward glance.

  Throughout the day, Carlotta struggled to concentrate on her daily tasks. She was short with the maid, causing her to break a dish her father had recently brought back from his travels. Going to the market to buy something special for her son’s supper, she forgot her money and was forced to make two journeys to purchase the food. As the time of their homecoming drew near, the meal bubbled over the fire and a flagon of wine stood ready for her father-in-law. She, desperate for a sight of her child, sat anxiously outside the house, distracting herself by shelling a big pile of peas, placing the glistening vegetables into a little bowl on her lap. When she caught sight of her father-in-law, with the child sitting astride his shoulders, she leapt up – the bowl of peas crashing to the ground – and rushed to her son, her arms outstretched in a show of adoration, tears of relief pouring down her soft brown face. The older man lifted the little boy down from his eyrie and handed him to her. She walked back to the house, the child’s legs wrapped tightly around her waist, his face nuzzling into her neck as he told her of the adventures that had taken place that day.

  Over the next few months, the child grew used to his daily routine and no longer cried when he left the house. He adored his grandfather, and had grown proud of his position as the older man’s apprentice. When he returned at dusk, he was very tired, and once he had eaten, his mother would put him into their big bed – and he would often be asleep before she herself lay down to rest for the night. And so that special time when a mother and her child are content to be the other’s sole companion had come to an end and the process of separation had begun. Which might explain why neither little Gerardo nor his grandfather noticed that Carlotta had grown pale and thin. It took Carlo, returning at the end of August from a three-month voyage to Syria, to comment on the change in his daughter.