The Daughter of Siena: A Novel

by Marina Fiorato

  The Hall of the Nine was built to celebrate the long-dead republican government, the nine Sienese men from the greatest families. It was the government that she had supposedly replaced, but it was also the government that still existed here in reality. She needed to look back to look forward, and in this place the very walls themselves would tell her what she must do. For here, adorning the walls, were the three wondrous frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti – the Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government, each depicting a view of Siena and its countryside.

  She had lived with these paintings for ten years, had held receptions, councils and colloquies here; she had looked at them ten thousand times but never truly seen. Now, in the faint dim of the dawn, she tracked her lamp around the walls, the flame throwing a warm disc of light upon the details. She examined every brushstroke at close quarters. She wanted to learn what she must do.

  Violante looked to her left. In the representation of good government, the prosperous townspeople were trading and dancing in the streets. Beyond the city walls a lush countryside could be seen in which abundant golden crops were harvested. In the allegory of bad government, crime was rampant and diseased citizens roamed a crumbling city. The countryside without the walls was parched and bleak, suffering from the killing thirst of drought. Over all, a white-faced Devil with ivory horns presided, black-robed, with a dish of blood in his hands and a goat at his feet. His aquiline features reminded her of Faustino Caprimulgo. She shivered and could not meet the Devil’s yellow eyes.

  Violante took a few paces back to look at the two frescoes together and tried to think straight. The paintings showed the two faces of the city, the black and the white. Siena’s very flag, the Balzana, was a slab of white atop a slab of black, each half equal to the other. But now under her rule it was as if the flag seemed inverted, that the black was riding in triumph. How could she transform it, how could she make the white half win, how could she emulate the stable republican government of the Nine that she saw depicted here? Who could defeat the Devil in his own dance hall? She shuddered and drew the silk of the Palio closer round her shoulders.

  Violante shifted her lamp to the third painting. Here, flanked by the depictions of the black-and-white city, was a central panel. And here she found hope. Here, in the centre, where a grim-faced judge, like Christ, separated the saved from the damned, was inspiration. For here, Justice was depicted as a woman. She gestured to the scales of balance, held by the personification of Wisdom floating over her throne. It was the figure of Justice who decided whether to condemn or be merciful for, on her right, a convicted criminal was beheaded; on the left, gladdened figures received the rewards of reprieve. Violante felt inspired. Could she be the figure of Justice, could she take the reins at last and unite this divided place? Justice was not alone in her endeavours. At her feet, the personification of Virtue was also portrayed as a female figure, modelled on the Queen of Heaven. Mary, the patron saint of the city. Mary, the mother who had seen her son live and die too; Mary, to whom Violante had prayed throughout her pregnancy and her bereavement, that mortal woman who knew what it was to lose a son. Violante felt a kinship or a sisterhood, as if she, too, was not alone.

  But then, as she let her eyes wander over the fresco again, she spotted something she had never seen before. Another female figure held what was clearly an hourglass, two delicate curves of glass with the sand of time running between them. Violante knew she did not have much time. If she did not heal this city before the dukedom ended with her, Siena would be ruined for ever.

  The obstacles were great. In the fresco Mary passed out virtue among twenty-four faithfully rendered and recognizable images of prominent male citizens of Siena. The very men whose descendants now ridiculed her and made nonsense of her rule. She saw the faces that she knew: shuttered, circumspect, minding their own lucrative business. Families that had ruled this place from time out of mind: the Chigi, the Albani, the Piccolomini and, of course, the Caprimulgi.

  Violante knew Faustino Caprimulgo had corrupted the city for over half a century; that he had crossed her time and time again over sumptuary rights and trading monopolies; that he flouted tithes and taxes, and disregarded the laws that were implemented to keep the citizens safe. He murdered, he trafficked, he stole. But he could not do it alone; there had to be complicity. He had allies, not only in his own loyal contrada but, of necessity, in others too. He had treaties and alliances. In each of the thirds or terzi of the city, the contrade, each of the seventeen wards, were operating in a complex web. In this intricate machinery, the separate wheels of commerce and corruption, from the tiny to the vast, functioned independently but were all inextricably linked, like the cogs in the belly of a watch. But however much she might know about the surface of the city, she could not hope to know about its fine workings.

  She needed someone on the inside. A Sienese.

  She toyed with the idea of asking her chief councillor, Francesco Maria Conti, for help. He was entrenched in the ruling party of the Giraffa contrada in the east of the city, where he lived in palatial elegance. And it was he who nominally helped her in her day-to-day government of this city, he who presided over his fellows in the council chamber, the Sala del Concistore, next to this very room. He should be the ideal candidate to unite city and duchy, but Conti had never been completely able to hide his contempt for her and Violante had never trusted him. She did not know whether his dislike proceeded from her sex, her Germanic origins as the Elector of Bavaria’s daughter, or her familial connections with the Medici. She only knew that he disagreed with her in chamber at every turn, that in foreign policy his advice was so biased to the papal position as to be virtually worthless, and that he hampered any lawgiving that she embarked upon. No, he would not do. But she thought she knew who would.

  It was so light now that she did not need her lamp. She blew it out and, as she did so, the great doors opened.

  ‘Madam?’ An elderly waiting woman, her hair in a fat white plait, entered the hall. ‘I was worried for you.’

  Her accents were gentle and guttural, recalling for Violante Bavaria and home. This was the duchess’s wet-nurse and oldest ally.

  ‘Gretchen.’ Violante’s voice was excited. ‘Find that orphan boy for me – Zebra. And, while he comes, writing materials.’

  The old woman, who had opened her mouth to suggest her mistress should dress or take breakfast, registered this new tone in the duchess’s voice, shut it again and disappeared.

  Violante did not want to move from the place that had inspired her, so when her butler appeared she asked for a writing desk to be set in the window and took up her quill. Then she sat down and wrote to Gian Gastone de’ Medici, her brother-in-law and the only man in her family whom she felt she could count upon as an ally, the only Medici ever to show her any kindness. To do what she planned she needed the support of the state.

  She also needed the support of the city. She could see the city only as a stranger – for she was on the outside, something that had become abundantly clear yesterday at the Palio. She needed to move from within. But there was one man here who had shown courage without partiality: the unknown horseman, who had run towards danger, unafraid, to help a dying man, a man not of his own contrada. She sealed and directed her letter to Gian Gastone just as Gretchen came back into the great chamber with the boy Zebra. The old lady pulled off the lad’s cap and pushed him forward with a little shove, but not without affection.

  Violante thought the orphan looked tired and felt a sudden misgiving that she would add to his load. She had a stool drawn close and some bread and milk brought before she spoke. She watched him as he sopped the bread in the milk, eating hungrily. He could not be more than eight or nine.

  ‘Zebra.’

  She felt foolish, but did not know his given name. He looked at her with a completely open countenance, not noticeably shy or diffident, and he began to smile a lopsided smile. She realized she was still wearing the Palio banner around her shoulders, had a simple
cap on her head, and bare feet. She must look quite a sight. But she smiled back, encouraged. Perhaps there was still some innocence in Siena.

  ‘Do you know the horseman of the Tower contrada? Do you know who he is, where to find him?’

  Zebra ducked his head in a nod, his mouth stuffed with bread and milk.

  Violante was relieved. She had half expected the horseman to have left Siena by now.

  ‘Go to him in my name, with this seal.’ She passed him a small plaque bearing the Medici shield. A glance at her family arms gave her courage. ‘Bid him come here to the palace at his earliest convenience.’

  As Zebra bowed, she noted his black-and-white clothes, the same colours as the banner that she still held around her shoulders. She had a sudden notion. She folded the flag respectfully, warm from her body, and gave it to the boy.

  ‘And on your way, take this to the Caprimulgo house.’

  The boy looked up, startled.

  ‘Put it in the hands of Faustino Caprimulgo and tell him …’ She hardened her tone with the timbre of resolve. ‘Tell him Violante Beatrix de’ Medici, no—’ She corrected herself. ‘The governess of Siena sends him this, with her condolences.’

  Black and white were the colours of the chessboard too. She had made her first move.

  5

  The Panther

  The Panther, the young man who lay dead in the Eagle’s dungeons, was once young and whole and happy, growing up in his father’s house. His father, captain of the Panthers, was an apothecary who had amassed a small fortune and bought a fine new house in the Pantera contrada in the west of the city. The capitano decided to bring objects to his house that befitted his new class, filling it with paintings.

  The young Panther had a favourite – a painting by the Sienese master Sassetta. He passed it every day in the parlour, where it hung over the armoire. It depicted a panther at bay, trapped in a deep pit, magnificent, sitting back on the bunched black muscles of his haunches, snarling with pin-sharp ivory teeth. On the lip of the pit were gathered a group of rustic shepherds, some pelting the beast with sticks and stones, some throwing him food. The young Panther was struck by the nobility of the beast: doomed to die, but still defiant. The boy was struck, too, by the attitude of the shepherds, good and bad, offering both death and life. He asked his father what the painting meant.

  His father, looking down at his son and considering his tender age, told the tale simply. The panther had fallen into the pit by some mischance, he said. The shepherds discovered him and were sure he was going to die. Some tortured him for his last hours, but others chose to relieve his final moments with food.

  ‘Did he die?’ asked the boy.

  ‘He did not,’ answered the father. ‘The food revived him, and he leaped from his trap and sought out the shepherds. He slaughtered the ones who had taunted him, but, seeing the good shepherds cowering, he reassured them, saying: “I remember those who sought my death with stones, and I remember those who gave me succour. Set aside your fears. I return as an enemy only to those who injured me.”’

  The boy seemed satisfied. There was plenty of time, his father thought, to apprise his son of the deeper meanings of the painting, of the Panthers’ position in Siena, their relative relationships, their alliances with the Tower, their rivalry with the Eagles, the implications for trade and politics. Time enough for that.

  He never got a chance.

  Riccardo Bruni woke convinced that the dying Panther was with him. He blinked enough times to convince himself that the stable was empty of any soul save his, and scratched his skin in the places where the straw had printed its shapes into his flesh. He closed his eyes and listened as the bells rang seven.

  He opened them again to see Zebra ducking under the half-door and handing him the duchess’s seal.

  ‘You are summoned to the palace,’ said the boy, eyes round.

  Riccardo turned the seal over in his hands, saying nothing, studying the Medici cognizance of the circle of red balls on a gold shield. He imagined what it would be like to be part of a family so exalted that they had their own arms. He supposed the duchess wished to acknowledge his chivalry yesterday, although it had seemed a small enough gesture among the surly captains.

  Uncharacteristically, he took a moment to consider his appearance. His stockings were less than white, his jerkin was covered in straw; one of his cuffs was missing a button, one of his shoes a buckle. Riccardo retied his hair and crammed his tricorne on his head. Sighing inwardly, he cuffed Zebra gently about the head, smiled to mitigate the offence and flipped him a ruspo, the coin spinning in the air.

  ‘Am I to spend this day too doing your bidding? My pockets will be empty.’

  He walked the short distance to the palazzo. He had lived under the shadow of its tower all his life, the tower that had numbered his hours and days as he grew up like the gnomon of a sundial. This was the very tower that gave his contrada its name, for it stood sentinel at the edge of his ward, yet he had never been within the palace. The curiosity that he had felt the day before, when summoned to Faustino, returned.

  After giving his name at the great doors, Riccardo was shown into a vast chamber where paintings crawled over every inch of the walls – paintings of places he knew well, so cunningly rendered it was as if he looked through a window. There was the duomo, the Chigi palace, the Loggia del Papa. There was the Colle Malamerenda – the Hill of Bad Meals – just outside the city, where twenty people were killed in a brawl between the Salimbeni and Tolomei families when there were too few thrushes brought to a feast. Raised to think of nothing but horses, he picked out a great horseback procession and saw, among the noblemen, a noble lady riding astride, her robes falling either side of her horse’s back, almost down to his hocks. As he stood, gazing at her unmoving figure, the double doors at the end of the hall opened.

  The duchess was dressed from head to toe in violet, just as she had been yesterday. It was a strange colour for a woman of her years. But when Riccardo looked into her round caper-green eyes with their short stubby lashes, and at the array of wrinkles radiating from them as she smiled, he felt oddly comforted. He took in the wide sympathetic mouth, the soft jaw below, saw the ample bosom and waist that her corsets could not hide. She was not handsome and likely never had been, but there was something essentially motherly about her. It was not at all what he thought he would feel in the presence of a duchess.

  Nor did he expect what she went on to say. In her gentle, Germanic accent she explained that the frescoes showed good and bad government, that she wanted to bring back the happy, peaceful times and end the needless rivalries between contrade that ended in deaths like Vicenzo’s. She had seen him help the dying man during the race. She asked for his help.

  His refusal was gentle and civil, but decided. It was not that he didn’t agree with her. He did. She argued well, held her hands wide and told him that this place where he now stood, the Palazzo Pubblico, was and always had been the focus of the city – a civic, not a religious centre. She told him that the stony finger of the Torre del Mangia, which crowned the concave curve of the crenellations, was the highest tower in the land, that you could almost see it reaching into the sky with civic pride. Riccardo could see all this. But he had to refuse. She was an outsider. He didn’t doubt that she loved her adopted city. But Faustino, monster that he was, was Sienese born and bred. The Caprimulgo countenance was there before him in the very frescoes that she had shown him. He couldn’t take sides against a Sienese, against his own people.

  ‘I am sorry, Madam.’

  He bowed and took his leave before he could read the disappointment in her eyes.

  White for the day after.

  Pia, having revealed herself as a bird that wished to fly, had had her wings clipped. She was not allowed any of Vicenzo’s funeral wake-meats in the great hall. She had been locked in her chamber all day. She dared not look in the garderobe at the dress that terrified her so much, but she knew it was there. Sometimes, in a trick of th
e draught, the beaded skirts would slither on the wood, or the hanger would knock on the door.

  She slept eventually, woke again, tried to recite her favourite verses or remember extracts of her favourite legends. It was not a cheering exercise. All her heroines – Guinevere, Iseult, or Cleopatra as conjured by William Shakespeare – made sorry ends. She determinedly tried not to recall her ancestor, the first Pia of the Tolomei, tragic heroine of Dante, who was freed from her tower only by her death at the hands of her jealous husband.

  During the night that followed, Pia tried to find hope. She tried to believe that her father, Civetta to the bone, would not wed her to an unknown groom of another contrada. But as the dawn paled, she knew that all hope was gone. It was White Dress Day.

  Perhaps she had misjudged Nello – perhaps the marks on her arm were an accident. Perhaps he was a kind man; perhaps someone who struggled under the affliction of such an appearance, under the daily shadow of an older, handsomer brother, would have developed a tender soul? At least he had not violated the twelve-year-old heiress of the Benedetti and led her to hang herself from a ham-hook.

  Chin high, Pia opened the door of the garderobe at last and, shaking, took out the white dress. She silently suffered the indignity of being stripped and dressed by Nicoletta. The maid then began to dress her hair, clucking and smiling as if Pia were her own daughter, but pinning the pearls in a little too firmly so blood beaded on the girl’s forehead, and scraping the diamond combs across her tender scalp. When Nicoletta held up a looking-glass at last, Pia gazed on a face of beauteous perfection, and a stranger looked back at her. In defiance, she pulled Cleopatra’s coin from her bodice to hang outside the beautiful, terrible, dreaded white dress. It was the only thing left of Pia of the Tolomei.