The Madonna of the Almonds

by Marina Fiorato

  The baker stepped forth with his torch and spat foul phlegm at Manodorata’s face. Manodorata would not flinch, nor turn his cheek as the Testament said, but his gaze bored into the baker’s ugly eyes and damned him for what he did. The baker dropped his head, discomfited, and vengefully thrust his torch into the woodpile at the boys’ feet. He cursed and spat as the faggots refused to light. Manodorata stamped impotently at the falling sparks with his bound feet but there was no need, the fire would not take. Suddenly he felt Rebecca’s memorial stone, the stone he had placed there a year ago, lying round and hard under his foot. At that moment he knew that she was with him. A small flame of hope leapt in Manodorata’s heart but was soon doused as the baker soaked the ropes of his chest with oil of olives, and set them aflame with a burning brand. As the fire scorched his flesh he knew he was done for, but the blaze rose upwards above the ropes, clear of the boys’ heads. Perhaps God was watching and would save them, if asked. Manodorata closed his ears to the jeers of the crowd and the tears of his sons. He lifted his eyes to Heaven and began to speak in Hebrew. His hectic brain, confused and boiling with the unbelievable pain, could not find the right prayers of supplication. It could only fix upon the words that Elijah had spoken, for their last evening prayer before Rebecca died. ‘Lay us down to sleep, Adonai, our God, in peace; raise us erect, our King, to life, and spread over us the shelter of your peace.’ Before he reached the Amen, the fire claimed his throat.

  Simonetta was brought to her window by the conflagration, and thought at first that a forest fire had come to claim her trees. But her horrified eyes soon registered the tied figure in the ring of torchlight, and the men and horses gathered round the great almond tree. She did not hesitate over the weapons of old and new – she knew little of the arquebus, not how to neither hold nor fire it, and could see that the children were bound close to their father. There was no time. She took up her hunting bow at once and in a second had set an arrow on the string. She narrowed her arroweye at once upon the baker, who seemed to be leading the mob, but her friend’s face above the fire gave her pause. She forced herself to look at Manodorata – he showed no pain as his chest burned but looked at her directly, steel eyes bright in the charred face, she saw him fix his eyes on her, then give a slow nod and close them forever. She knew he was lost. She knew what must be done, and as a ruff of flame began to light his beard she shot him once, precisely, in the chestspoon where the ropes bound him. She knew that she had pierced his heart, for his head dropped at once. All was done in an instant. Shaking, she ran down the stairs, pulling Isaac back from the doorway as he ran to help. Veronica was mutely readying her Maltese knives for revenge but her mistress shook her head. ‘Stay inside,’ she hissed, ‘there are too many; they’ll take you too!’

  As Simonetta walked outside, she blinked back her brimming tears and forced her chin high. She clasped her bow tight in one hand and a sheaf of arrows in the other, to stop the shaking. She wore a new golden gown trimmed with white vair. She was Saint Ursula to the life. She knew the test was yet to come. It felt as if the world had ended and indeed the stars began to fall as she strode to the mob. Her fevered brain could hardly register but as the cold blossoms touched her face she knew them to be snowflakes. In September. The Book of Revelation had come to pass and the skies wept for it.

  She faced the baker as the fire burned her friend’s body with the hideous stench of charred alien meat. Burning oil dropped on the heads of the crying boys and she feared that their hair would catch but she forced herself to look away from them, and face the mob with a cruel smile.

  ‘A goodly shot, my lady,’ said the baker, with deference borne of surprise. He had heard it said that the whore of Saronno harboured Jews here and let them work for her. Apparently not.

  ‘As is my right to dispatch such Infidel filth that trespass on my land.’ Simonetta forced herself to say the words.

  There was a murmur of approbation.

  ‘Would you had fired the Jew’s brats too,’ she said. ‘But I see the snow has damped your kindling.’ Which, miraculously, it had.

  ‘Aye,’ replied the baker, clearly the ringleader. ‘We had to soak the ropes instead. The oil of olives caught a treat, and he suffered more for his heart burned first.’

  Simonetta blocked her ears to the science of her truest friend’s end and walked to the tree through the falling snow. She took Elijah’s face and forced his chin high, till his eyes met hers. ‘Trust me,’ she mouthed, her face turned from the crowd. She turned back with decision. ‘Good people,’ she said. ‘Of your kindness leave these heathen whelps with me.’ She forced Elijah to splay his fingers. ‘They have little hands and can be my labourers. You have my word that they will be raised as Christians. They are too young to have caught the full contagion of the Hebrew. God will smile upon us all for claiming two lost sheep.’

  The mob murmured again, and Simonetta dare not breathe.

  ‘’Tis true,’ said a pardoner at last. ‘So it says in the scripture.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the tavern keeper. ‘I’ve two young lads myself. ’Tis best that they be spared. Their sire has paid for his sins.’

  Simonetta could not look at the charred body of her friend. But she took her hunting knife and cut the boys down, her skin prickling with fear that the mob might stop her. She longed to cradle her boys, but such things could wait – she held each harshly by the wrist as they keened and cried.

  The crowd began to melt away, but the baker lingered, his eyes magpie-bright at the thought of the golden hand that the fire had not touched.

  ‘Let the crows peck at him,’ she said dismissively, but he lingered still. She forced him to ask.

  ‘And the hand?’

  Simonetta thought fast. ‘I will give it to Father Anselmo. Meet it is that the Infidel’s gold shall be put to Godly use.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said the pardoner, her greatest advocate. ‘Why should you have it? If it goes to the church it will benefit all, not just your greedy purse.’ He dragged his friend away, but both made a sketchy reverence to the lady before they left, a mark of their new-found respect. Simonetta, sickened by the admiration of such men, flashed a gracious smile. Lest she was watched, she pulled the boys into the house, and as she crossed the threshold her legs gave way, and she collapsed, at the feet of Isaac and Veronica. She clutched Isaac’s arm. ‘Now you may help him,’ she said. ‘Wait for a moment, to be sure they are gone. But then cut him down and lay him out and do such rites as your faith demands. He deserved a better death, but all shall be done right now he is gone. I must put the boys to bed.’

  She let Veronica help her bathe and settle the white and silent boys. She thought of the time she had held them after their mother had died, and knew it would take time to quiet them. But the shock of the night’s events had taken their toll. She kissed their closing eyes and this time, she made no assurances that all would be well. This time she made a promise that she knew she could keep. ‘I’ll look after you.’

  Simonetta went down to join Isaac by the great tree. He had already dug a trench for the body, black in the white earth. She shook with cold and emotion, her mind struggling to countenance what had happened. How could her greatest friend be here and gone in the blink of an evil eye? And by her own hand? Manodorata now lay under Isaac’s magpie cloak, waiting for internment. From the lie of the fabric Simonetta could tell that the arrow she had shot had been pulled from his chest. She was glad that Isaac had taken this office upon himself; that she would not have to see the protruding shaft of her handiwork. She damned herself for cowardice, and watched while the falling snow turned the pied cloak to pure white.

  ‘It is fitting,’ said Isaac.

  Simonetta blinked away the snow. ‘What is?’ For nothing seemed to fit this night: the world had turned upside down. The snow gave the illusion of stars dropping from the sky and she felt that she was falling into infinite space. ‘What is fitting?’

  Isaac pointed to his friend’s body. ‘The shr
oud is now white. The correct colour for a tachrihim, the funeral wrappings of our people. God is at work.’

  Wordlessly Simonetta di Saronno rolled back her golden sleeves and took the second shovel. She was moved that Isaac could think of God at such a time, when He seemed to have deserted his faithful servant, and taken him from his innocent children. Suddenly she saw in her mind’s eye the image that Manodorata had described to her when first they truly talked, here under these trees. The flaming, pierced heart that Saint Agostino held in his hand, the Saint that had blamed the Jews for the death of Christ. The image seemed, now, to have enormous impact, and import, but Simonetta’s spinning mind could not make sense of it. She knew only that when she saw such images again, she would know the burning heart, pierced by her own arrow, that beat in the Saint’s hand. She would know it for the heart of her friend. She kept her peace and they worked in silence, joined, soon, by Veronica. Together they dug as the snow fell. Something metal sang on Simonetta’s spade and the earth turned up a golden ring. She rubbed it on her gown and it showed clearly in the moon white night, a star with six points.

  ‘Rebecca’s,’ said Isaac. As Simonetta nodded she felt a sob squeeze her throat like a cold hand. At length they were done and they laid Manodorata in the cold earth. Isaac intoned the last words and the tehillim psalms, as Manodorata had once done here for his dead wife. Simonetta did not uncover the body, but before they began to fill in the earth she knelt and felt beneath the shroud for the golden hand. She slipped Rebecca’s ring onto the cold metal and felt it warm under her touch at once, almost as if he were still alive. Hot tears began to slide from her eyes. For although flesh would perish in time, the two golden symbols of the husband and the wife would lie in the earth forever. She vowed, here and now, that this grave, under this tree, was the nearest that the hand would ever come to Anselmo’s coffers, and Simonetta knew the priest would approve.

  They filled the grave and the black mound turned to white in an instant as the snow fell relentlessly. Veronica took Simonetta’s arm to lead her inside, gesturing that they should leave Isaac be. The tutor nodded to his mistress briefly, and touched her shuddering shoulder once. ‘Get you inside, lady,’ he said. ‘In the absence of his family I must be the shomrim, guardian of the dead. I will bide here a while and keep watch, and pray.’

  Simonetta nodded. She was suddenly deathly tired, but not sure she would ever sleep again after what she had seen. She walked to the house arm in arm with her maid – her friend – and climbed the stair to rest with the boys lest they should need her in the night.

  She was physically and mentally shattered by what she had done. Her hands shook and her teeth chattered despite the warm of the chamber. Her knees trembled at each step, her stomach churned and her throat threatened vomit. Had she been called upon to set an arrow on her bowstring now, she could not have done it. And yet in a moment of cold dispatch one short hour ago, an instant of rapid thought and speedy execution, she had killed someone. She had shot her bolt through a flaming heart and the fact that that heart was dying seemed to mitigate her actions not at all. Was this really what Lorenzo had done, on a daily basis, when he was away from her side on his lengthy campaigns? She had taken a life in mercy but he had done it for glory, and victory, and political gain; all much much more flimsy motivations than her own. In an action that surprised herself she pressed her shaking hands together, bent her weakling knees and moved her chattering teeth in prayer. She had been a stranger to God for some months now, and had, after the shocking, sickening events of this evening, admired Isaac’s steadfast faith without understanding it. She had not prayed since Bernardino had gone. She knew she need not ask pardon for the taking of a life, for she had done it to end Manodorata’s pain and save his children. So she did not pray for forgiveness, nor even for the soul of her friend. That could all come later. No, Simonetta suddenly felt she had thanks to give for a miracle; for the freak fall of snow that had damped the kindling that was to make the death- fire for the boys. The teachings of scripture came back to her and she remembered Saint Lucy had been saved from the fire as the faggots would not light. She remembered, too, Saint Apollonia, who willingly submitted to the fire, just as her friend had done. The tales were suddenly at her fingertips, as if they had been waiting – just out of her memory’s reach – to be welcomed back and beckoned into her chambers like long-lost friends. She looked out of her window at the moon and stars and spoke, hands clasped, to those Saints; one who lived in Paradise without eyes and the other without teeth. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 35

  The Countess of Challant

  Bernardino became well used to the rhythms of the Canonical hours. Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, Compline. They sounded like footsteps; the steady tread of the single syllable – Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones – breaking into a trot of double ones – Vespers, Compline – at the close of the Holy day. Race the sun as it falls, rush to cram in our devotions before the night’s end and prayers begin the new day with the dawn. And yet there was never any rushing here, no hurrying, no urgency. Bernardino knew how long he was taking on each piece only by the prayers sung by the sisters. He became used to the quiet of the place; the thoughtful nuns walking in the gardens, or digging the herbs, or reading aloud from scripture. He inhabited a world where there were no harsh words, no awkward passions. Here there was no utterance louder than a prayer, no sound above the whisper of a long habit on the pavings, no assault to his ears beyond the modes and cadences of the plainsong. He felt the balm of his friendship with Bianca as a natural progression, a natural continuation of his friendship with her brother, a benign sequel to a sinister birth. He smiled a secret smile when he thought of how the two bars of the lineage resembled one another, of how the legitimate and the illegitimate both shared much from their father.

  Bernardino set forth for another day of decorating this quiet world, another day when the osmosis of the religiosity that surrounded him would seep into his skin. Since he had prayed the other night he had begun, tentatively, to talk to God when Bianca was absent. So as he looked for his friend on this day, the day he was to begin the panel depicting Saint Catherine, he felt imbued with a sense of peace. And quietude. He was surprised, therefore, to find the Abbess pacing and agitated. She broke the egg of his calm, and took him at once to that other world, a world of violence, passion and death.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I need your help. Will you come?’ Bianca’s tone held an urgency and direction he had not known.

  ‘What is the matter?’ Bernardino was perplexed.

  ‘There is little time,’ said the Abbess. ‘A friend is in grave danger. It is well you wear the robes of our lay brothers. Dressed thus, you will be safe in the crowd.’

  ‘What crowd?’ Bernardino was grateful for the disguise – he had set foot in the city a very few times in the last months – needful excursions only to meet his patron and buy pigments, for he was conscious that the Cardinal might still seek him. As if echoing his thought the Abbess said, ‘I know that you risk your life if you leave these walls. I would not ask it of you lightly. Will you come or no?’

  Bernardino only thought for a moment. He had a certain amount of natural courage, but a great deal of natural curiosity, and was suddenly galvanised with a desire to see what had come to pass in Milan. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  Without further explanation Sister Bianca led him through the herbarium and out of the gatehouse in the old circus tower. They made their way slowly down the Corso Magenta for the street was crowded, and the people that milled around had the uneasy buzz of a thousand bees. Bernardino was suddenly moved to look back at the frontage of the monastery, with its Ornavasso stone façade and marble mouldings, as a child might yearn for his home as he crept, snail-like, to school. He felt an odd sense of foreboding and vulnerability now that he was outside of the safe haven of the convent walls. The sun had barely risen behind a lid of sickly yellow grey cloud and shone like th
e dim orange lozenge of a comet that presages contagion or war. Bernardino drew his hood about him and turned from the ugly faces that seemed to leer after the calm and Godly countenances of the sisters. He plucked the sleeve of the Abbess.