The Scribe of Siena

by Melodie Winawer

  I stumbled out through the doors of the Duomo, which had inexplicably changed from bronze to wood. There were no lights anywhere. No lampposts, no warm yellow café windows beckoning travelers. And there was no one on the street. I had never seen a city, any city, so eerily empty. I made my way across the Campo, the slanting lines mysterious in the silvery light from above. A dream? It seemed too realistic to be a dream. Fugue state? Psychotic break? I was running out of diagnoses.

  The streets had no signs but I managed to find Ben’s street from memory. Once I turned the corner it was so dark I could hardly see at all. The buildings leaned in toward one another, blocking out the moon, and awnings further darkened the narrow alleyways. Was it a blackout? I touched the walls for guidance as I walked.

  A votive candle in a niche that housed an image of the Virgin Mary faintly lit my street. When I found the doorway of Ben’s house—my house—relief washed over me. Now I could climb the stairs to my bedroom, slide between the linen sheets, and fall asleep. Everything would be fine again.

  But it wasn’t. The lock looked strange, and my key didn’t fit. I tried it upside down, then right-side up again, but it was clearly the wrong kind of key. How could it be the wrong kind of key? I felt along the plaster wall in the direction of Ilario and Donata’s bell. But there was no bell. Instead of the flat front of the building, the wall extended into a shuttered storefront that I didn’t remember seeing before. Shivering, I wrapped myself in the shawl I’d packed in my bag that morning, curled up on the doorstep of the house that I couldn’t go home to, and waited for sunrise.

  The clamor of bells woke me from a cramped sleep before dawn. Out of Donata’s doorway came a mother and daughter arm in arm, both dressed for a Palio parade, in ankle-length gowns with long, tight sleeves. The younger woman stared at me while Mom clucked disapprovingly, and hastened down the street, pulling her daughter away. More doors opened and people poured out, heading toward the Piazza del Duomo. I joined the group and followed the pealing bells to morning Mass at the striped cathedral.

  I sat in the far back, surrounded by strangers who should have been my neighbors but looked like actors in a historical reenactment. Were they celebrating some big feast day, maybe the favorite local saint? The priest’s face emerged, lit by candles and serious under a miter. It must be a special holiday for the bishop to be giving Mass. But once the bishop started speaking, his Latin ringing through the nave, my last stubborn attempts to rationalize failed.

  Feria Sexta Iulii Anno domini mille tres centum quadraginta et septem . . .

  The rest of the service was wasted on me as my rusty high school Latin kicked in and I realized that the date was July 6, 1347. My head spun with the impossibility of the dislocation. I had often imagined that at some point in my life I would lose someone I loved, and I had. But I had never considered the possibility that I would lose my place in time.

  * * *

  After the service I stayed seated while the other congregants filed out of the cathedral. One word kept going through my head, over and over again: impossible, impossible, impossible. If you say a word enough times, it stops making sense. This is impossible. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening.

  Panic rooted me to my seat. A young boy in white robes walked over to the altar and began to arrange the candles, removing the spent wicks and replacing them with new tapers. The idea was incomprehensible, but the evidence was all around me; I’d been transported to fourteenth-century Siena dressed in a sleeveless linen sundress. I knew no one. I had no home, no food, and no money. I had no idea how I’d gotten here, and, more importantly, no idea how to get back. I could hear my own breathing, shallow and rapid, and felt my heart hammering in my chest. I was about to have either a nervous breakdown or a heart attack.

  Most people do not find it relaxing to recite the names of the arteries at the base of the skull in order of their appearance, but most people are not neurosurgeons. Fighting to keep control, I closed my eyes and resorted to my favorite strategy, honed by years of training. I imagined the weblike shape of the arterial Circle of Willis, and the vessels branching off from it. Anterior cerebral artery, anterior communicating, internal carotid, middle carotid, posterior cerebral, basilar, vertebral . . . anterior cerebral, anterior communicating, internal carotid . . . After the third repetition my heart had slowed and I could breathe normally again. The altar boy finished with the candles and started walking down the length of the nave toward me. I wrapped my shawl around my bare arms and shoulders and headed out of the cathedral.

  I focused on my immediate needs first: finding a bathroom and suitable clothes. I discovered a foul cesspit in an alleyway behind the cathedral that was probably used to empty chamber pots and accomplished my first goal. I held my breath until I was back in the piazza again.

  In the Campo, merchants were starting to set up market stalls, but I didn’t see any clothing for sale, and in any case I had no medieval money. The Campo had filled with people. A few glanced curiously at me. Maybe I could find some drying laundry to dress myself in—people must do laundry around here. The key was not to get caught stealing, since I didn’t want to end up being hanged as a thief. My thoughts were spinning, recycling all my historical knowledge in the hopes of finding something useful. I chose a street at random, turned right, then left. Farther from the cathedral, the streets got narrower and darker until I could touch the buildings on both sides with my hands. I wasn’t finding the laundry lines I’d hoped for. There were probably courtyards behind the buildings, but I couldn’t get to them. I kept walking, hoping I wouldn’t have to spend much more time in the fourteenth century wearing the medieval equivalent of underwear.

  I felt a wet drop on my head and looked up, trained by my New York City upbringing to see a pigeon. Instead, protruding from the facade of a four-story town house was a wooden pole a few feet long. It looked like it might have been used to hang a banner, but this pole had a wet cape hanging from it.

  I’d been hoping for a dress, but I was willing to take what I could get. Unfortunately, the pole was far above my head. I stared at it, gauging the distance. If I could just get to the loggia on the first floor, I’d have easy access. I pushed against the wood front door, but not surprisingly, it didn’t move. Just above my head was a hook, probably for a lantern. I reached and gave it a good yank to test whether it might hold my weight. It pulled right out of the wall and hit the pavement with a loud clang.

  The wood shutters on a third-story window flew open. I flattened myself in the doorway. “Chi è?” a woman’s voice called down sharply—who’s there? I waited unmoving until I heard the shutters slam shut and, after a few minutes, chanced a peek out of the doorway. No one in sight. I jammed the hook back into the hole in the wall, willing it to stay.

  I had decided to give up on the cape when a young woman with a large basket appeared from an alleyway in front of me. I followed her at a safe distance until she stopped at a house, put her basket down, and unlocked the door. She turned back to retrieve her burden when an elderly voice called from inside.

  “Vengo, Nonna,” she replied and disappeared through the door, leaving the basket. A wooden birdcage hung from a hook outside the window, with two larks singing inside and jumping from perch to perch; otherwise, the street was quiet. I approached casually, trying to look like I belonged, in case any neighbors should appear. The basket was full of wet clothing, probably washed in a public fountain. I grabbed a dark green garment at random, then walked quickly around the corner. My heart was pounding as I looked at what I’d taken. Fortunately it was a dress, made of light wool with long sleeves and skirt. Struggling with the wet fabric, I put the dress on over my own and kept walking, weighted down and dripping. I hoped the granddaughter wouldn’t get in trouble.

  After the adrenaline of my first criminal act subsided, I realized how tired I was. I headed back toward the Duomo. A low wooden building adjoined the cathedral; I found the door and ducked inside, hoping I could find somewhere to rest.
I’d walked into a livestock pen; high openings in the walls let through enough light to reveal cows, horses, and donkeys staring placidly as I walked past. When I saw the ladder leading up to a hayloft, I almost cried with relief. Up above, surrounded by fragrant hay, I took off the wet gown and spread it on the straw, covered myself with my shawl, and went to sleep.

  The angle of the sun had changed when I woke up to bells again, thirsty and with a growling stomach. I made a quick inventory of the contents of my bag. Fortunately, Ben’s old leather backpack looked medieval enough not to attract undue attention. A wedge of panforte and a small steel water bottle, half filled. I wolfed down the slice of stale fruitcake, then emptied the rest of the items onto my skirt. The useless keys to Ben’s house, and a wallet, also useless, since modern bills would do me no good here. I sorted through the rest: a slightly grubby cotton handkerchief, two safety pins, and a square mother-of-pearl pillbox containing the last five tablets of an antibiotic I was supposed to have taken for bronchitis two months before. At the bottom of my bag was the note from Donata inviting me for coffee. Donata. I stuffed the note, my shawl, and all my other worldly possessions back in my bag, wondering whether I might ever see her again.

  Snorts, whinneys, and grunts drifted up from below. I peered down from the hayloft as a young boy filled feed bags with oats, forked hay into the troughs lining the stalls, and poured fresh water into stone basins. As he worked, he murmured softly to each of the animals with familiarity and warmth. “Ciao, bella, hai fame?” He rubbed the donkey’s nose as her soft lips closed around the carrots in his palm. The carrots really got my attention.

  The boy made his way through the line of animals and then disappeared through the door. After waiting a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t coming back, I put on my damp dress, scrambled down the ladder, and walked down the row of munching animals, taking a scrap of something from each one to be fair. Fortified by my scavenged breakfast, I brushed the straw out of my hair, said good-bye to my new housemates, and headed out the door into the city.

  Now that I was clothed, rested, and fed, the fear came back. My old life was hundreds of years away, and everyone I knew didn’t exist yet. Figuring out how to get home depended on understanding how I’d gotten here. I mentally retraced my steps—the shock of seeing myself in Gabriele’s painting, then reading his journal. What had the words said? Now I couldn’t remember. One minute I was reading, then the next I’d gone straight into a night 650 years earlier than the day I’d started in. I have always preferred reason to blind faith, but what had happened to me was beyond my capacity to rationalize. Still, I tried to work systematically through the possibilities. If the journal held some key, it was lost to me now, since I’d arrived without it. The Duomo itself might be a gateway from the present into the past, but I had no inkling what the mechanism for reopening the gate might be. Or maybe Siena itself was the key; perhaps this city, which seemed magically suspended between times, had allowed me to step out of my own world and into this one. However I’d gotten here, could the process be reversed?

  My loitering had started to attract unwelcome attention, so I chose a direction and started walking. My feet led me into the Campo by habit, and I emerged into the middle of the marketplace—a riot of color and sound. The midday sun was high now, the market I’d seen setting up hours ago now in full swing. I had landed in the seafood section. Eels wriggled in the stone trough outside one stall—succulent, according to the fish seller. Next to him, trout flashed silver scales in another basin, and in a third, bug-eyed cuttlefish bumped against each other, displaying their tentacles. While I watched, the merchant grabbed one for a customer and it shot out a jet of black ink—impressive, but futile.

  I passed a large public fountain that looked familiar—the Fonte Gaia. The high, sculpted walls on three sides were missing, but the wolves spouting water were still there. With a pang I remembered Donata’s impromptu lecture—this fountain was now just four years old. Women chatted with one another while they waited to fill their buckets at the spouts. A rectangular pool where the fish sellers were replenishing their basins was set beneath a graceful marble carving of the Virgin Mary nursing her infant son, her face suffused with gentleness. Like Siena with her citizens, I thought, feeling comforted, as if I were one of them. Beneath the sculpture was a stone banner inscribed in Latin; I translated slowly to myself:

  On this day in 1343 the thirst of Siena is quenched

  The Fonte is the heart of the Campo

  The Campo the heart of Siena

  The long sought source of life and joy from this day forth

  Any lingering doubts I might have had about the possibility of time travel vanished as I read. I longed to tell Donata all about it—but maybe I’d never tell her anything again. I had to sit down and put my head between my knees to stop the spinning. Get a grip, I told myself. When that didn’t work, I chanted the arterial Circle of Willis again. Once, twice, three times.

  When the dizziness passed, I took a deep breath and stood up. I made my way into the produce section of the market, pausing at a fruit seller’s stall to stare at a pile of purple grapes. The grapes were dotted with droplets of water that sparkled like gems. I began to have a near-hallucinatory experience of popping a grape into my mouth, feeling it burst with a rush of winey sweetness. A sibilant voice at my right shoulder startled me out of my reverie. “Signora, mi scusi, may I have a word?”

  I looked into the pockmarked face of what appeared to be a law enforcement official because he said, with a gloating smile, “Need I remind you of the regulations concerning your neckline?” He looked down pointedly at my cleavage as I stared at the lace of my sundress peeking out from the low-cut gown I’d recently acquired.

  I searched my memory of all I’d read frantically for the right medieval form of address. “Ser?”

  He smirked again. “Certainly you recall the ordinance?” While he waited for my response, I tried to decide whether confession, denial, or silence would be the safest route. I’d gotten the “Ser” right, but the dress probably should have been worn over a higher-necked undergarment I didn’t own. “In keeping with the statute, I will take your silence as a confession, and your acquiescence to document the infraction.” He pulled out a tiny metal rod to measure the exposed area of my chest. “You have ten days to produce the required fine in the amount of a hundred soldi,” he continued, “at which time you will present the appropriately tailored garment to the office of the Donnaio in the Palazzo for inspection. With”—he placed his hands on his belly beneath its black and white tunic and caressed it almost sensuously—“certain consequences should it not meet the required standards. May I have your place of residence, so we may find you should you need assistance complying?”

  I was about to be fined for indecency, had no money to pay the fine, and had no address in this century to give to this representative of the government office responsible for enforcing sumptuary laws, one of which appeared to apply to my inappropriate neckline. What if the consequences of indecency in fourteenth-century Siena were imprisonment? Or worse? I felt myself starting to sweat. I had to say something, ideally something that sounded as authentically medieval as the letters I’d been reading in my own time. Left with no other options, I began lying as quickly as possible.

  “I am a recent widow.” Here I inhaled with a convincing almost-sob, though it came more from real fear than loss of my imaginary husband. “From the city of . . . Lucca. After the death of my beloved husband, I set out with my handmaid and guards on a pilgrimage to assuage my grief and purify my soul.” I made sure to be clear that I would have backup in case things got unpleasant, but the official’s eyes narrowed.

  “Your dress does not become a penitent pilgrim nor a recent widow.” He narrowed his eyes at me and took me firmly by the wrist. “You will accompany me to the Palazzo Pubblico immediately, where i Noveschi are hearing claims. Unless, of course, you have the amount of thirty soldi on your person? I might be able to waive the pr
esentation of your case to the council.” I did not, of course, have any soldi, having just learned what soldi were.

  The Donnaio’s representative propelled me into the Sala della Pace. Lorenzetti’s figure of Justice sat enthroned on the wall above me, larger than life and brilliant with color. I looked up at her face and I hoped, feeling a little desperate, that she would weigh in favor of my case today.

  On the next wall, the Effects of Good Government sprawled out from city to contado, bustling urban center to verdant countryside. Looking at the painting, I felt everywhere at once—peering into second-floor windows, buying shoes at a storefront, exiting the city gates, and hovering over woodland and pastures. Eight figures danced in the street, celebrating to the music of a tambourine player whose instrument I could almost hear jingling. A birdcage in a window barely contained its exuberant feathered inhabitant, and men bent intently around a game of dice on a low wall. The bound figure of Justice on the wall depicting the Effects of Bad Government stared mournfully at me, her scales broken.

  The hall was filled with milling petitioners lining up to make requests or present cases. A ripple of excitement passed through the crowd as nine robed figures entered, making their way onto a raised platform at the front of the room. These were i Noveschi, the nine celebrated leaders of the republic, who enacted laws, declared edicts, and exacted punishments—including possibly mine. I looked at other petitioners while we waited. A diminutive nun stood in line a few people behind me. She raised her head from a document she was holding and caught my eye. The bells rang again, as they did every three hours to mark the divine office—it must be noon.

  The complexity of the Sienese legal apparatus was interesting enough to distract me from my own problems. The first petitioner wore a midnight blue damask tunic edged with gold embroidery, and his dark brown curls clustered around his face under a soft velvet hat trimmed in fur.