“No, no, of course not. Nothing funny in the least.” I went back to packing and kept my thoughts to myself.
* * *
Iacopo stood against the pellegrinaio’s wall, watching Accorsi paint. The painting moved Iacopo more than he expected—even unfinished the angels’ flight upward, with the blessed Virgin in their midst, was so beautiful Iacopo felt it hard to breathe. So many times he had imagined the moment of the Virgin’s ascension to heaven, and now here it was before him, more real than he could have imagined. “Do not waste your time with frivolities,” his father had said, when Iacopo, just shy of ten years old, had stayed too long staring at the frescoed walls of the family chapel. “But it is beautiful, Father,” Iacopo had replied. “Beauty is well and good, but not if it keeps us from our work,” his father had answered, with a firm hand steering him by the shoulder, back to the ledgers he must learn to understand. Iacopo shook his head, as if the memory might be shaken off like water from a wet dog’s fur. There was a danger in coming to know his victim too well—he must not allow himself to be tinged by a misplaced sympathy that might undermine his purpose—and he concentrated again on the task before him.
The scaffold was rebuilt, he saw, now stronger than before. The new plan was more subtle, and more certain. Accorsi would be no match for Signoretti’s testimony. He would hang, just as his father had, with no one to defend his case. The Ospedale doors opened beneath the scaffolding, and a woman emerged. Her familiar silhouette made Iacopo’s heart lurch in his chest. It was the woman he’d seen entering Signoretti’s palazzo with the merchant by her side. Before he could slip away, she turned and noticed him. Then he was looking into her pale eyes under a crown of dark braids, and it was too late to hide.
* * *
Lugani’s large party was scheduled to leave the Ospedale in late September, on horseback until we reached Pisa’s port. Lugani had hired a band of armed guards to accompany us, and by the end of the week they were housed in the pellegrinaio, looking fierce and unapproachable. From Pisa, Lugani had chartered a ship that would take us to Messina. Lugani, despite his apparent wealth, didn’t own a ship; from my new colleagues’ conversation I gleaned that most merchants didn’t. Lugani’s employees were informative but not exactly welcoming, perhaps because of my newness, or gender, or both.
The thought that I’d be leaving Gabriele behind in Siena surfaced frequently, and every time I slammed it down—like one of those kids’ games where you use a plastic mallet to hit toy rodents on the head as they emerge from their holes. Suppression worked only partially; I was thinking of him more and more often and with increasing vividness. Sometimes I thought I could hear his quiet voice in the scriptorium as I worked, but the sound never left the realm of my imagination.
On the day before my departure for Pisa, I went to watch Gabriele paint again. This time I stood near the entrance to the Pellegrinaio delle Donne, where I could watch without being seen. For a while I looked at the angels’ flight, but then something made me turn. A stranger stood behind me at the pellegrinaio’s wall, looking up as I had been. He was small and dark, with a long black cloak that reached nearly to the ground. His lips were moving, as if he were talking, but to no one. His gaze was odd too—toward the painting but not at it, as if there were something else on the scaffold more interesting to see. He must have felt me watching him, because he slowly turned his head until his eyes met mine. They were small, deep set, and shadowed underneath.
“Do you know the artist?” His voice was incongruously high pitched for a grown man.
“I know of him,” I said, cautiously. “Why?”
“It is Ser Accorsi, is it not? I have heard of his skill.”
Something made me not want to give him information, but it seemed he knew the answer already. “Yes, that’s Ser Accorsi. Are you an artist too?”
“Just a patron of art.” He looked back at the Ospedale. There was more calculation than wonder in his face, but maybe that’s how patrons were.
The bells rang Sext and I jumped guiltily. I had a lot of work to finish before tomorrow. As I headed back to the Ospedale doorway I looked back. The stranger was still there, watching—whether Gabriele or the painting itself, I wasn’t sure.
* * *
When the woman left, Iacopo remained, the anxiety rising in his chest. She’d seen him, this woman who clearly knew Accorsi and Signoretti both. Perhaps she’d even seen Iacopo waiting outside Signoretti’s palazzo. And she appeared to have business here at the Ospedale. Who knew whether that woman might remember his face, should it come to that. She might make trouble, and Iacopo could not risk trouble, not with so much at stake. He would have to find out more about her, whoever she was. And avert trouble before it could arise again.
* * *
The next morning, I woke up before dawn, knowing I had to talk to Gabriele before I left. We hadn’t spoken since the safety pin exchange. I dressed in the chilly darkness and fumbled for my shawl.
I made my way to the deserted piazza, which looked flat and surreal in the moonlight. I sat down at the foot of the scaffolding and leaned against the supports. The bells rang for Matins, and the buildings around me became more distinct. A few birds landed on the pavement, pecking for tidbits left the day before. Finally, people started heading to market and the city fountains, carrying baskets and buckets, and leading livestock to graze in the fields beyond the city limits. But no Gabriele. I waited as long as I dared—Lugani was due to leave just after Prime—and finally gave up. Of all the days to take off work, I railed at Gabriele in my head. I’d never known him to miss a day. Had something happened? I had an hour left to find out. I walked quickly out of the Piazza del Duomo and toward the baker Martellino’s house—Ben’s future house.
* * *
On the night before Ser Lugani left for Siena, Gabriele awoke, sensing something amiss. Then he heard the faint moaning, so quiet it might have been mistaken for wind whining through the gaps in the canvas covering the windows. Gabriele threw on his shirt and followed the sound to the threshold of Bianca and Rinaldo’s room, where Rinaldo’s snores bubbled in a lazy counterpart to his wife’s muffled cries. In the dark Gabriele could see the pain etched in the line of Bianca’s back as she curled on the bed.
Gabriele’s mind flooded with an unbidden memory—Paola’s pale face as she struggled to birth their ill-fated son, her golden hair damp with sweat. It had been more than a year since the image had returned to him with such force. At the next wave of pain, Bianca rocked so vigorously that the heavy wooden bed shook. Gabriele approached cautiously. The bed linen was stained dark and the air carried the metallic scent of blood. His whispered greeting was barely audible, but Bianca’s head snapped up as if he’d fired a cannon by her ear. She grabbed his hand and squeezed so hard he thought his fingers might break.
“Gabriele, help me, God help me!” she whispered, the agony and terror in her voice stirring Gabriele to action.
“I will wake Ysabella, and fetch the midwife,” he answered hoarsely. “You will not die here, neither you nor your child. This house will not lose another life.” Bianca released Gabriele’s hand and closed her eyes.
Ysabella woke quickly. She sprang out of bed, dropped her house gown over her head, and raced down the stairs. Rinaldo was awake now, standing with his back against the wall, as far from the bed as possible. Ysabella bent to feel Bianca’s belly, then looked over her shoulder at Gabriele and Rinaldo.
“Don’t stand there like fools!” she barked over her shoulder. “Rinaldo, close the windows, and Gabriele, go run for Monna Tecchini.”
Downstairs, Gabriele pulled on his calze and stepped into the boots at the door, realizing too late that they were his uncle’s, a size too small. He forgot the pain in his feet as he ran through the dark streets to the house of the midwife. Gabriele’s ferocious banging on Monna Tecchini’s front door brought a child’s head to the window—Monna Tecchini’s young son.
“She’s out at a birthing,” the boy yelled down. Gab
riele despaired when the boy gave an address near the Porta San Marco, but took off running as fast as he could. There he found Monna Tecchini just finishing with a birth.
Monna Tecchini was a comforting presence in the middle of the night—a good quality for a woman of her trade. She had presided over Ysabella’s birth; then her hair had been brown, not gray. But she also had presided over Paola’s laboring, and she knew Gabriele’s summons carried the weight of loss.
“Bianca’s time has come?” she said, looking at Gabriele’s face. Gabriele nodded mutely. Monna Tecchini began a rapid trot in the direction of Martellino’s house and Gabriele followed, trying to keep memory at bay.
* * *
On the way to Martellino’s house I debated how I would explain my dawn visit, but I didn’t have to. When I arrived, the air was pierced by a bloodcurdling scream, long, loud, and full of anguish. As I burst into the kitchen Rinaldo and Martellino were standing awkwardly against the wall.
“Is that Gabriele back with the midwife?” Ysabella appeared at the foot of the stairs, and I could see her consider her options—two useless, cowering men or a visiting scribe? “Monna Trovato, have you any experience with childbirth?”
“Yes,” I barked, heading up the stairs after her, desperately trying to remember everything I’d learned in my six weeks of obstetrics twelve years before. My mind raced. I’m a neurosurgeon. I can’t do this. But there isn’t anyone else.
The room was lit by wavering tapers. Bianca crouched on a birthing stool, baring her teeth like a wild animal. The floor was dark and wet, and there was a strange smell in the room—blood mixed with amniotic fluid. So the membranes had ruptured. Was she close? Ysabella pointed me to a basin of water where I rinsed my hands, and she tied a heavy apron around me. I approached the bed cautiously.
“Bianca, I think I can help.”
She stared at me, panting and wild-eyed. “Please! God help me, someone help me!” I crouched next to her, put one hand on her belly and the other between her legs. It took me a few seconds to get oriented, but when I realized what I was feeling, my heart sank. Breech—this baby was not coming out headfirst. Bianca was dilated, very far along. I felt a bit more. No cord prolapse, at least not that I could tell. I put my ear to Bianca’s belly and listened. Was that a heartbeat? I hoped so.
At the next contraction Bianca began to wail again. I maneuvered her to the bed so she was on her hands and knees to prevent the cord from coming down before the baby. Bianca grabbed my arm hard, her nails digging into my skin. When the pain passed I reviewed what I knew. Don’t rush a breech—the head can get trapped. I waited, trying to be patient. Bianca screamed and bore down again, and then I saw the buttocks appear. Better than a foot, at least. At the next contraction, the legs appeared at the hip—one then the other—I pushed behind the knees, separating the baby’s legs and flexing them into its trunk. The third contraction let me grasp one ankle, and then one foot, then the other. The umbilical cord is free, that’s the lifeline. Come on, baby, let’s go.
One shoulder, the other shoulder, then the arm. Almost there. I knew that once the baby’s belly met air, I had at most ten minutes to get the head out. Don’t pull. Don’t panic. There were just three of us in the world now: me, Bianca, and this slippery butt-first baby. Pressure right over the pubic bone with one hand, gentle traction with the other, slowly, slowly. Bianca was screaming and panting now. Then finally, finally, I felt the baby’s mouth and nose emerge into my hand, and then in the next second, the whole head. The sound of a newborn’s cry filled the air, lusty and furious.
There were running footsteps on the stairs, and two figures burst into the room. One was a commanding-looking woman who must have been the midwife. The other was Gabriele.
“Monna Trovato,” Gabriele gasped, staring at me with wide eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“She is delivering your new cousin,” the midwife said and stepped in to take over. I rinsed my hands in a daze and stepped away from the bed, pulling the stained apron over my head. I’d just delivered Bianca’s baby in what would someday become my modern bedroom.
“Thank you, Monna Trovato,” Gabriele said, his eyes moving from me to the new baby and then back to me again. “Any gratitude I could possibly express falls woefully short.”
“You’re welcome.” I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself. My thoughts were interrupted by the bells ringing for Prime, reminding me of the hour. “God, I have to leave now.” Lugani’s party would be assembling outside the Ospedale. “Ser Lugani is taking me with him—with his company, I mean—to Messina.”
Gabriele’s eyes widened. I guessed he hadn’t heard. “I will escort you back to the Ospedale.”
“No,” Bianca said, surprising everyone. “Gabriele must pray for my daughter. He has walked these paths before, and the Virgin herself will hear his prayers.” It was light by now, and I could manage the short distance myself. Everyone was still too stunned to ask me what I was doing there.
Gabriele nodded reluctantly. “May God watch over every step of your journey, Monna Trovato. Messina is a long way from Siena.” It certainly was.
The midwife tied off and cut the umbilical cord, then washed the baby in a basin and wrapped her tightly in a linen swaddle. I backed out of the room to the sight of Ysabella rinsing the newborn babe’s tongue with water and placing a glistening drop of honey in her mouth.
* * *
By the time I got back to the women’s quarters Clara was pacing anxiously.
“Where have you been? I feared some mishap had befallen you, and that our trip might be canceled.” I ignored her question but glanced down at my dress to be sure I hadn’t been spattered with anything that would give me away.
Egidio appeared and stood in the doorway. He looked like a child, wide-eyed and uncertain. Because of his competence, I tended to forget how young he was when we worked side by side. I crossed the room to envelop him in a good-bye hug, forgetting medieval norms. When I pulled back, his face was bright red.
“I’ll miss you.” I smiled into his startled face.
“M-most honored, Monna Trovato. I have come to help with your weight. Your trunk, I mean, the weight of your trunk. There are two of us.” He gestured behind him where another boy who worked in the kitchens stood waiting for instruction. The boys struggled with the trunk down the stairs of the women’s hospice while I tried to restrain myself from offering to help. In the courtyard my possessions were loaded onto a horse-drawn cart by the burly guards I’d seen earlier that week. I kept my shoulder bag and its contents to myself.
* * *
When the Medici boy—he was hardly big enough to call Ser—had described the woman with the dark hair in braids whom he’d met outside the Ospedale, Baldi knew it was the Trovato bitch who’d taken his job.
“Why don’t I just dispose of her for you?” Baldi said, throwing back another cup of the excellent wine Semenzato’s provided. The Medici hesitated—squeamish, Baldi supposed he was, about adding a second crime to the first not even done, but he’d finally concurred.
From an Ospedale servant, Baldi had found out that the new scribe would be leaving Siena with a band of merchants that week. Once she was out of the city gates, he told his new Florentine master, it would be a simple task; traveling parties were sadly vulnerable to the threat of outlaws. So dangerous it was, outside Siena’s safely encircling walls. None would ever suspect the band might have been . . . alerted to this particular party, and the particular scribe traveling with it. Perhaps Baldi could even get his old job back once the scribe had fallen by the road. And he only had to pay the head of the band of outlaws half what the Medici boy had paid him. There’d be plenty of gold left for a whore, and a glass of wine to follow.
* * *
The last time I’d ridden a horse I’d been eleven years old, in a tiny stable on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Ben had given me riding lessons for my birthday. The teacher put me on a massive, placid bay with a back like a table, and m
y short legs could barely grip his sides. My teacher was a no-nonsense equestrian with no patience for weakness. It was the height of pollen season and as I made the fourth turn around the ring I started to sneeze and couldn’t stop. By the time I got home my eyes were red and streaming and my hands were shaking. That was the end of my equestrian career until the moment I got on the big gray Lugani provided for me. I was told her name—Margherita—and had to figure everything else out for myself. I managed to get on her back without hurting myself, and she acquiesced to my presence grudgingly, flicking her ears with impatience as I struggled to adjust to riding sidesaddle. Clara rode beside me on her own mount, looking perfectly comfortable.
Our party left through the Porta Camollia, leaving the paved city behind. The rolling green and brown hills spread around us as we rode out onto the Via Francigena. I looked back at the inscription over the Porta: Wider than this gate, Siena opens her heart to you—but we were leaving the protective circle of her arms now.
Outside the gates we passed several small villages that enjoyed the commune’s protection and oversight, but as we traveled and the sun rose over the tops of the trees, homes became sparse. We went through an olive orchard, leaves glinting silver-green in the early light. I saw peasants working a large outdoor press, and the fresh green scent of bruised olives made my mouth water.
As we went beyond the city limits the land became more wooded, and the road turned into a stony path bordered by vegetation. Trees blocked the sun, and I pulled my shawl out of my bag, managing to drape it over me without falling off Margherita. Two of Lugani’s armed guards led our party, followed by Lugani himself. I could see the red of his cap and gown from our place in line, and the straight arrogance of his back. He rode a spirited black stallion with a powerful neck and flowing black mane. Two guards remained at the rear of the group, making sure no one lagged behind. I peered into the dense woods along the path, wondering what we were being protected from.
The Scribe of Siena Page 21