Once we got to Messina my job would be done, and I could leave, ideally with Clara and Gabriele—before it was too late. I’d go talk to Lugani now, to clarify the terms of the end of my employment. After we landed, I could return to Siena, where at least I’d have more time.
As I left my refuge, I saw Lugani conferring with the grizzled captain at the ship’s prow. The captain sounded smug.
“I have word, Ser, from a small ship sent to meet us this morning, that the Genoese galleys have dropped anchor in Messina. Your contact will be glad to see you’ve arrived so early.”
I felt a wave of dizziness and held on to the barrel at my side to steady myself. If the Genoese galleys were here, the Plague was too.
“Excellent news. I shall pay you well for the quick journey.” I drew up behind Lugani, trying to keep my expression neutral.
“Good morning, Ser.”
Lugani turned to face me. His face was cleanly shaven this morning, his cropped dark head topped with a red biretta, his scarlet cloak brilliant against the gray-brown of the weathered ship.
“Good morning indeed, Monna Trovato. You look well rested, which is for the best, as we will all have much to do today. We shall arrive in Messina earlier than expected.”
“I heard.”
“I sent your maidservant—Clara, is that her name?—to arrange your possessions. If you will excuse me, I have business to discuss with our captain.”
You bastard. You know her name as well as you know the rest of her.
“I need to speak with you immediately. Privately.”
“How intriguing.” He seemed to be considering whether he’d have time for a few minutes of pleasure before we dropped anchor. “Captain, we will resume our discussion shortly.”
“As you wish, Messer,” the captain said with a leer.
I followed Lugani to his chamber, hoping I’d be able to defend myself if his misunderstanding went too far. His accommodations were relatively luxurious: a wide berth with a blue velvet coverlet, and a wooden desk affixed to the wall. A portolan chart was spread out on the desk. I’d seen them in the Ospedale scriptorium, printed with black and colored inks on whole lambskin, depicting the coastlines of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
“I am delighted to see you’ve changed your mind,” Lugani said, motioning me into the room. He closed the door, then positioned himself between me and the exit. I didn’t like that maneuver at all.
“We must not disembark at Messina.”
Lugani raised his eyebrows. “How did you arrive at such a peculiar conclusion?”
“The pilgrims on board have news about a terrible pestilence brewing in the south, with Messina at its heart.”
“How might these shabby pilgrims have better information than I? And if they had such information, why would they seek passage to the city that harbored sickness within its walls?”
I struggled to make the story more convincing. “One told me that in his prayers, he was struck by a vision.” I searched for words from the chronicles I’d read. “A vision of a black dog, devouring everything in its path and leaving a trail of death and darkness behind it.”
“And why, Monna Trovato, would they ask you to be the mouthpiece for their prophecies of doom, rather than speak to me or the captain themselves?”
“They are afraid of you,” I said, knowing he would believe me.
He nodded slightly. “That may be the case, but I am not inclined to follow the ravings of a group of shabby pilgrims.”
“I request permission to stay on board then, until the ship departs again for the north.”
“You are a persistent woman,” Lugani said with a chuckle, “but I am afraid I cannot indulge your wishes. At least not in this matter.”
“Why not?” I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice.
“You are still in my employ, Monna Trovato. I will assure your passage home when your job with me is done, but not before.” He eyed me critically. “You have been quite useful, but Messer Cane has cautioned me to watch your behavior closely. He seems concerned about the ambush on our trip here, and your possible role in it. There are those who make agreements with bands of outlaws—or other undesirables—and benefit as a result, while seeming to be innocent victims. Your consorting with ragged pilgrims who ought to be of no interest to you, and now, your insistence on a change of route, are concerning in light of Messer Cane’s suspicions. I have urged him, because having you in our compagnia has been a great boon, to keep his suspicion at bay, but his interests are rightly meant to protect me and my business. It is also troubling that two passengers from the same city—by which I mean yourself and Messer Accorsi—might arrive separately on the same ship, seek passage at the same moment, and yet not reveal their knowledge of each other. Should I take Cane’s advice in my dealings with you? Perhaps I offered you more freedom than was warranted, or wise.”
“I have done nothing to betray your trust.”
“That remains to be seen. When we land I will ensure that you are not in a position to endanger my business, in the event that Cane’s suspicions are justified. I will enjoy your close company until you are finished with the work I require of you in Sicily. And we will be watching you, Monna Trovato. Now, are we finished?”
Clearly we were. He opened the door to let me out in front of him, following close behind. He left me to consider what his mistrust might mean for my future as he returned to the foredeck to plan our route into the Messina harbor.
* * *
Even with the shipboard breeze, the air held a promise of warmth, heralding our proximity to Sicily. I stared in the direction of our destination until my eyes watered. No degree of scrutiny could tell me what was happening there. Everyone on deck was too busy to notice me as I made my way down to the storage hold where Gabriele stood with his back to me, bent over his belongings.
“Gabriele.” He whirled around quickly.
“Beatrice! Can it be that you have decided in my favor so soon?” His smile faded as he saw the serious expression on my face.
I wished we could talk about his proposal instead of what I had to say. “I’ve remembered something about Messina. Something I know because of where I come from.”
“You are determined to tell me of the future?”
“I have to.”
“Speak, then.”
I chose my words carefully. “A terrible pestilence awaits us in the city. A deadly disease that will someday be called the Black Death.”
Gabriele studied my face as if the details were written there. “I wish I could doubt your certainty.”
“So do I.”
“Is there any hope in fleeing Messina? Can this pestilence be outrun?”
I had an image of the two of us running, with a dark and roiling evil at our heels. “Maybe temporarily, but not forever.”
He didn’t question my authority on the subject.
“Have you spoken to Messer Lugani?”
“Yes, but now he thinks I’m plotting something dangerous, possibly even something with you. Cane has been raising suspicions about me, and Lugani is starting to believe him.”
“He would do better to trust you. I imagine that my support of your efforts would only increase his suspicion of both of us?”
I nodded grimly. “I suppose this is what Cassandra felt like.”
Gabriele smiled at the ancient reference. That history at least we shared.
“Is there no cure for this pestilence?”
“Not now.” I envisioned the victims riddled with festering buboes, doctors with beaked masks bending over patients in their agony. “Your time does not find a solution, and the disease will rage through the world.”
“Is there a cure in your time?”
I thought of the few tablets of antibiotic I had left over from my old life, a tiny symbol of my century’s ability to fight disease. Those pills might save one person, but probably not two, and certainly not a shipload, or a city, or a nation. I wasn’t even sure whether it
was the right kind of antibiotic.
“Even in my time, people still die of this disease, but less often.” I took the tablets out to show him. He reached out to touch the small white ovals in my hand.
“How beautiful they are. Like you, Beatrice, strange and beautiful.” He took my hand in both of his, closing it around the tablets. “I did wonder, as I came to know you, whether you might be saint or spirit, or perhaps a mystic who had dedicated her soul to God’s service. Your unusual manner of speech, your otherworldly air, your visions, and your ability to delve into the hearts of men set you apart. But now that I have discovered you are simply mortal, I am happy to regard you as a woman. No less marvelous, but human.”
I had a fantasy of kissing him that was so vivid it bordered on hallucination. I’ve always been amazed at the way happiness intrudes on misery, with no regard for the seriousness of the situation.
“Not being mortal would be useful right about now,” I said.
“Indeed it would, though you might become terribly weary, living forever, with everyone dying around you.”
I wondered whether we were thinking the same thing. Immortality with the right company might not be so bad. “I’ve been struggling to think how my knowledge might be useful. Here I am, under oath to dedicate myself to human health. I see death coming, but all I can do is wait. It’s a doctor’s nightmare.” I could feel the sharp edge of panic again.
“Surely everyone does not die, else how would men and women exist in your time?”
“No, not everyone.”
“And what is it that allows some to survive, if not this magical medicine you bring from your century? Can you tell me that?”
“No one, even in my time, understands the answer to that question, except that those who have survived it once cannot be infected a second time. And”—I racked my brain for something I’d read that might make a difference—“isolation of the well from the sick may help, and avoidance of rats and fleas.”
“Rats and fleas? Do they carry a miasma of filth that makes men succumb?”
I paused, trying to decide how to describe the life cycle of the parasite and all of germ theory in as few words as possible. I gave up. “Something like that.”
“Will it make its way to Siena as well?”
“Eventually, yes.”
“Then there is no purpose in flight.”
“It might save us a few months, that’s all.”
“In that case I will do what I am capable of, and what I love, until the time should come when I fall prey to this pestilence or survive it. I will pray to the Virgin to keep us and others safe. I will pursue my commission in Messina so that I may pick up my brushes again. I will paint, and as I paint, I will dream of you, and of the day that you accept my offer.” I closed my eyes for a few seconds, listening to him.
“There is one more thing,” I said.
“I assume it refers to Siena’s fate, and not our betrothal,” Gabriele said wryly. His comment made me smile despite the grim topic.
“Unfortunately, yes. Siena will suffer, perhaps more than other cities, at the Plague’s onslaught—but I don’t know why. If I did, it could be something to act on.”
Before we could go any further with that inflammatory topic, the sound of footsteps coming down the ladder behind me made me jump.
“Monna Trovato,” Cane said in a low voice. “How surprising to find you here, with Messer Accorsi himself. Your fellow Sienese, if I am not mistaken—have I interrupted some private matter?” He looked at me, calculating. “Messer Lugani will be most interested in hearing where I found you today, and with whom. Let us return abovedecks together, Monna Trovato. I prefer to know the whereabouts and purposes of my master’s employees.”
“I don’t need scrutiny.”
“But scrutiny is necessary for the well-being of our compagnia. I am certain you will agree.” He took me firmly by the upper arm. “And see that you restrain yourself from further contact with your compatriot, so that I need not intervene in his business in Sicily. Understood?” I nodded bleakly. Cane escorted me out, leaving Gabriele behind. I did not dare turn around to look at him again, and I hoped Cane and Lugani would leave him alone.
I had little of my former liberty for the remainder of the trip, as Cane had warned; Lugani kept me occupied from dawn until dusk with scribal tasks. I did not catch a glimpse of Gabriele again until we dropped anchor in the Messina harbor at the end of the second week of October, 1347.
* * *
From the Chronicle of the Franciscan Michele da Piazza:
At the beginning of October, in the year of the incarnation of the Son of God 1347, twelve Genoese galleys, fleeing from the divine vengeance which Our Lord had sent upon them for their sins, put into the port of Messina. The Genoese carried such a disease in their bodies that if anyone so much as spoke with one of them he was infected with the deadly illness and could not evade death. The signs of death among the Genoese, and among the Messinese when they came to share the illness with them, were as follows. Breath spread the infection among those speaking together, with one infecting the other, and it seemed as if the victim was struck all at once by the affliction and was, so to speak, shattered by it. This shattering impact, together with the inhaled infection, caused the eruption of a sort of boil, the size of a lentil, on the thigh or arm, which so infected and invaded the body that the victims violently coughed up blood, and after three days of incessant vomiting, for which there was no remedy, they died—and with them died not only anyone who had talked with them, but also anyone who had acquired or touched or laid hands on their belongings.
The people of Messina, realizing that the death racing through them was linked with the arrival of the Genoese galleys, expelled the Genoese from the city and harbor with all speed. But the illness remained in the city and subsequently caused enormous mortality. It bred such loathing that if a son fell ill of the disease his father flatly refused to stay with him, or, if he did dare to come near him, was infected in turn and was sure to die himself after three days. Not just one person in a house died, but the whole household, down to the cats and the livestock, followed their master to death. Because of the scale of the mortality, many Messinese looked to make confession of their sins and make their wills, but priests, judges, and notaries refused to visit them, and if anyone did visit their houses, whether to hear confession or draw up a will, they were soon to die themselves. Indeed the Franciscans and Dominicans, and others who were willing to visit the sick to hear their confession and impose penance, died in such large numbers that their priories were all but deserted. What more is there to say? Corpses lay unattended in their own homes. No priests, sons, fathers, or kinsmen dared to enter; instead, they paid porters large sums to carry the bodies to burial. The houses stood open, with all the jewels, money, and treasure in full view, and if someone wanted to enter there was nothing to stop them; for the Plague struck so suddenly that at first there were not enough officials and then there were none at all.
As we pulled into the busy harbor I saw the long row of galleys flying Genoese flags like our own nave’s—twelve hulls lined up along the shore. What was the lag between arrival of the vector and the first deaths—weeks? How long would it take before the rat fleas, hiding in clothing, chests, hair, and animal hides, found new hosts and infected them with deadly bacteria? How long would it take before those bacteria multiplied by the thousands, then millions? How long before the first victim would succumb? I didn’t know how much time I had to get Clara, Gabriele, and myself out of here.
The industrious bustle of the port seemed painfully innocent. Merchants hawked huge baskets of gleaming silver fish, the sun shone, and our sailors furled the sails and shouted to one another, assured of good drink and fresh food and water on land. I felt the way I did when I looked through old photo albums with Benjamin, seeing pictures of our mother in kneesocks and a calico high-waisted dress, knowing the future that she couldn’t know—the birth of her three children, and the d
eath of two. It was hard to picture the disaster I knew was coming in the face of such busy normalcy.
I saw Gabriele as we were preparing to disembark, his bright hair partially covered by a green felt hat and his cloak fastened with a metal clasp in the shape of two overlapping leaves. He was elegantly dressed for his first visit with Messina’s rector. When Cane stopped to direct the guards to load our belongings onto a cart, Gabriele moved in a step behind me. Clara was engaged with the trunk and we had a few moments unobserved.
“Do not turn to regard me, Beatrice,” he whispered. It was all I could do to prevent myself from doing just that. I strained my ears to hear his voice over the din of the harbor.
“I am bound for the Ospedale to present my letter of introduction to the rector. After I have established myself there, I will attempt to find a way in which we might leave the city quickly, if it should come to that. I will come for you. Can you nod to acknowledge you have heard me?” I lowered my chin subtly, wishing I could see his face. His breath was warm on the back of my neck.
“May the Virgin keep you safe, my sweet Beatrice,” he said. I watched him walk away from me and melt into the crowd of the harbor.
The Scribe of Siena Page 25