The Master of Verona

by David Blixt

  Antonia's response was simple. It read:

  In the future you may address me as Beatrice.

  The change this brought to the poet's correspondence was as night to day. From a single sheet, his letters grew to ten or twelve pages on average. From four times a year they appeared almost every fortnight. At the same time all letters to Gemma ceased completely. "Tell their mother that my sons are well," he would often append, the only mention he would make of his wife. No longer curt, there remained discussion of poetry, but suddenly much more. Dante shared every daily event, every idea, everything he thought his beloved Beatrice might wish to know. His letters became long and rambling. Sometimes he seemed to forget which Beatrice he was writing to. But Antonia accepted that. She was fulfilling a function in her father's life. His writing flourished, and she found great joy thinking she might have contributed in some way.

  At last her eyes were dry. And she had won her father an excellent deal. With a last superstitious nod to Mars, Antonia resumed her walk. Passing the shops of the Ponte Vecchio, she saw a new sign, freshly hung. A silversmith? On the Ponte Vecchio, where only fruit, nuts, and grain were sold. Antonia deemed it foolish and moved on.

  Over the Arno she walked to an interview that promised to be at least as unpleasant as the one with Mosso. But it was their own fault, they hadn't listened! Not when she told them how popular L'Inferno had been in Rome and Verona and Venice and Pisa and even the small bits Dante had shown people in Paris; not when she told them that it would be twice as popular here, in the poet's birthplace, regardless of his political status; and not when she told them they stood to make a killing if only they ordered enough copies to satisfy demand — a demand that would shame both La Roman de la Rose and all those silly Arthurian romances.

  They hadn't listened, fearing instead the wrath of the Arti, the guilds, who had been part of Dante's exile. It was now clear that L'Inferno was something more than a mere novella, and the whole city was paying the price. Florence, one of the most literate cities in the world, suddenly feared being left out of a cultural phenomenon. It serves them right, thought Dante's daughter tartly. Since the order of exile had also beggared her family, she saw it as only justice that the whole city of Florence should pay them back tenfold.

  Climbing the slight uphill grade to the road, she passed the house whose rooms she had let months ago. Inside scribes hunched day and night over vellum, cramped fingers scratching away. She decided to step inside and pass an hour. She was still a little shaken. And she liked to keep them on their toes.

  Crossing the threshold of the small rented apartment on the Via Toscanella, she listened. Nothing but scratching. Good. That a bell had been added, then removed, was evident from the small fasteners at the top of the door. The first time she'd heard the small chime, Antonia had told the scribes to take it down. "I am not a cat."

  Now she glided past the well-oiled hinges into the main workroom. "Good morning. No no, keep at your work." Glancing at all the chairs, Antonia made a face. As she thought, there were only five of the seven present. She made a mental note of which ones were lollygagging in the back room. If it was repeated, they would be gone.

  The Master Scribe, one Guido Cerdone, approached Antonia with resignation. He knew he would have to make excuses for the two men. They'd started having meals in shifts, so that someone would always be working when the Little Mistress appeared, as she so often did. That way, someone would always be working and the Little Mistress wouldn't go into a fit. "Mistress, I gave Donatello and Giambattista leave to eat—"

  She cut across him abruptly. "Maestro Cerdone, I have news. Demand has risen. I will give a ten percent bonus for any complete manuscript finished in the next two weeks."

  The four men at their desks all glanced at each other before bending to their desks in renewed effort. One in particular looked like he was having trouble keeping his hand steady, so excited he was.

  "Mistress," said Cerdone, stepping into the hall and indicating Antonia should follow. "Two weeks is hardly enough time. You and I both know it takes two to three months to turn out a well-made book. At least a month for one of the lowest standards."

  "Maestro Cerdone, I know perfectly well how long it takes to create a book. But you have several editions in various stages of completion, and I want those as soon as possible. If the men wish to work late over the next couple weeks, I will see that food is laid for their supper."

  She was being generous. Between the incentive of the bonus and the promise of a meal each night, the men would work all the harder for her. Cerdone's annoyance was due to the fact that he had just begun another edition, and since it would take him considerably longer than two weeks to complete it, he would never see that bonus.

  One of the men in the main room sighed in satisfaction. "Mistress Alighieri, I'm done."

  The Little Mistress crossed to the man's chair and glanced down at the page, which was attached by a deerskin thong to the man's "desk" — little more than a board placed across his lap. There was a hole in the desk so the horn of ink would be easily accessible. Laying close by was a razor, a pumice, and a ruler, all used for cleaning the parchment and measuring the columns. Scattered about the room were several mutilated quills, which would be sold at the end of the week to the nearest theatre for costume supplies.

  This particular page had a large space reserved for the artist (who worked upstairs, alone, day and night — a queer fellow, but wonderfully talented with his wood-cuts) to insert his rendition of the emergence from Hell. The final lines of L'Inferno filled the rest of the page in lovely, swooping calligraphy that rose and fell like waves on the ocean. Antonia read the last lines, then the standard copier's addendum:

  I adjure you who shall transcribe this book, by our Lord Jesu Cristo and His Glorious coming, Who will come to judge the quick and the dead, that you compare what you transcribe and diligently correct it by the copy from which you transcribe it, and this adjuration also, and insert it in your copy.

  Below that, written in fine Latin, three words — Explicit, Deo Gratias.

  "You will have to do the page again," said Antonia.

  The scribe balked — it would take another whole day to replicate his work. "Why?"

  "I will have no scurrilous additions to my father's work. No 'Finished, Thank God!' No 'For his pen's labor, may the copyist be given a beautiful girl.' No 'May the writer continue to copy and drink good wine.' None of it! You will do another version of this page and leave off any such nonsense. Honestly," sighed Antonia, shaking her head, "I can't see why you would want to do any extra work. Don't you have enough to copy? Would you rather be working on a Bible somewhere?"

  All the copyists shook their heads. Yes, a complete Bible brought a goodly sum of money, but it took fifteen months to complete, during which time the copyist starved.

  "I'll take care of this," said Cerdone, lifting the parchment from the board. His first thought had been to say something in the man's defense. Then he decided to keep the page for himself. One page closer to that bonus.

  Soon Antonia left the writing house, feeling much more herself. She hurried to her next appointment. There was so much to do!

  And besides, it looked like rain.

  Vicenza

  Over a hundred miles north of Florence the skies wept fiercely, pouring down sheets that reduced sight to less than the width of a man's hand from his face. Hissing torches illuminated nothing more than their brackets. Reports came of oxen and horses lost in mudslides.

  Looking out over the balustrade of the covered loggia above a central atrium, Pietro sat with his right leg propped up high on cushions. The rain created a shimmering wall just beyond the lip of the roof, through which the other side of the Nogarola palace was made quite invisible. He could just discern the shape of a fountain below with three female figures pouring their water into the basin. Intently, he watched the rainwater dance in the overflowing fountain. He played with the laces of his doublet. He recited bits of poetry. He tr
ied in vain to ignore the tiny filthy creatures wrapped into his leg's wound.

  Maggots. Nothing in all Dante's traversing of Hell was so disgusting. Maggots. Literally eating him. Morsicato, the Nogarola's physician, had sworn that they were the best way to fight infection, that they only ate dead meat, not living flesh. So they were wrapped under the bandages, right in there with his puckered wound. Maggots. Pietro couldn't help imagining the soggy little white things gnawing away at him. What if they move away from the knee? What if they move up…?

  Cavalcanti. You were thinking of Cavalcanti. 'Bilta di donna e di saccente core e cavalieri armati che sien genti…'

  But poetry was no refuge from his imagination. He'd come out here hoping to drift into sleep, but the idea of dozens of tiny mouths chomping at him kept him awake. Worst was the itching. Pietro had woken this morning from dreams of gigantic worms feeding on his blood and tears to find his little brother newly arrived and poking under the folds of the bandages for a glimpse of the little devils at work.

  Of course Poco's curious. His brother is a walking feast for worms.

  As if to illustrate the point, Morsicato approached bearing a tray. Smiling gruffly, he said, "Master Alaghieri."

  "That time again?"

  "I'm afraid so. May I?" The physician knelt beside Pietro's outstretched leg, removed the blanket and lifted the long shirt, then began gently unwrapping the injury. "Rain shows no sign of letting up."

  "No," said Pietro, desperately not watching the fellow adding or subtracting maggots to the wound. Valiently, Pietro fought to keep his bile down. He'd already vomited twice today. It was one of the reasons he'd moved into the open air. "But after two days of sweating, it's good to be outside."

  "The army would have happily exchanged places," said Morsicato. "I was out in their tents this morning looking after minor ailments." He paused to grin, stroking his forked black beard. "Venereal ailments. Anyway, they're all huddled in tents, wrapped in straw and murdering time by using pig knuckles for dice."

  One of the maggots had transferred to the doctor's beard. Pietro looked sharply away. "How are they holding up?"

  "They're anxious. Wondering why we're not moving. Full of the usual rumours."

  That got Pietro's attention. "What rumours?"

  "Oh, some say having his victory snatched away by rain has driven the Scaliger mad. That he's slain all of us in the palace and torn out hunks of his hair and dashed his brains out against the walls. Others say he's kept to the private chapel of the Nogarolas, begging the Lord to clear the skies. A few say he's found a new mistress to keep him occupied until the rains pass." Morsicato gave a grim chuckle. "At least that would explain his delaying the attack." Suddenly he looked guiltily up. "Not that I mean—"

  Pietro pressed his lips together. But the doctor was only echoing what was in the mind of every man in Vicenza. When Cangrande's army had arrived a day after the battle, the Capitano immediately dispatched a century directly back to Verona with most of the prisoners, fourteen hundred in all. Far too many to shackle, Cangrande had ordered their ankles bound in single file for the march. That done, everyone waited to hear him give the order to march for Padua.

  But that order never came. Instead Cangrande had called five of his most trusted councilors together, given them orders to hold in place, and then retired to his sister's palace.

  Now it was too late. For two days the rain had not stopped, swelling the natural defenses of Padua, turning the roads to muck, destroying any chance of taking the city and ending the war.

  If he hadn't delayed they might have been victorious. But to say so aloud was treason.

  Pietro took a breath, thinking of what a man of his position should say. "I know it's difficult, but we have to trust our lords. Especially this lord."

  "You're right, of course. Sometimes my tongue runs away with me." The doctor bowed his bald head and continued gently examining Pietro's leg. The maggot in his beard had disappeared.

  The awkward pause lasted until Pietro said, "How is Lord Nogarola's arm? I haven't seen him today."

  Shaking his head slightly, Morsicato's voice was clipped. "Recovering from the surgery."

  Pietro tensed. Surgery! That meant that Antonio Nogarola's broken arm had begun to fester, and Morsicato had been forced to cut the arm away. Lookng at his own leg, Pietro silently urged the little maggots on in their horrible work.

  The doctor produce a poultice. "This will sting." And indeed there was a pinch as the doctor touched a raw spot among the stitches. Squirming, Pietro found himself wishing for the one person who could take his mind off his wound. Nonchalantly he said, "Is Donna Katerina with him?"

  "No, she's with her brother. They've been closeted all day with his closest advisors."

  "I'm still new to Verona. What can you tell me about the Scaliger and his family?"

  The knight-doctor gave him a quick glance. "What do you want to know?"

  "Anything. Are there more in their family?"

  "Their father, old Alberto della Scala, had three sons by his wife. Two have died. Bartolomeo and Alboino. And there were two daughters, Donna Katerina and her sister Costanza, who is the eldest of the lot."

  "Is she still alive?"

  "Oh yes," said the doctor, finally discovering the fat maggot in his beard and replacing it in Pietro's wound. Pietro quickly closed his eyes. "She resides at the palace of her second husband, Signore Guido Bonaccolsi, brother to Passerino."

  Eyes firmly shut, Pietro felt the process of wrapping begin. "Passerino Bonaccolsi. He's the Mantuan lord. Someone told me he's Cangrande's best friend."

  "They're close, but I'd have to say the Scaliger is closer to my patron, Donna Katerina's husband. But then Bailardino helped to raise him. The day he married Katerina he accepted her little brother as a squire..."

  Listening to pieces of della Scala family gossip, Pietro tried to puzzle out Katerina's age. If Katerina was just married when she took her brother in, she was at least twelve years her brother's senior. As close as he could guess, that put her somewhere between her thirty-fifth and fortieth year. Twice his own age.

  The doctor was still praising the lord of Vicenza, and Pietro felt the need to change to topic. "You said that they're with advisors. Who?"

  Morsicato frowned as he tried to list all the famous names. "Their cousin Federigo. The Mantuan lord Bonaccolsi. Lords Montecchio and Castelbarco, of course. And the Paduan Nicolo da Lozzo. Bishop Guelco. Oh, and the new man in Verona, Cap-something."

  "Capecelatro," supplied Pietro, intrigued that Antony's father was being included. A cynical voice wondered how wealthy he really was.

  "That's right. Oh, and your father, of course! I'm sorry, he should have been first."

  Pietro laughed. "You're forgiven. My father isn't known for his diplomacy either."

  The doctor chuckled dutifully and leaned back. "There. Is that comfortable?"

  Lying through his teeth, Pietro said it was. He knew he couldn't actually be feeling the maggots wriggling, yet he had to force himself to lie still. "Who else?"

  Morsicato pulled a face. "I heard they've invited the two captured Paduans, Il Grande da Carrara and his nephew."

  "That ass," growled Pietro involuntarily.

  The doctor nodded. "And a Venetian ambassador called Dandolo."

  That made Pietro sit up. "A Venetian? What's he doing here? Is Verona going to war with Venice?"

  "I have no idea," said Moriscato, holding up his hands. "Now sit back. I've told you all I know. Except…"

  Pietro gave him an urging look. "Yes?"

  Morsicato looked rueful. "Well, it's just that I was passing the door not long ago and it sounded like—"

  "Like what?"

  "Like they were playing at dice."

  "Dice?"

  "That's what it sounded like. And Donna Katerina was ordering more wine for them all."

  Pietro digested this for a moment, then had to laugh. The fate of three cities, perhaps more, decided over dice.
<
br />   As the doctor gathered up his instruments and poultices, Pietro asked, "When is her husband due back?"

  "Two days, perhaps three."

  If I were wed to Katerina I would never leave her side. "Well, thank you for looking after me. And for the news."

  Morsicato actually bowed. "My honour, lad. Not often we see such bravery. Your father speaks of it to everyone."

  Pietro blinked at that. Before he could muster a proper response the doctor was gone to other duties.

  Brave? Was Morsicato lying? Pietro's father certainly hadn't used that word to him! Tight-lipped in public, the poet had launched into a caustic diatribe the moment they were alone. What words had he used? Not brave. Stupid, yes. Foolhardy, certainly. Thoughtless heedless jolt-head determined to land in an untimely grave, that was still ringing in his ears. But brave? No, Pietro was sure that word hadn't been mentioned.

  He wondered if Katerina thought he was brave. He wondered about Katerina a lot. He found himself acutely resenting the shadowy figure of her absent husband. Insanely, he was also jealous of her relationship with her brother. However acrimonious, their deep connection was obvious. In the lady's disdainful treatment of her brother he saw a depth of feeling he'd never witnessed before.

  An itching in his leg — in his leg! — reminded him of the maggots, and he shifted it closer to the brazier that was pleasantly toasting his right side. Maybe I can smoke them out.

  To distract himself he continued piecing together the mosaic of Cangrande's family. At the top of the family tree was Cangrande's uncle, the first Scaliger ruler of Verona, called Mastino. Then Mastino's brother, Alberto, and his three sons and two daughters. Two of those sons, Cangrande and Katerina's brothers, were dead. Pietro remembered his father talking warmly of Bartolomeo and disdainfully of Alboino.