The Master of Verona

by David Blixt

  But after weighing the choices, Father made the decision at last and we're leaving soon for the Scaliger's court. Father claims he's doing it so Cangrande will make me a knight, but I think it's because he admires Cangrande as much as I do. Martial yet cultured, witty and decisive. I know all good Florentines revile him, but really he's quite amazing. He certainly took time to be kind to me, he and his sister both.

  Anyway, we're leaving Lucca none too soon. The natives are grumbling. I think they've finally interpreted Father's lines about Pisa — though I honestly don't know how they could have missed them! I keep expecting to wake up in the middle of the night and find our rooms on fire. All in all, it's a good thing to be leaving.

  Our host Uguccione took the news of our departure hard. His own fault — he sent us to visit Verona. It may be that he is disappointed to lose his poet-in-residence. Now that Father is gaining international fame, I think Uguccione planned to tout his patronage to the skies. It might have helped smooth his rough edges. Even his own people call him a power-hungry and avaricious tyrant. I think he wants to be known as a patron of the arts. I'm amused that a man who hates to read and can barely write his own name takes such pride in "owning" a poet, as he put it.

  At least he's pleased in Father's choice of new domiciles. Verona is more to his liking than Polenta. Oh yes, Guido Novello has been urging us to settle down in his court. But Lord Faggiuola says that Novello is a fop who likes paintings and poetry more than warfare — an accurate description, I think, but there could be nothing more insulting as far as our Pisan host is concerned. On the other hand, Uguccione speaks of Cangrande in the most lavish terms. He says if he ever leaves Pisan employ, he will take up residence in Verona.

  (That might be sooner than we all think, by the way. As I mentioned, the locals here in Lucca don't have a favorable opinion of our host. His most recent troubles have something to do with bankers and England, I didn't really understand it all.)

  Uguccione is correct, of course, about Cangrande. He's like a lamp, I swear. He lights up any room he enters. I've never met a man so very alive!

  Thank you for the scarf. It is chilly in Verona this time of year — at least, I hear it is. I haven't been in the north since the end of October. But it was already growing quite cold. I was discussing the temperature with the Donna Nogarola's physician, Giuseppe Morsicato — I mentioned him before, I think. He's the one who treated my wound in Vicenza. He says he's made a study of temperatures in the past, and he is of the opinion that the world is growing colder. He says in Roman times the winter was shorter, and there was nowhere near the amount of snow we get now. If he's correct, I wonder what it means? Father is sure there is religious significance. No doubt he is correct, but neither of us can fathom what that significance is. If the world is growing colder, does that mean that humankind is moving towards heaven, or are we drawing nearer to the fiendish realm? He is leaning towards the latter, seeing as how the center of the Nine Rings is filled with ice. I would like to hear your thoughts.

  The letter paused, then resumed in a slightly different ink.

  Our bags are packed and we are about to embark to our new home in the old Scaligeri mansion, where the family lived before they ruled the city and Mastino built their great palace. A grand palace, like a Memory Place made real. The Capitano has harnessed the remains of a Roman bath in the cellar — apparently Verona's Piazza della Signoria is built over the remains of their old Roman forum. I have yet to visit these baths — somehow I am untrusting of a cellar filled with water. But Father visited them often during our last stay. It's all quite a change from the years of sleeping in barns or woodsheds with students and other vagabonds. I've decided that it's better to have money than not.

  I don't have to tell you how excited Poco is about Verona — by the way, the fur is his Christmas gift to you. He's very proud, he caught and skinned it himself. "I'll send it to Imperia," he said — you've never told me why he calls you that. (Am I the only member of the family that doesn't have a nickname for you?) Anyway, the fur is from him. Hideous, isn't it? But I know you'll do something to make it bearable. Poco caught it during the hunt on our last day in Verona. Embarrassingly, it was held in my honour. As a token of his esteem, Cangrande presented me with the best of a litter of pups sired by his favorite hound, Jupiter. I've named him Mercurio.

  Mari and Antony came to Lucca for a visit last week. As we were walking through the streets here, we noticed a group of older women nearby. They'd stopped in a small cluster and were pointing at me and whispering. Antony and Mari started making some dirty jokes and I told them it wasn't what they imagined, that the women thought I was my father. Mari said that was ridiculous, noting I don't look anything like him — the nose a little, and the high forehead. 'But he wears a beard!' he told me.

  Since it's been so long you might not know it but Mari's right. Father has taken to wearing a long beard these last few years. He shaves it off whenever he has his portrait painted so he can look more like Virgil or Cicero — Roman, you know. He wants to be remembered as their heir, and since they were clean-shaven when they were painted, he is too. But he hates shaving. So, because I look more like his portrait than he does, people stare.

  'They're mistaking you for him?' asked Antony. I told them to go over and ask. They did, looking over their shoulders at me like I was mad. After just a minute of conversation Mari and Antony burst out laughing. Grinning from ear to ear they returned and repeated their conversation with the old ladies. 'Do you see that man giving us his shadow?' one of the old biddies had said. 'He's the one that goes to Hell and back again, and brings back stories of fiends below.' Antony had asked how they knew it was me. They said that my fine hat marked me as the devil's own.

  It was all funnier then, I guess. But it made me think. This will always be the way for us — known for our father, not for ourselves. They do say greatness skips a generation.

  I cannot think of anything else to write. Tell Mother not to worry about me. My wound is healing. I thank you both for all your prayers on my behalf. They seem to have worked.

  Another change in ink, then:

  A delay has caused us to remain a little longer in Lucca. Father has had some sort of inspiration and refuses to budge until the fit has passed. I'll admit to being disappointed. I was looking forward to Christmas in Verona. I miss Mari and Antony. Their coming for a visit only showed me what fast friends they have become in my absence. They've been racing all over the countryside around Mari's estate, exploring and hunting. I'm jealous. The only people I've ever known were family, teachers, or Father's contemporaries. And now I feel like I'm missing my chance to have close friends of my own age. The two of them have become joined at the hip, and I'll be the tagalong, the third wheel on a chariot.

  Listen to me whine like a mammet. It looks like we'll be setting out for Verona after the Roman New Year. So when you write back — and be sure to write back! — send the letters there.

  Give my love to Mother, and give both Gazo and Laura my best wishes. Have a wonderful Christmas.

  Tuo fratello maggiore,

  Pietro Alaghieri

  A strange letter! Pietro's thoughts were never that fragmented. It was far more like her father to jump from topic to topic — Dante enjoyed the freedom of letter-writing, as opposed to crafting poetry, two very separate endeavors in his mind. Pietro always knew what he was going to write long before he put quill to paper.

  Jacopo was still an idiot, she saw with amusement. Pietro was right, the fur was truly horrible.

  Pietro hardly mentioned his wound. Their mother had made a great show at church of lighting candles and praying for the health of her oldest living child. Antonia's prayers had been less obtrusive but no less ardent. Obviously from his letter he was up and around again. As for his — what was it, self-pity? — Antonia had no time for it. He was with their father, he was a hero, he could lump his sorrows.

  Setting Pietro's letter aside she lovingly broke the seal on her father's le
tter. It too was a long one, she saw happily. She began to read:

  Cara Beatrice,

  I write you, my sweet, on the fifth day after the calends of December, a day before the ides, from Lucca, where my sons and I are spending the final moments of this momentous year. It has seen the death of a corrupt order of knights, whose curse has brought down both king and pope. It has seen the throne of the great empire of Charlemagne grow cold, with the last election divided and the fate of both claimants uncertain. It has seen the idea I had nearly fifteen years ago, the true life's work of a poor Italian poet, one-third done.

  It has also seen my oldest living son become a man. I must tell you, your last letter was insightful beyond your years. You appreciate that, having taken part in battle myself, I know the thrill of holding a sword, and the terror of the thousand deaths you die before you meet the foe. My son is braver than you know. That, however, is a topic I shall leave for the end of this missive, because I know you, my love, and you will be blinded with tears.

  Our former host, Uguccione della Faggiuola, is distraught at our imminent departure. I fear we are abandoning him at a time of crisis. He has just suffered a terrible omen. His prized tame eagle has suddenly died. As the creature was in murderously perfect health just days before, many people are suspecting foul play (there is no pun in that, I tell you honestly — I abhor them! But, having written thus far, I am loath to begin again on fresh paper. Too expensive). There is even a rumour that I had a hand in the giant bird's death. But then, the citizens of Lucca have never recovered from the rumour — most amusing — that I am a sorcerer! They claim I have the Sight, the ability to see far off lands, and even the future, like some cheap oracular hooligan. Because on the page I consort with demons, travel to unearthly planes, and speak to the long dead, it is thought I must also belong to the Dark Orders that the Templars were accused of forming.

  I take it as quite the compliment, I must say. For hundreds of years it has been thought that Virgil was a magician. He was said to have possessed a horse of bronze that, by its very existence, prevented all the horses of Naples from becoming swaybacked; a bronzed fly that, as long as it rested on his doorsill, kept the city free of flies; and an enchanted storeroom that would keep meat for six weeks without spoiling. It was said too that he had made a statue of an archer with bow drawn and ready. As long as the arrow in the statue's grip was kept pointed at Vesuvius it would not erupt. It would be interesting to learn, therefore, the position of that statue in 79 AD, would it not?

  It was related to me by a local priest that my master, the noble Virgil, built the Castel dell'Ovo upon an egg. The castle will stand until the egg is broken. It was when I heard that tale I knew my sojourn in pretty Lucca must end.

  That, and I can no longer bear living so close to the fetid city, the cancer of Italy, which houses but one pearl — you yourself. Since my return from France I have lived too close to the country of my birth, and the stench of that befouled place burns my nostrils. The single product of Florence that goes uncorrupted is my Beatrice.

  Returning to the subject of magic, I have stated publicly my abhorrence of these rumours that persist about my person. I have done this both in love of all that is true and in hatred of all that is false. I am, after all, a loyal servant of God above. Yet it amazes me how superstitions persist in the minds of men. Pliny the Elder tells us that men in his day who bit the wood of a tree struck by lightning would not suffer from the toothache. He wrote those words before the explosion of the volcano, after the arrow was shifted. Yet the practice continues to this day! What creatures are men that they believe such things? Someday I will make a study of this phenomenon, to expose the roots of this idiocy.

  Yet there is magic in this world — no one knows this better than I. Except, perhaps, Philip the Fair. But since he is no longer of this world, he offers no competition.

  Speaking as I am of curses, one may be brewing in my new home. I wrote to you of Cangrande's little bastard. Il veltro del Veltro, as it were. The child adopted by Donna Katerina Nogarola. Well, a witch's hex lies over him like the sword of Damocles.

  You gasp. You choke. You rear back in horror at the thought. Where did this curse originate, you ask? From the Scaliger's wife, say I. The blood tie to the Emperor Frederick has diminished over two generations, yet one can detect in Giovanna da Svevia's eye the gleam of that fiendish emperor's fire. Whereas Frederick fought only against three popes, his distant offspring must compete with a hundred mistresses all fighting for the Scaliger's favor. Of course, she is much older than he, and has turned a blind eye to the tomcatting of her canine husband. Until now, that is. With the evidence of Cangrande's philandering being flaunted before her eyes — by her own sister-in-law! — Giovanna has declared a silent war. And not against her husband. Like a jealous she-wolf, she has her teeth firmly locked into the back of Katerina's neck and is tearing mightily. It began with the invitations to Verona's Christmas feast, which I hear were mysteriously lost on the way to Vicenza. Then the new crib Katerina had commissioned was unexpectedly sold to another family at quite a loss to the maker — unless you count the payment he received from the Scaliger's wife. There are more, culminating in death by paper-cuts. Thus far Katerina has ventured no response. The whole court is waiting breathlessly for this feud to break into the open. If it does, my money is on the Scaliger's sister. She is a fascinating lady, as your brother has troubled himself to inform me no less than five times now.

  On a side note about natural children — I regret taking delight in the demise of another man, but you know how satisfied I was by the death of the Scaliger's natural brother, Giuseppe, the despicable Abbot of San Zeno. Cangrande's father made this unnaturally natural child an abbot while he had one foot in the grave. He must not have been thinking clearly so close to the end, for never was there a more avaricious and spiteful man to hold the office of Benedictine abbot. But — I can scarcely credit it — his son is worse! I had an encounter with him on our first day in Verona, and he's another Ciolo degli Abbati, talented only in sponging what he can from the state and the church. Worse for Verona, the decent if ineffectual Bishop Guelco has been called to Rome indefinitely.

  The good news, though, is that the Franciscans have sent a new and better man to lead their order in Verona, who brings with him a group of new initiates. Already the Scaliger is talking of moving most of the major services during the Palio away from the basilica of San Zeno and into the Duomo of Santa Maria Marticolare. This promises to put the collective noses of Verona's Benedictines quite out of joint. They are already enraged that the Franciscans have the Scaliger's ear in religious matters. Now the disciples of San Francesco seem to be winning the political war. Perhaps it is all in the name — Cangrande's baptismal name is Francesco. I can already hear the abbot ranting.

  That is unfair, though. My new patron is an enlightened man and is creating a garden of culture and learning in Verona, a new Caput Mundi. It is fitting that he listens to the disciples of Francis more than Benedict. He is a modern man, struck in a modern mold.

  In women's news, I was invited (but sadly could not attend) the long-delayed wedding of Verde della Scala (sister to the odious Mastino and the oblivious Alberto) to Rizardo del Camino, the twin of the wedding of Cecchino della Scala to Rizardo's sister that was so rudely interrupted back in September. Since there is now a treaty in place and peace looms at every corner, the wedding went forward at last. I must say, these attempts at strengthening political ties by marrying of one's young children is growing ever more cynical. I despair that my new patron shall have any good off either of these matches — del Camino will take the dowered lands and do as he pleases. Wait and see.

  If I am reduced to writing of uninspired weddings, I have clearly prevaricated and procrastinated long enough. Cara mia, it is time you heard the worst. But I do not know how to phrase the words — I, who am said to have the power to control men's souls with my thoughts, cannot find it within me to soften the bluntest of cudgels — my
son Pietro will never run again. The magnificent doctor of the Nogarola palace, a famous knight named Morsicato, working together with the Scaliger's own physician, Aventino Fracastoro, was able to save my child's leg, it is true. But he has a third leg now, the polished mahogany crutch that balances his movements. Pietro walks as slowly as I — I with my curved spine, bowed by the act of writing. And he has taken to wearing breeches, not hose, to hide the injury from view. Alas, nothing can hide the crutch and the horrible slowness of his gait.

  He has not spoken to me of this cross he now carries. For all the world he has nothing but a smile. Yet that smile carries a wound of its own, one that I cannot imagine how to heal. When alone, he moons like a man in love, or struck with a fatal disease. He has tasted a knight's life and, finding it to his liking, discovers it suddenly denied him. It is a level of Hell I never envisioned. He is my son, yet he belongs among the Nine Worthies. I am consumed with admiration for him, both for his deeds and for his cheer in the face of misfortune. But I do not know how to help him, poor lad.

  I have written to my friends at the University of Bologna — I imagine he'd be uncomfortable studying in Padua. I don't know if that is the answer. I am a man whose life is the written word, but is he? I can't send him away, the choice must be his, but how I wish to help him!

  Can you advise me, Beatrice? How can I tell my son there is more for him in life than the cavaliere's sword? How can I heal the wound in his smile?

  Distinti,

  Dante A.

  Antonia was indeed weeping when she finished her father's letter. Pietro — a cripple! And never a word of it in his own letter. How dreadful, how brave!