To my surprise he was holding out to me his own sandals, rough leather paddles with a simple thong apiece to hold them on. But I only had to try one against my foot to know that I might as well have worn a pair of twin shrimp barges from the Arno, they were so large. The difference in size between the monk’s feet and mine elicited the first smile of the evening. My grin broadened with the thought that he must have a big cock.
Below us the kites wheeled around the great dome of the cathedral, the striped marble turning it to a great tiger sleeping in the half-light, sated by the hunt and waiting for dawn. Beside it the lantern tower of the Medici palace, home to Florence’s greatest family, stood crowned with teeth like a crocodile’s gaping jaw. Brother Guido hauled me to my feet and I could sense him softening toward me—gaining an understanding that I had not wished for what had happened, that I had fallen into this pass by foolishness, but now wished it away, like someone who has jumped headlong into a well and realizes his mistake on the way down. I thought of saying somewhat of this to the brother, but then remembered that my metaphor might have unfortunate recollections for the fellow; I saw again his friend’s head bouncing down the well shaft in Santa Croce, and heard the attendant splash. So I kept my peace and let him speak if he would. And at length, he did.
“Well, Signorina Vetra, you’d better tell me exactly what happened today. Try to leave nothing out, for there may be important circumstances which might mitigate our culpability when we attempt to clear ourselves of this business.”
I turned wide eyes upon him. “You think we’ll be able to get out of this?”
He nodded beneath his cowl. “I’m certain that if all is explained, the thing can be put to rights.”
I saw that his confidence had risen with the terrain, and felt it in myself too. The road snaked ahead, and pointed black cypresses pierced the sky, like a rank of spears defending us. Regiments of vines stood in serried ranks, hiding our progress and providing a pathway. The vine leaves were glossy in the fading moon, night purple with a bloom of blue chalk. I craved the sweet globes of the grape harvest, but it was too early in the year; the vines were naked. My stomach was light but my shoulders were heavy with the burden of secrets. If I recounted the entire story to the monk, he would share the weight with me. The field mice, roused by our step, scuttled over my bare feet, making me giggle. Our breath smoked as we panted, but I was warmed by my miniver and the exercise. I even forgot my poor feet for a spell. Aye, as we climbed up the blue hill away from Florence, the sleeping tiger and the tower of teeth, I began to feel safer, and wondered, briefly, if we were mistaken to feel so.
But my companion, too, sounded positively chirpy as we climbed into the lightening sky. “Yes, Miss Vetra, we are not entirely friendless. The abbot of this monastery we seek now is an old friend, and my family, of course—” He broke off. But not before I had divined that he was very well connected, and might be of some influence. He waited, and I plunged into the silence with an account of what had passed that day, the commission to become Flora for Botticelli, the glories of the painting in progress, the artist’s sudden anger. I told him of my thievery of the smaller painting from the panel, and, somewhat shamefacedly, of my mischievous replacement of it with the pamphlet Brother Guido had given me. I then told, in muted tones, of the murder of Enna and Bembo, that in the first instance my identity was mistaken, and in the second, I was wanted for murder. The tale was long, and by the time I had told it, my throat was as raw as my feet. But we had come some considerable distance in the telling, and were now among the lush villas that sat on the hill, where, as at San Miniato, the rich roost loftily above the city. The way had improved, and I peered curiously through the high gates and arches to elegant, peaceful courtyards with shaped trees and ornamental lakes.
Once—I had to look back to make sure—I glimpsed a giraffe, striding slowly in the blue predawn, bending its long neck to nibble at a myrtle hedge. I turned to Brother Guido, to share this fantastic sight, but the monk was thoughtful once again. I thought at first that his anger had returned, but a glance at his noble profile told me that he was considering carefully what he had been told. I considered the tale myself—and concluded, with a sinking heart, that it sounded like a tale told by an idiot; a fantasist and lunatic. But the brother, who had seen the evening’s conclusion to the day’s beginnings with his own eyes, seemed in no wise inclined to doubt my story. Continuing his steady pace, he eventually broke his silence. “Even the most judgmental listener would have to concede that, but for a moment of madness and mischief on your part, the sequel to your transgressions was far in excess of the relative proportions of a fitting punishment.”
His bookish language was beginning to irritate—only when I looked at his handsome countenance could I begin to forgive. “Meaning?”
“In short, signorina, these forces that pursue you are clearly concerned with a greater crime than a stolen painting.”
I digested this in silence. “What crime?” I asked, truly be-mused, but before he could reply I spied a monastic mass of gated high walls and a steeple, and grabbed the brother’s arm. Our journey was surely over.
“Vero Madre be praised!” I cried. “Is that the place?”
He shook his head no. “This is San Domenico, the great Dominican monastery and spiritual home of their order.”
I had had enough. “Could we not beg sanctuary here?”
The perfect profile hardened as the head shook again. “No. They would no more shelter a Franciscan than they would shelter one such as yourself . . .” He blushed in the dawn-light, and hurried on to cover his mistaken slur. “That is to say, their order is the only one they recognize, and they follow their rule with strict observances. Our destination”—he pointed skyward again—“sits there, at Fiesole.” I followed the finger to a small golden building above us, crazily perched on the crown of the mountain, with a hundred steps leading to the cloister.
Fuck.
I’m afraid I was not the best of company on the final climb. I was so convinced that San Domenico was our destination, I could not bear even a short distance beyond. My feet bled, I groaned and bellyached, and begged to stop at every step. Our plight and my story were both forgot as we trudged to our goal, and the brother was merciless in his pace. “The dawnlight begins to spread in the valley,” he explained, “the umbra of night is retreating up the hill—we are more visible with every second. Onward.”
But neither his poetic speech nor his warning could move me farther. I had neither energy nor will to complete the final climb. As we reached the stone staircase of the little hilltop monastery I collapsed, weeping, on a stone bench at the foot.
“Just a moment,” I begged. “At least let me put myself to rights before I meet your abbot. You must see the sense in that?”
He let me sit then and rub my feet, moaning with pain as I once again examined their cuts and blisters, magnified a hundredfold from when we had stopped before. After a moment the monk sat beside me, but only when he gasped did I look up and see what he had seen.
And I ceased my bellyaching.
For there below us Florence was laid out like a glittering carpet of gold, wrought by a thousand Persian infidels. The Duomo was now no tiger sentinel, but a warm copper bell, the Arno a twisting ribbon of gilt. A city of fable and infinite beauty in the brand-new light of the day. We stared in silence, shoulder to shoulder, while a feeling of escape and companionship warmed us with the sun at our backs. I began to pat my wild mass of hair into place in preparation to meet the abbot. I rose before my friend, but he held my sleeve. “Don’t you think it’s time you showed me?”
My filthy mind ran the gamut of everything about my person he might be asking to see, before my middle brain reminded me that never, with look or gesture, had he shown any interest in me beyond the irritation of my presence. No, I knew him to be truly devout, so had to ask further. “Show you what?”
“What this is all about.” He half smiled. “The painting.”
&nb
sp; I sat again and drew the rolled canvas from my bodice. It was warm from my breasts and somewhat besmottered with sweat, for which I blushed. But he did not seem to notice and unrolled it tenderly in his long, ink-stained fingers, fingers that were clearly used to handling documents of great price. I looked, not at the painting but at his face as he took in the figure of Flora, Venus, the beauteous trio of dancers, the martial figure with the sword, and orange grove encompassing all. He looked for a long, long time in silence, with an expression of almost religious revelation. Saint Paul cannot have looked more ecstatic on the road to Damascus. I found myself, once again, thinking about what he would look like in bed. (Brother Guido, I mean, not Saint Paul; from what little I know of Scripture, I am convinced that that apostle would certainly have been resistant to my charms.) Then he turned and looked at me with his startling blue eyes, full in the face for the first time that night.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. He looked back at the picture in his hand then Florence below him, and then the picture again. “Beautiful,” he repeated. “I don’t know which is more so.”
8
Even I had to admit that the Franciscan monastery at Fiesole was a place of peace and beauty. Glowing in the breaking morning, small and perfectly perched on the high hill, the place seemed set in amber, a preservation of an earlier age. We had been to Dante’s hell; now we had climbed the heights into the poet’s paradise. Certainly it is true to say that I have never been as happy to see a place in my life. When we reached the head of the wide golden staircase set into the hill, and I found balm for my torn feet on a hundred stone steps warmed by the healing sun, I surveyed the perfect little cloister, the tiny chapel, and the cells beyond, and responded to the sacred peace in my own way. “Thank fuck for that.”
Brother Guido shot me a look of ice. “Watch your tongue, signorina. You are in God’s house now.”
“I’m sure he’s heard it all before.” My flippant nature surfaced as, once again, I began to feel safer. Brother Guido, on the other hand, seemed to have become more edgy, as our interview with his friend the abbot approached. I began, suddenly, to doubt his influence, else why would he fear an application to a man he claimed to know well?
The place seemed deserted and I knew that we must have come at a time of sleep, when all the monks would be in their cells, or at prayer, when they would all be packed tight as sardines in the monastery church. (I do know a little of the holy orders, for, of course, I was raised by nuns, but we do not have leisure to speak of that now; more later.)
At last we saw a lay brother hurrying across the quad, and I knew our moment had come. Brother Guido gripped my arm till it hurt. “Head down and no talking,” he said. “Remember all we discussed.” And with that he strode across the dewy grass to intercept the brother. After a brief conference I was beckoned over and the good monk led us through an arch into an even smaller quad, just as pretty, this one boasting a clear round pool, in which a myriad of golden fish switched and flashed. We were led to an oaken door, and the lay brother knocked and entered ahead of us. I tucked my chin to my chest as Brother Guido had told me, and drew my hood so far forward that I never saw the lay brother from first to last, merely heard, in a Sicilian accent, “My Lord Abbot will see you now.”
I clasped Brother Guido’s skirts, as I had been told, and followed in his wake into a light and airy chamber empty of all save a chair, a scribe’s table, and a crucifix. The window, crisscrossed with diamond quarrels, looked out into yet another tiny quad, and I boggled at the geography of the place; it seemed passing small but in fact fitted together like a series of concentrick squares, one fitting inside the other like a Russian’s doll.
The abbot rose from his chair and greeted us, with a word I didn’t know, and Brother Guido replied in the same tongue. I stole a quick look at the old fellow and became aware at once of three things.
Qualcosa Uno: he was white haired and smiling, like a kindly nonno.
Qualcosa Due: his voice when he spoke mangled our fair language as I have never heard. Such strange stops to our beautiful vowels, and jerky consonants like a soldier’s drum. I had been prepared for this accent on the climb, however, for the abbot was an Englishman by birth, known as Giles of Cambridge. I knew now he had greeted my friend in English.
Qualcosa Tre: his eyes were the blue of day-old milk, with a smoky film that lay over the orb, pupil, whites, and all. And that’s when I realized that Brother Guido’s scheme, which we had discussed all the way up the hundred steps, had a good chance of working.
For the abbot was blind.
After that I could look all I wanted, so long as I remembered my part well when the cue came. Yet it was not so much what I saw as what I heard that astonished me. And it was not the accent but the content of the lines that gave me pause. The dialogue went thus.
“Lord della Torre!” began the old fellow. “What an honor! How are your family, your good uncle?”
I shot a look to my not-so-humble companion, through eyes narrowed to arrow slits. Lord della Torre? Never in all the oblique hints at wealth and influence had I suspected that Brother Guido himself was a signore— a nobleman. Hmm. I was unsure whether to be pleased or dismayed by this revelation but, on balance, decided that it could only be good for me if Brother Guido was a rich young lordling. He might, in truth, be able to save my hide after all.
Brother Guido himself ignored me, and did not seem overly discomfited by the revelation. He evenly replied, “Well, my Lord Abbot, well. But I beg you to remember that I am now become a novitiate of Santa Croce, and go about the world as Brother Guido.” Brother Guido knelt to kiss the abbot’s ring of office, and my eyes rested on the handsome cabochon-studded cross. Madonna, that must be worth a few florins. I watched carefully, rehearsing for my own obeisance. Yet the conversation continued.
“Yes, yes, you have joined our family in God,” said the abbot with obvious delight at the correction. “Of course. You will forgive me, I did not notice your robes.” The abbot smiled in a way that showed his acceptance of the blow that God had dealt him; so comfortable was he with the state of blindness that he was happy to make a joke of it. I began to like him, but was jolted out of my reverie like a player who hears his cue.
“And may I present Brother Lucius of Salerno?”
Brother Guido’s voice concentrated my mind. I rolled the sleeve of my miniver high, so the abbot would not feel such exalted furs. I had wrapped Brother Guido’s humble Franciscan rosary around my wrist, threading the wooden beads through my fingers where the abbot would feel them as I took his hand. I bent to the hand I held, old and rough as parchment. I barely brushed my lips against the ruby cross, mindful as I was of the softness of the feminine mouth. The old man saw nothing amiss, though, and the pleasantries continued.
“Brother Lucius is laboring under a vow of silence at present,” explained Brother Guido, “but asks me to greet you and pay you his respects. He is truly penitent, my lord, for he has come all the way from Santa Croce barefoot.”
The abbot nodded and smiled his charming smile once again. “My eyes may have failed me, son, but there is naught amiss with my ears. I could hear at once that of the two pairs of feet that entered my chamber, one was shod and one was not. You are welcome, Brother”—this to me—“a true pilgrim indeed.” He nodded thrice, slowly and thoughtfully, then uncannily turned his rheumy eyes in the direction of Brother Guido’s voice. “And now, my son, how can I assist you?”
I waited, with a butterfly flutter of nerves, for Brother Guido to lay our whole history before his friend. But once again, I was to be surprised.
“My Lord Abbot, we ask no more than a bed for a day and a night, before we continue forth into the world.”
“Such a thing is easily given.”
“And such humble victuals as you give to the other brothers.”
“Granted,” said the abbot, opening his hands with a generous gesture. “I divine that you are both tired, and therefore I will excuse you from the no
rmal observances of our rule. You may sleep the day through, and I ask only that you attend mass at Matins before you leave.” He waved away Brother Guido’s thanks. “Brother Tommaso will show you to your cells. I wish you a good rest, Brother Guido, and you, too, Brother Lucius.” I lowered my head again as the Sicilian lay brother reentered the room. But as we followed him through the cloister and up a dark stair to the dorter, I could not help hearing the playful emphasis on the second “brother” the abbot had uttered in his dismissal, and reflected on the fact that there were some things that the blind could see very well.
The Sicilian brother had more keys than Saint Peter, and he took a little time to find the correct pair on the huge iron ring he wore on his knotted belt and unlock our twin cells. Brother Guido and I had time for a whispered conference behind our hands in broad Tuscan, which we hoped the Sicilian would not understand.
“Why didn’t you tell the abbot?” I hissed. “He seemed lovely. I thought he was your good friend?”
“He is.”
“Then why, my lord?”
Brother Guido ignored my sarcasm. “I’ll tell you tonight.”
Then the door was open, stopping all further conversation, and I spotted the little truckle bed in the corner of the room, below the inevitable crucifix. I felt such a longing for bed as I have never felt, not even for my noblest clients’ most stuffed and feathered four-posters. I had registered what Brother Guido had said, but frankly, I was too tired to care.
9
“Well?”
I had slept the day through, and the light velveted tonight outside the window of the little cell. The single candle brightened, and the flame fluttered as I plumped my hands onto my hips, and stood looking down at my monkish friend with a questioning stare. In answer he vacated the single chair that his room held and motioned me into it. Brother Guido himself took the truckle bed where he had lately slept twelve hours round, just as I had done next door. He pressed his long hands together as if in prayer. “All right,” he said. “I did not reveal your circumstances—our circumstances—to the abbot because I believe that you have . . . inadvertently . . . made a discovery of significant portent.”
The Botticelli Secret Page 5