I got mad.
“Look,” I said. “Wake up and act like a man. Whatever happened on that ship, we’re alive and we have the cartone. Use your wits and look about you. We need to charm this man, Don Ferrente, or the quest ends here. Act as if you are a person of consequence, for pity’s sake, for you’ve been as dull as Doomsday since we landed on this rock.”
In reply he merely shook his head.
I gave up. “You’re pathetic,” I spat. “All right, fine. Act like a mewling milksop. I couldn’t expect any action from you. Why you can’t take charge of the situation I don’t know. I suppose it will be up to me to save our skins, as usual.” And I swept along in the Capitano’s wake. I knew the last swipe was unfair, for Brother Guido had saved our bacon more than once on our travels, but I wanted to say anything that would shake him out of his guilty torpor. Not that it worked.
As always when I am about to meet a new and powerful man, I worry about my appearance. My skin felt tight from the sun, and dry from the water, and when I licked my lips I tasted salt. My hair still fell in salty ropes that whispered as I shook them back, and had dried almost white blond in the fierce heat. I was soon to feel even more of a peasant, as the Capitano led us through room after room of the most sumptuous chambers I had ever seen. Everywhere there were courtiers milling in their gorgeous costumes, but strangely, all the clothes and jewels, and the decorations of the walls, were only in black and white. By the time we had passed through the third or fourth antechamber, filled with haughty black-and-white courtiers who stared down their noses at us as if we were driftwood that had washed up on the beach (which we were), I had begun to think that my sun-dazzled eyes had lost their ability to see color. The hues of the rainbow were completely absent from this place. Without knowing I was doing it I was looking at every lady for a resemblance to the right-hand Grace, the fair lady we had identified as “Naples.” Even though I knew that the dame had to be dead according to our deductions, still I looked for her spectral spirit walking among these courtiers. But all the ladies at this court were dark-haired, black-eyed Spaniards, and none of these magpie ladies came close to the moon-pale delicacy of the right-hand Grace. “Why are they in black and white? Did somebody die?” I whispered to the Capitano.
He shook his grizzled head. “ ‘Tis not mourning but fashion,” said he. “You are in the court of the Aragonese, and they think it becoming to wear only black or white.”
Madonna. “And . . . Don Ferrente, he is one of the nobles at this court?”
“Hardly.” The Capitano’s sneer was unpleasant. “Don Ferrente is Ferdinand the Sixth and First, King of Aragon and Naples.”
A king. Shit. Typical, that once again I was destined to meet a great man when stinking like a ferret and looking like a porcupine in a thunderstorm.
At last we passed through an immense pair of doors to the grandest room of all—a long gallery with walls of intricate carvings—tiny pieces of ivory set into dark ebony to make the most fantastical shapes and patterns. Neither the bone nor wood were of any great value, but the workmanship that had gone into the panels, which stretched as far as the eye could see, made them priceless. In the center of the gallery stood an imposing figure, dressed all in white, leaning on a vast black fireplace in a noble attitude. The huge grate was empty on this burning day, and in the embers of the last fire crouched a man in simple black, on a three-legged milking stool, whittling a block of white wood so the snowy curls sprang from his fingers into the grate.
The man in white was speaking a language foreign to me, presumably Aragonese, but as my ear attuned I could make out a couple of words and could tell that Spanish was none too distant a cousin to Tuscan. The white man’s serf grunted in reply, but did not look up from his carving, a breach of manners that would have had him beaten in Florence.
We walked down the gallery softly, ignored by the black and white pair, but the white lord turned as we drew close.
“Capitano Ferregamo,” he said, teaching us the Capitano’s name for the first time. “I see you survived the recent storms. Congratulations. Can the same be said for the fleet of the Muda?”
Ferregamo bowed low and spoke in a voice so humble I scarce recognized it. “Only the flagship lost, as far as I know, Excellency. The others will follow today or tomorrow, for we were a good league ahead. We had to put to sea early, for reason of these intruders you see.”
“You have brought some bounty for Our Grace?” The white-clad monarch had an odd quality to his voice, a strange sibilant hiss like a snake.
“Indeed. The man is a noble from Pisa. The woman his doxy, but a beauty that I thought might please His Majesty?”
His Majesty? Was this white fellow not Don Ferrente? Were there yet more chambers to traverse before we reached the room of the throne? The snake man spoke again. “But your ‘nobleman’ wears a monk’s robes,” said he, circling us with interest, holding a white pomade to his nose as if we smelled (which we probably did).
“He is no monk, Excellency. I caught him embracing this woman aboard ship.”
I flashed a look to Brother Guido and saw him hang his head in shame. The black-clad servant in the fireplace carved away, his knife whistling through the air, the shavings jumping away from his fingers, chip, chip, chip.
“Hmmm.” Snake-tongue smiled. “But he did not take her virginity?”
“Not aboard,” asserted the Capitano with conviction. “I’m sure of it. They were watched constantly.”
This gave me a jolt. Watched? Had the Capitano seen us take out the cartone and heard our council on the painting’s meaning? No; I willed my heart to slow. The Capitano would not have undertaken such a watch himself, and all other hands were dead. I vowed, though, to tell Brother Guido to have a care of the painting when we were next alone—if we lost that, we were done for.
Snake-tongue looked at me speculatively. “All right. She may do. What say you, Majesty?”
The man crouching in the fireplace spoke with unexpected command. “Let me see her.”
I turned astonished eyes on him. He? He was Don Ferrente, the King of Aragon and Naples? He was dressed in a simple black gown without ornament, and he hunched like a serf over his horny, carving hands. But his gaze was gray steel and his nose had a noble hook—not a man to be trifled with.
If this was unexpected, then what happened next was more so—the man in white neatly ripped my gown from my shoulders. Caked with salt and dried stiff, it tore easily to expose my chest to my waist. I thanked Vero Madre that I had passed the Primavera to Brother Guido; otherwise it would have been lost. I stood still as three men gazed at my naked charms, Brother Guido averting his eyes. I knew how to work such a situation, though; I arched my back and wet my lips, and wished for a colder chamber to harden my nipples. If my breasts were the only way to save us, then fair enough; they were equal to the task.
“All right,” said the king. “I’ll take her. Not the man, though. I’ve enough nobles in this place, and most of them are a nuisance.”
I turned horrified eyes on my friend as the white man motioned to me to cover up. Surely we were not to be divided!
The Capitano was wheedling now. “I thought, my lord, that there might be a ransom.”
The king regarded Brother Guido, who looked like a beaten man. “I think not. Just sell him, Ferregamo. You are not usually so fastidious.”
The Capitano sank down to our feet to unlock us. Our feet were parted, but I clung to Brother Guido’s habit. If only he would speak.
“No!” I begged. “You can’t take him. He’s important!” I felt ridiculous. And I love him! I added under my breath.
The Capitano dragged Brother Guido to the door, and I watched, appalled, as I looked my last on him. In despair, willing him to speak, I crossed myself, speaking the only language he heeded now—the sign of God, his God whom he had wronged by kissing me. God whom he returned to like a lost sheep. At last, at last, he acknowledged me, and replied to my gesture with one of his own, a most ext
raordinary thing—he made the Neapolitan sign of the horns, the gesture we had seen all morning, to ward bad luck away from me, wherever I would end up. His uncle’s thumb ring flashed gold and I turned away, sick with fear of being alone in this court of chess pieces without him. But as the great door opened the king stood for the first time. “Wait!”
It was a command. The king strode down the black-and-white gallery, took Brother Guido’s left hand, and looked closely at the thumb ring. He studied the bright gold band, with the nine gold balls encircling it. The king raised his own left hand, where the twin of Brother Guido’s ring rode on the thumb. My eyes widened. Another ring! Don Ferrente looked my friend in the face. “Who are you?”
Brother Guido’s reticence fell away like a mask, and I saw him draw himself up so he looked the king full in the eye, at that moment a king himself. Fixing Don Ferrente of Aragon with the truth of his blue gaze, he said clearly, “I am Niccolò della Torre, heir to the states and dominions of the city of Pisa.”
The extraordinary king shook his head as if he had just received a stinging blow, then smiled a smile that transformed his face.
“My lord! Forgive me. I did not know that you were coming yourself!”
“I thought it best, especially at this time,” replied “Lord Niccolo,” feeling his way.
The king nodded. “Indeed. Indeed. He did not say . . .”
“He does not know. I thought to surprise him at the coming event.”
Another nod. “Of course. Of course. Forgive me, forgive me. Forgive my treatment of your person, of your consort.” This with a smile at me. “But why these holy weeds?”
I could see Brother Guido thinking fast and admired him greatly. “You perhaps have not heard of my father’s untimely death. Foul play it was, and I left the city as soon as I could, under the cover of night and in the habit of a simple monk.”
“Your father is gone? I am so very sorry. Lord Silvio was a fine man, and truly, you have the look of your father. His bearing, his looks.”
It was true, Brother Guido did resemble his uncle more closely than did his cousin—the man he was pretending to be. But what did he mean by this deception? What benefit could there be of pretending to be what we were not?
The king went on. “Your father told you everything, I suppose?”
“Of course. I am his heir in all things.” Brother Guido spoke with heavy significance.
“Then the players have changed, but the game is still on,” said the king, calling chess to my mind once again. My head spinning with this web of deception, I had to concede that the tactic was working, for the room was suddenly full of servants who were being given orders to see to our comfort. A gaggle of handmaidens led me from the room, and a group of menservants did the same for Brother Guido. The Capitano was dismissed with orders to see to his fleet, given a heavy purse by the man in white. He left without a backward glance, his transaction complete, no more sorry to leave our company than we were to lose him. Then I forgot him at once, for I heard the king say, “You will have the best chambers that my castle can offer, my lord. Your consort will be in an adjoining solar for your comfort and pleasure. Please forgive my major-domo for touching your property.”
“ ‘Tis already forgot, Your Highness,” said Brother Guido, inclining his head in forgiveness at the white-clad minister.
“You are most gracious. Although, in truth, I have three mistresses myself, and a wife too, and if someone would take one off my hands ‘twould be a blessing.”
The two “nobles” guffawed, like men, and I noted that Brother Guido was a gifted actor. I marveled at this new fellow; could it be only a few moments ago that I had berated him for his inaction, for his uselessness, for his lack of invention?
“Perhaps you will do me the honor of traveling north with my court tomorrow? Since we are both invited to the great occasion ‘twould be foolishness not to go together.”
Brother Guido, though he must have been as confused as I, played along. He inclined his head. “I’d be delighted. Of course, my retinue will be waiting for me there.”
The king personally saw us to the door; his majordomo, now wearing a smug smear of a smile, took my arm as if I were a queen. I looked at him snootily—I would not forget he had ripped my dress.
One thing more would confound my ears before we left that chamber. For as we took our leave, Don Ferrente said to his majordomo, nice and loud so we could hear, “Santiago, I charge you to look after this my most honored guest. For Lord della Torre here is, like myself, one of the Seven.”
19
I was taken from the room by a pair of Moorish beauties who showed me to what appeared to be a bath house. They stripped my torn and salt-caked dress and I slithered into the milky water, which lay like smoky green glass below Roman columns and capitals of stone that looked as soft as sugar. One maiden tossed in jasmine blossoms and the other washed me gently with porous sea sponges, even in the most intimate places. Although I’ve never been into that sort of thing (though of course I would oblige with a little Sapphic posturing if a client paid for it), I must admit my body was in paradise for these moments. My mind, however, was tossing on a stormy sea, and I could almost have screamed to have been parted from Brother Guido at such a time, when a thousand questions crowded my mind. My body was at peace, but my brain was in turmoil. Who, or what, were “the Seven”? Or rather, if Don Ferrente and Niccolò della Torre were two of them, who were the other five? What did the thumb rings mean? What was the newly dead Lord Silvio’s connection with Don Ferrente? What “great occasion” were we invited to? And what the merry hell did the Primavera have to do with it all? I tried to still my racing thoughts, for I knew that Brother Guido would be getting similar ablutions from his menservants, so I would have to wait patiently for an audience. I only hoped the monk had managed to conceal the painting from his servants.
At length I was clothed in a loose shift and taken to my room, an airy chamber with a door that I knew adjoined my “master’s.” The slaves fussed around me and I could not wait for them to be gone, although they brought fruit, rolled herrings, and cooled wine in a clay jar of crushed ice. They told me, in their odd Neapolitan dialect, combined with a great deal of dumb-show mime, that the tiring women would be here soon to dress me for dinner. Throughout this entire discourse, my ears strained for sounds of my friend next door, but I could only hear occasional moans and cries that confused me greatly. If I had been listening at the door of any other man on this flat earth of ours, then I would have thought there was a little self-abuse going on, but with Brother Guido I knew that there was no question that he was “taking himself in hand.” Alone at last, burning with curiosity, I listened at the door but the room was now silent. Almost sure that there was no one now within, I did not knock but entered at once.
He was there, alone, facedown on his ornate bed, his visage turned to the wall. His habit lay in a heap at the foot of the bed. The knotted belt, I noticed, was not there. The brown fustian had collapsed in a crumpled pool as if its occupant had shed his skin. And indeed he had. For Brother Guido’s back was slick with blood, striped again and again with the sting of a whip. I knew three things then.
Cosa Uno: Brother Guido had used the knotted belt of his Franciscan habit to scourge himself for his transgressions.
Cosa Due: without counting, I knew that there were exactly forty lashes on his back, the number that the vengeful Romans had laid on the back of Christ on his death day. My questions died on my lips and I withdrew, stricken. Brother Guido turned his head at once, caught, but when he saw it was me two crystal tears fell from his bright blue eyes, across his noble nose, to fall on the silk coverlet. Lacrimae Christi. I knew the third thing:
Cosa Tre: I had done this to him. I had tempted him like a siren of the sea, he had kissed me back with what he thought was his last breath, and he could not forget that he had done so. Stricken, I closed the door, not knowing what to say.
20
I sat on the coverlet
of my bed then, watching the bay through the window. I must have sat so, not moving, for some time, for the bells rang twice as I sat, motionless, growing cold as the sun went down. I told myself I was thinking about the Primavera and the puzzle hidden in the painting, but in truth I thought of Brother Guido all that time, lying motionless one door away, silently hurting, all because of what I’d done. Could we ever go back to the way we’d been? Or had our relationship suffered a sea change from which it would never recover? Chi-chi, with her confidence and bravado, had deserted me once again and I was just a girl sitting alone with her thoughts: Luciana Vetra, homeless, friendless, and motherless. Never had I needed Vero Madre more; to feel a pair of loving arms around me, and a soft kiss to the top of my head. For once I did not crave the heat of a man’s embrace, but the strong circle of a mother’s arms. Now, you should know, if you have not already guessed, that I never cry; not since I was a baby in a bottle, when the glass sent back my cries to my own ears so magnified that I thought I’d better stop for my own comfort. But now I felt as if the tears may come at last, and even though they did not, it seemed that Bembo’s pearl had traveled from my navel to my throat, there to lodge forever no matter how many times I swallowed.
The glittering diamond necklace of the bay below turned to jet as the vista darkened, and I barely blinked when the slaves returned to light the lamps. As the room warmed to light behind me, I heard a soft voice and turned around at last.
Three ladies stood in my chamber, all in black. Like a murder of crows. But there their funereal likeness ended, for they all had pretty faces and merry eyes and smiled a trio of smiles that were eerily alike. In fact, they reminded me of nothing so much as the three Graces, but alive not dead, clad in black not white, and as dark in countenance and feature as the Graces were fair, just as the bay outside had turned from bright to black with the end of the day. The women introduced themselves as Eulalia Ravignano, Giovanna Caracciola, and Diana Guardato. I instantly forgot which was which, but smiled with a welcome I did not feel.
The Botticelli Secret Page 15