The Botticelli Secret

by Marina Fiorato

  “And you are the ladies of the bedchamber? Come to dress me? The slaves said you would come.”

  One of them smiled wider than the other two. “We are come to dress you indeed,” she said in clear Neapolitan, albeit scattered with Spanish hisses like a basket of snakes. “But we are not tiring women. We are freeborn ladies of the court of Aragon.”

  “And we all share a special relationship with Don Ferrente,” put in the second.

  “Not unlike the one you enjoy with Lord Niccolò,” added the third.

  Now this last I doubted, unless the three ladies were on the run from Florentine assassins after stealing a painting and enlisting the help of a total stranger who was a monk masquerading as a nobleman. But I had the drift of their hints.

  “You are his mistress . . . es?”

  They nodded as one.

  “All of you?” But as I said it, I remembered that Don Ferrente had admitted as much himself, and owned to a wife too. I didn’t need to wait for the nod this time.

  The ladies were friendly and full of life—they fluttered around me chirruping in Spanish and lifting my chin and hair, circling my waist with their hands, and discussing, clearly, what I should wear. I knew them then for what they were—not crows but blackbirds, with their beady black eyes, blue-black hair, and their heads cocked to one side as they considered my charms. But their sense of fun was infectious and I felt Chi-chi come home to roost as I joined in their discourse when they reverted to Tuscan. I felt that we were all very much alike, for what were they, in truth, but high-class whores, be they ever so noble? Bawdy and witty, they discussed their bedsport openly and asked me intimate details of my liaisons with my own lord. I could not tell them that we were as chaste as Christmastide, so had to improvise with details of my other professional couplings. They all seemed to share each other’s opinions, and finish each other’s sentences, with a fluency that suggested that they spent all their time in each other’s company. Clearly, from their stories, they shared Don Ferrente’s bed together too, all at once rather than in succession. On the subject of my “master” they were of one mind.

  “By the field of stars, he’s a fine gentleman.”

  “I have never seen the like.”

  “He makes the others here at court look like washerwomen.”

  “Excepting our lord Don Ferrente, of course.”

  “By Saint Jude, I cannot wait to see him in his hose and codpiece! I’ll wager he has a fine leg, and a fine foot too.”

  They cackled together. I smiled but could not confirm their guessings, for of course I had never seen Brother Guido in hose.

  “Never mind him for now,” said the one who I think was called Eulalia. “Let us dress this dove as our master commanded, to equal the beauties of her lord.”

  “Shall not be difficult, for she is favored like an angel.”

  If they but knew. “Ladies,” I began, “there is no need to assist me. I can dress myself, if you give me a gown.”

  They laughed again. “La, no, my dear!”

  “ ‘Tis true it is below our place to dress you . . .”

  “But our lord Don Ferrente knew we would welcome the chance to adorn such a beautiful bird. ‘Tis a project we would enjoy.”

  “For believe me”—they spoke still in strict turn—“this court has few enough beauties, for most are old widows with swollen bellies and slack cunnies.”

  I could well believe it. For even this trio of attractive women were of a variety of shapes and forms, and each had their failings. One had thick wrists, another snag teeth, and the third, as she bent close, had bad breath that copious use of oil of cloves had failed to cover. I could only assume she did her lord Ferrente’s service below the covers, and not face-to-face. All, too, were well into their middle years.

  “For the queen likes her own beauties to shine forth, undiminished by those of others,” they explained.

  Now I was curious. “She is very fair, then, the queen?”

  “Yes, indeed. Giovanna of Aragon is a great beauty,” said Diana generously, with the others nodding agreement.

  I was curious as to their relationship with the queen, for although I had been betraying noblewomen by fucking their husbands for a good few years now, I had never actually known the ladies. What was it like to live under the eye of the woman who knew you were warming her husband’s bed?

  “Oh, we like her.”

  “She is lovely.”

  “I am proud to bear her name,” said the one who was clearly Giovanna. “On our shared saint’s day she gave me a rosary for my missal.”

  I was curious. “And she is faithful, to Don Ferrente?”

  “Oh, yes. Without question. He is not a man to be trifled with, for he can show great cruelty and violence to those who betray him. Certain of his rebellious barons have been recently murdered on his orders, some of them friends since the cradle. And for women it is even worse.”

  “In Sicily, my dear, if you betray your husband with another, your husband can beat you to death with the full support of the law.”

  I swallowed. The strains of the Neapolitan song drifted back to me from this morning, carried on the chimes of Vespers. “Jesce jesce corno,” indeed. If a man strayed, he was a horned snail in a comic song. If a woman strayed, here in the hot and passionate south, she was as good as dead. The king slept with three different dames every night right under his wife’s nose, but a queen had to be beyond reproach. I thought hard on this as the ladies fluttered around me once more, pulling and pushing me, twisting strands of hair, applying ribbon and jewels, lacing my bodice. I had ever lived outside this law, outside the strictures and proprieties that governed other women. I had been turning tricks since I was old enough to bleed. Could I ever live this way, as a “decent” woman, so strictly policed in all her behavior? And what of love? Did that simplest and strongest of feelings have a place in the noble world of court? Did the king truly love the queen; could he love her, when he shared his favors so widely? And yet if he did not, why would he care if she took another lover? It was all most confusing. It was fortunate, really, that I was not a noble-woman.

  I was so deep in thought that I barely noted what I was being dressed in until they pulled me to the looking glass. I gasped.

  Once again, as in Pisa, I was transformed. But they had made me into a dove among the blackbirds—I was dressed from head to foot in white. My dress was stiff with a thousand seed pearls and stood out from my waist in a hugely full skirt like a bell. A delicate ruff of lace adorned my shoulders and framed my face, now pale again from days belowdecks. My hair was more blond than ever, bleached of its color by the sea salt and sun, twisted up into ripples by the ladies with the same pearls pinned into my locks. My skin was as pale as the gems that adorned me. I had been transformed into the very Grace whose identity we sought here in Naples. And then the notion chimed; in Florence I had been Flora. Here I was one of the Graces. Was I destined to inhabit all the ladies of the painting in turn?

  Despite my spectral beauty, however, I knew, too, that the Chi-chi glitter in my eyes was back. I was a honeypot, a walking temptation for all the men of this court. Why, then, was I not excited? Why did I not plan, as I usually did, for some hot and licentious union with a random fellow this night?

  I knew, of course. Jesce jesce corno. As I followed the ladies to dinner, an alien thought struck me. I had ever been a faithless slut, but I knew now that there was only one man I wanted, and if I could but marry him, then I would never stray.

  21

  The ladies led me through a dozen piebald presence chambers, in a procession of other magpie courtiers until presently the space opened out into an enormous banqueting hall with elegant cross ribs arching high above in an elegant spider’s web. Arranged across the room were three long tables, making three sides of a square. A servant led myself and my three companions to the central table, where we were placed at either end, leaving room, I supposed, for the royal party. Seated and alone again, I scanned the room
for Brother Guido but could not see him in the sea of black and white. When all were settled, the musicians sounded from a high gallery, and I looked up to see the buglers crack their cheeks like the four winds. Two doors opened at the end of the room and the royal party arrived at last. They were a glorious sight, but like the rest of the court, I only had eyes for their noble guest.

  He was unrecognizable from the broken Christ I had seen bleeding on his bed this afternoon. He was clean-shaven. His hair trimmed and curled to shining blue-black ringlets. His face was glowing with health, the warm hue of an apricot. His blue eyes shone from his tanned face and swept the room with a noble mien. He was attired in black, his night-velvet surcoat adorned with a scattering of chips of jet, but his voluminous velvet sleeves were slashed to show a blouson of snowy white beneath. His legs were clad in tight black hose, showing calves and thighs that could have been hewn from marble, so firm and long and finely muscled were they. (Me being me, my eyes, of course, strayed to his codpiece, which seemed to boast of so substantial a manhood that my cheeks grew hot. I could not believe then that I had grabbed his prick the first time we met, would give anything to do it again now.) His attitude and expression were all stern nobility, and he wore his power like a mantle. I wondered that a humble monk could dissemble so, but my fickle woman’s heart wanted him more than ever. I saw now, at once, what he could have been if he had accepted his uncle’s legacy and felt sorry for the path he had chosen. Now Pisa would suffer under the yoke of an unworthy finocchio—the real Niccolò. Lord Guido della Torre, on the other hand, would have clearly been a true Prince of Pisa, a noble sprig without peer. He was magnificent.

  And I was not the only one who thought so. Even Queen Giovanna—whom I had to admit was indeed beautiful in her dark Aragonese fashion—mingled eyes with him when he kissed her hand in tribute. For this woman, whose chastity was beyond reproach, to show such blatant interest was a testament to Brother Guido’s charms. I looked quickly to Don Ferrente, but the king was settling into his chair and greeting his guests and had not seen the exchange. Then Brother Guido was at my side, and I felt my hand raised to his lips. But his eyes did not meet mine as they had met the queen’s. My hand dropped, burning, to my lap and my cheeks flamed to match, and yet as he took his seat beside me I knew he had noticed my beauty, and that he was just as affected as he had been when he saw me descend the stairs in Pisa.

  He, too, was clearly thinking of that night, for, as if he had caught the echo of my thoughts like a distant chime of bells, he said, “How charming you look tonight, Luciana. Truly, I’m honored to have you as my companion.”

  The very words I had teased him with omitting as I had descended his uncle’s stair. The blue eyes sparkled now, and I marveled that they could hold so many expressions. So bleak was his stare when I had entered his room earlier, yet so lively with humor now. I divined that his good mood must have a reason; perhaps in our time apart he had made some signifi-cant discovery that took us a little forward in our quest.

  Whatever the reason, I was glad.

  It was quickly clear to me that I was in for an enjoyable night, for three reasons.

  Ragione Uno: Brother Guido was drinking, as I had never seen him do, clearly in an effort to support our charade, for as a nobleman on a nonfast day he would be expected to enjoy the wines of his host.

  Ragione Due: we were to share the same dish, as I was Pisa’s acknowledged consort, and all couples were sharing a platter, as was the norm in high society.

  Ragione Tre: Brother Guido was closely observing other nobles and their courtesans around the tables, and aped their behavior with me, leaning close, sharing morsels, and whispering in my ear. It mattered not that we spoke together of a stolen painting; the closeness itself was enough. I was happy to play along. For this afternoon, in his chamber, he had looked at me with the eyes of the damned across a yawning chasm that seemingly could never be breached. Now, although we were merely players in a play, I felt I had crossed the valley and scaled the battlements—was it too much to hope that I might, one day, be admitted to the citadel?

  While I mused, Brother Guido spoke at length to the king on his right, but the roar of chatter was too great to hear what they said. When he turned back I bent close to his perfumed head, and as once before, his warm hair tickled my cheek. “Did you find out anything about the Seven?”

  “No,” he breathed at me. “He was speaking of how this is a better residence for such feasts than his old abode, Castel Capuano across the bay. This place, Castel Nuovo, he inherited from his dead father, and he said that such bereavements can bring joy as well as grief. He alluded to my own loss.”

  Here, I am sure, Brother Guido presented a very suitable countenance of the grieving son, for he cared more for his uncle than the real Niccolò ever had. “Anything else? What’s the celebration that we’re all supposed to be attending?”

  “He didn’t say, but he did imply that tonight’s feast is in honor of someone or something. He’s making a toast; mayhap we’ll learn more then.”

  “And the cartone, is it safe? Where is it?”

  He patted his shimmering, jet-studded chest. “Here.”

  It looked suspiciously flat—as if nothing lay under the nap but his smooth broad muscle. “Still in the goatskin?” I asked with narrowed eyes.

  “No. I told them to take care of the gourd for it contained relics of my dead father. The Spanish understand such things, and my lord king did send me a jeweled leather pouch, flat like a pocket, meant for the carriage of relics on the person. I effected the transfer, and the cartone is safe. Not damaged by our travels, nor like to be in the future, for the pouch is sturdy and proof against water.”

  My shoulders dropped in relief. “Thank fuck for that. ‘Twould have been a fine pot of piss if we’d come all this way and—”

  Brother Guido shushed me with a flap of his hand, for the king stood up to speak and the room fell silent in three heartbeats. Tall and aquiline, Don Ferrente cut an impressive figure in his head-to-toe black. “My dear friends,” he began, in his gravelly, Aragonese-accented Neapolitan. His white smile accepted the whole room, and from the corner of my eye I saw his trio of mistresses and his wife all looking up at him with adoration. “We are here, as you know, to celebrate the betrothal of the cousin of a dear friend.”

  There was a rumble of dissent around the room, which surprised me—I thought the king well loved. Mayhap he should murder a few more barons in the future.

  He held up a hand to stay the protests. “No, no, my friends. Lorenzo de’ Medici has given our kingdom pain in the past, and we have not always been on good terms. But since his visit to me earlier this year, and the tribute he paid to me, all past wrongs are forgotten. I consider us to be as brothers—we do not always agree, but we are bound together by blood.” There was now laughter, and the hecklers seemed satisfied. “And for this reason we celebrate today the betrothal of his dearly beloved cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, and Semir-amide Appiani, of the House of Aragon.”

  My dull brain struggled to keep up. Lorenzo il Magnifico had recently fallen out with Don Ferrente, but had come here himself earlier in the year to make good. His cousin, Botticelli’s patron, was to be married to a member of Don Ferrente’s family. Was this alliance the “tribute” il Magnifico had made to the House of Aragon? “Wonder what they fought about?” I whispered to my consort. “Must have been serious, for il Magnifico to offer his cousin as a marriage prize?”

  “Shhh!” Brother Guido hissed, for the king was speaking again.

  “And we have the honor to be invited to the nuptials, a sen-night from today.”

  All right. Did that mean that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco would be traveling south to marry at the home of his bride? Where in the stinking south would we be bound next? I felt a strange foreboding.

  “So we raise our glasses to the health of the bride and groom, to the benefits of our alliance, and for the progress of our court on the morrow to the wedding. In fa
ct, ‘tis not so bad a thing that we shall be absent from Naples for this little while, for, as you all know, our Blessed Saint Gennaro’s blood did not liquefy this year.”

  Now this I did not understand at all. I looked around the court for signs of laughter at a joke that was too lofty for my understanding. But there was nothing but grave nods of assent, which set the noble heads bobbing like corks in a barrel. I looked back to our host impatiently. For the love of Vero Madre, just tell us where we are bound!

  “So I give you our sojourn to the beauteous city of Florence.”

  My wine was already in my mouth and I spat it straight back out in a rainshower. Brother Guido gripped my arm till it hurt and the court stilled and looked to me, the king included. “Hiccups,” I murmured. “Sorry.”

  The king’s quizzical glance thawed to a smile. “Such things are easily forgiven in the face of such beauty.”

  I relaxed outwardly, but my innards were in turmoil. Florence? Were we to return to the lion’s mouth, and certain death? I looked hard at Brother Guido, but his sunny countenance remained unchanged, and he patted my hand in assurance. I looked down at my lap, trying to suppress my feelings as the king continued.

  “And now, I will reveal a little gift that I have made with my own hands for the happy couple, a great honor to show my friendship to the Medici family.”

  With a flourish the ever-present majordomo Santiago whipped a black silk napkin from a bumpy object in the center of the table. It was a carving, beautifully rendered and quite finished, of the Nativity scene. We all craned closer. It was a little wooden miracle, for every detail was present. The babe, laughing, held up his starlike hands to the Virgin who knelt in devotion. Every particular was perfectly rendered—every strand of hair, every jewel in the crowns of kings; even a robin sang from the eaves. From the glow of the white wood I recognized the woodwork that the king had been whittling earlier that day, and remembered, too, the hundreds of Nativity scenes I had seen for sale in the streets. Not one of those rivaled what we marveled at now. As the court murmured its approval the king spoke again, with visible pride. “ ‘The day-spring from on high has visited us—’ ”