The Botticelli Secret

by Marina Fiorato

  “My lord knows an herbalist within, and we must get a draught for his ague.”

  The driver slowed the horses. “Shall I wait, Doña?” he called, in his thick accent. I already had the door open and heaved Brother Guido to the ground, without waiting for the driver or footman to help us.

  “No, do not trouble,” I replied breezily. “The good brothers will send a runner for our own carriage to fetch us.”

  The driver exchanged a look with the footman, shrugged in his Spanish fashion, and touched his hand to his hat and his whip to his horse. Our last connection to the Neapolitan court drew away in a cloud of dust. And there we stood, Luciana Vetra and Brother Guido della Torre, a calendar month after we had last been here, at the gates of Santa Croce. There slumped the postern monk Brother Malachi, as ever, in his cups and asleep on the wrought-iron gate.

  “Why are we here?” He spoke through tight lips; his clenched jaw white with anger, he looked on the place he had once loved, this tranquil holy haven, with hatred.

  “To see Brother Nicodemus, the herbalist, as you yourself suggested.” I hoped the flattery would work. It didn’t.

  “I will not go in.”

  I had expected this. “But this was your home. These men were your brothers.” I indicated Brother Malachi, who damaged my case by farting noisily. “It is the pope that has betrayed you, not the Franciscan order.”

  He set his jaw. “If the pope is corrupt, then so is all the church. My life, theirs”—he pointed to the sleeping monk—“and all this”—his sweeping gesture took in the grand edifice of the monastery—“is a lie.”

  This was going to be harder than I thought. I remembered wryly how a sennight ago I would have done anything to prise him from the church like a barnacle from a rock. Now I would give the pearl in my belly to get him inside this monastery so we could talk with its herbalist. “All right. Suppose what you say is true. Why don’t you stop him?”

  “Who?”

  I sighed. “His Holi-arse the Pope. What he’s doing is wrong, er . . . right?”

  He did not answer—we both noted it. “It’s not our war, nor our problem. I care not what happens to the Seven.”

  I grabbed the front of his surcoat—it was loose and I noticed how much weight he had lost in the last week. “It is our problem, for our lives will be in danger again the moment your true identity is discovered. Which it will be one day. You cannot live as Niccolò forever—nor would you want to, unless you’re planning a lifetime of shafting catamites.” He winced. “But you must run forever once you are discovered, and I must too. And what of the treacherous Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco? He’s plotting against the father of our great city. We could bring him down, cut out the church’s canker, restore some . . . some purity to the church.” I was laying it on thick, but he didn’t seem to notice. I had seen a gleam in his eye for the first time since we left Rome at the prospect of spoiling the pope’s scheme. I followed up my advantage. “Let’s figure this thing out and crack the riddle, then somehow present the whole thing to Lorenzo the Magnifi-cent himself, just as your uncle said; then we’d have his gratitude, and his protection, and you’d save your skin.”

  “I don’t care about my skin.”

  “My skin then.”

  He was silent, but not from torment this time; he was thinking. He looked at me as if for the first time, and I knew then that he cared about me enough to try to save me. It was a warm night but I suddenly felt hot, as if the sun had waked. And there was something else in his eyes too; he didn’t want to quit and I think I knew why. His brain. The fire of his faith may have died but the flame of his intellect could never be extinguished. I hit him with my best shot.

  “Besides, can you really walk away not knowing what it all means? Can you really sleep at night not knowing what secret lies in the flowers? What calamities will come with the spring? Why there are seven conspirators, not eight, as there are in the picture? That you couldn’t work it out, that you let the riddle beat you?”

  I had him then, but I couldn’t resist one more, completely practical point. We didn’t actually have a palace to house us, nor a retinue to tend to our needs. I couldn’t go back to my little cot by the Arno, flooded with Enna’s blood. He couldn’t go back to Pisa and his murderous cousin. “After all,” I finished, “where else can we go?”

  He knew I was right. He had no choice but to return to the monastery he had once called home. I glanced at the sky—night was falling, the Florentine day was beginning. We moved to the gate and I woke Brother Malachi, as I had done more than a month ago, by shoving my tits in his face.

  27

  Nicodemus of Padua was silent.

  He had heard the entire incredible tale and now sat, stroking the white stubble at his chin and occasionally grunting faintly, as if he were digesting a meal. He was digesting our story.

  I had begun by looking around me, when we had entered the herbarium at Brother Malachi’s direction. It was an intriguing place—a candlelit room with a colonnade of pillars and cross-rib vaults holding up the low roof. My eyes followed the pillars upward.

  Madonna.

  Two thirds of the way to the ceiling the ribs disappeared into an inverted meadow. Hanging from the ceiling were flowers and herbs and bulbs of every sort, drying in the firelight, turning gently on their twines as our breath or the door draft stirred them. The scent of the flowers and herbs, all jumbled together and releasing their heady fumes as the fire warmed them, was almost overpowering in its cloying, choking sweetness. We sat at a trestle bench for our conference, the fire burning merrily at the hearth at our side. Every other niche of the place was crammed with fat-bellied pots, corked bottles, or clay crucibles, labeled in Latin and stacked to the ceiling. A long scrubbed table ran along one wall, crowded with flints and burners, copper pipes and alembics, all crazily connected with tubes of pigs’ gut. Most bizarre of all was the herbalist himself, smaller than any living man I had seen yet with the wisest eyes. His age was numberless; he could have been on this earth since the Crusades, as his ancient cheeks carried more lines than a Saracen’s map. His hairs were as scarce as his wrinkles were plentiful, for they sprouted in white whiskers just above his ears and round his head in a snowy frill.

  I let Brother Guido tell the story, without interruption, for I realized early on that the old monk had a difficulty—he had, as all the brothers had, seen me at the postern in the old days and knew that I brought corruption within his walls. He did not meet my eye once, but I took no offense—I had had plenty of insults in my life and I could well stand a monk’s disapproval, if only he would help us.

  When he spoke at last, his voice was unexpectedly deep, and with a strong Paduan accent. If he felt surprise at seeing a Franciscan novice who had disappeared more than a month ago reappear dressed as a prince, with a well-known tart on his arm and with an incredible story to tell, he did not show it. And of all the things he may have said, he struck right at the heart of Brother Guido’s anguish. “And you are certain, my brother, that His Holiness is involved with these seven conspirators?”

  “I am, for he wore the ring they all wear on their thumbs; my uncle, Don Ferrente of Naples, the pope, and now myself as you see.”

  The herbalist peered at the gold band gleaming in the fire-light. “And presumably, should you see such a band on Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco at his wedding tomorrow, you may be sure he plots against his uncle.”

  “Yes.”

  Brother Nicodemus was silent, and when he next spoke I realized that he had the trick of Brother Guido’s—his mind, much quicker than other men’s, had sieved our information and filtered from it a point of interest that others might miss.

  “Seven not eight?” he asked. “And yet there are eight adult figures in the scene?”

  “Yes.”

  The herbalist nodded. “ ‘Tis an evil business,” he said, now shaking his wizened head.

  Brother Guido took his cue. As if to a confessor he began at last to speak of his hurt. “Bro
ther, I am in the wilderness. My faith and trust in him that we serve has left me utterly. It pains me to speak of this to you. I know that as a brother of this order, you must be as grievously shocked as I am by our father pope’s involvement.”

  Brother Nicodemus raised his head abruptly. “Shocked? I? I could not be less so.” He laughed a dry chuckle, half cough, half mirth. “Son, I am sorry for your disillusionment. But I must tell you, the man you idolized has dipped his hands in blood before this pass; yes, many times.”

  My companion leaned forward and the flare of the fire lit his face amber. “What?”

  “Indeed,” replied the herbalist gently. “You spoke of the Pazzi conspiracy. Who was it that encouraged the Pazzis forward in their murderous plot, gave them papal sanction? Who was it who excommunicated the whole of Florence for the deed, just so he could force the Medici bank to cease trading, thus writing off ten thousand florins of papal debt in a single stroke? The pope only reconciled with Lorenzo because our lands were under threat from Turkish attack when the infidels occupied Otranto. But that was above six months ago; now that the sultan is dead and the threat is gone, the pope is free to move against his old enemy once more.” Brother Nicodemus shook his head once more. “Brother, you are young in the world, and innocent—you have no notion of what a man may do, be he never so holy.”

  Brother Guido was still, white lipped and shocked to the core. I myself was less so, for had I not been tumbling monks, and yes, priests too, for years?

  The herbalist could sense the destruction of Brother Guido’s world and spoke more kindly. “Son. You must learn to differentiate between man and God. Man is fallible, the church corrupt. But God is true and he will never betray you. You must find your way back to faith, as a conversation between yourself and God. Popes and prelates come and go, but God is eternal. Those of us who are true to our Rule must guide others as best we can to the light.” The old man, as if tired by his pronouncements, took a sip from a wooden cup. “As to your present predicament, I think we may absolve the Holy Father from the role of the originator of the plot. The mastermind comes not from the Vatican but from the House of Medici.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The ring you wear bears nine gold balls upon the band. The palle.”

  “The palle!” repeated Brother Guido, holding his thumb before our eyes, where the ring glinted gold in the firelight. “Why did I not see this before?”

  I could clearly see the ring of nine little golden balls, circling the band. I had to ask. “The what now?”

  “The palle, or Medici balls, appear in a circle, in differing numbers, on all their heraldic adornments,” Brother Guido explained.

  Of course I knew the emblem well, for apart from its appearing above every gateway and every palace wall in Florence, I had about a hundred jokes from the street about Medici balls. In fact, I think I had drained a few pairs of minor Medici balls in my time; younger sons and cousins only, unfortunately. I’d never had a crack at the Lorenzos—neither one—who I think led fairly pious lives.

  Except for murder of course.

  Such musings died on my lips, though—now wasn’t the time—for the herbalist spoke again.

  “I have not yet seen the painting, but by the three Marys, I would warrant that the palle will appear there too.”

  Brother Guido stood. “It is time,” he said, and he helped the old monk to his feet, where he came up to around the younger man’s navel. The two brothers moved to the long table and Brother Guido removed the cartone from his pouch. Brother Nicodemus weighted the corners with stones that gleamed red in the firelight—carnelians, I guessed, for use in his healing work. Uninvited, I moved behind them to watch. I had not seen the Primavera for some time, for it had been bound to the chest of my silent companion since Rome, and each time I saw it after long absence I was struck by the beauty of the thing—never more so than now, gilded by firelight and cornered with carnelians. Two heads, one white, one black, bent over the picture and I must wait my turn. I did not have to wait long.

  “There,” announced the herbalist, standing back. “The apples of the Hesperides; they represent the palle, the emblem of the Medici.”

  I stepped forth, my eyes following his gnarled finger to the trees above the figures, where above a hundred round golden fruits dangled from the leaves.

  “Look more like oranges to me,” I muttered.

  “The apples of the Hesperides are oranges in classical literature, Luciana.” Brother Guido did not even look at me as he put me straight. “And these oranges appear on every Medici coat of arms nine times.”

  “Look here too,” exclaimed the old monk abruptly. He pointed to the natural arch of leaves above Venus’s head.

  “Laurels,” said Brother Guido. “Yes, we noted them in Rome. We thought then that they identify the victim of the plot—Lorenzo the Magnificent.”

  “Or the mastermind himself, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici,” put in Brother Nicodemus.

  I felt a little chill despite the fire—what we were looking at here was the map of a murder. A murder that we must prevent.

  Brother Nicodemus echoed my thoughts. “Then your way forward is obvious.” He turned to Brother Guido. “Leaving aside your faith for a moment, your moral imperative is clear. Whether or not you are a monk, you are a good man. By the grace of God you have been given the chance to attend this wedding under an assumed identity. You must use this chance to gain audience with Lorenzo the Magnificent, and lay all this before him, and save his life. For how else will you petition him, now that your uncle, God rest his soul, is dead? He would not see a humble Franciscan novice, and”—he gestured to me—“a young lady with no credentials, but a prince of Pisa and his escort, well . . .” He had no need to finish. “And his protection, if you saved him from such a conspiracy, is assured.”

  “But Brother Nicodemus, our knowledge of the plot is, at present, merely conjecture,” protested Brother Guido. “We know the identity of just three of the seven—no more. We need your help—if we can discover the ‘secret that the flowers hold,’ we may be able to know more details, and detail will give our information credibility.”

  “I understand you well. Let us take another look, and this time we shall consider only the lilies of the field.”

  Now as I craned to see, I was dismayed by the sheer number of flowers in the painting.

  Madonna.

  There were more blooms than cow shits in a midden.

  As you’d expect for a painting named after the spring, there were numerous plants dotting the sward. Above the figure’s heads there were orange blossoms. There were blooms all over Flora’s dress, as I well remembered from that unforgettable day modeling for Botticelli. Well, too, I remembered the heavy chaplet of flowers I was charged to wear on my brow that day. There were the roses filling my skirt too, and flowers falling from the mouth of the nymph standing to my right, whom Brother Guido had identified as Chloris. No figure went ungarlanded—even warlike Mercury had tiny starlike blossoms wreathed around his boots.

  “Holy fuck!” I breathed, earning myself my first direct look from Nicodemus of Padua. I was back in the schoolroom for a moment, and held my tongue thereafter, for I did not wish to receive such a glance again. Brother Guido, in his new pessimism, clearly felt the same despair as I did, but used language of less color.

  “ ‘Tis impossible,” he said. “Forgive me, Brother. We are on a fool’s errand. There are too many. Even if we had days or months to contemplate the scene, we could never know which flowers hold the secret to which the pope referred.”

  But the herbalist was rubbing his knuckles together till his old bones cracked like flints. “Now, Brother,” he chided. “God gave us our intellects to be challenged. Nothing is impossible. It is likely,” he went on, “that if this picture hides a code, and if a secret is to be found within the flowers, not all the flowers we see here are relevant. Some will be mere decoration or decoy. I think that to interrogate all the fl
owers would be an exercise in futility.”

  “Maybe we could count the flowers on each character,” I ventured. “That would give you eight numbers, not counting Cupid. Perhaps the ‘secret’ is a date, or something.” I thought this a pretty good idea.

  Brother Nicodemus showed no signs of having heard me but Brother Guido replied. “Such a scheme is problematic—for how are we to assign the flowers to each character? For instance, when Flora scatters flowers, do we count the flowers that she scatters or only the ones touching her person. And in the case of Chloris the nymph, do we note the flowers that fall from her mouth, or no?” He noted my crestfallen face. “But the idea of a number is a strong one. Perhaps—”

  The herbalist held up his ancient hand. “Such debate may not be necessary. There may be other ways to discover which blooms are truly relevant. Think, my brother,” he urged, “what exactly was said that night beneath the arch of Septimius Severus in Rome?”

  I was impressed with the old monk’s recall, for I could barely remember the name of the arch myself.

  Brother Guido thought hard. “They were speaking in Latin, which fitted well with the whole tenor of the evening—the arch, the guards, the city. Pope Sixtus said these exact words: Flora manus secretum.”

  “Then ‘flowers hold the secret,’ “ translated the herbalist. “Very well. Then we have our answer.” We both turned to him. “If you were to look at this painting for the first time, which figure would you say has the most to do with flowers?”

  “Flora,” we both answered as one.

  “Exactly. She is covered in flowers from head to foot, and scatters flowers too. Her name, of course, is the most suggestive—Flora—Latin for ‘flowers.’ ”

  He folded his hands like an attorney and paced as he addressed us.

  “Your problem, as I see it, is that the riddle ‘Flora manus secretum—Flora holds the secret’ can mean one of four things. One: the answer is in ‘flora’—as in ‘flora and fauna’—the Latin collective name for all plants, so meaning all the flowers, all the herbs, and all the trees and fruits in the picture. We have already discussed how protracted it would be to investigate every bloom we see here. Two: that the answer lies somewhere in Flora the figure. Three: that the answer lies in Florence the city. As you have identified that each figure represents a city, this is very plausible, since Florence is the home of the Primavera panel itself. Or four, and most incredible, that the answer lies”—he looked at me for the second time—“with you.”