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The Botticelli Secret

Page 46

by Marina Fiorato


  He squatted beside me and looked out to sea. Charred hulls poked from the water like bergs, soon to sink forever, their masts and blackened pennants the last to go. So many, so very many burned-out ships, clustered on the horizon like a winter forest. “I came to say good-bye,” he said.

  I turned stricken eyes upon him. “You too?” He was the one friend I had left.

  “I have been too long from the ones I love. If this last night has taught me anything, it is that it is time I saw my son.”

  “Diego?”

  He smiled. “You remembered.”

  I turned back to the sea, beyond the wrecked fleet, off into the infinite, gray-blue yonder. “How will you live?”

  “I think now Doge Battista may pay for my ship of fools, after the service I rendered the city, don’t you? And if he does not, no matter. I will petition the rulers of Spain.”

  “Take this on Venice’s account.” I reached beneath my sodden robes and gave him the purse of fifty ducats I had stolen from my mother. His bulbous eyes popped further when he saw the gold flash, heard the chink of coins. “Don’t you need it?”

  I shook my head. Money didn’t matter to me anymore. “Where will you go?”

  “Portugal first, then the Azores, to my father and Filipa. And little Diego.”

  I sighed like the wind, for all that he had and that I had not.

  “I would not prevent you. Go and be with your wife and child. Love and family is all that matters.” I had forfeited both in one fateful night.

  “I was about to say the same to you. Your mother awaits you at the doge’s palace.”

  “My mother?” I had not given her a thought since Brother Guido had left my sight.

  “Yes. She and your father and Ludovico il Moro were captured and brought to the city at dawn. They are my lord doge’s hostages until they sign a treaty of peace, which even now is being writ by his scribes.”

  “What of Don Ferrente?”

  “Turned for home as soon as the first ship burned.”

  “And Niccolò della Torre?” I asked with a catch in my voice.

  “Who?”

  “The lord of Pisa?”

  He shrugged. “I have no word of him. Why?”

  “No matter.” I could not form the words, not explain the terrible irony that if I were to return to my life, I would be wed to the cousin of he who was lost to me, to be reminded every day that a better copy of this nobility once lived, once loved me. The cruelty struck me in the chest like a blow and I thought I would die too. Wished that I would.

  “When you are ready, go back to your mother. You are the first soul she asked for, never thinking of her own safety. I think that she loves you. She is a lioness, granted; but you are the lion’s child.” I felt him kiss my forehead.

  I could not look up. Could not lift my weary head.

  “Godspeed,” he said.

  “And you,” I whispered. But he had gone harborward and the wind snatched my words away from him.

  I don’t know how long I sat there on the freezing shingle. Rafts of wood and bundles of canvas nudged and bumped at my feet as the tide inched in. At length the treacherous sun broke through the clouds and dried me, warmed the pebbles beneath my legs. It was going to be a beautiful day.

  Soon I must choose to stay and drown or rise and live. I heaved myself up, and as I did so, I felt the scratch of a parchment in my bodice. The cartone of the Primavera, which had found me love and lost it again. I took the thing out and cast it into the sea, as far, far as I could, and turned back land-ward before I could know where it landed. I did not want the thing anymore. But the tide would not allow me even this gesture. The thing washed back to me, soaked and dun like a dead sole, and flopped over my sodden shoe. I looked at it draped there, and thought then that it was the last thing he and I had touched together—’twas something he and I had shared. Perhaps one day I would be able to look on it again. I rescued it from the surf before the ebb could take it again—squeezed the water from it like a washcloth and turned to wander back to the Palazzo Ducale, not knowing what else I could do.

  My options were limited. I could stay and work the stews of Genoa, fucking sailors until I was too old for them to want me, or I could claim my birthright and get a feckless finocchio of a husband into the bargain, like a worm that comes with the apple. Or die by my own hand and meet Brother Guido in the afterlife. Only I wasn’t sure I believed in the afterlife, for all my convent education. And even if I did, the nuns had not neglected to tell me that suicides went straight to hell. As Brother Guido, who died to save others, like Christ himself, was surely going to walk straight into heaven, we would then be parted for all eternity. I hoped Brother Guido rejoiced with the angels that he believed in afresh.

  Tears blurred my eyes and I all but lost my way. I passed countless families on their way to mass, anxious to give thanks for the fate they had escaped. Even the bells sounded joyful as they called the faithful in triumph. I was the only soul on the streets who did not wear a smile—not even the sight of the dames and children we had saved lifted my stony heart. I came at last to the huge striped palace with the great gates, knew that once I laid my hand upon the door I had made my choice.

  I called to the guard and accepted my fate.

  I was shown to an airy presence chamber, as if I were the Queen of Sheba—my fame had clearly spread and the city was in debt to me. I felt oddly guilty, as the guards and servants kissed my hands, for I did not merit this. Others deserved such thanks and praise, others that were gone. I was placed in a golden chair, given a cup of wine and asked to wait, told that the doge would be with me presently.

  The door opened almost at once and another exalted personage was seated across from me, also to await the doge’s pleasure. For him, though, there was no golden chair, no chalice. Just a bracelet of chains around his wrists.

  The door closed again, and for a few, short, incredible moments I was alone with Lorenzo de’ Medici.

  51

  He leaned forward in his chair and considered me. He seemed to bear me no enmity but just looked intensely interested. I met his eyes, for I had learned in the last hours that if you no longer have anything to lose, you no longer have anything to fear.

  “Why did you want to stop me?” Those graveled, famous tones were completely in earnest, inquiring, wanting to know. “Why did it matter?”

  I realized with a jolt that he echoed exactly my last question to Brother Guido, and I recalled his very last words to me. You know it does. Suddenly I knew why it did matter, so very much.

  “Because in Genoa two brothers have a map shop by the sea and dream of finding new lands. Because in Bolzano they eat dumplings called Knödel and dance like lunatics. Because in Pisa, there is a tower that leans but does not fall down, and every year four quarters of the city push a tree trunk over a bridge. Because in Venice they have built a city on water and make wondrous glass out of dust. Because in Naples you can buy a carving of the Nativity so real it’s as if you’re there, and at the next stall buy a human skull. Because in this land”—I had to steady my voice—“a man can love his city so much, he will give his life to have it stay the same.”

  I had to stop, fiercely blinked away my tears, not wanting him to see me cry. But the traitorous drops brimmed and spilled from my eyes and down my cheeks. The first tears I had shed since I was a baby in a bottle. He said nothing, but his granite eyes softened ever so slightly. Knowing I would never get the chance again, I questioned him in turn. “Why did you want to do it?”

  “Because I wanted to make Italia great,” he replied simply.

  I lifted my stricken face to him. “It already was,” I choked. “It already was.”

  The door to the ducal chamber opened. “My lord doge will see you now,” intoned a liveried servant, clearly having difficulty in finding a single tone with which to address a friend and a foe. “Both of you.”

  We rose, and the Prince of Florence, incredibly, stood back to let me pass through fi
rst.

  A strange sight met my eyes. Seated around the perimeter of the room were three figures.

  Figura Uno: Ludovico il Moro, still in full armor, bloodied and beaten.

  Figura Due: my father, without his ceremonial robes and corno hat, just looking like a sad old man. And:

  Figura Tre: my mother, in a breastplate and riding gear, looking at first glance like an Amazon queen, but on closer inspection she looked old, as if she had cried the night through, this and many others.

  My mother half rose from her seat at the sight of me, as if she would have run to embrace me, but a glance from the doge stopped her. Armed guards wearing the cross of Genoa on their tabards ringed the room with pikes and halberds glinting in the sun. Out of the paned windows I could see the faro and the brilliant sea, smooth and clear as if naught were amiss. I could hear the mew of the same gulls I had heard yesterday, before the world had changed.

  The doge sat upon his scarlet couch, sifting through a document. Today he showed total self-possession. He had grown up in a night. Today he was not Cupid. Today he was a king.

  “Ah, Lorenzo,” he said. “Come. We are missing only your signature.”

  Il Magnifico approached the couch, his face as sour as a lemon. The doge passed him the quill himself, watched him struggle to write his mark with bound hands.

  “Well,” said Genoa’s lord, when it was done. “That all seems to be in order. A confession and a contract in one—rarely is a treaty so simply achieved. I’d like to thank you all very much.” He smiled sweetly round at the thunderous faces in the room.

  My father, ever the politician, was the first to speak. “This treaty of peace, it will be . . . strictly sub rosa?” His voice was weak and cracked when he spoke—the voice of an old man.

  “As secret as the plot that made it necessary,” replied the doge pointedly. “History will not learn of these events, if you obey my terms.”

  “This is ridiculous!” burst il Moro in his blustering tones, unable to keep silent. “Are you really saying we cannot ever again face each other in armed conflict? There have been wars in Italia since the Romans and Etruscans, and before that too!”

  The doge smiled. “My dear Ludovico. How you do love a war, do you not? Don’t worry. I’m sure we all will meet in battle again, at field or sea. I’m sure there will be alliances made and broken from now until the end of time. But this is different.” He waved the parchment. “This contract states that never again will an attempt be made to unify this peninsula and subsume the city-states into one empire. In support of this I am sending a copy, with all my seals intact, to His Highness Louis XI of France, Their Highnesses Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and His Highness Edward IV of England. As I am sure you will acknowledge, such a union of our states would be as threatening to their kingdoms as it was to my own duchy. If any of you, or your fellow members of ‘the Seven,’ should break this agreement signed here today, I will instruct my allies to break the seals and read what was writ here today, and to mobilize their forces against you. With my full support, they may ride their battalions through my duchy, as a gateway to yours. For to such a union Genoa will never agree.”

  He sat back on his couch and steepled his hands together. “Incidentally, I am sending a copy also to His Holiness Pope Sixtus in Rome. I have a feeling that his godly conscience will prompt him to ratify the treaty, don’t you?”

  He addressed the room at large, fully in control; the knowledge that the Holy Father had connived with the conspirators hung in the air, acknowledged but not expressed. The doge had caught all these fine nobles in his net like so many gaudy fishes—he alone could release them. And he did. “And now I give you leave to return in peace to your own kingdoms and principalities. As far as I am aware, you were never here. You will have safe conduct to the Torriglia mountains. After that, you must shift for yourselves.” He stood, as if dismissing the company. “Rule well, and let us celebrate our differences, while remaining friends.”

  The exalted company rose to their feet as one, and the doge sat down again at once, pointedly taking up the treaty to read it over, as if he could not bear to be bracketed with these allies even in the simplest terms—if they sat, he stood. If they should stand, he would sit. Genoa would act now and forever alone. But the doge had not quite done. “Not you, Signor Medici,” he said, not looking from his papers. Lorenzo did not turn but stood in the middle of the room, waiting to know his fate. We all looked on, not breathing.

  “As for you, il Magnifico”—his voice bore the weight of irony—“I thank you very much for your visit to my city.” The doge clearly wished to stop short of openly accusing Lorenzo of being the mastermind behind the alliance. “I hope the experience was not ruined for you by the weather. I see that spring has brought clemency and harmony to the climate.” He waved a languid hand at the peerless view. “In return for my hospitality I’m sure you won’t mind if we write off our outstanding debts to the Medici bank. I wouldn’t want the origins of last night’s events to become public, would you? And secrecy always has its price.”

  Il Magnifico looked as if he had a rotten fish below his nose. He nodded once, curtly, then looked the young doge in the eye.

  “It is coming, you know,” he said with assurance. “Someday, all our states will be one.”

  “Perhaps,” said Doge Battista, and leaned close. “But not in my lifetime, and certainly not in yours.”

  It was the taunt of a young man to an older one. Lorenzo seemed to turn to stone, then the spell broke and he flourished and left, followed by the rest of his conspirators. My mother turned at the door and sent me a beseeching glance.

  The door closed behind them all. “Signorina.” The doge turned to me and drew me down beside him on the scarlet couch. “Your services to this city are over. I offer you my gratitude and am forever in your debt.” He kissed my hand, then searched my face. “I hear your friend is dead and am truly sorry. He was brave and steadfast and served God. Find your example from him and not your family. Be a worthy heir to your city, as I hope to be to mine. Now go and join your mother.” He took up his papers again.

  I joined the rest as we waited in the presence chamber for our carriages to take us home. I sat next to my mother and she folded my hand in hers. I did not take it away. I looked around the room at these rulers of men, those elected and those born to power. In that moment I realized the ship of fools was not sailing to Portugal this day. It was here. This room. Now I knew the significance of Brother Guido’s last, shouted prayer as he burned. The chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire. But it had all gone awry. It was the wheat that had been burned away and the chaff remained.

  I realized then that Italia wasn’t great because of men like these but because of men like the one that was lost.

  10

  Pisa II

  Pisa II, June 1483

  52

  And so, by the end of the spring I was once again in Brother Guido’s city. Once again I stood in the Campo dei Miracoli, at the doors of the great white cathedral, gazing on the great white baptistery and the great white tower that leaned but would not fall down. Only today I matched the white city.

  It was my wedding day.

  Today there was no painting in my bodice. Instead, for my own satisfaction, I put the green glass knife there—the neck-rim from the bottle I’d been in as a baby. Sharp and curled as a claw, it reminded me where I came from and where I was going to, and that there was always a way out. If suicides were damned, so be it. Damnation may be better than married life. I had seen enough lambs slaughtered in Ognissanti to know I could push the blade behind the windpipe and the blood would course down the white and gold, a satisfying exit, right there at the altar. They’d be talking about it for years.

  My mother interrupted my thoughts. “Let me look at you.” Resplendent in her favorite green, she wore her golden lioness half-mask today, with a hundred golden chains hanging from the nose to chin. She smiled at me proudly beneath it, as if naught were am
iss. As if I were a favored daughter about to fulfill her heart’s desire, not about to be shackled to a pederast whom I hated with the heat of hellfire.

  I had not seen my intended since we had come to Pisa, where we were, by a strange twist of fate, guests of Lorenzo de’ Medici at his riverside palace on the Lungarno Mediceo. A place I had once gone to with Brother Guido, and stolen a boat, to drift down the river of a thousand torches. The irony was not lost upon me; Brother Guido had left his own city in the manner in which he was to die.

  I saw Lorenzo il Magnifico now and again, and he was the very model of courtesy. Neither he, nor anyone, referred to the events that had taken place in Genoa not four months ago. In all that time I had not once seen Niccolò. I understood he had taken an arrow in the leg at the Battle of Torriglia Pass and had gone to the mountains to take the waters and recover. My mother had assured me that all was well. (As if I were worrying about him.) “The marriage contracts are intact, despite recent—events . . .” It was the closest she ever came to speaking of it. “Except for a few minor alterations. It is true that the prince was injured in the battle, for he is, as you perhaps know, not an accomplished fighter. But his condition will not affect the wedding, it will take place almost as planned.”

  Yes, with my damaged husband carried in on a litter. Madonna. One thing worse than being married to an evil selfish man was being married to an evil selfish cripple.

  Now, at the hour of my marriage, my mother pinched my cheeks, then adjusted my bodice. “There. You are lovelier than a summer day.” I looked at her sharply, but there was no irony in her tone nor her eyes. She meant what she said and it was said with love. I shook back my hair, heavy with a thousand pearls and moonstones, and hitched up my bodice. Something felt different. I looked down between my breasts—the knife was gone.

  “Mother,” I called sharply.

 

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