Seeds of Decline

by Edward Charles

  So until that situation arose, she would hide the pain, smile and live on. It was her life (what was left of it) and she was determined to live it her way.

  Chapter 14

  Be Warned

  He was waiting for her when she got back. Tired and covered with the dust of rapid travel on a fast horse. But as soon as she saw his face she knew he had news for her.

  ‘Benvisto! You look exhausted. When did you leave Florence?’

  ‘Yesterday, at dawn. I rode most of the night, resting only when the horses could do no more.’

  ‘Is someone looking after your horses? Have you ordered food?’

  ‘Both. Please do not worry. Piero Malagonelle saw me arrive. Everything is in hand.’

  She nodded, the immediate priorities taken care of. To be effective, as she knew well, good manners involve practicality not just mannerism. ‘You have news for me then?’ If he’s ridden this hard to bring me urgent news, it’s ill-mannered not to seek it immediately.

  ‘Ser Francesco d’Antonio has good contacts. Efficient ones too. They replied more quickly than I expected.’

  She smiled at the name ‘He’s served me well. An admirable notary. I don’t know where I would be without you all.’ He looked up, one eyebrow raised. ‘My trusted ones. You included, Benvisto. Loyalty with efficiency. It’s a powerful combination. I appreciate how hard you have worked to bring me this news so quickly.’

  ‘Loyalty meets its own echo, I believe, Madonna. You are a popular employer. Clear in instruction, fair in judgement, and generous in reward. That’s why everyone walks the extra mile for you.’

  ‘Or gallops.’ The compliment had delighted her to the point of embarrassment. ‘Well then? What news of our monk?’

  Benvisto took a document from his leather satchel and opened it. He leaned forward to pass it to her but she shook her head. ‘Read it to me. I have mislaid my reading glasses.’

  ‘Girolamo Savonarola. A troubled man, talented but opinionated. A man of high intellect and extensive learning, each exceeded only by his own overly high opinion of himself. Despite his arrogance he was accepted at court in Ferrara and became a member of a noble humanist group, in which he was said to be “highly active”.’

  Benvisto nodded in emphasis and immediately she realized what her informant meant. Why then the monk’s high moral stance? ‘But was rejected because of his predilection for inflicting pain on others. The same emerged from Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was said that in the name of religious penance, he almost tortured the young novices to the point that their parents revolted and in the end the bishop, supported by the pope himself, had him relieved of his duties.’

  By this time, Lucrezia was staring at her messenger, absorbing every word.

  ‘To save face, they sent him to San Marco, in Florence, in the hope, it was admitted, that the strict observance of the new Dominican order there would either make or break him. Savonarola is said to be a man with a grudge against everyone. He believes himself superior to all others in judgement and adherence to moral codes and seems intent on changing the world.’

  Benvisto put the piece of paper down and looked at Lucrezia. ‘To use Antonio’s very words as I was leaving, a man who is only ever on his own side; a man not to be trusted.’

  ‘Was there mention of a brief love affair?’

  Benvisto snorted in derision. ‘Oh yes. Brief indeed. She rejected him as soon as he was found guilty of sodomy with three nobles at the Este Court. Apparently it wasn’t his first time. His representative had asked for three earlier cases to be taken into account. They say he concocted some tale about her illegitimacy thereafter, but everyone knew she was not a full member of the Strozzi family, not least the girl herself. According to Antonio’s sources, by the time he left Ferrara he was a bit of a laughing stock.’

  ‘He told me a quite different story.’ Lucrezia was thoughtful.

  ‘As Antonio said, a man not to be trusted. I should say as little as possible to him.’

  A servant kicked on the door with his foot, a tray of fresh bread, good cheese, wine and water in his arms. Lucrezia nodded. ‘Your supper. I shall leave you to enjoy it. We will talk again tomorrow. In the meantime, my thanks again for your efforts.’

  Benvisto gave a small, formal bow and handed her the letter.

  As she walked away, her expression was thoughtful.

  Chapter 15

  Bagno à Morba

  He was, as always, punctual. He was, as always, prepared. But today, to his surprise and disappointment, she did not respond to his knock.

  He wondered whether his style of questioning toward the end of the previous day had angered her. It had, he acknowledged, been somewhat aggressive, and might easily have caused her upset. Perhaps even upset her to the point of being unwilling to talk? Yet over the last … how long is it since our first conversation? Ten days? They had spoken daily and although some of their conversations had proceeded more easily than others, you could hardly say he’d had to cajole the words out of her. Most of the time quite the opposite. Most of the time, the words had tumbled out of her as if …

  The thought hit him, suddenly and already fully-formed. Of course. That is why she agreed to talk to me in the first place, and having done so, why she has opened her heart to me so easily. She needed to talk because deep inside, she questions the truths by which she has led her life. That is the voice I have been hearing but not able to identify.

  He nodded to himself and began pacing up and down outside her house. That was it. When she adopted that hectoring tone and started talking down to him like that, she was not patronizing him at all, as he had thought at the time. Not shouting him down to try to convince him. She was trying to convince herself.

  That must have been why she went so pale just before they set off back down the path yesterday. Her mood had seemed to falter when he began questioning her about the … what did she pretend it was? Chivalric love? What utter nonsense. Do these people seriously believe that the general populace doesn’t see through all that shallow pretence in an instant? A slimy old ambassador slides his disgusting hands over some seventeen year old girl and she is supposed to smile and take it, just because he is rich and he says it’s chivalric love?

  And the people? The crowd? Does she seriously believe that when a noble professes to a platonic friendship with another man’s wife the crowd don’t immediately know he is itching to lift her camicia and lie between her legs? Who do these people think they are? And how stupid do they think the rest of us are?

  Humanism. That’s the name they give it when they’re being smart and trying to convince the rest of us that they live on a higher plane. Plato’s imaginary republic, born again. What rubbish! He had studied humanism at the University of Ferrara and again, later, but with greater cynicism, at Bologna, and he knew exactly what it was. A lie. One great big cynical lie. As if all you had to do to make filth into classical studies was to wear a guarnacchia, or a toga, or some similar full-length over-gown and pretend you are a Greek scholar.

  Look at the paintings they are displaying openly now. One of the last things he had done before leaving Florence was to accept an invitation to see Sandro Botticelli at work on a new painting. Primavera he said it was going to be called, a celebration of springtime renewal and as such, an allegory in recognition of the Medici. Filth. That’s what it was, judging by the preliminary drawings. Young girls in clothes you could see through and all of them with their tits and arses showing. But no doubt, if you say it in a Greek accent and call it allegorical, then it seems it’s all right. These Florentine people are so cynical.

  And the written word is as bad. Humanism they call it, as if everything that is human is somehow to be recognized and respected. But half of what they write is filth. Dante’s ascent of the mountain is portrayed nowadays in such terms that the Mons Veneris immediately leaps to mind. And by the time Marsilio Ficino has finished with the Orphic Hymn to the Sun, metaphors of damp caves leave nothing, yet everything,
to the imagination. And they call themselves Greeks!

  I read Greek and I write it. Quite good Greek, even if I say so myself. Pornographos, writing about prostitutes, that’s what it is. And please don’t tell me it’s just Braccio Martelli and Luigi Pulci who write such filth to each other. Lucrezia stands there and lectures me about her son as if he’s a saint. But look at his so-called poetry. Oh yes, make no mistake, I have read it. I have read them all. The Song of the Bakers , for example:

  Oh pretty women

  Such is our art

  If you’d like something

  To pop in your mouths

  Try this for a start

  And the Song of the Village Lasses:

  We also have some bean-pods, long

  And tender morsels for a pig,

  We have still others of this kind,

  But they’re well-cooked, quite firm and big,

  And each will make a foolish clown

  If you first take the tail in hand

  Then rub it gently up and down

  And then there’s that other one, Song of the Peasants, that the crowd were chanting together just before I left Florence:

  Cucumbers we’ve got and big ones

  Though to look at, bumpy and odd

  You might almost think they had spots on

  But they open passages blocked

  Use both hands to pluck them

  Peel the skin from off the top

  Mouths wide open and suck them

  Soon you won’t want to stop

  If that isn’t filth, I don’t know what is.

  By this time he had worked himself into a lather of indignation and self-righteousness, but still she had not shown herself, which was perhaps as well. Then Piero Malagonelle appeared, climbing carefully down the steep stone steps that come down the side of her house, a house which, because of the steepness of the ground here beside the river, had had to be cut hard into the cliff-face.

  ‘Are you waiting for Mona Lucrezia?’ After what had been going on in his head, Savonarola found Piero’s voice calm and soothing.

  He nodded. ‘We usually talk at this time of day.’

  ‘I know. She sent me to find you. She apologizes, but says she will not be able to meet you today. She has been taken ill, a relapse of some old ailment I understand. We have sent for her doctor who is in Pisa at the moment. But I doubt if he will get here in time.’

  Savonarola opened his eyes wide and stared. ‘You mean you don’t expect her to live?’

  Malagonelle began to laugh. ‘Quite the contrary. I expect her to recover before the doctor gets here. That’s what I meant.’ The project manager took his arm. ‘I’m going to do my weekly tour of inspection. Would you like to join me?’

  Savonarola nodded and fell into step. This may be an opportunity to ask some inadmissible questions. He tried the first. ‘Does Mona Lucrezia really own this place in her own right, or does it technically belong to her son?’

  His companion seemed to have no qualms about replying. ‘Oh no. Make no mistake. Mona Lucrezia is a true woman of substance and in her own right. When she married Piero she was already wealthy and had a clause written into the marriage vows to ensure she kept her own assets separate from her dowry.

  ‘Her paraphernalia?’ His mind was still on the Greek. ‘The possessions of a woman distinct from her dowry.’

  His companion tipped his head on one side. ‘If you say so. I have no Greek. I content myself with the bible, Latin and books of account.’

  They reached the foot of a long row of steps cut steeply into the hillside and one after the other began to climb. Conversation stopped until they reached the top, where the river ran into a huge stone tank, as large as the house below. From it emerged a network of channels and pipes.

  ‘This is the main collecting tank. There’s a settling tank higher up, which holds back any silt and means we don’t have to clean this large one out every year. We have four more, much smaller collecting tanks, on subsidiary streams higher up the valley, to provide alternative water. Each has a different mix of minerals. The rocks around here are so varied that even short distances can change the chemical composition of a stream completely.

  ‘Some we use for drinking, some for plunge-pools, especially for arthritis, and some for douches. But the main flow – through here – flows on with an overspill forming the little waterfall that refreshes the pool you sat beside with Mona Lucrezia.’

  ‘And she owns all this?’

  ‘She leases the land for fifteen ducats a year. She signed a lease into perpetuity with the Commune of Volterra three years ago, although she had signed a shorter term lease before that when work first commenced. The long lease is conditional upon the continuing flow of three out of the four streams. You can’t be too careful nowadays. Ser Francesco d’Antonio, her notary, has been very diligent.’

  ‘And you have improved the accommodation? I assume most of what I saw down below is new?’

  ‘It’s all new. And yes she owns all of it outright. In the end we decided to knock everything down and start again. Some of the foundations were weak and we wanted to put a second storey on the top of the guesthouse. The hotel is completely new too – Lucrezia designed it herself, and the same with the wash house. We now have twelve shower rooms as well as the three large pools you have seen and the plunge pools across over there.’ He pointed towards the edge of the gorge where the main river fell steeply in a series of waterfalls and cascades.

  Slowly, they worked their way downward through the Bagno, examining each pool, building and construction as they went.

  ‘You have to check everything regularly when there’s water involved. We get floods every winter, and some quite heavy spates even in mid-summer. The valley is quite narrow here and there’s nowhere else for the water to go. Bridges are washed away, pools fill up with silt and gravel. It’s a continuous battle.’

  ‘But a profitable business?’ Savonarola was impressed. Whatever reservations he may have had about Lucrezia’s family life among the beautiful people of Florence, she certainly knew how to manage a business and motivate her staff. What a difference, he thought, it might have made had she been given responsibility for running the Medici Bank all those years earlier.

  The project manager nodded and smiled. ‘We can’t complain. The maggese – the busy period – begins in May and runs right through the summer. We still get visitors during the settembrina – from September until the end of October – but then we close for the winter. Then I have my flock to look after in Pomerace.’

  ‘You are a sheep farmer?’

  His companion laughed. ‘No. Well in a sense, I suppose I am. I am the vicar of Pomerace, and many of my flock do, I admit, act like sheep on occasions.’

  ‘And your customers? They come here in small groups?’ The question was unimportant to him, but served to hide his embarrassment.

  ‘In the main. But when the family come, then it’s quite different. Madonna Lucrezia usually brings no more than a dozen, so we are relatively quiet, but when the Magnificent Lorenzo comes, poor Giovanni di Pace is run off his feet.’

  ‘He brings a large entourage?’

  A small shrug. ‘Thirty-three people last time, excluding the soldiers who protected him along the road. Bertoldo di Giovanni, the sculptor, Antonio Squarcialupi, who composes music, two singers, two secretaries, two waiters, a sommelier, five archers, a stable master, two cooks, a wagoner, and assorted grooms and, of course, the servants and hangers-on.’

  There was something about the way he said the last phrase that made Savonarola look up. ‘What sort of hangers-on?’

  ‘You know.’ Emphatically, Piero pursed his lips and shrugged just one shoulder. ‘Singers who don’t sing. Servants who have no tasks. Pretty boys. And girls,’ he corrected himself quickly. ‘They’re not all boys, by any means. But boys or girls, they’re always beautiful. Do you know what I mean?’

  Savonarola nodded his head. ‘I think so.’

  They com
pleted their tour and returned to their starting point. ‘I hope you found that interesting.’

  ‘Very. Thank you.’ Girolamo Savonarola turned away and began to walk down to his room. There could be no doubt. It was a consistent story and if anything, even worse than he had expected.

  Piero waved a hand in farewell. ‘I’ll tell Mona Lucrezia we spoke. Hopefully she will be better soon.’

  Chapter 16

  Leonardo’s Trial

  ‘We must resume our conversations. I was sorry to let you down yesterday.’

  She looked pale, but at the same time the gritty determination he had seen in her face so often before was still there. There was something else too. Watchfulness, almost amounting to distrust that he had not felt previously. He smiled, carefully. It wasn’t going to be an easy choice. What he wanted to say to her would, he knew, be uncomfortable and yet he could not, in all conscience, ignore it. Piero Malagonelle must have known what he was talking about.

  ‘Are you sure you want to talk? I sense that some elements of our recent conversations have displeased you.’

  He saw her expression change and she shook her head. ‘Not at all. I criticize no man for what he believes, nor for speaking his mind. If everyone played the diplomat, we might all go to our graves happy and content, yet universally hated.’

  He could not resist a smile. Drawn as her face still was, she was still fiery inside.

  ‘But?’ Somehow, he knew there would be a but.

  ‘But I sense you have already come to a number of conclusions, and I fear you may have been premature in drawing them quite so soon. In short, I think you are at risk of being misguided. I have been thinking about our conversation the other day. I know you despise us and consider our lives immoral.’ She frowned to herself and shook her head. ‘No. Perhaps amoral is the more appropriate word for what sits in your head. But in that judgement, I believe you are wrong. That is why I stand before you today. That is why I wanted to talk further as a matter of urgency. Because I did not wish matters to rest where they lay when last we went our separate ways.’