Portrait of a Conspiracy

by Donna Russo Morin

“Yes, the Angel.” Leonardo worked upon his vellum. This time his fingers captured the landscape: the treed valley below, each bush, tree, and rock coming to life—a blur and tangle of curved lines, never straight—yet the depth was there. The valley below their feet, the movement of the water, the diminishing appearance of the stream as it ran from their sight.

  “You have seen the painting?” he asked her without lifting his hand.

  “Indeed I have. I have heard your name in the tavern where I sometimes work. Many artists spend their leisure there. Such talk impelled me to see it for myself.” Once more Isabetta divulged a facet of her life known to not a single friend, for the truth of it shamed her. Why then did she feel no such compunction in telling this man her truth? Was it because she knew so much of his, the good and the bad? She didn’t think so.

  “Which inn, signorina?” Leonardo’s lithe hand began to move again; a lush-tailed squirrel scampered on the stream bank across from them and across the page in seconds.

  Isabetta lost all thought save the study of his technique, watching how often his eye strayed from the page to the subject, how he dropped his head from one side and then to the other, changing the perspective of his sight as he adjusted the perspective of his drawing.

  “There are three sorts of people in our world, signorina, those who see, those who see when they are shown, and those who shall never see.”

  Isabetta found his gaze upon her.

  “I believe you are one who sees.”

  To this stranger who she felt was a stranger no more, Isabetta replied, “Sì, Signore da Vinci, I am.”

  Her wide smile answered his slim, charming one.

  “Please, call me Leonardo.”

  Isabetta felt her own eyes bulge just a tad before she could stop them. His request was highly improper; just being here, alone with him, was the height of impropriety. Any other woman would have left long ago.

  “Then you must call me Isabetta.”

  Leonardo tucked his chin, pale eyes crinkling at the corners, and shrugged. “If I must, then I must.”

  They lapsed into companionable silence, one stretching on for how long she did not know or care. He worked, she watched, closing her eyes at times to find the stillness within, one only heightened by his presence. It was only when she saw the shifting of his shadowing did she realize the time had come for her to leave.

  Isabetta rose reluctantly, brushing the leaves and twigs from the skirt of her gown. Leonardo’s gaze followed with almost childlike innocence.

  “I must go,” she said grudgingly.

  “Duty calls,” Leonardo replied, as if he knew more.

  “It does,” she nodded, “as does the Inn of the Three Turtles.”

  A small furrow formed between the man’s dark brows, “The one which stands on the Corso dei Tintori?”

  “The very same.”

  “I have been there. Will you be quite safe making your way?”

  Isabetta knew what he did not say; the tavern was in a rather disreputable part of the city, close to the river and the shanties housing the very poor. Little did he know she lived just north of there, on the very edge where the lines of poverty and prosperity blurred, thrown there by the calamity of her husband’s health.

  “Thank you, Leonardo, for your concern.” The taste of his name was sweet upon her tongue. “Many know me on those streets. I will be quite safe.”

  “If you are sure,” he replied, though he seemed not entirely convinced. “Buonasera, Isabetta.”

  Among the trees and the animals, Isabetta became the lady she had once been as he spoke her name. She gave a fine curtsey, fanning her skirt with grace. “Buonasera, Leonardo.”

  Isabetta could linger no longer. She turned and began her way back along the trail.

  “Isabetta?”

  His call stopped her short and she turned back with far too much willingness.

  Leonardo smiled over his pointed shoulder. “Perhaps we will see each other here again.”

  There was hope in his words, wasn’t there?

  “That would be lovely, Leonardo,” she said quickly, before she could stop herself, hurrying swiftly on her way.

  • • •

  She stood at the threshold of their bedchamber. Vittorio slept soundly beneath a thin linen. The small room felt still and warm with the last of the day’s sunlight streaming through the one small, unglazed window.

  He had a bad day, Isabetta thought with a pang of guilt. He had not the strength to light the lanterns or the tapers. His breathing came raggedly and his chest rose and fell in fits and starts.

  The memory of him bloomed in her mind; the tall, ruggedly handsome young man who had come into her father’s glass factory in Venice a little more than seven years ago, the man she had loved from the moment he aimed his wide smile her way. It took only months for their love to bloom and grow, for her to leave her family and her homeland behind for the sake of the man who became her husband.

  Did the troubles start when they knew there would be no children for them or were there no children because he became ill?

  Isabetta shook her head at the question, one asked far too many times. The answer would make no difference.

  She made for the small kitchen and the embers still glowing in the bottom of the cooking grate. Coaxing it up to a fire, she put the kettle of broth on the spit to warm and lit a taper. From this small flame, she lit others, and a lantern as well.

  Vittorio, awake and aware, struggled to sit up.

  Dropping the lantern quickly on the chest by the door, Isabetta rushed to help him.

  “You must at least let me try,” he said, his once smooth voice now rough and raw, his throat damaged by years of coughing. He let her pull him to a sitting position, allowed her to arrange the bolsters behind his back so he did not slip back down. “How will I get strong if I do not try?”

  How she admired his hopeful outlook, one she did not share. How she loathed a world that turned love into an anchor.

  She kissed his forehead, relieved to find it cool. “Let me get your broth.”

  Isabetta sat on the edge of the bed and helped him eat the thin soup. It was all the food remaining since before that day, since she had been able to get some ingredients to make more.

  They spoke of what went on in the city. Isabetta told him what she had learned of the state of affairs. Vittorio didn’t ask where she had been or to whom she had spoken. He never did, not anymore. Isabetta was no longer sure if he knew when she was there and when she wasn’t as the days of his illness stretched beyond two years. She knew only how he delighted in her company, as much as in those first, blissful days, and she gave him as much as she could and as much as she could bear.

  Isabetta lifted the spoon again. This time he shook his head, and with a gentle touch pushed her hand away.

  “Look how well you did.” Isabetta put on her smile, one she had learned just for him, and showed him the bowl, almost empty, before placing it on the bedside table. “I have not seen you eat this much in many a day.”

  He smiled, dry lips cracking with the effort. “It is your fine cooking and lovely company, cara mia.”

  Always my chivalrous gentleman, Isabetta thought with yet another twinge of onus. She had grown used to them, as she had to her husband’s condition. Isabetta saw how much their time together and the effort to eat had tired him. She talked softly, talked of nothingness, allowing her voice to grow quieter with each word. Within minutes he was once more asleep.

  Standing, she gently removed the bolsters, easily slipped his wasting form down upon the ticking, and tucked him into his linen yet again. She stood over him until the tears threatened and then she turned, only to be aimed for her next duty, for such was her life, a series of duties dotted now and again with the brightness of paint.

  Isabetta could be thankful for one thing: Vittorio slept before she left for the tavern. How he hated that their circumstances forced her to such lowly work. She had no choice if they were to pay for
the taxes on their small shop. Without the shop, they would lose all. They would become a part of those wretched lives existing in shanties along the river.

  As she removed one gown and put on another—the simple muslin she wore to the tavern—her eyes held upon her own body clothed in no more than chemise and kirtle. Firm still with her youth, curves abounded, aching to be touched. Isabetta allowed her own hands to slip down the sides of her hips, eyes closed, imagining. It was not the hands of the sickly man in the other room, nor of the young, vital man he had once been. It was the long and lithe hands of Leonardo she saw on her body.

  • • •

  “You are late,” the gruff squawk reached her from the back corner of the tavern. The inn was almost half-full, more than she expected in light of events. Those among this clientele were not the sort to fear much; they were mostly feared.

  “My husb—” she began.

  “Yes, yes, your sick husband,” Drago yelled as he approached her. He tottered like a child learning to walk. He shoved the cloth and bucket of dirty water in her hands. “We have heard your story too many times. Get to work.”

  “Yes, Drago.”

  She worked feverishly, the energy coming easily on the wave of all the happenings of the day replaying in her mind. Her fear for Lapaccia spurred her on, to make her way back home, to look for any sketches of the missing painting she might have made. Visions of Leonardo, the beauty of the man set among her favorite of places—his eyes, his hands, the trees, the sky. Isabetta needed to expend the forces building up within her.

  She thought she was alone as she began to mop the filthy floor; no doubt it had not been done for the last few days, the last time she herself had done it. When the gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder, she jumped in fear.

  “Oh, my pardon, Isabetta, I am sorry to have frightened you.”

  “No, no ’tis fine, Delfina,” Isabetta said.

  “Do not let his grousing bother you.” Delfina ticked her head over her shoulder toward the back room of the tavern. Orphaned young, taken in by the underworld, Isabetta’s unique acquaintance had been lost to the darkness of life as a poverty stricken stray. Like other prostitutes, Isabetta’s friend sat as an artist’s model, making a pittance in comparison to what she made on her back. Isabetta had asked her to sit for her, clothes on for once. Delfina returned the kindness, appeasing Drago whenever he threatened to fire Isabetta. “His prick is as limp as the noodles he cooks.”

  “Hah!” Isabetta barked a laugh. “You are terrible, Delfina.”

  She drew closer to Isabetta as she whispered, “I am sorry to hear of your friend, la donna Cavalcanti.”

  “What do you mean, Delfina?”

  The woman put a hand to her heart. “Now I am truly sorry, Isabetta. I thought you would have heard. I know you had mentioned a fine acquaintance with the lady so I thought…I mean surely by now you…oh dear.”

  Delfina dumped herself into a chair.

  “Worry not, Delfina. I do know. I was just…so very surprised to hear someone speak of it. I would not think many knew.”

  “Men are going missing by the dozens, most finding their way to the end of a rope.” The woman’s gaze flitted about. “It’s true some women have been exiled, but it is mostly Pazzi women so far. Not a woman has gone missing, no one but the lady herself.”

  Isabetta took in all this with a stoic face, even as her mind screamed with growing fear. She had mentioned Lapaccia by accident one day when in Delfina’s company, that they knew each other through Lapaccia’s work at the orphanage, charity work Isabetta herself conducted before she herself had become a charity. She would never reveal even a thought of the group itself, not to a soul.

  “How did you come to know of it?” she asked Delfina.

  Delfina leaned across the table, brought her voice down to a whisper. “There is a friend of mine, a man who thinks himself important in the government. He likes to boast about his grandness, as if it would excite me.” Delfina gave a shrug. “He may be old and corpulent, but he is quick and generous. If he wants to talk politics during, I let him. He talked about Mona Cavalcanti’s disappearance at length just last eve.”

  “At length?”

  “Well, yes, I think so.” Delfina scrunched her face with thought. “About her missing and how they were looking for her. The Medici. And something about a painting, I think.”

  “Any word on where they think she may be?”

  Delfina shook her head, sloppily piled hairs dancing with the motion. “Nothing I recall.”

  Isabetta brought steepled fingers to her lips. “Thank you, Delfina, I appr—”

  “Do you search for her?” Delfina cut her off. And suddenly, strangely, the girl’s cheeks blossomed and her eyes twinkled again. “Because if you do, I may know a way you could learn more.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Heaven and Hell, both may bring the pain.”

  “I must go out again, mama.” Mattea dropped the veil over her braided auburn hair. Her skin itched; she could not find a place to put herself at ease. Fear niggled at her; not only for Lapaccia, but for them all, what they dared to do. And yet the thought of reproducing such a creation…her body tingled with the expectation of it. She had to walk.

  “But you have only just returned.”

  “Dio mio.”

  “Language, Mattea, if you please.”

  “I left my rosary at church.” Mattea looked away from the sharp black eyes piercing her. “I could not forgive myself if they were lost.”

  She put a hand to the door once more.

  “You will not find a husband walking the streets alone and in such desolate days,” Concetta Zamperini chided her only child.

  Mattea sniffed, “The chances of me finding a husband are not good on any day.” They were harsh words, if quietly said, and she turned back to her mother, regretting them more at the forlorn sight.

  The woman’s lower lip trembled. “He did as much for us as he could with the time God gave him.” Concetta reached out a veiny hand to place upon her daughter’s unblemished one. “I know you have felt his absence deeply. What young girl wouldn’t?”

  Mattea began to shake her head, but it would be meaningless; indeed, what young girl wouldn’t miss her father, growing up without the most important of all men to tell her she was beautiful.

  “He provided,” her mother continued. “He sold the business without the government knowing and we will always have the money we need to pay the taxes. We will never lose our home, he made sure.”

  Releasing her hold on the door, she held her mother’s hand instead. “He did, mama. He did better than many other men would have done.”

  Her words brought a smile to her mother’s pale face. “You shall see. You have your dowry fund. It will bring you a fine man.”

  “I must go, mama.” The words had turned her, and Mattea longed once more for escape. “I will return quickly, I promise. I will be here to make your supper.”

  She slipped out then, before her mother could say more.

  Meandering back toward the Church of Santo Spirito, should she be seen by any of her mother’s friends, Mattea dragged her plain, worn slippers over the pavement stones.

  She felt at ease in the desolate streets of the wealthy quarter. Free, for once, from supercilious eyes raking her with their judgment, the denigration of a single young woman walking the streets. Her poverty clung to her, as did her threadbare gown; no one would ever think her part of the Pazzi plot. No one would see her—few ever did. Heartsick at the scourge upon her homeland she may be, she ambled in the quiet and the freedom.

  She turned onto the Borgo San Jacopo to follow the river out of the far less opulent Santa Croce district where she and her mother lived, and she almost laughed at her mother’s brand of chastisement.

  There was money in her government dowry fund. Put there by her late father since her birth, it was money she would lose if she did not marry in the next few years. There was enough to buy her a simple
man, but it was not a simple man haunting her dreams, bringing her the only other satisfaction in her world. It was a satisfaction of such magnificence, it made her shudder at the very thought of him. A man of such high standing, it would be an outrage for them to consider a life together, yet she could think of a life with no other.

  The frustration ate at her.

  She saw him in her mind—a Greek god come to life: the body of Hercules, the face of Adonis, topped by a thick head of raven hair falling in waves to his shoulders. They wafted behind him when he walked, like a banner of privilege, and set his whole being on fire when the sun touched him. He set her on fire just thinking of his touch.

  Frustration.

  Mattea heaved a sigh full of it as she wandered onto the Via Bardi, the road taking its place along the Arno. She would forsake the river’s crossing at the Ponte Vecchio. Though she was sure most of the fine shops along the gently arching bridge would still be closed, she had no wish to even see the fine wares in their windows.

  Someday, I will have more of—

  The man grabbed her from behind, snatching her and her thoughts away.

  “Gesumarie!” Mattea released a cry. But then she saw the face—his face—and all dread and distress disappeared.

  It was him, as if conjured by her very thoughts, of things wanted but just out of reach.

  Mattea laughed as she quickened her step, all too eager to keep up, to follow his long cape, a banner unfurling behind him. He turned them right, down one of the narrowest of streets, no more than an alleyway, but she followed him without question, the excitement in her chest pounding against her ribs, thrumming in her ears.

  Costa San Giorgio tapered as they followed its winding path, the buildings on either side so close together not a ray of descending sun crept in.

  “Where do you take me?”

  He only smiled over his shoulder, light brown eyes sparkling with mischief, a sensual laugh emerging from deep in his chest. A wave of desire made her weaker. Mattea knew what she did with him was a sin, yet she had not made the rules they must live by, had not built the societal walls separating them. If he and what they did together were the fires of hell, she would gladly burn.