From her perch on the floor, she opened the wardrobe door, shoulders popping up to her ears at the screech of the old hinges.
Mattea held her breath, listening for any evidence that the sound had roused her mother. Allowing herself to breathe again, Mattea stuck her head into the wardrobe, posterior rising in the air as her head bent downward, down to the false bottom she had built when she first became part of the group of women artists. Here, in this small cubby, she kept the sketches she brought home to work on during the nights she could not sleep—those too many nights.
“What in the name of heaven are you doing?”
Mattea jumped, hitting her head against the door. She grunted, rubbing the offending spot as she twisted about, laying eyes upon her mother—wide-awake and far too curious—standing in her doorway.
“Must you sneak up on me like that?”
Concetta frowned, raising one thinning gray brow. “I do not sneak,” she announced as if insulted. “I walked gracefully, as I always do. It is not my fault you were unable to hear me with your head stuck in there. Bringing me to ask again what are you doing?”
Mattea rubbed her head some more though the flinch of pain had subsided. She needed a moment to think, to explain such an awkward position.
“I am…um…I’m going through my gowns.” Mattea swung round and stood. “I’m going through my gowns to see which I may add some embroidery to. Seems silly not to put my skills to my own advantage, not just those who pay me to do so,” she said. “Perhaps…” she knew where she was going, she knew exactly which words to say to distract her mother, “perhaps if my gowns were more appealing, I may attract the eye of a suitor.”
“Oh, oh Mattea!” Concetta threw her arms about her daughter’s body, crushing her head to Mattea’s chest. “At long last you think to find a husband. My prayers have finally been answered.”
Mattea rolled her eyes; she had opened this kettle of fish, but it would be she that would fry for it.
“I am just planning, mama, no more. Let us not think too much of this.” Guiding her mother gently toward the door, Mattea continued, “You return to your work, and I will return to mine. We will talk more of this another day, yes?”
Still teary-eyed, but smiling, Concetta gave her daughter yet another hug, scurrying away sprightly on tiptoes. Mattea returned to the wardrobe.
Quickly this time, she lifted the flat wood of the false bottom, pulled the stack of parchment and vellum—both the large pieces and the scraps—from its depths, and thrust them to her chest. With an eye to the door and the empty hall beyond, she scuttled into the small space between her bed and the wall in a crouch, rested the horde upon her knees, and her back upon the bed. Forgetting all else save the memory of the painting, she began her investigation.
It didn’t take long to become impatient with herself, with her voracious sketching and the overwhelming amount of drawings she waded through.
But then finally she found them, those of the painting. Mattea dropped to the floor, sitting, legs akimbo, and mouth hanging open, not a single thought in her mind for gowns or men.
There were so many of them. As she analyzed them, over and over, the unremarkable suddenly became obvious. So many details glaring with truth, unseen for all their brilliance.
The first jumped out at her, as if the dimensionality of the painting truly existed. The garland of roses woven into the candelabrum above the gathering of men, its symbolism one of the most oft used in paintings. What was discussed beneath the roses, sub rosa—under the rose—was held in sacred confidence. It immediately identified the men below it—some whose faces she recognized, some who no longer lived—as belonging to each other, bound by secrets.
“Did you know—” Once more her mother had crept up upon her, once more she had been caught unaware by the small woman’s stealth.
“Oh…Dio mio…mama!” Mattea shoved the odd pile of papers under her bed, turning round in one swift movement, and flopping her torso onto the ticking, her head in her hands.
“I only thought to tell you—”
“Can you not tell me in the morning?” Mattea raised her head. In doing so, she saw the hopeful look upon her mother’s face, a hope misplaced, but it brought color to the elderly woman’s cheeks, a brightness Mattea had not seen there in many a day.
“Tell me now, dear mamina,” she said softly.
“I thought you might like to know that I’ve heard the vintner’s son is looking for a wife.”
As if she told the secret of the universe, Concetta smiled smugly at her daughter, hands folding across her chest.
Mattea blinked. “The vintner’s son? Do you mean the cross-eyed one, or the one so fat they had to widen the door to allow him to enter his own room?”
Mattea looked to the heavens. Perhaps the last was an exaggeration, but the young man was hideously corpulent. The thought of being his wife, of doing with him what she did with…
Mattea shivered, it could not be borne.
“I will not have the vintner’s son, either of them,” Mattea tried her best to keep the cutting edge of exasperation from her voice. “There is the right man for me out there, mama, I know there is. We just have to be…”
In her mind, Mattea heard the words, those denying the possibility of him and a life together, but she pushed them away.
“…hopeful. We just have to be hopeful, sì?”
Concetta’s bright smile fell away. “Sì, yes, of course. Hopeful.”
Her mother needed no further prodding. With a kiss upon her daughter’s check, she shuffled away, to her room, and the bed awaiting her there.
Mattea watched the small figure retreat, waiting for the sound of her mother’s door to click as it shut, and scurried back to her niche by her bed, retrieving the abandoned sheaves.
She peered closer still, studying the finer details of the full rendering. It was a scene within a scene. There, in the small, round, stained glass window centered in the wall behind the large table that dominated the picture. It showed the tiniest depiction of the god and her triumphal vehicle, but it was her, there could be no doubt of it. The vehicle was a decorated barge being slowly pulled through low waves by graceful harnessed swans. It was the vehicle of April.
Aphrilis is derived from the Greek “Aphrodite,” Mattea closed her eyes as she remembered her schooling, one could surmise that the month was named for the Greek goddess of love, whom the Romans called Venus.
“And one could,” Mattea said to herself with decisiveness, “surmise that this tiny picture made implicit the timing of the attack.”
She shook her head, pulling out blank parchment and a sharpened piece of charcoal, for she had no time to prepare the paper for her silverpoint.
“Oh, the folly of men,” she muttered.
These details needed enlarging, not only to present her evidence to the group, but to allow them to reproduce them more exactly. She touched the tip of the charcoal, she felt the rush just before the moment of creation. Mattea’s hand began to move.
It flowed fast here at the beginning, the technique they had all adopted after reading and rereading Caterina’s journals. Move quickly at first. Render lightly the basic shape and proportions.
This Mattea did and with ease. Soon she drew life from such lines, altering the thickness and thinness of her strokes. In this manner, she made them work for her, emphasizing the rhythm of the objects, the metaphorical and symbolic power of each shape. A master at the technique of foreshortening—that which allowed for the addition of dimension—Mattea became lost to the ecstasy of making art. It was unlike any feeling she had ever known, even that which she felt when in his arms.
Remember the power of negative space. Let it ride along the outside of the form.
Place the object skillfully in its environment, it will breathe life into the work.
Caterina’s words were the prayers inside her head as she worked quickly, ever more quickly. Sketching was fast work—to do it slowly would be to lose the move
ment of the object, the life of it.
She would give life to these sketches, the women would give life to the painting, and to the men within it, they would bring their end.
Chapter Fifteen
“Knowing and seeing are not always believing.”
The brittle quiet held the city in a firm, stifling grip, and a bitter wind pushed hard at Viviana. She trod the same route she had taken a few days ago, the same route she had taken for years, yet it was through a strange land that she now trudged. The sun itself, still clinging to the horizon, hid behind a blur of clouds, as if in fear of what it might see. The beauty and brightness of Ascension Sunday had been swept away with a dark and dirty broom. Her boys had returned to their barracks, her husband had not yet returned to his home, only under such absence of male dominion did she have the freedom for what some may call her foolish excursion.
Viviana dared go to the Mercato, as she did every day, as every Florentine did most days, this day with Jemma shuffling by her side. The market was the nexus of everyday life. At dawn, the gates of the city opened, the space filling with people, donkeys, horses, and carts, scrambling to be the first to reach the arcade.
In turn, the people of the city clamored to reach the marketplace first, to put the best these farmers and merchants had to offer in their baskets.
But not today.
At a time when the Via Calimara should be crowded with people, nothing save dust and litter rolled in the street, and no more than a few stragglers showed themselves. Those who did wander about—strange men with ill-fitting and ragged clothes casting squinted eyes up and down beleaguered streets—made Viviana glad to have worn her plainest gown and partlet with no adorning gamurra and not a single piece of jewelry, save the hidden chain and the key. Viviana looked around and found the world closed; the shutters of each house and shop remained latched, save for a few.
And the quiet, it was ceaseless. She had often heard many complain of the inner city noise, preferring the quiet of the surrounding hillsides outside the walls. Viviana found this noise the music of her life and she reveled in its vibrancy. Today, she shivered at its lack.
“We should not be out,” Jemma hissed, shuffling closer to her mistress.
Viviana frowned at her with tender pity. It should rightly be Beatrice, the cook and housekeeper, accompanying her, but the portly woman had not shown up. Circumstances forced Viviana to bring Jemma along in the woman’s stead. Circumstances included that the purse of del Marrone had grown too shallow for any save Jemma and Orfeo’s valet to live in the house.
“No one should be out,” Jemma grumbled. “We must have a care for what comes next.”
Entwining her arm in Jemma’s, Viviana nudged her playfully with a full, round hip. How wise this young girl was, this foundling Viviana had taken from the orphanage to be her maid, a common occurrence among the nobility and the merchants. She had seen the wisdom in the child’s eyes then; she had never once since been disappointed.
“The worst is over. I am sure, little one,” Viviana forced her voice into a bird-like chirp. “Besides we have no eggs and no milk. How will we make the biscuits you love so much?”
Jemma pulled her mistress’s arm tighter in hers and walked along without further complaint. Viviana knew she had done right by not telling the girl her whole truth, that she needed supplies to make the pigments. The girl’s cynicism would have turned quickly to outrage.
They passed the Arte della Seta; it too remained shuttered and closed. It was an odd day indeed when the guildhall of the silk merchants failed to open its doors. As they turned from the large building and onto the Por S. Maria, they found many more people in the streets…
…but they were all dead.
Viviana put hands to her mouth, gut heaving. Jemma shut her eyes into tight creases of flesh.
The human refuse bulged from the paving stones like boulders upon a rocky path, growing in number where the street flowed into the Piazza della Signoria.
“Come, Jemma. Come away.” Viviana spun the girl away. Rushing behind Saint Cecilia’s, she propelled them onto the Via Calimara. Moving as fast as possible, she silently berated herself for her own nonsense. How dare she think the danger was at an end? How dare she bring this girl out into a city still under siege, an onslaught wearing a myriad of faces? Viviana knew herself to be—had always been—too inquisitive for her own good. The girl’s staunch loyalty deserved better than to be dragged out into this living nightmare.
They quickly passed the Arte della Lana, and the hall of the wool guild was also closed and barren. Viviana tugged on Jemma’s hand as the girl tried to look about, not daring to imagine what other sights might await them.
Viviana almost shed a tear of relief at the sight of people, living folk, meandering in a small huddle about the market place.
“See, the Mercato is open.” Viviana shook Jemma’s hand still in hers and gave her the best smile she could muster.
The young girl’s dark brows rose skeptically.
There were, at most, four or five stalls out of thirty with their flaps open and set upon the poles. No more than twenty people hovered about these stalls, clearly uneasy to be out, clearly dissatisfied with the wares available.
“We shall get what we can and call it a victory, yes?”
Rushing into the small fray, Viviana found milk but no eggs, so she purchased bread. One vendor was open for business. His root vegetables—the carrots and parsnips fiorentinos preferred—showed signs of discoloration and were soft to the touch, clearly not recently plucked. Beside them, the tuna seller offered fresh wares, as did the man who sold the salt, their unique dialects blending into a vocal stew. Without her usual relish in price haggling, Viviana purchased what she could with the coins she had brought, and did so with gratitude for these people and the courage that brought them to the tumultuous city.
Neither the herbalist nor the flower seller were on hand. Viviana’s hopes of purchasing any of the necessary ingredients to make the paint remained unrequited. She shrugged her shoulders at Jemma and turned them away, her eye catching on a befuddling sight.
There he was again, Leonardo da Vinci himself. Though they lived in the same small city, Viviana had seen him but three times, twice in the last few days. She felt first a sense of relief, unspeakable delight that he had survived the attack, seemingly unharmed. But within seconds she felt naught but sympathy.
Da Vinci was a tall man and his long legs ate up the ground with his stride. But even still, Viviana could tell he walked at an exerted pace. If he could run without appearing unseemly she believed he would. But from what did he run?
At that moment, he turned his sharply boned face, no more than a flinched glance over his thin shoulders. Viviana followed his gaze and found them.
A hungry pack of giovani—the gangs of young men that roamed the city—were fast on his heels, juvenile men for whom da Vinci’s innocence was not believed, evil rapscallions who viewed the quiet man as easy prey for their games of degradation.
Viviana wanted to shout at them to stop, to leave the brilliant artist alone. She wanted to run and catch up to da Vinci, to walk beside him in support. She did—could do—neither. She could but watch as da Vinci quickly made his way out of the market square and turn a corner, hoping he would slip from the gang and their hurtful games.
She turned back to Jemma, her cloak of sadness a bit thicker. “Come, I feel the need to return ho—”
“Viviana!” It was a prayer intoned; it was a bursting of joyful relief.
Viviana swung about and nearly dropped the basket and all her purchases to the ground.
“What the devil are you doing out alone, Mattea? Are you mad?” she chided even as she embraced her friend.
Mattea’s small, rounded lips formed a moue. “My mother insisted I come out. She demanded to know the state of things this day.”
It was a forceful, well-rehearsed statement, Viviana thought.
“Have you ever seen it like this?” Matt
ea prattled on quickly, in keeping with her usual stoicism. “If my father had lived to see this he would surely have died with grief for his beloved city.”
Keeping the young woman’s hands in hers, Viviana stroked tenderly the tiny needle-puncture marks dotting the girl’s fingers.
“It is the doings of the devil, it must be, no? Such evil as this?” The younger woman cleaved to Viviana for answers, as she had so often in the past. Viviana had little to give Mattea. Little she would want to hear.
Viviana shook her head. “It is the evil of men that brought this, nothing else and no less.”
“But why?” Mattea begged the question, voice thick with her naiveté.
“Where does one begin?” Viviana gave a shrug, gaze scanning the landscape of a changed Florence, as if she could see the domino of events leading them to this moment. “Orfeo tells me bits and pieces, but that is it all it takes, no? Bits and pieces to break us?”
“Are you—” Mattea began, concern etching a thin line between her brows.
“The Pazzis never accepted the power of the Medicis,” Viviana said before Mattea finished asking her question, one Viviana might have no care to answer. “It was a power gained as the Medici family crawled up the steps to glory as opposed to winning it on the battlefield, as did the Pazzis. They have pushed and pulled at each other for years, all under the cloak of a Lord Prior, or a Gonfaloniere, or some such government position. Then the Medicis trifled with the elections, but the Pazzis outwitted them. The Medicis refused a loan to the Pope and the Pope went to the Pazzis.”
Mattea’s long thin fingers clamped upon Viviana’s arms. “You don’t think the Holy Father…”
Bitter cynicism glinted in Viviana’s cold blue eyes. “In truth I am afraid to think, but some things cannot be denied. The Pope turned to the Pazzis for the loan and transferred all the Vatican business to their hands. He put himself in the heart of the feud with his own actions. The Medicis retaliated, how could they not? Back and forth it went. One insult heaped upon another. One maneuver for power countered, until…this.”
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