“Did they?” Viviana whispered fearfully.
“No. They waited for death to take him and then they hauled him back in.”
“They what?” This was a story filled with shock upon shock.
“It is true.” Beatrice leaned in close to share her tale intimately, as gossipers do. “No one knows for sure, but many of us waited for some of the soldiers to come out. Marcella knows Simonetta whose son Arturo is one of the men of the Eight and she, Simonetta, told Marcella, who told me, they were going to bury him, and at his own family chapel, no less.”
Viviana knew her words as truth. Beatrice was never one to exaggerate for all the drama used to tell the tale. Nor did the final resting place come as a surprise. Messer Jacopo was one of Florence’s greatest sons, or he had been. How badly Viviana wanted to believe the rumors of his confession, of the blame resting firmly on the slanted shoulders of the slimy Francesco.
As a young girl, she had looked up to Messer Jacopo like a hero, for such was how the people of Florence spoke of him. How desperately she needed a male hero in her life, as much then as now. It was so very easy to put the badge upon his already decorated chest.
Now she wondered, was there never to be a man in her life she could truly call a champion? For this cavaliere, this knight who stood upon the top of government buildings and defiled the name of others as the devil, this was no hero. Her already damaged heart suffered yet another crack.
Chapter Seventeen
“Every life holds its own horrors.”
“Did you not hear me call?”
Viviana flinched in her chair. Half the sketches upon her lap slipped down onto the floor.
She dropped to her knees as if thrown, gathering them up before her husband could see them, could see the subject matter upon them, for surely Orfeo knew by now of Lapaccia’s disappearance, the rumors of the painting, and her alleged thievery.
“Forgive me, husband, I did not hear you with the door closed.”
Orfeo stood in the threshold of the now open portal, eyes raking the parchments and Viviana with the same contemptuous glance.
“You waste your time with your silly drawings again. Did we not speak of this? Can you not find something more intellectually fitting to do?”
“Yes, Orfeo, we have discussed it, but—”
“Do not bother me with your excuses. If you need stimulations, I suggest you contemplate the Bible and all it has to teach you, including obeisance to your husband. Is there supper for me?”
“I am quite sure Beatrice can—”
“Make sure,” he snipped, and spun on his heel, stomping into his own chamber.
Viviana hid the sketches once more in the bottom of the chest. Orfeo had been gone so long and she studied them so often, she had not been bothering to hide them. Rising, she wished fervently he made for a change of clothes. He reeked in those he had worn for days. As she rushed upstairs to the kitchen, she prayed Beatrice had indeed begun an evening repast, for a hungry Orfeo was a terrible creature, one that made his normal conduct appear near to saintly.
Thankfully, she did find cena prepared and pleasant, and almost ready.
Within minutes, a freshly attired Orfeo sat across from her. On the table between them was a finely prepared tomaselle, the liver sausage, one of Orfeo’s favorite dishes, as well as freshly baked bread, fresh peaches, and thin slices of parmigiano, its potent aroma adding a zest to the meal and its biting taste flavor to the still warm bread.
“How goes it at the Signoria, Orfeo? Is all still in chaos?” Viviana nibbled.
“Il Magnifico has written to Milan, asking for military support.” As he shoveled food into his mouth with stubby fingers, Orfeo was all too eager to tell of the events of the last two days, as if he had a hand in them.
“Will there be war?” she asked.
He nodded his head, mouth too full for a moment to speak, his greasy grin giving his opinion on the matter.
“All but one Pazzi brother and cousin have been taken,” Orfeo began his lecture with a salacious pronouncement. “We were not able to get our hands on Antonio, Bishop of Sarno, and Mileto, one of Jacopo’s nephews, but he has been condemned in absentia, confined for life to his diocese. All Pazzi men have been charged with conspiracy, murder, and attempt to murder.”
“All?” Viviana raised her brows at this. There were so many Pazzi men, of many branches; she found it difficult to accept they were all part of this heinous act.
Orfeo nodded. “They do not speak. Silence is tantamount to treason. It is enough.”
Viviana could not object to such a thought. If she were accused of such a crime, she would scream her innocence until she had neither voice nor breath left within her.
Orfeo stood, suddenly finished, without thanks or preamble.
“I am for bed. I have been without the comfort of it for far too many days.”
Viviana dipped her chin in silent prayer for his leave-taking, but too soon.
“You are with me.” It was not a request, but a demand.
It was well she had not eaten much, for surely were her stomach full, she would be retching it up at the thought of what was to come. Her husband’s sexual practice—never could it be called love-making—was selfish and quick, but to have his hands upon her filled her with disgust. She had long since learned to hide it and pretend satisfaction, for her sake, not his. It was never an act of coupling, but of control.
Viviana rose slowly, following behind at a sluggish pace, and entered the bedchamber as if she entered the Palazzo della Signoria as one of the Pazzi. She stood by the bed, neither moving nor disrobing.
“What of the others?” Viviana prompted, as he removed his doublet. Perhaps she could keep him talking until fatigue overtook him.
“There have been at least another ten hangings, perhaps more. Men who were known associates of the Pazzi. The younger Pazzi have been exiled to Volterra.”
“Which ones?” Viviana kept her mind whirling with questions to ask.
Orfeo waved his hand in a dismissive, all-encompassing gesture. “Galeotto, Lionardo, Raffaele. More still. I forget their names.”
Viviana held her tongue at the mention of such young boys, their ages ranging from fifteen to seven, lives forever ruined by the action of a few of their brethren.
“And what of Renato? You have not mentioned him?”
Orfeo laughed, a darkly contemptuous laugh she knew well. “Ah, yes, Renato, the oldest nephew. We had a fine time with him.”
Viviana’s hands clenched by her side.
“He tried running, the fool,” Orfeo chuckled, “but only as far as his villa in Mugello. He claimed he had been there since before the attack and therefore could have had no part in it, but none believed him.”
He pulled his shirt over his head. Orfeo stood before her in a bumptious pose, sagging breasts and flaccid flesh jutted, arms akimbo as if he were one of Donatello’s most regal statues.
“But his own cleverness was his undoing. He was too clever, too esteemed, we could not let such a Pazzi survive, such a lineage continue.” Orfeo’s sneer was of a man well-pleased with himself and his doings. “Not only did we hang him, we hung him in a peasant’s costume.”
Viviana cocked her head. “In what?”
“In the clothes of a dead beggar; a skimpy gown, dirt gray and made of coarse wool. That and nothing else, save his boots and spurs.”
“I…it must have been quite the sight. I am quite sure the Signoria sent a strong message with such an act.”
“Indeed.” Orfeo stepped closer, pulling at the pins holding her long nut-brown hair atop her head. It dropped upon her shoulders and down her back, and he shook it out with his fingers. But then he held, dropping his hand to his side. “Yes, you would think it was a statement to silence all others, but it has not. There is a faction of the people—Pazzi followers—though they would not attest to it if questioned, who are spreading a tale that Renato was opposed to the conspiracy, that he spoke against it to his f
amily members.”
Viviana had met the man; he was indeed an amiable and non-confrontational sort. “Perhaps such a tale is true. Certainly not all Pazzis can be cut of the same cloth.”
“You dare defend them?”
The back of his open hand against her face expulsed all air from her lungs. Viviana fell back upon the bed. In a breath, he hurled his body upon hers, pinning her to the ticking. She felt it, the anger coursing through him, vibrating through his scrawny body, anger lit by seeing her with the sketches, further enflamed by her questioning words.
With one hand he threw up her skirts, with the other he unlaced his breeches.
With one thrust, he enforced his will upon her without invitation. Orfeo ripped into her, sneering down at her, victorious.
Viviana gasped, biting her lip. She turned her head from the gargoyle above her. One silent tear ran down her temple as he pounded her, but she would not cry out, she would not beg for relief even as she wondered if this would be the one time, of so many like it, she did not survive. With brutal sex, he did what he could not do in life—best her.
• • •
She moved not an inch. Was it minutes or hours? She knew not. But she barely dared to breathe as she waited for him to fall asleep. He made it plain when he did, for the noises began almost instantaneously. Orfeo snored with a cornucopia of sounds, as if every instrument of an orchestra blared out of tune and at once. In the sanctuary of his slumber, Viviana slithered out of bed, fearful of waking him even now, fearful of a reprisal.
Viviana, the wraith, walked the house on the pads of her bare feet, looking in each empty room, at the furniture she had purchased as a young hopeful bride, at the accumulated objects meant to mark the joyful passages of her life. But the more she walked, the more rooms she peeked in, the emptier she saw the house.
Entering her salon, she could not bear to light a candle, to look at yet more meaningless things. The ewer beside the corner perched basin was full, as always, with tepid rose water. She found it in the gray light of a half moon, its elusive illumination casting all it touched with a strange half-existence. Eagerly she dropped the stained silk and lace chemise. Vigorously, angrily, she scrubbed her skin with the tinctured cloth, until every inch was red, until every scent of him had been banished. Abandoning the chemise in its crumple upon the floor, she took up another from the wardrobe as well as a fresh wrapping gown.
Pulling the worn, soft fabric tighter round her body, she sat gently on her fine settee, but even its softness could not protect her from the pain of contact on the battered, most delicate parts of her body. Curling up in a ball on the small couch, she stared unblinking at the blank wall before her, until her mind became equally as blank, until she finally, mercifully, slept.
Chapter Eighteen
“An all too willing accomplice comes when most needed.”
Isabetta stood at the tip of the square, where one lane diverged to two. In one direction lay the craving of her heart, in the other her duty. Isabetta took the lane to the right, leading to the market square, the butcher’s row, and her husband’s shop.
“Signora, ah signora, Heaven itself has led you here.”
He pounced on her shadow, not but a foot yet across the threshold. Marzio Beccaio may be a master cleaver, a charmer with customers, but he was a wretched businessman. That was her husband’s purview, or at least it had been.
“The customers, signora, they are growing angrier and angrier. They pound on the door for us to open.” Marzio wiped his short, wide hands on a blood-spattered apron, ringing them with the harsh canvas. “They want meat and our vendor has not arrived for three days.”
“I understand, Marzio,” Isabetta cooed as she would to small animals and children. She walked through the empty shop, heading for the curtain and the small cubby behind it.
Marzio followed quickly on her heels, reminding her of a man whose growth stopped halfway, except for his feet, for they were far larger than his short, slim frame required.
“The beef and veal ran out days ago. All we have is pork and I save that for the few who have been with us since the beginning. I had no choice but to close.”
The lament pushed her into the back room, to the rickety walnut table serving as a desk and the small stool before it. Even as she brought more order to the already well-arranged papers, she allowed Marzio to continue his whimpering. It was the only way he would stop.
“When will your husband return, signora? Vittorio may know another source of goods.”
Isabetta looked up, a sharp retort on the tip of her tongue, one she bit back and swallowed. The man’s small eyes, dots of black in a paling face, were as mopish as the deep frown upon his almost lipless mouth. She reached out and patted him on his still quaking hands. He could not know that she had kept this business functioning for the last two years; she would not hold his ignorance against him.
“Fear not, Marzio. Vittorio is still not well enough to return, b—”
“Oh, Dio mio!” Marzio wailed.
“But,” Isabetta continued, raising her voice, holding up a folded piece of parchment, “he gave me distinct instruction on what to order and from whom for now. He also gave me instructions on how to work the ledger a bit more.” Isabetta cast her gaze downward, hoping the lie would be forgiven when it came time for her final judgment. She knew more of ledger keeping than Vittorio ever hoped to. “So have no fear. Please tell our customers more meat will be here within a day, two at the very most, and we shall reopen then.”
Marzio threw up his callused hands, crossed himself with one, kissing the tips of his fingers in the final flare of the gesture. “Praise be, signora, praise be.”
“Now return to your work, Marzio, and I will to mine.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Grazie, signora, grazie tante.”
The thud of the cleaver meeting the heavy block of bloodied wood resumed, and she turned to the small fire chasing the morning chill from the little office and dropped the blank piece of creased paper into it. There was more meat coming, not the wealth of product the shop typically offered, but enough. She had seen to the order herself that morning. Such truth Marzio need not know.
• • •
Isabetta hurried down the Via dei Benci, across the bridge and through the Porta San Miniato, the southeastern gate, closest to the shop. She needed a quick escape above all else.
She scampered into the woods, flaxen hair fluttering, eyes glimpsing over her shoulder. Every step brightened with yearning as she followed the path snaking up the hill, up and away from the city imprisoning her, each pointed cypress a dark foliaged finger pointing to the cloudless sky as if in exclamation of its loveliness.
Cresting a small rise, Isabetta held. Bending forward, she squinted her eyes to see the figure on the path in the near distance. It could not be; it simply could not be. But there was no mistaking the reddish golden floss, no matter that it was protected today by a brimmed beretto of dark gray wool, one matching his short artist’s tunic.
Isabetta’s heart fluttered in her chest. Her feet followed Leonardo da Vinci for many minutes, through thicket and bramble, as the path became less distinct, and the hill ascended higher.
As she reached the peak and the trail’s end, all manner of effort was well rewarded.
Isabetta stood at the very edge of a treeless dell, one revealing a tumbled down ruin the size of wealthy man’s palazzo, scattered remnants dropped haphazardly as a fall tree drops its leaves. Here, a cluster of stones marked a partial circular design, the remainder of a hamlet’s protective wall. Over there a broken column, still somehow majestic with its bleached marble and its uneven, tattered top. Everywhere blocks of stones lay cast about, some partly buried in the ground and embraced by thick vines, others mottled by moss and time.
And there, perched high atop a square stone leaning in a zigzag pattern against two others, sat Leonardo himself, his elegant beauty never more at home than among such magnificence. In all the years Isabetta had climbed
these hills, finding refuge among them, she had never come upon this place of rubble beauty. She stepped closer.
“Sig…Isabetta,” he called.
Isabetta clutched the book she carried, how glad for it she was, how grateful for the excuse of quiet reading she would use.
“You found me,” Leonardo chirped merrily.
Perhaps there would be no fooling this man after all.
“So it would seem,” Isabetta replied, and made her way carefully around the debris of what once was, until she reached the artist and his lofty perch. She held a hand above her eyes to shield them from the glare of the midday sun.
“I do not think I shall try to come up,” she laughed.
“Then I shall come down.”
Leonardo clasped his leather portfolio tightly and scurried down the large boulders. “How does the day find you, mistress?” He smiled with his small, lovely curved mouth, blue eyes piercing in the bright light of midday.
“Well, thank you,” Isabetta replied, though she longed to say better now. “And you, Leonardo?”
“Very well, indeed.”
And he seemed so, seemed bursting with light and brightness and life.
They found a place where they both could sit comfortably among the rocks and stones. Here the sun found its way through the trees; the warmth of it reached her, chasing away the morning cold.
Leonardo opened his leather folio. His request when it came, softly, lyrically, was like the presentation of a gift.
“May I draw you, Isabetta?”
It was as if he asked to make love to her, so intimate was the request, so stirred was she by the thought. But it was not the request of an inexperienced lover, but of a master. To be drawn by an artist such as da Vinci was the height of compliment. She kept the discomposure his request kindled tight within, laughing silently as she thought of what Viviana would do. Her friend would have yelped her assent until she chased the birds from their nests.
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