Tuscan Daughter

by Lisa Rochon

  The crowd surged around her and her head filled with the noise of chaos. Next to her, gray rabbits had been upturned in their wooden cages, and chickens were clawing like madness to escape their woven bags. Clapping her hands against her ears, Beatrice looked to the gates and wanted desperately to be inside the city, where surely her mother would be waiting for her.

  Chapter 3

  Step aside, ugly ones.” A man with a woolen cap and dull gray eyes growled his command and shoved his cart fiercely into the crowd. Beatrice yanked her cart to one side to stay clear. She needed to sell the olive oil in her earthenware jars or go hungry another day. The priest in her village had advised her to begin trading in the city, sweeping the church steps with swift, angry movements while Beatrice stood with her head bowed, her stomach clenched with hunger.

  “An orphan like you—”

  “Father, I am no orphan,” she had said flatly. “I am looking for my mother. She is lost, is all.”

  She remembered how her mother had rocked herself in a corner for days, sobbing and cursing the murderers of her husband.

  “Mamma, can I send for somebody? The healer, the priest?”

  She watched, helpless, as her mother paced their little manor like a caged ferret. Language had left her. She seemed incapable of forming words. With the passing of every day, her despair thickened into a fetid soup that no salve or herbal infusion could remedy.

  It was when her mother started pricking her arms with her sewing needle that Beatrice finally reacted. “I cannot bear this anymore,” she said. “You must go outside, seek counsel with the stars.” She grabbed her mother by the hand and led her outside. She pushed her away from the door and watched her disappear into their olive grove, caressing every tree with her hands and her mouth. I do not recognize her. This woman. These were Beatrice’s last thoughts as she closed the door on her mother.

  “Your mother has fled,” said the priest, averting his eyes from the girl. He was a stout man with a face that reminded Beatrice of a squash gone bad. “Like so many others.”

  “What do you mean, Father?”

  “Women,” he said, shaking his head. “They leave the village to follow the Devil.”

  Beatrice bristled. “My mother is kind and generous in every way. She loved my father—”

  “Love?” He looked at her with disdain. “Well, then. Your mother will discover many variations of that in the city.”

  What the priest meant by that she had no idea. “Love” was a word rarely spoken aloud in her home, but Beatrice knew the emotion by touch and sound, the way her family greeted each other in the morning with gentle kisses on cheeks and, after sundown, the way her parents pulled the coarse blankets tenderly over her while saying a prayer and raising their eyes to the timbers. She would be astonished to discover that love could exist in the deafening, anonymous city, but the priest had provoked her to seek an answer.

  And so Beatrice had hatched a plan to travel into the city, to recover her mother and bring her home. She would sell olive oil to make some quattrini, enough to survive, until her mother could return and life could be as it was. Head down, wheeling her broken cart to artists who would tolerate a barefoot girl in the dirt lanes behind the Duomo. One year ago, her life of hardship had begun.

  Four crossbowmen stood guard high on the wall walk that encircled the city like a fortress, dressed in black leather vests with silk sleeves of white and gold. Another four men stood on either side of the monumental arched entrance. They were posted to check and frisk all vendors for weapons before allowing them to pass. They could take liberties, of course; pull anybody young and desirable from the crowd with a shout and a drawn sword, and pin her against one of the massive doors studded with iron nails.

  A horse-drawn carriage took the crowd by surprise. Its riggings, oil-slicked and true, allowed the vehicle to glide noiselessly. The driver clicked his tongue at the horses, a black gelding and a silver-gray Andalusian, and the throng parted to make room.

  The carriage pulled up next to her and Beatrice touched a hand to the ornate wrought-iron doors. Two men sat slumped against leather seats. One had a face framed by dark curls. The other passenger—his grandfather?—wore a silver-white beard. Bracing herself with both hands, she stood on her toes for a better view. The old man turned his head and Beatrice ducked. There might be a whipping coming her way. Anxious to escape the lash on her back, she rammed her cart forward, and the broken wheel resisted, causing her vehicle to lurch into another, stacked high with oak logs and an exotic caged creature whose feathers were as white as the moon. Beatrice had seen blackbirds, pheasants and guinea hens, but never this kind of fowl.

  “May I purchase that bird?”

  It was the old man from the carriage. He was now on foot and standing two carts away. His figure was tall and noble, and Beatrice admired the rose-pink color of his tunic and the summertime green of his velvet cape. It reminded her of cypress trees shooting into the air like arrows of hope.

  “Market’s not open,” said the owner of the bird. She gestured toward the sky, still cast in gray though the horizon was washing up blue. “After the sunrise.”

  “With your permission, I’ll take him off your hands.”

  His voice was soft, so unlike the sharp insults exchanged between those who lived poor and dirty in the hills beyond the city walls. The whiskery woman flapped her arms at him: go away. Her silky creature lifted its feathers and shifted restlessly in a basket that served as a makeshift cage.

  “Here,” said the stranger, smiling kindly. Beatrice watched him press coins into the woman’s hand as the crowd pushed noisily past.

  The bird woman quickly slipped the outrageous sum into her apron. “Just this once, signore.” Seeing that Beatrice was staring, she snapped, “Little whore, with eyes big as a cow’s.” She tightened the band on her wimple cap. “Mind your own affairs.”

  The old man turned to Beatrice, an arm wrapped around the birdcage. “Buon giorno,” he said, bowing slightly.

  “My lord,” she said, bowing low, amazed by the short cut of his cape and the pink hose on display above his boots.

  “What elixirs might be on offer today?” He reached into her cart and uncorked one of the clay carafes. “Olive oil,” he said, breathing deeply.

  Beatrice stared at the man, blank-faced, astonished by his brazen sampling of her wares.

  “Reminds me of lying in a field of fresh-cut hay.” He stepped aside to let a man hauling a pig on a rope go by. “Which I like to do far too often, according to my taskmasters.”

  A woman with a basket of bread balanced on her head moved next to them. He handed Beatrice the birdcage and reached into the baker’s basket, handing her a coin for a round of Tuscan bread sprinkled with rosemary and oregano. He drizzled it with some of Beatrice’s olive oil and stuffed it into his mouth. “My God,” he said, raising a hand dramatically in the air. “It’s good to be home.”

  He handed Beatrice a coin and reclaimed his bird. He opened the cage and held the creature against his chest. “Vieni, see how beautiful.” The bird opened its curved black beak and gnawed on the man’s fingers. Beatrice was unsure if he was speaking to her or the creature. His white hair and beard made him look as old as some of the monks in the city, but his eyes had a youthful radiance, and he smelled of cinnamon and rosemary. Country folk continued to move past them, cursing at the roadblock. She reached out to touch the bird.

  “You sell in the marketplace?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, amazed by the way her hand disappeared into the depth of the bird’s feathers. She could not afford to pay the extra coins to sell in the main marketplace. “To men working in the lane behind the Duomo. Goldsmiths, leatherworkers, painters, sculptors.”

  “The artists of Florence,” said the man.

  Beatrice shrugged. The studios she visited with her cart belonged to men named Lippi, Granacci. They made altar paintings adorned with gold leaf, mahogany chairs inlaid with ivory, naked bod
ies from slabs of Carrara marble. But there was never time for her to admire what they were making. That would show herself to be a slovenly villager. More than that, it might betray her interest in making art herself, something girls had no business attempting. “I should go now,” she said.

  “This beautiful parrot does not belong in a cage, or in Tuscany,” he replied, as if she had not spoken. He buried his face in the downy feathers and stroked the bird. Then, without warning, he lifted it high in the air and opened his hands. The parrot screeched and took flight.

  “He’s gone!” Beatrice watched the sky, her heart lifted with joy even as she felt the dread of a crime having been committed. The man had freed the most beautiful bird, and it had flown like an angel into the heavens.

  “Amore, Master, please, are you finished?” The handsome young man was calling from the carriage.

  Beatrice impulsively pressed a carafe of olive oil toward the man called Master. His face radiated with peace. “For you,” she said, then hoisted her cart handles. Somebody unseen pummeled Beatrice in the backside. She held tight to her cart, refusing to cede ground. “How long have you been away?”

  “More years than you are old.”

  “I am fourteen, signore.”

  He nodded.

  “With your permission, signore, may I bring you more olive oil?”

  “You speak like a true Florentine merchant.” There was the shriek of roosters and donkeys passing by. She stepped closer so as to catch his words. “. . . at the monastery?” he said. Then he retreated to the carriage. “Santissima Annunziata,” he called over his shoulder.

  “I know it,” she said. She knew all of the streets in Florence. “Near to San Marco.”

  The carriage driver whistled sharply and guided the horses into the mayhem. Beatrice pushed forward on foot. At the tollgate, she bent her head low and extended her coin to a guard.

  “Show your face.” He ripped the hood from her head.

  Sweat prickled on the small of her back. She bit in her lips, making them thin like a boy’s. “The morning has gold in its mouth,” she said, appalled by his smell and his rotten, broken teeth. “Can I pass? Here is my quattrino.”

  One of the crossbowmen on the wall shouted angrily down to the guard. It felt to Beatrice like all eyes were on her.

  “Face down!” the guard ordered.

  She braced herself for what was to come. It always felt like an uncivil war between the peasants and the guards. “Guard, may I pass?” she said.

  “What’s this? The village dog can speak?”

  The other guards barked in excitement, bouncing in their boots, enjoying the humiliation. Those next in line went silent.

  “Signore, gallant soldier of the state,” said the master, suddenly there at her side. She felt his hand on her back, sweeping her away from the nearest guard.

  Another soldier elbowed his way forward and brayed loudly, “Nearly winter, but here stands somebody in summertime green.” His arms were heavily muscled, and his uniform was impeccable, the heraldic red lily stitched brightly on his silk vest. He shook his head in disgust at the man’s pink hose and flicked the cape open with his dagger, revealing its sapphire silk lining.

  “It was a present from Duke Sforza of Milan.” The man looked at the guard with steady eyes.

  “A likely story,” said the guard, enjoying the mockery, “from an old lecher.” Laughter all around, even from those who stood in line, craning for a better look at the interrogation of the man in extravagant dress defending a peasant girl.

  “Indeed, signore, you are to be commended for your leaden mind. He who laughs last, laughs longest. As for this girl,” the old man continued, “her clients are beloved Florentines.”

  The guard hesitated, looked at the man and back at the girl. “The dog can pass,” he said at last.

  Beatrice picked up the handles of her cart and moved beneath the soaring brick entrance into the city. Looking back, she could see that a third guard had joined the others, and that they were taking turns lifting the edge of her savior’s evergreen cape with their daggers, flapping its edges like a sail cut loose in high winds. “Here’s a sodomite all dressed up for dirty business.” Their laughter was loud and malicious. A pair of guards were playing at humping the master.

  “Christ watch over you,” she muttered.

  As she walked farther into the city, past artisan workshops decorated in olive branches and wool warehouses with facades of local stone blocks, a small red-haired boy appeared at her side; she recognized him from the squatter camp outside the gates. He seemed to be alone; nobody called to him to come back. His fingers sought hers and, still dazzled by the daring of the man called Master, she allowed it. Had she dreamed it, the flouting of rules? For she could actually taste his irreverence and kindness toward the bird as if it were wild honeysuckle in springtime. She felt the boy’s little hand warm in her own, but he was gripping tightly now, whining for some bread, and the sweetness of the moment cracked in half.

  Unbidden, a memory of her mother in the Piazza Santa Croce pushed into her mind. At least, she had believed it was her mother; her attire had been so strange, and it was difficult to be sure from where Beatrice had been standing, across the vast square. The woman who resembled her mamma had been with five other women, each of them wearing jingling bells around their ankles and yellow triangles stitched to the sleeves of their dresses. She had called out, but a crowd had surged forward to surround and heckle the women. “Crows! Crows!” they jeered, their own voices harsh like the black birds. Beatrice had picked up the handles of her cart and run as fast as the wobbly wheel allowed. The crowd had formed a nasty barrier between the girl and the dream of finding her mother. By the time she reached the far side of Santa Croce, the women had disappeared down a narrow street.

  She swatted the boy away and spat an insult, “Va’ a farti benedire.” Get lost. Go get yourself blessed.

  Closing her eyes, she replayed the scene with the woman she thought was her mother parading past the grand basilica and across the piazza. The faint tingling of the women’s ankle bracelets rang in her ears, and a feeling of dread came over Beatrice. That had happened many weeks ago, before the cold winds of the Apennine Mountains descended on the city. What had possessed her mother to leave that night? She might have stayed. Mourning the death of her father was too much for Beatrice to endure by herself. Stonecutters always worked in pairs, never alone, to lift the heaviest of stones.

  She gripped the leather ties of her father’s old jacket between her fingers. Her resolve to find her mother hardened. She was somewhere in the city. Then hunger—a miserable friend—forced her to keep moving even as her mood darkened.

  She felt weak after the morning’s walk, and her feet were numb with cold. Beatrice headed toward the workshops behind the cathedral, where she might find a place to rest, if only for a moment, away from the mauling crowds and city guards. The harassment at the tollgate had exhausted her, but in Florence it seemed she was condemned to days of constant motion. She looked up at the windows of the stone villas and spied three young noblewomen gazing out onto the streets. Oh, to sit in a chair as they did and live their lives for a single glorious moment. A carriage gilded in silver and gold rumbled past on the cobblestones; a woman in a heavily feathered hat stared at her with joyless, hooded eyes as the conveyance passed. Peacock, thought Beatrice.

  The rich—the popolo grasso—loved to flaunt their wealth. Her mother used to say “The rich do not walk. They ride in their own arks and pretend they’re Noah every day of the week.” The girl half smiled at the memory. Her own people were castaways, Christian refugees from Constantinople, trekking to the terraced hills of Florence after the Ottomans had invaded their birthplace. Her grandparents had watched as the Muslims had scarred the wooden bridges with their spiked boots, pushing their invasion across the mighty Bosphorus to take their beloved city. Her father had relayed their stories of the defacement of the Hagia Sophia church, the scraping away and paint
ing over of the angels’ faces high up within its interior domes. “All of it a sacrilege!” her father would shout with bitterness, sounding every bit the philosopher and peasant farmer that he was.

  Beatrice bowed her head to show respect as the carriage rolled briskly down the road, the woman in her fancy ark swinging a scented pomander on a chain.

  Closer to the Arno, the air spiked by the rank smell of the river, she spied a canopy of trees that hovered above a stone wall. The garden likely belonged to the woman. Walking to a fig tree, Beatrice tore off her mantle and unlaced her father’s gambeson. She pried away the wooden cap of the cart handle and teased out a narrow dagger, the one found buried in her father’s body, which she herself had extracted and washed in the brook running below the olive grove. She placed one foot on the mortar of a stone wall; there was an iron ring for harnessing horses, and she slid her bare foot into it, then hoisted herself up. She reached into the branches and cut several figs, stuffing one into her mouth as she eased herself down. The fruit, shriveled by the cold, tasted like leather, but it filled her stomach.

  She took stock of her situation: her supply of olive oil was running low, and there would be no more deals from the miller in Settignano. The inconvenience was that she would have to barter with her neighbor and pay handsomely for more of his oil and his terracotta jugs. Pay with the last of her family’s copper pots. She had already traded the one her mother used for melting beeswax. If there was a God, why did he bless rich men’s olive groves and turn their harvests into ever more gold florins?

  Bending down low, she fished a stick of charcoal from a pocket and curved her fingers around it. Within a moment, she had tattooed the base of the garden wall with a drawing of a raging angel, its wings hunched up as if a falcon preparing to land, its heart pierced with the long stem of a peacock feather. She knew this to be a dangerous act—defacing the city—but it felt good to make her mark. Let the sbirri—the cops—throw her in the gallows for being a warrior girl starving for food and some parchment paper. She stooped to emphasize the huge eyes of the angel staring as if in horror, clutching the charcoal tightly in her hand. Satisfied, she blew the black dust off her fingers.