by S. J. Parris
Fiammetta laughed, but there was a note of melancholy in it. ‘I told you, my uncle would not interfere in my business unless he thought I was in danger. This’ – she stretched out her hand to encompass the villa and its extensive grounds – ‘is the only place I am really free. No one expects anything of me. My uncle treats me as a person, not an ornament to be traded, or an inconvenience to be dealt with. But, alas, he returns tomorrow.’
‘You seem sad. You are not looking forward to seeing him?’
She sighed. We had reached a bower of tangled vines that formed a shady arch with a stone bench beneath; she motioned me to sit.
‘I am, of course. I miss his company. But the day before he left, a letter arrived from my father. I have been in Naples three weeks – my father says he has indulged my games long enough, and I must return home or he will come to fetch me. Uncle Giambattista said he would reply when he came back from Capodimonte.’ She made a face. ‘He will not throw me out, but he doesn’t want to antagonise his brother. I have known all this week that I must face my choice about whether to join a convent or marry a disgusting old man.’ She reached for my hand and twined her fingers with mine. ‘And then you appeared.’
I did not know how to take this. ‘So I am, what? A rebellion? A test, to see if you would miss the temptations of the flesh?’
She shook her head. ‘No, neither. Or perhaps both. I saw you come in with Ercole that first day. I liked the look of you, so I followed you to the library. I suppose I was feeling angry, and reckless – I thought if I must become a prisoner of one kind or another, I might at least enjoy my last days of liberty. Does that shock you?’
‘No …’ If I sounded uncertain, it was because I had never heard a woman talk of desire as something she might own and act on. The girls at the Cerriglio were loud and brash and full of lewd jokes, but it was all commerce to them. As a youth, the wisdom I had gleaned from my father was that men desired and women resisted; if you wanted something from them, you would have to learn to cajole and persuade to get past their natural aversion to the act. Later, when I joined the Dominicans, I was told that women were the instruments of Satan, inflamed with lust and determined to lure men away from reason and into sin. It had never occurred to me that a young woman might see a man and want him, purely for her own pleasure. ‘But you are saying I could have been any one of your uncle’s associates who happened to cross your path?’
She smiled. ‘Not at all. Have you seen most of my uncle’s associates?’ She laid her head on my shoulder. ‘I wish we could go on like this for ever. Sometimes I think all I ask from life is to carry on living here, working as my uncle’s assistant. That would be enough to make me happy – as long as you came to visit.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘I know Giambattista would agree to it – he likes the company. But my father would never countenance such a thing.’
‘Your uncle has no wife or family?’ I had noted on all my visits how quiet the villa seemed, for such a large place, with few servants to be seen apart from the faithful Ercole. Fiammetta gave me a sidelong look.
‘I don’t think finding a wife has ever been of much interest to my uncle.’
‘Ah.’ I nodded, taking her meaning.
‘My father urges him to, for convention’s sake. There is enough malicious talk about Giambattista as it is.’
‘Why, what is said of him?’
‘You must know? That he is a magician, that he dabbles in witchcraft and conjures spirits, that he is hostile to the Spanish. None of that does my father’s position any good. But Giambattista says he will not make some poor woman’s life a misery to spare his brother from gossip. People will say what they want, regardless. The great good fortune of being the second son, he says, is that he is not obliged to fill the world with more della Portas.’ She laughed, and settled comfortably against me.
‘You are fond of him,’ I murmured into her hair, smiling.
‘He is the best of men.’ She twisted her head to kiss my neck. ‘And you are the best of men outside my own family. Let’s pretend we can go on like this indefinitely.’ She guided my hand beneath her skirts and tipped her head back as I began to move my fingers. An instant later she snapped upright, her eyes open, casting wildly around.
‘What was that?’
I had heard nothing, but her fear made me tense and strain to listen.
‘There was a noise, from the trees over there.’ She pointed. ‘Go and look.’
Obediently, I stood and surveyed what I could see of the terrace. I caught a faint rustling from the undergrowth along the boundary wall, but could see nothing amiss.
‘A bird in the bushes, probably. Nothing to worry about.’ I sat beside her and attempted to resume, but the disturbance had made her skittish.
‘You’re sure no one followed you here?’
‘Of course not. I would have noticed.’ But her words planted a seed of anxiety. Would I have noticed? I had been in such a rush to see her – perhaps I had not watched as carefully as I should when I left San Domenico, or on the road out of the city. Still, I could not believe I had been so oblivious that anyone could have followed me all the way to Vomero without my being aware of it.
She seemed to accept my protestations and returned to my arms, but we both remained a little distracted, alert to any unexpected sound and not quite so abandoned to our pleasures as we had been the day before. I found myself wishing we had stayed in the privacy of the secret library, especially since this might be our last afternoon together. When the time came to leave, I felt oddly melancholic, conscious that I had not been the liveliest company. Fiammetta showed me out of a gate in the garden wall that opened on to the road.
‘Forgive me,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘My mind was elsewhere today, it was not your fault. I was jumping at shadows – I even started to fear that my father had sent someone to spy on me and report back to him – isn’t that absurd? I’m sorry. Will you come again tomorrow?’
‘Won’t your uncle be back?’
‘If you come a little earlier, to this gate, we might steal an hour together to say goodbye before he arrives. If he sees you, he will want to tell you all about his caves and we would never get a moment of privacy. Say you will?’
How could I refuse her? I covered her face with kisses and slipped out of the garden into the shining heat of late afternoon. Several times on the road back to the city, I stopped, reaching for my knife, convinced I had heard footsteps behind me, but each time it was only a labourer or a trader leading a donkey; I sheathed the knife quickly and muttered a blessing as they passed. I congratulated myself on arriving in good time for vespers, though my relief was short-lived; Raffaele came into the church immediately after me and seated himself on the opposite side of the nave, so that he could stare at me throughout the service. His look was one of such undisguised triumph, like a fox in a henhouse, that I began to fear he had found out my secret.
But he said nothing, and by the next day I had persuaded myself that I had been worrying unduly; Raffaele simply enjoyed tormenting me. I decided to skip the midday meal; I asked Paolo to tell the prior I was taking an extra Hebrew tutorial across town. This would be my last visit to Porta’s villa, I told myself, at least for Fiammetta’s sake; after today, I could leave it a while until any suspicion about my absences had been forgotten, but I was determined not to disappoint her. It was a day of fierce heat; I had asked for a skin of fresh water from the kitchen, which I slung by a leather strap around my chest, and I had almost reached the side gate in the gardens when the prior stepped out from among the trees and greeted me with a forbidding smile, his hands folded into the sleeves of his robe. Behind him stood two of the convent servants, tall, strong young men who worked in the grounds. I knew then that I was discovered.
‘You are heading the wrong way for the refectory, Fra Giordano,’ the prior said, pleasantly.
‘I have been obliged to move my lesson at San Giovanni to an earlier hour, Most Reverend Prior. I had arranged to send
my apologies.’ I bowed.
‘You know that you are obliged to seek permission in advance if you wish to miss mealtimes or services,’ he said, in the same light tone. ‘You are making quite a habit of failing to do so.’ He nodded to the water-carrier. ‘You seem prepared for a longer journey.’
‘It’s a hot day, Most Reverend Prior. I did not want to arrive with my throat parched and unable to speak.’
‘Hmm. Walk with me, Fra Giordano.’
It was an order, not a request. He set off back towards the cloisters, and I had no choice but to fall into step beside him. The two burly servants followed.
‘As you know, since you are one of our most promising scholars, I have been pleased to encourage your theological studies with the best masters in the city, in the belief that your achievements will bring greater glory to San Domenico. But it has been brought to my attention that you have been abusing the liberty we give you.’
I did not reply. He meant that someone had informed him of my absences, and that could only have been Raffaele. I wondered how much either of them thought they knew. The prior placed a hand on my shoulder.
‘As Dominicans, we do not believe that men of God should be shut off from society, and for this reason I do not keep a closed order. But we need to cultivate a strong will to be in the world, yet not of it. I understand how easy it is for a young man to be dazzled by the distractions of a city such as Naples. And so I feel that, to keep you on the correct path, a period of silent prayer and penitence is in order. After that, I will consider whether your devotion is strong enough to allow you to leave the convent.’
‘No, please, Most Reverend Prior – I assure you, my faith and my will are as solid as Mount Vesuvius—’
He gave me a shrewd look, as if judging whether I was being facetious. ‘The most volatile mountain in the kingdom, you mean?’
‘That was a bad example. You may trust me, I swear – I have no interest in the city’s temptations, only I must not be late for my tutorial—’
He had heard the note of panic in my voice; his grip on my shoulder tightened. ‘Silent prayer and penitence, Fra Giordano. Humble yourself before Our Lord, and then you may make your confession.’
He led me into the shadow of the cloister, towards the Oratory. Silent prayer and penitence was the prior’s euphemism for detention. The Oratory was a cell, barely large enough to be called a chapel, with no windows save a narrow slit high up in the wall, no furnishings except a crucifix and an altar, and a door that, once locked, could not be opened from the inside. It was, in effect, a prison, and a period of solitude in that dismal place, with no food, was intended to encourage a wayward friar away from thoughts of disobedience.
‘I implore you – I will take my punishment as you command, Most Reverend Prior – only let me start it this evening. Don’t make me miss my tutorial this afternoon – it’s very important—’
He unlocked the heavy door of the Oratory, and I could see by his expression that my protestations were only making him more suspicious.
‘Prayer is no punishment, Fra Giordano – unless you count it a hardship and not a blessing to spend time undistracted in the presence of Our Lord. Do you?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. I’m sure with a mind as sharp as yours, it will not take you long to catch up on whatever you have missed in your lesson today.’ He pushed open the door and held it for me. I glanced back; his enforcers blocked the path. I had only two choices: I could go inside, or I could be forced in with a punch to the gut.
I bowed to the prior as I ducked through the low doorway into the stale air of the Oratory. It smelled of piss from the last disobedient wretch incarcerated here. ‘How long?’ I asked, as he shut me in. There was a grille in the door with a panel that could be opened to communicate with the prisoner. His bony face appeared in the gap.
‘Until you have a better sense of your duty, my son,’ he said, with a grimace. ‘But overnight, I think. Pax tecum.’ The panel slid shut.
I waited until I heard the key turn, and cursed him colourfully under my breath. A bar of light slanted across the top of the wall from the tiny window. The painted Christ above the altar looked reproachfully at me from beneath his thorny brow.
‘Come on, then,’ I muttered to him, ‘you’re the one who knows how to get out of sealed caves. What’s your trick?’ He did not grant me an epiphany. I sat on the floor with my back against the altar to avoid his gaze, furious with myself for getting caught. Not only had I ruined my last chance to see Fiammetta, but I would be leaving her with the impression that I was the kind of man to abandon a girl with no explanation. I had enough experience of women to know that they did not respond well to being slighted; I feared that if she was upset or angry, she might speak ill of me to her uncle when he returned, and that could jeopardise my place in the Academy, or my chance of seeing his secret library again.
After I had passed ten minutes in futile recrimination, the panel in the door opened. I whipped around, hoping the prior had changed his mind, but instead I saw Raffaele’s face through the grille.
‘Come here,’ he said, imperious as ever. Reluctantly, I moved closer. ‘You’re much safer in there, Bruno,’ he said, unable to keep the delight from his expression. ‘That road to Vomero can be very dangerous. And the della Porta place even more so – you know he practises black magic? Well, of course you do. That’s why you go there, isn’t it? I’m doing you a favour, Brother, protecting your reputation.’
I was tempted to spit in his face, but restrained myself; I did not want to make things any worse. So he had followed me after all; this, too, was the result of my own stupidity.
‘Did you tell the prior I was there?’
The smile curved like a knife. ‘Not yet. I’m deciding what to do with that information. It’s a shame you won’t be able to meet your little vixen, though. Think of her there, all hot and ready, waiting for a friar to satisfy her filthy wanton appetites. I wouldn’t like her to be disappointed, so I must be on my way. Don’t let me interrupt your devotions.’ He made to slide the panel shut.
‘Don’t even think about going near her,’ I hissed, through my teeth. ‘Or God help me, I will kill you.’
He laughed. ‘Don’t you think the girl would be better served by a man who is her equal in status? I’m sure your peasant rutting is all very well, but she’d probably appreciate a little finesse.’
I slammed my hand against the bars. ‘I’m warning you—’
‘What will you do? Fell me with one of Porta’s magic spells?’ He lolled against the door, as if the whole business was a tremendous joke. ‘Keep your voice down, Bruno – we don’t want the prior knowing you’ve been spending your time with that sodomite and his heretical friends, do we? The Inquisition might want a word if they knew. So let’s keep that between ourselves until I’ve shown the girl what a man of quality can do for her.’
I was still cursing uselessly after him as he shut the window. I shouted myself hoarse, but no one came; I paced the cell, impotently furious, even punching the door at one point, though I quickly realised that crippling myself would not help Fiammetta. I thought of her, trustingly waiting for me at the garden gate. Raffaele must have followed me the day before and spied on us; the thought made my skin crawl. She would open the gate to him, in that deserted part of the gardens; she would see a figure in a Dominican’s robe, and open her arms … She would almost certainly have told the few servants to stay away, so we could be private. No one would hear her protests as he pushed her to the ground beneath the lemon trees …
I had worked myself into a frenzy by the time the panel was opened a second time. To my amazement and relief, I saw Paolo’s anxious eyes through the grille. I flung myself against the window like a caged animal, so that he stepped back in alarm, even though the door was between us.
‘Thank God. How did you know I was here?’
He made a face. ‘I presented your apologies to the prior at dinner, as you asked. He tha
nked me, and said he was well aware of your extramural activities, as he put it. His tone made me realise you’d been discovered. And now he has me marked as your accomplice. Not for the first time.’
‘Sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Listen, I really need you to get me out of here.’
He held up his hands. ‘I brought you a bread roll and some figs – that’s the limit of what I can offer. How could I get the key – the prior has it on a ring at his belt.’
‘There’s a spare. He keeps it in a cupboard in his office – if you wait until he’s in church for nones, you could slip in and borrow it.’
He shook his head, laughing. ‘Madonna porca, Bruno – I’m already in trouble for you, and now you ask me to miss the service, break into the prior’s office, steal a key and help you escape punishment? They will kick me out when we’re caught, and you know what that means – I’ll be sent to some godforsaken monastery at the other end of the kingdom to do menial work for the rest of my miserable life. Can’t you just take your punishment this time? It’s only till the morning – I’ll bring you food.’
‘It’s not that.’ I hesitated. ‘It’s the woman I told you about. I’m supposed to meet her this afternoon, up in Vomero. Raffaele made sure I got locked up so he could go there instead. I’m afraid he’s going to force her.’
‘Oh.’ His eyes darkened; he despised Raffaele as much as I did. ‘Well – that’s different. That entitled little prick. Could you get there in time to stop him?’
‘I don’t know. I think he’s already left – I can only try, as long as you help me.’
He turned to look across the cloister at the clock on the wall. ‘Ten minutes till nones. I’ll do what I can. You owe me.’
A half-hour passed. I tried to measure time by reciting psalms, but I was too agitated. What was keeping him? When at last I heard a key in the lock, I half-expected to find the prior outside, ready to throw Paolo in with me; instead I saw my friend, furtive in the doorway, hurrying me out.
