The Falconer's Knot: A Story of Friars, Flirtation and Foul Play

by Mary Hoffman

  The Abbess looked out of her window: she was the only person in the house whose cell had one. The familiar outline of the friary just across the vegetable garden from the convent met her eye. Abbot Bonsignore had mentioned only recently that his house had agreed to take on production of pigments for the artists who swarmed over the Basilica being beautified in neighbouring Assisi. His new friar, Brother Anselmo, had the necessary skill and would be Colour Master. Abbess Elena had felt a momentary twinge of jealousy that her own convent would no longer be the only local religious house with a colour room; but, as she had just told Sister Eufemia, anything to the glory of Saint Francis could only be a blessing.

  There was nowhere else in the whole of Italy where a Franciscan house and one of the Poor Clares sat so close together. Most Clares found it difficult to hear Mass the seven times a year they were bound to, but in Giardinetto, there was a friar free to come and celebrate whenever the sisters asked. And that friar was now Brother Anselmo.

  The friary was the older foundation but the sister house had grown up next door when two women had decided together to renounce worldly life and came to the brothers for help. At first they lived in what was no more than an outhouse of the friary and used the same chapel as the brothers, taking turns to say the Office, so that the sisters were always half an hour later with their Hours.

  But with time, more women wanted to join them and several had their own fortunes, which they used to build a proper convent and a small chapel of their own. In addition to their work on the land and with the poor people of the parish, they had specialised in the grinding of colours for the artists who were flooding into Umbria from Tuscany, to decorate the many new churches being consecrated.

  The present Abbess was the great-niece of one of the convent’s founders and she ran a peaceful house. But in the few weeks since she had received the visit of Bernardo from Gubbio, she had felt uneasy. This was the first time she had agreed to take a girl without having met her first. The three existing novices were quiet and obedient; someone less so could disrupt the serenity of the Poor Clares of Giardinetto.

  Angelica lay wide awake and dry-eyed in the large bed, whose yellow silk hangings she had chosen so happily a few months earlier. Beside her, Tommaso snored with his mouth open.

  ‘I cannot bear it,’ she thought. ‘Did God give me beauty just to waste it on a wild boar like that?’

  She thought about the handsome young men and the poem, which she hadn’t fully understood but which was full of the sort of pretty words she liked – flowers and wounds and love and sighs. Then she remembered what had just happened and a single fat tear trickled down her grazed cheek. It was like living in two different worlds and Angelica longed for a chance to escape from one to the other.

  .

  CHAPTER TWO

  Red-handed

  Chiara rode beside her brother Bernardo, mute and miserable, on the way from Gubbio to Giardinetto. She had taken very few possessions – only the dress she was wearing, her undergarments and the prayer-book that had been her mother’s. Bernardo didn’t know that she also had with her, sewn into the hem of her petticoat, a few small pieces of jewellery. The pearl and ruby cross and the gold earrings might come in useful one day in getting her out of the convent.

  I expect he thinks he can give them to Vanna once I’m locked up with the Poor Clares, thought Chiara. Or sell them. It gave her a quiet satisfaction to imagine Bernardo going into her old room and opening the wooden jewellery casket on her window sill and finding it empty.

  A cluster of buildings came into view as they rode down into the valley. It was a pretty spot, with the river winding through it and the bell tower of the friary chapel rising up among the whitewashed houses where the friars and nuns lived, surrounded by their neat gardens. True there were more marrows than flowers to be seen but even they looked charming at a distance, a broad circle of greenery, neatly hoed and tended.

  This will be my home, thought Chiara. It was somehow not as hateful an idea as she had imagined.

  Silvano was out hawking with Celeste. It was only a small hunt, a few local nobles gathered together by the Baron and no other young men. Gervasio hadn’t been invited. There was a dawn mist rising from the marsh and Ettore the hound was splashing through the water flushing out the wildfowl for Celeste to bring down.

  It was a few days since Gervasio had read the poem to Angelica and Silvano hadn’t seen her since. He shivered pleasurably in the early morning chill, remembering her reception of his words. The geranium flower, squashed now, was tucked inside his shirt, where it was making a red stain and giving off a faintly unpleasant smell.

  Standing by the tree where his horse was tethered, Silvano watched his breath forming little clouds in the cold early morning air. But the sky was blue and clear and it would be another hot day, like most of the days of his life. He had the feeling that nothing would ever change, that he would always be young, that his life would roll out in front of him without adventure or incident under the blue skies of his native Umbria.

  A heavy hand clapped on his shoulder startled Silvano out of his reverie.

  ‘Boo!’ said his father. ‘I would pay to know what you are thinking.’

  Silvano jumped and coloured up as guiltily as if he had been planning a murder.

  ‘I can save my scudi, I see,’ said his father much more loudly than Silvano would have liked. ‘Clearly there’s a woman in the case. But regain control of yourself now – there are birds to be taken home for the pot.’

  In Assisi, the friars were also up early, saying Prime in the Lower Church of the magnificent Basilica. Around their observance, the building was already swarming with workmen, from stonemasons to the most skilled artists from the great cities of Tuscany.

  In a side chapel, one of these artists stood before a wall, red-loaded paintbrush in hand. This was in some ways the hardest part of any commission, transferring his vision from brain to wall, by way of the sketches he had brought with him. He knew how far they fell short of what he had in his mind. And no matter how much that image could be clothed in beautiful colours and his trademark embossed gold, it was the sinopia that would lay down the outlines of all that was to come and he wanted to get it right.

  ‘Ser Simone,’ said the priest in charge of the Basilica, interrupting the artist’s thoughts. ‘You were inquiring about more pigments, I believe?’

  The artist wrenched his attention away from the swirl of forms and colours in his mind.

  ‘Indeed, Father,’ he answered. He had brought a good supply of already ground pigments with him when he came from Siena, but he had long since used them up and was going to need vast quantities more to finish the walls of the Chapel of Saint Martin in the way he imagined them.

  ‘There is a convent in Giardinetto,’ said the priest. ‘A house of Poor Clares, where they are skilled at preparing colours. They have been supplying the painters from Messer Giotto’s workshop here in the Lower Church. And by great good fortune, their brother house of friars next to them has also started to produce pigments. Between them they should be able to meet your needs.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said the artist. ‘And how far is Giardinetto from here?’

  ‘Only a few miles,’ said the priest. ‘It lies towards Gubbio.’

  ‘Then I could travel there to speak to the Colour Master,’ said the artist. ‘I should like to do that as soon as I have completed this sinopia.’

  Chiara was woken on her first morning at the convent by the harsh clanging of the rising bell. The sisters rose at three to say Lauds, the first Office of the day, and again at dawn to say Prime, but as a novice she was allowed to get up later. She turned over on her thin, straw mattress and went back to sleep. It seemed only five minutes later that a hand was on her shoulder shaking her awake, not roughly but insistently.

  It was Elisabetta, one of the other nov
ices.

  ‘What’s the time?’ asked Chiara, but Elisabetta shook her head and put her finger to her lips.

  She waited, face turned away, while Chiara put on the shapeless grey robe she had been given the night before. Then she beckoned her to follow.

  Chiara was shown first to the garderobe and then into the refectory where the sisters were already sitting at a long wooden table. Breakfast was taken in strict silence and it was not much of a meal but Chiara was young and hungry. Her bowl of coarse porage and cup of goat’s milk vanished quickly.

  Then Sister Eufemia beckoned her and took her to the Abbess’s room. Chiara had not met the Abbess on her arrival and was careful not to say anything until she was spoken to; she wasn’t sure of the times at which the sisters had to keep silent.

  The Abbess was tall and what could be seen of her hair under her veil was grey like her robe. Her face was almost fleshless, the countenance of one used to a life of fasting and prayer. But her dark eyes were bright and intelligent and Chiara instinctively wanted the Abbess to approve of her.

  What has that brute Bernardo done? Abbess Elena was thinking, looking at her new charge. Nothing less like a girl with a vocation could be imagined. She looked at you full in the face, forgetting to lower her eyes, which were full of spirit. Her pretty young face was framed by dark curls and something about her brought back to the Abbess a wilful young girl of some thirty years ago, who had not expected to be called by God.

  ‘You may sit down Chiara,’ she said not unkindly. ‘How are you finding it here?’

  ‘It is pretty in Giardinetto,’ said Chiara, her voice already feeling rusty and unfamiliar, ‘but I don’t expect I shall see much of it.’

  ‘Why not?’ said the Abbess. ‘Although we are a closed order, as a novice you may leave the confines of the convent if you need to. You will be expected to work and that work could take you outside the convent walls. As long as you behave decently and respectfully among the people you meet, and remember your calling, you may still play a part in the outside world.’

  This was better than Chiara had dared to hope. But it was still not enough to lift her spirits. What work could a Poor Clare do that would bring any kind of excitement to her life? Tending vegetables or sick children would be very worthy but hardly romantic. And once she was professed, even that escape would be denied her.

  ‘When you take your vows in a year’s time, you will have a new name,’ the Abbess was saying. ‘We have chosen the name Orsola for you; you might like to start using it now.’

  A tear slipped down the side of Chiara’s cheek in spite of her best efforts to stop it; she hated the name Orsola. Little bear, it meant. Why would any girl want to be called that? Her own name meant bright and that was how she had always seemed to herself, like a candle in darkness, like sunshine on a spring day. She had always managed to remain cheerful even in the unloving home she had grown up in and now she was afraid of the convent snuffing her spirit out.

  Besides, Chiara was the name of the patron saint of the Poor Clares so why should she change it? But ‘Sister Orsola’ felt like her destiny – a dark, shapeless, unimaginable form.

  She bent her head submissively.

  ‘And now we must cut your hair,’ said Sister Eufemia.

  Chiara looked at her in open horror; she hadn’t thought about that.

  ‘It is the custom,’ said the Abbess, gently. ‘Not too short while you are a novice. But no sister may retain such flowing locks. It encourages vanity. There is no shame in it, child.

  It is what the blessed Saint Francis himself did for your namesake, the founder of our Order, when she chose to leave her family and follow him.’

  There was no escape. Chiara would suffer enough humiliation having her hair shorn off; she wouldn’t add to it by struggling. She took off her simple white veil and stood quietly while Sister Eufemia, who was rather short, stretched up to cut her hair into a ragged halo. The curls, no longer held down by their own weight, sprang even more wildly about her face. She felt literally light-headed and a bit cold. She was glad of even the flimsy veil to protect her vulnerable neck.

  Poor child, thought the Abbess, looking at the luxuriant hair on the floor while Sister Eufemia took her charge off to instruct her. She bent down impulsively and gathered up handfuls of the glossy dark curls, feeling their weight and texture before casting them out of the window. ‘Let the birds build their nests with them,’ she murmured.

  Tommaso the sheep farmer was puffing up the hill from the market-place to his home. He was humming to himself; his fleeces had fetched a good price earlier in the summer and now his vegetables were doing well. And he had another little business that was thriving too. He would have significant wealth to leave to a son. Now that Angelica had let him back into her bed he was hopeful that he might have a son at last.

  It was early afternoon and there were few people about; most were taking their midday meal or were already enjoying their rest. It was not the time of day to fear attack and, when he heard light footsteps behind him, Tommaso paid no attention. Even when he felt the blow at his side, he thought that some young bravo had just bumped into him by mistake.

  He turned to curse the careless youth and saw someone running back down the hill. His legs felt weak and, looking down, he saw red flowering from his tunic. He put his hand to his side uncomprehendingly, and sank to his knees. It didn’t hurt, but there was a silver dagger-hilt sticking out from between his ribs. He grasped it and then the pain began.

  He was a few doors from his house. He roared like a bell-wether. He looked up and saw a face he thought he recognised, a good-looking face. Tommaso clutched at the young man’s arm, not caring that he was splattering blood on the other’s clothes.

  ‘Murder!’ he whispered, feeling his voice gurgling in his throat.

  ‘Murder,’ echoed Silvano, gazing stunned at his lady’s husband dying in the street.

  And then there was the sound of running feet all around him and a woman started screaming.

  ‘This is where we grind the colours,’ said Sister Veronica. She was tiny, several inches shorter than Chiara, with the bone structure of a twelve-year-old and hands and feet to match. She was neat and deft in all her movements and Chiara understood why she was valued by painters.

  As she was shown round the pigment room, Chiara discovered that the preparation of colours was a serious business. Elisabetta the novice worked there already, as did two older fully professed sisters, Lucia and Felicita. But there was plenty of work and Chiara could see why Sister Veronica needed another pair of hands.

  The sisters sat at a long wooden table, like the one in the refectory, but instead of a wooden platter, each had in front of her a square slab of a red veined stone.

  ‘Porphyry,’ said Sister Veronica, following Chiara’s glance. ‘It is harder than marble and ideal for grinding colours. You take another piece – like that one Sister Lucia is using, see? – and grind the natural minerals on the slab until they are a fine powder. Then you add fresh spring water and mix them together.’

  Chiara looked round the room and saw shelves lined with little bottles, each stoppered with a cork and labelled in spidery writing. She went to take a closer look, fascinated.

  ‘Vermilion,’ she spelled out. ‘Terra verde, azurite, dragonsblood. Dragon’s blood?’

  ‘Not much of that, you see,’ said Sister Veronica. ‘It is not used by the fresco painters in Assisi. The friars use it for illuminating manuscripts.’

  ‘But is it really made from the blood of dragons?’ asked Chiara, wide-eyed.

  ‘According to some,’ said Sister Veronica, ‘it is the result of battles between dragons and elephants. But it seems more likely to be a resin that comes from a shrub.’

  Chiara looked disappointed. She liked the explanation about dragons and elephants better.

  ‘
But it is a shrub that does not grow in these lands,’ said Sister Veronica. ‘It grows only on hot islands in the East.’

  Well, that was something, Chiara thought. At least it came from somewhere exotic, even if not from real dragons.

  Baron Montacuto was roused from his afternoon rest by his manservant tugging at his sleeve. The Baron had only just drifted into a refreshing dream about boar-hunting and was tetchy at being disturbed.

  ‘A thousand apologies, my lord,’ said the servant nervously. ‘But it is the young master. They say he has killed a man.’

  The Baron was instantly awake, shaking his head like a wild boar himself, one with something caught on his tusks. He motioned towards a pitcher of water and the servant fearfully obeyed his master’s gestures to throw the contents over his head. The Baron ran downstairs, buckling on his sword and shaking the water drops out of his grizzled hair and beard.

  ‘Where is Silvano?’ he demanded of the servant.

  ‘Disappeared, my lord. They say he ran away when people came to help the dying man.’

  ‘And who was this man?’

  ‘Tommaso the sheep farmer. They say – forgive me, my lord – that your son was enamoured of Tommaso’s wife.’

  The Baron stopped in the hall and wiped the remaining moisture from his face. The servant cringed.

  ‘I have heard something of this. But my son is no killer. He is mild as milk. Why do they put the blame on Silvano?’

  ‘It was his dagger, my lord, with the family crest.’

  The Baron looked instinctively up at the coat of arms above his mantel: the jagged summit of a mountain between oak trees. He had given Silvano that dagger himself.

  Just then Silvano himself appeared, white-faced and red-handed. Blood stained his elegant jerkin and his long fingers.