Primavera

by Mary Jane Beaufrand

  Copyright © 2008 by Mary Jane Beaufrand

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: March 2008

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-02913-1

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  To the real Emilio

  In Memoriam

  Prologue

  Florence, 1482

  I am forging a gold ring one spring morning when Signor Botticelli comes into our shop. I slouch closer to the anvil and draw my tunic tighter around my neck. I pray he does not recognize me. Indeed, my disguise is good, and it has been four years since we last met. Besides, Signor Botticelli only notices beautiful things. I am not beautiful, with my face smeared with ash and smoke, my hair bound up in a rag. I look like what I have become: a goldsmith’s apprentice.

  He coughs dramatically and brings a kerchief to his nose. It must be a shock for customers to go from open air to our tiny inferno of a workshop, always stoked and hot. It must be like entering hell.

  My master greets our guest warmly, wiping his blackened hand on his heavy apron before extending it. “Signor Botticelli, I am pleased to see you. How many years has it been? No matter, no matter, you are most welcome here.”

  Signor Botticelli bows low, his hawklike eyes darting around our cramped shop. They rest on me briefly but then turn to something else.

  As he and my master speak I allow myself to take in the rest of him. The four years have been kinder to him than to me. His sandy hair is streaked with gray; his garb is that of a rich man. His cloak is lush green velvet embroidered with tiny flowers. It looks as though he is wearing an entire meadow on his back. Underneath his cloak rests a heavy gold cross with one single ruby embedded in its middle, and etched swirls like maiden’s hair winging out to its four sides.

  The cross is my handiwork. I recognize it at once.

  “Maestro Orazio,” Signor Botticelli says formally. “It is good to see you as well. But I must tell you I am here on business. I am the bearer of glad news and a commission.”

  “Of course, of course,” my master says. “Come take a seat here, away from the fires. Maria! Bring our guest some wine, if you please.” He shouts to his wife who is upstairs, making the bread for our midday meal. Our living quarters are as small as the shop and just as smoky. I don’t mind the smoke anymore. I breathe it more easily than air. Some days I feel like Vulcan — an ugly monster making beautiful things for spiteful gods.

  Signor Botticelli sits on the wooden bench by the window and loosens his cloak. Underneath he carries a delicate dagger strapped to his tunic. I can see the workmanship on the hilt — an ornate floral design, also my own. At one time in my life I would not have noticed the workmanship at all. Just the sharpness of the blade.

  My master sits next to him, leaning back in practiced ease. He wants it to seem as though the two of them are equal. But they are not. Anyone can see that. My master is fat from Signora Maria’s cooking. His paunch strains his apron strings. The few teeth left in his head are black. Everything about his person declares that he is nothing: a mere tradesman in a town of rich, embroidered men.

  “What brings you here, Signor Botticelli?” he asks.

  “I came to tell you that my patroness has word that two weeks ago the villain Girolamo Riorio, Lord of Imola and Forli, was apprehended and summarily executed as befits his crimes.”

  At his news I feel my face redden. I know who his patroness is. We all do; even though we dare not mention her name. She is Lucrezia de Medici, mother of Lorenzo de Medici, the one we call Il Magnifico. She is also the mother of Giuliano, who was stabbed to death during Easter mass at the duomo four years ago.

  So Count Riorio has been caught at last.

  Signora Maria appears with some wine in a skin jug and a large sausage. She is a round woman in middle age, red-faced like the rest of us. The sausage she brings is so fresh it smells of pig. The meat was to have been part of my keep, but I do not begrudge our guest this extravagance. Eat well and begone, I will him.

  Maria, on hearing the news about Count Riorio, begins to cross herself, then stops with her fingers over her left breast. She is a pious woman and would pray for the soul of even the most hardened criminal. Still, she should save her pity for above stairs. Showing pity for the wrong person in Florence is dangerous. Soldiers still drag bodies through the streets, although, Grazie a Dio, lately of no one I know.

  Signora Maria rushes from the room muttering something about unbaked bread.

  Maestro Orazio spits at his feet, trying to cover his wife’s indiscretion. “Good riddance,” he says. “Death is too kind a fate for that assassin.”

  “Indeed,” agrees Signor Botticelli. “My patroness still grieves for her murdered son although he has been cold in the ground these four years.”

  “Perhaps this will ease her burden a little,” suggests Maestro Orazio, nervously wiping his hands on his apron.

  “Perhaps,” Signor Botticelli agrees. “She is of the mind that this is the last villain of the Pazzi Conspiracy. She has persuaded Il Magnifico to put this matter to rest. He has stopped pursuing the Pazzis. As well he should. They are all dead or imprisoned. They are no threat to the Medici anymore.”

  Signor Botticelli does not look at me as he says these words. He does not give any indication that he recognizes me.

  And yet his words give him away. How long has he known?

  I look again to his cross and his dagger. They are his only pieces of metal and they are both of my making. Could he have been spying on me all this time? No; that would be too strange. My fear is making me imagine things.

  “Basta,” Signor Botticelli says, taking a long drink of Signora Maria’s heavy, sedimented wine. He was always overfond of drink. “Enough news. Now the commission. I require a ring. You know the size. It would please my patroness to have the design of a dove on the lid. The dove should be of inlaid stone.”

  My master nods knowingly. This is our specialty. We make the rings with compartments. I know exactly where to put the hinge so it will be unnoticeable but easily unlatched in haste; say, to dump the contents in a bowl of soup.

  Signor Botticelli draws a small leather sack from his cloak and hands it to Maestro Orazio. When he catches it, it jingles like a pile of coins. A big pile. “She would like this done in haste. You will deliver it to me and not to her directly. A week from Sunday, midday at my studio.”

  “Your patroness is a
generous woman,” my master says, not pausing to count the coins in the sack, although I know he is itching to do just that. “You may be assured of my quality and discretion.”

  “I knew I could,” says Signor Botticelli, taking one last swig of wine before getting to his feet.

  Then, to my horror, he points directly at me.

  “That youth over there,” he says. “He has a circumspect face. You will send the ring with him.”

  “Emilio? He is a sullen lad. But you are correct, sir. He is discreet. I vouch for him personally.” Maestro Orazio pretends jocularity, but his words, like his smile, are tight.

  Signor Botticelli pauses at the open door as he puts his cloak back on. A breeze is blowing, sending in welcome, clean air from the hills above our town.

  “Remember,” he says one last time, fixing me with his steady gaze. “Next Sunday. Midday.”

  As he leaves I allow myself to inhale deeply of the fresh air. Is that rosemary that comes in on the wind?

  Emilio, Signor Botticelli called me. Youth, he called me. In truth I am neither. Of late the masquerade has grown difficult. For a while I tried to hide my figure under layers of clothing but was forced to stop the practice when a loose sleeve caught fire. Now I slouch behind something large. This anvil, for example.

  I set the hot ring down and inspect my hands. They are black. Underneath the black is red from the constant heat; underneath the red is the fine, white cross-hatching of scars which have made a tapestry of my palms. I know I shouldn’t, but I like the layering of colors. Three layers, each different. What would you see if you cut me open to the heart?

  A host of good memories comes back to me with the scent of open air. There was a time when my hands, like my life, had just one layer. I remember sparring with Emilio — the real Emilio — in the courtyard of my father’s palace. I remember my nonna sitting in the family kitchen, peeling an orange in the soft firelight, her long hair the color of ash coming free from her cap.

  Now, back in the shop, I wipe my face with my hands, suddenly sick. I should have known that if I allowed in the good memories, the bad ones would come back as well: the strong scent of almonds, the sound of an earthen pitcher crashing to the floor, and the sight of my sister Domenica running through the house, tearing her hair, wailing, “Now we can never get married!” I remember that was the worst fate she could think of. Even then I knew that what had just happened, and what was about to happen to us all, was far worse.

  Maestro Orazio shuts the door and the scent is gone; the memories along with it. Once again the shop smells of fire and smoke.

  I tell myself I am better this way, shut up in this hot cell of an existence, never going out, never even looking up. It is too late. The shape of my life has already been etched on me, just as deeply as the marks on my skin.

  As I put the ring back in the fire I turn my head to the window and allow myself to look outside.

  For a moment, just a moment, I had thought it might be spring.

  Chapter One

  It was early 1478 when my family’s fortunes ebbed, like the waters of the Arno. Those who still speak of the April Rebellion say how sudden it was, how no one had any idea things were so bad in our city of flowers. But I say there were clues. Those who didn’t see them were men like Il Magnifico, who only listened to good news, never noticing shadows gathering around them until it was almost too late.

  Me? I saw the shadows, or at least I thought I did. But what did I really see? Just bits and pieces, pretty words whispered through half-open doors by men in dark cloaks.

  There was only one person who tried, really tried, to open my eyes to what was going on around me. You think this a game? he had said, pointing from a rooftop. Look. Listen. People pass by your window every day whose lives are nothing but toil without respite. You live but two blocks from the Bargello prison yet you don’t hear the screams of men who have forgotten everything pretty.

  I did look. But I didn’t see. And for that I am no better than the rest of my clan. Worse, in fact. For what did I do to the boy who tried to open my eyes, the one who I now know I loved better than all others? He is dead. All that remains of him is rotted black flesh over bone. And I am the one who killed him.

  The year was 1478. My name was Lorenza Pazzi, but everyone called me Flora. I had eleven brothers and sisters. I was the last daughter in my father’s house.

  Now, there are days when I feel I am just the last.

  “Are you sure, Flora? We have twenty-two diamonds and not twenty-three?” my brother Andrea asked. We were in the courtyard of my father’s palazzo on a warm spring afternoon — the first of the season. I was on my knees, scraping the soil around rose bushes that the tender roots might breathe better.

  Andrea sat by the gurgling fountain with a ledger open on his lap. We had spent the morning inventorying the items in my father’s bank — pearls and silks from the Orient; golden table services from princes with good taste but not good sense; ancient marble statues of gods long forgotten.

  “Yes, Andrea, I’m sure,” I said, running my fingers through loamy earth. Around me was a sea of moss, lush and soft as fur — a perfect antidote to being locked inside an airless chamber and counting gems and musty tapestries.

  He shook his head and closed the ledger. “All right,” he said. “If you say twenty-two, twenty-two it is. There can only be one conclusion: Francesco is stealing from us.”

  “What?” Francesco was my father’s best worker, someone who had risen from a position as manager of the family’s silk business in Genova. He was an honest soul who savored numbers as others might delicate dishes flavored with rosemary. I knew he wouldn’t even think about shorting us one small diamond. One small diamond with a flaw at that.

  I knew because the stone was hidden up my sleeve. I was the thief, although I didn’t tell Andrea.

  “It must be Francesco. There’s no one else.”

  I tried to stay calm. “What will you do?” I asked.

  “We’ll have to let him go.” He shrugged.

  “Per favore, Andrea. Let him stay. Francesco is a good man. There must be another explanation.”

  My brother closed the ledger and got to his feet. I couldn’t help noticing that he looked a bit shabby. His tunic was velvet but the colors had faded; his stockings had been darned and darned again until his legs looked as though they were woven in place by giant spiders.

  Andrea was a logical man. Until last winter he’d been studying at the University of Pisa, where his specialty was dead languages and dropping things from the leaning tower to see how fast they’d fall. But then Papa summoned him back to help run the family businesses. He probably liked Andrea’s plainness of dress and manner as much as I did. With Andrea, I rarely found myself thinking what he really meant, as I did with the rest of my family and our courtiers.

  “Bene,” he sighed. “I won’t put his name forward to Papa. But Flora: this can’t continue. With the new Medici taxes, we need every florin we have.”

  After he left to go upstairs to Papa’s study, I crossed myself and thanked God that, even though He had plunked me in the middle of this greedy family, He sent me at least one good relative. Two, counting Nonna. As for the rest? My eldest sisters were all married before I turned fourteen — mostly to other merchants who were willing to swap money for our pedigree. They seemed lovely and docile enough until you got to know them. They reminded me of species from myth who would sing to unsuspecting sailors only to dash their brains against sharp rocks.

  And my brothers? Conniving toads, to a man. Even Antonio and Lionardo, who had taken orders and were now in charge of bishoprics in San Gimignano and Perugia, had eyes that narrowed with greed. I watched them all parade through the courtyard and up the stairs to my father’s study, their eyes darting about, staying too close to my father’s fortune and their inheritance.

  But I had little to do with them. When I was fourteen they were gone from the house. The only four of us left were Renato, my eldest brot
her; Domenica, my older sister and the beauty of the family; and Andrea.

  And where did I fit in with this clan? I was not beautiful, like Domenica; I was not practiced in flattery, like Renato; nor was I learned, like my brother Andrea. While the others had their sprezzatura, their effortless mastery, I had none. I was just Flora. I lived to help other things grow.

  After Andrea left, I stayed in my garden cultivating thorny shoots. A youth from my father’s guard came in the front entrance carrying a letter. He wore the tunic with the family crest — the Pazzi dolphin — but he wore it ill. Underneath it he looked thin as a bundle of twigs.

  “Excuse me, signorina,” he said, bowing deeply. I glanced around for Domenica. His manners were so courtly; he must have been looking for her. But there was no one else. This boy must be new. The rest of the guards didn’t bother being formal. They usually said: “Hey, Flora, give this letter to your father.” Or, more often, and with a glint in their eye: “Give this letter to your sister.”

  This twiggy boy looked ill indeed. His cheekbones were sunken and the skin around his eyes was black-blue. Flies buzzed around the velvet mazzochio on his head, which also fit so loosely it looked to be unraveling. His belly was distended, as though he had been very hungry and then eaten a large feast. Since I listened to my nonna when she talked about vapors and humors, I knew what was wrong with him. He had been eating the cook’s rancid, mealy black bread.

  “You can puke if you want to,” I said, pointing to a potted orange tree.

  He raised his head and looked into my eyes for the first time, as if trying to decide if I were joking. Then he dropped a letter, ran the length of the courtyard, and vomited into a delicate white container.

  Poverino. He heaved even when there was nothing left to bring up.

  I picked up the letter he’d dropped. I read my papa’s name, Jacopo Pazzi, in elaborately gilded script. I turned it over to examine the seal. Neatly embedded blood-red wax was the mark of Il Papa himself, Sixtus IV. The pope had written to my father.

  “That’s for Signor Jacopo,” the boy said. “It’s not womanly to open it.”