“Are you all right, signorina?” he asked graciously.
Without waiting for an answer, he turned to the men who had paused ripping up my world. “Cretini! What are you all doing? Destroying such beauty. You would be whipped like dogs were this my house. Pay no mind to them, signorina. We will have you arranged for your sitting in no time.” He picked moss out of my hair. “I know your mother commissioned me to paint you as a Madonna, but your beauty is not of a poised quality. Perhaps some personage from Roman myth? Venus to enflame your groom’s desire?”
My groom? What was he talking about?
“Flora!” Nonna called me. She stood in the corner of the courtyard, twisting a heavy ring on her finger so violently I was afraid it would spin off her hand and fly to the roof.
Next to me, the face of the man in purple lit up like a thousand torches at the sound of my name. “Of course,” he muttered. “Flora.”
By the shards of the marble statue, Emilio got to his feet. The giant he took down remained down. Nonna put an arm on my friend’s shoulder, inspecting him for cuts and bruises. She blotted his lip with her apron. “Come by the kitchen when you can and I’ll fix you up. And you,” she said to Captain Umberto. “Do you think you can keep this vermin from wrecking anything else for an hour? I need to have a word with my son.”
Captain Umberto straightened his back. “Of course, Signora Cenesta. You have my word.”
“I hope you’re ready to back that up,” I muttered. He shot me an annoyed look, but I didn’t care. I knew he was supposed to be heroic, but he had stood idly by while Riorio’s men destroyed the paradise I’d wrought from dirt and a bit of green. Today he was not my hero.
“And as for you,” Nonna stepped up to the man in the purple tunic and whiffed his breath. “At least you’re not drunk yet.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, signora . . .”
“Don’t start with me, Filipepi.” She wagged a finger at him.
I wasn’t surprised she knew this man. She’d treated half the city for one ailment or another at some point.
“These days I go by Botticelli, Signora Cenesta. Sandro Botticelli.”
Botticelli. Of course! The painter Mamma commissioned. Now I understood. He thought I was Domenica. That explained why he was so gracious to me.
“What, your old name wasn’t good enough?” Nonna said. “Bah! Your poor mamma. I trust her fever has subsided?”
“Indeed it has,” Signor Botticelli answered with a small bow. “She asked me to thank you for the oranges. And may I congratulate you on your lovely granddaughter, Signora Cenesta? It is easy to see where she gets her beauty . . .”
Nonna whacked me on the back of the head. “Don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve. Stand up straight.” She turned to Botticelli. “Not this one, stupido. You want the empty-headed one. I’ll send her down. In the meantime, I don’t care how brilliant you are. If I catch so much as a whiff of wine on you before the evening I’ll boot your arse back to that smelly goldsmith’s. Do we understand each other?”
Signor Botticelli bowed low. “What can I do but obey?”
Nonna fixed him with a piercing stare. “Save your manners for the Medici. We’ll have none of your toadying here. Come, Flora. We have an appointment with your father.”
As we walked away, I kept looking back to Signor Botticelli in his purple tunic, standing in the ruin of my garden. The sea of moss was gone; the orange trees were gone; the rosemary half-uprooted. I should have been destroyed as well. Instead I watched him as he carefully rescued a tender bud from a pile of roses and placed it on his cloak. I liked that he picked the smallest and most fragile to rescue instead of the largest and most showy. Here, I thought, is a man I would like to know.
Chapter Five
They say that over one hundred years ago, when Brunelleschi submitted his plan for the giant dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, Cosimo de Medici (grandfather of Il Magnifico) said it was too big a thing and it would collapse. He demanded a demonstration. Brunelleschi sent for a raw egg. “If I can make this stand on end, will you believe me?” he countered. Cosimo agreed.
With that, Brunelleschi cracked the bottom. Half the egg stood up perfectly.
That day, as Nonna and I burst into Papa’s study, I had no doubt as to the architect of my destruction.
Count Riorio was leaning over my father, who was seated at his desk. Up close I saw that Riorio’s face was lightly pockmarked. Without his mazzochio his hair was full and gray. He reminded me of some icy creature of the north — a bear or a wolf, maybe. And he looked as though he would have no problem cracking a lot of eggs — beginning with my father’s bald head.
“What have you done to Flora’s garden?” Nonna bellowed.
In the corner, Renato and Andrea jumped.
“Mamma,” Papa nodded, his quill poised over his ledger. “This is not the best time. Perhaps you can return later —”
“Out!” Nonna said. Renato and Andrea scrambled to do Nonna’s bidding. The count remained standing. “You too,” she added.
“There can be nothing you would say to Signor Jacopo that you cannot say to me as well. After all, we are as brothers.” His voice was low and smooth, like a constant murmur.
Madonna! That man knew how to pander. His seamless smile, the ease with which he spoke — I almost half believed him. Then I thought of my rose bushes in thorny heaps and scowled. This man was not my uncle. This man was nothing to us.
“Out!” Nonna commanded again, watching him as he closed the door, then lowering her voice after it clicked shut.
“Have you looked downstairs this morning, Jacopo? The courtyard is a ruin.”
“The guards need a place to practice,” he said.
“And they couldn’t share their space with Flora’s roses? Did everything have to be dug up?”
Papa set his quill down and tented his empty hands. “I stand by my decision,” he said. “I need an army.”
“But why, Jacopo? Our guard has always been sufficient for our needs. What has changed? Are we in danger?”
“This is not the province of women, Mamma. You must leave these decisions to me.”
Nonna wagged a finger at him. “Don’t you woman me, Jacopo. That tone may work on your wife but not on your mamma.”
For a moment Papa seemed to return her glare. Then he backed down. “Bene,” he said. “There has been a new law passed in the Signoria. In the name of public health, Medici troops may now search any shipment of goods and confiscate them as they deem fit. To avoid another plague, he says. Last week in Venice they boarded a vessel of mine that arrived with a shipment from the Orient. Believe me, they were not looking for rats. It’s the pearls and silks they’re after. I’ve sent a doctor with two of my fastest couriers to get there and pronounce the ship safe. By the time they arrive, the rats will be the only things left.”
I suddenly understood why Papa was so distressed recently: the Medici were richer than we were because they were stealing from us.
I looked out the window to the streets of my beautiful city and the outline of the duomo. Today there was no comfort in its splendor. The dome was built with Medici money. Today the walls echoed my father’s words: Medici. Rats.
Nonna stroked the heavy ring around her finger, as though the black onyx dog were a real pet with soft fur.
“Jacopo, you are trying to marry Domenica to Giuliano de Medici, are you not? What happens if you succeed? Would you wage war on your own daughter, then?”
Papa sighed. “That is Maddelena’s scheme. If it works, such an alliance could turn our fortunes. Then I would send Riorio home. All the same, I must take precautions. Certainly you can see that? I do not want to be an assassin for the pope, but I will if I must.”
“Assassin?” I hissed. He was not talking about war — he was talking about murder. I didn’t understand — the pope was God’s chosen on earth. How could my father even think such a thing? “What can the pope have to do with assassination?” I a
sked aloud.
Nonna explained what my father did not: “While going about God’s business the pope entertains lavishly and keeps an army, neither of which is cheap. I would imagine he is heavily in debt to Il Magnifico. Am I correct?”
Papa nodded. “He has written that Lorenzo will not listen to reason, and because of this His Holiness would prefer to see a different man leading Florence. One who will not be too greedy to forget the church’s share.”
“And you are to be the new prince?” Nonna said.
“His Holiness thinks it for the best,” Papa said, sitting up straight in his chair as though occupying a throne.
Nonna nodded in understanding. “So he has bid you send for a man who may bloody his hands. That way should Riorio fail, the pope could disclaim the whole endeavor and still look like a saint.”
Papa said nothing.
“Isn’t that dangerous for you, Papa? I mean, suppose the pope is using Count Riorio because he’s expendable. Doesn’t that mean you’re expendable as well?”
Papa leaned forward in his chair. “That, Flora, is why we cannot fail. We will be joined to the Medici, or we will destroy them and take their place. It is that simple.”
I looked out the window. The color of the duomo bled into the streets. Everything was now red. And not the orange-red of the rooftops, but a deeper purplish red of human blood. For an instant — just an instant — I knew that if we were lucky, I might trade these walls for those of a convent. If we weren’t, if Domenica didn’t marry Giuliano de Medici, they would be our tomb.
Nonna got to her feet. “Jacopo, I will speak but once of this matter, then never again. Hear your mamma out: we have enough money. The vaults in your bank are full. The galleries in this house are full; your wife’s closets are full.
“You say the Medici have taken one shipment in one city. I say to you that there are other, more discreet ports into which you may transport your goods. Therefore, do not be brash. We do not need more than we already have.”
Papa looked again at the ledger and shook his head. “Do you not understand, Mamma? This is not about gain. It’s about loss.”
Nonna grabbed my hand and led me to the door and stopped. “Do as you will,” she said. “But there is one thing I insist upon, Jacopo. Riorio may be welcome here, but his men are not. They must find somewhere else to billet. One of them nearly took an ax to your daughter this morning.”
For an instant, Papa seemed horrified, and this warmed me. Fatherly concern? Perhaps he thought about me from time to time after all. “Someone took an ax to Domenica?” he said. “Will there be a scar we can’t hide?”
I waited for Nonna to whack him, but she did not. Instead, her back grew more hunched as though a heavy load had been heaped upon it. Her piercing eyes developed a dim look. I knew Nonna was old, but she always seemed vital to me — slapping this, swatting that. She may have been old, but she had the energy of ten women. Young ones. Now, for the first time ever, Nonna looked tired.
And what did I do to comfort her? Did I say: never mind, Nonna, it’s nothing; I’m used to being treated like this? I’m used to Domenica getting all the attention?
No, I did not. Because the truth was, I was as weary as Nonna. Perhaps wearier, because I never stopped hoping for something different.
Perhaps I was a simpleton, because even that day, as we walked downstairs, I waited for my father to send for me. I longed for some service only I could perform. I longed for him to tell me he saw my true worth and that I was too valuable to be sent to a convent.
Emilio was sitting by the hearth in the kitchen, waiting for us. He still had pieces of marble embedded in his head. Nonna bid me attend him while she looked after the patients on the bench outside.
As I picked stone from Emilio’s head, I thought that perhaps it was time for me to stop stealing. I remembered how Nonna had looked at my father and said we already had enough, and I took her warning to heart. All this time I thought I was rescuing myself, but instead I was just being greedy like the rest of my family, like the Medici.
It was time for me to be like Andrea and give up the little shards of dreams I hid in my pillow. My family needed me. That had to be enough.
Chapter Six
That evening as I cleared the kitchen dishes, Emilio put up a pallet in the pantry, bonking his head on hanging legs of salty ham in the process. His poor pate was already bandaged so heavily he looked like a sultan.
“What’s this? You’re setting up camp?” I asked him.
“Nonna’s asked me to stay here for a while,” he said, rearranging barrels of red wine and pickled turnips. “I’m going to tend the fire and help you clean up at night.”
He was making himself at home, stuffing straw into a mattress with one hand, while eating a full loaf of coarse, round bread with the other. “Why? Don’t you have a family of your own?” I asked.
In response, I got a whack on the head. I hadn’t even heard Nonna come up behind me. “Don’t be rude, Flora. No, he does not. If you’d been paying closer attention you’d know he lost his only sister.”
When Nonna said lost his sister, I thought she meant mislaid, and that all Emilio had to do was go find her. Then I looked at his face, which seemed to have burned to ash in a matter of moments. I understood what loss really is.
“Mi dispiace,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Emilio shrugged, but I could tell more than just his head was smarting.
Nonna spoke to him. “I have had word from Father Alberto. He will meet you tomorrow at the duomo after the guard is done practicing.” She handed him a purse. “Chances are he won’t accept it, but offer it to him anyway. He’s a good man.”
“Grazie, Nonna,” Emilio said, taking the purse. “How can I ever thank you?”
I noticed that he called her Nonna and not Signora Cenesta. He was making himself right at home, this one.
“Just take this one with you,” Nonna said, wagging a finger at me. “She needs to get out more.”
“Get out where?” I asked. “I get to go somewhere?”
“To Fiesole, Flora. Father Alberto’s going to consecrate my sister’s grave,” Emilio said.
“Why didn’t you bury her in a churchyard?”
Nonna answered for him. “Because he had no money.”
I looked at Emilio, who nodded reluctantly, the tips of his ears going red.
“No need to blush,” I said. “It’s not your fault. That’s just not fair.”
“About time you learned what unfair really means, Flora,” Nonna said, handing Emilio a pillow, the coverlet brown with age but still clean. “You think it means your sister gets all the best dresses. You think it means that Renato is your father’s lieutenant while Andrea is the one who works. You think it means that your mamma gets to sleep in the finest bed in the house while I content myself with the cell over there.”
Nonna pointed to the rickety staircase that led to her tiny bedroom. She was right: it never seemed fair that she should have to sleep above the pantry, her dreams seasoned with the smells of drying sage and leftover turnips.
She was still talking. “We all dine lavishly, carissima, even in Lent; we have a roof over our heads. Not everyone lives that way. That is why you will train with our guards. That is why you will go with Emilio and Father Alberto to Fiesole tomorrow night.”
“Aspetta,” I said. “Did you say I was to train with the guards?”
Nonna rolled her eyes. “What am I going to do with this girl, eh?” she said to Emilio. “We talked about this yesterday when you were mooning about, looking upstairs. From now on, keep your mind on what you’re doing. If you had been listening, you would have heard when I said that starting tomorrow Captain Umberto will train you with the rest of his men. He’s happy to do it. His conscience is troubling him because of your garden.”
“You mean I’ll learn how to use a sword?”
“Sword, pike, staff — even ride a horse,” Emilio said.
“I already know how to
ride a horse,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Then he’ll teach you not to ride like a sissy, eh?” he said.
If he hadn’t been injured I would have thumped him on the head. Instead, I had to settle for stamping on his foot.
“Basta!” Nonna commanded. “Yes, Flora, you’ll get to learn all those things because you may need the knowledge. Do you understand? The day is coming soon when I won’t be able to look out for you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “We’ll be together forever.”
“Flora,” Nonna said in a strangely soft voice. “I want you to look at my hands.”
She held them out in front of her. The joints were so arthritic they bent almost backward. And they shook — her massive ring with the black dog jumped as though it were scratching at fleas.
I hadn’t noticed Nonna’s tremors before. I looked to her for an explanation, and at the same time saw the clouds fanning out from the center of her brown eyes. She was more than old: she was crippled and blind.
“Listen to me, carissima,” Nonna said. “Death in one so old is not a tragedy. I have lived a long life and have few regrets.”
“But . . . ,” I said, “who will take care of me?”
As soon as I spoke those words I regretted them. For all my thoughts of running away, all my dreams of being free, I was still a selfish little girl, and she knew it.
I looked at the candlelit shadows Nonna and I cast on the wall. I noticed how hers was stooped and crooked, almost as though she had wrapped her frame around a child. Now, as I watched, my shadow grew larger and wrapped itself around her. I would learn to be strong. I would train with the guard and then I would guard her from my true enemy — death.
“I understand, Nonna,” I said.
She nodded and withdrew her hands. “I believe you do,” she said, fixing me with her hawklike stare.
She mounted the rickety stairs to her bedroom. “And one last thing. You two will not work in the kitchen tomorrow night. You are not to eat with the rest of the guard. Do you understand? When you return from Fiesole there will be a meal waiting for you on the kitchen table. Do not, under any circumstances, eat anything else.”
Primavera Page 4
