Primavera

by Mary Jane Beaufrand

  I ran to the door with Nonna’s body, but Domenica paused long enough to kick Graziella in the face with her dainty embroidered slipper. It wasn’t a forceful kick, but it was enough to make Graziella stop yelling for a moment.

  “Andiamo,” Domenica said when she caught up with me. There was a glint in her eyes that almost pleased me.

  Outside I discovered the horse tethered where I left him. A few citizens were gathered by the patients’ bench, tracking us with their eyes. They didn’t make a move. I threw Nonna’s body over the horse’s back and helped Domenica up behind her. Then I mounted behind Domenica.

  As I seized the reins, two men with sticks and rocks stepped forward. “I know that girl. She’s a Pazzi. Let’s show the world what Florentines do to murderers.”

  Then a man with a leather apron held them back. He was Orazio, the goldsmith who had sat with me at dinner only last night. “Aspetta,” he said gently. Wait. It was a quiet gesture, but it worked. The surly man didn’t press forward. The others held back as well. I wanted to thank him, but I couldn’t waste time, so I merely nodded.

  I snapped the reins once and we were gone.

  The ride back up the hill was uncomfortable. And although Nonna’s body was small and Domenica slight, there were three of us on the back of one small horse. I felt as if at any moment I would fall over backward and kiss the road. But I didn’t. And the horse kept his gallop all the way up to Fiesole and past it, about five miles to the convent.

  I rolled off the horse and landed on my feet.

  I banged on the iron gate. A sister with a deeply wrinkled face in a wimple opened the grille. With one glance she took in everything, my half-witless sister, my blood-stained tunic. “What ails you, signor?” she asked kindly. When she opened her mouth I noticed she had practically no teeth in her head.

  I wondered who she was talking to, then remembered that I was a signor now.

  I glanced down at myself. I was wearing a fresh coat of blood. No mistaking this for dirt.

  “There’s been an accident,” I said in a low voice. “My sister needs sanctuary.”

  She glanced past me to where the horse stood. Domenica was still seated on his back, Nonna draped in front of her.

  “What’s wrong with the old woman?” she asked.

  “She’s dead.”

  The nun looked me up and down again. “I didn’t do it,” I said. “At least not this one.” I wondered if I would ever be able to perfect the art of diplomacy. With my hasty words I doomed us. I just knew it.

  She studied me again. Finally she produced a set of keys from her girdle, and the iron door clanged open. “I think you’d better come in,” she said. “I am Suor Arcangela. I bid you welcome.”

  I led the horse inside the convent walls and helped Domenica down. I trundled her to a bench under an olive tree, amidst the neat rows of onions and peas. Suor Arcangela offered her a ladle of well water. More nuns emerged from the refectory.

  “We can never get married,” Domenica said again as she sipped the water. Her eyes were glazed. I feared she would never recover her right mind.

  Someone brought the horse into the courtyard as well, and gentle hands pulled Nonna’s body down. One nun made the sign of the cross over her. Another caressed her cold cheek. They would take care of Nonna. If I accomplished nothing else today, I accomplished this.

  Suor Arcangela came up to me with another ladle of water. I thanked her. My hands shook as I brought the water to my lips and gulped so fast I spilled half of it down my shirt.

  “Slowly, now,” she said easily.

  When I was done I handed the ladle back to her and forced myself to breathe. I liked this space, I decided. I didn’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. There were no fountains, no delicate roses. Just neat rows of vegetables and herbs. It wasn’t an elaborate garden but it was enough. Until today I’d never known what enough looked like.

  As I sat there I began to stop shaking. Suor Arcangela came and sat next to me.

  “I’ve misjudged you,” I said. “I’ve never been here. I thought it might be like a prison.”

  “There are those who need our kind of prison,” Suor Arcangela said. She nodded to where Domenica sat staring blankly ahead. “And you, signor? Can you not rest with us a piece?”

  I shook my head. “I have to go back. There are more.”

  Suor Arcangela nodded in Domenica’s direction. “Like that one?”

  “I fear they’re more like my blessed nonna,” I said.

  She crossed herself and kissed a rosary that was hanging around her neck. “I shall pray for you, signor. Allora. I thought you might need this.” She drew from her habit a clean shirt and offered it to me. “There is a corner over there. You can change without being observed.”

  “Grazie,” I said, and began unbelting my own bloody tunic.

  My squarcato clattered to the ground, along with Nonna’s black-dog ring and her letter. The letter had a bloodstain on it; the ring was unmarked. I picked it up and offered it to the nun.

  “Here,” I said. “For the burial. And for my sister’s keep.”

  She curled my fingers around the ring in my palm and pressed it back on me. “I do not need payment to do my Christian duty. You say that others need your help. Bring them here. We will care for them.”

  And I knew she would.

  I took my ring and letter and changed behind an olive tree. Then I drew up a bucket of well water and splashed my face and arms. When I was done rinsing, the water in the bucket was dark pink.

  Even though time was still precious, I had one more task before leaving.

  I wished I didn’t have to talk to Domenica. Ever. But leaving without saying goodbye didn’t seem right. Not after what we’d been through.

  So I sat next to her on the garden bench. Her eyes still hadn’t focused; her hands played with her hair. “You’ll be safe here,” I said. “Emilio will come in two days. He’ll know what to do.”

  “What about you?” she said, her eyes suddenly alert. “Why can’t you come back for me?”

  But I was plotting again. Emilio was as fast as the Roman god Mercury. He would have reached the pope’s troops by now. They might already be at the palazzo. If all went well, my family might yet be saved. Perhaps I was just going back to reassure myself.

  “It’ll be fine, Domenica. You’ll see. I’ll be back tonight with the rest.”

  They’re fine, I told myself. Emilio’s there. But no matter how often I repeated it part of me knew I’d already used my luck getting Nonna and Domenica out. I remembered the gurgling noise Giuliano made as he struggled for his last breath; I remembered how Captain Umberto’s head sounded heavy as a cannon ball rolling across the library floor. I remembered the gathering mob outside the kitchen and how two of them wanted to get at us but Orazio held them back. Aspetta. There was only one man with a quiet word to keep the crowd from attacking. He gave us an instant — now my instants were all used up.

  “My dresses, my jewelry,” Domenica said, still fussing with her hair. “The Medici have taken everything.” Tears appeared in her eyes. “I heard the decree. They want us wiped out. They’re going to kill our brothers and father. You and I they’ll let live, but we can never get married so we can never produce an heir.”

  To me, this didn’t seem like such a big tragedy. I’d never planned on getting married, so I didn’t miss it now. This was something she would have to contemplate on her own.

  “Flora,” she said. I turned around. She stood up and brought a hand to fuss with my own jagged hairline. “If you come back here, we might yet be well together. Your hair will grow. I will show you how to arrange it. And I sew a straighter seam than you do. I could make us both dresses. If you come back I will take care of you. You will be my little sister.”

  It was a gracious offer, and the look on her face was one I’d seen only in my dreams. Domenica was offering me acceptance. And I realized it wasn’t the leaving I always dreamed of, the adventure, the
fortune earned — but the embrace. The one Domenica was offering me now.

  “Sorella mia,” I said, grasping her hands. “That sounds like heaven.”

  The nuns around us pretended not to stare. They heard her call me Flora and sister and speak to me of gowns and hairstyles. They knew a little of the deception I practiced upon them.

  I mounted my tired horse, focusing on little things: the blisters on my fingers from gripping the reins, the gray mane in front of me. I thought perhaps if I just noticed the little things, the bigger things would take care of themselves.

  I kneed my mount and rode out of the courtyard.

  “Addio, signorina!” Suor Arcangela called, closing the gates behind me. “Godspeed!”

  Then I galloped away, leaving the girl behind.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I returned to the city at sunset. This time there was no slipping through — the crowds started at the city gates. These people were not leaning out of windows for news — they were debauched revelers. The whole city was like a carnival: people staggered through the streets, shouting “Palle! Palle!” The Medici coat of arms became a call to war. These upright citizens carried our jugs of wine, juggling our silver plates and kettles and hoarding our bits of cloth. Had everyone in the city of Florence been looting my house? Take it and welcome, I thought. It is your due. Just leave me my family.

  I got off my tired horse at the edge of the city, afraid if I came any farther someone would steal him too. There was foam around his gray muzzle. I should have left him at the convent. I whispered to him that he had been a good horse, a fine horse, then I slapped him on his way. I would not be getting away this time.

  I threaded through the crowds to the kitchen entrance of the palazzo. No army here. Just looters. They crushed around the kitchen door and conked one another on the heads if they thought someone had something better. I tried to push my way through them, but they pushed back. “I was here first!” people shouted, their eyes narrow with greed. They were no better than my father.

  Emilio’s there, I muttered. Everyone is safe. At least no one recognized me yet. I would make my way to the pope’s army, who must be at the front of the palazzo, and together we would restrain the crowd and protect what was left of my family.

  At the front only shock awaited me.

  There was no papal army. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be uniforms with the three balls of the Medici coat of arms. Palle. Palle. Palle.

  “Death to the traitorous Pazzi!”

  “We’ll show him how we handle assassins in Florence!”

  Where was Emilio?

  A cheer arose. There was some kind of spectacle coming out of our front entrance. I was too far back in the crowd to see well, but I did see my father emerge with a rope around his neck and a black hole where his right eye used to be.

  Madonna! I was wrong: everyone was not safe, least of all my papa. He was in so much pain he couldn’t even cry out. He swayed on his feet, held up by the Medici soldier who killed Captain Umberto. People pelted him with rocks and fruit and clubbed him with heavy sticks, but he didn’t seem to feel the blows.

  I pressed forward but the crowd pressed me back. They were making way for four horses brought to the front. I didn’t understand. Why four horses? If my parents were to be carted off to the Bargello, surely they could just walk?

  I tried to make myself as slippery as an eel and squeeze through the crowds, but I made no progress at all.

  Papa’s head disappeared, and the next thing I heard was horrendous screaming as the four horses were encouraged in different directions. That noise! Why didn’t they stop it? I felt ill. That was my papa screaming so loud. And why? What were they doing to him that was so horrible? He hadn’t seemed to have that much life left in him.

  Then one of the horses trotted past me dragging a human arm behind it.

  They had pulled Papa apart.

  I swayed on my feet. Around me the crowd went wild. People cheered loudly. “Forza! Forza!” Jugs of wine passed freely from one set of hands to the next. Cretini. What kind of people thought this was entertaining?

  At the palazzo entrance, a Medici soldier held my father’s bald head up to the crowd, still dripping gore from the neck. There was no body attached to it. I forced myself not to look away. What bothered me wasn’t the blood so much, but the fact that the head was uncapped and now everyone could see what he’d tried so hard to conceal during his life. I wanted to wrap that head and protect it, the way I’d protected Nonna’s body — even though I knew it didn’t matter anymore. He couldn’t feel shame. All I could do for my father now was pray for his soul. So I did.

  God forgive him, I implored. He was wrong to plot as he did, but he was my father and I loved him. Accept him into heaven as he never accepted me.

  Then the chanting resumed and they brought my brother Renato forth. “No!” I shouted, trying to be heard over the throng. I tried again to elbow my way through the crowd with as little success.

  I cried and reached out — not for Renato (God forgive me) — but because I knew if they were going from oldest to youngest, Andrea would come after him.

  No. Not Andrea. No one deserved to be torn apart by horses, but especially not him. He was no conspirator. I had to save him.

  The horses were brought again, pieces of my father still dragging behind them. Renato saw them and went crazy with fright. He thrashed harder than a live eel.

  “No!” I yelled. “He is innocent!”

  No one seemed to hear me, they were chanting so loudly. Even if they had, they wouldn’t have known that I was not talking about Renato.

  Everyone cheered and wanted a better look. Next to me a man put a young boy on his shoulders so he could see. I reached out and pulled him off.

  “What are you doing?” The man grabbed his son away from me.

  “Per piacere, signor, this is no sight for a child.”

  “Good,” he said as he shoved me away. “Maybe he’ll remember this. I want him to know what we Florentines do to traitors.”

  The man put his child back on his shoulders. The child laughed and clapped and patted his father on the head. I doubted he’d still be clapping in a moment.

  As I watched, the child seemed to jump up and down on his father’s shoulders. But it wasn’t him. My vision blurred. Darkness pressed in on the corners of my eyes. Red specks like cannon fire erupted on the back of my lids. I had to get to the front of the crowd.

  But no matter who I pushed, there was someone larger and stronger pushing back.

  Just then the goldsmith appeared and put an arm under my elbow. “Please, signor,” he said, pulling me out of the crowd just before everything went black. “You are not well.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, jerking my arms away.

  “What a sissy, eh?” I heard him say to the crowd as I toppled forward. “This one can’t stand the sight of blood.”

  Once again the goldsmith saved me. He grabbed my arm and dragged me to an alley. I staggered to my feet, eager to get back. “Easy now,” he said, “you’ve had a shock.”

  He tried to support me but I elbowed him away. I made it about two paces, too, until I leaned over and retched into the street. Along with mud and horse dung, I threw up all that was left of my pride.

  Orazio patted my back as I heaved. “What do you call youself, son?” he said pointedly.

  I told him the first name that came to mind.

  “It isn’t safe out here, Emilio,” he said. “We have to get off the streets.”

  “Grazie, Signor Orazio.”

  “Prego,” he said, his eyes darting around us.

  Just then a new cry ripped the air. “Delphine!” I heard some men yell, using our coat of arms as a rallying cry. From the direction of the duomo six men came running wielding weapons.

  At last, I thought. The pope’s army has arrived. All would be well.

  But all wasn’t well. From where I stood I could see that the men who had called “Delphine!” wer
en’t an army, they weren’t even the remnants of an army. They were just six citizens wielding rocks and scythes. I remembered one or two faces from Nonna’s kitchen door. There was one man with a harelip, another dragging a withered leg. It was an army of invalids. “Don’t,” I whispered. “You’re going to get slaughtered.”

  They made it a few steps closer to Renato than I did, but they were swallowed by a crowd. For every voice shouting “Delphine!” there were ten shouting “Palle!” The Medici crowd swallowed up the few souls within seconds. Over and over I watched kicks and blows being delivered and more daggers coming down again and again.

  This morning I thought I’d only have to journey through hell once. How many more people would I have to watch get ripped apart? Where was Emilio?

  Behind me, the goldsmith was pulling on me. “It’s time to take your own advice, signorina!” he said, more forcefully this time. “If we stay here we’ll be seen and you’ll get slaughtered.”

  But I barely heard him. “We need an army,” I said. “I have to get to Porta Romana.”

  I shook away from his grasp and ran to the other end of the alley — toward the Arno. Toward Porta Romana on the other side. I had to find Emilio and get the pope’s army. Madonna! When I caught up with that boy I would never forgive him for being so late. He was as lazy as Graziella.

  It took me so long to go a short distance. I’d never traveled alone before through the streets, and they were narrow and crowded. I had to cross the Arno, but I couldn’t see the Arno. At last the street I was on opened into the Piazza della Signoria, and from the piazza I could see a sliver of blue.

  When I reached the river I picked out the Ponte Vecchio and ran across that. From there it was straight to the statue of Mercury that marked the southern edge of our city. I ran to it as though I were being chased.

  When I touched the statue I stopped and looked around. There were a few people and carts coming and going. Normal traffic. There was no army. There was no Emilio. There was no one but me. I ran along the road to the south, calling, “Emilio! Emilio! I’m here!” I saw no one. I tried the neighborhoods to the east and west. Still no uniforms; no army. Hardly any people, either. The whole city must have been at our palazzo, picking over our possessions and our bones.