by Debbie Rix
‘What happened, nonno?’ he asked.
‘I don’t really remember,’ said the old man, ‘I was cutting some bread to eat for supper and I began to feel ill – you know, light in the head. I had a pain in my arm and it got worse and worse. I knew it wasn’t right so I called next door to Gabriella and asked her to go and find you. I lay down, I knew that was best, and waited for you to come. But this little angel came instead.’
Aurelia smiled at the old man; she reached across and held his hand.
‘I’ve sent for my mother; she’s an apothecary,’ she said. ‘I don’t know exactly what she can do, but she will come with her remedies.’
There was a knock on the door and Aurelia leapt up. ‘That will be her now, I hope.’
Violetta came upstairs and the two young people made way for her to sit down next to old Gerardo. She carefully examined the old man, asking him where the pain was, how long he had felt unwell, whether he felt breathless, and so on. Finally, she inspected his eyes, tongue, and pallor.
Satisfied with her diagnosis, she rose and beckoned young Gerardo to follow her down the ladder to the kitchen below.
‘It is his heart, I believe. He is short of breath and cannot sit up. He must rest. I will make him something to help him sleep.’
‘Signora,’ young Gerardo spoke softly, ‘I am grateful to you for your help, you must let me pay you for your trouble.’
‘Please,’ said Violetta, ‘I do not expect payment. Aurelia has explained how important you and your grandfather are to her; maybe you can render me a favour sometime in return. Now, please would you go and heat some water – the fire needs tending. And Aurelia, take these herbs and strip the leaves off the stems as you used to do.’
The two young people suitably occupied, Violetta climbed back up to the bedroom and plumped the old man’s pillow, pulling his blanket around his chin and tucking it into the side of his bed, before settling herself onto a small nursing chair that stood in the corner of his bedchamber.
‘I will not leave you; you will be safe with me,’ she said kindly.
‘Signora, I am grateful,’ whispered the old man, struggling to speak, ‘but I am not a fool. I know that what has happened to me cannot be cured with a tisane. You are very kind, but I need you to prepare young Gerardo, in case I do not survive. I am all he has in the world, apart from your lovely daughter. Look after him for me. He is a good boy… and strong and ambitious.’
‘We will love him like one of our own,’ Violetta promised. ‘Now lie still and let me tidy this bed.’
Chapter Twenty
October 1171
Massoud put down his pens and slammed shut the huge Calvo ledgers with their columns of figures. He stood gazing out of the window of his office, which overlooked the lane at the side of the palazzo. Before Berta had left for her sojourn at her casetta, she had arranged with him to send Giuseppe with the cart at noon to bring her back home.
Massoud heard the wheels clattering in the lane below and rushed to the main door. Berta was standing on the steps outside, looking tired but happy.
‘Forgive me, signora, for making you wait. I did not hear you knock.’
‘You are forgiven, of course, Massoud. It’s good to see you.’
‘I will send the staff to collect your baggage from the cart.’
‘Oh, there is not much... just a few clothes. I left most of my things at the casetta, for when I return. Is Aurelia upstairs? I must get changed ready for our meeting later today with the silk merchant… er, what’s his name?’
‘Goro Dati, signora. We also have a meeting with the wine merchant Bartolomeo di Michele del Corazza. And yes, signora, Aurelia is upstairs.’
Massoud thought it advisable not to mention that Aurelia had only just returned home from her visit to Gerardo’s grandfather.
Berta reached her room and looked around for her maid. She was nowhere to be seen. She opened the door to the girl’s bedroom, and there she was, fast asleep on her little bed.
‘Aurelia,’ she shook her awake. ‘Aurelia, what are you doing asleep in the day? Get up now and help me please. If this is what you get up to when I leave town for a few days, in future I shall have to ensure that Maria keeps you fully employed while I’m away. Now wake up and find my dark grey damask dress.’
Aurelia had not slept all night, having kept vigil at old Gerardo’s bedside. She began to protest self-righteously, but registered the annoyance on Berta’s face.
‘I am sorry, signora, I merely laid myself down for a moment, and must have drifted off to sleep. Please forgive me.’
Aurelia found the dress Berta wanted, and helped her into it. She brushed out her mistress’s hair, and then coiled and plaited it. For her meeting with creditors, Berta preferred to adopt a demure style of dress, covering her hair with a plain linen cap, and wearing a simple gold and pearl cross on a gold chain.
‘Now Aurelia, please fetch me a little food. I will eat here in my chamber. I have some papers to read through before Massoud and I go for our meeting.’
The girl brought a bowl of broth, some bread and fruit and a little jug of wine, arranging them neatly for her mistress on a small table near the window.
‘Thank you, Aurelia; you may go.’
The girl, exhausted from the previous night, went downstairs to the kitchens and out into the garden. The wind had changed. It was blowing from the north, a sure sign that autumn was coming. But the sun was shining, and Aurelia headed for a little stone bench she knew would be a warm spot by the wall. She sat down and before long had nodded off, her head lolling against her chest.
Meanwhile, Berta had retrieved her sketches of the tower from the oak chest in the dining hall, and had been working on them for several hours. When at last she was satisfied, she called for her notary. ‘Massoud, please bring me the business accounts to study before our meeting with Signor Dati. While I am studying them I would like you to take a message for me. I am sorry to ask you, but I need someone I can trust. Will you go to Signor Vernacci, the Operaio and tell him that I would like to arrange a meeting with him as soon as possible – to discuss the new campanile at the Piazza del Duomo. Will you do that for me, please?’
Massoud bowed deeply. ‘It will be my pleasure, signora. I will come for you in two hours for our meeting with Signor Dati; we are meeting at his offices.’
‘Very good, Massoud.’
The notary brought the ledgers and laid them out on a large oak table in Berta’s room. She sat for more than an hour, going over the figures, making a note of goods that had yet to be sold, and monies owed. Finally, her neck and shoulders aching, she rose from her ornate chestnut sedile, slumping exhausted onto the luxurious bed she had shared for so many years with her husband Lorenzo. She reflected on the years they had shared… of his sadness at not having children, but his joy at the beautiful house they had built together. It had been a strange marriage in many ways, and yet they had created something extraordinary – or so she had thought. Throughout their many years together, she had imagined that their wealth was secure… that she was free to pursue her interests in art and architecture, unburdened by any anxieties about money. And she herself had been generous with that money over the years, being an illustrious and steadfast patron to many young artists. But their wealth, it now seemed, had been an illusion. Her study of the ledgers that afternoon had revealed the full extent of their debts. Lorenzo had left her with a string of irate creditors; and her hopes of an enduring personal legacy, of leaving her mark on the city that she loved, were disappearing fast.
She got up and walked across to a large oak cupboard that stood next to the bronze bust that Lorenzo had commissioned of his beautiful new wife, Berta, daughter of Bernado, on the occasion of their marriage seventeen years before. It had been sculpted by a young man who had gone on to make quite a name for himself, Bonanno Pisano. The girl she had once been, so sure and strong and optimistic, smiled at her. Her hair loose around her shoulders, Bonanno had depicted her wear
ing a string of huge pearls, with the large multi-faceted diamond pendant that Lorenzo had brought back for her from India.
She took the little clinking collection of keys she wore hanging from a chain at her waist, and unlocked the cupboard. She took out the clothes and damask throws that were stored inside and laid them on the bed. Using a small hunting knife that lay on the floor of the cupboard, she prized open a section at the back, revealing the oak panelling that covered the walls of her chamber. She inserted the blade of the knife into the edge of one piece of the paneling; it came away in her hand, exposing a deep cavity in the thick wall of the house. Inside the cavity were numerous papers and a small metal box which she removed. She took a second key and unlocked it, tipping the contents onto the bed. Jewels of many colours clattered onto the silk throw: the diamond egg, another cut from the largest emerald ever found, the emerald ring that Lorenzo had given her for their betrothal, rubies and pearls set into combs to wear in her hair. And finally, carefully stowed away in a stout linen bag, were the sixty coins that Benedete Zaccaria had given her as payment for the galley. She picked up the pieces one by one, holding them to the light, before putting them carefully back in the metal box and concealing them, once again, in their hiding place. She placed the drawings of the tower in the cavity too, before replacing the panel and the back of the cupboard. She hung cloaks on the pegs to conceal the secret entrance, and piled up the folded the clothes and damask throws, before finally locking the door.
When Massoud returned, she was ready. He had good news: the Operaio would meet her later that day. Checking her reflection one last time in the glass, she set off for the apartment of the silk merchant – Dati, the first of many such meetings to unravel the life she had created with her husband.
Aurelia woke, stiff and a little cold, on her stone seat by the garden wall. The sun had gone behind a cloud and her hands felt icy as she rubbed them together. She came in from the garden and discovered her mistress had already left.
‘How long will she be gone?’ she asked Maria, as casually as she could.
‘Quite a while I think,’ Massoud said, ‘they won’t be back till later this evening.’
Aurelia, desperate to see Gerardo again and to find out how his grandfather was, decided to risk a small lie.
‘This morning, la signora asked me to take a message for her. I really must go now; I may be a couple of hours.’
Maria looked up from rolling out pastry on the long chestnut table and pushed a strand of hair that had escaped from her cap away from her face with the back of her floury hands.
‘Well, mind you’re back in time for her return; you don’t want to upset her now, do you?’
Aurelia took a warm cape from her cupboard and began the walk to Gerardo’s house – first heading north across the new bridge over the Arno, then branching east along its banks, before turning into Via San Cecilia, past the church of the same name, where she turned, diving north into the jumble of narrow streets in Pisa’s oldest quarter. As she passed the church, its huge bronze bell tolled the evening Angelus. Gerardo would be leaving work now, she thought, and be home shortly – unless he had decided to take the day off and spend it with his grandfather.
When she arrived at his house, he was not there. She called upstairs; there was no answer. The servants – the maid and the boy – were nowhere to be found. As quietly as she could, she climbed the ladder to the upper floor where old Gerardo lay very still in his bed.
Even from across the room, Aurelia could see that all was not well. Terrified, she crept towards him, dropping to her knees at his bedside. The skin was grey, the lips blue. She put out her hand and touched him. He was cold. She pulled back her hand, recoiling from the sensation of his smooth, icy skin. Like marble, she thought.
A few moments later, she heard voices below. It was her mother… and Gerardo. She heard the ladder creak as he climbed to his grandfather’s bedroom. He said nothing as he entered, and appeared not even to notice Aurelia. He walked tentatively over to his grandfather, and touched him, feeling his cold hand; he lay down next to the old man, wrapping him in his arms, and weeping.
Aurelia, unable to bear the sight of the man she loved in such distress, backed away and retreated to the kitchen with her mother.
Violetta was breaking wood onto the fire, beneath a large copper pot filled with water. She put her arms out to Aurelia who broke into floods of tears.
‘There now, Aurelia, just cry, darling – it’s sometimes better to cry.’
After a few moments, the girl’s sobs subsided.
‘Cara,’ her mother said kindly, ‘help me to make a little food for Gerardo, will you? I know how distressed he will be, but he must eat, Aurelia.’
They found onions and garlic in an earthenware pot near the fire and began to chop them on the big kitchen table.
‘I feel so bad that the old man died alone,’ Violetta said as she peeled the onions. ‘I persuaded young Gerardo to go to the site this morning after you had left. I knew that the job was important, old Gerardo told me that last night. He made me promise that I would not let him stay here with the old man. “This job could be the making of him; this is his opportunity to change his life,” old Gerardo said. And so I persuaded him to go. But I felt bad about it. I knew that there was a risk he could pass away at any time. He was so very ill. And then, this afternoon, I had just come down here to collect a little broth that I had made for him, and I heard him shout. A strange noise, then a sort of gurgling sound. I rushed up there, but he had gone. It was so quick, Aurelia. There was nothing I could do. But I feel that I have failed him.’
Tears fell down her face.
Aurelia got up from the kitchen table and held her mother. ‘Mamma, there was nothing you could do… you said so. Gerardo will understand.’
‘I do,’ said a man’s voice suddenly. The two women looked up. Gerardo was standing at the bottom of the ladder.
‘I know there was nothing more you could do for him, Violetta,’ Gerardo said gently. ‘Nonno has been getting weaker for a while now. I knew he was not well. He has had such a hard life and his heart was not strong. I am just sorry I was not here; I would have liked to have been holding his hand. It does not seem right that he should have died all alone.’
He went over to the two women, and together they stood and held one another.
Gerardo sat silently at the kitchen table, as Violetta and Aurelia quietly prepared a simple meal of soup. If they asked him a question – ‘where are the vegetables, Gerardo,’ or ‘where do you keep the plates?’ – he responded. But otherwise he sat quite still, mute, unable to take in what had happened. Once the meal was prepared, Violetta ladled some of the soup into a bowl and set it before the young man. But he did not pick up his spoon; he merely sat staring ahead of him. She touched his arm gently.
‘Gerardo, here is a little soup for you. Eat it… it will be good for you.’
He obediently took up the spoon and took a couple of mouthfuls before thanking her and replacing the spoon on the table.
Aurelia, distressed at the sight of him so changed and unhappy, could think of nothing comforting to say. As her mother busied herself with washing some utensils, she said finally, ‘I ought to go, Gerardo. La signora will be very unhappy if I am not there when she returns.’
At the mention of Berta, Gerardo was jolted out of his silence. He wanted to say to Aurelia that he was sure Berta would understand, but he knew that was not so. Torn between his affection for Aurelia and his loyalty to his lover, he merely said, 'Go then, but maybe we can meet tomorrow or the next day? Would you be able to come to me here?’
Aurelia, understanding why he would be reluctant to meet her at the palazzo, simply nodded. She kissed him tenderly on the cheek, opened the front door, and hurried down the now darkening streets.
The servants were eating dinner when she got back to the palazzo. Refusing supper, she went upstairs and prepared her mistress’s room ready for her return. The bed was turned dow
n, her brushes were laid out on the dressing table, and a bowl of scented water stood nearby. But exhausted by her sleepless night and the emotional turmoil of the previous day and night, she lay down on her bed.
She was woken by her mistress’s excited voice. ‘Aurelia, Aurelia… where are you? I need you to help me.’
The girl dragged herself out of a deep sleep and struggled to her feet.
‘My goodness, you are asleep again!’ shouted Berta. ‘Whatever can be the matter with you, girl? Well, I can’t worry about that now. Help me to get undressed and then you can go back to your beloved bed.’
‘You seem cheerful, signora,’ said Aurelia, as she unpinned the long red hair.
‘I am! I have just had a very exciting meeting… with the Operaio. I have some wonderful plans, Aurelia. Everything is going to work out. Now brush out my hair, girl, and then you may go.’
Waiting until Aurelia was safely in bed, Berta went again to the oak cupboard, and once more retrieved the strongbox from its secret hiding place. She laid the box carefully beneath the pillow on her bed, rested her head on it, and went to sleep.
The following morning, Berta woke early. Checking that her maid was still asleep, she took the strongbox down to Massoud’s office. He was already at work, preparing for further meetings later that day.
‘Massoud, I have something I need you to do for me. Inside this box is some precious jewellery; I would like you to get it valued please. But we will need to be discreet. I do not want word of this spreading about. Take the jewels to Bonaccorsi Pitti. He can be trusted. Tell him we will pay him well for his silence.’
Gerardo had also woken early. The house was still in darkness as he threw off the covers. He lit a candle from the embers of the fire in the kitchens and sat at the table, fingering the tiny carved camel his grandfather Carlo had made for him all those years before. To be drowned at sea – that would be a terrible way to die. At least his dear old Gerardo had died peacefully in his bed. He thought too of his mother’s last days. He could remember the sounds she made at the end; terrible sobbing. And the awful smell of her dying… that too had stayed with him. But, as time went on, her sweet face became a blurred memory, as if it were reflected in a pool of water.
