The Birth of Venus

by Sarah Dunant

  I felt the saliva level rise in my mouth and wondered if, given my formidable aim these days, I might be able to vomit straight into her lap or just over her shoes.

  “How is Illuminata?” I asked, to keep my mind off such sport.

  “Oh, she thrives in the country.”

  “Don’t you miss her?”

  “I saw her at the villa during August. But she grows better away from the city than she would here in the heat and the dust. You have no idea how many children are succumbing to the weather. The streets are full of tiny coffins.”

  “Have you seen our brothers?”

  “You don’t know? Luca is a brigade commander now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. But he has three dozen Angels underneath him and he has even had an audience with the friar.”

  “I knew someone in the family would be honored eventually,” I said. “And Tomaso?”

  “Oh, Tomaso! You haven’t heard?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been a little indisposed.”

  “He is ill.”

  “Not pregnant, I hope,” I said sweetly.

  “Oh, Alessandra!” and she laughed so much that her cheeks wobbled. I could live off that much fat for weeks, I thought. She gave a simpering little sigh. “Well, when I say ill, what I really mean is”—she lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper—“he has the boils.”

  “Oh, really!”

  “Oh, really. You should see him. They’re all over him. Ugh. He has locked himself in the house and refuses visitors.”

  For the first time in two months, I began to feel a little better.

  “Well, where did he get those, I wonder?”

  She dropped her eyes. “You know the rumor, don’t you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “About him.”

  “What is that?”

  “I can’t even bring myself to name it. Suffice it to say that there are those accused of the same thing who will lose their noses and the skins off their backs once their trials are complete. Can you believe that men could do such things?”

  “Well,” I said, “I suppose there must be sin for God to grant forgiveness.”

  “Our poor mother,” she said. “Can you imagine the shame? She returns from months in the country nursing Father back to health to find her own son is . . . well, all I can say is thank God there are some of our family walking in righteousness.”

  “Yes, indeed. Thank God.”

  “Aren’t you glad you went the right way now?”

  “With all my heart,” I said softly. “When did you say she got back?”

  I SENT ERILA TO ASK FOR MY MOTHER’S ATTENDANCE ON ME THAT same afternoon. Our feud had lasted long enough, and whatever it was she had known or not known I had need of her common sense now. The fact that she might bring news of the painter was, I swear, only something I thought about afterward.

  I made an effort for her visit. Erila dressed me and I had her set two chairs in the sculpture gallery. The wind moved a draft through this great room and I thought she would appreciate the way the beauty of the stone remained so cool in the haze of the heat. I remembered the day we had sat in my bedroom at home, discussing my marriage. It had been hot then too, though nothing like now.

  Erila showed her in and we stood and looked at each other. She had aged since our last meeting. That perfectly straight back had just the hint of a stoop in it, and though she was still a handsome woman it seemed to me at least that the light in her eyes had dimmed a little.

  “How far into the pregnancy are you?” she said, and I could tell she was shocked by my appearance.

  “I last bled in July.”

  “Eleven weeks. Hah! Have you tried mandrake and semilla?”

  “Er, no. I think it is probably the only thing I have not tried.”

  “Send Erila out for some now. I will make up the drink myself. Why did you not send for me earlier?”

  But I did not have the energy to start this now. “I . . . I did not want to worry you.”

  She was braver than I. “No. That is not the reason. You were so fierce with me. I didn’t force you to marry him, you know.”

  I frowned.

  “No, it has to be talked about. There will be no future if we do not. Tell me this. Even if I had known—and I did not—but even if I had, would that have stopped you? You were so determined to get free.”

  I had not thought of it before: how I might have reacted had I known. “I don’t know,” I said. “You really didn’t know?”

  “Oh, my child, of course I didn’t.”

  “But you had seen him at court. And you reacted so strangely when I asked you about it. I—”

  “Alessandra,” she said, cutting me off firmly, “not everything is the way it sounds. I was very young. And despite my learning I was very ignorant. In all kinds of ways and about all manner of things.”

  Like myself, I thought. So she had not known after all. “So when did you find out?” I said quietly.

  “About your brother?” She sighed. “I think I have both known and not known for a long time. About your husband? Three days ago. Tomaso believes he is dying. He is not, but when a man so pretty looks that ugly he mistakes it for something fatal. I think at last he has begun to understand the consequences of his actions. He is in a frenzy of pain and fear. At the beginning of this week he called in a confessor to gain absolution. Then he told me.”

  “Whom did he confess to?” I said anxiously, remembering Erila’s stories about whispering priests.

  “A friend of the family. We are safe. Or as safe as anyone is now.”

  We sat for a while, each of us taking in the other’s revelations. I studied her tiredness. What had been my husband’s memory of her? Beauty, wit, and learning. Must it always be a sin to be so confident? Must our Lord always see fit to have it knocked out of us?

  “So, my child? We have come a long way since our last meeting. How is it?”

  “Between him and me? As you see. We have made the marriage work.”

  “Yes, I do see. He spoke with me before I came to you. He is—” She stopped. “I don’t know. He is—”

  “A good man,” I said. “I know. Strange, isn’t it?”

  I had wanted to talk to my mother like this for so long. To meet her woman to woman, as someone who had walked the same road before me, even if she had not passed through exactly the same places.

  “And my father?”

  “He is . . . he is a little better. He has learned to accept things. And that is a recovery in itself.”

  “Does he know about Tomaso?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, Plautilla knows and she is outraged.”

  “Oh, dear Plautilla.” And it was the first time I saw her smile. “She always did enjoy outrage, even as a child. At least this is for something worthwhile.”

  “And what of you, Mama? What do you think?”

  She shook her head. “You know, Alessandra, these are such difficult times. I think God watches everything we do and judges us less by our success than by how hard we struggle when the path is rough. Do you pray as I told you? And go regularly to church?”

  “Only when I am sure I will not throw up in it,” I said, with a smile. “But yes, I pray.”

  I was not lying. I had prayed constantly over the last weeks as I had lain in bed with my stomach curdling, begging for an intercession that would leave my baby healthy and undamned, even if it could not do the same for me. There had been moments when my fear was so great I had not been able to tell what was the sickness of my body and what the sickness of my mind.

  “Then you will be sustained, my child. Believe me, He hears everything that is said to Him, even when He appears not to listen.”

  Her words were like a temporary relief from fever. The God that ruled Florence now would have both me and the child eternally strung up by our entrails. The God I saw in my mother’s eyes that afternoon had at least the capacity to
distinguish gradations of guilt. I had missed her quiet shining intelligence more than I had dared let myself admit. “You know about the painter?” I said, after a while.

  “Yes. Maria told me. Her words were that you were most responsible.”

  I laughed. “Me? Just imagine. How is he?” And for the first time in months I allowed myself to see him in front of me.

  “Well, though he is still not garrulous he would seem recovered from whatever it was that ailed him.”

  I shrugged. “It was not so much. I think his loneliness and the burden of the work oppressed him.”

  “Hmm,” she said, which was the sound she always made when I was a child and she hadn’t yet decided whether to believe me.

  “And the chapel?”

  “The chapel? Oh, the chapel is wonderful, a beacon in our darkness. The Assumption on the ceiling is breathtaking. Our Lady’s face is most striking”—she paused—“for those who know the family well.”

  I looked down at the floor so she would not see the flush of pleasure rising in my cheeks. “Well, thankfully she is very high up. Anyway, who would recognize me now? You are not angry?”

  “It is hard to be angry at beauty,” she said simply. “She has such unexpected grace to her and, as you say, not many will read her as we do. Though your sister of course—”

  “—will be outraged.” We both smiled this time. “So. It is finished?”

  “Not quite. Though he assures us it will be ready for the first mass.”

  “And when is that?”

  “Luca is eager, Tomaso is captive for once, and Plautilla loves an event. If the mandrake and semilla work I think we could plan it for early next month. It will be good to have the family reunited again, don’t you think?”

  Thirty-six

  THOUGH IT WOULD BE NICE TO TELL YOU THAT MY mother’s remedy had a miraculous effect on my constitution, the fact was that it worked no better than anything else. Or perhaps it simply took more time.

  I was well into my fourth month and so thin that I looked more like a sufferer of famine than a woman rich with child, when, just as suddenly as it had come, the vomiting stopped. I woke up one morning and was already leaning over the bowl in readiness to spew up more of the lining of my empty stomach when I realized that the nausea had gone. My head was clear, my stomach juices quiet. I lay back against the pillow and put my hand over the swelling that as yet only I could see.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And welcome.”

  MY MOTHER HAD ASKED THAT WE COME THE DAY BEFORE SO ERILA could help with preparations and the family might spend a little time together. The summer was long over and with it had gone the scorching heat, but the drought remained. There was dirt and dust everywhere, clouds of it swirling up from wheels and horses’ hooves, coating and choking passersby. Some of the people we passed looked almost as thin as I did. The stalls in the market were half empty, a testament to a failed harvest, the vegetables and fruit small and malformed. There was no sign of the snake man. The only people doing good business were the pawn merchants and the apothecaries. The boils had left their mark. Even those who were cured had the scars to show for it.

  The house came out to greet us. Not the painter—but then he had always held himself apart—but Maria, Ludovica, and the rest of them. Everyone who greeted me was shocked by my appearance, though they tried, inadequately, not to show it. My mother kissed me on both cheeks and took me to the study where my father now spent all his time.

  He was sitting at the table with a stack of account books in front of him and a pair of magnifying lenses on his nose. He didn’t hear us come in and we stood for a moment watching him as he ran his fingers down each column, his lips moving silently as he counted, then made a flurry of notes in the margin. He looked more like one of the moneylenders on the streets than a prosperous merchant of the city. But then maybe he wasn’t so prosperous anymore.

  “Ah . . . Alessandra,” he said when he saw me, my name coming out like a long wheeze from his chest. He stood up, and he was much smaller than I remembered, as if something at the center of him had caved in and the rest of his body curved inward to protect the hole.

  We embraced, and our bones rattled together.

  “Sit, sit, sit, my child. We have much to talk about.”

  But after we had exchanged pleasantries and he had congratulated me on my news and asked after my husband’s welfare, it seemed there was little to say and his eyes began straying back to the columns of his books.

  These ledgers, with their neatness and accuracy, had for many years been his pride and joy, the written evidence of our mounting wealth. Now, as he looked, he seemed to keep finding mistakes, clicking his tongue angrily as he underlined them heavily, scribbling further figures on the side.

  My mother rescued me a little later.

  “What is he doing?” I asked, as we tiptoed out.

  “He is . . . he is seeing to business. As he always did,” she replied briskly. “So . . . now there is something else you should see.”

  And she took me into the chapel.

  It was truly an amazing sight. Where there had been cold stone in cold light now ran two sets of pews in fresh walnut, each with polished carved heads at both ends. The altar was in place with a delicate panel painting of the Nativity in the center, lit up by a row of great candles in tall silver holders, their fiery glow directing your eyes upward to the frescoes on the walls.

  “Oh!”

  My mother smiled, but as I walked toward the altar she let me go alone, and a little later I heard the doors close behind her. With the exception of a small piece of tarpaulin at the bottom half of the left wall the frescoes were finished: complete, coherent, beautiful.

  “Oh!” I said again.

  Santa Caterina grew into her martyrdom now with gravitas and serenity, her torture just a passing stage on her journey toward the light, her face aglow with the same almost childish joy that I remembered from that first Virgin on the wall of his room.

  My father was portrayed to the left of the altar, my mother opposite him on the other side. They were in profile, kneeling, their dress somber, their gaze devout. For a man who had begun life in a draper’s shop it was a fitting elevation, but it was my mother who caught the attention, even in profile, her eye so keen and her posture alert.

  My sister embodied the figure of the empress visiting the saint in her cell, her wedding garments faithfully reproduced in such shining color that she almost eclipsed the quiet beauty of the saint, while Luca was to be found as one of her interlocutors, his bullish features and stern gaze exuding a certain self-importance, though he would probably read it as authority. And Tomaso . . . well, Tomaso had got his wish. There he stood, cured of his present affliction for the purposes of posterity, strong and elegant as one of the court’s most prominent scholars, a man whose dress sense was as vibrant as his mind. In generations to come, whichever family worshipped here, the young girls of the household would find their attention torn between piety and longing. How little would they know . . .

  And me? Well, as my mother had intimated, I was in the heavens, so high that you would have to have youthful eyes and risk a crick in your neck to appreciate the depth of the likeness. But to really understand the power of the transformation, you would have to have seen what had been painted there before. The Devil was banished from his throne, all sign of cannibalism and terror lost in a shimmer of light. In his place now sat Our Lady: not so much a beauty as a substantial soul, with no sign of giraffe awkwardness, content at last with all that had been asked of her.

  I stood with my head back, turning myself round and round to see how each wall reached up to the ceiling, until my head was giddy and the frescoes seemed to swim and swirl in front of my eyes as if the figures themselves were moving. There was a kind of joy in me the like of which I had not felt for so long.

  And as I turned the next time he was standing there in front of me.

  He was well dressed and well fed. If we lay together now,
his flesh would take up more room than mine. My sickness had kept any longing at bay, but without it my fear was that my mind would be as giddy as my body.

  “So? What do you think of it?” His Tuscan had less of an accent now.

  “Oh, it is beautiful!” I could feel myself grinning, as if the happiness were overflowing and I could do nothing but let it pour out. “It is . . . it is Florentine.” I paused. “And you . . . are well?”

  He nodded, his eyes still fixed on mine as if there were a text he was intent on reading there.

  “Not cold anymore?”

  “No,” he said softly. “Not cold anymore. But you—”

  “I know,” I said quickly. “It’s all right. . . . I am better now.” You must tell him, I thought. You must tell him. In case no one else has.

  But I couldn’t. Instead, as the words died away, we stood looking at each other, then kept on looking. If someone came in now they would surely know immediately. If someone came in . . . I remembered how many times I had had the same thought: his room that first time, the chapel at night, the garden . . . What had Erila once said to me? Innocence can spring more traps than knowledge. But in our innocence there had always been knowledge. I knew that now. I wanted to touch him so much it made my hands ache.

  “So.” My voice sounded strangely light, like the froth of egg whites when they are beaten into airy peaks. “Your chapel is done.”

  “No. Not yet. There is something still to be completed.”

  Now at last he put out his hand to me. As I took it my fingers slid over the thickened skin in his palm, but the scars were so rough that I couldn’t be sure he would even feel my touch. He led me to the left wall, where he unhooked the remaining piece of tarpaulin. Underneath was a small blank space in the fresco, the outline of a woman sitting with her skirts full around her, her face turned to a window in which a white bird was framed looking back at her: Santa Caterina as a tender young woman. The screed plaster inside her absent image was still damp.

  “Your mother told me you would be here this morning. The plasterer has just finished. She is yours.”