Light in the Shadows

by Linda Lafferty

  “Leave this place, Merisi. Now!” Two more sbirri moved in behind him.

  Red-faced and shaking, Caravaggio sheathed his sword and stalked away. He turned up a side street, disappearing into its shadow.

  Caravaggio, Longhi, Gentileschi, and Minniti huddled over a parchment in Longhi’s house. The bronze inkwell lay open on the table, two sharpened quills at the ready.

  “You have the best handwriting, Longhi,” said Caravaggio. “You and your poems. You write.”

  “I’m the creative genius at words here,” said Longhi, tipping back a goblet of wine. “I’m no scribe. Besides, readers will recognize my handwriting.” He gestured to Gentileschi. “You do it, Orazio.”

  Gentileschi grunted, picking up the quill. “I’ll write, but don’t flatter yourself, architect. Creative genius, my ass. You draw buildings and stick figures.”

  Longhi poured his guests more wine. “The hell with you. I paint as well as any of you lowlifes. And build the glorious buildings of Roma.”

  “And I have no literary ambition whatsoever,” said Mario Minniti. “Drink up, my friends,” he added, raising his goblet. “We’ve got to be good and drunk to reach down low enough for words to describe Giovanni Baglione. There is no painter in Roma as pompous.”

  “And as bad,” said Caravaggio. “O così cattivo!”

  “Do you think they will recognize my handwriting?” said Gentileschi.

  “Disguise it. All anyone knows is your signature on your paintings,” said Caravaggio.

  “Then you should write it, Michele. You never sign your work.”

  “Shut up, Orazio. You’ve got the quill. Now use it.”

  “Quiet, all of you! I feel inspiration warming my heart, my throat,” said Longhi, slamming down his goblet, wine slopping over the brim.

  He stood and began to recite.

  Gioan Bagaglia, tu non sa un ah

  Le tue pitture sono pituresse

  Volo vedere con esse

  Che non guardarnarai

  Mai una patacca.

  “Slow down,” complained Gentileschi. “I can’t write that fast.”

  “Drink more wine, Longhi,” said Mario, brandishing the pitcher. “It will slow you down. And feed the muse.”

  Longhi took a long swig of wine, drops spilling down his chin.

  “Bene, bene, Mario. You are a true Bacchus. Here come the next lines,” said Longhi, wiping the wine from his lips.

  Che di cotanto panno

  Di farti un paro di bragesse

  Che ad ognun monsterai

  Quel fa la cacca

  “Eccellente!” cried Caravaggio, clapping. His eyes shining, his teeth berry red with wine. “Let me have a go. I’ve got the muse singing in my throat. I’ll set her free or she’ll strangle me!”

  “Avanti,” said Gentileschi, hunched over the parchment, quill at the ready.

  Portala adunque

  Il tuoi disegni e cartone

  Che tu hai fatto a Andrea pizzicarolo

  O veramente forbete ne il culo

  “Bravo, Michele, bravo! Now let’s write something that takes on his assistant, that go-between asshole, Mao,” said Gentileschi.

  “Tommaso Salini? I hate that fucker!” said Mario. “Shittiest painter in Roma.”

  “I’ve got it!” Caravaggio cleared his throat, thick with drink.

  O alla moglie di Mao tu regali la potta

  Che libelli con quell tu cazzon da mulo più non

  la fotte

  Perdonami dipintore se non ti adulo

  Che della collana che tu porti indegno sei

  E della pittura vituperio.

  Longhi and Caravaggio sat back, satisfied smiles spreading across their drunken faces. Mario gave a low whistle of appreciation.

  “Read it to us, Orazio. Let’s see how it sounds,” said Longhi.

  “‘Johnny Testicle, you haven’t a clue that your paintings are woman’s work,’” began Gentileschi. “Not insulting enough, Longhi! My little Artemisia could paint better at age six than Baglione can now.”

  “Continue,” growled Caravaggio. “Leave Artemisia out of this.”

  “Bene. But she can, you know.” He went on reading. “‘I’d like to see you never earn a worthless penny with them—’”

  “Too late for that,” grumbled Mario. “Baglione’s got the best commissions in Roma.”

  “‘Because with as much canvas as it would take to make yourself a pair of baggy trousers, you’ll show everyone what shit really is.’”

  “A waste of canvas, indeed!” said Caravaggio. “Better used to wipe shit.”

  “I’ll get to that. ‘So take your drawings to Andrea the grocer so he can wrap his vegetables in them or plug up Mao’s wife’s cunt with them because he doesn’t fuck her anymore with that big mule’s dick of his.’ Michele—that’s tremendous!” said Gentileschi, roaring with laughter. “It makes a cuckold out of Mao.”

  “Leave it. I like it,” said Caravaggio.

  “Let me write the second stanza,” said Gentileschi. “He stole my Saint Michael, for his fucking painting.”

  “Leave it to me,” said Caravaggio. “I’m the one he painted as Satan.”

  The finished poem began to circulate throughout Roma. It was quoted in Campo Marzio taverns by loud and raucous voices, fueled by drink and grudges. Artists who hated Baglione recited the verses by heart, even sang them at full lung in the streets after midnight. Mario Minniti and other artist friends of Caravaggio’s distributed copies of the poem from studio to studio. All Roma’s artists were eager to get a copy.

  “Mao”—Tommaso Salini, who was slandered as the mule-dicked cuckold—managed to get a copy of the poem from Filippo Trisegni, a struggling artist, and with the verse in hand, he ran to Baglione.

  Giovanni Baglione and Tommaso Salini filed a libel suit with the governor of Roma, Ferrante Taverna, who had overseen the prosecution of Beatrice Cenci.

  Onorio Longhi left Roma abruptly, but both Caravaggio and Gentileschi were arrested and imprisoned to face libel charges.

  “Typical Longhi,” growled Gentileschi. “He knows when to get out of town.”

  “Longhi is of a noble house. They’d let him off anyway,” said Caravaggio. “And don’t forget. I haven’t seen you in a long, long time. We’re not friends, capisci? And I think your painting is shit.”

  Gentileschi frowned and then nodded.

  “You’re lying, right? To convince the judges?”

  Caravaggio smirked. “Am I?”

  The suspected authors of the verse were brought up to testify before the governor of Roma.

  “You, Orazio Gentileschi, are accused of penning this verse,” said the assistant magistrate.

  “Impossible,” said Gentileschi. “I know how to write but not very correctly.”

  “Tommaso Salini states that Filippo Trisegni was given the poem by an artist described as a bardassa. A catamite.”

  “I cannot comment on Trisegni’s comments. But he has categorically denied Salini’s testimony. Obviously Salini is inventing these accusations. I’m a painter, not a writer.”

  “Answer the question only, defendant,” said the governor. “Next witness. Michele Merisi da Caravaggio.”

  Caravaggio took the stand, his posture stiff, his face composed with disdain for having to waste time away from painting to defend himself.

  “State your profession,” said the assistant magistrate.

  “My profession is painting.”

  “What do you know of these verses, Maestro Merisi?” asked Alfonso Tomassino.

  “I know nothing of them, Your Excellency. I have never heard of them before today.”

  “That seems quite unlikely,” said the governor. “The verses are cited throughout Roma, I’m told.”

  “Forgive me, sir. I’m quite busy with my painting,” said Caravaggio. “I do not have time to listen to gossip. I have many important commissions to execute.” He darted a malicious look at Baglione, who was sitting on a bench.

/>   “But you know many painters in Roma, do you not? The artist community is said to be quite close in Campo Marzio.”

  “I know many painters, some of them valent’huomini. I know Gioseffo, Carracci, Zuccaro, Pomarancio, Gentileschi, Prospero, Giovanni Andrea, Giovanni Baglione, Gismondo and Giorgio Todesco, Tempesta . . . and others.”

  “These are your friends?”

  “No, not all. And not all are good artists or valent’huomini.”

  “Valent’huomini? Worthy gentlemen? How do you define that?”

  “Valent’huomini are those well versed in painting. Those who judge good and bad painters as I judge them. But those who are bad and ignorant painters will judge as ‘good painters’ those who are every bit as ignorant as they are,” said Caravaggio, staring straight at Baglione. “It has nothing to do with social class or noble lineage.”

  “Surely there is more to a good painter than your definition? Can you elaborate?” asked the assistant magistrate.

  “A good painter is one who knows how to paint well and to imitate natural objects well.”

  “That seems inadequate,” said the governor. “I’m familiar with your canvases, Maestro Merisi, and while they are uncannily realistic, they are certainly much more than imitating nature.”

  Caravaggio shrugged.

  “Are you good friends with Orazio Gentileschi?” asked the assistant magistrate.

  “We do not speak. I have not spoken to him in perhaps three years. No, we are not friends.”

  There was a murmur in the courtroom.

  “Caravaggio and Gentileschi are best friends,” whispered an artist to another.

  “Do you think Giovanni Baglione is a good painter?” asked the assistant magistrate.

  “I do not know of any painter in Roma who thinks Giovanni Baglione is a good painter,” said Caravaggio. “His Resurrection of Christ, for example, is a complete bungle.”

  Baglione’s face colored red with indignation. Caravaggio stifled a smile.

  “Do you write verse, Caravaggio? Did you write these verses in a vulgar tongue?” asked the governor.

  “Your Excellency, no. I don’t dabble in verse. My profession is painting, and I take it quite seriously.”

  “Do you know the whereabouts of Onorio Longhi?” asked the assistant magistrate.

  “No,” said Caravaggio. “I do not. But he is my friend.”

  A jangling of keys in the cell lock woke Caravaggio, who was lying on his flea-infested mattress. He crawled to his feet, blinking at the lantern in the guard’s hand.

  “You are free to go, Maestro,” grunted the guard. “You have the right friends in high places. Cardinal del Monte and the Medici is the rumor.”

  Caravaggio shrugged. He picked a louse off his cuff and squeezed it between his thumb and fingernails.

  “What’s the chance, then, that the libel suit will be dropped?”

  “Good,” said the guard, gesturing Caravaggio to come out of the cell. “No one wants trouble with the Medici.”

  The libel suit was dropped after Caravaggio and Gentileschi both signed apologies to Giovanni Baglione and “Mao” and promised never to insult their honor again.

  But what was done was done—and the popular verses about “Johnny Testicle” still resonated in the taverns of Roma, echoing through the dark alleyways and piazzas of Campo Marzio.

  Chapter 11

  MONTE PICCOLO

  Professor Aristotle Rafael Richman sat in an overstuffed armchair, looking and feeling very pleased with himself. He was still enjoying the owner’s suite at the villa and saw no reason why he might need to move back to the more primitive quarters he had been assigned when he arrived for the winter seminar.

  “So, Lucy,” he said, emphasizing the name for his own amusement, “you’ve decided to return to us. I was afraid you had disappeared forever into the backstreets of the Eternal City.”

  “Not this time, Ralphie.”

  “Excuse me?” Injured dignity. “What did you call me?”

  “Oh, well, since you’ve decided to call me Lucy, I thought I ought to have my own special name for you. ‘Professor Richman’ is so formal. And ‘Aristotle’ and ‘Rafael’ are a bit stodgy. But I thought ‘Ralph’ was just about perfect. It’s almost the same as ‘Rafael.’ And for friends as close as we are, ‘Ralphie’ is even better.”

  “Hoist with my own petard.” He managed a smile. “You’ve been gone three days. I thought this was going to be a quick trip to look at a painting.”

  “We had a bit of a difficult night in Rome.” She told him quickly about their visit to San Luigi dei Francesi, about Moto’s unexplained magical ability to get them into the chapel in the middle of the night, about her feelings standing in front of the Caravaggio paintings in the dark, and about the mysterious man who Moto thought was spying on them. There was no mention of a monk with a blood-red cross on his black habit or of a panicked sprint through the dark streets. She still didn’t want to tell the professor how deeply she was getting entangled in the events of the past weeks, rather than sticking to past centuries.

  “And then,” she finished, “we spent two days in Firenze on the way back.”

  “Looking at Caravaggios in the Uffizi?”

  “Well, actually, yes. We went to look at Medusa and The Sacrifice of Isaac.” She didn’t mention the new details they’d learned about the deaths in the warehouse or that, having missed Peter’s upside-down crucifixion, she thought she had to see the beheaded Medusa and Isaac’s near miss, pinned on a rock with a knife at his throat.

  She thought for a moment about the Medusa—the severed head, painted on a round shield that a warrior might carry into battle if he didn’t mind sacrificing a priceless masterpiece for his personal protection. But the image, terrible to be sure, hadn’t moved her. The horror was real enough, but the face was too alive—the mouth open as if to scream, the eyes staring in horror, the snakes writhing on her head, the blood spurting from the severed neck.

  She had been more moved by the image of Isaac, pinned against a rock by his father, who held a knife at the boy’s throat, ready to sacrifice his son at God’s command. Isaac’s bewildered terror was real and understandable. It bothered her that she was beginning to understand how he felt.

  And then she pushed those thoughts out of her mind and told the professor, just because it was true, “Then we spent a day partying with friends of Moto’s.”

  Professor Richman sniffed. “I hope you and your boyfriend had a good time.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “What else would you call him?”

  “Friend.”

  “With benefits? Isn’t that how you say it these days?”

  “Oh dear. Ralphie, my sweet old fool. Moto is gay.”

  “Oh.”

  Lucia recognized his uncomfortable expression. Seventy-five-year-old professors might be perfectly willing to accept the idea that gays were an unembarrassed part of society now—but they didn’t necessarily know how to react when they learned that someone they knew actually was gay.

  Lucia had known Moto was gay almost from the moment she’d met him in a Monte Piccolo bar. Her first reaction had been that he was young, but he was almost absurdly handsome too—and the ugly breakup (Jason, you son of a bitch, she thought, automatically) that had been the most immediate reason for her decision to leave New York for an art history seminar abroad had left her open to an Italian affair, just for the hell of it.

  And then, in the instant he smiled and said hello—with his too-eager smile and liquid eyes—she knew that friends were all they were ever going to be.

  And when Moto turned out very quickly to be perhaps the best friend she had ever had—male or female—that was better than any quick affair. Better than any boyfriend, for that matter. Especially you, Jason. You son of a bitch.

  But she wasn’t going to tell Professor Richman any of that. So she shrugged.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not always easy to tell.”

  And give
n Moto’s stuttering when he tried to talk about his father on the train coming back from Rome, she thought that maybe he wasn’t quite as totally unembarrassed about being gay as some young men might be. Families!

  “Well, anyway,” said the professor, picking up the thread, “while you were sightseeing and partying, some of us have been hard at work.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And, sweet Lucy, we will be having tea this week with the Contessa dei Marsi. She of the slammed door and the fortunately unwrung neck.” He was clearly enjoying himself. “And we are going to discuss her family’s gift of a painting to Father Antonio’s church some two hundred years ago.”

  “Ralphie! How did you manage that?”

  He smiled, his enjoyment impervious. “Old-fashioned charm. She’s an old-fashioned woman and she appreciates being treated appropriately.”

  “With your Italian?”

  “Charm is a universal language. You should try it sometime.” He put his teacup down. “I’m sure you’d be good at it.”

  The small man slammed his too-large hand onto the desk. The noise was explosive. The man standing across from him did not react at all.

  Neither man had spoken a word since the tall man had entered the office. The man behind the desk often opened meetings this way. He nodded and let what could have been a smile stretch his thin lips. His pale-blue eyes refused to become kindly.

  “Fra Filippo Lupo. What do you have to report?”

  “Sì, Gran Comandante Pantera! It was not easy, if I may say so, sir. Beyond what has already appeared in the newspapers, there are no additional details in any of the police reports. Even the most secret and closely held ones. Officers who have been useful to us in the past have nothing to add. I did find some who seemed to have additional information, but neither money nor fear could persuade them to reveal what they knew. I believe we are up against a force that inspires more fear than even we can summon.”

  The small man made an impatient gesture. “I am certain you have not come to report failure, Fra Lupo.”

  “No sir. I found a weak link. As you have taught me.”