Chiara – Revenge and Triumph

by Gian Bordin

  At the end, she called Beatrice over, took off the girl’s little hat, and put it upside down into her hands. "Now you go to all the ladies and gentlemen of the court and hold out your basket to collect their donation, and when they give you a coin, you thank them loudly and grace them with one of your most joyous smiles."

  "May I?"

  "Yes, Beatrice, go and do not forget to smile."

  The girl went shyly to the count, curtsied, and beamed when he put a silver coin into the hat. After making the round, she returned to Chiara.

  "Now Beatrice, what do you wish to do with this money?"

  "Give it to you, Lady Chiara."

  "No, that would not be right. Think of some good cause or something that people, who are not as privileged as we are, might enjoy."

  "Maybe I could give the money to the sisters of the orphanage. Would that be a good cause, Lady Chiara."

  The countess had joined them.

  "Yes that would be fine, but give it for some specific purpose. For example, to buy toys, or new clothing for some, or several special Sunday dinners. Think about it. Maybe Lady Maria will help you."

  "Thank you, Lady Chiara. This has been one of my most exciting days."

  "You will have many more exciting ones if you are willing to let them happen, my dear girl."

  "Chiara, do not fill her head with your unconventional ideas," said the countess, but the warm smile with which she looked at Beatrice belied her reproach.

  "I think Lady Beatrice has all the making of becoming a fine and courageous young woman," replied Chiara.

  * * *

  Professor Barbarigo arrived the day before the first court sitting. He briefly questioned Chiara about the escape from Elba, the events on the Santa Caterina, and the attempt by two of Casa Sanguanero’s sailor to abduct her in Pisa.

  "Lady Chiara, I know it must distress you terribly to have disclosed in open court what happened to you on the Santa Caterina. But it is vital evidence."

  "Esteemed Professor, what happened on the Santa Caterina is not my shame. It is Massimo Sanguanero’s dishonor. You do not need to worry about me. I am made of stronger material."

  "Oh, I know that to be true, but Signor Sanguanero’s lawyer will do his best to dispute this claim and sow insidious doubts and taint you as an ungrateful liar who thanked her rescuer by blinding him. The fact that you ran away from a marriage contract with them that your father had signed will speak against you."

  "I am aware of that. As I said before, I am willing to testify and be cross-examined."

  He then summarized the line of his argumentation — a slightly expanded and more complete version of what he had done in class.

  The count informed her that Niccolo and his lawyer were lodged with Casa Boncompagni, one of the leading families in the small town, while the three judges were staying in the castle. He advised her not to have any contact with either of them. For that reason, she and Barbarigo ate separately in a small parlor. She enjoyed his company, conversing in Latin, and got him talking about his research. He again praised her several times for her incisive questions.

  "You should have been born a man and you would have had a brilliant career as a law scholar. I admit, I was disappointed when I heard that the novice Anselmo had left Siena, particularly after I discovered that you had upset Professor Gomez with your clever observation that contradicted his claim that the world is flat. Frankly, I think he is a bit of a fool and only on the faculty because he is under the protection of Cardinal Vincenti."

  "He countered my observations by stating that this was the accepted truth of the Mother Church, as if religious beliefs or the words of the Bible could serve as proof for matters of science."

  "Young lady, watch out to whom you make such statements. They could get the Inquisition down on you."

  "Thank you, esteemed Professor, I know."

  * * *

  The tribunal sat in the great hall of the palazzo. The three judges, men in their fifties or early sixties, one of them brought from Siena, another from Pisa, occupied high-backed chairs on a dais, while the two lawyers with their client sat opposite each other at small tables, about ten paces apart, in front of the dais. Behind them and along the walls was the public, more than a hundred people, Chiara guessed, as she took her place beside Barbarigo. She saw the count and the countess and most of the nobles of the town in their finery sitting in the first two rows of individual chairs, while the other spectators sat on benches.

  Niccolo and his lawyers were already seated when she entered. An aura of hatred emanated from him.

  She had outdone herself, wearing the same dress as for the reception of prospective grooms in Siena — a deliberate slap in Niccolo’s face, not that he was likely to notice. For once, she was not openly armed, although two small knives in protective shields where in the deep pockets of her skirt. It had become such a habit of always being armed that she did it almost without thinking. Lady Maria’s personal maid had helped her with her hair, the false braids wound around her head, as she had worn them in Siena, except they matched her own dark reddish-brown color. The distinctive birthmark gave her face the final touch.

  Beatrice was outside her door when she came out. The girl must have been waiting there.

  "Lady Chiara, you are so beautiful," she murmured. "I hope that the judges will agree with you."

  "Thank you, Beatrice. That is very thoughtful of you."

  After the initial formalities, Professor Barbarigo and Messer Chiamora, Niccolo’s lawyer, in turn greeted the three judges and introduced themselves and their clients. They spoke in Latin, Barbarigo in cultivated, refined phrases, Chiamora somewhat cruder, but fluently.

  Barbarigo first set out in detail why his client contested the document that signed over the Elba property to Casa Sanguanero. Next, he summarized the current legal position as it derived from Roman law, and then gave a detailed and eloquent argumentation of why that interpretation denied the heirs of the injured party due redress, as should be the aim of the law that sought to administer justice, and allowed the offending party to keep the fruits of unlawfully obtained benefits. He then drew the parallel to the situation of the heirs’ responsibility to assume the debts of the deceased up to the value of their inheritance.

  Chiara quickly perceived that Chiamora was unprepared for this line of attack. The initial frown on his forehead gradually changed into smugness, as he listened. After Professor Barbarigo closed his arguments, Chiamora’s only response was that under the law as it stood the position was clear, the document was valid and his client did not even have to defend himself. As an afterthought he added that it would be a dangerous precedent if the tribunal accepted the arguments of the claimant.

  The three judges conferred with each other for several minutes and then the senior judge spoke.

  "The tribunal is fully aware of the seriousness of setting a precedent. It is also cognizant that if the events are as presented by the claimant, natural justice would demand that the validity of the document be declined and that the claimant, as the only heir of Seignior Alberto da Narni, be declared the legal owner of the said property. Messer Chiamora, do you wish to proceed and deny the validity of events as presented by Professor Barbarigo."

  He quickly consulted with Niccolo and then rose again. "Your honor, my client denies crucial aspects of what my honorable colleague, Professor Barbarigo, has presented concerning the events on the Santa Caterina and in Pisa. Therefore, I humbly request that I be permitted to question the claimant under oath."

  "Your request is granted." The senior judge turned to her. "Lady Chiara, please come to the front." He pointed to a chair facing the dais.

  She noticed that he had addressed her in the vernacular. She rose, briefly let a proud gaze roam over the people assembled — a way to signal her confidence to both the judges and the defense. Then she walked to the chair, holding her head high, and remained standing, making eye contact with each of the three judges.

  A clerk approac
hed her with a bible, and the judge spoke again in the vernacular: "Lady Chiara, place your right hand on the bible, and swear to our Lord and the Holy Father, under the pain of eternal purgatory, that you will speak the truth and only the truth."

  She answered in Latin, her voice carrying into every corner of the hall: "Your Honor, I swear to tell the truth and only the truth, so help me God."

  For a split second, the senior judge seemed thrown. Then his eyes lit up and he asked her in Latin: "Lady Chiara, do you wish to be questioned in Latin."

  "Yes, your Honor."

  "So be it. Please, be seated. Messer Chiamora, you may proceed."

  The lawyer approached her halfway, a false smile on his face. "Lady Chiara, will you tell the tribunal why you were drifting in a small rowboat in the Ligurian Sea?"

  "I had fled Elba to avoid being forced to marry Signor Niccolo Sanguanero and in my inexperience got caught in the current of the Canale di Piombino."

  Chiamora seemed surprised by her answer. Did he expect me to lie? she wondered. After a short pause he said: "So, you admit that you ran away and against your father’s wishes who had signed a binding contract of marriage with my client."

  "My father had signed that contract under duress. He was —"

  Chiamora interrupted her: "I did not ask you why your father agreed to a liaison with the illustrious Casa Sanguanero. The advantages are obvious to everyone."

  She was not going to be bullied by this man. "To continue where you so rudely interrupted me, Messer Chiamora, my father told me on his deathbed that he had agreed to the marriage, because the late Signor Massimo Sanguanero —"

  He interrupted her again: "— because Signor Sanguanero convinced him of the advantages of such a union, is this not obvious?"

  She briefly made eye contact with the senior judge, making her determination clear.

  "Messer Chiamora, I ask you to let Lady Chiara finish her sentence."

  "Your Honor, I apologize, but I do not see the relevance of what she wants to say."

  "That we can only judge if we hear her out. Go ahead, Lady Chiara."

  "Signor Sanguanero threatened that, unless my father agreed to the marriage, he would renew the vendetta that had raged between our two families some sixty years earlier and had been laid to rest by the marriage of Signorina Magdalena Sanguanero to my grandfather."

  "Did your father tell you the reason why Signor Sanguanero made this threat?" the judge continued his questioning.

  "The vendetta had been over the dispute of ownership of a treasure, and Signor Sanguanero believed that this treasure was still hidden on our property on Elba and wanted to make sure that, since my brother and only mail heir had been taken by the sea, the land would become theirs after my father’s death."

  "Did he tell you all this?"

  "No, he was too weak to say much by the time I saw him. Some facts I had already discovered earlier, others I found out later on. In particular, after I boarded the Santa Caterina, Signor Niccolo Sanguanero took away from me a book of Latin poems, together with all my mother’s jewels. While locked into the captain’s cabin, I overheard him ask his father whether this book was not the one he had wanted to get his hands on since it contained the key to finding the treasure."

  "Your Honor," Messer Chiamora objected again, "I do not see the relevance of this silly talk about a treasure. This seems to be pure invention to confound the issue and confuse the tribunal."

  "Messer Chiamora, the tribunal is not that easily confused." The judge turned back to Chiara. "And does that treasure exist?"

  "Yes, your Honor. I managed to recover the book and successfully deciphered the key. Contrary to expectations, the treasure was hidden on land owned by my father near Cetona. It consisted of Etruscan funerary objects — eight amphoras, a sarcophagus, several smaller vessels, some silver and gold utensils, and a few gemstones."

  "Ah, the famous da Narni Etruscan exhibition at Palazzo Benincasa," exclaimed the Siena judge.

  A murmur rose in the hall. The senior judge’s stern face brought it quickly to a stop.

  "You may continue your questioning, Messer Chiamora."

  "Is it not true that your claims of having been violated by the honorable Signor Sanguanero and of overhearing a conversation between him and my client about their intention to let you drown are nothing but lies to cover your horrible crime of having deprived the late Signor Sanguanero of his eye sight, when in fact he offered you food and drink after your ordeal in the open sea?"

  "What Professor Barbarigo reported is the truth. When I confronted Signor Sanguanero in the presence of an illustrious assembly of the foremost Sienese families —"

  "I did not ask you anything about a celebration —"

  "— nor did I use the word celebration. To know whether my answer is relevant to your question, it seems to me that you have little choice but to hear me out first, Messer Chiamora." Her voice was laced with irony.

  "Lady Chiara, continue with your answer," encouraged the judge.

  "At that meeting I accused Signor Sanguanero of having violated me. I reminded him of his owns words." She switched to the vernacular. "It would be a shame to drown her before tasting her young flesh." After a short pause, she reverted back to Latin: "He did not —"

  Her statement was met by gasps and the rising murmur drowned her last words.

  "Quiet, quiet," shouted the clerk.

  It took a while for quiet to be restored and she could continue: "He did not deny my accusation, even after his own daughter pleaded with him to say that it was not true. All he shouted was ‘Niccolo, kill her!’ Nor did Casa Sanguanero deny it later on." This was a guess, but she had heard nothing to the contrary.

  "Your Honor, lack of denial can hardly be equated with admission of guilt, particularly in the unusual circumstances where it occurred."

  Niccolo drew the attention of Chiamora to him and spoke into his ear.

  "Furthermore, my client informs me that by that time his father’s brain was already burned and he was often possessed, another reason why the lack of denial has little meaning, your Honor."

  The judge spoke. "Unless the claimant is able to produce a witness… Lady Chiara, can you name a witness who can confirm the conversation you said you overheard and to what happened in the captain’s cabin."

  "No, your Honor. I was locked into the cabin when I overheard the conversation through the open window, and Signor Sanguanero locked the door from the inside before he violated me. It is my word, then an innocent young girl of seventeen from the country, against the eternal silence of the late Signor Sanguanero. This man over there," she pointed at Niccolo, "is the only one who I know was part of the conversation, but even for that it is my word against his."

  The judge nodded. "Messer Chiamora, please proceed."

  "Your Honor, the facts speak for themselves. The claimant admits running away from a binding marriage contract. She can provide no witnesses for her claims of crucial events on the Santa Caterina, all of which are strenuously denied by my honorable client, while the conduct of the claimant over the last three years can hardly be viewed as that of a self-respecting and honorable, noble young maiden. Rather than seek refuge in a convent, as any pious young woman would have done, she joined up with a group of traveling players and mountebanks who present vulgar and lewd plays, dress immodestly, blaspheme and are engaged in other activities I would be ashamed to mention in mixed company. In fact, if the claimant ever sets foot in Siena or any of its dominions, my client will denounce her to the authorities for defrauding him of ten thousand florins and causing damages of several thousand more. I submit to the tribunal that the claimant is not an honorable person and that her claims must therefore be seen as the lies and false fabrications that they are. Your Honor, I submit to the tribunal that the case be dismissed as malicious and that the claimant be made to pay for the heavy expenses my client incurred to defend himself and the honor of Casa Sanguanero. I have spoken."

  A slow murmur rose among
the spectators and persisted in spite of the senior judge’s stern gaze.

  "Professor Barbarigo, do you wish to question the claimant?"

  "Yes, your Honor." He came over to her, standing to her left, halfway between her and the dais. "Lady Chiara, did you ever participate in any lewd or blasphemous plays?"

  "No, a few of the short skits I Magnifici presented, contain, what the French call ‘double entendres’, harmless fun that some people may disapprove of, but we never spoke lewd words or performed lewd acts. I have played in a religious play presented to monks in a Benedictine monastery."

  "Is it not true that I Magnifici are mainly known for their performances of commedia erudita?"

  "Yes, I Magnifici have been invited to perform comedies by the Latin playwrights Plautus and Terrence, as well as a classical Greek tragedy, by many illustrious noble and merchant families in all major cities in Tuscany and beyond — Casa Medici, Buondelmonti, Albizzi, Giandonati in Florence, Casa Tolomei, Salimbeni, Piccolomini in Siena, Benincasa in Monte Pulciano, Lord Baglione in Perugia, Casa Farnese in Rome, Casa d’Este of Ferrara, to name just a few."

  "And were you in fact the person who translated these plays from Latin into the Tuscan vernacular?"

  "Yes, esteemed Professor."

  "Your Honor, I submit that none of these illustrious houses would have invited a troupe of ill-repute." He briefly paused, taking a deep breath, before turning back to her. "Lady Chiara, is it true that you extracted ten thousand florins from Signor Niccolo Sanguanero under false pretenses?"

  "Yes, Professor."

  "Tell the tribunal why you did this."

  "I feared that no tribunal would believe me if I accused Signor Sanguanero of violating me, nor of having stolen all my mother’s jewels. It would be the word of a young girl, who ran away from a marriage contract, against the word of a respected Sienese citizen. If I wanted justice and redress, I had to get it myself. So I set out to destroy Casa Sanguanero as a merchant house in punishment for what Signor Sanguanero had done to me. I do not see myself as the owner of the money I extracted from them, but only as its guardian. It will be used for good causes, to help people in need."