Immortal

by Traci L. Slatton

“You are so beautiful. I’ve thought of this for so long,” she whispered.

  “I thought I was the only one!” I took the pins from her hair. I didn’t hurry because I wanted to anticipate watching her thick hair fall down around her beautiful shoulders.

  “I couldn’t let you know how I felt. I was married! And Rinaldo was a good man!” She reached to pull my lucco off over my head. I let her and then I went back to her hair, which was supple and heavy in my hands like the finest satin. Her hand trembled as she unfastened my farsetto, and I shrugged it off to fall on the floor. I finished with her hairpins, and her hair slid down in a brown-red-black sheet, wafting out the scent of lilacs and lemons and dew and every good thing that God or man had ever created. I was happy and I was intoxicated. My knees buckled, my tongue went dry, and the room spun around me.

  “It’s too much,” I said hoarsely. “You’re too much.”

  “You want to stop?”

  “No! I didn’t mean that, I meant because you’re so beautiful!” I cried.

  “I know what you meant.” She smiled, which nearly undid me.

  “God must be kind if I am touching you, I can almost believe that now,” I murmured, reaching for the buttons on her cottardita. “One God, a kind God.”

  “Believe it,” she answered, helping me pull off her silk gonna. Finally she stood before me, tiny and luminous, as I’d imagined for the last four years. The scar on her thigh stood out, white on white, her past writ on her flesh in the way of frail humans, made in God’s likeness to embody all of time at once. I carried her to the bed. Her skin was inconceivably soft and fragrant. I ran my tongue over her curving shoulder. She smiled. “I always told myself that if we ever came together, if I was ever blessed to hold you, I would always say yes to you. I would never hold back anything from you, never deny you anything. So I’ll say it, yes, Luca Bastardo!”

  She said yes again eleven months later, when we were married. And she always said yes during the happy years of our marriage, the happiest years I ever knew.

  Chapter 22

  TIME FLOWED as sinuously as the Arno itself for Maddalena and me as the brilliance and strength of Florence under Lorenzo de’ Medici came to an end. Our marriage was celebrated at the crest of Florence’s power and influence, and then we lived together in ignorant delight as everything around us unwound. I didn’t apprehend the Laughing God’s signs until it was too late. Tragedy struck, and everything I held dear was lost. Now my own life will soon be forfeit; such are the costs of ignoring the strains of divine laughter. Perhaps I was always meant only to look and pass on. Perhaps I was not meant to be embedded in the textures of human life the way other people are. I was, after all, a freak, seemingly generated by the gray stones of Florence and her cruel river, the inscrutable Arno. Perhaps the gift of my longevity was simply about observing for a little while longer than other people.

  Maddalena gave me what I had always wanted most: a family of my own. In early 1487, she bore me a fine daughter. We didn’t know why it had taken so long, five years, for her to conceive; we theorized that the rape in Volterra had hurt her generative faculty. We were thrilled to find her pregnant at last. Because I was a physico, I was present in the room when the midwife delivered our beautiful, squalling baby girl. We called her Simonetta. She had my peach complexion and reddish-gold hair but had her mother’s marvelous variegated eyes. I wondered if she would have my long life span, which I had not discussed with Maddalena. We were too happy for me to cast a shadow by dwelling on that freakish quirk of my nature. Nor did I want to precipitate loss by delving into unsolvable riddles. So I kept silent about important matters which I should have discussed with my wife, who had the right to know everything about me.

  I was confronted by my secrets as I went out into a carnevale one spring night under a full moon whose silver light cast mysterious shapes on the cobblestone streets. There seemed to be more and more of these wild, licentious nights as Lorenzo de’ Medici stoked Florence’s lust for revelry. It was a few months after Simonetta was born, and I was walking with jovial Sandro Filipepi, who had dropped by our home and insisted that I come out and enjoy the festivities.

  “You can’t allow your beautiful wife to tie you to the bedpost every night and give you a good figa whipping,” he was teasing me. “You have to spend some time with men!”

  “Go on, you’re always poking fun at me.” I laughed.

  “You’re besotted with your wife, it’s a good joke on a man,” he returned.

  “A joke I bear willingly.”

  “Eagerly, I would say.” Sandro chuckled. “With a filly that gorgeous, who wouldn’t? Might as well ride her while she’s young and sleek. Their looks don’t last, you know. Neither does a man’s horsemanship. Nothing lasts forever.”

  “Change is the only constant,” I murmured. The bright sweetness of life couldn’t last. I was uneasily reminded of the imminence of the other half, the cruel half, of the choice I had made that night of the philosopher’s stone: that I would lose Maddalena. That would be losing everything.

  “Life doesn’t change you,” Sandro said. He took a draught from the jug of wine he carried and then elbowed me in the rib cage. “Is there any truth to those whispered rumors, that you don’t age like the rest of us?”

  “Only little girls believe gossip,” I grumbled. A crowd of screaming, laughing youths raced by, drunk and intent on mischief. Tomorrow there would be graffiti and litter everywhere in the city, stolen horses and broken shop windows, some despoiled young women with blighted marriage prospects, and headaches for both hungover revelers and the city fathers, who would have to clean up Lorenzo’s mess.

  But Sandro was fixed on another topic. “You better hope you age, Luca, if you wish to keep your wife.”

  I turned on him so sharply, jabbing my finger into his chest, that he jumped back. “Why do you say that?”

  “Easy, easy, man. I don’t care about rumors. I know you. You’re Luca Bastardo, a purchaser of art who doesn’t haggle too much with an honest painter, a good physico, a great drinking buddy, a man crazy in love with his wife. It’s just that I also know women, how they are all imbued with the vanity of Venus, though we wish they had the virtue of the Madonna.”

  “What about women?” I said, turning on my heel and resuming my pace. We passed a band of musicians who were haggling with a group of prostitutes. The former wanted their fun for free, and even during carnevale, money must be made.

  “A beautiful woman fears age more than death,” Sandro said, combing his long hair back off his shoulders. “And your Maddalena is very, very beautiful.”

  “Maddalena will be beautiful to me with white hair and a dowager’s hump!” I said.

  “I believe that’s true.” Sandro grinned. “But she won’t be beautiful to herself.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said with some asperity. But it was true, Maddalena had discovered a wrinkle under her eyes. She didn’t like it one bit. She had gone in search of creams and paints which I assured her that she didn’t need. With her quick mind, she would soon wonder why she was aging and I wasn’t. I should have had this conversation with her long before now. But there was too much joy in the present for me to excavate the past and ruminate on the future. The discussion could wait. Anxiety rose up in me and I tried to quell it with denial. “You speak nonsense, Sandro. My Maddalena is a practical woman.”

  “You’ll see,” Sandro said with an air of smugness. We had reached the Ponte alle Grazie, which glowed with silver as if the bridge’s stones had absorbed the moon’s light and were radiating it back out, multiplied. The Arno gleamed and swirled like a river of white gold beneath the bridge, and the fragrant air from the contado breezed through the streets. Sandro inhaled mightily and said, “Such a beautiful night for a carnevale! Better than the one last month. Tell me, how is your baby? Doing well?”

  Instantly I was all smiles. Simonetta was the incarnation of my joy with Maddalena. “She’s so amazing,” I gushed. “She smiles no
w. She’s ten weeks, so intelligent and beautiful!”

  “First children always are,” he sang. “By the third, parents are a little less impressed with their own offspring. Are you planning more babes? Have you set to work getting them?”

  “A husband has to wait awhile after childbirth before he returns to his wife’s embraces,” I said with more severity than I intended.

  “Really? You’ve been deprived for a few weeks? How do you manage?” Sandro teased. “Are you visiting every courtesan in Florence?”

  “I’m faithful to my wife,” I protested. “There’s no woman for me but Maddalena!”

  “Well, tonight is carnevale, the ordinary rules don’t apply! And the more of these Lorenzo holds, the freer people are! You can indulge yourself, there are no consequences. Even decent women lose themselves during carnevale. Like that woman over there, coming up on the bridge, she must look pretty good to you right now….”

  I sputtered about my loyalty to my wife, but I couldn’t help looking over to where Sandro pointed. A group of boisterous costumed people paused before me, obstructing my view. When they left, I saw one of the goddesses Sandro painted, haloed with the brilliant moonlight. She was small and curvy, and her breasts were so voluptuous that they strained against her sheer gonna, which was clearly visible under her wispy silken mantello. Then I looked at her long thick hair, in which were tied many small ribbons, streaming down her shoulders and back. Black, chestnut, red, gold, all shimmering together in the platinum light of the full moon. Sandro laughed. “I believe your wait is over, friend. And how I envy you!”

  Sandro drifted away and the woman floated toward me. Her fragrance reached me first: lilacs, lemons, vanilla, white foam on the sea, and something else, something muskier. The scent of a woman who wants her man. I reached for her but she paused just beyond my fingertips.

  “Maddalena, there are things I must tell you,” I said, stifling a groan of desire. But it wasn’t just desire I felt. I loved this woman completely, with all of my soul. “I don’t want to keep secrets from you. I don’t want to hold anything back from you, ever! It’s time for me to tell you some dark things about myself.”

  “I think the time for talking is later, after carnevale,” she said, her husky voice full of laughter. “Come, let’s enjoy the evening! Don’t you remember that carnevale night when I was still married to Rinaldo, and you kissed me? I so wanted to be with you! Now I can be!”

  “But wait,” I said. “You must know…I have traits that differentiate me from other men, and they say I am a sorcerer! The people I believe were my parents kept the company of Cathars, a sect the Church eradicated for heresy. There is a letter about it that was in the Silvanos’ possession, and then Lorenzo de’ Medici acquired it, and I think he’s given it back to them….”

  “Lover, this is not a time for conversation about secrets and letters,” she murmured. Slowly, provocatively, she slipped off her mantello and let it flutter to the ground. I shivered. She moved closer, letting me caress her heavy rich hair. I was filled with heat. Then she sort of skipped up into my arms, and I caught her with my hands under her round bottom and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around me and her skirt rose up around her waist; she wasn’t wearing anything beneath the gonna. I cried out, urgently.

  “Are you well enough?” I asked hoarsely.

  In response, she pulled my head down and kissed me. Her tongue was on me, on my lips and tongue. One of her small clever hands stroked my face, the other held my shoulder. She arched so that her breasts thrust toward my face, and all reason left me. I turned and shoved my wife against the wall of the bridge, tore down my hose, and made love to her where I stood. We weren’t the only ones doing this, of course. This scene was played out all over Florence tonight.

  We didn’t see the cloaked figure standing in the shadows until after I had set her down and reached a hand out to smooth her luscious hair, which was tousled, its many colors shining riotously in the moonlight.

  “They’ll arrest us for public lewdness, but it was worth it.” I sighed.

  “You should be arrested!” the figure cried then, emerging from the shadows.

  Maddalena grabbed up her mantello and struggled to cover herself. I faced the man. It was a monk, a Dominican, thin and ugly with a hook nose and overly bright eyes. He looked shocked and inflamed. His eyes were glued to Maddalena’s face with the same greed I had seen at Silvano’s. I had the bizarre thought that the monk wanted her, that he would never forget her.

  “This is my wife, Friar,” I said coolly.

  “And you treat her like a common whore, rutting out here in the open on this bridge?” He shook his head, still glaring at Maddalena. “I come to this city in which I once preached, wanting to see for myself one of these wild carnevales of which people everywhere are whispering, and what do I find? Immorality and indecency. Whores, ribaldry, debauchery, evil of every stripe and texture; God will smite this place with terrible scourgings!”

  “It is carnevale, Friar!”

  “It is Satan’s folly!” he screamed. “Lorenzo de’ Medici has gone too far!”

  “We will return to our home immediately, you need not be concerned,” I snapped.

  “All of Florence is my concern, the tainted soul of the body politic is my concern,” he hissed, approaching. Maddalena shrank into me. I put my arm around her. The priest speared me with his eyes. “You were about to confess to some dark things, sinner. Confess properly, to me, and I will give you harsh penances so that God might forgive you your evil!”

  “The dark things in my life are between me and God,” I said.

  “What of this letter I heard you mention? What is the connection between your parents and Cathars? Were your parents Cathars, a galling and heretic people who deserved to be burned? Are you such a blasphemer as well as a…a fornicator?” He stepped closer, too close, and I put my hand on his chest to stop him. He wasn’t deterred but kept talking, almost rabidly. “I have been told by young Gerardo Silvano, who will go far as a cleric, of an abomination living in Florence. Are you that one? Has God arranged divine justice for you through me?”

  “We will be on our way, Friar, you may forget you ever saw us,” I said tightly.

  “I command that you confess to me!” the man shouted, spitting in my face with his fury. I took Maddalena’s hand to pull her around him. The monk blocked my way, shouting about Cathars and the scourge of sorcery and fornication. I kept trying to move around him. He kept thrusting himself in my face. Then he turned to Maddalena. “Whore, Satan’s mistress, you fornicate with a sorcerer!” He ripped her mantello through to her gonna, exposing her breasts.

  “Enough!” I roared, shaking with anger. I slapped the man with my open palm so hard that he dropped to the ground. “Do not lay hands on my wife!” I drew my sword.

  “You have unholy strength,” the monk panted. “You practice a sorcery that would undermine all that is good and orderly about this world!”

  “There’s not much that’s good and orderly about this world, monk,” I replied. “My wife is the best thing about it!”

  “Your wife is a whore, rutting in public, and married to a satanist!” he spat. I held the sword to his throat. I thought about using it. I wanted to kill him. I could have easily in that moment. I would get away with it. Lorenzo’s carnevales increasingly left some dead in their wake; this act would not even be questioned. But even if the monk’s faith was spiteful, I did not want to be like the Confraternity of the Red Feather, hurting people who differed from me. I had become reconciled to a good God in the last few years. Killing a monk would surely undermine the delicate balance of my truce with heaven, would surely provoke the kind of divine snickering that I no longer heard, and never wanted to again, especially now that I had Maddalena and Simonetta. I withdrew the sword. I have often wondered since then what would have happened if I had used the sword instead. Would my wife and child still be with me? Would Florence still be the greatest city on earth? Or was the wheel alre
ady set in motion, would it still have turned through some agency other than this virulent monk?

  “Hold your tongue or lose it, monk,” I said. “We’re leaving now.” I carried the sword unsheathed and clasped Maddalena’s hand in my free hand. The monk’s gleaming eyes were glued to her face. She held her head high though her cheeks were flushed, and we walked with dignity to the other bank. We felt his eyes on our back the whole way.

  “God will punish you!” the monk screamed, unable to contain himself. “Your sorcery will bring you to destruction! There is no escape for satanists and fornicators like you!”

  We didn’t answer but turned down a side street that was thronged with merrymakers. We threaded our way through them, and when we finally stepped free, we took off at a sprint.

  Back home we were seized with a fit of laughter which continued unabated until we crawled into bed, where I tried to put the fiery-eyed monk from my head. My intention to reveal the secrets of my long life to Maddalena was dissolved, shattered by the monk’s threats, which I wanted to forget. So I just held my wife with gratitude and let my secrets remain hidden.

  WHEN SIMONETTA WAS FIVE, I was summoned to the Medici villa in Careggi. I saddled a new horse named Marco. Stalwart Ginori, whose red coat was stippled through with white, still lived but was hampered with arthritis and age, illnesses I would never know. I only knew that I was happy: happy with the incomparable Maddalena, the wife of my life; happy with Simonetta, my sweet-natured daughter; happy with my small circle of friends, with my palazzo and my vast bank account. I rode through the stony streets with a whistle on my lips. Florence was my home, the greatest city in the world, and I was finally at home in her.

  It was April 1492, a warm spring that had seen many storms. I wore a light woolen mantello and enjoyed the ride into the country. A servant let me into the villa and led me to Lorenzo’s bedchamber. He was still young, in his forties, but he was gravely ill. He burned with a fever that attacked not only his arteries and veins but also his nerves, bones, and marrow. His eyesight was failing and his extremities were swollen with gout. Little was left of il Magnifico, who was a master at everything a man could master: fortune, family, statesmanship, riding horses, composing music, writing poetry, collecting art, winning allies, championing artists and philosophers, falconry, calcio, seducing women.