“Signor Vespucci left some time ago, Madonna,” the man said, bowing.
“He … he left? You must be mistaken,” I said. “I am his wife. He cannot have left without me.”
The servant looked rather uncomfortable now. “I do not know why he may have done so, Madonna. All I know is that he ordered his horse to be brought ’round, and departed alone.”
My heart began to pound in my ears. No more than a whisper of a thought coiled across my mind, and it was easy enough to shove aside. I was wrong. I had to be. “Very well. Thank you,” I managed, and the man bowed and took his leave.
I did not know what to do. I would have to walk home, I supposed, now that Marco had taken the horse—or perhaps I might borrow one from Lorenzo? I looked about for him, or for Clarice or Lucrezia. But I spotted Sandro first. He must have come directly here after our encounter.
“Sandro!” I called out, heedless of who might overhear me using his Christian name.
He came toward me. “Did you find your husband?”
“He has left,” I said, almost shaking with rage. “He has left without me.”
Sandro swore. “Never mind that. I shall see you home.”
“We shall walk?”
He smiled. “Si, Simonetta. Just like our strolls along the Arno. Your home is not far, is it?”
“No.”
“Then let us go.” He hesitated. “You go downstairs first, I suppose, so that we are not seen to leave together.”
“Very well,” I said, supposing I had to concede to this small nod to propriety, especially after the self-righteous storm I had broken over Giuliano’s head just minutes ago. “Though should anyone inquire, I will be quick to tell them how my husband was so careless as to leave without his wife.”
I went downstairs and to the front door, which a servant opened for me. “Do you need a conveyance brought ’round, Madonna?” he asked.
“No,” I said, stepping outside. “I am just taking some air.”
He bowed and closed the door.
Moments later, Sandro stepped outside and offered me his arm. We moved away from the palazzo, walking toward my house in silence. I knew that I should treasure these uninterrupted moments alone with him, and at any other time I would have. Yet that day and night had been too strange, too upsetting, and too confusing for me to be able to do so. The only thought on my mind was how to contend with my husband when I got home. How to contend with what he may or may not have agreed to.
Sandro and I barely spoke during the entire walk to my home. When we reached the door, I turned to him. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”
He bowed and kissed my hand, his fingers clasping mine tightly. “Anything for you, carissima,” he said. “Anything.” With that, he turned and went back up the street the way we had come, leaving me to bask in the glow of that one word. Carissima. Dearest one.
32
When I stepped inside, the house was dark. “Marco?” I called out tentatively.
No answer.
I felt my way down the hall, where I thought I saw some light coming from the dining room. As I drew closer, I saw a faint, flickering candlelight seeping underneath the closed door and into the dark hallway. I opened the door and stepped inside.
I did not know what I expected, if anything, but it was certainly not the sight of Marco, sitting alone at the head of the table, with only a single branch of candles lit, barely illuminating the room from their position in the center of the table. Lying on its side near Marco was an empty bottle of wine; another was in his hand.
“Marco?” I asked, stepping into the room. “What is going on? Why in the name of all the saints did you leave me alone at that banquet?”
He slammed his wine bottle down on the table, hard enough that I was surprised it did not crack. “Ah, Simonetta,” he slurred. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” I said sharply. “Now answer my questions, if you please.”
He mumbled something that I could not make out.
“Che?” I asked, moving closer to him. “What did you say?”
“I said,” he mumbled, somewhat louder this time, “why aren’t you with Giuliano?”
The silence that fell over the room nearly deafened me. The roaring in my ears returned, until I realized that it was, in fact, my own heartbeat, pounding such that I thought it would explode from my chest in my anger.
“You knew,” I said. The words came out dull and flat, yet they echoed in the silent room all the same.
“’Course I did,” Marco said. “He asked me.”
“He … what?”
“He asked me,” Marco repeated. “Told me, more like, that he wanted my wife as his mistress.”
I could hardly speak for my horror. “And you … what did you say?”
Marco shrugged. “What could I say? I told him he could have his way.”
Red tinged the edges of my vision, nearly blinding me. Had I a knife or a dagger in my hand at that moment, I think I would have killed him, would have plunged it into his chest. “You told him he could have his way with me?” I screeched. I knew that I had probably just woken the servants, perhaps even Marco’s parents, but I had never cared less about such a thing.
Let Marco’s parents come to see what all the noise was about. Let them see the whoremonger their son had become.
“What could I say?” he asked again, louder this time.
“You could have said no!” I cried. “You could have told him to stay away from your wife, and you could have refused to agree to give me away as though I were chattel! As though I were a common prostitute!”
“What could I do, Simonetta?” he moaned, as though he hadn’t heard me. “I didn’t want to agree, but what choice did I have?”
“How dare you,” I said. “How dare you give away the rights to my body, as though they are yours to give! How dare you make this devil’s bargain, this whore’s bargain, and not even consult me as to my wishes, my desires!”
“You are a fool, Simonetta,” he said, rising from the table. “You understand nothing.”
“Then explain it to me,” I shrieked. “Explain to me how you dare—”
“I should not have to explain anything to you. It is politically expedient for me…” in his drunken state, he stumbled a bit over the words, “to have a wife who is the mistress of one of the Medici brothers. And, by extension, it is expedient for you as well.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I thought you were smart, Simonetta, so intelligent. I thought you would have figured this out.”
“No,” I said. “No, I remained blissfully ignorant to the fact that my husband is no better than a common pimp, to whore out his wife for his own gain!”
Marco swiped the empty wine bottle off the table, causing it to fly against the wall and shatter. “How dare you speak to me so,” he growled.
“How dare I?” I demanded. “You have no business complaining of my conduct ever again, after all this! Why, I do not know how I shall ever speak to you again, you unimaginable monster!”
He approached me and took me by the shoulders, shaking me. “Do you not see what this means for us? What this can do?” he asked. “Do you not see?”
I wrenched away from him. “I see none of that,” I said. “All I see is my husband, who once professed to love me, and now only uses me for his own gain!”
For a moment he looked as though he would strike me, but then he stepped back. “And so why are you here?” he asked. He staggered back to the head of the table and took another swig of wine. “Was he done so quickly? Did he simply bend you over a table and take you? Up against a wall, perhaps, because he could not wait?” He laughed again, a cruel, empty sound. “Well, I suppose I could not blame him for not lasting that long, not his first time with you … even he has never been with a woman as beautiful as you before.…”
I stalked to him and slapped him across the face. “I said no!” I shouted. “I refused him! As you should have known I would do, since I a
m not some common harlot, to be bought and sold as you see fit!”
He swayed on the spot. “You … refused him?”
“Of course I did,” I snapped.
He fell to his knees, his fingers grasping the hem of my gown. “Oh, Simonetta,” he said. “You do love me. You must.”
I snatched my hem away. “I did, once,” I said. “But rest assured that any love I had for you is dead henceforth, after I have learned what you are capable of.” I choked back my tears; I would not cry them here, not in front of him. “I cannot love you ever again, now that I learn how you truly see me.” I turned to leave but stopped, looking at him, pathetically prostrate on the floor. “You are the fool, Marco Vespucci,” I said. “For you have lost your ‘political expedience’ and the love and respect of your wife all in one ill-conceived wager.” I left the room and went upstairs to the bedchamber where, only after locking myself in, did I allow myself to dissolve into tears.
Not long after, I heard the main door slam downstairs. Moving to the window, I saw Marco stagger out of the house and down the street.
No doubt off to visit his whore, I thought. For his wife, whom he treats as a whore, will certainly not have him. I turned away from the window, finding I did not care if he ever came back. I could only hope to be so lucky.
33
Even as winter began to somewhat lessen its grip on Florence and the surrounding Tuscan countryside, the interior of the Vespucci home may as well have been that of an ice castle. Marco was scarcely home—either to dine or to sleep—and when he was we spoke only when we absolutely had to. He had moved some of his things out of the bedchamber we had shared for our entire marriage and into one of the guest rooms. The servants—though they of course knew—did not remark upon it. No doubt some of them had overheard our row. And if Marco’s parents knew the nature of our disagreement, they did not remark upon it either.
The thought that everyone knew the truth of matters in my marriage would, at one time, have embarrassed me, but no longer. I did not care if every servant in the house knew the sordid tale—I did not care if everyone in Florence knew. Let them know how my husband had sought to use me, how the darling, golden Giuliano de’ Medici thought that I was his for the asking. The shame was all theirs, not mine.
What is it about beauty, I wondered one day, squinting at a bit of embroidery, which makes men think they have the right to desire you? That beauty means you automatically agree, somehow, to be coveted, to be desired? That your beauty belongs to everyone?
I had no answers for such questions.
I had run out of books in the house that I had not read, and I did not wish to venture to the Medici library for more, for fear of running into Giuliano. I knew Lorenzo would gladly send a messenger with any titles I might desire, but I did not know what titles those might be without browsing first.
So I returned to embroidery, which I had neither particularly liked nor disliked as a girl, and which I had not had much time for of late. When I could embroider no more silly patterns I begged Chiara to let me help her with the mending, so I might make myself useful. She protested at first, horrified at the thought of a lady doing her own mending, but I would not let the issue drop until she agreed to let me help her. So we stitched away and chatted mindlessly for many a chill winter day, while the throngs of men outside my window grew ever larger. Giuliano’s tribute to me at the joust had, it seemed, only increased my fame.
“What do they say about me, Chiara?” I asked one afternoon, on a day when she had been to the market in the morning. “What do they say about me, out in the streets?”
Her hesitation before answering gave lie to her words when she eventually did speak. “They say nothing at all, Madonna,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
“We both know that is not true, Chiara, so whatever it is, you had best tell me, before I hear it from someone else.”
She paused again before answering. “They say you are the lover of Giuliano de’ Medici,” she said at last. “They say that the two of you are even as Venus and Adonis, blessed by the gods in your love and beauty.”
I snorted. “Indeed. Have you ever noticed, Chiara, that whenever a man loves a beautiful woman, it is considered some great fairy tale of love? No one ever pays attention to how the woman feels. If she is worthy of being loved by a great or handsome man, why then, what could she do but return his love? How is anything else possible?”
“I had not thought of it that way before, Madonna,” Chiara said.
I knew she was just humoring me, but I went on anyway. “Even Dante and Beatrice. Theirs is considered a great love story, a love for the ages, when, in fact, Beatrice never returns his love, not in any of the poems. What of that? Does how she felt not matter in the least? We remember only Dante’s great love for her, as if that is all it takes to make a great love affair. And so she is remembered only as Dante’s beloved lady. She did not have any choice in the matter.”
“I suppose that is true, Madonna.”
I sighed and bent back over my stitching. Where, indeed, was Sandro when I needed him? He would understand. “And what else do they say?”
“Not much of import, Madonna,” she said. “They … some men have…”
“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently, “out with it.”
“There have been pamphlets circulating, Madonna. Some are written in support of you as the most beautiful woman in Florence, and some say that Lucrezia Donati—Signora Ardenghelli, as she is now—is more deserving of the title.”
“She can have it.” She can have my husband, too, if she wants him, I added silently, remembering the jealousy I had felt toward her on the night I first met her, when she and Marco had conversed so easily.
Chiara gave a small smile. She was well and truly settled in to gossip now. “I also heard that two men fought a duel a few days ago, right on the Ponte Santa Trinita. The cause of the duel is reported to be that one man insulted your beauty, and the other man could not let such an insult pass. And so they fought.”
“Dio mio, but men are fools,” I said. With that, we both went back to our mending and fell into comfortable silence.
* * *
It was some time before I was able to return to Sandro’s workshop. He was finishing his commission for Santa Maria Novella and so had little time for our project, born of love and without the financial backing of a patron. I briefly considered approaching Lorenzo de’ Medici myself and asking if he wished to finance the remainder of the painting, so that Sandro might be free to devote his time to it again, as I knew he dearly wanted to. But if Sandro had not already done so, he must have a good reason for it. Best to keep this particular painting private—just between Sandro and myself—for as long as possible.
Finally, one evening in early April, when his Adoration of the Magi was done and installed in the church, I was able to see him again. I half expected there to be some sort of awkwardness between us. When last he had seen me, I had been in quite a state; had gone from accusing him to seeking his comfort and help in a matter of minutes.
I should have known better, though. As soon as I stepped inside his workshop—the light dimming with the setting sun—he came to greet me and kissed my hand with a smile. “My dear Simonetta,” he said. “How I have missed you.”
My breath caught in my throat. It was just the sort of greeting one lover might give the other when they had not seen each other for some time.
“And I have missed you. More than I can say.” Much as I wanted to, though, I could not go on from there; could not tell him, as much as I wished to, of all the things I had thought and pondered in weeks past and wanted to share with him. That I missed him because I did not see him every day. I missed him because he was not the one who was sharing my life, though he should have been. Instead, sighing, I turned to the business at hand.
A great canvas had been set up on a large system of supports, and I saw that he had begun to fill in some of the background color. The very center of the canvas beckoned to m
e, as though it had been waiting all this time for me to step into it.
I shivered, though the room was not cold, and moved to remove my clothes.
“Wait,” he said, placing a gentle hand on my arm to prevent me. “There is something I must say to you, Simonetta, and I must do it before we begin our work.”
“Now?” I asked stupidly, because that was all I could think to say.
“Yes. It cannot wait.”
I turned to face him, my breath a bare whisper in my throat as I waited for him to proceed.
“I … they say in the streets that you are the mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici,” he said. “All of Florence accepts as fact that it is so.”
Disappointment and even a bit of ire slipped into my heart at these words. “Yes, I know,” I said shortly. “My maid has told me the gossip. You, of course, know that it is not true.”
“Yes,” he said. “And I … ah, Simonetta, I apologize. This is not how I wanted to start, not at all…” He spun away from me, his head in his hands.
Instantly my irritation vanished. I took a few steps toward him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “What is it, Sandro?” I whispered. “Whatever it is, you can tell me, amico mio.”
He turned back to me, his eyes full of something heavy, as though he could not bear its full weight himself. “I … had I not been there, that day, and seen what a state you were in, perhaps I might have believed it,” he said. “Not because you are a woman of easy virtue,” he added hurriedly. “Not at all, never that. But because such a woman as you deserves a man of the station of Giuliano de’ Medici. Even your own husband is a man in fine standing, from a well-respected family, with a fine name to offer you, and a good life to give you.”
“I suppose that is true,” I said, quite at a loss as to his purpose. “But my life is not some tale of gods and goddesses, as the gossips would have it. Far from it.”
“I know,” he said. “I fancy that I, perhaps, know better than most. My point is…” He took a deep breath before continuing. “My point is that you are a woman who is entitled to the best of everything. You have all of Florence at your feet and so what I am about to say cannot possibly matter. It should not. But I must say it anyway.” He looked up and met my eyes. “I am in love with you, Simonetta. I love you, I sometimes think, more than art, more than life itself. And even if every man in Florence has said such to you, I needed you to at least hear my voice saying it as well.”
The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence Page 23
