Such behavior is not in her. Viviana’s thoughts continued to plague her. No, it was not who the woman had been raised to be, to act. It was not who she was.
Yet Viviana’s eyes did not lie to her, she was sure of it.
“What are you up to?” Viviana asked of the woman, though she was too far away to hear her. The woman turned from the men, heading toward this end of the alley, and Viviana’s carriage.
“Drive on,” she said, banging once more. “Quickly!”
Viviana would not confront her; all lives held secrets. She only hoped that if her friend were in trouble, in need of help, she would ask for it.
• • •
They had been set to the task of cleaning up. A task that was theirs more often than the others’. It was the way of the apprentice, and neither Carina nor Patrizia felt anything but gratitude for it.
Of a similar age, they had attended the same social events, and seen each other, but had not come to know each other. “Were you surprised when your mother agreed that you could become one of the Disciples?” Carina asked, as she and Patrizia folded the huge drop cloths, stepping apart, the tips of the cloths in their hands, then rushing together to create a fold. It resembled a joyous dance.
Patrizia sniffed with a grin. “I am not sure if the word ‘agreed’ is appropriate. I believe I would use the word ‘allowed.’ Such is the way of her. But, yes, I was quite surprised.”
They stepped apart, though not as far as before, and came together once more, the cloth growing smaller, yet thicker.
“Ah, sì, I understand,” Carina replied.
“So,” Patrizia observed, “you see my mother, see her truths?”
Carina’s almond-shaped eyes grew into walnuts.
“I…that is, I did not mean, oh dear.” Her words faded into the dust of shame.
Patrizia giggled. “Have no care, Carina. I know who my mother is better than most. She is an indomitable force, and not always courteous about it.”
Carina’s boisterous sigh of relief was like a gust of wind.
“I admire her,” she said candidly.
“You do?” Patrizia’s brows quirked lopsidedly upon her smooth brow.
Carina gave a decisive nod. “Indeed I do. She sees something that needs to be done, and she does it. If she disapproves or disagrees, she has no compunction about saying it. Brusquely, perhaps, but without hesitation. It is courageous to live in such a way.”
Patrizia stopped. They were but inches from each other, only the cloth between them. She stared at Carina.
“Grazie, Carina,” she whispered. “You have allowed me to see my mother as I never have.”
Carina shrugged with a grin. “To see through another’s eyes is often to see more truthfully.”
Patrizia nodded silently. “And what of your parents, Carina? What had they to say of all this?”
With the completely folded cloth pressed against her chest, Carina stared out into the nave of Santo Spirito.
“My mother is a great musician, as is my father,” she answered without answering. “My childhood was filled with music. It was also filled with memories, specific memories, of another sort.”
Patrizia stopped her cleaning of the brushes as if Carina tied her hands with her words.
“We would go to performances or parties where my father was asked to play. I would always sit next to my mother. I would listen to my father, but I would watch Mama. She moved her hands upon a harp that was not there. She would play along with him from her seat of feminine anonymity. She was always proud of him, but it did not ease her sadness.”
“She did not want such sadness for you,” Patrizia offered.
“No,” Carina said, shaking her head, “she did not. Nor did my father. If I were to say they did not worry, I would speak falsely. Yet they did not hesitate to agree, not for a moment. They believe Marcello came into my life not just for love, or to be my husband, but to bring me to this, to bring me here. They believe all such occurrences have more than one purpose.”
Patrizia stood and stepped closer to Carina, reaching out a hand. “Then they are as courageous as my mama.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Realities become harsh with realism.”
No sunlight, no matter how bright, or birdsong, no matter how joyous, could relieve her of the heavy dread that weighed down each step she took.
Viviana had decided to walk to Santo Spirito that morning, knowing Carina would arrive by her own family’s carriage, affording Viviana time to think. It was the last thing she needed.
Thoughts of what she had seen the evening before collided with those of what awaited her. She would stand by their decision. She would enter the basilica through the front door, through the throng she knew awaited her. What she wanted most of all was to run from both. There was nowhere to run, for she herself had laid the stones of her path.
“Viviana!”
The breeze carried her name to her as it did the redolence of late summer flowers.
Reaching the intersection of the Via Maggio, the Borgo San Jacopo, and the Via delle Trombe, Viviana searched its byways for the person to whom the voice belonged. Her eyes rolled heavenward and her pounding heart slowed at the sight of Isabetta, who hurried to catch up with Viviana.
“Are we ready for this?” Isabetta asked, linking her arm with Viviana’s.
I would rather face that crowd than see what I already have, Viviana thought.
“I am, I think,” was what she said.
“Are you members of the infamous Da Vinci’s Disciples?” Though there was mirth in the call, both women spun without a smile, only to break into grins at the sight of Mattea, waving to them from further along the Via delle Trombe.
The pair slowed and waited for her, became three united as Mattea slipped her arm into Viviana’s. Whatever lay ahead, they would face it together.
They chattered like crows on a laundry line. Having assumed all the artists were already ensconced within the confines of the church, the teeming horde faced the basilica’s façade, tossing their malicious words toward the door as if the very sound of them could break it down. The trio of women saw nothing but their backs.
The crowd had grown, as it had every day since it had been born. The wide steps—as wide as the basilica itself—were barely discernable, as bodies ran the entire width of them, rows and rows of agitated, boisterous people.
One face could be seen, for its profile rose above the others, the man a head taller than any other. As if he knew she had found him, Sansone turned and found her. Viviana sent him a wink and a smile; he answered with a nod. She wanted more; she needed more. He had not come to her since that night. She needed to know he was not still troubled by what had or had not happened between them. Though if his clipped nod were any indication, Viviana thought he would not come to her anytime soon, or perhaps ever again.
“There is no way but through,” Isabetta said to them, never moving her gaze from the wall of raging humanity before them.
“Then through it we go,” Viviana conceded, turning from Sansone and her dire thoughts. “Remember, no matter what they say, stop for nothing.”
They approached the back row of men and women, though thankfully far fewer women than men. So intent upon their defilement, the first row of the crowd let the women squirm through them, and paid them little heed; they gave the women not even a glance. It seemed too easy.
“There. It is them!” A gruff voice roiling with disgust rose above all, as did his pointing finger.
They were anonymous no more.
They clung tighter to each other, heads down and forward as if to batter their way through, pushing ever forward. From the side of her vision, Viviana watched Sansone surge through the crowd, heading toward them.
“Do not look at them,” Isabetta hushed harshly as the crowd closed in.
Having heard such words, it was exactly what Mattea did.
“Uffa!” Viviana grunted, jerked back by the link of Mattea’s arm,
yanked back as Mattea stopped and turned into the crowd.
“What are you doing?” Viviana cried as the younger woman released her arm, broke away, and moved into the crowd. “Come b—”
The words caught in her throat, strangled by the sight before her. The same vision—the same face—that had sent Mattea flying into the crowd.
“Mama?” It was a cry as well as a question, one she need not ask. The elderly woman, who never left her house save for church, stood almost hidden amongst the rabble. Isabetta reached out—too late.
With bumps and bangs of her now-straight shoulders, Mattea plunged into the crowd, grabbed the woman by the arm, and pulled her out of it.
“Inside, Mama, now,” Mattea seethed at her mother. The aged Concetta Zamperini did not possess the strength to fight her; she was but a dog on her daughter’s leash. With Viviana and Isabetta on their heels, with renewed and invigorated ire careening toward them, the women rushed through the door, which snapped closed on their tail of hatred.
Mattea half pulled, half dragged her mother all the way to the Cappella Serristori, though they did not enter its confines.
“What in the name of God are you doing here?” Mattea whirled on her mother, hulking over her like a vulture did its prey.
“Language, Mattea, if you please.” Even in this moment where she should have been contrite, Concetta was still a mother.
“Do not dare, Mama, I warn you. Why are you here?”
Heads poked out from the other side of the hanging cloth, on both sides, where cloth met wall. Leonardo, Natasia, and Lapaccia from one side, Carina, Fiammetta, and her daughter Patrizia from the other.
“I wanted to see…” Concetta began. Even from where Viviana stood she could see the tears pooling in the petite and plump woman’s eyes, the creases fanning out from their corners etching deeper into her crinkled skin.
“You wanted to see what, Mama, the work I do?” Mattea did not change her stance nor ease the peevish annoyance in her voice. “I would have brought you. I would have gladly shown you all the work I have done.”
Concetta shook her head. “I wanted to see what you were throwing your life away for.” Concetta gave as good as she got, pained gaze intent upon her daughter’s face as if they stood in a world where no one else existed. “What is so important you would toss away any hope of marriage—of family—for it?”
“Oh, cara Mamina, I have thrown nothing away.”
“But you have.” Concetta thrust herself to within inches of her daughter, a shaking, gnarled finger pointing back at the door they had entered through. “Do you think any of those men will have you now? Do you think any of those they know will? You will never find a husband, never find love.”
“She already has.”
Lapaccia’s words, spoken with the beginnings of a warble of her own as she stepped from out of the chapel, cleaved the tension between them.
Concetta spun toward her, eyes widening at the sight of what was, by her clothes and jewels, a wealthy, perhaps noble, woman. Viviana discovered another note of respect for the woman as Concetta, even in the throes of such familial turmoil, remembered her manners, and dipped a curtsy, curt though it was.
“Madonna, I know not—”
Lapaccia walked to Concetta, returned the curtsy—much to Concetta’s shock and dismay—and linked her arm with Concetta’s.
“Your remarkable daughter solely possesses the love of my son.”
Concetta stuttered back a step. “Your son?”
“Yes.”
Mattea stood, her own arms wrapped about her, features drooping like a flower gone too long without water.
“Come, Mama.” Mattea reached out to her mother. “I will show you our studio. Dear Lapaccia,” she said, turning, “will you join us please?”
“Of course, cara,” Lapaccia replied, joining them.
“Come, artisti, work does not wait, not even for passionate mothers,” Leonardo said, pulling back the curtain to allow them entry.
They pretended to work—they moved tools here and there, they studied what they had done, they discussed what they would do next—but every ear, save Leonardo’s, was trained on sounds outside the chapel, waiting for the sound of the back door closing. When the whoosh and bump finally came, they each, to the one, sprang back out.
Concetta walked—no, marched—back toward them with her head high, a wide, creasing smile on her flushed cheeks. To look at her, one might think she had been made a queen.
It is how she must feel, Viviana thought with a surge of satisfaction for this woman who had lived such a hard life.
“My daughter is betrothed to a great nobleman,” she told them haughtily, as if they didn’t know.
“Your daughter, madonna, is a great artist with important work to do,” Leonardo replied.
“And who are you, signore?”
Mattea pulled on her mother once more. “This is our maestro, Mama. This is Leonardo da Vinci.”
Even as the woman’s jaw fell, she had the good grace to offer the man a curtsy. Rising back up, she leaned toward the tall man, neck almost bent in half to look him in the eye.
“Is my daughter truly a great artist?” she asked, voice as small as she was herself.
Leonardo bowed before her. Keeping his head close to hers, da Vinci whispered as if he shared a tremendous secret. “She is one of the best of her age I have ever seen.”
“Oh mio,” Concetta trilled, turning to Mattea. “Forgive me, cara figlia. I should never have doubted you. About anything.”
“Come, Mama, I shall walk you home.” Mattea wound Concetta’s arm through hers, knocking her head lightly upon her mother’s, leaving it there for an affectionate respite. They made for the back door to take their leave. “There is more we need to discuss. Such as how to truly keep a secret.”
“It will be like keeping a firefly in the palm of one’s hand,” Isabetta chortled, inciting more giggles and laughter, even a smirk from Leonardo himself. “Well then, let us to work. I think ours will be easier this day than dear Mattea’s.”
Fiammetta shook her head as she watched them walk away. “As if we don’t have enough of a battle to wage.”
As if beckoned by her words, a crash shattered the stillness of the basilica, smashed to pieces one of the stained glass windows of the southwest transept.
From the jagged hole in the glass, a voice rose up. “You there! Halt!”
“Get back,” Leonardo yelled, long arms stretching out to the side, corralling the women into the closed confines of the chapel. “Get back and stay back.”
With them, he waited, not a breath heard among them.
Time ticked by on a soundless clock.
As the silence grew and lengthened, Leonardo poked his head out from the corner of the chapel, seeing no one, seeing only the broken window across from them and the blue sky where it had no business to gleam.
He stepped out; Isabetta began to follow.
“Stay,” he compelled her.
She nodded, retreated from a man she barely recognized. Their Leonardo had been painted with strokes of fear, but much worse, anger. Their Leonardo rarely showed anger. Though she knew he felt it; who wouldn’t when forced to defend one’s honor as Leonardo had?
With a swiftness they did not know he possessed, the tall, lanky artist rushed across the nave, into the opposite transept, and back again.
He stood as rigid as the rock he held before him. But it wasn’t just a rock. Wrapped round it was a tattered and grimy piece of parchment secured to the rock with a piece of twine.
“Well open it, for the love of God,” Fiammetta blustered, blaspheming in fear.
“Mother!” the fair Patrizia gasped, pale hazel eyes agape.
A flick of a hand was her mother’s only reply.
Leonardo did. As he folded it open and held it flat, they all saw the words written in a scraggly scrawl.
You must stop now.
Viviana sucked in her breath. “It is the same words shout
ed at us from the window.”
“What, when?” Leonardo and Fiammetta badgered them.
The women told of their walk to the studio after leaving the Salvestro palazzo, of the cry that rained down upon them.
“We thought it was merely someone who did not approve of our activities. Someone harmless, for he hid among the crowd or the buildings,” Viviana explained.
“Does the use of the same words mean it is the same man, or merely another who agrees with the first?” Lapaccia wondered aloud.
“Or could it be a warning of another sort altogether?” Fiammetta mused.
“I am sure they are united, come from out of the crowd,” Natasia insisted.
Leonardo held up the rock. “This is not harmless. Nor was the one that hit Isabetta. I must speak to Lorenzo.”
“No,” Isabetta replied. “I will speak with him. I am to have another session sketching him tomorrow.”
“Be careful,” Leonardo warned her.
She nodded, unsure exactly to what he meant. “I will, of—”
The front door slammed opened. Once more, the women yelped in fear.
“Get back.” Once more Leonardo commanded them.
“No, wait!” Viviana cried, seeing the silhouette of the man in the light streaming through the door, seeing his face once it closed. “He is no foe, I swear it!”
Sansone’s long legs brought him to her in but a few strides. As if alone, he grabbed her by the shoulders, scoured her for injury.
Viviana laid her head upon his chest, feeling the flurry of his heartbeat, closing her eyes at the succor of his presence. When she opened them, she saw them. Every floundering-fish mouth, every bug-eyed stare, every creased forehead on the faces of the Disciples and da Vinci as well.
Viviana lifted herself off Sansone, pulled away from him, but only a little. Looking up into his face—one as dear as both of her children’s—one side of her mouth lifted tentatively, as did one shoulder.
“I had to know,” Sansone whispered. “I had to be sure you were unharmed.”
“Life takes us where it should,” she said as softly, “even if we do not know it ourselves.”
The Competition Page 15
