The Competition

by Donna Russo Morin

  “Pagolo, what a wonderful surprise.” She opened her arms to him as he stood to greet her.

  “Mona Viviana.” Pagolo did not know the entire truth about the man Viviana had once called husband, but he did know how she preferred to be addressed. “Please forgive my unannounced presence.”

  “There is nothing to forgive, dear Pagolo. It is always a pleasure to see you.” Her attempt at banality failed with a betraying squeak of uncertainty. “Natasia did not mention you would visit.”

  “That is because she does not know of it.”

  “Let me get us some biscuits, shall I?” Viviana rushed from the room before he could reply. As she hurried up the steps to the kitchen, and gathered a platter of biscotti and some wine, she tried to weigh her possibilities. Her loyalty lay with her sisterhood, which would never—could never—be questioned. But what if loyalty became a barrier to salvation?

  “Here we are,” she twittered, returning to her salon with the victuals. She poured a glass of wine for both of them, which they readily consumed. Neither touched a single biscotti.

  If Viviana had hoped for small talk, it was in vain.

  “I worry for my wife, madonna.”

  “Dear Pagolo.” Viviana leaned toward him. “You need not fear. We are now well protected. The Otto—”

  “It is not her work, your work, which troubles me.”

  Viviana took another, larger gulp of wine.

  “I fear for her mind.”

  Viviana sputtered and coughed. “Why?” She croaked, cleared her throat, and tried again. “Why do you fear such a thing? What has happened?”

  “Many things, too many things I fear,” he said. “We have lost not one but two babies.”

  “Oh buon Dio,” she said under her breath. Not a word of such devastating losses had Natasia shared with them.

  “Do not feel slighted that she did not inform you or the others,” Pagolo assured intuitively. “Both were lost very early, one before we even knew of it.”

  She knew the pain she saw in his slacked expression belonged to them both. A piece of her heart broke for them.

  “Do you think it is the stress of what we do?” The thought came to her, the images of Natasia carrying buckets of stone and sand; climbing up the scaffolds—she did not know if the losses came from such activities. The physicians were forever warning against any physical activity during such a time. If it were up to them, women would be in their beds for the entire nine months. Viviana had never set great store by such words. She had found movement and activity only made her feel stronger, made the actual birthing easier.

  Pagolo shook his heavy head, dropping chin to chest. “I wish it were. I fear there is something else.”

  Viviana waited, for far too long it felt.

  He raised his head. “I think there is someone else.”

  “Someone else?” Viviana jolted upright in her chair.

  “Another man.” Pagolo made it clear.

  “What?” Viviana almost laughed the word, the thought so ludicrous. “I do not believe it. You should not even think it. Natasia has loved you, loves you still, for years, deeply and devotedly. She waited for you to return from war. She would have waited for you forever.”

  “But she has been behaving so strangely.” Pagolo slapped his hands on his legs, threw them in the air. “She is forever coming and going and not only during the hours she works with you. Sometimes much earlier.”

  Viviana rubbed her temples and the pain that suddenly found its way there. She did not believe—not for an instant—that Natasia had been unfaithful to her husband, whom she adored. But his words and—

  “I am ashamed to tell you, Mona Viviana, that I watched her when she did not know it.” Pagolo’s ears turned red. “On a day when she told me she was making straight for Santo Spirito while I was leaving for a day to Poggibonsi. When I left, I did not truly leave. I sat, hidden shamefully in my carriage, around the corner of my home and watched. I saw her…” Pagolo grabbed the bottle, refilled his glass, and drank all of it in one gulp. “I saw her leave, heading away from Santo Spirito, not to it.”

  “There could be any number of reasons—”

  “None that she would not tell me about,” Pagolo insisted. “We share everything. Or so I believed.”

  Viviana’s head now throbbed; what was she to say? What could she say?

  “What are you going to do, Pagolo? Why have you come to me?”

  His dark stare held upon her, unblinking. “It is why I have come to you, madonna. I seek your help.”

  “My help?” Viviana squeaked.

  “Sì. Will you endeavor to learn what she is doing, where she is going? Anything that might explain her actions?”

  Viviana longed to moan, to shudder away the burden he was placing on her. But the pain painted so darkly upon his face would not allow it.

  “All of us, all of Da Vinci’s Disciples, are always concerned for each other’s well-being. We are always on the watch for each other’s care, I assure you.”

  It was an answer that comforted, though it was not agreement. Pagolo did not seem to notice.

  • • •

  The daggers felt so good in her hands, as if they were a part of them. They were second only to the brush. She did not know if it was because of the power holding them allowed her to feel, or that it made her feel as if he were with her, as if Andreano had returned and they practiced once more beneath the canopy of trees. It mattered not.

  So many nights like this one, Mattea waited for her mother to take to her bed, held her breath until she heard the purring sort of snoring that always came with her mother’s sleep, then rushed to her wardrobe and its secret compartment at the bottom. The special hideaway in which she had once hidden her sketches now concealed her daggers.

  She quietly pushed at the furniture in their small sitting room, pushed the settee, the chair, and the two small tables to the corners of the room, leaving the center wide open. Though small, it was a place to practice nonetheless.

  Mattea closed her eyes, saw him before her, saw him take his stance. She took hers. The game was afoot.

  For hours she slashed, she plunged, she whirled. For those hours, he was hers again.

  • • •

  Pagolo’s visit had left her exhausted, in both body and spirit. They needed her help—Natasia needed her—but what could she do without breaking the confidence of one or the other?

  Viviana ate little of her dinner. Alone at the table, she pushed the food to one side and then the other with her fork, rarely lifting it to her mouth. When Beatrice came to clean up, she pecked at Viviana like a mother hen.

  “You need to eat, madonna. You need your strength for the very important work you do,” the buxom woman said as she gathered the dishes.

  “Do you think it important, Beatrice, truly?”

  “Mona Viviana, I have loved working for you all these years, especially the last few.” They smiled together at that. “But do you think I wish the same for my granddaughters, for their daughters? To be servants in their own home as well as those of others?”

  Beatrice dropped her fists and shook her head. “In my lifetime I have seen women become poets, like Il Magnifico’s dear mother. I have heard the music written by Lucia Quinciani.” Beatrice picked up her bundle once more. “Oh yes, madonna, the work you do is very important, for us all.”

  With that, she was away, Viviana’s gratitude trailing behind her.

  Beatrice’s words had lifted her spirits, but it was all Viviana could do to lift herself from the chair, to carry herself back to her salon. She sat upon her settee, promising herself it would only be for a few minutes—she needed to sketch a particularly small, incredibly detailed portion of the fresco. She did not know it when her eyes betrayed her, when they closed and sleep carried her away.

  “Viviana?”

  She slept; surely she dreamed.

  “Viviana?”

  It was no dream, but a man’s voice. It couldn’t be.
r />   Viviana jumped up, rushed from the room, skidding to a stop in the short hallway.

  There he stood. She had not seen him since that day at Santo Spirito; he had not come to her since the night he had asked to meet her sons, and for so much more. She thought he might never come again.

  Sansone found her from his place in the balcony door. One glimpse of her, and he moved. He rushed to her and into her arms.

  “I could not stay away. If this is the only way I may have you, then I must accept it.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when his mouth found hers, when his lips and tongue devoured hers. Viviana tried to talk, tried to tell him, but she could not. She was lost to his mouth and to the arms that wrapped about her waist, that lifted her off the ground and held her captive against the wall at her back. She succumbed to the desire and pleasure he rained over her.

  Sansone kissed her face, her neck, the tops of her breasts, never once losing his hold upon her. He pulled at her partlet, ripping it, to burrow his face into the bounty he found there.

  Viviana groaned at the sensual enchantment he cast upon her; any words she may have said were lost as if cast out to sea, plunging beneath its depths. She ran her fingers through his soft hair, closing her eyes to the pleasure. Her hands moved downward, to the hard, broad width of his back, digging her fingers into to the firm muscles. Her legs came up, wrapping themselves around his waist.

  Sansone moaned. One hand continued to hold her, the other to explore her. His long fingers gathered the many layers of her skirt, bunching them up, pulling them up. He swept them along the flesh of her thighs; she tingled with the delight of his touch.

  Her hands moved lower as well, to the ties of his breeches. She could not see; her tremulous fingers fumbled about, brushing more of his firmness.

  When he entered her, they both cried out. As their bodies crashed against the wall, swaying together in a dance she had never conceived of, they were lost together.

  • • •

  Sansone lowered her to the floor slowly upon legs that shook. Viviana left her back against the wall; it and his arms were all that kept her on her feet.

  “I am so sorry. I was too rough. I was—”

  She raised a single finger and dropped it upon his full, well-used lips.

  “Dear Sansone, I have been meaning to ask you…” She looked up, lowered and skimmed her fingers along the hard line of his jaw. “Will you have dinner with me and my sons this Sunday?”

  His oh-so-sweet smile was the only answer he gave; it was the only one she needed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “The more we desire something, the more we are willing to risk for it.”

  The line snaked out the mammoth door of the Palazzo della Signoria and whipped its tail out into the piazza.

  Once a week the Signoria and its main councils allowed the common people to speak before them, to make requests, to make accusations. Once a week the voice of the people rang loudly.

  The woman stood in that long line. Though she had arrived almost with the breaking of the day, she found her place in its middle. As the sun rose and blazed down upon them, she left her cloak’s hood upon her head. As the line moved, as she made her way into the palace, the hood remained. As she reached the bottom of the stairs and the line of people upon it, she slipped away.

  How she remembered what she had heard of the palace and its rooms and secret passages, she did not know. She believed she was meant to remember.

  Through those passages and secret rooms she slipped, until she arrived at a door, the door.

  The rumble of male voices chatting within was the only thing that held her. She slipped into a dark corner. She stood there waiting for the chatting to stop, for the men to leave the room for their midday repast. She waited still as they casually took themselves away, around the corner and down the stairs, out of her sight.

  She moved then, quick and sure, into the room, leaving the door open just a crack behind her, having no desire to be locked within.

  “Oh Dio mio.” She groused at herself, at the dense forest of desks and drawers, mounds of books and piles of parchment that filled the room. Where would she find what she needed? How could she, in the short time allotted to her, before the men returned?

  Up and down the aisles she rushed, rifling through parchment, reading the spines of books. She grew closer; the sweat ran in a rivulet down between her breasts. They were in this section, they had to be, for there were others of the sort she sought. She rifled more, read more. When she saw the name, saw the book, she grabbed it and pulled so hard that three others fell with it, the noise like thunder. She left them upon the floor where they landed, concerned only for the one in her hands, that she read its contents before the storm could reach her.

  To a desk she hurried and there she dropped it, there she scoured it.

  “At last!” she cried, forgetting the need for silence. “At last, oh dear God, thank you.”

  She closed the book with a slap, snatched it up, and clasped it to her chest.

  The jubilation in her heart, spreading her lips and filling her eyes, slowly ebbed away, a waning moon headed for darkness.

  “What do I do now?”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Truth may be feared as a demon, so often it is an angel.”

  Sansone stood in the hallway watching her.

  Viviana fluttered from room to room. Her movements were sporadic, staggering, chaotic. Jemma and Beatrice followed her.

  “No, Jemma, not there,” Viviana snapped at the girl when she placed the mammoth antipasto tray upon the table. “I told you to put it on the sideboard. Must I tell you again and again?”

  Jemma cringed beneath her mistress’s ire, for Viviana never hurled it her way.

  “Basta,” Sansone said. He could no longer stand and watch Viviana suffer.

  He walked to her, took her in his arms, and held her. She stilled there, stilled perhaps for the first time that day.

  “Enough, Viviana,” he whispered to her as Jemma slipped past them, offering him a nod as she did. They did not hide themselves—who and what they were to each other—from these women; the time for that had long since passed. It was an old house; the walls were thin.

  Releasing her only as far as the length of his arms, Sansone tipped his face down to Viviana’s.

  “You must release this agitation. Let go of it. If your boys see you so, so too will they become.”

  Viviana tilted forward, sagging against him. “You speak true, dolcezza mia,” she muttered into his chest. When she had started calling him her sweetheart, he could not remember, only that it was so. “It is just that they…that I…we—”

  “I know, tesoro mio, I do know.”

  And he did. He knew the importance of her sons in her life, knew how much their opinions mattered to her, how much their love meant to her. More importantly, he knew how afraid she was to risk losing them, their respect.

  “They are devoted to you.” Sansone stroked her back. “They may be surprised, perhaps a bit shocked, but they will not betray you, I am certain of it.”

  Viviana pulled away, pupils large as she gazed upon his face, as she cupped the sharp jag of his cheek. “I hope you are—”

  “Ciao, Mama, we are here.” A young man’s voice came to them from the door at the top of the stairs. Viviana jumped from Sansone’s embrace.

  “Miei cara figli.” Viviana ran to greet her sons. Sansone retreated to the dining room, allowing her time alone with them.

  He heard their kisses, heard their laughter, heard too the high pitch of Viviana’s voice.

  “We have a guest today,” she said with an expelled breath. “I wish you to make him welcome.”

  “Him?” a different voice asked, a voice thick and dripping with caution.

  Sansone pulled on the hem of his best velvet farsetto, smoothing it of any wrinkles. He stood tall as he strangled the chair before him. He had stood against many an enemy, many a finely swung sword, w
ith little apprehension. Today was not such a day.

  Viviana smiled stiffly at him as she led her sons into the room, bright and cheery with afternoon sunlight, the parrots on the frescoed wall glowing with it.

  “Marcello, Rudolfo, please make the acquaintance of Signore Sansone Caivano. Sansone, my sons.” With that chirp of pride in her voice, his Viviana returned.

  He strode toward them, stopping to bow, as they did in kind.

  “Do I know you, signore?” Rudolfo squinted at him, studying him. “I feel sure I have seen you before.”

  “Sansone served in many the same battles as you did, my sons. He is a renowned condottieri,” Viviana boasted for her lover.

  “That is it.” Rudolfo slapped his hands together. “Guerra del Sale. Ferrara.”

  “Ah, sì, I was there.” Sansone nodded as he took the measure of the young men before him. Though the youngest resembled Viviana more, there was something of hers—her intellect—in the eyes of the eldest.

  “You were not simply there, signore.” Rudolfo brushed past him and into the room, helping himself to some wine. “You led my contingent. You were masterful.” He raised his full glass to the man.

  Sansone bowed; his heart trilled. “Grazie, Rudolfo. May I call you that?”

  “But of course. Though I may find it hard to call my commander by his given name.”

  “It is my wish.”

  Rudolfo raised his glass again, grinning. “Then it is my honor, Sansone.”

  “Were you there as well?” Sansone turned to Marcello, finding him silent and sullen, still standing at his mother’s side, as stiff as the soldier he had once been.

  “I was, signore, but with a different detachment.”

  “Why do we not sit? Everyone, help yourselves to the antipasto.” Viviana sat down so hard, the legs of her chair squealed against the stone floor.

  Rudolfo quickly availed himself of the bounty of meats, cheese, tomatoes, and peppers; Sansone followed with a quick glance—and a slight curve of his lips—at Viviana. Marcello took a chair beside his mother, pouring her a glass of wine from the green glass bottle sitting upon the maroon damask tablecloth.