The Competition

by Donna Russo Morin

  “How can you not believe him to be so, after what your own husband went through, and you with him?” Natasia turned the question round on Isabetta. “After the pain Viviana and her children suffered?”

  “God works in ways we cannot begin to understand. We must trust there is a reason for it, dear one,” Lapaccia proclaimed.

  Viviana sat on the other side of Natasia and took her hand. “You must tell your husband. He knows you have been doing something clandestine. He believes you have taken a lover.”

  It was Natasia’s turn to blanch. “He what…how—”

  Viviana told her of Pagolo’s visit, of his words, and of his fears.

  Natasia dropped her head into her hands. “I never meant to hurt him. I never meant to hurt any of you.”

  “Us?” Fiammetta blurted. “How have you hurt us?”

  “Those men, those men who blocked our way, who yelled at us? Many of them yell only at me. ‘You must stop now.’ These words are not to stop what we do here, but what I have done.”

  “But they are not the only men out there,” Viviana tried to comfort her. “They are not the men who spat at Isabetta and me when first they learned of our intent to bid. They are not those who vandalized our homes. There are far more men, and women, who decry our actions than those who try to stop you from repairing the good name of your family.”

  “But who are such men? Who would be harmed by your actions?” Mattea asked.

  Natasia shrugged, hung her head. “I care not to think of it, or speak of it.”

  “Men who have no desire for your father and his line to gain any more power with the Medici.” Fiammetta spoke where Natasia would not. “Men who fear losing their own positions with him. Men such as your uncle.”

  Natasia closed her eyes against Fiammetta’s words. Her silence gave them validity.

  Instead, she knelt beside Isabetta. “That rock. It was meant to strike me. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “There is nothing to forgive, cara,” Isabetta soothed her with a whisper.

  “I should have stopped then, but I could not. I kept on. I searched as Emiliano once searched. I knew, somehow I knew, that the documents he found and gathered were still somewhere.” Natasia smiled; it lit her face as surely as the sun did the earth. “I have not failed. I found the papers, where he tried to prove it, where he did prove it. The papers he was killed for.”

  “O Dio mio,” Fiammetta intoned.

  “Language, please, Fiammetta,” Isabetta teased. Natasia laughed first; Fiammetta laughed hardest. It was laughter they all needed.

  “You must take this to Il Magnifico,” Mattea said.

  Natasia’s shoulders slumped once more. “I have tried to get an audience, but was turned away.”

  “I will get you that audience. I will get him to right this wrong.” Isabetta plunged her hands upon her hips.

  Fiammetta glared at her. “Please, Isabetta, getting the Medici to provide us with guards is one thing, a thing he benefitted from as well. But this…this is something far greater altogether. How would you do this? What power do you have?”

  Isabetta raised her chin high, eyes aglow as she smirked. “I have the power all women have, but rarely use. I am his lover.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Justice is but another path to peace.”

  Isabetta tossed throughout the night. All manner of consequences for what she planned played over and over in her mind as if she were watching plays. Each play differed, but the ending never did.

  She had sent the request the day before; she had received permission within a few hours. Already her deceit had begun.

  When she arrived at the Palazzo de’ Medici with Natasia beside her, she saw the maggiore duomo show a speck of emotion for the first time. It was a heavy harbinger.

  He led them to Il Magnifico’s public chamber. He did not lead them through the hidden door. Isabetta did not expect him to.

  “Cara Isabetta,” Lorenzo entered from that concealed entrance, his words coming faster than his glance, “why are we not—”

  He saw her, saw them.

  His dark glare narrowed; his head tilted almost imperceptible.

  “I see you bring a friend, Signora Fioravanti.” Of all the things Lorenzo de’ Medici was—the good and the bad—he was no fool. He knew the moments demanding caution.

  “I have, Magnifico,” Isabetta said, not a quiver in her voice. “I realize it was wrong of me to do so under the pretense of our work, but this is far too important. This is Natasia di Soderini Capponi. She has an urgent request of you, Magnifico.”

  “Soderini, you say?” Lorenzo finally spoke. “Which Soderini is your father?”

  “Crispino, Magnifico,” Natasia answered with a wobbly curtsy.

  “Ah.” Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed once more, upon Isabetta. She saw in that glare that he knew why they had come.

  “All I ask, Lor…Magnifico, is that you allow her a few moments to speak, to show you what she has uncovered.”

  He stared at them far too long. Il Magnifico stepped to his desk and dropped himself into his chair. He did not speak. He merely opened his arms wide, palms upward. Isabetta prodded Natasia forward.

  Isabetta stood back, silently cheering Natasia, for once the woman began to plead her case, to display the irrefutable evidence, all visage of fear and hesitancy vanished. Righteousness dispelled it with fisted hand.

  Lorenzo listened. Lorenzo picked up each piece of parchment, intelligent gaze reading each one. The last he dropped upon his desk and sat back in his chair. A suffocating silence, the sort that followed a scream, engulfed the chamber.

  At last he spoke.

  “If I acknowledge this, acknowledge the true paternity of your line, I will make many enemies.”

  Natasia’s head waggled, jostled by the potent wind of her passion. “But it is the right thing to do, Magnifico. It is true justice. Is that not what you fought for after your brother’s death?” If she went too far, she showed no concern for it. “This is no different. I will not let my children be the progeny of a bastard when he was not.” Natasia punctuated her resolution with a pound of her fist upon his desk.

  Isabetta saw her pull back—rein in her fortitude—though she had no need. Isabetta had never respected Natasia more; her righteous conviction was a beautiful thing to witness.

  “I understand, signora, truly I do,” Lorenzo said, the fire of his ire cooling. “But this is a difficult time. It is not the time for me to make such a bold statement.”

  He disappointed Isabetta; it was the first time he had. It was far too bitter a pill to swallow.

  “And what will your wife say when she learns you have taken another mistress? What will Lucrezia Donati say if she hears she is being usurped? She has already visited me—us—at Santo Spirito.”

  “She did?” Lorenzo flashed the question. For the first time Isabetta saw the truth of his feelings for the woman. It lay slathered on his face as if applied with a brush.

  “She did. But I gave her no reason to fear me. Perhaps now is the time to do so.”

  “Isabetta, no,” Natasia cautioned in a breath.

  Lorenzo forgot Natasia, spoke to Isabetta, his jutting chin crumpling. “You would do this?”

  Isabetta took two steps to stand beside Natasia. “Sì, for my sister, I would.”

  He stared at her; in his eyes, she saw all that had passed between them, all that could have.

  Dropping his gaze from her, Lorenzo stared once more at the papers and their undeniable truth.

  “It is done.”

  Isabetta heard the heartbreak in his voice, for she heard it in her mind, felt it as well.

  Natasia breathed a gasp, hands fluttering to her cheeks, body swaying. Isabetta took her hands and squeezed, shaking it. Natasia must remain the strong, determined Natasia.

  “We have your word?” Isabetta asked.

  Lorenzo stared at the two women as if he stared at them all, all of Da Vinci’s Disciples. “We men are foo
ls.”

  Isabetta laughed though with little joy. “Yes, most of the time you are.”

  She stepped around his desk to stand behind him. Without shame, she turned him and kissed him, knowing Natasia was watching, not caring. It was a kiss of goodbye; they both knew it.

  “But now and again you do the virtuous thing.”

  Isabetta released him, walked away from him.

  Nudging Natasia as she passed her, she made for the door. At its open egress, she turned back, turned to look at him for one last time as her lover rather than her ruler. She would miss him, his nimble hands, and the joy they brought her. Upon his face, she saw her own sadness.

  “I will paint you gloriously,” she whispered, though he heard.

  She turned then, turned away from him for the last time, with a small, bittersweet smile.

  It was worth it, for Natasia, for her sistren it was.

  She held out her hand for Natasia, who took it. It was a touch of profound gratitude. It was enough.

  • • •

  “Papa? Papa, where are you!” Natasia cried, as she and Pagolo burst into her parents’ home.

  Within seconds, both father and mother came rushing to them, the two couples colliding in the public sitting room.

  “What is it? What is wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong, mia cara famiglia. Everything is right, as it always should have been,” Natasia exclaimed, thrusting the papers into her father’s hands, not only those that proved their paternity, but those from Il Magnifico, those that decreed them as true.

  Her father’s dark eyes, small in sockets of heavy, wrinkled flesh, flashed between her and the papers. They began to quiver in his hands. His legs wobbled; jagged footsteps barely brought him to a chair before they failed him. His shoulders began to tremble. When he finally looked up, Natasia saw tears upon his cheek; she could not recall ever seeing him cry before. She rushed to him, dropping to her knees at his feet, delving into the embrace that awaited her.

  “You and Tomaso are the greatest gifts the Lord has deemed worthy to bestow upon me, but this is the greatest gift you could ever give me.”

  Crispino Soderini looked up to his wife, eyes moist with wonder. “I am a bastard no longer.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Gifts given often come without ribbons or bows.”

  It was a finely rendered portrait, a perfectly captured moment of serenity. Seemingly a happily married couple whiling away the evening together.

  Viviana and Sansone had supped together, talked, laughed, and simply reveled in the company of the other. As if creating the scene, giving it its final touches, he sat in her chair in her salon while she stood beside him before her canvas, brush in hand. They did not speak, and yet they were more intimately together than they had ever been.

  Sansone put down his book, rose, and quit the room. Viviana listened as his footsteps moved him about the house and back again; he returned with a small goblet in each hand.

  “Grappa,” he told her as he handed her a goblet, kissed her forehead, and returned to his chair and book.

  Viviana sipped the strong brew, a digestive drink, one to relax the body and the mind for a good night’s slumber. She stared at Sansone over the rim, feeling a jolt but from more than the wine. Comfort and happiness nudged her. No, they slapped her in the face, a hard slap for her foolishness.

  Floating out beyond the boundaries of her body, Viviana saw them studying the painting. She saw the ease of them together and the comfort it brought her upon her face; she glimpsed the years ahead and the happiness she could claim as her own. Why then, did she not claim it?

  Viviana put down her brush but not her drink, took herself to Sansone in his chair, and knelt beside it.

  “Sansone, I—”

  The knock upon the door took them both by surprise. With all that had transpired over the last few months, it was a guarded surprise.

  Viviana quickened, began to rise.

  “Stay, Viviana,” Sansone commanded, a hand upon her shoulder as he stood and made for the door.

  The softly spoken “buona notte” that came with its opening was so very familiar to Viviana and yet no less of a jolt.

  She did stand then, just as Sansone returned, brows high upon his forehead, her son, Marcello, walking in his wake.

  “Buona notte, Mama,” Marcello greeted her. “I hope I do not disturb you.”

  “Of course not, Marcello. You are always welcome, no matter the time.” She leaned toward him to kiss his cheeks. He grabbed at her, enveloped her in his arms. Over Marcello’s shoulder, Viviana cast a concerned look at Sansone.

  “Would you like some grappa, Marcello?” Sansone asked, already heading for the door.

  Marcello at last released his mother from his grasp. “I would, Sansone, grazie.”

  Sansone took himself away. Getting him the drink was nothing; hearing him call Sansone by name was something.

  “Sit, Marcello.” Viviana led him to her settee and pulled him down beside her. “Are you well? Has something happened?”

  “Something has happened, cara Mama,” Marcello said, hanging his curly-haired head. “But I am well for it, at least I hope so.”

  Despite his words, Viviana could not shed her concern. For all his words to the contrary, he did not look well.

  Marcello lifted his head; Viviana’s work caught his eye. For the first time, Viviana saw a lightness return to his features.

  “Nonni,” he said, lips curling upward ever so slightly. “It is as lovely as she herself was.”

  “Grazie.” Viviana thanked her son hesitantly; he did not come to discuss her work.

  “Tell us what you have come to say, Marcello,” Sansone urged him softly, handing the younger man his drink, grinning as Marcello downed the potent liquor in one gulp. “Or perhaps you would rather speak to your mother privately. I could—”

  “No!” Marcello answered, quick and sure. “I am glad that you are here, that I may say these words in your presence.”

  Marcello sat so very still, chin once more to chest, both hands wrapped about his now-empty goblet.

  “I have been a fool, Mama. You have given up so much for us, protected us, stayed when you should have left, for your own safety if nothing else. You suffered so much for us, Rudolfo and me; you suffered terribly.”

  Viviana grabbed his hands. “I did no more than any mother would do. It is what mothers are meant to do.”

  Marcello laughed without mirth. “It may be what mothers are meant to do, but not all do it. You did. And how have I thanked you? What did I do the first time my loyalty to you was put to the test? I failed you.” Like the child he had once been, Marcello’s lips quivered with the tears threatening to drop from his eyes.

  “Oh my son.” Viviana held his head to her chest. “You can never, could never, fail me. Think not of it, for it is a lie.”

  Marcello pulled himself up, slapped at the tears that her embrace had released.

  “I realize now that your happiness is all that matters, not how it finds you or with whom it finds you.”

  Without releasing Viviana’s hands from hers, Marcello spoke to Sansone.

  “Signore, I thank you for the happiness you have given to my mother and only wish that you continue to do so.”

  With a sharply drawn breath, Sansone stood and reached out a hand. Marcello stood and took it.

  Viviana rose, stood between these two precious men. “Now we are a loving family, as we have been, as we always should have been.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Achievement, in and of itself, is a gift we give to ourselves.”

  They finished on a Monday in January.

  Every day save Sunday, they had come in on the murkiness of dawn, left on the gloaming. Yesterday they had applied the final touches, the most intricate of them all. All the brushes had been put away in their proper cubbies in the studio, along with the drop cloths and pigments. The scaffolds were gone, far more easily demolished than const
ructed.

  They were all there, every member of Da Vinci’s Disciples, the old and the new, as well as their maestro and the two who had taken his place in his absence.

  They stood in one long line, shoulder to shoulder, from one side of the cappella to the other. They spoke not a word; their elation was no less brilliant for its silence. Their eyes roved about the walls, every inch, from the simple landscape to the many-figured, finely detailed scenes, then up, up into the deep azure sky with its wispy clouds and fluttering birds.

  “I do not know what they will say of this, Viviana, but I thank you for bringing me to it, for bringing this joy to me,” Mattea spoke, but any one of them could have said the words. It mattered not to Viviana who said them; they were a gift given.

  They had at last made their mark, one that would endure for many lifetimes. At last they had said to the world, “We are artists.” Great hope realized was a many-splendored thing.

  “I have learned a great lesson,” Fiammetta said, both to them and to herself. “I have learned that doubt, of any sort, is a useless thing. I will never doubt again.” To Carina and Patrizia she prophesied, “This is your beginning, a far grander beginning than we had. Do not let it end. Promise me you will not let it end.”

  “I promise, Mama,” Patrizia breathed.

  “I swear it, Contessa,” Carina declared.

  “It is well then,” Fiammetta sighed.

  “Wait!” Isabetta suddenly cried, and ran off, out the back door, letting it slam behind her.

  “What is she about now?” Fiammetta mumbled.

  Before any could speculate, the door flew open once more, and this time the bang came with the tinkling of glass upon glass. Isabetta rushed toward them with three flat-sided bottles, the amber-colored liquid within sloshing as she cradled them in her arms, a basket of wooden cups hanging from her shoulder, and a smile that filled her face and dimpled her cheeks.

  As she passed out the cups, as she filled them with the expensive peach brandy, their numbness waned; elation now throbbed to life. Their own disbelief at what they had done left as quickly as it had come. Joy and laughter took its place.