The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany

by Linda Lafferty

  The abbess thrust the suora forward, pushing her finger into the small of her back.

  The horsemaster bowed deeply to the duca’s young cousin.

  “Suor Anna Rosa, it is indeed an honor to see you again,” he said. “It has been many years since I have had the pleasure.”

  Anna Rosa blushed. She had always adored the d’Este horsemaster. One glance at him brought back a rush of childhood memories.

  What is he doing here in Convento Sant’Antonio?

  Once the shed door was closed, the horsemaster took Suor Anna Rosa aside. I watched how he held her elbow, making her face him.

  “You must listen closely,” he said. “We brought you here not to witness Virginia Tacci’s questioning but to aid us in her escape.”

  “Escape?” said Anna Rosa, barely breathing. She looked up at her cousin, the duca. “You will help her?”

  The duca did not answer right away. When he spoke, he spoke to all of us.

  “The word ‘escape’ has not been mentioned in my presence, Cousin. I leave these matters entirely in the hands of the Senese visitor. I will have nothing to do with any arrangements whatsoever. I do not understand the matter to which you refer. I hope this is clear.”

  “Sì, Serenissimo,” she answered.

  I could barely look at Giacomo di Torreforte. His hazel eyes bore into me. I turned away, unable to stand the sight of his face. But I listened.

  “I beg your forgiveness, Virginia Tacci,” di Torreforte said. “But you must look at me. I want to know you understand the risks involved.”

  “I cannot look at you, you villain!” I hissed. “You snatched my life, my horses, away from me—how can I ever forgive you? What a pointless word is forgiveness, when I have lost so much.”

  “But if you will hear my plan, you may find freedom again,” pleaded Giacomo di Torreforte. “And peace between us!”

  I shook my head. I wanted to spit in his face.

  “How can hatred ever find peace?” I hissed. “How could I possibly trust you?”

  “Because you have no choice. And neither do I,” di Torreforte said quietly.

  Anna Rosa sought my hand.

  “Raise your eyes, Virginia,” she said. “Look at him. Hear what he has to say. My cousin the duca would never risk so much if the cause were not just.”

  My eyes slowly climbed up to meet di Torreforte’s. I saw the face I had hated for years. In my memory. In my nightmares. Even in my prayers. But now there was a light in his eyes that had never been there before. It was that light I focused on as he told me what to do.

  “How can I help?” asked Anna Rosa when he was finished. “How is there a part for me?”

  Di Torreforte nodded, his eyes shifting from mine at last.

  “The abbess will be watching closely. When we have completed our interview in the chapel, she will expect to see Virginia emerge from the shed after we load the donkey on the cart. That is where you will play your part.”

  We sat under the great fresco in the convent chapel: Suor Loretta’s favorite, Gesù Sale alle Croce. Duca Alfonso’s eyes gazed up at the gilded halo of Jesus as he mounted the cross.

  “Our savior looks so certain, so assured,” he said, nodding up at the fresco. “What a gift to know that what you do is absolutely the right thing. No matter how you will suffer.”

  “It is the gift of faith,” said the abbess from her position behind the ornate grill. Her voice resonated in the small chapel, reminding me that she could hear every word uttered.

  As her words faded away into silence, I waited for di Torreforte to speak. His eyes were riveted on the painting. I turned in my pew, the ancient wood creaking. I feared he had forgotten all about me, the plan.

  Di Torreforte said nothing for far too long. His mouth moved soundlessly. I doubted he was praying.

  What does he see in that painting?

  I began to sweat, cold rivulets meandering down the small of my back.

  Finally I spoke, trying to shake di Torreforte from his trance.

  “Suor Loretta always said that our fresco is the only depiction of Christ showing his volition, Duca. He climbs the cross voluntarily, knowing his destiny.”

  The duca nodded. “She was a wise woman and my favorite aunt.” Then he shook his head as if dismissing an idea. He turned to see the abbess watching intently through the grille.

  “I want to question you, Postulant Silvia, on your knowledge of this donkey,” the duca said. “I shall ask the horse surgeon to pose a few questions.”

  Di Torreforte snapped out of his reverie. He looked my way.

  I avoided his eyes. “Sì, Serenissimo.”

  Di Torreforte cleared his throat. “You have told us that the beast became seriously ill the day of the suora’s death?”

  “Sì,” I answered. “He was old but not unhealthy. A day or so before she died, his head drooped and he would not take his feed. When the bell tolled for her death, he dropped to his knees.”

  “And he sickened precipitously after that?”

  “Yes. Quite suddenly.”

  I heard the bench scrape the floor as the abbess moved closer to the grille.

  “Do you think there was any coincidence in Suor Loretta’s death and that of her beloved pet?” asked di Torreforte.

  I did not answer. I glanced at the abbess.

  The duca said, “Please answer the question, Postulant Silvia.”

  “I think it is uncanny how quickly Fedele died. The earth still freshly mounded on his mistress’s grave. But I have heard tell that donkeys are faithful. I do not know donkeys,” I said, looking again toward the abbess. “Only horses.”

  “Ah yes! I have heard your fantasy. You think you rode the Palio in Siena. Yes, all Ferrara will have a good laugh at that!” said di Torreforte.

  I could not help but clench my jaw, sticking it out at him in defiance.

  “I did—”

  “Answer my question, Postulant!” di Torreforte snapped. “Do you think it a strange coincidence for a donkey—or a horse—to die at the same time as his master or mistress?”

  “Not so faithful that they roll over dead on the spot,” I answered quickly. I glanced at the duca, trying to gauge my response. “That seems too much of a coincidence.”

  “Serenissimo. I have inspected the tongue,” said di Torreforte. “And noticed some telling characteristics. First, Postulant Silvia. Was his tongue swollen before death?”

  “Yes, sir. Fedele could not manage to eat for several days, as I have mentioned.”

  “My duca. In the donkey’s stool, I found remnants of oak leaves and acorns.”

  “That is very strange,” I said. “We do not have any oak trees on the grounds. I fed him only sweet grass and dried hay. Occasionally, he had a ration of good oats.”

  “But never oak or acorns?” asked di Torreforte.

  “Never.”

  Di Torreforte turned toward the duca. He paused, stroking his beard.

  “Serenissimo, it is my opinion that this donkey was poisoned intentionally by someone within these convent walls.”

  “No!” cried the abbess from the grille. “That is impossible!”

  “Silence!” shouted the duca. His voice resonated against the vaulted walls of the chapel ceiling. “Outrageous! What villainy is this?”

  “I request a full inspection of the donkey’s remains in my dear aunt Loretta’s name,” said the duca, anger edging his words. He turned to look at the grille. “Madre Superiore, I will require a private audience with you at once.”

  The abbess could barely speak. She took a few seconds to compose herself.

  “Madre Superiore? Do you hear me?”

  “Sì, Serenissimo. Please join me in my apartments. We can speak privately there.”

  “Go,” whispered di Torreforte to me. “Remember what I told you.”

  As I turned to leave the chapel, I took one glance back. I saw di Torreforte’s gaze riveted on the painting, his finger reaching up to trace the rungs of the
ladder.

  I wiped the fat black flies out of my eyes, my nostrils. They clung to my temples and tickled my legs. I felt the slick maggots working the donkey flesh resting against the back of my calf.

  My flesh still lives. Surely they will not feed on me!

  In that suffocating heat, each breath was more of a coffin then of life.

  Breathe, Virginia. All you have to do is keep still and keep breathing, he said.

  This man who had caused such sorrow and suffering. This same man I was forced to trust now.

  What did he see in that painting, damn his soul! For a moment I thought all was lost.

  I could never forgive him. But what other chance did I have?

  I thought of the sweet kisses, warm from Riccardo’s lips. The world outside the convent. Giorgio! Cesare, my padrino!

  And most of all, Orione. Padrino will have cured him, nursed him back to health! My padrino could cure any horse, surely.

  They all awaited me in Siena. My fate was in di Torreforte’s hands.

  Will he kill me as a last oath to Granduca Francesco? Was his task to wash clean any remaining stain of his treachery?

  My blood suddenly ran cold.

  Jump! Jump before he slits my throat!

  The ropes were tight on the thick canvas tarp, weighing heavily on my shoulders, and the reek of putrid donkey made me swallow the acid in my throat.

  I sought an airhole to breathe, my fingers working desperately against the oiled cloth and rope.

  “God protect you, Virginia Tacci,” whispered Anna Rosa. Her fingers wiggled through the tarp, finding mine.

  “Thank you. Good-bye, my friend.”

  I could hear a choking sob. Her fingers squeezed mine, and she whisked her hand away.

  “You were my only friend,” she said, her voice low. “I will never forget you. I shall pray for you every day—”

  Every day.

  I no longer wanted to jump out. I thought of the long days of convent life, endless prayers eight times a day. Where do those prayers go? Do they drift up to God and heaven, like the incense the priest swings from his brass pan? Or do they vanish like the mists that shroud the town, disappearing as the sun burns them into oblivion?

  There was indeed suffering beyond the walls of this convent. The hovels of the city, infested with plague and marsh fever. The louse-infested orphans of Maria della Scala, begging for bread. The poor farmers whose families chewed roots and bone-broth soup when their crops failed. But along with that suffering, there was life. And I needed to live.

  I hoped that for her sake, Anna Rosa could finally find peace in God’s service within these convent walls, as Suor Loretta had.

  But I could not.

  “I will never forget you,” Anna Rosa said again.

  Nor will I ever forget you.

  Under the foul decay of the donkey, I smelled Anna Maria’s familiar odor in her nun’s habit, which I now wore. I wondered how long it would take the near-sighted abbess to realize that under my dirty white kerchief was the head of Suor Anna Rosa, cousin to the duca.

  I thought of the conversa Margherita, puckering her lips in dismay as she pummeled the dirty kerchief against a rock in the river Po. Once the stains were washed away, it would cover some other postulant’s head. Over and over again, until it was relegated as a rag to rub beeswax into the choir seats, and finally to wipe clean the chamber pots.

  Would the conversa ever think of me again? Did she ever believe me when I told her my true identity?

  “May God guide you back home, Virginia. To Siena,” said my friend.

  I closed my eyes tight, trying to remember the smoky smell of winter fires, the aroma of fresh hay–cut fields, and the warm scent of horses. I thought of the rippling fields of red poppies in the Senese spring, the tolling of the clock of the Torre del Mangia. The songs of the contradas, starting with the one lone male voice, singing in the darkness.

  Nella Piazza del Campo . . .

  I moved my lips, singing silently.

  . . . ci nasce la verbena.

  Viva la nostra Siena,

  viva la nostra Siena!

  I heard the driver cluck to his horses and felt the shudder of the wagon. My head thumped against the donkey’s stiff leg as we rumbled forward across the cobblestones of Ferrara.

  The horsemaster accompanied the flatbed wagon to the duca’s stables. There the driver and his lackeys unloaded Fedele’s carcass. They pulled the donkey by its tail toward an open grave, where the diggers still sweated, finishing their work. The creases of their brows were lined black with dirt.

  They must have been warned not to look at me, for not once did I see a servant cast a glance in my direction as I slipped off the side of the wagon.

  I turned away. The tugging caused the poor creature’s body to pour forth excrement and deep yellow piss.

  No, I would not watch. This donkey had saved my life. I would preserve his memory with dignity. He was not a horse, he could not help it.

  But he was my savior.

  “The duca instructed me to speak with you,” said the horsemaster. “I speak with his voice. What has transpired here can never be spoken of. You are free, but not to return to the same life.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. I could smell my own sweat obliterating the smell of the gentle Anna Rosa.

  “You can return to Siena’s regions, but not to Siena itself. If anyone should learn that you were confined to a convent, then released, with both de’ Medici and d’Este assistance, we would have the Pope’s armies at our gates. Neither Granduca Ferdinando nor Duca Alfonso want to bring Rome north to battle us.”

  “But I—”

  “Should you share your secrets, you ensure the trial and death of this man who sacrificed so much to save you,” said the horsemaster, gesturing at di Torreforte, who stood just behind him.

  “But he was the cause of all my suffering!” I hissed. “Why should he not suffer, too?”

  “You are not one to forgive, are you, Virginia Tacci?” said the horsemaster. “The convent did not cultivate a willingness to pardon sins?”

  “To the fiery inferno with forgiveness! I will never, ever forgive him. My youth, my life—my horse! Every dream I ever had—snatched from me!”

  Giacomo di Torreforte winced. He came nearer, wary of my fists.

  “Do you think for a moment that Siena has forgotten you?” he said. “Forgotten your Palio? How you stayed up on that stallion, despite his spectacular fall, racing him to the finish?”

  “I lost,” I said. “I came in third. I wanted to race again—and win! You robbed me of that chance!”

  “I did what I had to do to save your life. And Siena will always remember your spirit. You won, Virginia Tacci.”

  But I remembered what he had done.

  “And the boards? Thrown on the street in front of Orione? You were there at Via del Capitano—I saw you right before Orione fell!”

  “They were thrown from the rooftop. I shouted at the villains! There was nothing I could do.”

  The horsemaster held up his hand, demanding our attention.

  “Virginia. Understand well. The condition of your release is this: while you may return to Siena’s countryside, you may never enter its gates. By the decree of Duca Alfonso II.”

  “But—not enter Siena again in my life?”

  “There is a delicate arrangement here between two dukes, sworn enemies. Both stand to lose much. The pope would like nothing more than to seize Ferrara as a papal state.

  “You must swear to remain outside of Siena for the rest of your life. And to never again be known as Virginia Tacci.” His voice was deadly serious. “Or I will personally return you to the convent myself this minute. Do you swear to the duca’s conditions?”

  I stared at the man, dressed in his fine livery. “Never enter the gates of Siena?”

  “You may never approach any closer than Corsano,” said the horsemaster. “You can see the city from a distance from the Crete hills.”r />
  “But! Never to—what if someone recognizes me in the Crete?”

  “Forgive me, Virginia,” said di Torreforte. “The many years in the convent have—changed your looks. And you are a woman now, not a fourteen-year-old villanella. Only your closest friends would recognize you now. Perhaps.”

  My hand reached to touch my face. I had not looked at my face for over a decade. There was no looking glass in the convent.

  “I cannot—I cannot contact my friends? What of Giorgio, of Cesare—my godfather? My uncle!”

  The horsemaster slid his eyes toward Giacomo. “Signor di Torreforte, this is for you to tell,” he said.

  The words were dry parchment on di Torreforte’s lips. I watched him try to speak.

  “Tell me!” I said.

  “Virginia,” he said. “Siena has changed, too.”

  I held his eyes. They had shifted color to a dark, moody green, as when a cloud passes over the water in stream.

  “What do you mean, changed?”

  His face contracted as if he had a severe headache. I saw the muscles move in his throat as he swallowed.

  “There is a place for you, Virginia. I will take you back to Corsano, where our family raises Palio horses in the Crete. On the road toward Monteroni d’Arbia.”

  “No! I want to go back to Vignano. I want to see my zio, my padrino, Giorgio, Contessa d’Elci—”

  Di Torreforte put his hand on my shoulder. I let it rest there, testing its weight.

  “Virginia,” he said. “They are all . . . gone.”

  I tried to focus on his face, but it suddenly blurred into jagged fragments.

  All the people I loved, blown away like the dry leaves in winter.

  I had never had a chance to thank them.

  “No!”

  The horsemaster closed his eyes. His horse fidgeted under him. The rider stroked his fingers through his mane.

  “My presence here was Giorgio’s last wish,” said di Torreforte, his words suddenly spilling from his lips. “If he is not dead already, he will be soon.”