Viviana turned, fuming. But Mattea was right; she had called them together to decide how they could help Lapaccia, for no woman of such a rank went missing for this long without a troublesome reason at the heart of it.
“Yes, Lapaccia,” Fiammetta said. “She was not closely aligned with either family. The Cavalcanti need secure themselves to no one.”
They all nodded; there were few more noble families in the entire region.
“I cannot believe she would venture out on her own,” Isabetta said with flat disbelief.
“I have no doubt she was looking for Andreano,” Viviana added.
“You do not think…” Natasia’s tremulous cheep withered away.
“Think what?”
“You do not think they found out about us, about the group? And they took Lapaccia for her involvement in it. Perhaps they shall come for us all?”
“Listen to me, Natasia.” Isabetta’s tone was soft yet sharply made. “What we do here is deemed unlawful, but do you really suppose in this moment, with two great families—the greatest men of our city—setting out to destroy one another, that anyone, anyone, would care about an association of women who liked to draw?”
Silence met her supposition, but only for a moment. Viviana cracked first. It was a small snicker loosening the floodgates. Soon even Natasia chuckled at the ridiculous notion she had suggested. Leave it to Isabetta to find the amusing reality amidst the maelstrom.
“But if not because of this group, then what?” Mattea asked the better question.
Not a one had a chance to answer.
Heavy and arrhythmic footfalls clod outside the door and the women turned in fright; Mattea had left the door unlocked. Isabetta reached out and grabbed her heavy metal, pointed chisel, brandishing it like a sword as she stepped in front of them, a human shield of righteousness if not of might.
Father Raffaello opened the door with a whoosh, swooping backward at the sight of the armed Isabetta. He threw his hands up, yet remained in the threshold.
“Madonna, mi scuse,” his deep baritone squeaked. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.”
Isabetta lowered her artist’s weapon. The priest entered the room, slapping his forehead.
“I should have thought, should have known, in these days, how easily we are all scared.”
Natasia rushed to her brother’s side. Of similar coloring and stature, big boned and tall, his made all the more corpulent by the voluminous robes, there could be no denying their kinship.
“What brings you, Tomaso?” Her brother had been a priest for many a year, but he had been her brother first, a wild young man saved when he had heard God’s calling, as his priestly name implied.
“There is word of your friend, Lapaccia.” He put a hand upon his sister’s, one holding his arm so very tightly. “The city is rife with talk of her, Lapaccia and a painting.”
“A painting?” Viviana’s voice cracked as it rose. The group gathered closer to the cleric.
“Yes, a painting, one gone missing from the Palazzo della Signoria and…and they accuse her of its theft.”
• • •
“And so we have left the insane to enter the absurd.” Isabetta’s sarcasm broke the appalled silence.
“A…a painting, from the palazzo…” Fiammetta repeated the words to make sense of them. “Do you know how many paintings there are in that palace?”
“It is one of the newer paintings, or so the scuttlebutt proclaims. The one hung just after Christmas, the mysterious group portrait no one ever claimed.” The priest shut the door as he entered fully and took a step closer to the circle of women in the center of the room. “For some reason, its absence has become quite noticeable. It is now considered part of the investigation.”
“A part of…” Viviana’s voice trailed off; there were too many thoughts bumping against each other in her mind. “Let us take this a step at a time. A painting is missing, it is certain?”
Father Raffaello nodded. “Most definitely.”
“Whatever could make them think it has something to do with the atrocity?” Isabetta asked.
“It seems, as the painting was of a gathering,” the priest explained, “it is believed to be a portrait of the conspirators themselves.”
“Good Lord!” Isabetta spat. “My apologies, Father.”
Father Raffaello patted her slim hand with his chubby one.
“I am sorry, but I am not surprised. The ego of men, of powerful men, it is the work of your devil, yes?”
The priest nodded, slow and pensive.
“The adoration of their own brilliance impelled them to have such a painting rendered,” Viviana added. “But it would have taken time.”
“I remember this painting,” Mattea raised a thin finger. “We went to sketch it, all of us, I think. Or perhaps just Viviana, Isabetta, and myself. It was quite the talk at the time. How could it be of the killers?”
“Quite easily, I think,” Natasia declared. “I heard Giovanna degli Albizzi tell papa. Word is spreading that the plan was more than two years in the making, plenty of time for such a painting to be rendered, no?”
Fiammetta swatted the air. “It is all bruited nonsense.”
“Is it?” Isabetta insisted. “And yet a conspiracy there was. An assassination there was. This is not rumor, but fact. It is in the realm of possibility, as surely as anything that has happened these past few days.”
Viviana tutted, “A plan of such magnitude would take much time in the making. Acts of such a heinous nature are rarely done on spur of the moment thoughts.”
“Ah ha!” Mattea crowed. With a large parchment in hand, she wormed her way into the center of the group, holding the paper up and out, displaying the work.
Two weeks after Christmas this painting had appeared, an anonymous donation to the growing collection at the Palazzo della Signoria, and now, four months later, its master was still unknown…four months and still its notoriety clung to it like the last layer of varnish. It was a mammoth work, a group portrait mimicking one of the great moments in Christianity. There had to be more than thirty men within the large and elaborate room depicted, not to mention servants and furniture. Yet the dimensionality, the new trend breathing true life into the art of painting, was employed with brilliance.
“I do remember that painting!” Fiammetta exclaimed.
“As do I,” Viviana agreed. “I went more than once. I was quite enraptured with the technique of perspective rendering such a large group in a confined space. Typically, so many would be captured among nature, without confinement, easier to replicate the proper dimensions.”
Mattea made the connection. “It is the Feast of Herod.”
The Feast of Herod was currently one of the most favored topics; an ideal scene in which to capture many faces, a technique and trend of the age, where the rich sponsor paying the artist’s commission demanded their faces, and those of family and friends, be made part of the portrait.
“We all have sketches of it then,” Isabetta scrunched her eyes. “I am remembering it. It was not Filippo Lippi’s, though it was in the style of his famous one. The mimicry brought the painting its notoriety, I think.”
“It was not signed, was it?” Fiammetta asked, searching her mind as she cudgeled her memory. “I cannot seem to recall a signature.”
“I think you’re right, Fiammetta.” Mattea bobbed her head. “I don’t show any sign of it here, though I have more sketches at home.”
Viviana paced, “Well, there is no question of the painting’s existence. But what could possibly connect Lapaccia to its disappearance?”
“Those who speak of it say she and the painting went missing at the same time,” Father Raffaello spoke up. “The last anyone saw of her was at the Palazzo della Signoria, that day. It is also the last day the painting was seen.”
Mattea scoffed, “Preposterous. She would never.”
“It doesn’t matter, dear women.” The priest brought them to silence. “It
only matters that they think she took it.”
To this, they said nothing.
With a kiss upon his sister’s cheek and a respectful bow to all the women, Father Raffaello took himself away.
“We have many sketches, yes?” Viviana broke the silence in his wake.
Every woman nodded.
“Then there are two things we must do.”
“Two?” Isabetta tilted her head.
“Sì, two. First, we must recreate the painting and return it as soon as possible.”
“Are you mad?” Natasia barked.
“If it is returned, perhaps the government, perhaps Il Magnifico, will stop looking for Lapaccia.”
“Ah, yes, but it is only half our battle.” Isabetta said with dawning clarity.
“Not the easy half,” Fiammetta sniped.
“No, it is the easy half, for we are all masters, are we not?” There was such righteous pride in Viviana’s words, not a one would, or could, naysay her. “Though I admit, it would be far easier were our ‘studio’ to have a true maestro, one with a true talent for the modern techniques.”
“We will find no such woman,” Isabetta muttered.
“Not yet,” Mattea said with her shy smile.
“That is a challenge for another day,” Viviana brought them back to the task at hand. “For now, our most formidable task is finding Lapaccia ourselves.”
Chapter Nine
“A well-rooted tree fights against the wind; its branches waver but never break.”
After sharing loving embraces and making their pledge to ferret out every sketch of the accursed painting, the women made their way from their sanctuary, staggered in small groups. Soon someone would call for another meeting—within a day or two, no more.
“Your sketches, Mattea,” Viviana said to her young friend, “as soon as you can.” Mattea was the best with charcoal; it was often her cartone, the basic miniature sketch or perfect downsized copy of a larger painting, the women used to grid and composite their works. Hers may well give them more insight than any other’s would.
Mattea nodded and, arm and arm with Isabetta, made for home.
Fiammetta and Viviana brought Natasia through the Piazza Santo Spirito, along the short stretch of the Via San Agostino, and to her door. It was the way of them, to escort the unmarried Natasia home. And as often happened, Fiammetta chose to stay on, to socialize with the great Soderini family, while Viviana made grateful use of one of the family’s carriages to return her home.
With their familiar, perfunctory politeness, Viviana took her leave of them, entering the enclosed carriage but keeping the curtains open, the unobstructed view giving her a chance to see the state of the city.
More and more people were venturing out, though all in groups of at least four or more, and only for market or church, as their baskets and veils evidenced. No decomposing bodies littered the streets of this most affluent quarter of the city on the far side of the river from both the Duomo and the Palazzo della Signoria. Viviana knew men were missing from these stately homes, men whose allegiance lay mortally with the Pazzi.
The carriage pulled up before the dark doors of the del Marrone household. Viviana fluttered her gaze between the façade and the street leading to the Piazza della Signoria. Neither told the true tale of what lay in store for her nor was the choice easily made. A dark part of her itched to see what lay in the city’s largest courtyard, to see the bodies hanging from the windows for herself, yet it was no place for a woman alone to venture. But through those doors could await discomposure of a more dangerous sort.
Bolstering her courage, she opened the carriage door and stepped out. With a straightening of her shoulders, she turned toward her own front door, until she saw him.
He stood at the far corner, at the edge of the Palazzo Bartolini. Tall and lean, she immediately recognized the green eyes bright in the sun, beautiful beacons of light reaching out to her, though it was under a starry sky she remembered them best and remembered them often.
Could it be two years ago? It was at an evening fête at Lapaccia’s palazzo, in celebration of her son’s election to consiglione del commune, the upper house of the legislature. The images turned over in Viviana’s mind like leaves rustling along a wind-swept lane. The ballroom seemed to have been lit by a thousand candles, rivaled only by the plethora of stars in the clear summer sky.
Viviana knew she had looked especially fetching in a brand new gown of forest green, though she had not heard a word of it from Orfeo as he led her into the room. She was merely another appendage, albeit one to show off, upon his velvet-clad arm. With the Cavalcantis as their guide, the del Marrones had been introduced to those in the room they did not know. Though there were not many, there was one who stood out.
“Gentlemen,” Andreano drew the attention of a small group of men standing in a circle as they approached, “please be so kind as to pay your respects to one of my mother’s dearest friends and her husband. I present Messer Orfeo del Marrone and his wife, Mona Viviana.”
As a group, they bowed, as did Orfeo; Viviana dipped her most graceful curtsey. Rising up, she looked into his eyes, the greenest eyes she had ever seen. For a moment, she forgot to breathe.
She heard little after that—voices rumbling, names passing, and only as Andreano turned to him, the tallest man with silken hair, the color of dark honey, falling about his ruddy-skinned face, did she hear his name: Sansone Caivano.
“Signore,” Orfeo bowed to him as he had to each of the others as proper introductions were made. “Are you a member of the delegation as well, as Messer Abbatano here is?”
“No, signore,” Viviana heard a warm bass commanding an orchestra. “I am a soldier. It has been my honor and privilege to serve with our host on occasion.”
“Ah.” It was Orfeo’s only response, save to turn his back on the man, knowing he was no use to him, the same back he showed his wife.
Viviana looked up at Sansone, brow furrowed, cheeks burning, eyes filled with an apology she could not speak aloud.
The small smile came then, one so understated yet so disarmingly charming she felt the corners of her lips rise. With the grin came a small shrug of wide shoulders and an almost imperceptible roll of the eyes.
Just as she thought she could stand it no longer, the orchestra—perched upon a corner dais—took up their instruments and music filled the spaces where her turmoil might reveal itself.
“Signore del Marrone?”
She looked up as Sansone called her husband’s name, then called again when Orfeo did not turn. When he did, it was with clear disdain.
“Might I have your permission to dance with your wife?”
Viviana thrust her bulging gaze downward.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Orfeo hissed between closed teeth, his imitation of a cordial smile, turning back without a glance toward the woman in question.
First an allemande and then a coranto, they twirled and whirled together, in perfect step, as if they had danced together on many an occasion. For such a tall man, Sansone moved with remarkable elegance and Viviana found allowance for her own abilities to shine instead of reining them in as she must when dancing with her ungainly husband.
They danced and they danced. With each new song, Sansone returned her to her husband who dismissed them both with barely a glance, with a flick of a hand as he plied the powerful among the Florentine politicos. Sansone responded almost the same way each time.
“As you wish,” he bowed to Orfeo, who had already turned away. Then Sansone turned once more to Viviana, his small, charming smile, a raised brow asking, her quick nod answering. And with that, his large hand led her back to the dance floor, led her firmly yet with devastating grace about the floor and through the complicated turns.
It was after a lavolta, after the intimate dance that brought the couple close together, that brought Viviana into his arms, lifted like a weightless flower into the air as he made a three-quarter turn, that she spoke without thought.
>
As Sansone made to lead her once more to her husband, she had turned them away.
“Oh, let us not bother him.” Or had she said let us not bother with him; perhaps such words were only thoughts. “I need some air. Would you be so kind as to escort me to the balcony?”
She saw it, though it was but a flash…a glint of light in his remarkable eyes, a jump of the muscles upon his strong jawline.
“It would be my pleasure, Mona Marrone.” He held his arm out to her and she laid her hand upon it gladly.
“We have been dancing all night,” Viviana giggled. When had she done that last? “I think it would be quite acceptable to call me Viviana.”
Did his step stutter as he looked down at her? She did not know; she knew only that when he said, “It will be my pleasure…Viviana,” her chest tightened and her heart beat wildly in her throat.
His fine hair fell forward, as if it too leaned toward her. A soft ashen brown, the sun had swooped its brush upon random strands and glorified it with its golden depth. The effect was a dewy color that brushed so close to the meadow that was his eyes.
They stepped out the leaded glass doors as if they stepped into the firmament, so full was the moonless sky with the brilliance of stars. With the magnificence of Florence carpeting the earth below them, they spoke, slowly at first, then soon with ease. Viviana told him of her quiet childhood on the vineyard—left much to herself to read too much, to imagine too much.
They laughed together as he told her of his diminutive mother, still alive in the small town of his birth near Naples, who would stand on a chair to hit him on the back of the head. Viviana laughed so hard she forgot herself, forgot all else save the glory of the moment, and put a hand upon his arm as their laughter wafted out and up to the stars shining down upon them. His large hand covered hers and the shock of it, the lightning crackle of the touch, jolted them both.
Viviana turned as he did, spoke as he spoke…
“You are the most…” said he, her hand still in his.
Portrait of a Conspiracy Page 5
