The Thief Of Peace

by Jess Whitecroft

  Nicci thought back to last night, to Giancarlo in his arms, thighs wrapped around him, breath exploding in his ear in a gasp. Sodomy. Abomination. “Fornication,” he said. “I suppose that’s what the Church would call it.”

  “A common enough sin,” said Teo.

  “Yes, but I’m very fond of it. Do it a lot.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “I think it’s enough,” said Nicci. “I’m no theologian, but I’m pretty sure it’s a mortal sin.”

  “It is, yes. What else?”

  Why was he so insistent? And so angry? Had someone said something to him? Nicci mentally worked his way down the list of things he’d done wrong in his life and came across one that he knew had caused vast offence in the past. His own mother had threatened to disown him over it.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ve desecrated bodies.”

  Teo didn’t react, so Nicci elaborated.

  “I’ve purchased corpses,” he said. “And cut them open. Peeled the skin from their limbs so that I can see the muscle beneath and learn how it attaches to the bones.” Now Teo understood. He recoiled so far that he looked as though he was hoping the table would somehow absorb him.

  “I know,” said Nicci. “It sounds ghoulish, but it’s a necessary evil. You can’t successfully draw the human body if you don’t know how it fits together. Leonardo did it all the time, and look what he created – beautiful works for the glory of God—”

  “—have you ever killed anyone?”

  “No!”

  “Never?” said Teo.

  “No. Never. What’s going on, Teo? Has someone said something to you about me?”

  “No,” said Teo, turning pink. He caught Nicci’s eyes, turned even pinker and sighed. “Fine,” he said. “If you must know, people tell me nothing. The abbot says you might distract me from my spiritual duties, but when I ask him why he spouts some platitude about how nobody learns anything good from gossip. And I’m sick of it.”

  His voice rose and he made a visible effort to calm himself. “Forgive me,” he said. “But for as long as I can remember, people have lied to me. Told me half-truths. My own mother – she told me my father was dead, and when she told me the truth I wished the lie had been true after all. For the first years of my life my father wouldn’t even acknowledge me.”

  Nicci heard footsteps nearby and Teo furtively popped his head out of the door to see who was there. Nobody was, but he returned to the soap moulds in a hurry. The work, Nicci thought, was about more than just self-sufficiency. It was about squashing down the stray thoughts that came in moments of idleness. Work, prayer, work, prayer, a ceaseless rhythm. Monks barely had time to sleep, never mind to think long enough to examine one’s heart and find discontent there.

  “Do you know what happened?” said Teo. “When he invited me to Prato for the first time?”

  “No.”

  “I was twelve years old. Luca had just died, and my stepmother with him.”

  “The plague,” said Nicci, recalling what Albani had told him.

  “Yes. I remember the new house was being finished. I’d never seen anything so grand in all my life. He’d given my mother money, of course, but we had to scrimp and save. And here he was, living in this place that was like a palace. I was so angry for my mother. Furious. Full of rage and jealousy. And do you know what he did, my father?”

  “Tell me.”

  “He took me for a long walk through his newly planted orchard. He talked to me about his regrets about not acknowledging me sooner, and how he’d always loved me, and that he wanted me to be part of the family from now on. He cried, Nicci. He actually cried when he took me in his arms. And I cried, too.”

  Teo’s eyes were dry now, but his hand trembled as he tipped out the ladle.

  “It wasn’t until Lorenzo died,” he said. “That I found out what had really been going on when I was twelve. I was at the funeral and Giacamo came up to me. He took me by the arm, led me aside and said ‘Listen, this time we mustn’t let Father do what he did when Luca died. Do you agree?’” Teo’s lips curled in a sour little smile. “I didn’t have a clue what he meant, but I found out that day. Giacamo told me everything.”

  “Told you what?” said Nicci.

  “After Luca died, Giacamo and Lorenzo were at odds. Lorenzo was…well, I’m sure you’ve seen his picture. He was a big man. An imposing specimen, and he’d always bullied his younger brother. When Luca died and Lorenzo became the heir he began to throw his weight around all the more, and soon he and Giacamo weren’t even speaking to one another. ‘And that’s where you came in,’ Giacamo told me. ‘Father told us he had a natural son – you. And he brought you into the family. Threatened to legitimise you and make you his heir if the two of us didn’t stop quarrelling.’”

  Nicci exhaled. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I wasn’t a son to him, Nicci. I was a weapon. A threat to hold over my brothers and make them behave. He uses people, my father.”

  “I know.”

  They fell silent. Any moment, Nicci thought, the abbey bell will ring and he’ll have to leave me again.

  God, but he was beautiful. The robes and the tonsure were nothing short of an insult. Every part of him that Nicci had seen – his face, his hands, his feet, the milk white insides of his forearms – was perfect. He was so young, and he’d known nothing but lies his whole life.

  “Listen,” said Nicci. “I’m going to be honest with you.”

  Teo gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  “I have a reputation,” said Nicci. “Not as an artist, but as a drunk. A seducer. A degenerate gambler. ‘A drunken nancy boy with a reputation that would shame the devil.’ That’s what they say about me, and that was just a guard outside the Palazzo Vecchio. That’s why I’m here. That’s why your father picked me out to be his messenger. I’m here to try to corrupt. Just a little bit. Just enough. Just enough dirty stories about flute players and alcoholic parties that you’ll be tempted to take off your robes, put on a well stuffed codpiece and take your place in the world.”

  Teo folded his arms, a cynical slant to his mouth. “And do his bidding,” he finished. “As his heir.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  The boy gave a sharp, decisive sniff. “All right,” he said. “What are we going to do about this?”

  “Do?”

  “He’s using us. The way he uses everyone. Doesn’t that infuriate you? If it doesn’t now, it will later, I promise you. I may be young, Nicci, but I’ve had enough of my father’s puppetry to last me a lifetime. That’s why I entered this monastery under the name I was born with – Teodoro da Mila. Being an Albani has never brought me anything but grief, anger and resentment. I can do without it, thank you.”

  Nicci gave a soft, surprised laugh. So much for the serene young swineherd of his earlier visits. “What were your vows again?” he said. “Poverty, chastity and…what was the other one? Obedience?”

  “I am obedient to a far better father these days. One who doesn’t pit his children against one another like dogs in a fight.” Teo looked Nicci up and down. “Were you sincere?” he asked. “When you came back here and told me you wanted to be a better man? Or was that just a ruse?”

  “A little,” Nicci said. It was hard to stay dishonest in the face of those big, blue eyes. “At first.”

  “At first?”

  “Yes. It was a way of continuing our conversation, because I knew you were too good to turn your back on a fellow creature in spiritual distress. Then…” The boy seemed to light up, a small and subtle glowing, but perceptible to as keen an eye as Nicci’s. “…then I came back again, and again. And the more I talked to you and the more that I saw how this place and your vocation gives you peace…well, the more I loathed myself for having to be the thief of that peace.”

  Teo nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “For being honest with me.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not. Not at all. It m
eans a great deal to me.”

  Nicci thought of the house and the wine cellar and the feather bed and cursed the impulse to do the right thing. “If you don’t want me to come back, I’ll understand,” he said.

  “No. You don’t have to do that. I would like you to come back. Really.”

  “Really?”

  “Look,” said Teo. “I know I shouldn’t want for anything outside the walls of this monastery, but while my father still lives and schemes, I’m certain of one thing I do need. And that’s a friend.”

  “All right.” Nicci held out his hand and the boy took it. Teo’s hand – which should have been the soft paw of a young nobleman – was work worn, the knuckles blistered with spilled lye. “I think I can manage that.”

  5

  Teo had always looked forward to feeding the pigs, but today he had a special reason to linger at the pigsty. Nicci was there, sketching busily.

  It had started as a joke, one where Nicci had complained he was between muses right now, and how he needed a Gioconda or a Cecilia Gallerani to give purpose to his paintbrush. “You don’t have a beautiful mistress stashed away somewhere, do you?” he’d teased, and Teo had blushed, laughed and said the only woman in his life was a sow named Margarita.

  “I think she’s beautiful,” he’d said. “And I know she loves me, although that might have a lot to do with the fact that I feed her.”

  Nicci sat on an upturned bucket by the pigsty fence, his drawing board on his knees. It was a hot day and – fastidious of his clothes – he had removed his doublet and hung it on a nearby branch. The sun shone through the fine linen of his shirt, revealing the outline of his bare upper arm as he worked.

  Teo tightened his belt and walked up the hill, slop buckets in hand. “How goes it?”

  Nicci glanced up. “Not bad. She’s a good sitter.”

  “She’s no Simonetta Vespucci, I know…”

  “Oh, she’s a beauty,” said Nicci. “In her own style.”

  Margarita smelled the food and stirred. “I’m sorry,” said Teo. “I’m disturbing your subject.”

  “It’s all right. I’d nearly finished the outline anyway.”

  “May I see?”

  “Of course.”

  Teo filled the pig trough and moved to Nicci’s side to see the drawing. His delight was immediate and drew a gasp from his lips. The picture was incomplete, the shape of the pig drawn in broad strokes of charcoal, because Nicci had clearly devoted most of his attention to her face. And he’d captured her, to the life. He’d drawn the wrinkles on her snout and perfectly conveyed the texture of her skin and her thick white eyelashes.

  “See what I mean?” said Nicci. “She’s a fine-looking pig. It’s a treat when you don’t have to flatter a subject.”

  “She’s…you’re…” Teo laughed. “This is so good. I can’t believe it. You’ve even got the way the corner of her mouth curls, and sometimes it looks as though she’s smiling.” He leaned in for an even closer look, and his foot bumped against the side of Nicci’s. Quickly, he straightened up, conscious of the body beneath that thin shirt. Nicci smelled of sweat, wine and perfume, earthy and forbidden.

  “This is wonderful,” Teo said. “How on earth do you not have a patron?”

  Nicci gave a wry laugh. “I love that you think the great and the good of Florence are searching high and low for someone to paint their livestock,” he said.

  “The subject hardly matters. The point is that you can draw.”

  “Tell that to Vasari. If you don’t kiss his arse you don’t work in this city – pardon my language.”

  Teo stepped back and leaned against the bole of the tree where Nicci’s doublet hung. This was exactly what the abbot had warned him about – a worldly influence. And while he loved the old man better than his own father, Teo was still young enough to be annoyed at being warned off someone in such couched terms. Besides, hadn’t Christ himself told them to love sinners?

  And Nicci was definitely a sinner. He’d admitted as much, and Teo had to admit he looked the part. Teo was used to people who scurried around at the same pace as he did, who sat up straight because Sloth was a sin, and where the only cloth was black wool and the occasional hair shirt. The doublet that hung on the tree was a gorgeous red-black silk taffeta, with the dull, mouth-watering shine of blackberries plucked at the drowsy end of a Tuscan summer. Pale embroidery gleamed against the dark fabric, echoing the few tiny threads of white that stood out against the black of Nicci’s beard. A loop of tarnished gold hung from his ear.

  Nicci didn’t sit like someone who believed Sloth was a sin. He leaned. He yawned. He slouched and spread his legs. He laughed loudly and often, and whenever he did Teo felt a thin tug of want in the direction of things he wasn’t supposed to indulge in – irreverence and dirty jokes.

  “What is it that you wish to paint?” Teo asked. “Exactly?”

  “Something,” said Nicci. “Anything. Something wonderful, before life passes me by. Do you know the statue of Saint John in the Duomo?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Donatello was twenty-five years old when he finished that. Twenty-five. In two more years, I’ll be thirty, and I’ve done nothing with my life.”

  “Perhaps you just need some sort of…focus,” said Teo. “A subject, beyond this pigsty. If you could paint anything, what would you paint?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.” Nicci propped one ankle on his knee and gave Teo a long, thoughtful look. “What do you think I should paint?”

  “How in the world should I know?”

  “Choose something for me,” said Nicci. “Something religious and respectable. You know your holy subjects, your saints. Saint Catherine with her wheel, perhaps.” He gave a mischievous grin. “Or perhaps I should tie you to that tree and you could be the model for my Saint Sebastian?”

  “Me?” Teo felt his cheeks burn hot as hellfire. He’d never seen a clothed Saint Sebastian. “I couldn’t possibly…”

  “No, of course you couldn’t,” said Nicci. “I’m just teasing. What’s your favourite scripture? No, wait – let me guess.” He looked Teo up and down, and Teo had the unsettling feeling that the painter was still picturing him nude and tied to a tree. “The Prodigal Son?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Christ drives the Devil into a herd of pigs?”

  The corners of Teo’s mouth twitched in spite of himself. “You’re being irreverent,” he said.

  “Sorry. Habit of a lifetime.” Nicci smiled. His teeth were white against the black of his little goatee beard. One canine stuck out at an odd angle, giving his smile an off-centre look. “Tell me. What piece of scripture moves you the most?”

  “The Magnificat,” said Teo. “The song of Mary when the angel comes and tells her that she’s been singled out to bear the son of God.”

  “Ah. The Annunciation.”

  “Yes.”

  “A wonderful subject for art,” said Nicci, no longer teasing, but radiating a new, softer warmth. “What is it that you love about it?”

  “The beauty of the sung verse,” said Teo, his heart beating faster. “The…the surrender. Her surrender. She’s afraid. She must have been terrified. Can you imagine a huge celestial being like an angel, suddenly occupying a poor, tiny room where a young girl is weaving tapestries?”

  Nicci nodded. “Light and wings and feathers.”

  “Yes. And she’s scared to death, but she’s so pure of heart that her fear melts away as soon as the angel begins to speak. She bows her head to the will of God and lets Him do as he will. That we should all have such faith in God. That I should ever have such faith in God.” Teo felt himself tremble a little. “It’s…overwhelming. And hard to describe.”

  “I think you describe it very well,” said Nicci. “I can almost see that tiny room in my head. Such a blaze of light inside it.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s funny, though.”

  “What is?”

  “The way you
admire the Virgin for bending to the will of her father.”

  “Oh,” said Teo. “That’s not funny at all. Sometimes the things we admire most in others are the things we can’t do ourselves. Besides, it’s as I said – God isn’t any human father.”

  The abbey bell clanged for Nones and Nicci sighed. “How I resent that bell,” he said.

  “You mustn’t.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s very rude. Keeps interrupting our conversations.”

  “You’re being irreverent again,” said Teo. “And I must go.”

  “I know.”

  Teo hurried to the chapel. He was almost late, and several of the older brothers scowled at him as he slipped into place in his pew.

  Sorry I’m late. I was busy admiring the portrait of a pig.

  As soon as the thought popped into his head he knew he was in trouble. It wasn’t even that funny, but holy ground and solemnity had an unholy effect on laughter. When you knew – clearly, distinctly and without a shadow of a doubt – that you shouldn’t be laughing, those were the moments when your body had other ideas.

  To make matters worse, the psalms seemed to know what he was thinking. Tunc repletum est gaudio os et lingua nostra exultatione – then was our mouth filled with exultation and our tongue with joy. His belly was full of laughs that kept threatening to bubble up in the back of his throat. He tried to think of the saddest things he could imagine – Christ alone and afraid in the Garden of Gethsemane, the little sparrow dead on the floor of the chapel – but it was no use. Some devil had taken up residence on his shoulder, and it was whispering absurdities, reminding him of the times when someone had accidentally released an audible fart in chapel, or the time when clumsy Brother Francesco had slid on a patch of mud and landed on his back with his chubby bare legs in the air.

  His ribs were bursting. In desperation, Teo headed for the door, pushing, excusing himself. There would be questions later, he knew, but he couldn’t stay. His lungs felt like they were about to explode.