by Lisa Rochon
The women ate and tended the garden. Beatrice slept deeply. But on her fifth morning with Agnella, her mood changed. “I want to find my mother,” said Beatrice. She was staring out across the hills toward the Duomo. “I want to find her. Mamma is in the city. I know she is.”
Agnella set down the slop pail for the chickens and turned quietly to the girl.
“Somebody has her. I know they do!” cried Beatrice, and she pulled away from Agnella when she tried to comfort the girl.
Agnella detected in Beatrice’s strangled voice the same desperation she had felt when Michelangelo was taken from her at seven years old, a bright, warm-hearted boy with a serious brow that held the wisdom of an old man. She had spoon-fed him homemade chicken broth whenever he caught a cold, taught him about the moon and the seasons, and her husband had showed him how to chisel stone. Abruptly, without warning, Michelangelo’s father had trotted his horse-drawn wagon to the modest stone house to pick up his boy. Michelangelo had reached the age, in his father’s words, of “sufficient civilization.”
Agnella’s husband died not long afterward, and she was gutted by grief so strong it broke down the walls she had long since built around her heart. Agnella had never revealed to anyone, not even her husband, that she had escaped from a village north of Florence (measured by a distance of two weeks of running), close to the Swiss border. The region had been slow to convert to Christianity and some of the old pagan ways hung about. Harmless rituals—performed by Agnella’s mother and her friends—such as waving wispy-green fennel branches in the air to inspire fertility among people and their animals. But the church did not take kindly to such devilish heresy, and sought out the women who had, apparently, brought sickness to the area and caused thunder and lightning storms. Her mother and aunts were all burned at the stake for their maleficent deeds. To save her life, Agnella had been instructed to escape to the south. She had never been able to bury the wise, tender women who raised her, but she could hide the truth, like a walnut buried deep in the earth.
She had already learned to repair broken limbs and mend dagger wounds, and she offered these services quietly to her fellow villagers, eventually commanding decent wages for her expertise at healing the variously afflicted wealthy in Florence. The villagers suspected her of being a witch, but they never openly accused her—especially because she helped them birth their babies. Agnella liked the Tuscans well enough. They were taciturn and given to hard work in the name of “God and profit.” But she never told them the truth about her past, or that her last name, della Francesca, was made up.
“Stand up, girl,” she ordered now. “Stand up and be strong. The weakest of the flock will be the first to be devoured by the wolf packs.”
Beatrice slowly got to her feet.
“Let me tell you something. The world is broken. People have gone mad. For those of us living out here in the hills, surviving is the only thing that matters, day after day, night after night.”
Beatrice nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “How do you survive?” she asked, her eyes large and watery.
“Tending to others helps me forget my own pain.”
“Your clients in the city?”
“Yes. One of them, Lisa Gherardini, is rich with silk money,” said Agnella. “But her child is failing to thrive. It’s a miracle she has survived this long. I believe the mother suffers from a disease of melancholia.”
“Only the wealthy could invent such a disease,” said Beatrice.
Agnella knew what Beatrice was thinking: sickness was easy to understand; it looked like boils protruding from people’s necks and legs weeping with rashes. Melancholia must sound as strange to her as breathing underwater. She looked thoughtfully at Beatrice and said, “She could benefit from the presence of someone young and vibrant. Will you travel with me to Florence to tend to Madonna Gherardini?”
Beatrice hesitated and looked at the ground. “I’ll go with you,” she said at last. “In exchange, will you help me find my mother?”
Agnella nodded. “I see you have become skilled at bartering,” she said. “Well, then. Tomorrow we begin.”
Chapter 16
Move your hand in a circle—follow the curve of nature.”
Beatrice slowed her hand as she continued to grind the leeks and peach-tree leaves with the pestle. She looked over at the woman lying on the bed, her eyes closed, her face defiant, her hair disguised within a black scarf.
“That’s fine,” Agnella encouraged, speaking in a low whisper as she poured an infusion of cabbage seeds into the healing paste, one drop at a time.
They had started the search for Beatrice’s mother in the line where people waited restlessly to get past the monumental brick wall encircling the city. Agnella did most of the talking, using her honeyed voice to press people to pay attention, asking whether they had seen a woman with auburn hair and a long neck, like this girl’s, in the line. And she would angle her head toward Beatrice. “Or inside the city? She would be wearing long linen skirts and a regular blouson.”
“Sounds like every one of us standing around here,” a woman cackled at them. “Unblessed slugs, too ugly to be adorned.” The crowd laughed at the keen observation. They were all dressed in ragged clothes—natural fabrics—without the luxury of colorful dyes.
The hunt for her mother had given Beatrice fresh purpose, made her mind gleam with focus, but here, in the private boudoir of Agnella’s patient, she grew impatient. This Madonna Lisa woman’s home was a spectacle of texture and color. How could a woman not bother opening her eyes when she was surrounded with such visual riches? Silk taffeta hanging from wooden posts, pillows covered in burgundy and pink velvets, portraits of the Virgin Mary haloed and glowing behind thick golden frames. Even the water carafe was vividly colored, a floral pattern cast in a luminous blue.
A servant carrying a tray of food entered the room. Beatrice eyed the food hungrily: bread coated with crushed olives, medallions of partridge arranged among plump orange sections. Beatrice knew she was meant to feel sorry for Madonna Lisa, mother of a four-year-old daughter who was slowly failing to breathe. Unable to bear the impending loss, Lisa had surrendered to a dark humor—an immobilizing malinconia—that left her incapable of comforting her child. A heavy sheet of black wool hung over the bedroom window, blocking out the sunshine, signaling the mourning that had already descended for the imminent loss of Piera.
The signora waved the servant away, not bothering to look at the food. Agnella took the healing bowl from Beatrice, who had ground the herbs to a satisfactory pulp. She took a pinch of the poultice into her left hand and rubbed it across Lisa’s forehead, then unlaced the strings of the woman’s nightgown and rubbed the plaster over her chest.
“Agnella?” said Lisa, her voice hoarse.
“I am here,” said the healer, her bracelets jingling against her skin. “Give me your hands.”
The woman lifted her hands limply in the air. Agnella coated each with paste. “Segnalo qui,” she said, taking a short willow stick and etching the sign of the cross over the back of the woman’s hands and into the paste on her forehead. She signaled to Beatrice to light the candles encircling the bed: thirty-three votives, representing Christ’s age when he died. Next, she placed fennel seeds in a basin and added a small wooden cross. “Erbe medicinale,” she said, pushing the basin under the woman’s bed. “Erbe medicinale,” she said louder, throwing a handful of fennel into the fire. Her arms moved in sweeping circles as sweet-smelling smoke drifted across the room.
Agnella bent over the woman. “Have you had any flows this month?”
“No,” whispered the woman, a look of shame on her face. “Nothing.”
“May I see for myself?” The woman nodded slowly, and Beatrice watched Agnella press her hands gently, deeply into the woman’s stomach. “The belt,” Agnella instructed, holding out her hand.
Beatrice removed a thin leather belt from a pouch. Agnella had told her the belt had been worn for a week by a virgin boy an
d inscribed by him with a prayer of healing. Something from the old religion, with words like “mirth,” “Diana” and “Mars.” She looped the belt behind the woman’s back and buckled it securely at her waist.
“Will it cure me?” asked Lisa.
“It contains powerful ingredients, a recipe handed down to me from my grandmother. But the belt’s magic depends on you. You must want to heal yourself.”
Agnella moved her hands slowly in a circular motion on the woman’s stomach. She watched as Lisa’s shoulders dropped and relaxed against the bed. Some of the pain creased on her forehead softened. “Beatrice, would you take some quattrini and fetch fruit for Lisa?”
Beatrice took coins from the table and walked out of the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind her. She stepped onto the marble floor of the grand hallway and looked up at a skylight made from colorful patches of glass; rays of red and pink reflected on the floor. She slid her freshly washed bare foot forward and watched as it turned the color of a pomegranate. The same thing happened when she reached her hand below the skylight. She removed the wreath of flowers from her head, the one she had made at Agnella’s, whistling softly as the white lilies became red as roses.
She heard the woman groan inside the bedroom. Agnella had told her that to lessen the grief and hysteria that were poisoning Lisa’s body, she might be required to induce her female fluids. Not by using cups to draw blood out of her body; rather, she might draw out the woman’s creamy white liquid by massaging the lips between her thighs using a technique shared by the sisterhood. It sounded mysterious and unpleasant. Jumping lightly down the grand, spiraling staircase, Beatrice was glad she had been excused.
Outside, reaching her cart, she eased her knife out of the handle and slid it inside her shoulder pouch. She could walk to the old marketplace in front of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, but instead, she pocketed the copper coins and headed in the opposite direction, to the trees she most preferred. As she walked through the streets, she watched the crowds with special attention, tuning her eyes for the profile of her mother, the square of her shoulders, her gentle, brooding face framed by auburn curls. She stepped around chickens pecking at a large patch of grain left to dry on the road. Then she arrived at the familiar stone wall and started to climb, balancing on the top of the wall and leaping into a robust fig tree. Landing safely, she twisted her body to secure a handhold on the branch above and slipped her blade from its pouch, placing it between her teeth.
“Thief!”
Her hand froze in midair. She looked toward her accuser, heart pounding, prepared for the worst: time in a dungeon or a public flogging.
It was Michelangelo. She stood motionless on the branch, staring down at him. Eyes never leaving him, she threw him a ripened fruit.
“I’d come down from there if I were you,” he warned, biting into the fig. “The owners might have you beaten.”
She deposited figs in her pouch, slid her knife back in and dropped lightly to the ground, a touch of color rising to her face. He was wearing a green silk tunic that emphasized his black curls and deepened the rugged blush of his cheeks. He seemed relaxed, even boyish. Not like a man suffering from personal doubts and fears.
“You look fine,” she said.
“Haven’t seen you for a while. Not a drop of your olive oil is left.”
She wanted to tell him how much she had missed him, about the men who had surrounded her home, about the rooster she had killed with her own hands. It was strange and unsettling to meet him outside of the studio. “My work, my other friends keep me occupied,” she offered, revealing nothing, preserving her dignity.
“Too busy for an old friend?” He smiled and shook his head.
She dipped her head, grateful for their encounter. It seemed she could count on his friendship.
There was a peal of laughter and Granacci and Rustici appeared from around the corner, jostling each other. “Brother!” called out Granacci. Michelangelo clapped him on the back, allowing Granacci to pull him into a bear hug.
“Excuse us for interrupting,” said Rustici, elbow jutting into Michelangelo’s side.
“Who do we have here?” prompted Granacci, wagging a finger. “Wait, I know you.”
“Indeed, you are one of my finest customers,” said Beatrice. “You buy my oil, my lemons, even my lavender.”
“She’s a beauty for a slut,” said Rustici to Michelangelo.
Beatrice looked at Michelangelo, hoping he might come to her defense. He had praised her sketch of the goldfinch on his studio wall. Perhaps he would introduce her as a fellow artist.
Michelangelo said nothing. His eyes were flitting in his distracted way from the sky to the stone cobbles, no doubt feeling uncomfortable with his friends meeting her in the street.
“Best to ignore Rustici,” Michelangelo finally said. “He’s one of those too young to get married, too old to be called a baby. And it’s easy to hate him.”
“Remind me of your name?” added Granacci.
Beatrice still bristled from Rustici’s comment, but she had always enjoyed Granacci’s company. He was a gentleman whenever she made deliveries to his studio.
“Beatrice,” she said, dipping her head.
“An honor to know you,” enthused Granacci, bowing low. “I believe you deliver to many of us in the laneway. And over by the Santissima Annunziata monastery—to Leonardo, too?”
“I do,” she said.
“Have you seen his flying machine?” said Rustici. “Amazing mind, full of fantasies, though nobody will pay for that.”
“Somebody with a bottomless pit of riches might,” said Granacci.
A bottomless pit of riches. Ricco sfondato. Beatrice’s mind flashed to Madonna Lisa lying in her splendid bed, rank with the odor of the unwashed.
“Yes, olive oil girl, tell us what you know.” Michelangelo demanded this as if she were the lowest of servants. “He’s not painting at all?” he pressed, stepping closer to her.
“There’s no need to pry,” said Granacci.
“I want to know,” he insisted. “What is our friend Leonardo painting?”
Beatrice shrugged and bit into a fig. Birds flying free danced in her mind. A man suspended in the air, arms strapped into monster wings. At this moment, she hated Michelangelo, every aspect of his being. She thought about taking her knife from its pouch and cutting out his poisonous tongue. Gentle as a lamb one day, abusive the next, he made Florence rusty as a nail, not golden.
“Leonardo has been working for Duke Borgia these last months,” she said, happy to impress with her knowledge. “Mapping, machinery of destruction. Serious projects—not pretty sculptures of naked men.” She looked hard at the men standing around her.
Michelangelo observed her, no doubt noting the angry curl to her lips.
“He is to paint a portrait of a lady,” she added.
“A portrait always pays,” said Granacci, leaning into the conversation.
“Will she hold an ermine, or a bear in her arms?” said Rustici, laughing at his awkward joke.
“You insult the brilliance of Leonardo. Have you any portraits to better his?” Beatrice felt a flush of anger rising to her cheeks.
“And you, village girl?” said Rustici, puffing up his chest. “Come from the hills to fill us with your opinions?”
“My father was a poet,” she said, ignoring him. “Probably more literate than you. He taught me about Greek philosophers, Euripides, Aristotle. That we should avoid being boors. And avoid the trap of vanity,” she continued, eyes sliding over to Granacci. “Being truthful is what Aristotle wanted for us.” She met Michelangelo’s eyes again. “This is not always easy.” She smiled bitterly, thinking of Constantinople, the stories of the epic city she had heard from her parents, huddled around a fire in their village outside the little city of Florence. Of killing the cock to save herself from the home invaders. “But now my father is dead. So is Aristotle.”
The men stood still, chastened, and nobody spoke. Miche
langelo stared at Beatrice, intrigued.
“Something else I know,” she said, face lifted, shoulders thrown back. “Olive oil. Mine is requested by Leonardo da Vinci himself.” She added, “He pours it over bread with mozzarella. His cook creates art with food. I have tasted it myself.”
The return to da Vinci and art soured Michelangelo’s mood. “So now cheese is art,” he said, raising his voice to a high nasal pitch to mock the formal language of the newly wealthy in Florence. “And I should become a cook, not a sculptor.”
Granacci and Rustici hooted in appreciation.
“You look like a baker most times,” she shot back. “All covered in dust—it might as well be flour.” Beatrice looked directly at him. “My lords,” she said, with a short curtsy and irony lacing her voice. “I must take my leave. Salve.”
“Beatrice?” Michelangelo called after her. “Tell the old man that while he wastes his time on fantasies and flying machines, Michelangelo is creating a new hero for the city.”
His friends pounded him on the back and then hoisted him up into the air, but she ignored them and turned the corner, eyes lifted, searching the crowd for her mother: a head of auburn hair, curls caressing her neck.
* * *
The sun was high in the sky by the time Beatrice returned to Madonna Lisa’s mansion on the Via della Stufa. She bounded up the marble steps to the woman’s private quarters.
Agnella was not in the room. Beatrice looked around, uncertain about her role. Confirming that the signora’s eyes were closed, she stepped past the blacked-out window to a dresser adorned with a washing basin. Her fingers touched the ivory handle of Lisa’s brush and caressed the blue glass bottles, each one curved and shapely, like a woman’s body. After a quick glance to make sure Lisa’s eyes were still closed, she dared to uncork one of the bottles. The perfume was a sweeter, purer version of the incense priests burned in church. She doused her wrists in the magical liquid and inhaled deeply. Except for the steady whisper of the client’s breathing, the room was a tomb of silence.
