The Botticelli Secret

25
For a few moments I heard nothing but the drip of water and the hiss of the candles that burned in the niches, in this strange underground shrine. Brother Guido was silent, digesting what I’d told him—that the leper who had followed us since we started this thing, followed us still; that we were in greater danger now than we’d ever been.
“And you’re sure? You’re sure this was the same man? The leper you saw in the Via Nilo, the ‘priest’ in San Lorenzo Maggiore? For I have to tell you, Luciana, that church was almost destroyed in the earth’s quake.”
I set my jaw, stubbornly. “We escaped.”
This he had to concede. He sighed. “Very well, suppose we accept your position that the leper is the assassin. There is no inconsistency in my position. I said then, as I say now, that our best chance of safety is to discover the secret of the painting, and then we have a bargaining tool. But if this fellow is not our assassin why would he assist us in our charade by concealing our true identities from our powerful hosts?”
I had a revelation. “Maybe he’s following me, not you. Perhaps he thought that when he murdered Brother Remigio he had dispatched you. If he picked up the trail at Fiesole, he may have thought you were a monkish escort that Abbot Giles sent with me to Pisa to guard my way.”
“Then how are we to explain what happened to my uncle?” He choked a little as he named him.
“Perhaps he died of the bad oysters in sooth.” But I knew it was not so.
“Then why did he tell me, with his dying breath, to follow the light to the Muda?”
“Because he was dying. Whether of the oysters or of a poisoner’s draught, he would have given you the same instructions.”
“Why did Tok pursue us?”
I thought fast. “Because once your uncle was dead, your cousin wished to remove you as a rival. Perhaps Niccolò’s motivations had nothing to do with the painting.”
“And yet we know that my uncle was one of the Seven, and that Niccolò would have inherited his place in the conspiracy.”
“It does not follow. Perhaps the real Niccolò knows nothing about the Seven. You ‘inherited’ your part in the plot when your uncle passed his ring to you and told you to follow the light to the Muda. Niccolò may have been thought unfit to join the alliance. You said yourself he was a good-for-nothing finocchio who thinks more of f*cking small boys than studying his books. My words, not yours,” I added hurriedly.
“But in essentials, you are correct,” he said wryly.
“Well, then. Perhaps the leper does not know your identity. If he has followed us from Florence, you look a much different creature than the scruffy monk in Pisa who had spent two weeks on the road in his own filth. Now”—I looked at him, noble and beautiful in the candlelight—“you are a prince.”
“All right. So you think that he will not move against you at present because he believes you are under the protection of Niccolò della Torre, one of the very seven lords for whom he works?”
“Why not? A clever working girl would change sides in a heartbeat and cling like a limpet. You could protect me, give me every comfort, buy my silence. Perhaps he thinks I am no longer dangerous. I may know the secret of the Primavera, but I am now in the company of one of the plotters, and it would harm your wealth and position to reveal what I know. Why would I do such a thing, if you are now my patron? Perhaps he thinks he need only watch me, for now, to follow my steps. For if I were truly your concubine, to harm me would anger you, perhaps even threaten the enterprise. Perhaps I am safe until you marry and I am then an expendable mistress.”
“Very well. Let’s say he followed you to Santa Croce, murdered Brother Remigio in my stead. He then follows you to Pisa by reason of my name—”
“And the stone tower carved over your door . . .”
“Of course. So then he knows I sent you to Pisa to my uncle before I died. My uncle then dies, however this was wrought, possibly because he thought that he had told me too much of the Seven.”
“And, he was going to introduce us to Lorenzo de’ Medici!” I cried, struck with a revelation as if I traveled the road to Damascus. “The leper thought that we were set to reveal all, that your uncle regretted his involvement and was set to warn Lorenzo that the Seven were plotting against him, that he would reveal to Lorenzo his nephew’s treachery!”
“As you say. Then we escape to the Muda. As far as the leper knows, your monkish escort goes down on the boat. He cannot have reached Naples before us, for we came on the flagship, and the rest of the fleet arrived at least half a day later . . .”
“The next time he sees me,” I took up the tale, “at court, I am now with Lord Silvio’s son, Niccolò, a man magnificently dressed, clean shaven, and a million leagues away from a penniless monk. ‘Lord Niccolò’ wears the thumb ring and closely resembles Lord Silvio. The leper believes that you are loyal to the alliance, and that now your father, the rotten apple, is gone—forgive me—he may merely observe our progress. He was not pursuing us when we ran from the Pantheon,” I admitted, “and he has not revealed your true identity because he does not know it!”
Brother Guido concluded. “The leper thinks you have changed sides and are in the pockets of the Seven. He follows you but does not act.” He fell silent for a time, a silence which told me he thought my theory possible. Then he abruptly changed his theme. “Yet all this conjecture wastes time. Whether or not another party gives us away, we will give ourselves away if we do not meet the king tonight.”
“At midnight?”
“Yes. We must change our tack from this discourse and apply our faculties to the more immediate problem. We cannot know for sure the leper’s business. But we, we have very pressing business of our own, namely that, in less than two hours, we must meet Don Ferrente at a place that we do not know the location of, and my only plan to discover the whereabouts of our tryst has been wrested from me.”
“Speak Tuscan.”
“I meant only that since Don Ferrente must himself go to that place at the hour of midnight, my notion was to follow him there.”
“But he was meeting with his officers first.”
“Yes. We could have waited and followed him again to the appointed place. But now, since we fled the Pantheon in error, there is no way of knowing for sure where the meeting of the Seven will be.”
Ah. “Could we not find some likely places where a king might meet his officers?” I knew I spoke nonsense even as I uttered the words.
“It could be a private house, a palace, even a well-appointed tavern. There are a hundred, a thousand of such places in Rome, and our time is short. No, our best chance of success is to apply ourselves to the only clue we were given as to the whereabouts of the meeting, for that was dropped from the lips of the king himself.”
“You mean whatever he muttered in English.”
“He said ‘under the seventh sun.’ ”
“Clear as cow shit.”
“It seems impossible, I know, but we are well versed in such deductions now, Luciana. We have followed the trail from Florence all the way here, with nothing but our wits and the cartone.”
“Better get the painting out, then,” I said, sighing.
He wagged his index finger at me, as if I were in the schoolroom. “Not this time; for this was a supplementary riddle, provided by the king himself. I’m sure that the answer this time will not be found on the parchment, although the larger themes of the painting will still, doubtless, be at work here. No, we need to think only of the king’s riddle and the city itself.”
“Maybe we’re going about this wrong. In Naples, we found what we sought at the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore. Perhaps there is a San Lorenzo in Rome, must be!”
He raised his head quickly. “I can say that with absolute certainty, for the city of Rome is the very site of San Lorenzo’s martyrdom.”
“He died here? In Rome?” I was surprised—for when the nuns who had taught me Scripture spoke of the saints, I always vaguely reckoned that they had lived in far-off parts of the Holy Land, not in the cities where my own grubby sandals trod.
Brother Guido’s eyes shone blue fire. “Yes. Near the Villa Borghese, not far from the Pantheon. There’s even a shrine containing the gridiron on which he roasted to death.”
“They roasted him?” I always thought martyrdom a noble, if stupid, act, but I never thought that a saint would be cooked like a Yuletide dinner.
“Yes, you do not know the tale?” His face took on a beatific look; Brother Guido was a monk once again. “He was placed on a hot gridiron by the vengeful Romans till his flesh began to sizzle. Then, with great bravery and fortitude, he said, ‘Turn me over, I am done on this side.’ ”
I began to laugh. “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “But it is funny.”
He conceded a smile. “Yes. It shows that the servants of Christ cannot be easily vanquished.”
“All right.” I sprang to my feet. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s leave here and seek that place—Villa Borghese.”
“No.”
“What now?”
“It’s a good notion, Luciana, but it’s just not right. San Lorenzo has nothing to do with the words ‘the seventh sun.’ We are thinking too much of God and sanctity, but here in Rome everything is different. Did you not hear Don Ferrente? ‘The old gods hold sway tonight.’ These are the old days and the old ways. Unpalatable as it is, we must turn our thoughts to the pagan, even the heathen, not the Christian.”
I saw what he meant. “For even the king is different here.”
“What mean you?” But he looked like he thought so too.
“Well, in Naples, he was almost preaching the Gospel at his feast, talking of Christ, and the dayspring, and his model of the Nativity; almost as pious and pope-holy as you. Then, when we’d just left the city—do you remember, just after the earthquake—he said it was the old gods who shook the earth’? And here in Rome it’s all Romans and pagans and the power of the sun.”
“You are absolutely right. Could it not be,” he said slowly, “that in those Christian pronouncements in Naples he was dissembling—his preachings were merely clues to lead us to the church to view the fleet? He mentioned Christ on Calvary—”
“Showing us the way!” I cried.
“And that’s how we found the door to the underground fleet—the seventh station of the cross, Christ’s last journey to Calvary, on the wall of the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore.”
“But here, he is more concerned with the sun, the moon, the seasons . . .”
“He takes us to witness an eclipse . . .”
“Even his riddle speaks of the sun . . .”
“Sol Invictus!” Brother Guido crowed triumphantly. “The pendant that Venus wears in the Primavera. The sun. And,” he went on, “that Marsilio Ficino letter that you recalled in the Pantheon. The entire extract runs, ‘The Sun makes clear all your inventions by its light. Finally Venus, with her very pleasing beauty, always adorns whatever has been found.’ ”
It all fitted. Venus was the figure of Rome, she wore a sun pendant. We were on the right course. “Let’s think this through,” said I. “The king took us to a church—”
“Which was once a pagan temple . . .” Our words tumbled out so fast that they almost crossed each other.
“And told us to meet him under the seventh sun . . .”
But then we stopped, graveled for lack of matter, and could go no further.
Madonna. ‘Twas a tough cipher this time. The seventh sun. The seventh sun. There was but one sun in the Primavera, on Venus’s breast. But one sun in the heavens. What were the others?
We sat in silence then, puzzling, speaking only to begin sentences then dispose of these fragments of ideas as quickly as they had come to us. “Would there be . . . is there a temple, or palace, with seven suns painted on the ceiling? Like a fresco?” I ended weakly.
“Mayhap there is. But we would never find such a place in time.” More silence.
“Perhaps . . .” he suggested in turn, “it has something to do with months of the year? The primavera is, after all, a season, the season of spring.”
“So?” I was bullish, for my arse hurt on the cold damp stone and I was mad that my fresco idea had been dumped out of hand.
“Maybe the seventh sun is the seventh month. Sept-ember.”
“Brilliant,” I scoffed. “It’s July, but I’ll meet you at midnight in September.”
He dropped his head, chastened, and we fell again to silence.
Then it was my turn. “You said that Rome was built on seven hills. What about under the seventh?”
He brightened a little. “The seventh hill. It could be so. And yet a hill has nothing to do with the sun.”
“A sun rises over it?” I was reaching now.
He shrugged. “Perhaps. It’s the best notion we have had thus far.”
“So which is the seventh?” My voice was bright with hope.
“I could name the seven for you—but there would be no way of really determining which hill is the ‘seventh,’ for God made all the lands on the same day.” His hand reached up to rub his chin. “I could tell you with some confidence of the name of the one which would be considered the first hill, for tradition has it Rome was founded on the Palatine hill by Romulus. But as to the ‘last,’ I could not say. The others are named—let me see—Aventine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian.”
Once again I could not help but admire his knowledge, un-helpful though it was in the present case. “But we’re looking for one that you can get underneath,” I reminded him. “That cannot be true of them all, surely?”
He shook his head. “Sadly, your assertion is not true—all the hills could well have subterranea—this very place where we now shelter is only one of the myriad underground tunnels in Rome. In fact”—the blue eyes blazed again—“we are under a hill now! Did you not see the ancient mound, when we entered through a dark door?”
“So you are saying that this might be one of the hills?” I gestured above my head, looking about me properly for the first time. I’d been so caught up in our desperate discourse that I had not noticed what was before my very eyes. I got to my feet. “What is this place?”
He stood, too, his posture giving weight to his words, like an actor. “A labyrinth of the dead. The Catacombs.”
I licked suddenly dry lips. “A labyrinth of . . . of the . . . dead?” I gave a shiver despite myself.
“To be sure,” he replied breezily. “All these cavities”—he pointed to the rectangular holes in the walls, set at regular intervals—“are graves. Observe, you can see the bones within, and the winding sheets too.”
I backed away from the charnel.
“And they are clearly respected still in this modern day—see, the devotional candles still burn.”
I cared not if the candles burned, I wanted out of this bone house and my fear showed in my face.
“Don’t be afeared. Death holds no horrors for those who believe in the afterlife.”
But I wasn’t sure I was one of those people.
“Think once more of San Lorenzo in his agony. There are many tombs here in the Catacombs, it’s true; yet there is peace and hope also.”
I had to disagree. “It’s pretty sinister, if you ask me.”
“You find it so? I feel only serenity, for this was a place of great faith.”
“How do you mean?”
“The first Christians used to worship in such places in the days when the Romans worshipped their false pagan deities and to name God or his Son could spell death. But the true faith is evident in these inscriptions—look . . . perhaps there is somewhat here that will instruct us.”
“You think?”
“It cannot hurt to look for clues.” He read for me the Latin characters scratched on the wall, spidery characters hewn into the stone, yet surprisingly neat and regular after the wear of centuries—a labor of love. “Here’s a reference to seven!”
“Soothly?” I came to see. “Anything about suns?”
“No . . . I was mistaken. They are family names . . . a deacon named Severus, and here”—his voice grew soft—“his daughter who died while he still lived, another seven as I thought, but now I see she was named Severa after her father.” He read as if he intoned a prayer. “ ‘The mortal body is buried here until He makes it rise again. And the Lord who has taken from Severa her chaste, pure, and forever inviolable soul with her saintly spirit will give it back adorned with spiritual glory. She lived nine years, eleven months, and fifteen days. Thus she passed from this earthly life.’ ”
I was touched by the fate of the little girl even so long ago, touched by the father who loved her enough to stand in this dark place weeping and carving by the light of a guttering flame till his fingers bled, to think of her all the days of his life, and to die, many years later, and be buried with her in this place, their bones collapsing into an embrace at last. I wished that I had a parent to love me so. I’ll find you one day, Vero Madre, and you will hold me to you and call me dear. I could not speak for a moment, so lost was I in this little human tragedy. I remembered, too, that Brother Guido had just lost the only parent known to him, and I’m pretty sure that we both forgot our quest for a moment. I shot a look of sympathy at my friend, but it was not heeded or needed, for Brother Guido was off on a more spiritual bent.
“Do you see now? Do you hear their voices across the ages? You are hearing, directly, what early Christians thought of the last realities of death and the fate of the soul in eternity, in the days when faith must be hidden. They truly believed, even then, that the soul would rise again, like Saint Lazarus, like our Lord Jesus himself. Now you see what I mean, that this is a cemetery where everything speaks of life more than death. And now we are truly blessed, for in the modern age we need not fear, need not bury our faith underground.” He stroked the inscriptions tenderly with his long sensitive fingers. “Indeed, His Holiness Pope Sixtus—whom God willing we will meet on the morrow—has built a wondrous chapel for all to see, to the glory of the Lord, and plans a dome for Peter’s church even greater than the one that crowns the Duomo in your native Florence.”
The bells of the nearby basilica struck a warning chime, telling me that time was short, and recalling me to the quest. I tried to return to the matter at hand. “So if we are in a meeting place where those who had to meet in secret once hid, might we not be in the right place? Under the right hill? By chance?”
“It’s possible. But nothing I have read so far fits the riddle.”
I looked about me, desperate for an idea. Saw, in the warm glow of the candles, images which I had not seen before stand forth on the walls. “Mayhap we must look to their paintings as well as their words—for it was a painting that began all this!”
Brother Guido squinted at the walls of our cavern. “Perhaps—for look, here and there are frescoes to witness their faith. This is a veritable jewel casket of ancient evidences.”
I looked, and saw. There were loaves and fishes, angels, and a benevolent shepherd Christ carrying a lost sheep across his shoulders to safety.
Then one image made my heart stop.
And begin to thump again.
“Here,” I hissed. “I think we are in the right place. Look!”
I pointed to where seven crudely drawn figures, ages old, sat about a round table waiting to break their fast. Seven.
“I don’t know.” Brother Guido rubbed the back of his neck.
“What don’t you know? There are seven figures gathered here in this fresco. The Seven were meant to meet here—I am sure of it. The candles are lit and all is ready! To think that we came here by chance, running from the leper!” (Whom I had almost forgot.)
Brother Guido looked unconvinced. “It cannot be. For one thing, this image is common enough as a representation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes—seven figures are often depicted at the feast. For another, this place is too Christian for the Seven’s gathering—as I said, it was a Christian sanctuary, and yet we have already agreed that the riddle itself and everything in the king’s discourse and demeanor points to a pagan, Roman, imperial meeting place.”
I deflated as he spoke, but he had not done.
“And lastly, what are the chances that, be we never so blessed by the true God, we would have stumbled, unaided, into the very place we were struggling to find? No, no, Luciana, it will not do.”
I kicked a stone underfoot in frustration and succeeded in nothing more than stubbing my toe in its fancy pointed boot. I knew Brother Guido spoke sooth, for it was all too neat if this had been the place and Don Ferrente had walked right in after us. And even one as green in the body politic as I, felt that this barbarian bone house would not satisfy Don Ferrente’s puffed-up pride—he would need somewhere grander for his meeting. Damn the King of Aragon! “Why can’t he just f*cking say where we were to meet him in plain Tuscan? And in Naples too—all that cowshit about Christ on Calvary, and Fiammetta. Why could he not just tell us where to look?”
“Because he is overheard by his court at every hour—that night and this. Recall, if you will, that he had just put down a rebellion by his barons. Perhaps those at his court would not approve of his alliance with the Seven, and their scheme, whatever it may be. Powerful enemies could make things difficult for him, particularly if his barons warn those that he moves against. Tonight he spoke in English, knowing, as he must, that I was schooled by an English tutor. Remember, if you will, that the only time he spoke directly of the Seven, without any of his oblique misdirections, was the day we happened upon him and Santiago alone in the marquetry chamber. Only then did he name me as one of the Seven, or talk of the business with any directness.”
I stared fixedly at the seven figures on the wall, gathered for a meal a thousand years ago, as he continued.
“And that’s another thing. Don Ferrente gave us the clue ‘under the seventh sun,’ but never did he hint that all the Seven would attend the meeting. In fact, how could it be so, when one at least, as we believe, will be absent.”
“One?”
“For Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, nephew to Lorenzo the Magnificent, surely rests in Florence, preparing for his nuptials.”
I sighed gustily. I felt the sense of my friend’s words but somehow could not let the coincidence pass.
“So you’re saying that this is just chance? That this fresco shows an average Christian family breaking bread together?”
“Most likely. For here are family tombs set into the very wall where the image appears—see . . . many chambers for many dead of the same name. Count them—yes . . . there are seven.”
Jesu. “Pretty unlucky to lose seven sons!”
“Alas, these were dangerous times for the faithful—” He broke off. “What did you say?”
I thought him angered at my flippant tone. But I meant no disrespect for, soothly, after the tale of Severa I cared more for those who had become dust so many centuries ago than I would have thought. “I only meant . . . seven sons was a lot to—” I did not get to finish.
“May the Lord damn me for a fool!” he cried, his tones ringing round the Catacombs. It was the closest I had ever heard him come to profanity. “Of course! The seventh son!”
“Eh?”
“Seventh son! Not seventh sun!”
I was confounded, for to me the English words sound exactly the same.
“They sound the same, yes, but they are spelled differently! Don Ferrente meant sons, as in figlio, not suns as in sol!”
I think I had the right of it. “You mean he wants us to meet him under the seventh son, like in a family?” I pondered. “That makes even less sense than before.”
He paced like an opium feeder seeking a poppy. “Not so. Now it is all clear. He was even named in these very inscriptions! The name of the seventh son, underneath, the concept of imperium, the worship of Sol Invictus, it all fits.”
“Christ knows what you’re talking of, but I don’t. Who was named in these inscriptions? Who is ‘he’?”
“Never mind. We have little enough time, for the bells of the basilica have already struck once as we talked. We have a little under an hour left, and that is all. Follow me.” He made for the exit.
“Where?”
“Whence,” he countered. There was always time to correct me, I noticed. “We’re going back to the center of the city. The Forum, the center of pagan, imperial Rome.”
I pulled at his sleeve just before he plunged recklessly into the night. “And what about the leper with the silver eyes?” I implored. “Have we fully considered what he might do? Can we be certain that he does not know your true identity? Can we risk the chance that he may get to Don Ferrente and unmask you?”
Brother Guido turned and took me by the shoulders, the goodness in his blue eyes so different from the memory of those malign silver ones. “Luciana. We have no choice. For if I attend the meeting, he may well give me away. But if I don’t, I will certainly give myself away.”
We sped through the night like phantoms, our black attire aiding us in our secret passage. We were shadows this night, just like the ones that hid in each doorway or reached from the arches of every loggia on our way.
At every turn I looked about me for the leper, expecting to see his silver eyes, to hear the whisper of his robes. But he was nowhere to be seen. Only late revelers bumped us good-naturedly, exclaimed at my beauty, and let us pass. As we gained the ancient center of the city once more, we quickened our steps with the chime of the quarter hours, for midnight was nigh. Presently we came to a great ruined place, silver in the light of the moon that was now whole again. Like a lost world, it lay like a silver lake, a crumbling elfin city, a resting place of emperors. Before Brother Guido could whisper “The Forum,” I knew this was the place—so right for Don Ferrente, a playground of kings. “It’s a big place,” I murmured. “We might miss them.”
“No,” came the reply. “The king was very specific. Under the seventh son. The seventh son of a Roman family was named Septimius. Sixtus, Septimius, Octavius, and so on. In the very center of the Forum, there—see—is a great triumphal arch.”
I saw it: huge and massy, a great stone rainbow. But I didn’t see what such a structure had to do with a Roman family. “And?”
“And,” he mimicked me, “it is the triumphal arch of one of Rome’s greatest emperors, and empire builders. He established the concept of imperium that we saw exemplified in the pavimentum floor of the Pantheon. He also championed the worship of Sol Invictus, the unconquerable sun; the symbology of the cult even appeared on his coinage. And his name?”
Finally.
“Septimius Severus,” he finished in triumph. “The Seven are to meet under his arch. Under the seventh son. And furthermore, a fabled carving of the goddess Venus appears upon the arch. Remember? ‘Venus, with her very pleasing beauty, always adorns whatever has been found.’ This is the place, depend upon it.”
I had my doubts, but as we descended, I saw a clear sign that he was right, for before us stood a fearsome soldier, garbed most strangely. He wore a cloak that in the day must have been bright red, but in the moonlight was the wine-dark scarlet of blood. On his breast was the cognizance of a moon and a star—there was no escaping the heavenly bodies tonight, it seemed. And on his head rode a helmet with an arc of bristles standing forth like a currier’s brush. Madonna.
I looked left and right as we trod the ancient pavings, saw that there were such soldiers guarding all entrances and exits, in a watchful ring. “What do we do?”
“Announce ourselves, I suppose,” whispered my companion, sounding much less assured.
“Who are they?”
“It’s incredible, but it is as if we have stepped back in time. The moon and star on the breast, the scarlet cloak, the centurion’s helmet. They are the Praetorian guard.”
“The what guard?”
“They used to guard the Roman emperor. They were disbanded in the third century, but someone, it seems, has reformed them.”
“Jesu,” I breathed. “Don Ferrente must have a greater opinion of himself than I thought.”
He ignored my sally, for we were upon the first guard, who lifted his pike to his side as we approached. At ease. He had been told of our coming.
“Lord della Torre,” he said. “Go forth, they await you.”
I moved to follow, but the pike came out again, to the full extent of his muscular arm. “No further, domina.”
I was not about to argue, and knew at once that this was one occasion that my feminine wiles would fall on deaf ears. In the moonlight the guard looked as if he were hewn from stone—he did not even look at me but stared at a fixed point in the middle distance. Brother Guido turned, and I wondered once more if I was seeing him for the last time.
He stepped forward as if to embrace me, then whispered, “If I do not return, go back to the Castel Sant’Angelo, and thence to the Vatican. Seek the protection of His Holiness. No one can hurt you then.”
Tears bunched in my throat and I gave a tiny nod, fearing that if I bowed my head further they would spill forth. I watched Brother Guido walk forth to the arch and disappear into the shadow beneath, then I retired to the stone arena to wait.
It seemed an age that I watched the still stones and the circle of soldiers who did not flinch, however long I stared at them. But it cannot have been more than half of one hour, for I heard the bell of the nearby basilica strike twice. I could see the sense of having a conference in such a place, for under the arch of Septimius Severus where the members of the Seven met, no one could overhear them and any spies could be seen coming for a good half league, even if they got past the guards.
At last, with great relief, I watched Brother Guido return alone, and come to me. He looked vexed, but not frightened.
“What happened?”
“Not here,” said he. “A litter awaits us to return to the Castel Sant’Angelo, we will talk there.”
Once back at the castello, we did not retire to our rooms at once, but sought by silent agreement a place where we could speak unseen and unheard. I followed Brother Guido until we came to a hall full of statuary; a long passage flanked on either side by the busts of long-dead emperors. White and blank-eyed, they observed us blindly, heard us silently, but we knew that no one else could approach, as great double doors sealed the place at either end. No one could come upon us without us seeing them coming from a good way off. Brother Guido had learned well from the Seven, the secrets of remaining secret.
“Well?” I was all impatience.
He wasted no time. “There were but three of us there, all cloaked and hooded like myself. We used no names, but I knew one of the others to be Don Ferrente—by our arrangement and his voice—but the third I have never met before, I am sure.”
“Could it have been Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici then?”
He did not hesitate. “No. I would say by his voice that he was old; Lorenzo is of an age with myself. This man was states-manlike—not Neapolitan nor yet Tuscan. And besides, as we agreed, Lorenzo must be in Florence now.”
“Not necessarily. We are here, and yet we will be in Florence, too, in time for the nuptials.”
He shrugged. “And another thing . . .”
“Yes?”
“He seemed to be the superior to all. To lead the discourse, and to be the greatest man there.”
“Greater than a king?”
“I know.”
“And what did you speak of?”
“It is evident that war is planned. There was talk of the fleets, the number of ships, and the ‘date of attack.’ And a map. The map, the map, the map, was on everyone’s lips.”
“But nothing was spoke of where or when, exactly?”
“No.”
“No mention of the painting?”
“Not directly, no. But spring—la primavera—was mentioned thrice; that must be when they plan to move. And if Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco is the mastermind of all, then that would make sense, for spring is the Florentine New Year.” He rubbed his neck as he always did when puzzled. “And flowers. Flowers were mentioned many times. In fact, it was specifically stated that the flowers hold the secret.”
Madonna. “So we don’t actually know the secret even now, only that the flowers hold it. The whole painting is lousy with flowers; it’s one of the first things I noticed about the original panel.” I sighed gustily. “That’s all, really? A map which we don’t have, a date that we don’t know, and flowers which we don’t understand?”
“Yes.”
“Christus. If it was all so confusing, there was no point going.”
“Not so. At the very least I am assured of my place among them. Let us retire and think on all this, for we have our papal audience in the morning before we leave for Florence. And in Florence, I think, more must be revealed, for there lives one that may help us—a brother of my order. For matters touching botany, we cannot do better than consult Nicodemus of Padua, the herbalist at Santa Croce. There is no flower in the field, nor herb in the hedgerow, that he does not know by name. And,” he added, with gravity, “there is the wedding to attend.”
I felt frustrated and annoyed, my relief at the return of my dear friend now replaced by the familiar feeling of groping in the dark without a candle. “How will that help?” I asked wasp-ishly.
“Because I suspect that the painting is a gift for the groom. We may see the real thing at last.”
There was so much to trouble me in this statement that I slept ill, with strange dreams of flowers and maps and a hundred thousand ships sailing up the Tiber and into my chamber. I was wrecked aboard and rose from boiling seas to regard the Primavera floating on the waves, massive and vivid with color. I climbed aboard and pressed my face to its image, as if I regarded myself in a mirror.
And woke.
The city from my window was tiled with dawn gold, the towers rocked by bellsong. The kites rose above the cacophony and bent their wings in the warm breeze that stole through my shutters. A pocky dark Roman woman entered the room bringing eggs and herring and fruit to my bedside, with a jug of wine and water mixed. I sat, hollow eyed, for it seemed I was to eat in bed, a new experience for me, for I had always thought it a place for other pastimes. I broke my fast and immediately felt better. The Roman maid returned to dress me, and in my austere Aragonese black I left my chamber to meet Brother Guido hovering outside, like a husband at a midwife’s, anxious for news of his firstborn.
“Come, Luciana,” he chided, “we must not be late. The others wait upon us.”
He led me once again through endless passages of the Castel Sant’Angelo, where I recognized the hall of statues from yestereve. Soon we greeted the king and his party. Don Ferrente met us looking smooth faced and well rested, and did not betray by a look or a gesture that he had spoken of secrets with Brother Guido at midnight in the Forum. We mutely followed his train into a dark, paneled chamber.
I plucked my friend’s sleeve. “Are we meeting the pope?”
“Yes.” He licked his lips, his eyes darted—he was in a ferment of excitement.
“Must we not enter the city of the Vatican?”
“Yes,” he said again, “but the business is secret—we must go another way.”
Once again I entered a land of fantasy, as I watched two scarlet priests wrest open a heavy oaken door. Beckoned forward, I followed the king and his company into a dark mouth leading to a tunnel studded by torches to light the way.
“The passetto del borgo,” Brother Guido murmured, “an ancient tunnel linking the castello and the Vatican. This audience between our party and His Holiness must be secret indeed.”
After long moments of walking in the dark, I began to feel a little frightened and my throat tightened at the enclosed space. All were silent, for there was something about the place and the solemnity of the acolytes that oppressed speech; there was naught to be heard but the creak of shoe leather and the whisper of velvet on the stones. When we emerged, I blinked, molelike, and by the time my poor eyes had become accustomed to daylight again our situation could not have been more different—for we had passed from our dark subterranean underworld into a bright spacious heaven. This, of course, was the Sistine Chapel, built by Pope Sixtus for the glory of God. My jaw fell open. Brother Guido was right: Jesus was not worshipped in a corner anymore, nor in a damp hole underground; God’s glory on Earth was here for all to see. Angels soared to the ceiling, gilded to the pillars with great skill. Biblical scenes adorned the wide walls as if Mary and her company lived in front of our eyes. Such colors were to be seen—such lapis, such tourmaline, such gold. For the first time I understood: painting was alchemy. Artists like Botticelli, with their glues, gessos, and varnishes, their pigments shimmering in jars and bottles and alembics, were brothers to those hopeful apothecaries who created gold from naught. I was aghast, but was not too bedazzled to miss the familiarity of the women’s faces and their dress, their positions, their ways of standing, the set of the head upon the neck, and the attitudes of the hands. All these ladies before me stood with their beauteous heads inclined to their right feet while their bodies leaned and rested their weight on their left. “Contrapposto” Brother Guido had once called this attitude, and I had stood that way myself, once, in an airy studio in faroff Florence.
The king confirmed my memory. “I see you admire the frescoes, Do?a,” he said kindly. “Little wonder, for they were created for His Holiness very recently by a true magician among painters: one Sandro Botticelli.”
I knew then the blood drained from my face and I could not speak. Botticelli here? The author of all this trouble? The puzzlemaster himself? I remembered how I had angered him; pictured him now as vengeful Mercury with a curved sword ready to smite me down.
“Is the artist still in residence?” I croaked, as casually as possible.
“No”—I breathed relief—“he is just lately gone home to Florence. Sadly we just missed the fellow or I would have had you meet him.”
Brother Guido and I exchanged a glance.
“He is shortly to be replaced by another of your Florentine compatriots, Michelangelo Buonarroti, who comes to adorn the pediments and the ceiling.”
I craned my head skeptically to the ceiling. The space was vast, with huge planes and panels to be covered, and awkward triangular spaces where the cross ribs met the ceiling. Madonna, what a task.
“You are thinking it cannot be done?” The king cocked a single eyebrow at me.
I knew not what to say.
“I am of your mind. But we shall see.”
I looked at Brother Guido, happy in our escape, but I could see that he was cuckoo struck and staring before him. He had hardly noted our exchange. I looked where he did and knew that it was not the vastness of the space or the beauty of the decoration that bewitched him, but instead the personage we had come to meet.
For half a league away, before the great altar, sat the pope himself, ready to receive us.
As the cardinals ushered the king forward and we followed in his wake, I stole a glance at my friend. At that moment he was no longer Prince of Pisa but was once again a humble novitiate of the Franciscan order, ready to meet the greatest man of the church. He looked like he was meeting God. I began to smile, then a notion stopped me, for Brother Guido, monk and orphan, was going to greet the pope, his spiritual father and parent in the church. The pope was the only parent he had left, the church his only family. If I ever got the chance to meet my only parent, my Vero Madre (which I will, one day, mark you), I would be just as moonfazed to be sure.
The cardinals paused at the golden altar rail and the king and Brother Guido bowed for their audience, while the court and myself knelt as one at the pews directly behind. I bent my head as the others did, but through my steepled fingers I stole a glance at His Holiness, Pope Sixtus IV.
He sat on a throne of gold, adorned by fluttering cherubs and twisting beasts, the gilt so bright I could hardly look at it. His robes were so crusted with jewels and worked with golden thread that I could not tell you the color of their original fabric. His papal hat was red and white velvet, rimed with seed pearls and rising above a circlet of gold.
But below the crown, His Holiness’s face was aged, the skin as thin and wrinkled as parchment, the blue eyes pale and rheumy, the papery cheeks webbed with tiny red veins. He was a man after all, and an old one at that. Yet his mien was holy and noble, he stood with vigor and spoke with great energy in ringing tones of authority.
He moved to Don Ferrente first and placed his hand, blue veined and beringed, on the king’s head. The two great men shared a glance and a complicit nod. Then came the blessing. “May God and his Holy Mother bless you and keep you, now and all the days of your life.”
He moved then to Brother Guido, and I smiled proudly at the joy my friend must feel. I could see his face, ashen, and white as a nun’s arse-cheeks and hoped he would not faint with religious ecstasy when the holy hand touched him. I felt pride tinged with great sadness, for I knew then he was lost to me—the church was his one love, now and forever; he was wedded to his faith, now and forever. The blessing chimed in my head, and I knew he would take no other bride.
When the pope had blessed his two noble guests, he intoned three prayers with his hand on a golden psalter, then turned to go, followed by his cardinals, disappearing through a side door into the body of his palace. Thus, in a few short moments, our audience was apparently over. I marveled at a man so powerful that he could afford to give even a king so little of the time of his day.
But the king seemed genuinely moved, and we all filed out into the great piazza of Saint Peter’s in silence. I breathed the morning air and watched the pigeons peck at the golden stones, watched the faithful gather before the great palace. We were dwarfed by the great gold buildings and the experience we had just had. Brother Guido was still white, his lips pinched, his eyes glossy with tears, more moved than even I had thought. I myself was morose, thinking of the day when he would reenter his order, surely soon after today’s events. Don Ferrente fetched him a clap on the shoulder, which nearly dropped my friend to the ground—I had to steady him. “Let’s away. The carriages are ready. Back to your native Tuscany and the wedding in Florence. Your heart must sing at the thought of it, heh?”
Brother Guido did not reply, but his rudeness went unnoticed as the king and his retinue swept away across Saint Peter’s Square, to where the carriages waited in a glittering line. I, however, knew that this humor went deeper than a devotional daze.
We quickly fell behind and I tugged Brother Guido’s elbow. “What’s wrong?”
No answer.
I tried again, making light of it. “Jesu. I know you looked forward to meeting the pope, but I had not known you could be so affected!”
He turned his stricken countenance upon me. “Not so much as you might think. For I have met him once before.”
Madonna. He had run mad. “What do you mean?”
He took my face in his hands, his palms and fingers icy on my warm cheeks.
“Oh, Luciana. My faith is ended, my world is over. I recognized the voice before I even saw the ring on his thumb.”
The pigeons fluttered at my feet and in my brain. “Who?”
“His Holiness. He was there—last night.” Brother Guido’s eyes burned into mine. “Pope Sixtus IV is one of the Seven.”