The Botticelli Secret

27
Nicodemus of Padua was silent.
He had heard the entire incredible tale and now sat, stroking the white stubble at his chin and occasionally grunting faintly, as if he were digesting a meal. He was digesting our story.
I had begun by looking around me, when we had entered the herbarium at Brother Malachi’s direction. It was an intriguing place—a candlelit room with a colonnade of pillars and cross-rib vaults holding up the low roof. My eyes followed the pillars upward.
Madonna.
Two thirds of the way to the ceiling the ribs disappeared into an inverted meadow. Hanging from the ceiling were flowers and herbs and bulbs of every sort, drying in the firelight, turning gently on their twines as our breath or the door draft stirred them. The scent of the flowers and herbs, all jumbled together and releasing their heady fumes as the fire warmed them, was almost overpowering in its cloying, choking sweetness. We sat at a trestle bench for our conference, the fire burning merrily at the hearth at our side. Every other niche of the place was crammed with fat-bellied pots, corked bottles, or clay crucibles, labeled in Latin and stacked to the ceiling. A long scrubbed table ran along one wall, crowded with flints and burners, copper pipes and alembics, all crazily connected with tubes of pigs’ gut. Most bizarre of all was the herbalist himself, smaller than any living man I had seen yet with the wisest eyes. His age was numberless; he could have been on this earth since the Crusades, as his ancient cheeks carried more lines than a Saracen’s map. His hairs were as scarce as his wrinkles were plentiful, for they sprouted in white whiskers just above his ears and round his head in a snowy frill.
I let Brother Guido tell the story, without interruption, for I realized early on that the old monk had a difficulty—he had, as all the brothers had, seen me at the postern in the old days and knew that I brought corruption within his walls. He did not meet my eye once, but I took no offense—I had had plenty of insults in my life and I could well stand a monk’s disapproval, if only he would help us.
When he spoke at last, his voice was unexpectedly deep, and with a strong Paduan accent. If he felt surprise at seeing a Franciscan novice who had disappeared more than a month ago reappear dressed as a prince, with a well-known tart on his arm and with an incredible story to tell, he did not show it. And of all the things he may have said, he struck right at the heart of Brother Guido’s anguish. “And you are certain, my brother, that His Holiness is involved with these seven conspirators?”
“I am, for he wore the ring they all wear on their thumbs; my uncle, Don Ferrente of Naples, the pope, and now myself as you see.”
The herbalist peered at the gold band gleaming in the fire-light. “And presumably, should you see such a band on Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco at his wedding tomorrow, you may be sure he plots against his uncle.”
“Yes.”
Brother Nicodemus was silent, and when he next spoke I realized that he had the trick of Brother Guido’s—his mind, much quicker than other men’s, had sieved our information and filtered from it a point of interest that others might miss.
“Seven not eight?” he asked. “And yet there are eight adult figures in the scene?”
“Yes.”
The herbalist nodded. “ ‘Tis an evil business,” he said, now shaking his wizened head.
Brother Guido took his cue. As if to a confessor he began at last to speak of his hurt. “Brother, I am in the wilderness. My faith and trust in him that we serve has left me utterly. It pains me to speak of this to you. I know that as a brother of this order, you must be as grievously shocked as I am by our father pope’s involvement.”
Brother Nicodemus raised his head abruptly. “Shocked? I? I could not be less so.” He laughed a dry chuckle, half cough, half mirth. “Son, I am sorry for your disillusionment. But I must tell you, the man you idolized has dipped his hands in blood before this pass; yes, many times.”
My companion leaned forward and the flare of the fire lit his face amber. “What?”
“Indeed,” replied the herbalist gently. “You spoke of the Pazzi conspiracy. Who was it that encouraged the Pazzis forward in their murderous plot, gave them papal sanction? Who was it who excommunicated the whole of Florence for the deed, just so he could force the Medici bank to cease trading, thus writing off ten thousand florins of papal debt in a single stroke? The pope only reconciled with Lorenzo because our lands were under threat from Turkish attack when the infidels occupied Otranto. But that was above six months ago; now that the sultan is dead and the threat is gone, the pope is free to move against his old enemy once more.” Brother Nicodemus shook his head once more. “Brother, you are young in the world, and innocent—you have no notion of what a man may do, be he never so holy.”
Brother Guido was still, white lipped and shocked to the core. I myself was less so, for had I not been tumbling monks, and yes, priests too, for years?
The herbalist could sense the destruction of Brother Guido’s world and spoke more kindly. “Son. You must learn to differentiate between man and God. Man is fallible, the church corrupt. But God is true and he will never betray you. You must find your way back to faith, as a conversation between yourself and God. Popes and prelates come and go, but God is eternal. Those of us who are true to our Rule must guide others as best we can to the light.” The old man, as if tired by his pronouncements, took a sip from a wooden cup. “As to your present predicament, I think we may absolve the Holy Father from the role of the originator of the plot. The mastermind comes not from the Vatican but from the House of Medici.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The ring you wear bears nine gold balls upon the band. The palle.”
“The palle!” repeated Brother Guido, holding his thumb before our eyes, where the ring glinted gold in the firelight. “Why did I not see this before?”
I could clearly see the ring of nine little golden balls, circling the band. I had to ask. “The what now?”
“The palle, or Medici balls, appear in a circle, in differing numbers, on all their heraldic adornments,” Brother Guido explained.
Of course I knew the emblem well, for apart from its appearing above every gateway and every palace wall in Florence, I had about a hundred jokes from the street about Medici balls. In fact, I think I had drained a few pairs of minor Medici balls in my time; younger sons and cousins only, unfortunately. I’d never had a crack at the Lorenzos—neither one—who I think led fairly pious lives.
Except for murder of course.
Such musings died on my lips, though—now wasn’t the time—for the herbalist spoke again.
“I have not yet seen the painting, but by the three Marys, I would warrant that the palle will appear there too.”
Brother Guido stood. “It is time,” he said, and he helped the old monk to his feet, where he came up to around the younger man’s navel. The two brothers moved to the long table and Brother Guido removed the cartone from his pouch. Brother Nicodemus weighted the corners with stones that gleamed red in the firelight—carnelians, I guessed, for use in his healing work. Uninvited, I moved behind them to watch. I had not seen the Primavera for some time, for it had been bound to the chest of my silent companion since Rome, and each time I saw it after long absence I was struck by the beauty of the thing—never more so than now, gilded by firelight and cornered with carnelians. Two heads, one white, one black, bent over the picture and I must wait my turn. I did not have to wait long.
“There,” announced the herbalist, standing back. “The apples of the Hesperides; they represent the palle, the emblem of the Medici.”
I stepped forth, my eyes following his gnarled finger to the trees above the figures, where above a hundred round golden fruits dangled from the leaves.
“Look more like oranges to me,” I muttered.
“The apples of the Hesperides are oranges in classical literature, Luciana.” Brother Guido did not even look at me as he put me straight. “And these oranges appear on every Medici coat of arms nine times.”
“Look here too,” exclaimed the old monk abruptly. He pointed to the natural arch of leaves above Venus’s head.
“Laurels,” said Brother Guido. “Yes, we noted them in Rome. We thought then that they identify the victim of the plot—Lorenzo the Magnificent.”
“Or the mastermind himself, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici,” put in Brother Nicodemus.
I felt a little chill despite the fire—what we were looking at here was the map of a murder. A murder that we must prevent.
Brother Nicodemus echoed my thoughts. “Then your way forward is obvious.” He turned to Brother Guido. “Leaving aside your faith for a moment, your moral imperative is clear. Whether or not you are a monk, you are a good man. By the grace of God you have been given the chance to attend this wedding under an assumed identity. You must use this chance to gain audience with Lorenzo the Magnificent, and lay all this before him, and save his life. For how else will you petition him, now that your uncle, God rest his soul, is dead? He would not see a humble Franciscan novice, and”—he gestured to me—“a young lady with no credentials, but a prince of Pisa and his escort, well . . .” He had no need to finish. “And his protection, if you saved him from such a conspiracy, is assured.”
“But Brother Nicodemus, our knowledge of the plot is, at present, merely conjecture,” protested Brother Guido. “We know the identity of just three of the seven—no more. We need your help—if we can discover the ‘secret that the flowers hold,’ we may be able to know more details, and detail will give our information credibility.”
“I understand you well. Let us take another look, and this time we shall consider only the lilies of the field.”
Now as I craned to see, I was dismayed by the sheer number of flowers in the painting.
Madonna.
There were more blooms than cow shits in a midden.
As you’d expect for a painting named after the spring, there were numerous plants dotting the sward. Above the figure’s heads there were orange blossoms. There were blooms all over Flora’s dress, as I well remembered from that unforgettable day modeling for Botticelli. Well, too, I remembered the heavy chaplet of flowers I was charged to wear on my brow that day. There were the roses filling my skirt too, and flowers falling from the mouth of the nymph standing to my right, whom Brother Guido had identified as Chloris. No figure went ungarlanded—even warlike Mercury had tiny starlike blossoms wreathed around his boots.
“Holy f*ck!” I breathed, earning myself my first direct look from Nicodemus of Padua. I was back in the schoolroom for a moment, and held my tongue thereafter, for I did not wish to receive such a glance again. Brother Guido, in his new pessimism, clearly felt the same despair as I did, but used language of less color.
“ ‘Tis impossible,” he said. “Forgive me, Brother. We are on a fool’s errand. There are too many. Even if we had days or months to contemplate the scene, we could never know which flowers hold the secret to which the pope referred.”
But the herbalist was rubbing his knuckles together till his old bones cracked like flints. “Now, Brother,” he chided. “God gave us our intellects to be challenged. Nothing is impossible. It is likely,” he went on, “that if this picture hides a code, and if a secret is to be found within the flowers, not all the flowers we see here are relevant. Some will be mere decoration or decoy. I think that to interrogate all the flowers would be an exercise in futility.”
“Maybe we could count the flowers on each character,” I ventured. “That would give you eight numbers, not counting Cupid. Perhaps the ‘secret’ is a date, or something.” I thought this a pretty good idea.
Brother Nicodemus showed no signs of having heard me but Brother Guido replied. “Such a scheme is problematic—for how are we to assign the flowers to each character? For instance, when Flora scatters flowers, do we count the flowers that she scatters or only the ones touching her person. And in the case of Chloris the nymph, do we note the flowers that fall from her mouth, or no?” He noted my crestfallen face. “But the idea of a number is a strong one. Perhaps—”
The herbalist held up his ancient hand. “Such debate may not be necessary. There may be other ways to discover which blooms are truly relevant. Think, my brother,” he urged, “what exactly was said that night beneath the arch of Septimius Severus in Rome?”
I was impressed with the old monk’s recall, for I could barely remember the name of the arch myself.
Brother Guido thought hard. “They were speaking in Latin, which fitted well with the whole tenor of the evening—the arch, the guards, the city. Pope Sixtus said these exact words: Flora manus secretum.”
“Then ‘flowers hold the secret,’ “ translated the herbalist. “Very well. Then we have our answer.” We both turned to him. “If you were to look at this painting for the first time, which figure would you say has the most to do with flowers?”
“Flora,” we both answered as one.
“Exactly. She is covered in flowers from head to foot, and scatters flowers too. Her name, of course, is the most suggestive—Flora—Latin for ‘flowers.’ ”
He folded his hands like an attorney and paced as he addressed us.
“Your problem, as I see it, is that the riddle ‘Flora manus secretum—Flora holds the secret’ can mean one of four things. One: the answer is in ‘flora’—as in ‘flora and fauna’—the Latin collective name for all plants, so meaning all the flowers, all the herbs, and all the trees and fruits in the picture. We have already discussed how protracted it would be to investigate every bloom we see here. Two: that the answer lies somewhere in Flora the figure. Three: that the answer lies in Florence the city. As you have identified that each figure represents a city, this is very plausible, since Florence is the home of the Primavera panel itself. Or four, and most incredible, that the answer lies”—he looked at me for the second time—“with you.”
I looked about me, in case someone had entered the room behind us. “Me?” It was the bray of an ass.
Brother Guido turned his blue gaze on me.
“You,” repeated the herbalist. “You are the model for Flora, are you not?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then you may hold the secret; you may have been chosen for a reason.”
“I think we may discount that,” put in Brother Guido quickly. “Signorina Vetra was chosen through her . . . association with a wealthy friend of Botticelli’s.”
“Ah, yes. Signor Benvolio, God rest his soul.” The herbalist’s benediction was not entirely sincere, and I suspected that somewhat of Bembo’s reputation had penetrated even these hallowed walls.
“Very well,” continued Brother Nicodemus. “I think, then, we may concentrate our efforts on the figure of Flora. She is clearly the most floral of characters. Chloris is perhaps the next most adorned, as flowers drop like truths from her mouth. She reaches for Flora’s sleeve—see? I think we may assume that Chloris and Flora are intimately connected.”
“Perhaps Chloris is a city very close to Florence?” suggested Brother Guido.
“I think so—perhaps Prato, maybe Imola.”
I had no opinion on this, since before last month, I had never been outside the city, unless you count coming from Venice as a baby in a bottle.
“But to Flora,” urged the herbalist. “What can we say of the figure, aside from the flowers? For they are her major feature, but before we focus on them, perhaps we should consider her other characteristics.”
I shared a look with Brother Guido—our two half-smiles made a whole, for this was exactly how we were used to proceeding.
“She is the primum mobile of the whole scene.” Typical of my learned companion to begin with something Latin which left me behind completely. Luckily he knew me well enough to translate without prompting. “She is the ‘first to move.’ ”
I saw what he meant. “She is the farthest forward of all the figures in the scene—she leads the way.”
“Which fits my hypothesis that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, of Flora’s city Florence, is the originator of the plot—the root of all,” put in the herbalist. “Also, she looks directly at the viewer.”
“Her dress flares like angel wings.” This devotional last from Brother Guido.
“She has fishy sleeves.” This was me.
Both brothers shot me a look.
I explained. “I mean—her foresleeves are covered in, well, fish skin.”
This they could not deny, nonsensical though it sounded, for it was plain for all to see.
“Hmmm. Perhaps this indicates a maritime connection, possibly to the three Graces,” mused my friend.
“She wears their color too,” noted Brother Nicodemus. “Or rather, their lack of color. The body of her gown is white, like theirs.”
“But I am not dead!” I blurted, referring to our conversation on the Muda’s flagship, when we deduced that the Graces were dead ladies: Simonetta Cattaneo and Maria d’Aquino, “Fiammetta.”
“I think the presence of the flowers, such living, vital things, mark you out from their number, as a living, breathing . . . person.”
I knew the herbalist wanted to say “lady” but could not quite bring himself to use that word in connection with me.
“Let us begin by identifying the blossoms that adorn Flora,” he went on hurriedly, “and see what we may find.”
He then reached for an interesting contraption: two twin circles of glass within lead circles, which he clipped to his nose. When he turned back to Brother Guido his eyes seemed enormous behind the glass, as if magnified by the bottoms of twin bottles. I almost laughed, but my mirth died when I soon realized that he could see with such aids much better than Brother Guido or I, even though we had a good fifty years on him.
“Shall we begin with the headdress? In the center, on the brow”—he peered close with his eyeglasses—“the humble violet, Viola odorata. Let us have some method to this,” added the old monk. He stood on a stool, for only with such assistance could he reach high enough, and pulled at a purple bloom from the flowery field above our heads. He held it at our eyes and noses. “There: a violet,” he said of the fragrant bloom. Then he turned back to us and said one word more. “Next.”
And so we worked as the sky clotted intonight outside. Working first around Flora’s headdress, down to the garland around her neck. The names fell from the herbalist’s lips like the blooms from Chloris and echoed from the walls of the crypt: a pagan, not a Christian, litany. Cornflower, daisy, hellebore, lily of the valley, myosotis, myrtle, occhiocento, pomegranate. Violet again.
I looked on and helped take the flowers down when they proved too high for the herbalist, the smells and sights mingling to take me back to that fateful day in Botticelli’s studio; remembering the chaplet that had pricked at my forehead, the wreath that had scratched my throat. The treacherous bell of the Pazzi Chapel—cast by murderers and giving tongue to their memorial—rang twice before we had all the flowers taken down, and Brother Nicodemus marked time with a floral clock of his own. All the blooms were found and identified and fore long a veritable garden sat before us.
At last we were done with the head and neck, but there could be no respite.
“The gown,” commanded Brother Guido. “Much easier,” said the herbalist. He pulled just two blooms from their twines. “Cornflower and carnation. All over. And round her waist a girdle of roses.” He pulled down a pliant branch, black thorned and beautiful, with a dozen pink roses riding the glossy green leaves. I remembered this detail—the thorns piercing the fabric of my dress to prick my skin.
“And in her hands?”
“Well, I can tell you that,” said I. I remembered well the fragrant flower heads that were poured into my skirts that day, for me to cradle and cast upon the ground. “I was holding roses.”
Brother Guido’s head snapped up. “Say it again.”
Puzzled, I repeated myself. “I was holding roses.”
“Flora was holding roses.” He almost whispered the words, like a man in a dream. Then he began to smile, and with a sudden action swept all other carefully collected blooms aside to fall to the floor in a fragrant mass.
We regarded him as if he’d become a lunatic.
“We’ve been wasting our time,” he crowed. “Naming all the flowers, classifying them, taking them down.” He capered about the room, playing a pantomime of our actions for the last hour. He hooted with laughter for the first time since Rome. “We are asses all! Flora holds the secret! Roses! That is all we needed to know! She is holding them in her hands! She is the only figure holding flowers! Such humble blooms that grow in every garden and hedgerow! We could have named them ourselves!”
Brother Nicodemus sank down onto the milking stool, took off his eyeglasses, and passed his hand before his eyes; when he took the hand away he revealed a toothless smile.
“You are right,” he said, “and had we been true scholars the Latin would have told us; the riddle was ‘Flora manus secretum.’ Manus means to hold in the hand, from the root mano—hand. If Flora had held the secret in a metaphorical sense, like a guardian, Pope Sixtus would have used the verb custodia, ‘Flora custodia secretum.’ “ He turned to me. “Child, you did hold the secret after all, in the most literal sense, when you modeled for Botticelli that day.” The dust-dry chuckle came again.
I began to feel a little annoyed. I didn’t see what there was to smile about. We’d just spent from Vespers till Compline naming flowers, and yet finding the actual answer was the work of a moment. I felt rather disappointed. We did not need to be here at all. Roses. We could have named that frigging flower in the carriage on the way up from Rome in the time it takes to fart, if Brother Guido had not been sulking in the seventh circle of his personal hell. A child could have done it; we didn’t need the old monk after all. I began to think about dinner, while Brother Guido apologized to the herbalist.
“I’m sorry, Brother. We did not need to trouble you after all.”
“You did, my son. For you still do not know the meaning of the roses. Or how they may conceal anything.”
This was true; we were no further forward.
“Since we are here, then,” said Brother Guido, “we must use the resource we have for this night—namely, Brother Nicodemus’s extraordinary knowledge of botany. Besides, I think the codes of the Primavera are too clever to have a direct appearance. Botticelli has been cleverer than that so far—all the puzzles have been oblique, and have clarity only to the Seven. We must look for something clever. I think the type of flower is important; perhaps its properties too. Let us spend a little time in colloquy and consider all we know of the queen of flowers, the rose.”
Brother Nicodemus then took a rose from his collection, the pale pink of a shell, and another of blushing coral, exactly the two hues that were bundled into my arms in the painting. We all sat at the table now, gazing at the two perfect flowers as if we expected them to speak.
“Rose; Rosa centifolia,” mused Brother Nicodemus. “As you have well said, she is known as the queen of flowers. Roman brides and bridegrooms were crowned with roses, so too were the images of Cupid and Venus and Bacchus. Such a headdress was much favored by poets too—Anacreon’s odes speak of poets sporting rose crowns at their feasts of Flora and Hymen.”
I didn’t see what a bunch of fey poets could have to do with this—the bridal theme seemed much more relevant—but Brother Guido pounced on the poetic thread.
“I think that is significant. Poliziano, the Medici court poet and the very man who wrote the Stanze, the verses upon which the Primavera is based, has written many times on the beauties of the rose. In fact”—he brought his hand down on the table with a crash—“the Stanze themselves, if memory serves, contain a very specific couplet on flowers, ‘Ma vie più lieta, più ridente a bella / ardisce aprire il seno al sol la rosa . . .’ which expresses that the rose is more daring than the humble violet!”
Brother Nicodemus sat a little straighter. “Violet is the flower that crowns Flora’s headdress—it sits full in the center, at the forehead!”
“Perhaps the poet, and thus the painting, is saying that we must not use our heads to find the secret, but our—”
“Our what? Our stomachs?” I began to laugh at the downcast faces of the monks, as their theory fell flat.
“Wait, though—isn’t Flora with child? Did not Signor Benvolio say as much to you when he urged you to model for his friend?” Brother Guido demanded of me. “That she bears the fruits of the coming season?”
“That’s true!” I confirmed eagerly. “I was supposed to be up the stick.” The elderly monk winced a little at my indelicacy but I didn’t care—we were on to something. “Maybe the ‘secret’ has something to do with a baby or a child? Perhaps someone is with child? Perhaps Semiramide Appiani is pregnant, and the brat will be heir to the Medici fortune when Lorenzo the Magnificent is dead!”
“Signorina!” thundered Brother Nicodemus. “I will grant you that the Medici family are not without sin, but Signorina Appiani is reputed to be a virtuous maid, chaste as the first snow.”
“All right.” I sat back on the bench with a skeptical look. “But you must admit, it would suit Don Ferrente to have his niece the mother of the Medici heir. And Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco too—that’s two of the Seven happy.”
“And it is true that roses have many connections to Venus,” added Brother Guido in my defense. “It is her own flower, and she wore a chaplet of roses at the Judgment of Paris—according to the rhetor Libanis—the very contest that is represented in the Primavera by the appearance of the three Graces.”
“And Greek legend dictates that the rose originated at the birth of Venus, according to Anacreon,” agreed the herbalist. “ ‘A tender rosebush sprang up from the earth when Venus rose from the sea, and a sprinkling of nectar from the gods made the bush burst into flower.’ ”
“I think we have strayed from the theme somewhat,” asserted Brother Guido gently.
I agreed—all the f*cking poetry was holding things up, is how I’d express it.
“After all, in the Primavera it is Flora not Venus who holds the secret. Flora who is pregnant, not Venus.” Shyly he looked askance at me.
I answered his unasked question. “Not likely.” I was too smart to be caught that way; for a working girl it could be the end of your career—a baby was worse than the pox. I thought of the waxed cotton squares where they sat snug and useless at the neck of my womb, replaced after each monthly bleeding. As for the last month—chance would be a fine thing, for I had not had a jump since Bembo. Venus, though—Miss Appiani—was a different matter. Many a Florentine maid had been tumbled by her betrothed—and if a baby was born a few months early, where’s the harm? “Look at her dress,” I urged. “You could easily hide your bump under there if you were graveled with a brat.”
“Hmmm. I think that is the, er . . . Romanesque style,” suggested Brother Guido. I snorted through my nose for I knew more of the world than these two, that’s for damn sure. “It’s a thought,” he conceded “and this theorem would certainly be given credence by the fact that tomorrow’s wedding date—July 19—is the eve of the feast of Saint Margaret, patron saint of pregnant women; but perhaps we are missing something more obvious.”
This I agreed with. “All this cant about Venus and yet you’re missing the main point—it’s a as clear as the cock on the David. The obvious to me is that roses are given to women by men who want to f*ck them,” I blurted, irritated by the whole debate and not caring if I shocked the old booby. But he surprised me.
“She is right, ‘tis true,” said the herbalist calmly. “They are gifts of love. And the poet Boiardo said that roses were scattered to celebrate joy in love.”
Datime a piena mano rose e zigli
spargete intorno a me viole e fiori . . .
Di mia leticia meco il frutto pigli!
“Flora is scattering roses in this picture—in Roman times roses were scattered at feasts of Flora and Hymen, in the paths of victors, or beneath their chariot wheels, or adorned the prows of their war vessels.”
Brother Guido’s attention was caught on a baited hook. “In the paths of victors,” he repeated. “This must be relevant. For this whole conspiracy revolves around the waging of war and hundreds upon thousands of warships which we have seen with our own eyes.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Brother Nicodemus. “But I would not at once think of this rose in connection with war, but with healing. I use it again and again in my work here.”
“For which maladies?” questioned Brother Guido quickly.
“It strengtheneth the heart, the stomach, the liver, and the retentive faculty; is good against all kinds of fluxes, prevents vomiting, stops tickling coughs, and is of service in consumption. Of course, I use many classes of the rose here in the herbarium, usually in the distillation of rose water for these treatments—the properties I mention are not specific to this type, the Rosa centifolia.”
“Rosa centifolia,” Brother Guido mused. “ ‘The rose of a hundred leaves.’ “ He translated for my benefit. “Perhaps the name of the rose is telling us to look for a number. Codes and cryptograms are oft writ in numbers, perhaps that is the answer that lies within the roses. If we find a number, we may find a date, or some such.”
“But, Brother, the classification centifolia is not to be taken literally,” warned the herbalist. “These roses have any number of leaves, varying each time from bloom to bloom.”
“So much for the leaves—how many petals does the rose have?”
We looked at the two flowers before us—even those two seemed to differ in the number of petals. “Again,” confirmed the herbalist, “different in every case. Perhaps it is the number Flora holds which has some significance.”
“And the number she casts away,” added Brother Guido.
I could swear I had said something like this about two hours ago, but I held my tongue as we crowded round to count the roses in Flora’s arms. The task was nigh on impossible, even when Brother Nicodemus donned his eyeglasses once more.
We argued hotly about whether to count whole blooms or partial petals, and whether there would be more blossoms lying in layers underneath. But at the end we came to a number of thirty-one. Our greatest debate sprang from the rose between Flora and Venus. It was exactly the same type as the ones in Flora’s arms, but it was impossible to tell from the cartone whether it grew from the ground, and thus could not be counted as part of the bundle, or whether it fell from Flora’s arms, and as such was one of “her” roses. We could not see whether the stalk of the flower was above the petals, indicating a fall, or below, growing from the ground.
“Does it matter?” I asked helpfully.
Brother Guido stroked his chin. “I think yes. Botticelli does nothing by accident.”
We both turned to the herbalist, where he bent almost double above the painting. We held our breath, hoping that he would have an answer. He did, but not the one we wished. Brother Nicodemus rubbed the white frill of his hair where it cleared his cowl at the back of his neck. “Well, and now we have an obstacle. I cannot tell because the cartone is too small to see the detail. The code is designed to be read from the real panel painting of the Primavera, which is a hundred times bigger than this parchment, which has, if I am not mistaken, seen some adventures of its own.”
He was right. Shipwrecked and sweated upon for longer than a month, the cartone had seen better days, and the paint between Flora and Venus, where the crucial rose grew or fell, was beginning to crack and fade.
Brother Guido seemed to lose a couple of inches in height. “Then it is hopeless. The painting is probably installed at the Medici villa at Castello by now, which has a hundred guards. We must just hope that this final rose is not significant.”
“But wait—did you not say the Primavera was a wedding gift?” asked Brother Nicodemus urgently.
“I am sure of it.”
“Then there is no problem. The painting will be at the wedding.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Eh?” Brother Guido and I spoke together, in our different styles.
“It is Tuscan tradition that the gifts await the happy couple at the narthex of the church,” the herbalist explained. “Depend upon it, the painting will be there—presented or displayed with grand gesture. ‘Tis the Medici way. And this in itself suggests to me the last rose is significant.”
“How so?”
“From what you have told me, all of the Seven will be at this wedding. And the painting too. They may all read what lies in Flora’s arms. I think it’s a fail-safe.”
I was lost, and my face showed it.
“An insurance,” explained the herbalist. “You place a code in a picture. You want the picture to be read by certain exalted persons and not others. So you take the picture to a place where they will all be, and the painting is in full sight. The last rose is the insurance. Suppose someone steals a copy of the picture—the cartone.”
I saw where he was going. “Someone did steal a copy.”
“Exactly. Botticelli has built in a detail that can only be seen on the real panel. He has insured the code as one might underwrite a fleet at sea—only those noble enough to see the real painting at close quarters, only those lofty enough to be invited to a Medici wedding—the conspirators—will be looking for the fail-safe and be able to interpret what they see. That rose is significant, I am now sure of it.”
“And if anyone knows about insurance it is the Medicis, the richest banking family in the world,” added Brother Guido.
“More significant still is the fact that since Roman times, the rose has been associated with secrets. It was then the custom to suspend a rose over the dinner table as a sign that all confidences shared there—sub rosa, or ‘under the rose’—were to be held sacred.”
This intriguing thought clearly made my companion’s heart beat with the chase like a hunter’s hound’s. But my heart was steady—we were curs on a dead scent. For even if we could tell if the rose grew or fell, we still had not discovered the secret that lay “sub rosa.” We had nothing to tell il Magnifico. “Are we actually going to march up to Lorenzo de’ Medici and say, “The secret is thirty-two roses’? Or ‘thirty-one roses, becauses we’re not sure which’? Brilliant.”
Brother Guido slumped again. “I know. But what choice do we have?”
“Perhaps it’s a password, and he will know the significance at once?” offered Brother Nicodemus.
I snorted through my nose. “So let’s sum up: we are to tell the father of all Florence that his cousin and ward is plotting against him, with six other conspirators, four of whom we don’t know. We have a password, ‘thirty-two roses,’ or ‘thirty-one.’ All this we got from a painting which is one of the wedding presents. Wonderful.”
The sky lightened outside—the wedding neared. And I couldn’t help adding a very feminine concern. “And the wedding is in two hours and I have nothing to wear.”
Brother Guido stood abruptly. “You are right. If we are to attend the ceremony, and petition Lorenzo, with whatever little we have, there are certain practicalities we must turn our minds to. You need an outfit, and I need a retinue, fit for a prince.”
“May la signorina not just attend in what she wears now?” Brother Nicodemus, silent through this exchange, piped up now to quash my sinful vanity. I looked down at the crumpled black velvet gown I had worn for a trinity of steamy days on the road since my audience with the pope, and back to the herbalist with a crushing look. I could not, as the consort of the Prince of Pisa, wear a dress travel stained and caked in sweat to the wedding of the year; nor did Tuscan protocol allow that black should be worn at a wedding. Added to this, the thick nap of the velvet was suffocating—well enough for a dank herbarium at midnight, but in the Florentine midday I would expire. I did not deign to say all this aloud, for Brother Guido at least had enough knowledge of the world to know it would not do.
“I need other weeds myself, but the retinue would seem to be the greater problem.”
At this the herbalist spoke again. “Not a problem, Brother. For here before me I see a monk in layman’s weeds; other monks could dress so too. I have four novices, so not yet tonsured, who can be roused from their beds and dressed to accompany you.”
“Dressed in what?” I asked, curious.
“We are given precious garments from time to time, as tithes or donations, or even bequests from the dead. I will have the coffer brought here—for there may be somewhat to help you too, signorina.”
It was kindly meant, but I could not imagine myself going to the Medici wedding in fusty old clothes fit for monasteries’ coffers, left by dead debtors.
I could not have been more wrong—nothing could have prepared me for the treasure I was soon to see. Four sleepy novices soon entered the herbarium, buckling under an inlaid walnut chest that they carried. As the youths were greeted and briefed by the two older monks, I opened the lid onto Solomon’s treasure. I did not heed their planning as I plunged my hands into the softest rainbow silk, silver tissue as light as gossamer, spun cloth of gold flimsy as a spider’s web, and bales of samite. Most of the clothing was for gentlemen, but there lay, too, three ladies’ gowns, folded and waiting like shed snakeskin. While the menfolk fitted themselves out—the herbalist’s quartet of novices bubbling with excitement that they were to attend a wedding in the outside world—I took the three gowns behind the firescreen and emerged in one of spring green threaded with gold. I had no mirror today but knew I resembled Spring herself. The notion reminded me what my apparel lacked; I rolled the cartone once more and placed it in my bodice. Now my costume was complete and I turned to face the company. The silk lay cool against my body even before the fire, but the gaze of the novices and Brother Guido—although he tried to conceal his admiration—heated my skin once again.
The herbalist circled me. “Should she be disguised though?” he said, as if I could not hear him. “For if the painting is there, it will be clear to all that Flora is also present in person. Unless her hair is covered.”
Brother Guido regarded me. “There will be those present who know her as my consort, and will recognize her in the picture,” he considered, “but to the general populace—well, it would be better if her presence does not attract too much attention.”
I thought for a moment. My vanity usually dictated that my hair be worn loose in a golden fall, but as the hour of the wedding drew near, my stomach was full of moths and my nervous, bubbling humors prompted me to be as hidden as I could be.
“Here then,” I said, pouncing on the cloth of gold. “I’ll bind my hair in the Turkish style—all the fashion at present.” It occurred to me then how fickle a goddess fashion was; from the herbalist’s tale, we were all in fear of the savage Turks six months ago, and now the ladies of Florence paraded forth in infidel headgear.
I wrapped the cloth around my hair till it was all hidden, feeling strangely naked without my curls to frame my face. I presented myself to Brother Guido for an opinion and saw in his expression that he was admiring but intrigued. “Well?” I demanded.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “You look no less beautiful, but without your hair you are a different person. Among the guests no one will know you for Flora save Don Ferrente, his queen, and—”
He stopped short.
“And?”
“ ‘Tis nothing,” he faltered. I knew he was dissembling, but before I could ask what he hid, he turned abruptly to his brother herbalist.
“One thing more, Brother. Do you know aught of a man, a Florentine, who goes about in leper’s robes?”
“I know many such, sadly.”
“He differs from the common herd of the unclean. He is immensely tall with a wasted right hand, and a strange appearance of silver in his gaze.”
Even hearing the creature described gave me a shiver. And I was not alone in that; Brother Nicodemus visibly started. “You’ve seen him?”
“Three times now. You know him?”
“Not well. I have met him but once, many years ago, when he came here for help—for my skill as an herbalist and healer.” It was said without boast. “I had to send him away, for his malady was too far gone for help. I have never seen him since. I thought him now a legend, a story to scare children. His name is Cyriax Melanchthon.”
The name repelled.
“Who . . . what is he?”
“Cyriax was a babe born of a Florentine mother and a Flemish father. He entered the Dominican order as an youth, and took a very hard line there—he was involved for some years with the Holy Office.”
I saw Brother Guido swallow.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“The Inquisition,” answered the herbalist briefly. Even I had heard of the Inquisition, with their hideous tortures and burnings of infidels.
“He became the Medici family confessor—”
“And now works for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco!” I finished. Brother Guido quelled me with a look, for the herbalist was not done.
“He went once on their business to the Holy Land, traveling with a Florentine delegation after the peace of Constantinople. It was there that this thing landed upon him—he caught the leprosy and began to waste. It was said that at the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem he stripped off his Dominican robes and cursed God. His wasted flesh, naked and rotting, was such a horror to all that saw it that it was said the sky darkened that day. He burned his robes on the sepulcher, took leper’s weeds, and has been an instrument of the Devil ever since.”
“But the Medici still maintain his services?” asked Brother Guido, incredulous. Even a man who had fallen out of love with the church could not but be shocked at the offense of cursing God at the holiest church in Christendom.
“Not officially,” replied the herbalist. “It is certain that he returned here to Florence, for it was then that I saw him and sent him away. I have not heard his name for many years, and thought him dead—that his malady had eaten him. But there have been sightings of him, again in Florence, as I said, instances that have passed into legend to scare the children. But there are rumors, too, that he is the most efficient assassin the world holds. He cannot speak, for the leprosy pulled the jaw from his face like a wishbone. To look upon his countenance, his half-face of horror, is to look on death, for if he takes off his face cloth, his victims die of fright, or he cuts their throats like swine.”
Enna. Bembo. Brother Remigio.
“How is he the best, if he is so afflicted?” I breathed, dreading the answer.
The herbalist turned his calm eyes upon me. “Because, child, he is already dead.”
My blood froze. I had been right in Rome when I thought the leper a phantom. “He’s . . . a . . . ghost?”
The dry chuckle again, this time the humor of a graveyard. “Not quite. I meant only that he will die, sooner or later; there is no saving him. So he does not care anymore—he feels that God has turned his back on him, so he carries out his contracts with absolute dispatch. He is the perfect killer; silent, for he cannot speak or betray those who hire him, and he may go anywhere untouched and untroubled because of his malady and his leper’s weeds. For who will challenge one of the unclean? Who will pluck him by the sleeve or wrap their arms about him to detain him?”
I felt sick with terror. “Then, we are surely done for.”
“Not so. I think you are safe, for now at least.”
Easy for him to say. “How do you figure that?”
The answer was brief. “Because if Cyriax Melanchthon wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
The word echoed from the walls like a knell. Brother Guido piped up for the first time in this exchange.
“Then what does he want with us?”
“He is following you, it seems. Why, I cannot tell. But it is to be hoped that your alias protects you—when that is gone, who knows?”
To herald this cheerful thought the bells of the Pazzi Chapel gave tongue again, calling us to the wedding of their ancient enemy, and now a new chime added to theirs. The church of San Lorenzo, the Medici family church in the distant quarter of Santa Maria Novella, began to sing in counterpoint with their old enemy, the two rivals finding peace in the harmony of their intervals. Time marched, and there was not a moment to do aught more but offer our hands to Nicodemus of Padua in thanks.
“Come home to us soon, my son,” said the old man, who had followed us to the cloister door and stood blinking in the sunlight at the gate of his kingdom.
Brother Guido shook his head. “This is no longer my home. I will never return here.” There was great resolve in the words but great sadness too. I felt my lips twitch downward in sympathy for what he’d lost. The bright eyes of the herbalist searched those of the younger man.
“You will, one day,” he said, and took Brother Guido’s hand. I had expected him to take the outstretched hand of his friend. I did not expect him to then turn and take mine.
But he did.