The Botticelli Secret

7 Bolzano


Bolzano, February 1483

37
I discovered just three things in the winter kingdom of Bolzano.
Scoperta Uno: that Zephyrus, the blue-green winged tree goblin of the Primavera, represents Bolzano.
Scoperta Due: my mother’s name.
Scoperta Tre: the fact that it was possible for me to be colder than I was in Venice.

I jest of course.
That is, I suppose that won’t do. I should tell you a little more of my stay in the mountains, but I do it reluctantly and I’ll explain why. From the time I arrived to the time I left I was eaten up with impatience—I wanted to be nowhere else but Milan, and I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. I wanted to be with no one else but Brother Guido, and desired no other company. If my mother and I had stayed in Bolzano no longer than the time it takes to puff away the stamens of a dandelion clock, ‘twould have been too long, too agonizingly long.
All right, here goes. Only do not expect me to be quite as thorough in this section of my history, as I was in the other cities we have visited. In the Primavera, Zephyrus does not have his feet on the ground. He is high and floating, above the other characters. Let this be my excuse: I suspected, perhaps I wanted to believe, that this city, of all, did not play such a vital part in the measure as the other cities did—that it was perhaps a little to the side, a little left out, perhaps not part of the grand scheme. Necessary, yes, but not (to use one of my husband’s words) integral.
(He was right.)
In fact, I would have gone so far as to guess that Bolzano would not prove to be one of the Seven. For there were eight adult figures in the painting and a conspiracy of just seven—I guessed that Genoa and Milan would be the remaining members, that Bolzano would lift right out.
(I was wrong.)
It was certainly true that I felt my own feet did not touch the ground while I was there; I was suspended in limbo but elevated on a cloud of happiness and expectation, looking down on the world below, gulping the thin cold air, and wishing my time away, breathing away the hours like the dandelion clock.

My mother’s business here was with Archduke Sigismund of Austria, a sprig of the Hapsburg family tree and cousin to some emperor. The name Hapsburg meant nothing to me, but it seemed to drop everyone else’s mouth open like a market-day fish, so I guessed they were a family on a par with the Medici but from Austria, or was it Hungary? Or Germany? Anyway. Someplace in the frozen north, beyond the mountains. My mother and her retinue were in a constant babble about the Hapsburgs, and the Holy Roman Emperor, and the mountain routes, and mines, and something called the “Old Swiss Confederacy.” But I closed my ears to all their cant as our covered carriages rose high into the mountains, white peaks turned amber and rose by the cold northern sun. Beautiful certainly. But chillier than Christmastide.
I just huddled down into my furs and thought of Brother Guido.
Presently, a sennight after we had left Venice, with Castel-franco and Trento behind us, climbing all the time, we entered a place of fable. I thought I had left the capital of deception behind us, but Bolzano had as many facets as a rose diamond. I would see a mountain transformed into a city, then a city transformed into mountain, each face and angle presenting a different view of the place. An enchanted sorcerer’s eyrie, now here, now gone. And the whole thing bathed crimson by the sunrise, like a monstrance under stained glass.
We entered the town at a prettyish kind of square, huddled around with quaint wooden houses with boxes of winter blooms crammed at every window. There, too, stood a pattern-tiled duomo with a great spike for a spire, a sharp summit to rival those that ranged around. We drove through the square ever northward and just outside the town climbed to a great castle that seemed not built by man but hewn out of the rock. And pink. I thought at once that the impression of color was given, again, by the sun, but I was to learn as the day brightened to morning that ‘twas no trick of the light, but merely the nature of the crop of porphyry rock from which this fortress, Castello Roncolo, was built. This fact was explained to me not by my mother but by one of the many Venetian strangers who traveled with us. A man whose name I never bothered to learn but who always rubbed his knuckles against my breasts when he handed me from the carriage. My mother, I noted with relief and regret, seemed to have given up my education entirely since my attempt to escape from Venice. She treated me with kindness and courtesy but largely let me be, which suited me fine. I had much daydreaming to do . . .
We wound through the castle gates and up to the massive battlements and gate house. After a series of endless ramps we entered a courtyard where we were met by the ducal retinue, who came to hand us down from the carriages, not fast enough, unfortunately, to stop what’s-his-name jumping me down first in order to get his hands on my tette.
We swept through to the great hall amid any number of pleasantries, but as we entered the huge chamber I could not at once locate the archduke. For one thing there was such a press of people crowding his court, and for another, much more interesting scenes adorned the walls. The entire place was painted with coats of arms, scenes of games and jousting, gorgeous nobles and ladies, and grotesque giants and dwarves. I was so absorbed in the frescoes, rendered more real than if I watched players act before my eyes, I nearly missed a most interesting piece of information. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, and Ramses and Moses eyed each other. One of my moth-er’s cronies announced in ringing Venetian:
“The Dogaressa Taddia Michiel Mocenigo!”
(This, if you can believe it, was the first time I had heard my mother’s given name)
I turned my attention to the archduke, who rose to take my mother’s hand. Archduke Sigismund was yet another in a series of powerful old men that I had met on this odyssey. Perhaps a little over fifty, he was unremarkable, save that he had silver curling hair that waved to his shoulders, was rail thin, and spoke with a thick guttural accent that I had to strain to understand. My poor ears were only just getting used to the Venetian dialect, and here I was battling with yet another strange tongue, as he greeted my mother and myself. Wearily I began to realize that this entire peninsula was run by powerful old men. Don Ferrente, the pope, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and now this archduke. For a short and insane moment I felt a touch of pride in my mother—at least the crazy bitch wore the breeches in the city of Venice and ruled her man while letting him think he ruled her. I wondered how often such men were ruled by the women they’d married, or not married, but before I could speculate on this further, my questions were answered by my mother consoling the archduke on the loss of his wife, and in the same breath inquiring politely about the archduke’s upcoming nuptials—apparently he was to be married when I was, to a maid called Katherine of Saxony. Their union promised to be at least as happy as mine, for I learned later that the Princess of Saxony was but sixteen and would have to endure that old lizard creeping over her young flesh at night. Madonna. I hoped he was rich.
Apparently he was. In a very short conference between him and my mother, I learned that he was being petitioned to finance some enterprise, in some sort of partnership with Venice. Here I pricked up my ears—did the archduke refer to the business my mother had come to transact in the name of the doge, or was there a larger scheme at stake—in fact, the unknown ultimate design of the Seven? I had to strain to decipher his accent, for his Venetian sputtered forth from him as if he were choking on thick soup.
“We have agreed on the larger principles and will use your sojourn here to establish the details. In fine, the matter of metals—”
My mother cut across him swiftly.
“Archduke, Archduke.” She was at her most charming. “Such conference is not pleasing to the ears of young maids, and I have brought the finest maid in all of Venice to meet you. May I present my dearly beloved daughter, Luciana Mocenigo.”
Marta gave me a vicious little shove and I stumbled forward so that all the eyes of the court were on me, including the twin gimlets of their overlord. You would think that I might be outfaced by such scrutiny, but I can tell you that when you have halted a Medici wedding, and your intended groom unwraps your hair in front of the congregation, to point to your own likeness in a painting, pretty much nothing will disconcert you again.
The archduke looked me over as if he were appraising horse flesh.
“She is exquisite. Not unlike yourself sixteen years ago. I remember well, a time when you were as young and untried.” A look of great significance passed between them.
Now I divined three things from this statement.
Cosa Uno: my mother had been successful in keeping my history quiet. “Untried,” indeed—little did the archduke know that I’d been ridden more times than a pack horse.
Cosa Due: the archduke and my mother had some sort of history—in fact, the words and the way in which they were spoke seemed to suggest that the old goat had taken her virginity. Wonder how she squared that with my father.
Cosa Tre: whatever had taken place in the past, I’m not sure he liked her now. There was an unmistakable barb in his voice, amid all the flowery pleasantry, as if a needle had been left in a finished tapestry to prick the fingers of the unwary.
The archduke spoke again. “She is betrothed to Pisa, I hear.”
“She is. To be wed in July.”
“Pity,” remarked the archduke with a sniff, clearly already forgetting his own betrothed. I guess I was about the right age for him, being not seventeen myself. “I suppose she is full young to suffer our business. Do you, my dear, repair to your room, where I hope you will find all possible comfort.”
I was betrothed to another and of no further interest.
Our audience concluded with a promise to meet this evening at the feast to be held in our honor. I sighed inwardly, wishing we could just be gone, but we were to stay until the morrow and I had to tolerate the delay as best I could. We both bent to kiss the archduke’s hand. I was half expecting what I saw there, so you will certainly not be surprised when I tell you that there was the golden Medici ring, complete with palle, glinting upon his thumb.
Thus dismissed, I followed Marta and a servant from the room, while my mother remained behind to unburden her business to the archduke. I was at once vexed and relieved; my mother had demonstrated once again how little she now trusted me, and had gone to great lengths to prevent the archduke from spilling any of their dealings in my presence. Ah, well. At least I did not have to be troubled with her instruction, for I had no head for politics. I just wanted to see my friend again.
I was conducted up a cramped stone spiral to yet another grand chamber in another alien palace, this time a painted one with incredible scenes rampaging across the stones. This time the frescoes told a story that seemed to pertain to a knight, a king, and his lady love. It was evident that the maiden was having her fun with both the king and his dragon-slaying champion. I sighed wistfully. But one man would do for me, if only he were the right one.
The chamber was gloomy; indeed I could hardly follow the story of the doomed lovers in the low light, so I flung open the casements. The view from my window was so dizzying it made my breath short, for a sheer drop greeted my curious glance down, and wicked mountain peaks closed all around. I shut the windows swiftly but was instantly plunged back into gloom—the quarrels of the panes were round and crude, as if someone had hacked off a dozen bottle bottoms and cobbled them together with more lead than pane. Clearly the glassmaking genius of Venice had not reached the barbarous north. I snorted contemptuously down my nose. An odd trick of distance made me proud of my home city. Now that I didn’t have to live in it.
I opened the window again. We were so high that the clouds hung directly outside my window, and kites and buzzards landed on my windowsill to eye me curiously with their glass-bead eyes, before taking a stomach-lurching dive into the abyss below. I wondered if my mother had chosen my chamber deliberately, that I might not escape. I did not even bother to try the iron ring on the door. I had clearly heard the key turn behind me. It was so; my mother was taking no chances. Well, at least I was alone—better to be locked in than to be allowed to promenade under the eyes of the ever-present Marta.
I heard the bells ring Nones with the dull clop of a cowbell. With nothing to do till Vespers and dinnertime I took out the cartone again, brought it as close to the window as I dared, sitting precariously on a wooden bench by the sill. The wind whistled through the casement, but the lack of glazing left me with an unwelcome choice to be freezing cold or be in pitch-darkness. I kept my fur on and the shutters open, for I needed the light.
I wanted to learn as much as I could of Bolzano, one, I now knew, of the Seven. To make Brother Guido proud. To do, as I was here, what he couldn’t do at his distance, to divine the role of this place in the great plan. Would north be true?
First I looked at the entire cartone once again. We now, I thought, knew all of the Seven. Pisa, Naples, Rome, Florence of course, Venice, Bolzano, and obviously Milan, as Brother Guido said we would meet there, and my mother agreed that we would break our journey in that city. And the conspirators too: Lord Silvio della Torre of Pisa; Don Ferrente, the King of Naples and Aragon; His Holiness the Pope of Rome; Doge Giovanni Mocenigo of Venice; Archduke Sigismund of Bolzano; and someone or other in Milan, a name I supposed Brother Guido would supply.
We had built up a better picture of the players involved, but we still did not know what they intended. We knew who, but not what or when or why.
And what role did Genoa play? That seagoing city, home of my faithful friend Signor Cristoforo? Why was Genoa in the painting if not in the Seven?
I thought on this till my head began to hurt, then gave up and focused my attention on the Zephyrus figure. Now I imagined Brother Guido beside me, guiding me. What may we observe? Just begin with whatever comes to mind.
In a very little time I had quite a list:
He had wings.
His hair was blue.
His wings were blue.
His gown was blue, and curled like the sea.
His flesh, now I came to look at it, was more silver than blue.
His feet were not visible.
His cheeks puffed out.
A silver stream of wind issued from his lips.
His eyes looked into Chloris’s and nowhere else.
He grabbed at Chloris, intent on ravishment.
He was behind some laurel branches.
He was before some orange trees.
He was higher than Chloris, or any other figure in the picture save Cupid.
Behind his left knee, and the trunks of the oranges and laurels, was a silver-blue mountain range.
Even without my educated friend I was able to draw some conclusions from what I saw. Zephyrus was higher than Venice—Bolzano was in the mountains, a fact supported by the silver-blue mountain range at Zephyrus’s knee, and by the wings to lift him high. Bolzano was northwest of Venice (I blessed Signor Cristoforo’s instruction) and possibly represented some sort of threat, for Zephyrus was swooping down from the mountains. Perhaps to attack? And the color blue? That was easy—I only had to look at my poor fingers where they held the cartone. Blue as Boreas, or rather, Zephyrus. The meaning of the laurels and oranges was also clear; he was between the laurel, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s emblem, and the orange, Lorenzo the Magnificent’s emblem. Zephyrus was girdled all around with Medici foliage, buried deep in a Medici plot.
I could not guess why his skin was silver, unless ‘twere some reference to water. The wings, too, puzzled me. Did they indicate a certain bird, or was Zephyrus just depicted so because he was a wind and traveled on the ether? I began counting feathers, mindful that Flora’s thirty-two roses had led me, finally, to the compass rose. But that had been hard enough; this was impossible. I gave up quickly and instead spent some little time trying to interpret the expression that the West Wind wore, and the nymph Chloris too. The legend, according to Signor Cristoforo, went that Zephyrus ravished Chloris, got her with child, and the nymph gave birth to the wind horses. But although his posture to her was very threatening—swooping down from on high—and although, to be sure, she seemed to be running and reaching for the protection of Flora, there was, on second look, more tenderness in the eyes of the couple than you might think. Chloris looked almost mesmerized, both desiring and fearing all at once—like a virgin, touched for the very first time. Zephyrus, too, though serious in his mien, inclined his head to his lady. And the hand he placed upon her was relaxed and soft, not grabbing, for the thumb was not visible—in a violent act surely it would have appeared to help the fingers grab gown and flesh. No, this was more of a . . . a caress. I wondered if this was a union of mutual benefit, much like the puzzling conference I had heard downstairs. I think my mother needed Sigismund and feared him. And the archduke needed Venice’s connivance for some reason, but meant the city no harm. Rather he wished for the relationship to have an issue, to bear fruit. We knew my mother was Chloris—’twas plain from the likeness and from her own admission—and now I knew we must cast Archduke Sigismund as the actor who would represent Zephyrus in our play. If only I had been able to divine what their joint venture might be! But my mother had couched her words so carefully and caged their meanings—as I had guessed, she did not trust me an inch since I had planned my flight. I almost crumpled the cartone in frustration. Not for the first time I cursed my impulse to escape from Venice—I had bought a whole heap of trouble for more than just myself. I should have trusted Brother Guido to come for me. And now here I was in prison, shut out of the conference that was taking place downstairs, ignorant of what connected Bolzano and Venice, two members of the Seven.
‘Twas lucky I had almost balled the cartone in my fist for the key turned in the lock and I was obliged to shove the painting down my front. A rosy apple of a goodwife entered, wearing a gray house robe and a linen wimple. She was almost hid behind a huge soft mass of white fur—had she brought a bear to share my cell? Her smile had more charm than teeth, and she handed me the bundle, so heavy it made me stagger.
“For you. The archduke—he wants,” she choked in her weird voice, bowed and left.
I examined what I held. Was it a coverlet to keep me warm at night? No, it had sleeves and a hood—it was a coat, of white fur, the like of which I had never seen. Thankfully I snuggled into it and felt the difference at once. I blessed whatever monstrous mountain creature had shed its skin for me.
I danced a little twirling jig so the pelts swung around my legs, and I was warm at last. The scenes of the faithless maid and her two lovers wheeled around me in a colored mass. Then I stopped at once, as if stunned.
I had not heard the key turn back again.
Heart thumping, I turned the iron ring of the door handle. It turned silently, the latch lifted. I could have kissed the goodwife who had brought the coat. I was free.
I drew up the hood of my new gift. Since no one had seen me wearing it, perhaps it would give me a little anonymity, although it certainly would not conceal me from the eye, as it was white as milk. I descended down the passages and steps I remembered, to the hall of the Giants, by virtue of the paintings I had remembered on the walls. The door was guarded by two surly soldiers.
Shit.
So I turned on my heel and climbed up the stairs again. I made a few turns to find the chamber I thought would be above the great hall, and here my luck improved. A chamber, empty, with candles burning. Painted, as the rest of the place, but this time with scenes of devotion. It was a chapel.
I closed the oaken doors and looked about me. Here once again I was assisted by the ancient building. Drafts whistled up through boards along with snatches of conversation. I knelt as if in prayer and applied my ear to a crack in the planks as long as an oar. Voices were raised—my mother’s and the archduke’s too—which helped me hear all.
My mother first. “And yet you market through Venice to Alexandria, to Tunis, to India . . .”
The archduke: “Precisely, Dogaressa. We market through Venice. Our treaty states that we will use your port and your port only, your ships. I see no reason for such niceties to cease . . . afterward. Then, too, you have the treaty ratified by my cousin Hapsburg, the guarantee of safe passage through these mountains, the emperor’s own seal upon it that there will be no attack on the Seven from the Hapsburg lands. We have repaid our debt many times over. Yet this matter of the angel is another issue.”
“The golden angel has been circulating in England for more than twenty years, with great benefits to commerce. Regulation can only strengthen trade.” My mother’s voice, lively with argument.
“That is so; I don’t think we have ever been in dispute over the matter. Is he entirely decided upon the weights and measures?”
“Our understanding is that the fineness would be that of his own florin. Or our own Mocenigo.”
“Ah, yes, the Mocenigo. Your family stamp. I am sure that is what you would prefer. Yet I was thinking back a little further, to the fourth Crusade. To your forebear, Doge Enrico Dandolo. For did he not set the standard for the grosso? War costs, and peace is even dearer. This enterprise upon which we embark will be dearly bought. Now that we crusade again, shall we not strike an equivalent?”
My mother’s voice, raised now. “A grosso? Surely you jest. The standard of the grosso was 124 soldi. Are you seriously suggesting an angel of this weight? Venice does not have the seam!”
The archduke’s voice, calm, quiet, assured, infinitely powerful. “Venice does not. I do.”
A pause. “In truth?” My mother, a little awed.
“I have my own standard here, you know.”
“I do know, not for nothing are you known as der Münzreiche.” My mother, flattering now.
“Indeed. Then you should know that I can underwrite that side of the bargain, for these mountains are richer than even Solomon could ask. Yet our request from you, ratified by our mutual friend, is that, as you know, we will borrow your own expertise in this area. For the overheads are considerable. Assaying, casting, cutting blanks, stamping. Will you use the Zecca?”
My mother again. “Not the Zecca. All operations must be outside the city. This enterprise is to be kept secret, on his orders. And since you cannot come to the Zecca, I have brought the Zecca to you.”
“Here?”
“Here. In my train are the finest craftsmen our city can provide, the heads of their divisions at the Zecca. I thought to leave them here, so that they may instruct your own men in your own seam. Or our own seam.”
“It will belong to the Seven, as he has agreed. So neither of ours.”
“Or both of ours.” They were sparring again, and my mother had won the bout. “We leave tomorrow, for we must meet my lord the doge in Milan presently.”
“He brings the map?”
“He does. It is safe under his own roof.”
Now this, as you can imagine, made my ears prick and my bowels loosen. My father was to bring the map. If they meant the wooden roll I now held in my sleeve, when he went to seek it in the Zephyrus horse, he would find it gone. But I still could not see how the wooden roll could be a map—perhaps there was another map that my father would bring from “under his own roof”—in another location, signposted in the painting, hid somewhere in the palazzo maybe. And yet, the basil-ica was his “own roof” too; my mother had ofttimes told me that the great church was my father’s private chapel and part of his palace. I stilled my pattering thoughts lest I miss some tidbit from below.
“Then tonight it must be. After the feast my sappers will lead your men down.”
“My men and myself.”
A pause from the archduke. “Dogaressa, it is a perilous place.”
“No matter. I am accustomed to peril.”
“Then if I may address you on a matter of some delicacy, may I recommend that you . . . ah . . . wear some . . . breeches.” A snuffly laugh, like a pig truffling, issued from the archduke and I got the idea that he rarely gave way to mirth. I knew from the jest that Archduke Sigismund had heard the same rumors about my mother and father’s relationship that had reached the ears of Don Ferrente, namely that she wore the breeches in the marriage.
“Very well.” My mother was cold as the climate. “But let it be understood that I will need to take a blank with me, so that it may be properly and independently assayed.”
“Independently assayed by your own inspectors.” The arch-duke scoffing now.
“No.” My mother was all steel. “By his.”
A pause from the archduke. “Then of course. In fact, let me have one stamped. Then he may admire the design. I assume you have brought the cast?”
A silence. I guessed there had been a nod from my mother.
“Well. I will be interested to see it for myself. Perhaps I will join you tonight, if you will permit me.”
“So be it.”
At least one party left the room at this point, and as I heard the doors I raised myself up on stiff knees, rubbed my sore ear, and scampered back to my room as quick as I could, lest my mother be coming up the stair to me. Back in my freezing eyrie I tried to make sense of what I’d heard.
The repeated reference to an angel explained Zephyrus’s wings, but a golden angel? Zephyrus was more silver if anything. At least I knew for sure that my mother and the archduke were involved with the Seven, that it wasn’t some invention. Madonna, my mother could lie like the devil! All her cant about the Primavera being an innocent wedding gift, a celebration of beauty. My arse.
I did not know what the Zecca was, for if it was someplace in Venice, my mother had, deliberately or no, left it off our itinerary. Talk of treaties and trading had largely gone over my head, and I wished I’d paid more attention to my mother’s tuition back when she was willing to give it to me. I was a little nearer to knowing why she had brought a carriage of strange men with us—they were experts of some sort. I sighed. Eavesdropping had made me no wiser, but I knew one thing. I had to follow my mother and the archduke tonight, wherever their “perilous” destination might be.
I knew this would be difficult, for no sooner had I returned to my room than Marta entered with the goodwife that had brought the coat. This time, the little woman had her arms full of rose silk—a gown from my own coffers cunningly chosen to match the stones of the castle—and some rare pink diamonds set in ivory combs for my hair. Together, mutely, they began to prepare me for dinner. Marta’s clumsy hands, which stuck me once and again in my tender scalp with the combs, made me wish for my own Yassermin, but I must have looked nice when they had done, for the goodwife exclaimed in her strange tongue and clapped her hands together. I shivered without my coat from cold and nervous excitement about what the night would bring, and put it back on as soon as they were done.
Then we proceeded down to another grand hall, girdled around with scenes of jousting, and sat at one side of four tables set end to end in a great square. I greeted the archduke and thanked him for my coat. He coughed something polite at me in his dialect, presumably a compliment for he was smiling his wolf’s grin. Then he said something which sounded like “Ursus maritimus.” I had a little more Latin these days, from my association with Brother Guido, but my translation here cannot have been accurate—did he really think that my coat had come from some great white bear that swam in the cold northern seas? I smiled and nodded, and backed away. Left him to my mother’s considerable charms.
I had no high hopes of the meal, for everything in Castello Roncolo seemed to take us back in time, at least a hundred years to the time of knights of old. Already I could see the open fires burning in the vast castle hearths, with the room so smoky it was hard to see your hand in front of your face. Castle curs crouched below the boards slavering at the meat smells and hoping to catch a few morsels. I half expected a jester to appear, and someone not far off did, a foolish fellow dressed in motley, wailing out local folk songs in a howling voice so discordant that the curs joined in. Then, as another fellow blew an enormously long mountain horn, our entertainment began to leap and dance like a lunatic, slapping his short leather hose and other parts of his body in a bizarre percussion. I wondered if he was jug-bitten, and his antics gave me an idea.
As was customary, Marta and I ate from the same plate, lest someone should try to poison the doge’s heir. This was a strange feast indeed—the backward nature of the place was reflected in the fare, and we dined on peasants’ food of smoked ham called speck, foul-smelling local cheese chestnuts, and strange little dumplings that seemed to be called Kn?del. I longed for my father’s table and the fine fish and pasta that we dined on nightly. But the food was not my concern this night—crucially, Marta and I drank from the same jug of wine. The meal may have been rough and rustic, but the wine was plentiful—yellow as piss and set before us in clay jugs packed in mountain ice. One long pull made me feel colder inside than out. Good. It helped that I did not like the wine, for I needed a clear head. I pushed the jug aside and filled up Marta’s cup, watched her drink, then filled it again. The greedy wench drank again.
Now, usually I will match my servant at the table. But I did not care for white wine, and besides, my plan was to let Marta have the lion’s share of the jug. She drained it. I called for more. By her second jug the dour, plain wench was flush-faced and chattering, lolling on my shoulder like a soul mate, and confiding in me about a kitchen lad of my father’s, called Alvise, who had once tumbled her in the calle. I almost felt sorry that I might be buying her a whipping by dawn.
My scheme worked almost too well. Marta was in such a state that we almost had to leave the table sooner than was polite. My mother’s eye was upon me, but since Marta was with me, she could see naught amiss and turned back to the archduke.
Outside, plenty was amiss—as we hit the fresh air Marta vomited copiously in the courtyard. I had to help her to my room, and since she could not even put one foot in front of another, it was child’s play to help her with the key and then pocket it. In the painted chamber she slumped upon her truckle bed at the foot of mine, her snores sounding before her head even hit the pillow. I slipped out and turned the key on her, the captor captive.
I crept back down to the courtyard and loitered in shadow till the feast ended, at once blessing my new coat and cursing its color. I damned the Ursus maritimus, wherever he may live. I knew it would be difficult to follow my mother so dressed, for I was a walking snowdrift.
Finally, finally, my mother’s party emerged with the arch-duke and my mother dressed as if for hunting, with her halfdozen Venetian strangers in tow. I loitered by the gate house and joined the party fluidly as the guards let them pass, then hid in the undergrowth again as soon as they were clear of the walls, heart thudding in my throat. Now the Ursus maritimus was my friend once more, for in his white pelt I was invisible in the snowy landscape. I let the party get ahead, in no fear of losing them for they all carried burning brands, and the torch-light glowed down the mountain leading me like the Bethlehem star.
I followed the amber comet down the mountain a little way, till the party stopped. Then the streaming tail of the comet disappeared to leave a burning circle, and all of a sudden the light was gone.
Pulses pounding, I rushed to the spot where the light had disappeared. A small clearing offered me no cover, but the party had vanished and I recklessly rushed into the open, looking about me, everywhere but down. Presently I came to a halt and fell to my knees, looking down at last in despair. Then I learned that ‘twas fortunate, indeed, that I had stopped when I did, for I was on the lip of a gaping hole, open like the mouth of a well, descending to inky black. I shivered inside my coat, for I could easily have run straight over it and broken my neck as I crashed into the fathomless depths. Now I understood why the torchglow had become a circle then gone, for all the party had climbed down here, the light pouring from the mouth of the cavern, only to fade as the group moved down into the shaft. I got on my belly and inched to the lip of the thing—yes, there was a deep saffron glow from within, and I knew now that ‘twas not a well but some sort of entrance to an underground tunnel. There was silence from below and I knew them to be some way down. I felt in the soft earth for handholds and found a greasy rope tied to a stake. I took a deep breath, as if I were about to swim, and lowered myself over.
There were footholds in the walls, great gobs of bites taken out of the stone, and my fancy pointed shoes refused to be stuffed into them. My feet scrabbled and the tendons in my arms cracked. The coat was heavier than a millstone—I should have left it in the spinney. I longed to kick off my shoes but dared not, lest they fall on some fellow below and give me away. I half slid, half kicked my way to the ground, my un-gloved hands burning on the rope, my legs flailing. I hoped the shaft were none too deep, and a morbid thought visited me of the head of Brother Remigio, severed and bouncing down Santa Croce’s well. I swallowed my rising fear and thought of a happier time underground—when Brother Guido and I had been together in the Roman Catacombs. With his face in my mind’s eye I found courage, and at the same moment my feet found the ground.
And now—a fresh problem. There were six tunnels radiating out from the main shaft, and since the atrium itself was studded with torches set into wall sconces, I could not guess which one the archduke and my mother might have taken. I listened, trying to quiet my breathing and still my heart, then I heard a ringing sound—a blow, like metal upon metal. Surely no one fought here? Was there treachery afoot? Had the archduke brought my mother down here to murder her? With mixed feelings about the fate of my mother—did I care or not?—I hurried in the direction of the sound upon silent feet.
The passage took me down and down, the stone underfoot becoming more and more slimy and slippery with moisture with every step I took. Presently the narrow tunnel ballooned into a cave, and the amber glow grew stronger. I knew the party were in the great rocky chamber I approached, for I could hear the voices of the archduke and my mother, booming through the cave. I clambered high upon an outcrop of stones, peeped over the lip of the rocks, and could see everything; all the players were there, in a circle of torchlight having a conference. I felt as if I watched a play. My mother, alive and well, was speaking, and her voice echoed from the stones.
“Archduke. May I present the best that the Zecca can offer. Signor da Mosto, our assayer.” A dour fellow in a black-and-white cloak, with a soft square black felt four-cornered hat, stepped forward. “Signor Mantovano, our ironsmith.” A squat fellow with the filthiest hands I’ve ever seen. “Signor Contino, our silversmith.” Ah! The lecherous fellow from the carriage train. “And Signor Sarpi, our moneyer.” Signor Sarpi was a giant of a man, wearing naught but breeches and a wide wrestler’s belt, and brandishing a hammer. I no longer feared for my mother with such a fellow at her command. “And when I say that they are the best that the Zecca can offer, then you know I am telling you that they are the best anywhere, for you do not need me to tell you that the Zecca of Venice is the finest mint to be found anywhere on this earth.” I heard the civic pride in her voice but was no nearer divining her meaning. What did this strange collection of men do? Why were they so important that they traveled with her in the Mocenigo carriage? Two of them had a noble stamp, but the other two looked like peasants.
“Signor Mantovano, the cast, please.” My mother held out her hand and the fellow named as an ironsmith dropped a heavy object into her hand—heavy by the way that her palm dropped. The thing divided into two. “The seal,” she commanded.
“May I see?” The archduke stepped into the light. After a moment he said, “A very striking design. A trifle aggrandizing, but we know the tastes of our friend. And the themes are most apt. Let us see the blank.” The silversmith stepped forth with a round silver disk that winked in the torchlight.
Then it was the assayer’s turn. He stepped forth with a pair of delicate scales, two little brass pans suspended from a copper bar, all on a fine golden chain. He neatly dropped a lead ingot into one pan, the disk into another. “One hundred and twenty-four,” he announced. “I declare this a silver angel.”
“Well, then,” said the archduke, rubbing his hands like a child at Christmastide. “Let us strike one. Signor?” he addressed the moneyer. The silversmith took the cast and placed the blank disk upon it, put the other half of the die on top, and stood back. “We are witnessing history,” pronounced the archduke, just as the moneyer swung his hammer and fetched the top of the die an almighty thwack.
History was not quite ready to be witnessed, for the burly moneyer, clearly put off his stroke by the archduke’s awesome pronouncement, misstruck; the disk sheared off into the dark, whistling past my ear. They all looked in my direction and I ducked as fast as I could. As I hid, the truth was revealed; for at my feet was a silver coin, lying where it had fallen. The angel had flown to me. I had time to put the thing in my sleeve before I stood once more.
There was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet when I looked back, and the archduke had raised an eyebrow at my mother.
“I’m sorry, Dogaressa,” mumbled the giant. “ ‘Tis the light. I do not habitually strike by torch.”
“Do it better,” spat my mother, and I know she would have slapped him had he not been so large. “Your guild’s reputation is at stake, and Venice’s too.”
This time the strike was true, and the sound rang out like a bell. The first angel had been struck, and was lifted from the stamp and handed to the archduke.
He turned it in his hand. “Very fine,” he said. “I will keep this upon account, to show to the emperor.” He handed it to his servant before my mother could protest.
As this could only be the conclusion of their business, I slid to the ground as swiftly as I could.
But my luck had ended. My descent began a small avalanche of pebbles, and the party beyond the rocks fell silent at the sound.
“Spies!” hissed Archduke Sigismund from the cavern. “Move.”
As if he addressed me, I ran back to the atrium for my very life. Not the coat or my shoes could hinder me as I shinned up the rope and into the clearing, and tore into the woods to hide behind the thickest trunk I could see. I almost ran for the castello in my panic till I realized I could not gain entry without the party. The next few heartbeats, waiting for them, were agonizing—my body screamed at me to run but my mind knew I must not. Two guards, my mother, the archduke, and the Venetians emerged from the shaft in turn.
“No one,” said the archduke. He looked directly at my mother. “A rat, I suppose.” There it was again, that half-taunting, half-joking cadence to his voice—I could still not divine whether he hated her or loved her. They were Zephyrus and Chloris indeed. “You do not fear rats, Dogaressa?”
“Not of the animal kingdom, no,” she replied, but she had a watchful air. “I suggest we return to the castle—there is a little matter of which I need to make certain.”
With a cold rush that had naught to do with the midnight chill, I knew she was talking about me. I trailed them back to the castello, more silently than before. Their conference continued, but I could not hear for the blood that rushed in my head. I could think of nothing other than returning to my room before my mother knew I was gone. I could not believe, now, that I had risked so much, when I could have stayed safe in my room, slept soundly, and just waited for tomorrow’s carriage to take me to Milan and Brother Guido. I hoped the coin I held was worth the risk. I could not believe I would be able to gain entry with the party without discovery, for surely anyone may leave a castle; getting in may be another issue. But the sleepy guards merely counted our number back in, and as the tally was the same as those who had left, I was given pass with the others. Fortunately my mother was obliged to offer her good-nights to the archduke as was his due, so I was able to slip up the gate house stairs. I fled to my room, fumbling for the key I had stolen from Marta. It fairly rattled in the wards as my feverish hand trembled. Would I wake Marta? The door swung open and I saw my drunken sot of a maid in the exact same position I had left her. I turned the key behind me and kicked off my shoes and slithered out of my dress. I leaped upon the bed and dragged the white bear pelt over my naked body, now no longer goosefleshed but incandescent with heat. I knew my cheeks would be hectic and my hair damp from the cold night air so I turned my face from the door and tried to still my breathing, for I knew she would come.
And she did. There was a furious rap upon the door. “Marta! Marta!”
A hellish groan from my side.
“Marta!” The rapping grew louder. And my maid lumbered to her feet, stumbled to the door, fumbled with the key. The door flew wide and my mother strode in. She must have seen me at once, for she lowered her voice to a whisper—but her tone was clearly no less frightening to the terrified Marta.
“Foolish girl, did you not hear me call?”
Marta slurred something. Then I heard two stinging blows as my mother slapped her twice across the cheeks forward and back. “Yes, you will hear me now. Listen to me well. Has Signorina Luciana left the room this night? Has she left the room?”
“No, Dogaressa!” protested my hapless maid. “We feasted and returned here, and we have been asleep ever since.”
I heard my mother breathe relief, then seek to justify her hasty entry. “Look alive, you stupid, drunken chit. You are to look after my daughter at all times, do you hear? I did not give you permission to sleep! You may sleep in the carriages tomorrow, when la signorina is in my safekeeping. Do you hear?”
“Yes, Dogaressa.”
I feigned sleep through this but was also listening carefully, as you may imagine. Once again I got the puzzling sense that my mother really did love me, and that she was in equal parts concerned that I had spied upon her and worried for my safety if I had left this room. She was an odd mixture indeed—but what I most feared now was that she would come over to me and sit beside my “sleeping” form as she had done once before. If she should smooth my hair, or even kiss my heated cheek as she had done in Venice, I was done for. But I thought I knew my mother well enough to know that she would not show the weakness of affection in front of a servant, and I was right. She withdrew, and my maid sat at the hard bench at the window groaning and wakeful, to watch me as the night paled to dawn. As my heart slowed and I drifted to sleep at last, I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
In the rosy morning we left the city. As our carriages wound away from the gates, I noted that the archduke had not risen to bid us good-bye and I didn’t blame him—for I had only had a couple of hours’ sleep myself. The strange Venetians were no longer with us. I knew now they would stay and train Sigismund’s miners and moneyers. My mother, it seemed, felt comfortable that their business had been successfully concluded, for even she felt able to lower her guard long enough to sleep. It was a sight I had never seen before, and it was an arresting one—she slept quietly and tidily across from me. Not for her the grunting snores or drool that assailed me from Marta at my left shoulder. In rest, my mother’s face relaxed from its haughty expression and she looked younger than ever. Her long lashes lay on her cheeks, the dawn sun gilded the tiny hairs on her skin like the warm fuzz of an apricot. Her lips slightly parted, full and pink, her pearl teeth peeping from within, and her yards of precious hair loose on her shoulders like a new bride, gold in the sun like the first barley harvest. I had to admit, the bitch was beautiful.
I shifted in my seat, ready to sleep myself, and the silver coin in my sleeve cut into my side. I pulled it out to take a look, safe in the sleeping company. On one side, a man’s head stamped with a profile I knew well, for I had seen and admired it in his family church of San Lorenzo in Florence, watching his cousin wed.
It was the noble Medici profile of Lorenzo il Magnifico.
Lorenzo was the “he” that the archduke and my mother constantly mentioned but never named.
Something strange, though—he was wearing his own laurel leaves in the sunray arrangement of the garland of Sol Invictus I had seen in Rome. And on the other side stamped into the silver was a single word—whose letters I spelled out laboriously:
I-T-A-L-I-A.
Italia. I turned the coin over and over again in my hand, the morning sun glinting on the newly marked silver, the flashes crossing the face of my sleeping mother. What was she up to, she and Lorenzo and the others? Italia. The word meant nothing to me but was not wholly unfamiliar, and I knew I’d heard it before. I was too tired to rack my poor brain. It would come to me. Italia. Italia. The word became one with the rumble and rhythm of the carriage wheels. I-tal-ia, I-tal-ia, I-tal-ia.
I slept.