The Botticelli Secret

10

Pisa II


Pisa II, June 1483

52
And so, by the end of the spring I was once again in Brother Guido’s city. Once again I stood in the Campo dei Miracoli, at the doors of the great white cathedral, gazing on the great white baptistery and the great white tower that leaned but would not fall down. Only today I matched the white city.
It was my wedding day.
Today there was no painting in my bodice. Instead, for my own satisfaction, I put the green glass knife there—the neck-rim from the bottle I’d been in as a baby. Sharp and curled as a claw, it reminded me where I came from and where I was going to, and that there was always a way out. If suicides were damned, so be it. Damnation may be better than married life. I had seen enough lambs slaughtered in Ognissanti to know I could push the blade behind the windpipe and the blood would course down the white and gold, a satisfying exit, right there at the altar. They’d be talking about it for years.
My mother interrupted my thoughts. “Let me look at you.” Resplendent in her favorite green, she wore her golden lioness half-mask today, with a hundred golden chains hanging from the nose to chin. She smiled at me proudly beneath it, as if naught were amiss. As if I were a favored daughter about to fulfill her heart’s desire, not about to be shackled to a pederast whom I hated with the heat of hellfire.
I had not seen my intended since we had come to Pisa, where we were, by a strange twist of fate, guests of Lorenzo de’ Medici at his riverside palace on the Lungarno Mediceo. A place I had once gone to with Brother Guido, and stolen a boat, to drift down the river of a thousand torches. The irony was not lost upon me; Brother Guido had left his own city in the manner in which he was to die.
I saw Lorenzo il Magnifico now and again, and he was the very model of courtesy. Neither he, nor anyone, referred to the events that had taken place in Genoa not four months ago. In all that time I had not once seen Niccolò. I understood he had taken an arrow in the leg at the Battle of Torriglia Pass and had gone to the mountains to take the waters and recover. My mother had assured me that all was well. (As if I were worrying about him.) “The marriage contracts are intact, despite recent—events . . .” It was the closest she ever came to speaking of it. “Except for a few minor alterations. It is true that the prince was injured in the battle, for he is, as you perhaps know, not an accomplished fighter. But his condition will not affect the wedding, it will take place almost as planned.”
Yes, with my damaged husband carried in on a litter. Madonna. One thing worse than being married to an evil selfish man was being married to an evil selfish cripple.
Now, at the hour of my marriage, my mother pinched my cheeks, then adjusted my bodice. “There. You are lovelier than a summer day.” I looked at her sharply, but there was no irony in her tone nor her eyes. She meant what she said and it was said with love. I shook back my hair, heavy with a thousand pearls and moonstones, and hitched up my bodice. Something felt different. I looked down between my breasts—the knife was gone.
“Mother,” I called sharply.
She turned back, guilty, and I saw at once she had taken it. She had last touched that piece of Venetian glass when her hands had placed me in the bottle, with the bread and breast-milk. She had taken it, and with it, my way out.
I let out a gusty sigh, utterly defeated. “Very well.” I knew now I must go through with the wedding, but it would not be for naught. “Grant me a boon then, as a wedding present, if I am to do this thing.”
She came back to me. “Of course.”
I said, slowly and clearly, “I want you to free Bonaccorso Nivola.” I thought I would have to explain who the imprisoned sailor was, for my mother, as I told you, never noticed the little people. But she knew at once—perhaps he had been troubling her conscience too.
“Done.”
And as she spoke the trumpets and timbrels sounded, and the great doors opened into the cathedral. I processed down the aisle on the arm of my mother, feeling, as I had done once before, that the great white pillars and the arching ribs above my head were bones, and I was trapped in the belly of a great beast. As we walked through ranks of cheering people I wondered if they were the same folk who’d cheered me a year ago, when I’d been here with Brother Guido, riding in a golden carriage with the doomed father of my betrothed.
My mother kissed my cheek as we reached the altar. “You’ll be happy,” she said. “Trust me.” For the second time today I looked into her leaf-green eyes and saw no lies writ there.
And now I saw the back of my detested groom, broad and tall and clad to match me in white velvet and gold. I noted he did not even turn to greet me as the rest of the congregation did; he did not even possess the basic courtesies of a family of consequence. He was taller than I’d remembered; his hair curled like his cousin’s had, but a little longer, the resemblance crueler than everything else. I felt as if the knife were in my throat after all, for I was bleeding to death.
He turned and I nearly fainted at a cathedral wedding for the second time in my life.
It was Brother Guido.
Really, truly he—living, breathing, smiling. He held me with the hand that wore a gold ring of the palle on his thumb.
He was thinner, his hair a little longer, clean shaven, with his sunburned skin golden against the white. I felt my heart fail with love and longing. The only true difference was that upon his ring hand the flesh was livid with burns; a desert of smooth, arid, healed skin stretched over the long bones. I wondered what other injuries were hid by the fine clothes, but did not care—I would love him, through and through, however damaged he may be.
I could not follow the service, could not breathe for the happiness that swelled in my chest. Could hardly hold my right hand up in the traditional Tuscan greeting, to my groom and guests. Could not look at the priest or heed his words, for I could not shift my eyes from my—could it be true?—husband.
I managed to murmur the responses, and we were wed.
I held his burned hand hard as we moved as one down the aisle. Caught my mother’s eye, and she smiled at me from beneath her mask. Once outside we were able to speak at last as we threw handfuls of coins to the children. I had a thousand questions but began with two.
“What happened? Where is Niccolò?”
“Dead. He contracted gangrene in his leg, and so died of his battle wounds.”
I remembered what my mother had said: his condition will not affect the wedding, it will take place almost as planned. Then she told me I’d be happy. I had to smile.
“I was the surviving heir of the della Torres,” he went on, “and at last I was ready to inherit my city. As I told you of my time in the Bargello, things change in Tuscan politics all the time. The worm at the bottom of the dungheap can next day be king of the castle.”
The children were jackdawing for coins around our feet, but we might as well have been alone in the world.
My husband tenderly tucked a golden curl behind my ear. “When I took Holy Orders I was young and untried. I loved the church and I loved books, but knew nothing of the world. You showed it to me. In Rome I fell out of love with the church.” A cloud passed over his face. “But now I know that I may love God, and you, too, and that there is no need to choose. My church is no longer my church, but my God will always be my God; is now and forever shall be.”
“But how . . . that is, how did you survive?”
‘I jumped into the sea, for I was aflame, that much is true. But I clung to the mast of the flagship and held on for dear life; life that was infinitely dear since I had found you. The storm still raged around me, and once I almost let go from the pain, for my hands were badly burned and the salt brine stung like vinegar. But something made me hold on.”
“Me?” I asked hopefully, knowing then the prayer I had offered from the lanterna had been answered.
He smiled. “In a sense. Perhaps we should thank your alter ego, the goddess Flora,” said my husband. “As I swallowed the seas and fought for breath, I saw her form, your form, and the life and promise within, and the swell of a child at her belly, and I knew I had to live to see the spring. But in my vision, as on the cartone, she had no face, and I had to see yours again.” He cupped my cheeks, as if to make sure that I was real. “At the same moment I saw the lights of the shore and washed up on the beach at Peglia. I made my way back to the doge’s palace, a slow and painful journey, for by then I was in high fever: now burning hot, now freezing cold. I knew I was not out of danger, for if I was found on the cliffs by the loyal Genoese after the battle that had lately taken place, I would have been executed as an enemy deserter. But I came to Genoa at last, where the doge was more than happy to reward me for my services. He put everything at my disposal: his best physicians, and then when I was ready, clothes, horses, and a retinue. He told me that you’d gone to Pisa with your mother. He told me to pursue you, that I might dare to hope; but I needed no telling.” He tightened his arms around me. “He’s a good man, and will rule well, I think.”
“I do too.”
“And so it was that I came home to my birthright, and the palace that is rightfully mine. I redrafted the contracts with your father—but a change of name was all that was needed—and your mother seemed more than happy with what had come to pass.”
I shook my head, amazed. It was too much to take in, too much happiness. He turned me round to look at him, and the crowd of children melted respectfully away, well pleased with their bounty. I looked into the blue, blue eyes of my Lazarus-husband, back from the dead; come from the Cata-combs into the light—proof of the afterlife I had doubted and he had not. And we, we had come from darkness to light too—come from ignorance into knowledge; read the treasure map, solved the puzzle, and claimed the prize. But the treasure we had found was no jewel casket or trove of coins; it was beyond price. “What now?” I asked, not really caring, so long as we were together.
“A feast at the palace, and the . . . wedding night.” A shadow crossed his face. “Of course, it is usual for the bride to be a virgin on the wedding night.”
“I’ll be gentle with you,” I said, and kissed him in a manner that belied the words.
The field of miracles deserved its name that day. The sun set behind the leaning tower, the symbol of Guido’s city—and mine—into a beautiful red sky. And the day began.

It was going to be a beautiful summer.