The Botticelli Secret

8
Even I had to admit that the Franciscan monastery at Fiesole was a place of peace and beauty. Glowing in the breaking morning, small and perfectly perched on the high hill, the place seemed set in amber, a preservation of an earlier age. We had been to Dante’s hell; now we had climbed the heights into the poet’s paradise. Certainly it is true to say that I have never been as happy to see a place in my life. When we reached the head of the wide golden staircase set into the hill, and I found balm for my torn feet on a hundred stone steps warmed by the healing sun, I surveyed the perfect little cloister, the tiny chapel, and the cells beyond, and responded to the sacred peace in my own way. “Thank f*ck for that.”
Brother Guido shot me a look of ice. “Watch your tongue, signorina. You are in God’s house now.”
“I’m sure he’s heard it all before.” My flippant nature surfaced as, once again, I began to feel safer. Brother Guido, on the other hand, seemed to have become more edgy, as our interview with his friend the abbot approached. I began, suddenly, to doubt his influence, else why would he fear an application to a man he claimed to know well?
The place seemed deserted and I knew that we must have come at a time of sleep, when all the monks would be in their cells, or at prayer, when they would all be packed tight as sardines in the monastery church. (I do know a little of the holy orders, for, of course, I was raised by nuns, but we do not have leisure to speak of that now; more later.)
At last we saw a lay brother hurrying across the quad, and I knew our moment had come. Brother Guido gripped my arm till it hurt. “Head down and no talking,” he said. “Remember all we discussed.” And with that he strode across the dewy grass to intercept the brother. After a brief conference I was beckoned over and the good monk led us through an arch into an even smaller quad, just as pretty, this one boasting a clear round pool, in which a myriad of golden fish switched and flashed. We were led to an oaken door, and the lay brother knocked and entered ahead of us. I tucked my chin to my chest as Brother Guido had told me, and drew my hood so far forward that I never saw the lay brother from first to last, merely heard, in a Sicilian accent, “My Lord Abbot will see you now.”
I clasped Brother Guido’s skirts, as I had been told, and followed in his wake into a light and airy chamber empty of all save a chair, a scribe’s table, and a crucifix. The window, crisscrossed with diamond quarrels, looked out into yet another tiny quad, and I boggled at the geography of the place; it seemed passing small but in fact fitted together like a series of concentrick squares, one fitting inside the other like a Russian’s doll.
The abbot rose from his chair and greeted us, with a word I didn’t know, and Brother Guido replied in the same tongue. I stole a quick look at the old fellow and became aware at once of three things.
Qualcosa Uno: he was white haired and smiling, like a kindly nonno.
Qualcosa Due: his voice when he spoke mangled our fair language as I have never heard. Such strange stops to our beautiful vowels, and jerky consonants like a soldier’s drum. I had been prepared for this accent on the climb, however, for the abbot was an Englishman by birth, known as Giles of Cambridge. I knew now he had greeted my friend in English.
Qualcosa Tre: his eyes were the blue of day-old milk, with a smoky film that lay over the orb, pupil, whites, and all. And that’s when I realized that Brother Guido’s scheme, which we had discussed all the way up the hundred steps, had a good chance of working.
For the abbot was blind.
After that I could look all I wanted, so long as I remembered my part well when the cue came. Yet it was not so much what I saw as what I heard that astonished me. And it was not the accent but the content of the lines that gave me pause. The dialogue went thus.
“Lord della Torre!” began the old fellow. “What an honor! How are your family, your good uncle?”
I shot a look to my not-so-humble companion, through eyes narrowed to arrow slits. Lord della Torre? Never in all the oblique hints at wealth and influence had I suspected that Brother Guido himself was a signore— a nobleman. Hmm. I was unsure whether to be pleased or dismayed by this revelation but, on balance, decided that it could only be good for me if Brother Guido was a rich young lordling. He might, in truth, be able to save my hide after all.
Brother Guido himself ignored me, and did not seem overly discomfited by the revelation. He evenly replied, “Well, my Lord Abbot, well. But I beg you to remember that I am now become a novitiate of Santa Croce, and go about the world as Brother Guido.” Brother Guido knelt to kiss the abbot’s ring of office, and my eyes rested on the handsome cabochon-studded cross. Madonna, that must be worth a few florins. I watched carefully, rehearsing for my own obeisance. Yet the conversation continued.
“Yes, yes, you have joined our family in God,” said the abbot with obvious delight at the correction. “Of course. You will forgive me, I did not notice your robes.” The abbot smiled in a way that showed his acceptance of the blow that God had dealt him; so comfortable was he with the state of blindness that he was happy to make a joke of it. I began to like him, but was jolted out of my reverie like a player who hears his cue.
“And may I present Brother Lucius of Salerno?”
Brother Guido’s voice concentrated my mind. I rolled the sleeve of my miniver high, so the abbot would not feel such exalted furs. I had wrapped Brother Guido’s humble Franciscan rosary around my wrist, threading the wooden beads through my fingers where the abbot would feel them as I took his hand. I bent to the hand I held, old and rough as parchment. I barely brushed my lips against the ruby cross, mindful as I was of the softness of the feminine mouth. The old man saw nothing amiss, though, and the pleasantries continued.
“Brother Lucius is laboring under a vow of silence at present,” explained Brother Guido, “but asks me to greet you and pay you his respects. He is truly penitent, my lord, for he has come all the way from Santa Croce barefoot.”
The abbot nodded and smiled his charming smile once again. “My eyes may have failed me, son, but there is naught amiss with my ears. I could hear at once that of the two pairs of feet that entered my chamber, one was shod and one was not. You are welcome, Brother”—this to me—“a true pilgrim indeed.” He nodded thrice, slowly and thoughtfully, then uncannily turned his rheumy eyes in the direction of Brother Guido’s voice. “And now, my son, how can I assist you?”
I waited, with a butterfly flutter of nerves, for Brother Guido to lay our whole history before his friend. But once again, I was to be surprised.
“My Lord Abbot, we ask no more than a bed for a day and a night, before we continue forth into the world.”
“Such a thing is easily given.”
“And such humble victuals as you give to the other brothers.”
“Granted,” said the abbot, opening his hands with a generous gesture. “I divine that you are both tired, and therefore I will excuse you from the normal observances of our rule. You may sleep the day through, and I ask only that you attend mass at Matins before you leave.” He waved away Brother Guido’s thanks. “Brother Tommaso will show you to your cells. I wish you a good rest, Brother Guido, and you, too, Brother Lucius.” I lowered my head again as the Sicilian lay brother reentered the room. But as we followed him through the cloister and up a dark stair to the dorter, I could not help hearing the playful emphasis on the second “brother” the abbot had uttered in his dismissal, and reflected on the fact that there were some things that the blind could see very well.
The Sicilian brother had more keys than Saint Peter, and he took a little time to find the correct pair on the huge iron ring he wore on his knotted belt and unlock our twin cells. Brother Guido and I had time for a whispered conference behind our hands in broad Tuscan, which we hoped the Sicilian would not understand.
“Why didn’t you tell the abbot?” I hissed. “He seemed lovely. I thought he was your good friend?”
“He is.”
“Then why, my lord?”
Brother Guido ignored my sarcasm. “I’ll tell you tonight.”
Then the door was open, stopping all further conversation, and I spotted the little truckle bed in the corner of the room, below the inevitable crucifix. I felt such a longing for bed as I have never felt, not even for my noblest clients’ most stuffed and feathered four-posters. I had registered what Brother Guido had said, but frankly, I was too tired to care.