“What could I do, Simonetta?” he moaned, as though he hadn’t heard me. “I didn’t want to agree, but what choice did I have?”
“How dare you,” I said. “How dare you give away the rights to my body, as though they are yours to give! How dare you make this devil’s bargain, this whore’s bargain, and not even consult me as to my wishes, my desires!”
“You are a fool, Simonetta,” he said, rising from the table. “You understand nothing.”
“Then explain it to me,” I shrieked. “Explain to me how you dare—”
“I should not have to explain anything to you. It is politically expedient for me…” in his drunken state, he stumbled a bit over the words, “to have a wife who is the mistress of one of the Medici brothers. And, by extension, it is expedient for you as well.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I thought you were smart, Simonetta, so intelligent. I thought you would have figured this out.”
“No,” I said. “No, I remained blissfully ignorant to the fact that my husband is no better than a common pimp, to whore out his wife for his own gain!”
Marco swiped the empty wine bottle off the table, causing it to fly against the wall and shatter. “How dare you speak to me so,” he growled.
“How dare I?” I demanded. “You have no business complaining of my conduct ever again, after all this! Why, I do not know how I shall ever speak to you again, you unimaginable monster!”
He approached me and took me by the shoulders, shaking me. “Do you not see what this means for us? What this can do?” he asked. “Do you not see?”
I wrenched away from him. “I see none of that,” I said. “All I see is my husband, who once professed to love me, and now only uses me for his own gain!”
For a moment he looked as though he would strike me, but then he stepped back. “And so why are you here?” he asked. He staggered back to the head of the table and took another swig of wine. “Was he done so quickly? Did he simply bend you over a table and take you? Up against a wall, perhaps, because he could not wait?” He laughed again, a cruel, empty sound. “Well, I suppose I could not blame him for not lasting that long, not his first time with you … even he has never been with a woman as beautiful as you before.…”
I stalked to him and slapped him across the face. “I said no!” I shouted. “I refused him! As you should have known I would do, since I am not some common harlot, to be bought and sold as you see fit!”
He swayed on the spot. “You … refused him?”
“Of course I did,” I snapped.
He fell to his knees, his fingers grasping the hem of my gown. “Oh, Simonetta,” he said. “You do love me. You must.”
I snatched my hem away. “I did, once,” I said. “But rest assured that any love I had for you is dead henceforth, after I have learned what you are capable of.” I choked back my tears; I would not cry them here, not in front of him. “I cannot love you ever again, now that I learn how you truly see me.” I turned to leave but stopped, looking at him, pathetically prostrate on the floor. “You are the fool, Marco Vespucci,” I said. “For you have lost your ‘political expedience’ and the love and respect of your wife all in one ill-conceived wager.” I left the room and went upstairs to the bedchamber where, only after locking myself in, did I allow myself to dissolve into tears.
Not long after, I heard the main door slam downstairs. Moving to the window, I saw Marco stagger out of the house and down the street.
No doubt off to visit his whore, I thought. For his wife, whom he treats as a whore, will certainly not have him. I turned away from the window, finding I did not care if he ever came back. I could only hope to be so lucky.
33
Even as winter began to somewhat lessen its grip on Florence and the surrounding Tuscan countryside, the interior of the Vespucci home may as well have been that of an ice castle. Marco was scarcely home—either to dine or to sleep—and when he was we spoke only when we absolutely had to. He had moved some of his things out of the bedchamber we had shared for our entire marriage and into one of the guest rooms. The servants—though they of course knew—did not remark upon it. No doubt some of them had overheard our row. And if Marco’s parents knew the nature of our disagreement, they did not remark upon it either.
The thought that everyone knew the truth of matters in my marriage would, at one time, have embarrassed me, but no longer. I did not care if every servant in the house knew the sordid tale—I did not care if everyone in Florence knew. Let them know how my husband had sought to use me, how the darling, golden Giuliano de’ Medici thought that I was his for the asking. The shame was all theirs, not mine.
What is it about beauty, I wondered one day, squinting at a bit of embroidery, which makes men think they have the right to desire you? That beauty means you automatically agree, somehow, to be coveted, to be desired? That your beauty belongs to everyone?
I had no answers for such questions.
I had run out of books in the house that I had not read, and I did not wish to venture to the Medici library for more, for fear of running into Giuliano. I knew Lorenzo would gladly send a messenger with any titles I might desire, but I did not know what titles those might be without browsing first.
So I returned to embroidery, which I had neither particularly liked nor disliked as a girl, and which I had not had much time for of late. When I could embroider no more silly patterns I begged Chiara to let me help her with the mending, so I might make myself useful. She protested at first, horrified at the thought of a lady doing her own mending, but I would not let the issue drop until she agreed to let me help her. So we stitched away and chatted mindlessly for many a chill winter day, while the throngs of men outside my window grew ever larger. Giuliano’s tribute to me at the joust had, it seemed, only increased my fame.
“What do they say about me, Chiara?” I asked one afternoon, on a day when she had been to the market in the morning. “What do they say about me, out in the streets?”
Her hesitation before answering gave lie to her words when she eventually did speak. “They say nothing at all, Madonna,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
“We both know that is not true, Chiara, so whatever it is, you had best tell me, before I hear it from someone else.”
She paused again before answering. “They say you are the lover of Giuliano de’ Medici,” she said at last. “They say that the two of you are even as Venus and Adonis, blessed by the gods in your love and beauty.”
I snorted. “Indeed. Have you ever noticed, Chiara, that whenever a man loves a beautiful woman, it is considered some great fairy tale of love? No one ever pays attention to how the woman feels. If she is worthy of being loved by a great or handsome man, why then, what could she do but return his love? How is anything else possible?”