I picked up a pen and a blank piece of Egidio’s newly made paper. My head filled with images—Felice draping the Civetta scarf around my neck, my scalpel slicing through dura to find a fresh collection of blood. I drew an outline of an owl, then beneath it a scalpel, the mark of the profession I had so recently left behind, like a branch beneath the owl’s feet. I added a blend of my initials like leaves from the branch the knife had become. Fra Bosi picked up a cloth to blot the design I’d drawn. I felt as if I’d just clipped my first aneurysm, with a senior surgeon telegraphing silent approval.
“You may sign your work thus, Scribe Beatrice Alessandra Trovato, and take the remainder of the day to restore your strength for tomorrow’s efforts.” He rose slowly and left.
I headed out the front door of the Ospedale and for a moment I forgot my peculiar situation in the pleasure of the afternoon. But when I stepped into the Duomo’s shadow I remembered. I looked up at the striped facade, at the place where I’d left my own time and entered this one. Could the path between the two times still be open? If Gabriele’s missing journal had pulled me toward this century, I was out of luck, since I didn’t have the journal anymore. But what if it were the Duomo itself? I followed the bells, up the stairs and through the great doors. I sat in a pew at the front this time and stared at the lions, remembering how the marble had once felt worn and warm under my hand. I followed the dizzyingly striped columns of the nave to the huge dome above. In this century, the gold stars on their background of twilight blue had not been painted yet; the vaulted arches were bare, austere stone. Still the dome felt, with the oculus at its apex bright now in the midday sun, like it might be a portal to another world or time. I stared up until my neck ached and my eyes burned, but nothing happened. I tried again, this time closing my eyes and envisioning the little guest bedroom in Ben’s house, with its white curtains blowing over the linen-sheeted bed. All I got from that was a surge of homesickness—emotion, but no transportation.
Before I could make another attempt, a young priest appeared in the pulpit, cleared his throat, and began speaking in a tremulous voice. Then his voice squeaked to silence. The congregants around me shifted restlessly while the priest stood at the pulpit openmouthed, but making no sound at all.
I slid suddenly from looking at the panicked priest to being inside his head. He really had it bad. I felt his wave of nausea and heard the rapid beat of his heart in my ears. From the young priest’s perspective the congregants looked scornfully at the pulpit, ready to pull him down from his perch. I am unfit to give a sermon, unfit, unfit. . . . His words echoed in my head. But this time I managed to keep a part of me separate. I approached the priest’s anxiety the same way I used to stanch the flow of blood from a blood vessel—methodical, unhurried. Slow down, breathe, it’s OK—I was talking to him and myself at the same time. This is a great sermon; you’re doing fine, keep talking. You’re surrounded by fellow citizens patiently waiting to hear your words. Quiet heart, quiet mind, strong voice. I sensed his fear ebbing as my own heart slowed with his. I backed out as quietly as I could.
* * *
“Well spoken, Bartolomeo,” the usually taciturn deacon said as the congregation filed out. “I thought you might need to be rescued from your perch midsermon, but you found inspiration to go on.”
“Indeed I did,” said Bartolomeo, still a bit mystified by his sudden deliverance, and added: “With God’s help, of course.” Breathing a sigh of relief, he watched the congregants leaving the cathedral. Among them he caught the sight of a woman with dark braids wound around her head, her green gown swirling around her as she turned to depart. He had seen her before—on the night he had first chanted the hours, weaving with his voice the fragile thread of prayer that would guard Siena’s citizens: “Keep them safe, Lord, and guard them as they sleep.” Distracted by some sound in the pews he had seen the woman moving quickly through the nave, her black hair streaming behind her. He had feared then that a spirit might have found its way from the supernatural world, let in by his faltering prayer. It seemed that the spirit had stayed.
*
“Is it a love letter?” Ysabella stood on her toes, trying to see the folded parchment delivered to the house that afternoon, but Gabriele held it just out of her reach.
“Of a sort,” Gabriele said, with a half-smile, “but not the kind you imagine. I have been granted the commission to paint a scene from the Virgin’s life over the Ospedale entry.”
Rinaldo smiled, but his words were barbed. “Now you may earn your keep, and repay my father’s generosity.”
“It is easy to be generous to such a generous spirit as our Gabriele,” Martellino countered. “And as for the commission, it is no great surprise. Whom else would they choose?”
Ysabella’s eyes lit up with interest. “Gabriele, how marvelous! When do you start, and what will you paint?”
“The rector has asked that I come to his office tomorrow, to begin planning the project. And the subject—I have long hoped to paint the Assumption of the Virgin, to crown the cycle of her life with her ascent into heaven.”
Ysabella shaped her face into a dramatic rendition of a lovesick young adolescent. “Santa Maria, Gabriele’s one true love. Who can compete with the Virgin? Perhaps you should have been a monk instead of a painter!” She dodged the swipe of Gabriele’s arm and went to bank the fire with ashes.
Before bed there were beans to be shelled, almonds to blanch and skin, repairs to be made—the big cauldron had lost its wooden handle—and it was several hours before the family retired upstairs. Martellino’s house was well appointed, with two good-size camere. Rinaldo and Bianca shared one of the bedrooms, and Ysabella and her father the other, with a large bed and smaller cot beside it. On the top floor under the wood-beamed roof, Gabriele had a modest space to himself where he might not only sleep but also spend time sketching studies for his future paintings on the plaster walls.
Alone in his room at last, Gabriele stared at the contract in his hands, touching the words. The handwriting was delicate, with a strange look to it—it reminded him of hearing his own language spoken with a faint accent, the cadence of a visitor whose home was far away. The signature too was unfamiliar: an owl, perched on a branch, with the scribe’s initials entwined in its curve. A new scribe perhaps, or a visiting one.
Gabriele lay in bed, imagining his upcoming meeting with the rector. For hours he lay staring at shadows as they stretched slowly across the beamed ceiling. He despaired when he heard the sound of the Matins bells hours later with only a third of the night behind him. When he finally drifted off to sleep, he dreamed he was awake, watching the window for a sign of dawn. He woke groggy with fatigue to the smell of baking bread, afraid he’d overslept for his meeting. Martellino managed to press a small loaf into Gabriele’s hand as he hurried out the front door.
*
To Monna Immacolata de’ Medici
Palazzo Medici, Florence
Written by the hand of your Husband, Giovanni de’ Medici
From the Communal Prison, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena