“We share a great deal of sorrow, you and I,” Gabriele said, bending his head. “I lost my wife, as you have lost your sister and brother, and I too have neither mother nor father. In our shared grief perhaps we shall find comfort.” He ended his sentence with an inflection that was almost a question. His hands remained at his sides, but his voice was like an embrace.
“We could both probably use a little comfort.” I already knew about his late wife and his orphanhood, from the journal he had written. I wished I could tell him more of the truth in return for that offer of comfort. He handed me a linen handkerchief that I used as gracefully as possible.
“The deep pleasure of work helps, does it not?” He didn’t say much, but what he said had a tendency to be unerringly accurate.
“Yes, it does. Quite a bit.”
That was the moment Clara chose to come in with our dinner. She seemed too distracted by Gabriele’s presence to notice I’d been crying; in fact, she didn’t even look at me. From the tray she’d brought, I saw that Clara must have been extra-inspired by feeding the Visiting Artist. I wondered for whom the elaborate meal had been originally intended, since none of it could have been made without advance notice.
Gabriele received Clara’s offering with a grace so exquisite, I thought she might swoon. He even asked her to recite the menu. She rolled off the list of dishes with pride.
“Lasagne, Ser, from pastam fermentatam, served with cheese and spices, limonia of chicken, and torta di marzapane. I hope it pleases you, Ser.”
“A beautiful meal, brought by a lovely maid with obvious talents in the kitchen.” Gabriele bowed at the waist. Clara left beaming.
My first lasagne in the fourteenth century was outrageously good. Fermentatam must have meant “leavened,” and the pasta was springy and tender. It didn’t bear much resemblance to the modern Italian lasagna. The pasta was cut into individual squares about an inch wide, tossed with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, pepper, and a heavenly combination of cardamom, nutmeg, and cinnamon. It wasn’t sweet, but was almost rich enough to be dessert, and we ate it with pointed wooden sticks a bit longer than a regular toothpick. The marzipan tart at the end of our meal reminded me of the now-defunct Elk Candy Shop on the Upper East Side in New York City, where Ben would buy me a marzipan figurine every year at Christmas. I’d try to make it last for weeks, taking a tiny bite each day and wrapping it back up in its shiny decorated foil.
When our plates were empty, Gabriele leaned back to speak. “I suppose you are really a scribe. Is at least that part of the story true?”
“I am a scribe, yes. I’m sorry to have deceived you. It’s complicated.”
“It does appear to be.” He said this wryly but without barbs. “And are you a pilgrim?”
“I have traveled very far. Is that enough for the moment?” That was as much as I could say while still telling the truth.
He nodded. “I will not interrogate you further and risk spoiling your digestion.”
When the door to the scriptorium slammed against the wall I expected Clara, but instead it was an unfamiliar boy in a black-and-white tunic and hose.
“Messer Gabriele Beltrano Accorsi?” The boy was out of breath, as if he’d come running.
“Before you,” Gabriele said, turning to face the messenger.
“I have been charged to deliver this summons.” The boy handed a rolled-up parchment to Gabriele. It was sealed with red wax and imprinted with an official-looking seal: two young boys nursing from a she-wolf, the symbol of Siena’s origins.
“I come from the office of the Podestà, Ser Accorsi,” the boy said, squaring his shoulders. His voice cracked slightly from high to low. “Your presence is expected on the third day following the Feast of the Assumption.” He bowed, and waited for Gabriele’s response.
“Am I to be told the matter for which I am summoned?”
“It is explained in the document you hold in your hands,” the messenger said. “At least, I think that is what it says. I didn’t write it or read it. I assure you, Ser, it was given to me sealed as you see it.” He gazed up at Gabriele again, this time looking more like a boy and less like the official he was trying to be.
“I am certain you have carried out your assignment with the utmost honesty, as befits your role.” It amazed me how agreeable Gabriele was at the delivery of such an ominous message.
“I shall go then,” the boy said, awkwardly, and turned on one heel, leaving as quickly as he had come in. He forgot to close the door. Gabriele and I stared at the roll of parchment.
“Gabriele, are you in some kind of trouble?”
He frowned as he began to peel off the wax seal.
“I sincerely hope not,” he said, but judging from the look on Gabriele’s face as he read through the summons, I suspected that trouble was coming.
PART IV
WITNESS
The flurry of activity leading up to the Feast of the Assumption precluded more soul-baring sessions with Gabriele. He withdrew into himself—it was a subtle shift, but I felt the difference sharply. He worked outside the scriptorium steadily, but his comments to me were more formal and distant.
I was partially relieved to go back to my guarded self. I’d worried about the consequences of discarding my widow-from-Lucca story, since I wasn’t in a position to tell the truth. But I missed the brief access I’d been given to Gabriele’s internal world—both the honesty of his suffering, and the comfort he might be able to offer me.
In any case, all of the Ospedale staff, myself included, were occupied with preparations for the Feast, which fell on August 15th. I had been given the task of producing the libri dei censi: books recording all the tributes paid to the commune during the festival. Most came in the currency of candles; wax was expensive, and even ordinary tapers were costly. Under Fra Bosi’s direction, I itemized the number and weight in wax of all the candles that had been promised. The commune itself was to present a single candle weighing the equivalent of a hundred pounds on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption. The weight of wax to be used in the tributes was actually written into statutory law. I found that funny at first, but there were probably some twenty-first-century statutes that would look just as funny 650 years after being written.
Umiltà took me aside at the beginning of the week to explain. “We come together on the Eve of the Assumption to pay homage to the Queen of Heaven, the source of Siena’s strength and solace. We light thousands of candles to honor her, and in doing so, create a fire so bright that the Virgin herself, looking down upon the city from her heavenly throne, will see the brilliance of our tribute and the magnitude of our devotion.”