“Gabriele Accorsi. Do you know where I might find him?”
Baldi’s eyes narrowed into fatty slits. “We should speak in private. I rented my chamber for a woman, but now that she’s gone there are two free chairs. It smells of a good rutting, but it faces the courtyard and it’s quiet-like.”
Iacopo rose and followed Baldi. His source might not be gentlemanly, but he appeared to know something and to want to impart it. The sound of dice rolling did not resume immediately, and he could feel the curious eyes of Baldi’s companions fixed on his back.
PART V
THE FOURTH ANGEL
The morning after the execution I got to the scriptorium late. Fra Bosi gave me a sideways look, but no reprimand. Someone had repaired the broken window of the scriptorium; no more spontaneous visits from Gabriele to look forward to. I had a few remaining libri documenting the tributes of the Feast of the Assumption to complete, but every time I picked up a pen, an image from the trial flashed into my head—Giovanni de’ Medici, his jaw clamped shut and the cords in his neck prominent above the collar of his robes, watching Gabriele give his damning testimony. A man like Giovanni de’ Medici could cause trouble, even after death. I felt the gathering danger, like dark clouds massing before a storm.
My memories of the trial were troubling, but the flashbacks of the execution were worse. I kept seeing Giovanni’s legs scrabbling for a foothold as his perch was yanked away, and the slow discoloration of his face. I was sure it would feed my nightmares for months.
I put the final flourishes on the libri and put down my pen. I sat still at the desk, thinking. I thought of Nathaniel welcoming me with a recently acquired Henry James first edition and an invitation to afternoon tea. I thought of the coffee date I’d had with Donata, the easy rhythm of our conversation. She must have wondered why I’d left without so much as a good-bye.
I had found pleasure here—my work, new friends and colleagues, and also something intangible, a surprisingly pleasurable medieval-ness. And, of course, I’d found Gabriele. The slow-growing pleasure of that friendship had an undeniable pull. But enough of a pull to compete with my old life? And even if it did, along with pleasures of this new time came the looming Plague and the terrible feeling of powerlessness I felt in the face of the impending devastation, and now the hanged Medici murderer whom Gabriele had testified against, and who might have dangerous friends. I had to get back. But how?
I cleaned my pens and neatened the stack of parchment on the desk. Was there something I’d missed, some key element that might reverse my trip through time? I’d gone back to the Duomo; that hadn’t helped. I retraced my steps, mentally. I’d been reading Gabriele’s journal when I left—that seemed promising as a bridge to the past, but I could not imagine demanding he show me his private writings. In any case, the journal seemed like a one-way bridge, if it was a bridge at all—the past had come to life for me through his writing, but the present wouldn’t. What else? I’d been in the Museo. The Museo . . . where I’d seen Gabriele’s painting of Saint Christopher. The memory made the hair on my arms rise. Was it something about the painting, and seeing myself in it, a painting linking our two times? Where could I find another painting by Gabriele with me in it? The idea hit me like a jolt of electricity: right outside the Ospedale. Buzzing with my new plan, I made my way to the entrance. It was time for another art history lesson.
Outside, Gabriele was perched on his platform with a brush in his hand. He had completed the likeness of the Virgin Mary rising to her heavenly reward, and there was a lightness in her body that suggested a pull from a celestial source. But this heavenly grace combined with surprising—for a medieval painting—human emotion. She looked apprehensive, afraid to leave her earthbound existence, but drawn to what awaited her. Gabriele was working on the angels now. They surrounded Mary protectively, wings aloft and shining with gold. Three of the angels’ faces were completed and Gabriele was painting the fourth. For the first few minutes his body blocked the image he was working on. When he lowered his brush arm and I saw what he’d painted my heart skipped a beat—I felt the pause, the silence, then a little late, the next beat, blood moving again. I saw the fourth angel’s black straight hair, gray-blue eyes, and long-fingered hands. She looked just the way a medieval angel should look, and would have been at home in any fourteenth-century fresco. But anyone who knew me would realize who her model was. I felt the heat rise into my face and the urgency I’d felt in the scriptorium faded as I stood there, watching. The idea that the painting might transport me forward in time seemed silly now that I stood in front of it. And not entirely desirable.
Gabriele lifted his brush from the plaster and tilted his head to look down at me, raising his voice loud enough to be heard from above. “Have you been waiting long? I regret my absorption prevented me from noticing you earlier.”
“I just got here,” I called back, craning my neck to look up at him. “Do I really look like that?”
I heard Gabriele’s laugh above me. “You ask the most extraordinary questions. Let us say that you provide inspiration. Will that suffice?”
“For the moment.”
“Signora, I would greatly enjoy talking with you at length, but the drying plaster calls to me, and the hot sun demands a rapid pace.”
“I should get back to the scriptorium,” I said, disappointed.
“If you are not excessively busy, I would welcome your company on the scaffolding.”
It was an unusually light workday. “How do I get up?” I heard another laugh from above. Gabriele put down his brush and rapidly descended from the platform, landing next to me. Up close, I could see the fine beads of sweat glistening on his tanned face, and the linen of his shirt clung damply to the muscles of his arms.
“I will guide you,” he said, “but watch your step. I would hate to lose you to a scaffolding accident so early in our acquaintance, with only a half-painted angel to recall you by.”
“I just escaped my first brush with death, thanks to you. I’d rather not risk a second,” I said.