“It’s a beautiful dress. I wish I could give your family something in return, but nothing I own is of much value.”
“Your presence in our lives has been more than sufficient, Signora.” I thought of a hundred possible things to say, none appropriate. “May I request a moment of audience, Monna Trovato? I would speak with you about a matter of mutual concern, but I do not wish to keep you from your work.”
“I needed a rest anyway. Do you want to sit down?” I pulled a second stool near mine, and we both sat.
Gabriele reached into the pouch hanging from his belt and pulled out something small enough to be hidden in his hand. When he opened his hand to show me, my mouth went dry. Two stainless-steel safety pins glinted in his palm—the pins I’d used to attach my handkerchief to the bodice of the green dress after my brush with the sumptuary police.
“Monna Trovato . . . would it offend you if I use your given name?”
“Call me whatever you like. Can I call you Gabriele then?”
“Of course, please call me Gabriele,” he said. “Beatrice, I fear you have not been frank with me. I hold great respect for your privacy, but your silence does not allow me to protect you as well as I might.” Once I might have said I didn’t need protection, but now I wasn’t sure. “My lady, can you speak to me? I will understand if you should choose to remain silent, with only God to hear your prayers.”
“I have been praying,” I said, quietly.
“As have I.” Gabriele would not be deflected. “These implements belong to you, do they not? The work is delicate, and the material unfamiliar to me. I have never seen anything fashioned thus, and would be very surprised if it were found in Lucca.”
“They’re not from Lucca.”
“And are you from Lucca, Beatrice? Or is that part of your story as open to question as your mythical husband?”
Gabriele waited for the answer without a trace of restlessness. It was easier to look at Gabriele’s hands resting on the table between us, rather than his face. His fingers were long and graceful and the hair on his arms was bleached golden by the sun, light against the brown of his skin. He had traces of paint under his nails, remnants of angels in progress.
“I’m not from Lucca, no.” I hoped all he was imagining was that I was from somewhere far away. Stainless steel hadn’t been invented in the 1300s. Maybe Gabriele thought the pins were made of silver, but their shape was nothing like anything I’d seen in the fourteenth century.
“I expect you still have some use for these, since they were affixed to your gown?” Gabriele held out his hand again, the pins innocent in his palm, until I took them from him. “I would be honored to be able to assist you, Beatrice. I may not understand all you have to say, but I will not judge you ill, and I will do all I can to assure your well-being. I am at your service.”
I couldn’t tell him where I came from, who I was, what I knew. “Thank you,” I said instead, and the silence I didn’t fill widened between us. Finally, Gabriele rose and bowed his gray head, then left me alone with Ser Lugani’s contract and the safety pins in my hand.
* * *
Umiltà and Bosi both seemed unusually worried about the transaction I was writing up. Lugani based his business in Genoa, but he had outposts in many cities. He was a prominent businessman whose brocaded and finely woven woolens were known for their quality, and he had enough of a monopoly over the regional trade routes to make everyone anxious to keep him happy. The Ospedale had plenty of arrangements with powerful people of all sorts: wealthy barons and landowners, merchant bankers, patrons of the arts, city officials, high-ranking clergy—and I’d worked on many of their contracts. But Lugani, even in absentia, exerted an exceptional degree of influence. As I wrote out the rector’s proposal from my notes, a shadow fell over the page. Bosi stood behind me with a deeper than usual scowl on his face.
“Is my work unsatisfactory?” Bosi hadn’t scrutinized anything I’d done this closely since the first weeks of my employment. He’d been busy with his own work copying a book of hours for a weathy patron of the Ospedale, or he’d have taken on the contract himself. Instead, he hovered over me like a stormcloud.
“Not yet,” Bosi said gruffly. “But some fault will be found, an opening Ser Lugani will use to his advantage.”
“Lugani sounds quite . . . demanding,” I said, choosing the word carefully as I finished the last line on the page.
“Lugani obtains all that he reaches for, which may be considered a mark of his success. It is for God to decide whether this success will send the man to heaven when his life comes to a close.” With that ominous declaration, Bosi strode out.
Girolamo Lugani arrived before the week was out with an entourage of fattori—the medieval Tuscan equivalent of a finance department: ledger keepers, notaries, and accountants—and a pack of well-scrubbed office boys called garzani, the lowest rungs on the business ladder. The Ospedale exploded into action. My completed work was whisked away from me after review by the notary. I hadn’t met Lugani myself, since there was no reason for me to be put in his path. Clara informed that he had a particular fondness for sweets, and the kitchen went into overdrive preparing sugar-coated almonds, honeyed custards, and jellied fruits dusted with crystallized sugar. When I went near the kitchens I could taste the sweetness in the air.
Every time I passed the Ospedale’s main gate I stole a glance at the fresco taking shape. Gabriele had been working extra hours, and he’d been given several assistants from the Ospedale to assist him. They climbed up and down the scaffolding with his meals, and brought the tools and pigments he needed. He was on the platform just before dawn, descending at dusk. I saw him only from underneath when I passed by. We hadn’t spoken since he’d brought me the safety pins, and I wasn’t sure how to breach the silence, since I’d once again refused his gentle suggestion that I confide in him.
In lieu of direct contact, I watched his Assumption taking shape. The four angels gazed adoringly at the Virgin as they lifted her skyward, the sense of movement palpable. Three of the angels glittered brilliantly, their light-colored hair aflame with gold leaf. The fourth angel provided an intense contrast, her hair so black it conveyed endless depth. The dark angel’s face gave a suggestion of a hidden mortal secret, something unfathomable and grave behind the serene blue-gray of her eyes. No one said anything directly to me about our likeness, but I felt self-conscious anyway, and avoided looking too long at the painting when other people were around. As a result, I rarely had the luxury to contemplate Gabriele’s work for as long as I wanted to.