I don’t know if I could bear to do this again, I thought as the pain in my head reached an agonizing peak. When the pain stopped, I stood in a candlelit room staring at blank plaster; the painting of the Madonna was gone. That meant I’d arrived before 1500. It struck me, too late, that I had no certainty that I’d landed in the right century. The chapel had a small wooden altar, and a few unadorned benches lined up in rows. Fat wax candles in iron sconces were spaced around the walls, their flames flickering in the darkness. It was cold—an unremitting medieval cold with nothing but a banked hearth to warm the room.
My bag had made it through with me, but not the journal. Maybe that was a sign that I’d come into the time when it belonged to a living Gabriele? It could also mean the journal didn’t exist yet because I’d come too early. I heard footsteps outside the chapel; they stopped just short of the door, giving me time to think. If it were someone I knew, that would confirm the time I’d come into. If it were someone I didn’t know, I’d have more problems than just not knowing the date. A light flared outside the doorway. I could see a shadow thrown by the newly lit lamp, but not the shadow’s owner. The footsteps receded and I breathed again. As I made my way toward Umiltà’s studium, the city bells began to ring for Prime.
Church bells ring all the time in New York City, but their impact is weakened by all the other noise competing for attention—cell phones, car horns, sirens. Here the campanile’s bells spoke with undiluted power, and for me the call to prayer sounded both a welcome and a warning: Siena holds you tightly in her arms now, and this time you will stay.
As the last peal faded, I knocked at the door of Umiltà’s studium. Even if it was the right year, I didn’t know whether Umiltà, or anyone else I knew, had survived the Plague. When the door swung open, revealing Umiltà herself, I almost burst out crying with relief.
“God be praised, and the angels in heaven above us, thanks be to Saint Christopher patron of travelers, holy Maurus and Placidus who brought you forth unharmed from far-off Messina, Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius, and Victor, who protect the devoted citizens of Siena, and Santa Maria herself, who must in truth hold you in the palm of her hand.” Umiltà, bless her, hadn’t changed a bit. I threw myself into her tiny, wiry embrace and stayed there, my face buried against her wool-covered shoulder.
“Beatrice, whatever happened to you? It is more than a year since you left with that scoundrel Lugani.” She went on before I could formulate a response: “We all worried terribly after you left. First that you might have fallen prey to the evils of the road, second that Messer Lugani might have kept you from leaving his employ, and third, once we heard of the devastation emanating from the south, that you had succumbed to the Mortalità. Beatrice, in truth, to see you whole and well on this bitter January morning is truly a miracle.”
It was, though she couldn’t know the extent of the miracle that had saved me. More than a year, she’d said, and nicely provided me with the month. So it was January 1349.
“I was so afraid that everyone had died. It must have been awful here, from what I saw in Messina.”
“The Great Death struck Siena with a ferocity that knew no equal,” Umiltà said, pounding a fist into her open palm. “I shall never forget the terrible scenes I witnessed. The images come back to me at all hours of the day, visions of death and decay, and the wails of those who remained to mourn their losses haunt my dreams. Our own Fra Bosi, who kept the Ospedale alight with the fire of the written word, is gone. The Mortalità took him before the first frost, along with half of Siena’s souls. Those of us who remain have so many to mourn we have no space left—neither in our graves, nor in our hearts.”
My former boss, the irascible but generous guardian of the Ospedale library, was gone. I remembered Bosi sitting on the Ospedale steps weeping for the fate of his burning books, and I felt the tears start in my own eyes.
“Beatrice, I have asked God many times why some were taken while others were left to witness what felt like the end of the world. We lost the Lorenzetti brothers—their brushes halted forever—and countless others whose souls gave life to Siena. Those who planned the enlargement of the Duomo also fell prey to the Mortalità, leaving us with the shell of our hopes for the great new nave that would proclaim our devotion throughout Christendom. Many have suffered across many lands, but at times it has seemed to us here in Siena as if someone aimed directly at our heart, our art, our aspirations, and our beliefs, and tried to snuff us out not just by death but by despair, with great and evil deliberation.”
I felt cold. What if she was right and someone did have it in for Siena? Was that what Ben had been on the verge of discovering, with his letter from a grieving Medici wife about her troubled son? With ledgers listing payments to Sienese noblemen and someone mysteriously named only Angelo? Did it have anything to do with the connections I’d discovered between the Signoretti and Medici families? Was there a nefarious reason why a Medici ledger would have a list of Siena’s plague deaths tucked inside it, and that the modern Signoretti would try to stop me from finding out more? The pieces of the puzzle shuffled themselves in my head but failed to make a coherent picture. Even if a conspiracy had existed—how could conspiracy translate into pestilence? People conspired, but diseases didn’t.
While my mind raced, Umiltà continued. “You must tell me your story at length, Beatrice, but there is little time now. The painter Accorsi is called to trial today, for homicide. Are you prepared to testify? The Ospedale is assembling witnesses on his behalf.”
“Homicide?” Gabriele was alive, but accused of murder? “How could he have killed anyone? The last time I saw him he was dying in a chapel in Messina.”
Umiltà raised her eyebrows so high they disappeared under her wimple. “Indeed? You left him dying in a chapel? How uncharitable. The Pestilence has brought its share of regretful behavior in its wake, but I would not have imagined it from you. This trial is your opportunity to atone for your callousness—praise God who allows us to repent. And all this happened more than a year ago? Whatever have you been doing since? Were you in Messer Lugani’s employ all this time? Egidio feared you had died, as did we all.” It sounded like Egidio was okay then, or at least alive. I opened my mouth to answer, but Umiltà held up her hand to stop me. It was just as well, since I hadn’t come up with anything sensible to say.
“Beatrice, we shall have to leave these troubling questions for another occasion. I will tell you what you need to know for the trial, and you will vouch for the painter’s character. The defamation is surely false, but we must convince the court so that the case will be dismissed. I would hate to see Ser Accorsi hang.” Umiltà ushered me out of her studium.
So would I, I thought, trying not to panic.