“This is not right,” she whispered hoarsely. “This is not right. . . .”
So many in the church were crying and moaning, murmuring to Fra Girolamo and God, that not even my father noticed her; he and Pico were far too captivated by the preacher.
“Oh Lord!” Fra Girolamo cried sharply. The monk pressed his forehead to his folded hands; he released a bitter sob, then raised his tear-streaked face toward Heaven. “Lord, I am only a humble monk. I have not asked for Your visitation; I do not crave to speak for You, or to receive visions. Yet I humbly submit to Your will. In Your name, I am willing, as Jeremiah was, to endure the sufferings inflicted by the unholy on Your prophets.”
He gazed down at us, his eyes and voice suddenly tender. “I weep . . . I weep as you do, for the children. I weep for Florence, and the scourge that awaits her. Yet how long can we sin? How long offend God, before He is compelled to unleash His righteous wrath? Like a loving father, He has stayed His hand. But when His children continue to err grievously, when they mock Him, He must, for
their
good, mete out harsh punishment.
“Look at you women: you, with sparkling jewels hanging heavy round your necks, from your ears. If one of you—only
one
of you—repented of the sin of vanity, how many of the poor might be fed?
Look at the swaths of silk, of brocade, of velvet, of priceless gold thread that adorn your earthly bodies. If but
one
of you dressed plainly to please God, how many would be saved from starvation?
“And you men, with your whoring, your sodomy, your gluttony and drunkenness: Were you to turn instead to the arms of your wife alone, the Kingdom of God would have more children. Were you to give half your plate to the poor, none in Florence would go hungry; were you to forswear wine, there would be no brawling, no bloodshed in the city.
“You wealthy, you lovers of art, you collectors of vain things: How you offend, with your glorification of man instead of the Divine, with your vile and useless displays of wealth, while others die for want of bread and warmth! Cast off your earthly riches and look instead for that treasure which is eternal.
“Almighty God! Turn our hearts from sin toward You. Spare us the torment that is surely coming to those who flout Your laws.”
I looked to my mother. She was staring with a gaze fixed and furious, not at Savonarola but at a point far beyond him, beyond the stone walls of San Marco.
“Mother,” I said, but she could not hear me. I tried to slip from her embrace, but her grip only tightened until I yelped. She had turned stone rigid, with me caught in her grasp. Zalumma recognized the signs at once and was speaking gently, rapidly to her, urging her to free me, to lie down here, to know that all would be well.
“
This
is the judgment from God!” my mother shouted, with such force that I struggled in vain to lift my hands to my ears.
Fra Girolamo heard. The congregation near us heard. They looked to my mother and me, expectant. My father and Pico regarded us with pure horror.
Zalumma put her arms about my mother’s shoulders and tried to bring her down, but she was planted firm as rock. Her voice deepened and changed timbre until I no longer knew it.
“Hear me!” Her words rang with such authority that it silenced the whimpering. “Flames shall consume him until his limbs drop, one by one, into Hell! Five headless men shall cast him down!”
M
y mother fell heavily against me. I crumpled beneath her, colliding with my father as I did. I snatched a fleeting impression of Pico pulling him back before I reached the cold, unforgiving marble. I landed on my side, simultaneously striking my head, my shoulder, and my hip.
There came flashes of green velvet and white ermine, the hems of women’s skirts and the boots of men. I heard whispers, exclamations, and Zalumma’s shouts.
My mother lay atop me, her side pressed to mine. Her limbs thrashed; her elbow spasmed and dug into my ribs. At the same time, my mother’s teeth champed; the air released each time she opened her mouth whistled in my ear. The sound terrified me. I should have been holding her head, making sure she did not bite her tongue or otherwise harm herself.
Zalumma’s loud commands suddenly became intelligible. “Grab her arms! Pull her out!”
Strong hands seized my wrists, lifted my arms above my head. I was rolled onto my back. My mother’s head fell onto my breast; her teeth whistled through the air, then snapped fiercely together. All the
while, her arms and legs pummeled me; her hand swiped beneath my chin, and drew away a piece of flesh beneath her fingernail.
Near my feet, invisible, Zalumma bellowed: “Pull her
out
!”
My father at once came to himself. With uncanny force, he clasped my upraised arms and dragged me out from under my mother’s writhing body. The movement caused an excruciating surge of pain in my ribs.
But the instant I was free, it was forgotten. I did not acknowledge my father’s aid; instead, I clambered to my knees and turned toward my struggling mother. Zalumma had already crawled forward and used her body to weigh down her mistress’s kicking legs.
I found the furred edge of my mother’s cape and jammed it between her gnashing teeth. My intervention came late: She had bitten through her tongue, with frightening result. Blood stained her lips and teeth, cheek and chin; the white ermine round her face was spattered with crimson. Though I held her head fast, it jerked so violently in my hands that her cap fell back beneath her. My fingers soon were interlaced in her soft dark hair; the careful coils arranged earlier that morning by Zalumma frayed into tangles.
“It is the Devil!” A man stepped forward—young, red-haired, with pockmarked skin; I recognized him as the priest from Santa Maria del Fiore. “I saw her do this before, in the Duomo. She is possessed; the evil inside her cannot bear to stand upright in the house of God.”
Murmurs surrounded us and increased to a rumble until, above us, Savonarola cried out, “Silence!”
All looked to him. His eyebrows were knit in a thunderous scowl of indignation at such an offensive display. The red-haired priest stepped back and disappeared into the crowd; the others, silent and docile, went rustling back to their places.
“The Evil One desires nothing more than to interrupt the word of the Lord,” Fra Girolamo intoned. “We must not let ourselves be distracted. God will prevail.”
He would have said more, but my father moved toward the pulpit. His gaze fastened on the monk, he gestured with his arm toward his
afflicted wife and called desperately, plaintively, “Fra Girolamo, help her! Heal her now!”
I still held my mother’s head, but like the others, I watched San Marco’s prior closely, breathlessly.
His frown eased; his eyes flickered briefly with uncertainty before his sense of complete authority returned. “God will help her, not I. The sermon will continue; Mass will be celebrated.” As my father bowed his head, downcast, Fra Girolamo signaled to Count Pico and two Dominican monks in the congregation. “Attend to her,” he told them softly. “Take her to the sacristy to await me.”
Then in a loud voice, he began again to preach. “Children of God! Such evil portents will only increase, until all in our city repent and turn their hearts to the Lord; otherwise, a scourge will come, such as the Earth has never seen. . . .”
From that moment, I heard the cadence and pitch of his sermon, but not the sense of it, for two brown-robed monks had appeared at my mother’s side. Pico took charge.
“Fra Domenico,” he said, to the larger one, who possessed a great square head and a dullard’s eyes. “I will have the women move away. Then you lift Madonna Lucrezia”—he gestured at my mother, still in the throes of her fit—“and carry her off. Fra Marciano, help him if he needs it.”
Neither Zalumma nor I budged. “My mother cannot be moved—it might injure her,” I insisted, indignant.
Fra Domenico listened silently; then, with movements calm and deliberate, he parted Zalumma’s protective arms and grasped my mother’s waist.
He lifted her with ease, forcing Zalumma to fall back. I reached vainly for my mother as her head, with its chaotic tangles of hair swinging, rose from my lap. Flinching only slightly at her flailing limbs, Domenico slung her over one shoulder, as a baker might a sack of flour. My mother’s legs beat against his chest and torso, her arms against his back, yet he seemed not to feel it.
“Stop!” Zalumma cried out at the monk. She was almost as terrifying
a sight as her mistress: The scarf beneath her cap was askew, permitting some of her billowing curls to escape; worse, she had been struck in the eye, which was already swollen half shut; the cheekbone beneath was dull red and shiny, promising to become a magnificent bruise.
“Leave her be!” I shouted at Fra Domenico. I struggled to stand, but bystanders stood on my skirts, and I fell again.
“Let her rise!” a male voice commanded above me. People made room where there was none. A strong arm reached down to grasp mine and pulled me to my feet; I rose, gasping, to stare up into the eyes of a stranger—a tall, thin man wearing the distinguished dress of a
Buonomi,
a Goodman, one of the twelve elected every two months to counsel the eight Lord Priors. He met my gaze with an odd, intense recognition, though we had never met before.
I pulled away from him immediately and followed the implacable Domenico, who was already making his way through the crowd. Forgetting he was in God’s house, my father hurried after Domenico, demanding he be gentler with my mother.
Domenico’s companion, Fra Marciano, offered Zalumma and me an arm for support. Furious, silent, Zalumma refused it, though she limped noticeably. I, too, waved his arm away. But Fra Marciano’s demeanor remained concerned and kindly. He was frail and older, with thinning hair; his eyes revealed a gentle goodness.
“Be reassured,” he told me. “The lady is in God’s own hands; He will let no harm come to her.”
I did not answer. Instead I walked, wordless as the others, behind Fra Domenico and his burden until we arrived at the sacristry.
It was a small room, far colder than the sanctuary, which was warmed by hundreds of bodies; I could see my own breath. Fra Domenico carried my mother to the only place possible: a narrow wooden table, which my father first covered with her soft fur cape. Once the monk set her down, my father pushed him away with a vehemence that startled me. The two men, breathing hard, shared a look of pure loathing; I thought they would come to blows.
Domenico’s gaze flickered. At last he looked down, then turned
and lumbered away. Fra Marciano remained with us, apparently hoping to lend what comfort or aid he could.
At some point during her journey, my mother’s fit had passed. Now, as she lay stuporous and limp, my father removed his crimson mantle and covered her with it. Count Pico laid a hand upon his shoulder.
My father tried to shrug it off. “How could God permit such a thing?” His tone was bitter. “And why did Fra Girolamo permit her to be handled by that beast?”
Pico spoke softly, though his tone was oddly hard. “Fra Domenico is always by Fra Girolamo’s side; you know that, Antonio. Perhaps God has let Madonna Lucrezia suffer this indignity just so that He might raise her up all the more greatly. Her healing will be a marvelous testament to all. Have faith. Believe in God’s greatness. He has not brought us this far to disappoint us.”
“I pray not,” my father said. He cupped his hands over his eyes. “I cannot bear to see her so. When she learns what has happened . . . the shame will be more than she can bear.”
He parted his hands and gazed down at my sleeping mother, so sallow and pale her features seemed cast from wax—wax smeared and flecked with darkening blood. Gently, he brushed a disheveled lock of hair from her brow; as he did, I chanced to glimpse Zalumma, who stood opposite him.
The frank hatred in her expression astonished me. It was well outside the behavior appropriate to a slave, yet I understood. She loved my mother as a sister and despised my father with equal fervor. Until this moment, however, she had kept her feelings toward him concealed.
I was simply troubled. Some time ago, I had laid my worries about the source of my mother’s fits to rest. Zalumma’s tale about her brother and the injury to his head had convinced me that the cause of my mother’s malady was natural. Now, after her terrifying utterance before Savonarola, I was no longer certain. Could a soul as gentle and pious as my mother’s be a tool of the Evil One?
For a quarter of an hour, our unhappy group waited in the unheated sacristy. I wrapped my mantle tightly about me to no avail. The
perspiration from my earlier exertion chilled me through; my breath condensed and turned icy on the wool. My poor mother, in her stupor, shivered despite my father’s mantle and the fur cloak on which she lay.
At last, the heavy door opened with a creak; we turned. Savonarola appeared in the doorway, standing next to the burly Fra Domenico and looking far smaller than he had in the pulpit.
My father stepped next to my mother and rested a hand on her arm. His expression was hard; he stared at Fra Domenico even as he spoke to Savonarola. “We have no need of
him.
” He inclined his chin at Domenico.
“He is my right hand,” Fra Girolamo said. “If he does not enter,
I
do not enter.”
My father blinked and lowered his gaze, defeated. The two monks stepped inside; Domenico’s expression was guarded.
Just behind them in the open doorway, the red-haired, pockmarked priest from the Duomo appeared.
“Surely God has sent you to Florence, Fra Girolamo!” he exclaimed, his face florid with adulation. “You bring countless sinners to repentance each day. You are this city’s salvation!”
Fra Girolamo struggled not to be swayed by such flattery. His face and gaze were slightly averted in a sincere effort to remain humble, yet the words clearly pleased him. In his high nasal voice, he countered, “It is the Lord Who shall save Florence, not I. Keep your devotion focused on God, not on any man.” He paused, then said, his tone firm, “I have other business now.”