The Daughter of Siena (11 page)
She regarded herself dispassionately – as strangely detached as she’d been the day he’d laid bruises on her arm. She looked quite different: her hair now about her ears and forehead, and her face smeared with her own blood. Behind her face Nello’s floated, sated and gloating. She understood that she was lucky. With a wisdom well beyond her own innocence, she knew that if he had not cut her hair he would have raped her, even if she bled.
‘There,’ he hissed in triumph. ‘Let’s see if he’ll smile at you now.’
When he’d gone Pia picked up the shears from the floor. She brushed her own hair from the blades and noticed, as if they belonged to someone else, that her hands were shaking terribly. She looked at her reflection in the window again and, consciously steadying her hands, tried to neaten her hair until the sides fell evenly and the black slab of her new fringe lay straight across her forehead. She saw that huge tears were swelling in her eyes and falling down her face unchecked. So she was to be punished for the actions of others as well as her own. While she cut, she damned the horseman again. Because he’d smiled at her and asked her a question, she’d paid a high price for his caprice. And yet his smile had been the one bright moment in a terrible day. He’d been the only man to address her, to question her, as if he cared about the answer.
Can you ride?
An idea began to form slowly in her numbed brain. If she
could
ride, far and fast, she could get away from Nello. There was no escape from this city, isolated in the hills, without a horse. She must order her thoughts. Think,
think
.
could
ride, far and fast, she could get away from Nello. There was no escape from this city, isolated in the hills, without a horse. She must order her thoughts. Think,
think
.
Pia stooped to tuck the shears into her laced boot. She would not be unarmed in the presence of her husband again. As she bent, Cleopatra’s coin fell from her bosom and hit her smartly in the teeth, swinging, winking, on its chain. As she straightened up, Pia of the Tolomei caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. The candlelight was just bright enough for her to see how much she resembled the long-dead queen.
The Forest
W
hen Violante Beatrix de’ Medici was a little girl, and used to gaze from the windows of her father’s Bavarian castle, she did not see the expensive glazing, nor the fine leaden quarrel-panes, but looked past and through them to the forest. She loved the trees, the way they whispered reassuringly at night, the way they stretched out and closed around the castle like friendly arms reaching to embrace. When, on occasion, she could persuade her nurse to take her for a walk – a battle, for fresh air was not deemed to be healthy for the young princess – she loved the darkness, the deepness of the cover, even on sunny days. She felt safe in the forest, and more at home than she did in the airy, gilded rooms of the palace.
hen Violante Beatrix de’ Medici was a little girl, and used to gaze from the windows of her father’s Bavarian castle, she did not see the expensive glazing, nor the fine leaden quarrel-panes, but looked past and through them to the forest. She loved the trees, the way they whispered reassuringly at night, the way they stretched out and closed around the castle like friendly arms reaching to embrace. When, on occasion, she could persuade her nurse to take her for a walk – a battle, for fresh air was not deemed to be healthy for the young princess – she loved the darkness, the deepness of the cover, even on sunny days. She felt safe in the forest, and more at home than she did in the airy, gilded rooms of the palace.
Walking further one day than she ever had, she met the woodsmen with their axes, hacking at the trunks, their blades biting white wounds into the wood, chips flying to land on the dark mossy ground like snow. She stopped in her tracks, and
the woodsmen stopped too in her presence, pulling their caps from sweaty crowns, spitting the deer gristle that they chewed to the forest floor to lie with the sawdust. Violante turned and the tears spilled from her eyes. The nurse, trudging back to the palace in the princess’s wake, tried to explain: trees had to be felled to make the chairs in her father’s palace, the houses of the poor, even the books that she so loved to read. For that moment Violante didn’t care. She wanted the forest to be left alone.
the woodsmen stopped too in her presence, pulling their caps from sweaty crowns, spitting the deer gristle that they chewed to the forest floor to lie with the sawdust. Violante turned and the tears spilled from her eyes. The nurse, trudging back to the palace in the princess’s wake, tried to explain: trees had to be felled to make the chairs in her father’s palace, the houses of the poor, even the books that she so loved to read. For that moment Violante didn’t care. She wanted the forest to be left alone.
Six short years later, she was sitting in the great salon of her new home, the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, holding the hand of her new groom. She had been married that day in Florence’s great duomo, had endured three hours of interminable feasting, and was now listening to a musical recital. She could barely concentrate on the music for her stomach was churning with the unbearable and thrilling expectation of her own wedding night, when Ferdinando, the handsomest man she had ever laid eyes on, would take her to bed. To compound her misgivings, she smelled that smell that had once made her so unhappy – wick wood, newly cut and carved. She looked across the great chamber at the only new thing in this room of priceless antiques, the pianoforte.
Ferdinando credited himself with the invention of this instrument. In reality, he had been closeted for the last few months with the true inventor of the pianoforte. Bartolomeo Cristofori was a comely Paduan who had developed this strange hybrid from the harpsichord and the clavichord. It sat squat, newly carved and varnished, on four spindly legs. Violante had peeped beneath the lid, breathed in the sick smell of new wood, and gazed at the intricate arrangement within of strings and hammers. Shyly, she had struck a black key, then a white one, and
listened to the resonant discord, a strange new note, thicker, cleaner and somehow more real than a harpsichord. She marvelled that something with such a beautiful exterior could be so complex on the inside.
listened to the resonant discord, a strange new note, thicker, cleaner and somehow more real than a harpsichord. She marvelled that something with such a beautiful exterior could be so complex on the inside.
Moved by a sudden association of ideas, she squeezed Ferdinando’s hand, but he did not mark her. He was watching intently, sitting poker upright, as a boy rose from his chair and approached the instrument. As Bartolomeo Cristofori himself played the accompaniment, the boy began to sing a motet in the clear chiming tones of a castrato
.
He was a beautiful youth with the blond curls of an angel and a voice to match. Violante felt tears start in her eyes, both for the forest of her childhood and the beauty of the sound. She turned to her new husband, whom she knew by repute to be a connoisseur of music. Ferdinando looked happy for the first time that day.
.
He was a beautiful youth with the blond curls of an angel and a voice to match. Violante felt tears start in her eyes, both for the forest of her childhood and the beauty of the sound. She turned to her new husband, whom she knew by repute to be a connoisseur of music. Ferdinando looked happy for the first time that day.
Only one man at the recital knew that Ferdinando was enraptured by the singer – the famous countertenor Cecchino – not the song. This man knew Ferdinando very well, for he was Gian Gastone de’ Medici, the groom’s younger brother. He felt sorry for the little Bavarian bird, for to his certain knowledge Ferdinand had sodomized the castrato the night before in scenes of quite astonishing debauchery, even to a libertine such as he. Gian Gastone was an accomplished gamer as well as a dedicated homosexual, and he knew that Violante had been dealt a marked card. He sensed, as he listened, that this would not be the last time that Cecchino made the little bride cry; and he made a bet of his own, just for fun, that Ferdinando would not lay a finger on his wife, that night or any other.
Violante opened her eyes. Gretchen was leaning over her, shaking her shoulder, her long grey plait tickling her cheek. ‘Madam, there’s a young man to see you.’
Violante blinked, as her dream fled with the shadows outside the warm circle of Gretchen’s lamp. The old woman said with emphasis: ‘
The
young man.’
The
young man.’
So Violante ended the day where she had begun it – in the Hall of the Nine. Riccardo Bruni stood alone in the great chamber, twisting his tricorne in his hands. His eyes moved around the great paintings restlessly. He looked hunted. Gretchen had told her mistress on the way down the staircase that she had turned the Watch from the doors, as they had come in pursuit of him, but it looked as if it was more than the Constables of the Watch that the young man feared.
He spun round at her footstep, took a pace towards her, and for a moment she thought he might throw himself into her arms. Then: ‘I’ll help you.’ It was all said in a rush. He stopped. She looked in his eyes. That a man so tall, so well-favoured and self-assured, could look so haunted roused her vestigial maternal instincts. He needed to be fed. A blanket, a fire and some broth.
‘Gretchen,’ she said, ‘the kitchens.’
Moments later, Riccardo Bruni was seated before the golden mouth of the kitchen fire that the servants kept burning late into the night lest the duchess need anything. He had a blanket round his shoulders and a cup of broth in his hands. Gretchen hovered in the shadows outside the firelight, an unobtrusive chaperone. Violante sat opposite Riccardo, on the other side of the flames, watching him
closely. The smell of new wood burning on the fire, summer sap hissing, brought its own memories and she felt a terrible sense of foreboding. The young horseman, though, looked better, and she felt she could now ask.
closely. The smell of new wood burning on the fire, summer sap hissing, brought its own memories and she felt a terrible sense of foreboding. The young horseman, though, looked better, and she felt she could now ask.
‘Did something lead you to change your mind?’
‘Faustino Caprimulgo … He … took a life.’ Riccardo breathed out as he spoke. ‘No. More than that. He beat a man to death.’ He looked up. ‘The Panther, the one who knocked Vicenzo from his horse.’
Violante shuddered, recalling the race and the way the hot-headed jockey of the Panthers had lashed out with his whip, not knowing that he struck the heir of the Eagles. She had expected reprisals from Faustino, but this? This was a shock.
‘His name is Egidio Albani, son of Raffaello Albani, captain of the Panther
contrada.
’ She had taken the trouble to find out and had sent a purse round to his house.
contrada.
’ She had taken the trouble to find out and had sent a purse round to his house.
‘I helped carry him. I had no choice. He is outside.’
Violante half rose. ‘
Here?’
Here?’
‘In the square. He is laid out, for all to see, in the Eagles’ cross. He is a message.’
She looked down, considering. She had heard reports many times over her ten years’ rule of bodies found posed in that dreadful attitude. She spoke her first thought. ‘He should have a Christian burial.’ Her second thought surprised her. ‘Did the Watch see?’
Riccardo shook his head. ‘No. They followed me instead. There was no one else in the piazza. Nello … I’m telling this all wrong.’ He brushed his hand across his
forehead as if to wipe away the memory. ‘Faustino’s younger son, Nello, bid me help him carry the body. He left me to be found with it. It was a plan.’
forehead as if to wipe away the memory. ‘Faustino’s younger son, Nello, bid me help him carry the body. He left me to be found with it. It was a plan.’
‘Of Faustino’s?’ Violante’s eyes were gentle, her question sharp. She could see Riccardo thinking about the answer carefully, his face serious and golden in the firelight, his lashes casting spindly shadows on his cheek.
‘I don’t think so. He invited me to his son’s passing feast … and Nello’s wedding feast. I think he likes me.’ The words sounded childish and pulled at her heart.
The question had nudged his remembrance. ‘Faustino said something strange, though. At the end of the feast he showed me that you had sent him the Palio banner.’
Violante’s skin began to prickle. Her gambit, had it worked? Had Faustino seen the honour in her gesture?
‘He was grateful, but he said … he said that it was a shame that – forgive me – you would not be here to see the next Palio.’
Now Violante’s flesh began to prickle with dread. The Palio dell’Assunta was a little over a month away. Her voice was a whisper. ‘What did he mean? That I would be dead, or gone from Siena?’
Riccardo Bruni would not meet her eyes. ‘I do not know. Only that you have a month of your rule left to you. Until the sixteenth day of August. He said something else too, just as I was leaving the feast … something about the number nine.’
‘What did he say
exactly?
’ Violante’s voice was sharper than she had meant.
exactly?
’ Violante’s voice was sharper than she had meant.
Riccardo furrowed his brow, struggling to remember. ‘
Noveschi novemi
. No.
Novus novem
.’
Noveschi novemi
. No.
Novus novem
.’
Violante sat up very straight. There had been nothing amiss with her schooling. ‘
Novus novem?
You’re sure?’
Novus novem?
You’re sure?’
He was. ‘Yes.’
She looked at him and then at the flames, the burning, damned forest. Hot fire, hellfire.
The New Nine.
‘He’s rebuilding the Nine. He’s going to take the city back.’ She rose abruptly. ‘Come with me.’
She took him, by the light of Gretchen’s candle, to the map room. Every inch of the wall crawled with territories and cartographs, from the ancient to the modern. They stopped before a great plan of the city, gold in the candlelight, grey in the creeping dawn. The artist, unknown and long gone, had rendered the houses of the city both great and small, the civic buildings, the
contrade
with their churches and palaces, with the fine lines of his etching. All was complete and exact, and it looked to Violante like a plan of campaign, a battlefield. And crowning all, above the name of the city, two twin boys suckling at a she-wolf’s teats – the town’s very emblem: the she-wolf suckling the infants Romulus and Remus. According to legend, Siena had been founded by Senius, son of Remus. So both twins had founded great cities: Romulus created Rome, and Remus fathered a child to found Siena. Violante felt suddenly awake and alive. She paced and pointed as she spoke.
contrade
with their churches and palaces, with the fine lines of his etching. All was complete and exact, and it looked to Violante like a plan of campaign, a battlefield. And crowning all, above the name of the city, two twin boys suckling at a she-wolf’s teats – the town’s very emblem: the she-wolf suckling the infants Romulus and Remus. According to legend, Siena had been founded by Senius, son of Remus. So both twins had founded great cities: Romulus created Rome, and Remus fathered a child to found Siena. Violante felt suddenly awake and alive. She paced and pointed as she spoke.
‘Here are the walls of the citadel. Here are the three thirds or
tertieri
of the city. Terzo di Camollia, Terzo di
San Martino, and here, in the Terzo della Città, right in the heart of the city, sits Faustino, in the Eagle
contrada
. He needs eight conspirators to revive the Nine. Who are his allies? Not the Panther, that we know.’ ‘Civetta,’ said the young man, abruptly. ‘Salvatore Tolomei’s daughter was married to Nello before Vicenzo was cold.’
tertieri
of the city. Terzo di Camollia, Terzo di
San Martino, and here, in the Terzo della Città, right in the heart of the city, sits Faustino, in the Eagle
contrada
. He needs eight conspirators to revive the Nine. Who are his allies? Not the Panther, that we know.’ ‘Civetta,’ said the young man, abruptly. ‘Salvatore Tolomei’s daughter was married to Nello before Vicenzo was cold.’
Violante saw a light jump in his eyes. She recalled the young goddess she had seen at the Palio: betrothed, bereaved and now wed. Violante was too used to political alliance to find this strange.
‘Very well. And we may now, firmly, place the Panthers in opposition. But who are the other seven? We must understand Faustino’s alliances, his funding, his plan. How does the Palio connect to this? Why is that to be his endgame?’ She was reminded, once again, of chess.
‘Duchess,’ Riccardo diffidently interrupted her flow, ‘might we not, that is—’ He gestured between the three of them, joining them in an ineffectual triumvirate. ‘Might we not need … help?’
Violante turned suddenly. ‘We do need allies. You are right. Here we are: an old lady, a middling one and a young man …’ She paced about. ‘But this very day I wrote to my brother-in-law, Gian Gastone de’ Medici, to assist me in this matter. He is a good man, and jealous of his inheritance; he would not let such an important part of his duchy secede from him. Nor would he wish to inherit a rotten city.’
‘You inherit the apple and the worm comes too,’ put in Gretchen grimly.
Violante glanced out of the window. The city slept, but the dawn must be coming. ‘Go home, Riccardo Bruni,’ she said.
He looked straight at her, and she answered the question in his eyes.
‘No. I am not giving up. But you are right. We need alliances. I shall think on it, and we will speak again.’
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