The Madonna of the Almonds (14 page)

Bernardino wandered round the well-appointed house, fitfully fiddling with objects and putting them back. When he had time to think about anything but the loss of Simonetta, he wondered that Anselmo, who had ever seemed a humble and Godly man, had been granted a benefice so large that he could afford a house like this, with servants and rich furnishings. He had plenty of time to acquaint himself with the house, for Anselmo had told him that the Cardinal’s men were still seeking him and it was too dangerous to venture out. The Cardinal was not a man to forget a slight, and his anger boiled vengeful and black.

It was the third day since Bernardino had escaped from the church, and his body had healed but his heart had not. For he had learned that Simonetta had exiled herself – she was shuttered in her house like a maiden that lived in the dragon-days.

He had not written her a letter, for his fist was awkward and he was no orthographer. He had painted instead, using
all his skill, on a small piece of vellum which he prepared himself from lamb’s skin. He had concentrated hard, for never had a picture seemed more important. He had sent Anselmo as his emissary. The priest, with his inexhaustible goodwill, had agreed to deliver the vellum while strongly deprecating the whole affair. Only when Luini had sworn that the encounter overseen by Gregorio was chaste and prompted by the truest love, did Anselmo agree to carry the missive. Bernardino waited impatiently for his return from the Villa Castello, and when the door opened he was upon the priest at once.

‘Did you see her?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

Anselmo shook his head. ‘She will not see you. She bids you leave her be.’

‘Did you give her the picture? Surely now she must understand!’

‘Bernardino. I gave her the picture. But she wishes to put an end to this, and you must respect that.’

‘I must go to her myself.’

And he did. But his reward was only to see at last the great house, with its crenellations, an uncanny echo to the one he had imagined. He had seen, too, with his farsighted eyes, a figure at the window; a figure with shoulder-length red-gold hair, wearing a man’s russet hunting tunic. She was
there, holding a parchment in her hand. She saw him and turned away with such anguish that he was struck, as if by an arrow. He knew then, but did not wish to admit, that he was torturing her. He came away, back to the priest’s house, to think on what to do next – how to reach her. He was angry and reckless in his return, and entered the town with little disguise. The place was hedged about with the Cardinal’s guards, on their third day in steadfast pursuit of his person, and he felt an uncanny sense that he had been seen and denounced. The circle was closing in. Against all his expectations he reached the house safely. He challenged Anselmo by candlelight, and had the bitter fate of a candid friend – to hear what he already knew.

‘You are endangering yourself by being here.’

‘I care not.’

‘And you are hurting the lady you claim to love by your very presence. Now say that you care not.’

Bernardino was silent. He had no wish to hurt where he loved, but he could not give her up. He felt his innards bleeding out of him like sand from an hourglass, and if he did not stem the tide he would be lost. Yet what more could be done here? He could not lay siege to her, for she was resolute, and he would be starved and broken. He could not storm her castle; could not break in and take her in his arms, much as he wished to. Anselmo detected a weakening and pushed forth, for he had a scheme to save his erstwhile friend. ‘There is a great man by the name of Alessandro
Bentivoglio. He is a great patron of art, and has in his gift the decoration of a great monastery in Milan of which he is the patron. His eldest daughter has taken orders there. The foundation is in the honour of Saint Maurice.’

‘Saint Maurice?’

‘Saint Maurice was a martyr of the Theban legion.’

Bernardino had no patience today. ‘You know I have little theology.’

Anselmo’s face was lively with the expansion of the subject he loved. ‘Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, specifically names his immediate source as Isaac, bishop of Geneva, who had himself learned of the story from another bishop, Theodore, identifiable as Theodore of Octodurum…’

‘Quicker…’

‘In essentials Saint Maurice was a Christian martyr,’ Anselmo opted for brevity rather than lose his audience, ‘an officer massacred along with his legion when they refused to participate in pagan sacrifices prior to battle.’

Bernardino gave a bitter humourless laugh. ‘I, who have been publicly derided for
not
being a soldier, am now to glorify a military martyr. Your God has quite a sense of humour, Anselmo.’

‘Still, the work would satisfy you. Think of it – an entire monastery and its attendant church. And once there, you could think on your situation with more clarity.’

‘But Milan? The See of the very man who seeks my ruin? Why would I enter the lion’s den?’

‘Because the lion never seeks his prey at the heart of his territory. You may hide from His Eminence by concealing yourself right under his nose, in his own city.’

‘Would he not visit the foundation?’

‘It is not permitted, for the monastery is for women only. Though all may worship in the convent church, only the sisters may enter the cloister itself. Behind the clerestory you will be safe. The frescoes could be attributed to ‘a painter of the Lombard school’ until it is safe for your authorship to be revealed. You know this is oftentimes done.’

Bernardino was silent. He was being offered sanctuary. And his hand itched to be at the brush – he had never in his memory gone for so long without painting. A full day and a night had passed since he had drawn his message to Simonetta.

Anselmo, encouraged, went on. ‘And Bernardino; I know of your reputation as a wolf to the fairer sex. But in San Maurizio you would be among Holy women. You must behave with propriety. This is your last refuge from justice; I cannot help you more.’

Bernardino exhaled sharply. ‘Believe me, Anselmo, the sisters have never been safer from me. My heart belongs in that castle on the hill. No Holy moppet in a habit can tempt me when one such as
she
walks the earth.’

Anselmo smiled gently. ‘I thought as much. Not for worlds would I have recommended you
before
this had come to pass. But
now
I feel that you will be as harmless as
a monk – nay,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘more so, for not all monks are blameless. Let us say a eunuch then.’ He waited in vain for his friend to smile in the old way at the jest, then tried to sweeten the draught. ‘It need not be forever. But at present, it is better that you are far from here.’

Again Bernardino was visited with the far-off memory of his exile from Florence.

‘And your patron is a fine man,’ Anselmo pushed forth, ‘a soldier and courtier, who loves the arts.’

‘How do you know this?’

The priest hesitated. ‘He is my uncle.’

Bernardino’s eyes narrowed. He had lived in the world long enough to know what this meant. ‘You mean he is your
father
.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Anselmo. ‘He is my father. My natural father. He is a good man, but like every good man he is not without sin.’ Anselmo looked down at his ringed hands as he spoke. ‘He has been good to me, for although I carry the stain of bastardy he has given me preferment.’ He waved his hand in a way that encompassed the fine house and all things in it. ‘I have come far. It may be that I will go further. But scandal or infamy touching my name will hold me back,’ he looked Bernardino full in the eye, that his friend might feel the full weight of his meaning.

Now Bernardino looked down. ‘I understand you. I am endangering myself? Very well. I am threatening her happiness that holds my heart? Even in despite of this, I would
not leave. But I will not endanger
you
, you who have been my dearest friend. Commend me to your uncle. I will go.’ The embrace that followed was one of true brotherhood.

Just hours later, as the bells rang for Compline, Anselmo watched him go under the cover of night and reflected with sadness on their discourse. When he said that good men were not without sin, he had meant it. If he himself were to stand at the gates of Heaven, and were weighed by Saint Peter and writ in the ledger on the side of good, he would still have to account for the fact that, while Bernardino Luini had lost his own heart, he had in his keeping the heart of another – Father Anselmo Bentivoglio.

Simonetta watched from the window once more. She saw the priest come and admitted him to her house and heard him in silence. But Anselmo saw that she had turned her back on God and was sorry for it. He expressed a hope that he would see her at mass, but knew she would not come while she was so derided. As the almond trees waved him goodbye he thought that, while her likeness lived forever in his church, he may never see her there again.

Simonetta watched from the window once more. Then
he
came as she knew he would. She saw him from the window, and had his vellum in her white hand. She met his eyes over the distance and saw him caged behind the winter branches of the rose hedge, caught in a blackthorn web. She turned away deliberately before he could see her tears, crushing the missive in her palm. When she turned back he was gone, and she was pleased and destroyed at once.

She may have shunned God but she still could not go to Bernardino. She could not come by happiness so cheaply.
She loved him, but she could not give herself to him; there could be no good end to such a beginning as they had had. She could forget God, but not Lorenzo, and the public shame she had brought upon herself.

Now she was totally alone. Raffaella had come to her in tears, and told her that Gregorio had told her to leave Castello with him or never see him more. Simonetta released her beloved maid, for although she was horrified at Gregorio’s denouncement of her, she could not say he was wrong. As one who had been divided twice from the men that she loved, and could not visit such pain on another soul; she told Raffaella to go.

Simonetta had thought that there was no greater pain than the death of a husband. She was to learn she was wrong. To lose Bernardino before their love could even begin was infinitely worse, and such recollections only added to her guilt and pain. She knew that if she saw him close just once and let him speak to her she would run to him, and live their lives in secret passionate ruin. But the loss of her religion could not free her from her moral code. She still knew right from wrong and wished that she did not. In the cold empty fortress she had the useless comfort of a warm full heart, and the guilty remembrance of his kiss to heat her when the fire burned low. She shivered equally with the cold and the remembrance of his touch. She wandered the frozen almond groves and watched the leaves fall from the trees she had reprieved from the axe. She knew
now it was a matter of time until she must leave this place. Her income from the paintings had come to an abrupt end, and Manodorata had not been near her since the incident in the church. She could not hope for the help of a respectable man, even one from another church and faith than the one she had sullied. She feared the jeers of the citizens of Saronno and so kept to herself. She dared not venture to town and approach the Jew in his house with the star on the door.

But she had underestimated him. She had not known that one who had lived with jeers and ridicule could turn the other cheek. She had not seen that those who are derided make up their own minds before they themselves deride. She had not realised that the censure of Christians only recommended her to him.

Simonetta watched from the window once more. And when Manodorata came up the path to Castello and she saw his bearlike furs she was so grateful, and so warmed by the approach of a friend, that she ran down to the loggia, and held out her arms in welcome. She did not know that her gesture mimicked the stark almond branches that held their dark fingers towards him too.

When Bernardino Luini first set foot in the chapel of San Maurizio in Milan, he felt like he was entering a prison.

The impression had begun to form when he had entered the city that morning at dawn, dressed as a friar and riding a humble mule. He had been waved through the great Roman gate of Porta Ticinese with no inquiry from the sentry, and had even felt cocky enough to sketch a cursory cross of beneficence over the guards’ heads. But when the pikes had crossed behind him again he began to feel trapped. Milan was a closed place, ringed with a rosary of walls and gates. The streets were designed to show the glory and importance of the ideal city to the world – long, wide roads with massy silver-stone buildings; it was not easy to be anonymous here as one might have been in a warren of cramped medieval streets in the old cities. A civic utopia, Lombardy’s capital was a dwelling place for courtiers, not plague-ridden peasants. Bernardino passed the elegant Roman pillars of the colonnade of San Lorenzo, under the
cold shadow of the massive bulk of that same Saint’s huge, squat Basilica. Bernardino pondered that for all its shining new buildings and broad thoroughfares Milan was still an antique city at heart; the Roman origins lay all around, the new marched side by side with the old, and past and present shared the same modus: grandeur and civilization beyond their time. He shivered and pulled his robe closer – the weak dawn sun had not yet penetrated the streets and the city’s vast architectural marvels looked stark and bleak. Even the miraculous high-gothic Duomo, with its forest of silver spires, seemed a bed of nails set to impale him. Bernardino knew the city well; had spent many happy years here in Leonardo’s
studiolo
before his master had taken him to Florence and their acquaintance ended with his Venetian exile. But now he felt no affection for his former home. Perhaps it was the fact that Leonardo had died some years ago and was no longer here to welcome his favourite pupil. Or was it that no place save Saronno could feel like a home to him now? Simonetta was his harbour, his mooring was wherever she was; and he was now cut loose, drifting, and had been caught in a net that closed behind him. He was a lobster in a pot. The grandeur of the pot was of no consequence to him – he was still trapped.

Yet not
all
that was here was so grand. That evening, as Bernardino kicked his tired mule up the Corso Magenta where the monastery was to be found, he entered the humble doorways in the blunt stone façade sure he had
mistook Anselmo’s directions. The chamber he entered was square and he was struck by the cold, and the darkness. He soon realised, as his eyes penetrated the gloom, that he was standing in the lay hall of the convent church, and the illusion of a cube was given by a dividing wall that reached up into the dark and just stopped short of the curved ribs of the ceiling. A yawning gap above told of another space beyond. High in the walls a series of small round windows in the Lombard style so loved by Ludovico Il Moro provided the only illumination. Bernardino walked forward with his footsteps echoing and examined the wall. Disguised among the panels sat two small grilles and shuttered doors, the only connection, it seemed, to anything on the other side. As he looked, the oaken doors through which he had entered slammed shut with a trick of the wind. The illusion of prison was complete. As one imprisoned might do, Bernardino fumbled about for an exit, and at last found an open door, through the side of one of the dark chapels that ringed the room. Here was another hall, but more rectangular in aspect – larger certainly. He walked to the middle of the great vaulted space and revolved under the crossbeams. The pilasters rose away into the dark void overhead. A painter that had gone before him – one with more enthusiasm than skill, had painted gold stars in a dark blue heaven and these stars now wheeled over his head. He was no longer in prison, but he was not yet free. This piece of decoration, and the cold, merely made him feel like he
was outside.

In truth he had not felt warm since he had left the circle of Simonetta’s arms. He sat down hard on the nearest pew and put his head in his hands, appalled by the task ahead. Why had he agreed to this? How could he, who felt so dead, make the place live – the two main halls and the numerous chapels? Would the brush answer in his hand or had he lost his passion along with his love? And where the hell was everybody? He was cold and a terrible tiredness settled on him. He wanted to lie down on the cold floor and sleep.

But he could not. His first task, if he was to warrant the money he had been paid, was to portray his patrons. It was ever thus. In each place he had painted, be it ever so Holy, his patrons had insisted that their images take precedence, over the Virgin and the Saints and Christ Jesus himself. Today he had come with his sticks and chalks, his charcoals and scaffolds and ropes, and was to embark upon the image of Alessandro Bentivoglio, the greatest lord in Milan, and the father to his dearest friend.

He had met Signor Bentivoglio this very morning, when he had first entered the city; fully aware that he must pay his respects to his lay patron before making his obeisance to God at the monastery. He had walked the marbled halls of Signor Bentivoglio’s great palace in the Borgo della Porta Comense, and been received by a man who surprised him
with his quiet nobility. He was a good subject to be sure – a man of later years but of strong features, with a beard and hair as black as a moor’s. Bernardino had expected more of a dandy, a profligate – one who wasted words and wealth, and scattered Lombardy with bastard children such as Anselmo. But as he made sketches of Bentivoglio, the reason for this seriousness became clear, as Alessandro began to speak of the second patron Luini must paint: his wife. Alessandro’s great love, Ippolita Sforza Bentivoglio, was the patroness of the Benedictine order of San Maurizio, and was to be portrayed in a fresco as great as his own.

The noble voice warmed so much when it spoke of the lady that Bernardino looked up from his broad sweeps of charcoal. He was attracted suddenly by fellow feeling – for here was a man whose love recalled his own. He vowed to do the lady justice, and said so. ‘If I may have the honour of sketching the lady, I will answer for it that my portrait will do her no dishonour.’

The sad, stone grey eyes met his. ‘That you may not do. I wish it were possible.’

Bernardino hesitated. ‘Signore, I cleave to your wishes of course, but I must tell you that a portrait is always better if it is taken from the life.’

Now the pebble eyes seemed suddenly awash, as if the tide covered them. ‘My lady has been dead these five years past. You may only paint from what others captured of her, when she lived.’

This, then, was to be the start of his commission in San Maurizio. A patron and a ghost. Bernardino could not face the painting of the lady yet. He had been appalled at Bentivoglio’s story and had almost wept with his model as the sitting finished in silence. He felt the nobleman regarding him closely, and the warmth with which he took his leave of Bernardino gave the artist the impression that he was being given credit for an empathy that he did not feel. He was sorry for his new lord, to be sure. But the tears he shed were selfish ones. Only his own loss could move him so. The loss of Simonetta.

So when he hauled himself up on his ladders and platforms, he began to draw Alessandro first. There was no-one here to greet him, the huge lay hall stood empty. Beyond the partition on which he began his drawings, the great division where the public could not trespass, he at last heard the Holy sisters moving around, making their devotions. Through the gap above the wall he could hear the prayers and praisings from the sequestered nuns, without looking upon them. He was glad of his solitude. He wished to be alone when he began, to see if the gift was still with him.

As he drew, the charcoal answered him and he transferred his sketches efficiently to the tempera he had laid. Alessandro began to come to light and as Bernardino drew he heard masses being sung through the wall as the hours passed. The plainsong that the sisters sang was so beautiful and sweet that the sound threatened his composure. He felt
that he was drowning, that the tide would flood his eyes too, and he would be lost. He drew his brows together and shook his head, the song stopped, and only then did he realise he was observed.

A lady stood there, tall and still. She had the carriage of a noblewoman, but her face was as scrubbed and homely as any village maid. Her skin was tanned and rosy, her thin lips dry, her eyes small and dark and friendly. She could have been any age between twenty and thirty, for she had eschewed all the unguents and artifices with which ladies of her birth improved their faces. She was unplucked, unpainted, and clearly used to the outdoors. Despite this she seemed to be an aristocrat, in all but the fact that she wore the habit of a nun. She was no beauty, but had a calm about her, and when she smiled in greeting, her face lit from within with a goodness that Bernardino wished he could paint. He felt soothed by her before she had even uttered. She was a balm to his wounded feelings. He felt he had met her before, that he knew her already. After the smile words soon came. ‘You must be Signor Luini. It grieves me that there was no one here to greet you, but you happened to come at a time when my sisters and I walk the cloister in silent contemplation. No,’ she held up her hand as Luini made to scramble down from his platform, ‘do not descend, for it seems a perilous business.’ She smiled her sweet smile again. ‘I am Sister Bianca, Abbess of this house.’

Bernardino stared. She held up the ring of her office and
he reached down to kiss it. He looked closely at the ring she wore as his lips drew nearer. It was a red cross of Bohemian garnets. It was the colour of warm blood but as cold as stone against his mouth. He thought only older matrons sought to wear such a ring.

With uncanny perception she said, ‘You are thinking that I am full young to hold such an office.’

Luini dropped his eyes. ‘Forgive me. I just…that is I thought…that a lady such as yourself…there is much to see and do in the world…’ he blustered, ‘I thought that ladies entered Holy offices as widows or…’ he tailed off.

The Abbess smiled again. ‘But when God calls you, Signore, he can do so at any age. I entered this place a full four years ago, at the same time that our Lord Duke Francesco II Sforza did reconquer the city. The rhythms of life that apply for other ladies – the age of marriage, the age to bear children – do not call to me. I dance my measure to the canonical hours, and my year passes according to God’s calendar.’

Luini smiled too. ‘Sister Bianca. Do you mind if I continue my work? I must take the moment when it presents itself and I have a following wind today, it seems.’

The Abbess stepped closer. ‘Yes, it goes well. It is very like him.’

Luini drew on, and felt, rather than saw, that the Abbess stayed to watch. He was reminded of Anselmo in the Sanctuary of Saronno and smiled.

The Abbess asked, ‘You do not mind being observed?’

‘Usually, yes. But in this case you put me in mind of another that watched me in this way. He too was a person of Holy orders.’

‘Perhaps he was captivated by the gift that God has given you. It is no small thing to make a man appear on a wall as if he were here in this room. Nor is it every day that we in Holy orders get to see a miracle take place before our eyes; for all that we read and study the miracles of the Saints every day. Perhaps we thought the age of miracles has past. It is heartening to know that it has not.’

Bernardino was robbed of his usual arrogance today. Under the Abbess’s gaze he felt unworthy of the compliment, and cast about for a diversion. His eye fell on his work, and the man that he drew. ‘Your patron. What manner of man is he? He seemed a person of great nobility.’

‘He is a soldier and a poet and many things besides,’ came the answer. ‘He also has a great faith, which is why he wished to be painted as you portray him here, kneeling in prayer. He feels that our community can transmit the fervour of our faith much to the laity of Milan. See,’ her graceful wave indicated the delimiting wall. ‘This partition divides the Hall of the Nuns from the Hall of the Believers where we are now.’ Bernardino’s lip curled at the irony of the name, and his presence in this room, but the Abbess continued. ‘Ingress and egress can only take place through secret doors in the side chapels, and it is forbidden
for the sisters to pass to this side, or the laity to enter our Convent hall. You and I remain the only exceptions to this rule; for you must pass into my world as I must come into yours. And yet we all worship together. Observe,’ she pointed heavenwards. ‘The wall does not reach the ceiling, so the laity can hear our song. And here,’ she indicated the two small grilles hidden in the wall’s panels, ‘these grilles allow us to participate in the most Holy parts of the Mass; through this little door on the Gospel side we can watch the elevation of the Host, and through this grille on the Eucharist side we may adore the Holy Father.’ She smiled her illuminating smile. ‘For this great faith, and the sharing of it, our patron supports our sisterhood and this foundation of Saint Maurice.’

Again Luini was reminded of Anselmo’s story of that Saint. He missed his friend abruptly. ‘Why does Signor Bentivoglio honour Saint Maurice in particular?’

‘Because Signor Bentivoglio served as a
condottiere
with the Swiss in the battle of Novara. Saint Maurice is greatly revered in Swisserland, and his church stands there in Agaunum. Do you know the tale?’ Bernardino was about to answer in the affirmative, but because he missed Anselmo, and the Abbess recalled him to mind, he said something quite different.

‘Why don’t you tell me, if you have leisure?’

‘During the reign of the co-emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius and Galerius, there was, according to
the legend, a Roman legion raised in Upper Egypt, known as the Theban Legion,’ she began. ‘It numbered sixty-six hundred men, all of whom were Christians and commanded by an officer named Maurice.’ Her voice was musical, and she made the story live. Bernardino had never known such a gift before, the gift of making the listener see what was described. He could understand how such a gift must assist her in her calling, for anyone who heard her tell a parable or read a chapter from the scriptures must believe every word at once. Bernardino turned to look at her, and then raised his eyes above her head. In front of his eyes the blank wall, that vast grey space began to warm into colour and take form as she spoke. Bernardino blinked his eyes as the Roman legion marched over Sister Bianca’s head. ‘In the year of our lord 286 the legion was part of a force led by Maximian to quell an uprising among Christians in Gaul. After the revolt was put down, Maximian issued an order that the whole army should attend the offering of sacrifices – including the killing of Christians for the Roman gods – for the success of their mission.’ Bernardino held his temples as he smelled the blood and heard the screams of death. ‘Only the Theban Legion dared to refuse the order to join the rite. The legion withdrew and encamped near Agaunum. Maximian was enraged by the insubordination of Maurice and the legion and ordered it to be decimated.’