The Falconer's Knot (6 page)

Brother Anselmo watched as the artist crossed the short distance separating the Friary of Saint Francis from the Convent of Saint Clare.

‘Oh well,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders as he turned to Silvano. ‘It was not to be expected that he would entrust all his orders to us. The sisters have had a colour room much longer than we have and he will need a lot of paints if he is to cover the chapel he described.’

‘I wish I could see it,’ said Silvano. Listening to Simone describing the stories he was painting on the walls in Assisi had taken his mind off the murder for the first time since he had arrived in Giardinetto.

‘Oh, but you will,’ said Brother Anselmo, smiling. ‘We are to take the first consignment to him at the end of the week. I thought you might like to come with me.’

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CHAPTER FOUR

Saint Martin’s Cloak

T
he morning air felt fresher to Silvano than a draught of pure spring water. It was a clear sunny day with a sharp tang of cold because of the early hour and he laughed as he rode his grey stallion flat out. The horse shook his head and snorted as he galloped, as happy to be away from the friary as his master was.

‘We are free, Moonbeam, free at last,’ cried Silvano, his novice’s tunic streaming out behind him and revealing some very unreligious brown knees. Even Celeste, gripping the pommel of the saddle with her yellow talons, seemed to enjoy the feeling of the wind ruffling her feathers.

After a while the road began to climb into the hills and Silvano slackened the horse’s pace. He found an open spot near a small stream and took the hood off his falcon. ‘Fly, Celeste,’ he whispered, releasing her jesses and casting her off into the sky.

She soared heavenward on a current of warm air and was soon lost to sight. Silvano wished for the hundredth time that he had been allowed to bring Ettore with him. The hound would have flushed out a good eating bird for Celeste in no time. As it was he had to hope that the falcon would return to his sight before she found prey on her own.

He listened for the silvery sound of the two bells on her legs and was soon rewarded. Celeste had flown in a wide circle and Silvano could just see her hovering high above. And even as he searched in vain for another bird in flight, his falcon, with her keen eyesight, went into a stoop; she had spotted something below her.

Silvano ran in the direction of Celeste’s rapid descent, crushing grasses and twigs beneath his clumsy friar’s sandals. He found Celeste sitting on a plump partridge and let her take a bit of the warm flesh before skilfully making the substitution with a bit of chicken wing he had brought in his pouch.

He stuffed the still bleeding bird into his saddlebag and let Celeste take a break. The day was warming up and he raised a heartfelt prayer of thanks to God above for letting him be out here in the Umbrian sunshine instead of inside the dark chapel of the friary in the company of several dozen pious men all older than him.

Monna Isabella ran her household as well as any woman in Gubbio. Once she had accepted that she could not escape her marriage, she had become like a trained hawk; she would obediently return to her master’s fist with something good for him to eat. Which is to say, she kept a good table. Ubaldo’s money meant that she could order the finest food and the richest clothes. She and her children went about in velvet, silk and lace, like nobles, and their dinners were as lavish as a bishop’s.

And this was because Isabella supervised everything herself. No selection of food from the market or cloth from the merchant was made without her eye upon it. Not a chicken could be plucked in her kitchen without her knowing where every feather ended up, according to her servants.

It was a way to fill her days but that didn’t mean she was happy. Thousands of women before her, she supposed, had endured marriages to men they didn’t love – or even disliked – but every now and again a rage would rise in her heart that took her by surprise. It made her rail against her fate so hard that she had to hide away in her private sitting room till the fit passed.

On these days she thought of the young scholar with the brown eyes more than usual. It was a private dream of hers to imagine what marriage to her Domenico might have been like. It was a dangerous fantasy, because of the descent into reality that had to follow. But for a few hours she could picture the two of them sitting side by side poring over an illuminated book, while Domenico talked to her of poetry.

She remembered the terrible day when they met for the last time and she told him that she must marry Ubaldo. Domenico had told her the story of the Umbrian poet Jacopone da Todi, to console them both.

‘Imagine, my darling,’ he said. ‘Jacopone, a wealthy young man, had married the lady of his heart’s desire, the woman he had loved for years. They pledged themselves to each other for all time. But not long afterwards, at a grand feast, the platform where his bride was standing collapsed and she was crushed to death.’

‘How dreadful!’ said Isabella.

Domenico took both her hands in his. ‘When the body of his wife was unearthed from the rubble, Jacopone found that she was wearing an instrument of penance under her beautiful dress. Even on that day of rejoicing she had clothed herself in such a way as to mortify her flesh, in memory of Our Lord’s suffering and because she feared Jacopone was too attached to the pleasures of the world.’

Isabella had been confused. What woman could be so pious and yet love a mortal man carnally, enough to marry him? ‘What did Jacopone do?’ she asked.

‘For ten years he wandered like a beggar, sleeping rough,’ said Domenico. ‘And then he decided to devote the rest of his life to God. He turned his back on this world of personal desires and possessions and dedicated himself to the service of Our Lord. He joined the Franciscans. If he wrote poetry before to his beloved’s beauty, since her death he writes only in praise of God.’

‘And this is a tale to cheer me?’ asked Isabella, her throat aching from all the tears she had shed.

‘It is to show you that life must continue – even after great grief,’ said Domenico. ‘Yours and mine. You shall be another’s but I shall never marry. I shall carry your image in my heart for ever and it will comfort me whenever my life is hard.’

And that was how they had parted, with a kiss that had to last them for the rest of their lives; they had not seen each other since. Domenico’s lips had remained unkissed ever after, if he had been true to his vow, and Isabella’s had suffered the unloving touch of Ubaldo’s.

When her first son had been born, she had wanted to call him Domenico but her husband wouldn’t hear of it.

‘He is my son, not the bastard of your miserable swain,’ he had said. ‘Let him be Federico, after my father.’

Federico was followed swiftly by Giovanni and then there was a lost child. Ubaldo had been almost tender towards her then in her new grief. Was it because of that or the indifference he later felt for her that she was allowed to call their third boy Domenico after all?

Isabella neither knew nor cared. It was enough that she could say the name caressingly to her little boy. In spite of all her care not to show it, he was her favourite child. Her little daughter, Francesca, was a great joy and she loved all her sons, but Domenico had a special place in her heart.

He looked least like Ubaldo of all their children, having her rosy complexion and chestnut hair, while the others were all dark. And he was his father’s least favoured child, which endeared him all the more to his mother. It was almost as if this little Domenico had been the result of her unfaithfulness, though this was entirely imaginary; she was not a fond wife but she was an honourable one. Whenever she retired to her sitting room in one of her black moods, it was of little Domenico that she thought, pretending that he was the son of her dream husband with the same name.

It was on one of those days that she heard an imperious knock at the door and started to her feet in surprise. Ubaldo never visited her here and yet there was no mistaking the master’s knock. He did not wait for Isabella to open the door but came in, a dark presence shadowing the pretty space she had created for herself. There was no painting or relic of her first love and yet she was conscious that the room was a kind of shrine.

Ubaldo seemed to sense it too, curling his lip with disdain. But he made no reference to her setting. ‘I have to go on a journey,’ he said. ‘To the friars in Assisi. The Franciscans will place an order for even richer altar cloths now that the Basilica is nearing completion. They want the best silks and I must have them embroidered according to their designs. I shall be away three days.’

‘Thank you for telling me,’ said Isabella politely, but exulting that she would have three whole days without her husband. ‘When do you leave?’

‘Tonight,’ said Ubaldo. ‘I shall ride as far as the friary at Giardinetto and lodge there.’

Chiara was walking to the refectory when she sensed the aroma of roasting partridge on the air; it made her mouth water. But the smell of cooking was not coming from the little wood oven at the convent. Meat was even more of a rarity for the grey sisters than for their brothers next door. But that was where the partridges were being roasted, turned on a spit over an outdoor fire by the false novice.

Chiara felt her stomach growl. She cast down her eyes as she went on towards the refectory, but not before she had seen the boy smile at her. He seemed happy, she thought, and she was sure that he hadn’t been when he came, that first night when she had seen him riding in on his grey horse. Perhaps she would have had cause to smile too if there was roast fowl to dine on in the convent; there was nothing to look forward to but a sort of savoury gruel, lumpy and rather gritty.

Chiara found herself sitting at the refectory table opposite Sister Veronica. The sisters ate in silence but the Colour Mistress cast a sympathetic glance at the young novice toying with the gluey mess with her wooden spoon. As soon as they were both outside again and walking back to the dormitory for quiet contemplation, Sister Veronica spoke to Chiara.

‘Would you like to come with me when I take Ser Simone’s colours to Assisi?’

Chiara looked at her in surprise. ‘You may leave the convent, Sister?’ she asked. ‘I thought all the professed sisters had to remain enclosed.’

‘I have a special dispensation from the Abbess,’ said Sister Veronica. ‘I may go outside the convent in the service of the Lord. So, would you like to come with me?’

Chiara nodded gratefully. Just to have a change of scene from the convent would be a treat. ‘Yes please, Sister,’ she said. ‘I should like that very much.’

The wooden cart was laden with boxes and barrels filled with glass jars. It didn’t really take two friars to transport them from Giardinetto to Assisi but the Abbot was quite content to let Silvano go with Brother Anselmo. And his strong young arms would be useful for the unloading.

It was not a long road but Silvano had not travelled it before; in fact he had never visited Assisi in all his sixteen years, although it was not far from Perugia. Brother Anselmo was telling him about the Basilica, as he occasionally flipped the reins on the back of the horses.

‘The Lower Church, where Ser Simone is working, was built first. In fact they started building it within two years of Saint Francis’s death. But the whole Basilica was only finished less than forty years ago.’

‘Finished?’ said Silvano, surprised. ‘How can it be finished? The painters are still working there.’