The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany (33 page)

C
HAPTER
72

Ferrara, Convento di Sant’Antonio, Polesine

N
OVEMBER
1582

A new postulant’s cries pierced the early morning dark after Matins. Suoras rushed to the girl’s cell, praying and no doubt administering sleeping draughts. She was from a noble family in Modena. I heard the shattering of crockery.

Her suffering and outrage awakened a spark in me.

Tonight!

The moon cast bright light on the brick wall that held me prisoner. Far better had it been a new moon mantling the yard in darkness, but I would not wait another night. I dragged the wooden chest from my cell—emptied of its contents—across the courtyard. The nightwatch—the sharp-eyed Suor Claudia—was occupied with the new postulant, who still wailed pitifully.

I moved stealthily across the yard, hoping that there would be no other magpies out in the small hours of the morning.

I looked up. A wall at least three times my height. I remembered my brawn as a shepherd, as a horse trainer. Would I have that same strength now?

I had said good-bye to my friend Anna Rosa weeks ago, not knowing when the right moment would come.

“I must go with you,” Anna Rosa had said, snatching at my hand. “You cannot leave me here!”

“Anna Rosa,” I said, “you do not have the strength to scale a wall. I am not sure I do.”

“But how shall I survive without you, Virginia?” Tears spilled down her freckled cheeks.

“Stop crying!” I hissed. “The suoras will notice. You will ruin everything.”

“I am sorry. I did not mean to be selfish,” she said, sniffling. She looked away.

We didn’t talk again. I felt sorry for her, but I could not look back.

Now the frost glistened on the top bricks of the wall. I pulled the wooden chest up close to Fedele’s shed. I heaved the empty box up on its side, and climbed onto the roof of the tiny stable.

Snowy slush had accumulated on the top of the slate roof of the shed from two nights of inclement weather. Now the slush was beginning to freeze, making my work treacherous. I leaned over and pulled the chest up. My feet slipped, and I fell back onto the roof, still grasping the chest. With a thud I was sure would wake the entire convent, the coffer landed beside me.

Fedele, startled from his sleep just below me, began to bray. I pressed myself against the slate tiles, hoping my sackcloth robe would shroud me in its darkness.

I waited. No one stirred.

“Good-bye, Fedele,” I whispered.

I hauled the chest upright and pushed it flush against the brick wall at the back side of the shed. The chest was taller than I was. Scattered all around me were the flat stones I had heaved one by one on the roof over the past weeks. I set to work stacking the stones against the wall, building a pile I could climb to reach the top of the chest—and from there, I hoped, the top of the wall. How I would get down from the wall, I didn’t know. But if I died in the fall, then at least I would die outside this cursed convent—free.

A shriek sounded across the courtyard. The postulant’s door had been opened. Probably Suor Adriana had been sent in to quiet the girl with a threat—if the sedative didn’t work.

The face of Suor Loretta, kind and gentle, flashed in my mind.

I cannot think about her. I cannot think about anything but escaping.

My hands were numb from stacking the icy rocks. Sooner or later, the nightwatch would resume her guard.

Now!

I climbed the pile of stones, feeling them shift precariously under my foot. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the light of a lantern, the nightwatch in the corner of the yard, beyond the garden.

“Chi e’?”
she shouted. “Who is it?”

This was my only chance. I thought of the world beyond this wall. I thought of Orione and Siena.

I tried to spring from the stones onto the chest, and I felt the stack collapsing. I grabbed the chest, but it was no use. The stones, chest, and I tumbled together from the roof of the stable onto the ground.

I heard the snap of a bone breaking.

For an instant, the pain of the broken bone blossomed in my arm, filling me with a savage fire that wiped away everything else in the world—it was almost a relief, because an instant later that first fire faded and was replaced with a deeper, darker, more savage pain. I had failed. I was still within the hated walls of the convent.

Perhaps an outsider might think that the simple brick walls of a convent would not be enough to stop an unwilling postulant—especially one with the strength and will that I possessed as a girl. But that outsider would not have understood the force of the locks, the height of the walls, or the fierce vigilance of the sisters of the night guard. Many a soul was tamed by failed attempts—and by the punishment the abbess inflicted upon them.

I had failed, and I was punished with cleaning floors and chamber pots and lying prostrate on the floor of the refectory, but I did not surrender. The dispensary nurse did not set my broken bone properly, and for the rest of my life, I could not fully extend my arm.

Still, I never gave up.

My solace was the donkey, Fedele. And I was his. Suor Loretta was astonished that I knew to soak his hooves in cold salted water to soothe his sore legs and how to pack sugared herbs in his hooves to chase away thrush.

“But how did you learn such cures?” she asked me, her eyes dimmed by a milky film.

“Sorella! I have sworn to you a thousand times, I rode Palio horses!”

Suor Loretta looked over her shoulder.

“Mia cara! You mustn’t speak of this again. The abbess will punish you—she will take you away me and from Fedele.”

I wanted to scream in protest, but I saw Suor Loretta’s eyes fill with tears.

“I have grown quite fond of you, Silvia,” she said. “So has my donkey.”

A donkey! I have ridden the finest—

I saw the wet pink cheeks of the old suora, heard her labored breathing, burdened with strong emotion. A rush of shame made me bite my tongue.

“I will prove one day that what I say is true,” I whispered. “But until then, this work with Fedele and with you, Suor Loretta, is the only thing that consoles me. For that, I will obey—even if you do not believe me.”

“It would do you no good for me to believe you, Postulant Silvia,” said the old nun, turning up her hands palm in a helpless gesture. “For there is nothing I or anyone else can do. I, too, was immured in this convent against my will. There is no way out. Acceptance will give you peace.”

I buried my nose in Fedele’s neck.

“I will never—ever—reconcile myself to this life! I do not want that kind of peace.”

“Then your soul will always be in turmoil. Even when we are buried, our bones will not leave the convent. You have seen the cemetery.”

“Sì,” I said, choking back tears. I clung tighter to the donkey’s neck. I thought of Orione, of Siena.

I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. The old woman reached out a hand to comfort me. She stroked my back as I had often seen her caress the donkey. I melted under her touch.

“I will tell you a secret that comforts me. My beloved Fedele will be buried alongside me. I have secured a promise from the abbess to bury the donkey as close to my final resting place as possible.”

A donkey in consecrated ground! Is Suor Loretta mad?

I did not question how this suora could hold such sway with the abbess.

Why did I not realize then who she was?

She was excused from certain prayers, had meals brought to the little shed that sheltered the donkey. These deviations from the convent routine were monumental. In a convent, everyone was treated the same. The one common goal was devoting our lives to Christ.

“You must learn there are blessings to our life here,” said Suor Loretta. “Many girls would have been married to brutal men, forced into partnerships with those who detested them, who beat them.”

I thought of the tanner’s son.

Could I have been happy bedding a stinking simpleton who would never let me walk the streets and hills of Siena, let alone ride a horse? Every night he would have climbed into my bed, forcing his smelly body onto mine. Once married, I would have had to give up my freedom to be his wife.

“Have you looked carefully at the marvels of our convent? Have you seen the frescoes—the one of Jesus climbing up a ladder to the cross? Look at it during prayers. Jesus is not fettered or forced by the point of a sword. He willingly mounts the ladder as his followers watch.”

Why do I care, you crazy old magpie? What difference does it make?

“Our Christ made a choice—willingly. Perhaps someday you will do the same.”

“Never!” I said, my throat tight with anger.

Suor Loretta looked away from the scorn written on my face.

“Perhaps I can help you find some comfort in the convent, some advantages you have not recognized.”

“What possible advantage could there be, locked away as a prisoner?”

Suor Loretta picked up a brush and stroked Fedele’s back. He closed his long lashes, his ears swiveling back in pleasure.

“Would you like to learn to read and write, Silvia?” asked the nun, brushing the brown line down the donkey’s back. “Because that is a gift I can bestow upon you.”

I stared at her, astonished “
Me?
Read? Write?”

I remembered Giorgio pointing out my name in the letter from the Duchessa d’Elci when she sent me the collo di cavallo. I had traced the two words—Virginia Tacci—with reverence.

“That is one gift the convent can give you. It will open all the doors of the world to your mind
. . .
and quite possibly your soul.”

For the first time since my incarceration in the convent, I smiled.

P
ART
VI

The Art o
f
Death

A
NNI
1582–1586

C
HAPTER
73

Siena, Brunelli Stables, Vignano

N
OVEMBER
1582

Giorgio studied the stirrup leather in his hand. His weight had stretched the leather over the years. It was past time to shorten it.

He selected the correct punch, laid the strip on the bench, and with two taps of the hammer, the job was done. He sighed, looking around the stables.

Since Virginia’s disappearance, there was double the work to be done. Giorgio had too many horses to train and care for alone. He would have to hire another groom to lug water from the well, rake the stable floors, and clean the paddocks. There were horses that needed doctoring and brushing, tack to be cleaned, hay to be pitched.

Alone in the stables, he found no time for his painting. Not since his father’s illness.

Giorgio rubbed his open hand over his face.

He collapsed onto a pile of straw to rest. His left hand—his painting hand—massaged his tired shoulder muscles and neck. He drank in the toasty smell of straw, considering a nap for a few minutes.

He gazed at his hand. The paints that had embedded so deep in his cuticles had faded, replaced now with the soot of the smithy fires, the muck of the horses.

When would he paint again?

A clatter of hoofbeats.

Giorgio groaned, dusting himself off with a slap of his hand. He could not handle any more horses
.

“Greetings. Are you Giorgio Brunelli?”

“Who wants to know?”

“You are summoned for an audience at the Palazzo de’ Medici in Siena,” said the rider, dismounting. He wore deep scarlet and gold.

The bright crimson of the de’ Medici chased away Giorgio’s fatigue. Medici meant trouble.

“I was dispatched to escort you at once,” said the rider. “My name is Andrea Sopra.”

“And who has summoned me?” said Giorgio, still slapping the bits of straw off his clothes. “I have paid all of our taxes. I am very busy—”

“The
cardinale
Ferdinando de’ Medici bids you to come immediately, Brunelli.”

Giorgio studied the rider’s face. While his accent had the intonations of a Florentine, Giorgio recognized a countryman.

“You are Senese, are you not?” he asked.

The messenger shifted his weight.

“I am. Many generations. I know of your sorrow—the villanella is beloved by all of us. Her name is echoed throughout the streets of Siena, not just in Drago.”

“Then tell me. Why does a de’ Medici want to see me? I despise the name.”

The messenger looked around quickly. His eyes darted to the dark corners of the stables.

“Do not worry,” said Giorgio. “There are no de’ Medici spies here, or they would have carried me away in chains long ago.”

“I am not certain,” said Sopra in a low voice. “But the
cardinale
is not his brother the granduca, I assure you. I beg you to come and hear what he has to say.”

The de’ Medici flags—with the five red palle—lifted languidly in desultory breezes in front of the palazzo in the Piazza del Duomo. Giorgio Brunelli and Andrea Sopra dismounted, and a small squadron of grooms took their horses away.

“I will search you for weapons,” said a Florentine guard, holding up his hand. “Surrender any you might have now. If I find anything on your person, you will be arrested immediately.”

Giorgio gave the guard his knife, an essential tool for any rider.

The guard nodded. Then he ran his hands down Giorgio’s body, sweeping his fingers over the artist’s crotch.

“Get your filthy hands off me, Fiorentino
,”
said Brunelli, pushing him away. “You might fondle the palle of the de’ Medici, but not mine.”

The guard reached for his sword. Andrea Sopra leapt between them, grabbing Giorgio’s tunic and yanking him away from the guard.

“No!” he shouted. “The cardinale wants to speak to this man. Leave him alone!

“Steady, Brunelli,
”
he hissed. “No one sees the cardinale without a thorough search.”

“He is clean,” snarled the guard. His nostrils flared wide, and he gestured to Brunelli. “As clean as a shit shoveler can be.”

“Basta!” said Sopra, plucking at Giorgio’s sleeve. “Do not take his bait.”

“What can I expect from a Fiorentino play soldier?” said Brunelli. “He has his mighty weapon in his hand. Senese have only wits, well-bred manners, and real palle between their legs, not on a flapping banner with painted balls!”

The guard took a step toward him.

Andrea Sopra whisked him away.

“You certainly do not make friends easily, Brunelli,” said Sopra. “Your attitude could easily result in your death.”

Inside, a guard escorted the two men to the private quarters of Cardinale Ferdinando de’ Medici.

“When the cardinale speaks to you, bow your head or give some semblance of respect,” warned Sopra. “Things will go better that way.”

Giorgio’s lip curled in disgust.

“I am Senese. The de’ Medici—”

“I tell you this as another Senese. Study the floor when you enter. It will keep your head attached to your neck.”

Giorgio gave a snort of disdain. The sound carried down the stone corridor of the palace. “You have lost your Senese heart, Sopra. I will look the cardinale in the eye, as an honest man should.”

Andrea Sopra whirled around, looking to see who might have heard. He shook his head. “I should have had you wash. You have hay in your hair, soot and dirt on your face. The guard was right, you do stink of horse sweat and manure. In my haste—”

The heavy mahogany door swung open while they argued. A servant ushered them into the cardinale’s office.

“My smell?” hissed Giorgio. “It is the perfume of brave horses!”

“Ah, Giorgio Brunelli,” said the cardinale, his voice breaking into their argument. He sniffed the air as he looked up from his writing desk. “So
. . .
it is the perfume of brave horses I detect.” Several parchment letters lay open on the desk, a gilded eagle paperweight taming their curl. An enormous tan leather Bible occupied the upper right corner of the desk, a red ribbon marking a passage. Giorgio strode forward, looking directly into the cardinale’s eyes.

Ferdinando de’ Medici was dressed in crimson satins; bright jewels adorned his fingers. His dark eyes looked out from under hooded lids, grown heavy like the rest of his body with too much rich food and drink.

“I had hoped you would accept my invitation.”

The cardinale flicked his hand, dismissing his secretary and Andrea Sopra from the room.

“Your invitation, Cardinale de’ Medici? I was summoned,” said Giorgio. “And escorted here by an armed guard.”

“Yes, I suppose you were,” said the cardinale. “But please sit. I have some business to discuss with you.”

Giorgio sat down cautiously, as if the chair might be pulled out from underneath him.

“Ah! You do not like me,” said Ferdinando, raising his eyebrow.

“The de’ Medici have given Siena reasons for our animosity.”

Ferdinando glared back. “You are impertinent, Brunelli.”

“I am honest, Cardinale.”

The cardinale jutted out his thick lips, considering the young man across from him.

“May I tell you, Brunelli, that your attitude toward the de’ Medici family could be easily construed as treason.”

“Sì
.
I suppose it could be,” said Giorgio meeting his eyes.

The cardinale did not answer right away. He walked to the window and looked out at the Duomo across the piazza.

“You despise my brother, the granduca, sì?” said the cardinale. He twisted the rings on his fingers.

Giorgio said nothing, but tightened his fists. To speak against the granduca would be treason.

“I understand Siena’s frustration,” said the cardinale. He lay a hand on Giorgio’s shoulder for a brief instant. “You were once a free republic.”

Giorgio sat up straighter in his chair, making the wooden frame squeak.

What is he saying? It must be a trick.

“Let me come to the point, Brunelli. We do not have to remain enemies, you and I. I know well your hatred for
. . .
the conquest. My Senese
. . .
friends have kept me well informed.”

“Then there is nothing more I can tell you, Cardinale,” said Giorgio, starting to rise from his seat.

“Sit down, Brunelli. Listen to what I have to say.”

“As you command, Cardinale,” said Giorgio.

The cardinale studied him as if he were contemplating a move on a chessboard. He poured himself a glass of wine, taking a sip.

“Siena is now and forever under Florentine rule. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.”

Giorgio stared hard at his hands. He longed to lunge at the cardinale and strangle him before he could say another word.

“I think, however, there is something I could do to help you,” said the cardinale, setting down his glass. He sat down across from Giorgio. “That is, if I believed I could trust you unconditionally. Hardly a simple task given your feelings toward the de’ Medici.”

“Help me?” said Giorgio.

“Yes, I do believe I can. Help you.”

The two sat for a moment, watching each other, controlling their breathing and emotions.

“We have a common interest, I believe,” said the cardinale at last, flexing his ringed fingers. “I know of your search for Virginia Tacci—”

“What do you know of Virginia?” said Giorgio, half-rising.

“Sit down, Brunelli. Your constant buoyancy in your chair is most annoying.”

Giorgio forced himself down to sit.

“I know very little. I believe she was, as you suspect, sent to a convent. I expect her name was changed to prevent you or any other Senese from finding her.”

Giorgio’s felt his throat tighten.

“Can she be found?”

The cardinale sat back in his chair. He looked out his window at the Duomo. “I am not certain, Brunelli. At least under the current circumstances.”

“But—you could find her! You could question the granduca,” said Giorgio. His hands stretched out in frustration. “She means everything to me, to Siena—”

“I need some assistance,
”
said the cardinale, ignoring the emotional plea. “I understand you are a gifted painter. Especially of horses.”

Giorgio looked up at the cardinale. “Yes, I paint. I am part of the accademia here in Siena.”

What does this have to do with Virginia?

The cardinale leaned forward in his chair.

“If I were granduca—and quite clearly, I am not—I would use all of my power to search for la
villanella.”

Giorgio swallowed.

There was a moment of silence as the two men stared at one another.

“We have a great deal in common, I think,” said the cardinale at last. “Am I correct?”

La villanella.
Giorgio’s mind lingered on the word. Its resonance still floated in the air.

La villanella.

“Yes, you are correct,” he said looking back at the de’ Medici prince, not quite certain if he were agreeing to something.

The cardinale sat back in his chair, a ghost of a smile spreading across his face.

If he were granduca? What can that mean to me? What could I—

“Good,” said the cardinale. “My concern with you, Brunelli, is your temper and impatience. If we were to begin a course of action, a course of action that would require your participation, a course of action that would ultimately find Virginia Tacci, you would have to wait. And wait perhaps years. I am not sure you are capable of that.”

“Years?” said Giorgio. “Why?”

“Because, you see, I am powerless in my present role to do anything to find the villanella. My hands are tied.”

Giorgio felt his eyes sting. “I will do whatever I need to find Virginia Tacci and bring her home to Siena. Even if I have to sell my soul to the devil.”

The cardinale sniffed. “I expect that will not be necessary. As I was saying earlier, I understand that you are an artist of extraordinary talent.”

Giorgio stared at the cardinale. “What does my art have to do with Virginia?”

The cardinale didn’t answer. He reached for the leather-bound Bible. “Brunelli. You will not hear from me for some time. The hour is not right
. . .
yet. But the first matter of business is to swear a holy oath of secrecy. To protect both you and me. And Virginia Tacci.”

Giorgio hesitated. How could he possibly be in league with a de’ Medici? In his mind’s eye, he called up the memory of Virginia, riding Orione at full gallop through the streets of Siena.

He dipped his head, assenting. He lay his hand on the holy book.

“If I can find Virginia, I will swear anything,” said Giorgio. He met the cardinale’s eye.

“Even on a de’ Medici Bible.”